Entries in the 'Education' Category

Surrogacy

721.03Comment: There is growing demand for surrogacy volunteers around the world. In recent years, Canada has become increasingly attractive to future parents who are looking for altruistic surrogate mothers.

In Canada growth in these services has reached 400% over the past ten years.

The mothers themselves, who provide services on a pro bono basis, have their own families, many children, and they say that surrogacy is a life-changing experience. This may partly explain why women sacrifice their time and potentially their bodies for this.

They say: “I cannot imagine life without children, even as a surrogate mother. It is like bringing light back to the world. I give birth to a child for these people, but I also leave my mark on the world.”

My Response: This is a huge service for people who love each other but cannot have children otherwise. Of course, this is a huge favor.

Question: What is the connection between a child, a surrogate mother, and a biological mother? Who is the mother in the end?

Answer: A mother is the one who raises the child. A mother is the one the child follows; she is the one who takes care of him, the one to whom he feels affection and need, etc.

Question: What is an ideal mother?

Answer: One who knows how to raise him correctly is an ideal mother.

Question: What should a mother invest in a child? What should she pass on so that he grows up as a harmonious person?

Answer: First of all, it is love, responsibility, and of course, self-sacrifice. In addition, this is work on oneself; this is the knowledge of what to prepare the child for, how to teach him, how to get him on his feet, and how to accompany him in the first years of life, how to properly increase his independence every year, to each time step back a little so that he grows, and not to suppress him.

A wise woman is needed who can position herself in such a way that the child will feel good and warm next to her. And at the same time he will understand that his mother is taking care of him correctly, that is, adjusting her love with her demands.

Comment: Nowadays many people hire nannies who come to look after children and spend more time with them than their own parents. A very close connection arises between the child and the nanny; he grows up under her care within the framework of her upbringing, and thus fences himself off from his parents a little.

My Response: It all depends on how the environment the child grows in is organized. But it does not necessarily have to be that his mother sits over him all the time, or constantly revolves around him. On the contrary, this can spoil the child.

Comment: We are now moving toward some new model of the world where we have all the services for rent. Everyone buys in the “supermarket:” mom for rent, dad for rent, grandpa for rent. The child grows up in a certain society of those “products” that the parent has bought in the “supermarket.”

My Response: Personally, I do not see any problems in this, since in any case it is all for rent; it only depends on how we pay for it, and how obvious it is to us or not. It is clear that if I pay attention to my son, it is because I am his father.

And here too there is a problem: how much I love him and how much I should make an effort, versus being strict and demanding. There is a father, and there is an educator. These are different functions. Therefore it is difficult to replace a father, although it is also possible. But this is a completely different profession than a teacher, lecturer, or educator.

And the same with a mother. A mother can be nurturing, warm, and caring or demanding and instructing.

These are different functions.

We study this from spiritual objects. We have a spiritual father and mother, which are divided into two parts: father, the upper and lower system, and mother, the upper and lower system. All four systems influence the child, and this is where their functions are divided. This is a very interesting, complex system.

How do the father and mother influence with their upper properties and lower properties? Or how do they replace themselves with other people who must fulfill these upper and lower properties from both father and mother and in no case confuse them with each other. This is what is called Aba ve-Ima and Israel Saba ve-Tvuna. These are very serious, large spiritual objects, and all four are aimed at the development and education of the soul.

Question: How can a person attach to these components called father and mother?

Answer: In the spiritual, we cancel ourselves, and to this extent all four spiritual objects educate us. And in our world, they simply must be created in this way and function in relation to the child. Humanity has yet to discover and build this, to create such a system of servicing children.

But for now, I am very glad that there are such surrogate mothers, women who can provide this service to those couples who for some reason cannot have children.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/28/19

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Nine Tips for Avoiding Trouble in Life

541Comment: I read about an expert’s advice who proclaims there are vital lessons that a person should learn as early as possible. By mastering them, it is purported that you can prevent some troubles in your life.

Tip 1: “Follow your own path.”

People love to judge others. Peer pressure can force you to stray from the path that you started paving for your future. It is advised to ignore the aspirations of others and never let someone else’s goals and dreams influence your life’s direction. This is your path, and only you can decide where you need to go.

My Response: Absolutely correct. A person takes his own path in life. He must feel what he wants, what attracts him internally, and pursue this goal. Along the way he can use all sorts of tips, advice, and methods.

Comment: Tip 2: “Do not hesitate when you act.”

An old Roman saying goes: Carpe diem—seize the moment. Most often we fail to act due to uncertainty or lack of courage. This hesitation hinders progress and traps us in a cycle of questioning: “What could have been if I had acted…?”

My Response: I do not think this is correct. In reality, every person has his own purpose, and he will have to achieve it eventually. Even if someone avoids an issue they face and does not impulsively rush to resolve it as you suggest, the issue will resurface and compel them to deal with it.

Question: So just move forward?

Answer: Yes, nothing terrible will happen. Relax, take a break, wait—it will wait for you too.

Comment: Tip 3: “Test in practice what you have learned.”

My Response: There is no wisdom greater than that of someone walking the path themselves and drawing conclusions from it. Only when a person has gone through specific experiences, understands them, and can offer one’s opinion about them, only then can that opinion be taken seriously.

Comment: Tip 4: “Good things do not come easily.”

Luck can take you far, but everything else depends on you. Do not think that someone else will fight your battles with the same energy and dedication as you.

My Response: No one will fight for you. You must clearly understand the challenges before you, assess the desirability and necessity of reaching your goal, and then you can fight for it, primarily with yourself.

Question: Why with yourself?

Answer: Because we are inherently lazy, cautious, and so on. You will need to convince yourself that the goal is more important than your own comfort.

There is a higher goal, and a person must define it (if we are talking about someone who wants to uncover the meaning of our world and their place in it).

Once the goal is clear, he moves toward it to the best of his ability, measures his strength, does not become discouraged, and understands that even if he does not fully achieve it, he will still have made progress. A person will try to realize as much as is destined for him.

Comment: Tip 5: “Never miss a chance to try more.”

Even when we feel most prepared, it is quite possible that we will not achieve our goal. The main thing is not to despair.

My Response: Of course, we need to try to achieve the goal. If this goal is important, if I check it, and see that this is really what I need to achieve, then I should include myself in it completely.

Comment: Tip 6: “Value every moment.”

Live your life to the fullest because it is short, and we never know what tomorrow will bring.

My Response: I would not follow such advice because life has its purpose. If I believe today that I already know what is most important and only need to achieve it today and I disregard tomorrow, this is incorrect. It is like being reborn and dying every day, an inaccurate attitude toward life.

I must see myself walking a long road, constantly moving forward until I reach the ultimate goal. Every day I must reevaluate, redefine, and align myself with this goal, and strive toward it. And so what if tomorrow I am no longer here? I am still heading toward it today.

Question: And what on this path allows you personally, as a great person with great experience, a Kabbalist, not to give up?

Answer: The importance of the goal. One must constantly work on it. For me, there is nothing more important in life. I have dedicated my life to this, starting from the age of 20 and even earlier. I wanted this, and I have been walking toward it all my life, certainly for the last 50 to 60 years.

Comment: Tip 7: “Do not impose your ideas on others.”

They say you should not impose your ideas on others. Let those who seek your help and guidance come to you.

My Response: I do not think I am intrusive. I calmly accept those who come to my lessons, just as I calmly observe those who leave. My principle is entirely Kabbalistic: there is no coercion on the paths of life. Everyone must choose and realize their own way. Advice, however, is always available to those who seek it.

Comment: Tip 8: “Be flexible in your goals.”

It is important to analyze your current position and how your actions might affect the future. Sometimes it is better to pause a goal, adjust it temporarily, and return to it later.

My Response: In what I do, there is a constant reassessment of the path, goal, efforts, and implementation. So this is not an issue. Kabbalah provides a person with an almost continuous, constant rechecking of the goal, the path, and oneself, far beyond a daily or hourly basis.

Question: Will people find it just as easy to work with this constant data flow to adjust their goals continuously?

Answer: People will have more and more demand for a purpose in life. They will try to draw it before themselves, to define it. They will see that they can define it together, in connection with each other, and in this way they will move forward.

Comment: Tip 9: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Here many people are faced with the following situation: people seem to agree and want the same thing, but they have different opinions; they want to express them, to defend them, and then nothing good comes out of it. Where does the understanding of the consequences come from?

My Response: In Kabbalah this is not an issue because achieving the goal depends on the correct integration of people with one another.

The key is not to insist on your own perspective or any single viewpoint. Neither I nor others should cling to our opinions. Instead we must combine all opinions into a unified whole that produces the correct result. If each person relinquishes his own self for the sake of the collective, the right outcome is achieved.

Question: Even if someone believes that their opinion is one hundred percent correct?

Answer: Especially then. This is a Kabbalistic principle. We must rise above our egoism, and there is no other solution to this issue. Only when each person relinquishes his or her perspective for the sake of collective unity can the outcome be both harmonious and correct.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/16/19

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The Impostor Syndrome Is Cool

504Comment: In the high-tech sector, 58% of workers suffer from impostor syndrome. Researchers state they surveyed numerous IT companies, and 58% of the nearly 10,500 respondents said they experience this syndrome.

They feel like frauds, even after working in the same position for 14 years. They believe the job is beyond their capabilities and that their promotions are undeserved.

My Response: In general this is a good thing. It should put pressure on a person and push him toward self-improvement. After all, what drives a person forward if not the feeling that there is room to grow and that he is unworthy of his position?

They feel that there is still a lot of work ahead that requires continuous learning, acquiring additional skills, and gaining more knowledge. What is wrong with that?

On the other hand, it is important to ensure that they simultaneously develop confidence in their ability to overcome their insecurity, but not in a way that fills them with excessive complacency, rather, in a way that fosters continual growth. This is commendable.

In the science of Kabbalah, this is a constant state. I cannot imagine ever being completely satisfied; that would be something animalistic.

Question: What is the concept of the impostor syndrome in Kabbalah?

Answer: In truth, I feel that in this world we are all to some extent impostors. We have received our desires and aspirations for a perfect state as a kind of gift, an advance that we must work to repay. I always feel this way, as do my students and teachers.

Question: What does it mean to repay it?

Answer: To repay means that I must reach a state where I genuinely align with it. That would be my complete correction.

Question: How can one use this feeling correctly without falling into self-doubt?

Answer: Progress must be made along three lines: the right, the left, and the middle. On one side there should be no arrogance; on the other there must be a thorough assessment and acknowledgment of one’s inadequacies.

And based on these two lines, the middle line emerges, where we move forward on the realization of the previous two. And we always see a goal ahead where these two approaches converge. I feel both perfect and imperfect, and their union pulls me forward.

Kabbalah explains how this works; it is an entire system. Without it, it is impossible to move forward correctly. Perhaps that is why people struggle to find new solutions. But Kabbalah offers guidance.

This process leads to an interesting expansion of consciousness. When you follow the middle line, your consciousness expands. You move forward, and even outpace the tasks set before you.

You foresee both the challenges and their solutions. You pull them along with you, rather than being overwhelmed by them. Instead of struggling to keep up, you find that the work chases after you while you move ahead.

This must be learned. Those who are interested will join us.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/19/18

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What Can We Do if a Child Has Lost the Taste for Life?

627.2Comment: Question from Natalia: “I have an adult son. When he was a kid, he was happy about everything. Every new discovery made him genuinely smile: books, camping, movies, and music. Now that he has grown up, it is like the world has dimmed for him. He looks around, but he does not see anything. His heart is closed as if he has lost a taste for life. I often wonder where we made a mistake as his parents? Perhaps we have not given him enough? Perhaps we have missed something important? I am scared to watch how my son is losing interest for this world! I do not know how to help him.”

Answer: Basically, our entire life is made so we would lose attraction to this world, to this life. This is a problem. But what can we do?

Comment: This is exactly what she is asking you: “I do not know how to help him.”

My Response: To help him is just to explain how the world is structured, how it should be transformed, and how we should see a different world.

Comment: But you understand that parents do not really know how to explain this to the child. “The child” is a grown young man.

My Response: So get used to it.

Question: is this the way he will go on and develop?

Answer: The way all people live.

Question: But do you think that everyone is losing a taste for life today?

Answer: Of course. They either disconnect themselves from the question, or they think that they are doing the most correct thing.

Question: So you think that precisely this question has matured in him: “What do I live for?” This is why this change happened?

Answer: Yes, the lack of goal-setting.

Question: Meaning, “Where to go and why do I keep going?” That is it, and the person lies down and disconnects?

Answer: Yes

Question: This kid’s joy, where did it disappear?

Answer: There is no basis anymore to be joyful about life. What should I do next? Nobody knows.

Question: At what point does this transformation within a person come? It is not necessarily at this age; it can be at any age. How does it come, at what moment?

Answer: It comes the moment a person seems to have everything, but there is no goal.

Question: Does the upper one, the Creator, take away the goal? Why does He do that?

Answer: So that a person would consciously understand what he lacks and would consciously seek the Creator in his life.

Question: Tell me please, people are asking: “Should the parents help their adult child, or is it better to give him freedom?”

Answer: Parents can shorten the child’s path by a lot!

Question: Do you mean the quest?

Answer: The quest, yes, but in general, it does not matter. It depends on the nature of a person. If they wish to help their child, they have to be good psychologists.

Question: Where to direct him? Here he is in this state. Natasha and her husband write: “We are unable to help him.” Where to direct him?

Answer: You are unable to help, but you still have to point him to that state, a place that can direct him. I think that we should give the child the maximum development, and he will find it. There is no way without that.

Question: Tell us please, how can parents cope with the sense of guilt? Natasha writes, and one can feel that there is a sense of guilt for what has happened to him. How is it possible to get rid of this feeling?

Answer: If the parents had a clear sense of the goal, they would not be disturbed so much. However, since they do not have it themselves, then the child does not have it either, and they do not know what to give him.

Question: Does it mean you think that this moment is the time for the parents to search in addition to everything else?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: Does it mean it is like he is directing them to search for the purpose of life?

Answer: Yes

Question: Can parents in their efforts to return this vital force to their children harm them?

Answer: Yes, it is necessary here to select some very fine middle line that will be directing the child to the search without pressure.

Question: But the most important in your answer is the search?

Answer: Yes, our entire life is like that. It is given to us for that.

The Creator is doing that so that the child would find the source in this life, the source of his states so that he would want to reveal this source. Then he will not have any more questions. He will be attached to this source, he will be revealing it more and more, and the source will fulfill him more and more.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/1/24

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How to Prevent Stress at Work

566.01Comment: One of the major issues in modern society is work-related stress. Regardless of the type of work, emotional exhaustion including burnout eventually sets in often more than physical fatigue.

Scientists suggest that to combat constant workplace stress, one should practice compassion and mindfulness. Burnout, chronic illnesses from unhealthy lifestyles, and similar challenges could be called the plague of the 21st century.

The key to overcoming burnout and its associated ailments is compassion. The central message of compassion is: “If you feel bad, stressed, or exhausted, help someone else. Show compassion, and you will feel better yourself.”

My Response: This approach meets no resistance. In fact, the act itself will first and foremost heal you.

Question: To treat others this way, must one first show compassion toward oneself?

Answer: Without self-compassion, you will not be motivated to act kindly toward others. You need a foundation, a reason to suddenly develop a positive attitude toward others. For this, you must convince yourself that it is necessary for your own well-being, a form of self-preservation.

Comment: When we are stressed, our bodies activate processes and muscles for a “fight or flight” response. However, when we show compassion, the body relaxes and operates in an entirely opposite system. It calms down.

Scientists add that besides compassion, empathy is also essential; meaning, engaging with others and understanding their situations helps offset stress.

My Response: But this is not simple. The issue is that we do not teach people how to give correctly, which creates a significant problem. We are forced to give at any work: whether I am working on some piece of hardware on a machine, tending cows, or making money, it does not matter where or how. Even if I work with people.

We are not taught how to give. We are taught to quickly complete tasks and take what we need, but this is incorrect.

Such an approach creates a disconnection between the work itself and my desire to derive something from it. The work becomes a source of depletion rather than fulfillment.

If I approach my work in a way that allows me to feel fulfilled while giving, I will feel great at the beginning, middle, and end of the day. But teaching people this mindset is not easy. It requires the correction of one’s nature.

Regardless of my job or role, I should be able to work joyfully and feel that by giving, I am filling myself up. This is the art or the science of fulfillment, of reception—the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: What does it mean to “give”?

Answer: If I were working for the benefit of my children, would I feel depleted by giving to them? No, not at all, because I already work for their sake and do everything for them.

The issue lies in learning to feel others, strangers, as close ones. This requires education. People must be taught to understand the system we live in, that we are all interconnected in an integral network. In this system, anyone who fills others is, in turn, filled through them.

We need to uncover this system and begin to feel it. Then there will be no difference between giving and receiving or between strangers and loved ones. We will realize that we all exist within a unified system.

Question: You once explained the difference between animalistic and spiritual energy exchange. In the corporeal realm, one gives and the other receives, leaving one depleted and the other filled. In spiritual energy exchange, however, the energy flows through everyone, filling all without stopping at anyone.

How can we achieve this? What steps are involved in learning and applying this method?

Answer: I would advise people to attend our classes and learn how to work in a true collective where giving to others simultaneously fills oneself, and this applies to everyone. Ultimately, this leads to a state where the more people in the group, the greater the fulfillment each person experiences.

Such a person feels that when he comes to work tired after sleeping, and so on, he gets a lot of energy at work and leaves with bright eyes and cheerful after eight or ten hours of work. He goes home full of energy. In the evening, he thinks about how he will return to work. And all his relatives and family are delighted to meet and greet him like this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/1/19

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Aggression among Schoolchildren

600.02Comment: The aggression of schoolchildren and their parents exceeds all norms, expectations, and any rules of decency. Teachers complain that children have become completely uncontrollable, and their parents side with them. If teachers were respected in the past, now school journals are being burned, weapons are being brought to school, not to mention drugs. Teachers in Germany claim that such behavior has become possible due to the influx of immigrants.

My Response: I would not conflate one problem with another.

The modern school no longer suits children, contemporary families, parents, how parents are busy at work, how children spend their free time, or how life is structured. Modern schooling has long outlived its usefulness. It effectively ended in the middle of the last century along with the end of the industrialization era.

None of this is relevant today. Now everything can be done much more simply—with computers and in small groups of people while the rest are left out of the equation. Therefore, we should not be educating people for unnecessary professions only to later perpetuate unemployment. They graduate into the world with their diplomas, but what is next?

The school is an absolutely outdated experiment that was conducted 150 years ago and by now has long since “died.”

Question: Does the degradation of schools threaten us with a barbaric society in the future?

Answer: If schools degrade, they will indeed lead to a barbaric society. Therefore, schools need to be quickly replaced.

We need to seriously consider what is good for our children and focus on that. Society today is capable of doing this; we have plenty of resources, many people, and many idle hands and minds. We can do this if we only want to because we have nothing to do, we invent different professions for ourselves, we serve each other.

We need to pay attention to children. But not by forcing, pressuring, or over-structuring them, but by studying what is genuinely beneficial for them and within this context providing them with the right content. What kind of content? Perhaps they will choose it themselves from the Internet.

We must study human nature, the nature of the surrounding world, and how people achieve harmony. The most important human “profession” is understanding how to interact correctly with oneself, with society, and with the world around them.

Reaching such a level of integration where all these elements are balanced is the ultimate goal of education.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/31/18

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Fathers for Rent

292Comment: In Japan, there was a case where a little girl was growing up in a single-parent family. After she started school, she became withdrawn. It turned out that she was being bullied because her classmates teased her for not having a father.

The mother was deeply concerned. The teachers did not help, so she turned to an agency that provides “rent-a-hero” services. She chose one candidate—a kind, positive, and caring man. As an actor, he fully embraced the role of a father and played it for the girl for ten years.

On weekends, they went to the movies, parks, and walks, talked together, and even attended parent-teacher meetings. Over time, it was clear that the girl, once shy and withdrawn, blossomed and became more confident.

Thus, a new trend emerged: “fathers for rent”—fake fathers who, by taking on the role, provide both children and adults with a sense of security and supportive surroundings.

My Response: We understand how important this is for a child. At the same time, it can also be deeply significant for the woman—the mother of that child.

Interestingly, these relationships can sometimes be deeper and closer than natural family bonds. When something is “yours,” it can often lead to complacency and neglect. Who really pays attention to one another? You come home, kick off your shoes, sit down at the table or in your favorite chair, and life goes on.

But here, the emotional distance fosters a special closeness, one that is not just monitored, but actively nurtured and strengthened. This dynamic can be far more meaningful than relationships in a typical marriage.

As a result, a very interesting relationship can develop between them, not even intimate, but purely internal support, precisely due to the fact that they are not husband and wife, but simply “collaborators” to create a special family relationship.

Comment: The fake father told the girl he loved her, although inside he understood it was a conflict, that it really wasn’t the case. But what he told her emotionally, by getting involved at this state, helped not only their relationship,  but also the child’s development.

My Response: Do we have the right to treat a child this way? To lie to them?

Comment: Yes, because the consequences can vary. He said, “Ten years have passed, and I understand what might happen if the truth comes out. Eighty percent of me believes the girl will be grateful for all the care and attention I gave her. Twenty percent of me fears she will feel devastated, lost, and broken.”

My Response: He must stay with her until she gets married and he is “replaced” by her husband. He has to support her until she has another man in her life because, at the moment, he is filling the roles of father, man, and husband—everything. He cannot just leave her.

Comment: There is another trend where elderly men are hired as mentors. They are invited to accompany young people because they can pass on experience and wisdom.

My Response: I support this. It is something our society needs because no one in childhood receives proper guidance from their parents. This is a methodology, a philosophy of acceptance of life and the proper adaptation to it. Modern children do not have this. They have no source for it, not from TV, not from computers, not from school, nor from anywhere.

Question: What institutions should surround a person to help them grow into a well-rounded individual?

Answer: They need a clear and consistent educational program conducted by capable teachers, mentors, and educators.

When family, society, the peer group, and the media all work in harmony, only then can a person be raised properly.

Question: What values should they instill?

Answer: The right behavior within the “human pack.” Ideally, this should be taught at the instinctive level.

Question: What rules should exist in a “human pack”?

Answer: Homo homini lupus est, “man is a wolf to man,” only the other way around.

Teach people to live as a pack where everyone supports each other and understands the importance of each individual. Each person carries a social or family responsibility that makes everyone significant. Wolves, for instance, live exceptionally well within their packs.

Question: Could we conclude by saying, “Be a wolf to be human”?

Answer: Yes, being a wolf is great; you will know how to behave in a pack. It is a wonderful dynamic where there is a clear hierarchy, parents at the top, children below, grandchildren further down, and so on. But everyone takes care of one another, from the bottom up.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/22/18

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Where Is My “Self”?

727If everything in the universe originates from the Creator, then what remains? What remains is a very intriguing component: my effort to sustain the perspective that everything comes from Him.

Let us suppose I have attuned myself to this perspective, but within a minute it disappears, slips away, or distorts. At one moment I might feel as if I exist independently, and the world around me revolves by the Creator’s hand. At another moment, it seems that all my parameters are shaped by the Creator within me, while the external world appears either stable or fluctuating, but somehow separate.

So if I want to reveal the Creator, I must continuously work within concealment. Concealment lies in recognizing that everything is conditioned by Him and that “There is none else besides Him.” My task is to properly perceive myself and the world, to separate what does not pertain to me from what constitutes my “self”—my efforts.

And even within these efforts, I must analyze what is truly mine in my efforts, and what has been created in me by the Creator. It may have seemed to me that something was my own doing.

Even if yesterday it seemed that I personally wanted to follow the Creator’s path, I must still correct myself and acknowledge that it was the Creator who granted me this opportunity and not my own doing.

Thus we see that the work within concealment begins to take shape as a clear delineation of where “I” ends and where the Creator begins. Does “I” even exist, and what is this “I”? It is evident that my physical body is temporary.

If my thoughts and feelings are not “me,” then it follows that only through correctly discerning our efforts to form a perception of “self and the surrounding world” might we find something that is truly ours.

Clearly, this “mine” will not encompass the fundamental parameters of the world or myself, as these were predetermined long before me. Therefore it is in my attempts to construct an internal view of the world that my “self” might be found, a result of my search for the Creator, for truth, and for the meaning of life. And this “self,” essentially, is what is called “my soul.” This is the essence of the work within concealment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/19, Preparation for convention in Moldova “The Work in Concealment”

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Is Our Path Programmed?

760.1Question: If you could step into the Creator’s place, how would you answer these children’s questions? Oleg, a 4th grader, asks: “Why did You make humans the main beings on Earth?”

Answer: That is a complicated issue. I made humans intelligent and gave them the ability to correct themselves. If they refuse to do so and remain foolish, I can only agree, stay silent, and wait.

Comment: Humans have been given intelligence, placed on this Earth. The Earth is really beautiful, nature and everything are beautiful. Yet, we ruin it.

My Response: Yes.

Question: Are we a mistake or not?

Answer: Of nature?

Comment: Let’s say, of the Creator.

Answer: Of the Creator, I think we are not a mistake. But we will only realize it when we begin to correct ourselves. For now, we don’t want to.

Question: Is our path programmed and someday a turning point toward correction will inevitably happen?

Answer: Yes, I am certain it must happen, and fairly soon.

Question: Will it be a shock, a sudden thought, or the discovery of a new kind of mind?

Answer: It will emerge from within us. We will begin to feel what the other world, the new world, the higher world, should be.

Question: And we will want to reach it?

Answer: Yes, absolutely!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/4/24

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Intellectual Games

963.6Intellectual role-playing games have become an alternative to traditional festive gatherings. Clerks, managers, doctors, and teachers enthusiastically prevent explosions at nuclear power plants, catch maniacs, and chase after secret submarine blueprints. In short, they fully immerse themselves in quests.

As children, we read books and watched movies about heroes, and dreamed of becoming like them. But later we realized that life leaves little room for cinematic heroism or even simple adventure. So why not play out the impossible?

But there is another side to this: a true hero should be an example to follow, should they not? And not just an example of parachuting from planes with umbrellas or performing stunts. No, a hero should be relatable to us. Moreover, beyond fighting enemies, societal problems, or disasters, they should overcome something within themselves—for the sake of helping others.

Such a hero inspires admiration, the kind that comes with goodwill, because they bring good into the world. More than that, they represent what we wish every person could be.

We all need a meaningful image of a hero who knows how to give themselves to others despite the challenges. And let everyone imagine themselves in their place; let everyone aspire to be like them. Then, when I step out of the theater or leave a role-playing game and return to real life, I will act the same way.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/29/18

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