Entries in the 'Education' Category

New Life#580 – Remaining Young Forever

New Life#580 – Remaining Young Forever
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Why does a person want to remain young forever, how is it possible to attain immortality, and why is the matter contingent on the correction of the basic characteristics we were born with?

Summary

There is a hidden power in the world, the power of love and bestowal, the power of life. This power radiates goodness and love to everyone, like the sun. And we, the human masters of nature, are its opposite. We absorb and receive the power of life from it, but ultimately the power of life weakens and we grow old and die.

To reach a state of eternal life, it is up to us to be like that life force, to be love and bestowal.

This life force is called Light. It is found everywhere. We are capable of absorbing only a small spark of it. The secret of life is that a person must correct his nature from reception to bestowal, resembling this eternal Light. A person who corrects his nature from reception for himself to bestowal of goodness to others, merges with eternity.

Our physiological body is condemned to die. We have the ability to develop a spiritual body, a “soul,” and live in it forever.

Every person naturally strives to escape death, and for women there is a natural inclination to strive for beauty.

Spiritual beauty is beauty that radiates from you as love for others. If we cultivate inner beauty, a relationship of love for others, this will radiate outward and people will love us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life#580 – Remaining Young Forever,” 6/2/15

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New Life #579 – Admiration And Worship

New Life #579 – Admiration And Worship
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

We feel something around us only to the extent that it is important for us. Our egoism has grown as we developed, but it lacks education. We have become more primitive than our forefathers.

If someone in class or at school is admired, your children will admire him or her too. The public can be manipulated by the media in any direction one wants. We are social creatures and so the environment can greatly affect who we admire even to the extent of worship. When people admire a football team, for example, they must hate its rival team.

To see the effect of the environment: stand in a rock concert among thousands of people and see how it affects you. Why is a person willing to do things that may seem irrational when he worships someone? There are, for example, people who commit suicide when someone they admire dies because they feel that they are eternally connected to him. In fact, we all yearn to connect to something big, whole, and eternal. We simply need to learn what it is.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #579 – Admiration And Worship,” 5/31/15

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A New Generation Gap

Laitman_088In the News (worldcrisis.ru): “There is a very interesting innovation in the structure of the electorate on both sides of the Atlantic: the youth do not vote the same as the older generation. A significant difference in the electoral preferences are now determined not so much by the level of income and education, or gender differences, but by how many voters belonging to a particular generation.

“There are good reasons for the emergence of this difference. The old and the young generations of today live differently. Their past is also different, as well as prospects for the future.

“For example, when the Cold War ended, many young voters were not yet born, and others were children. Some words, such as “socialism,” no longer have the values that they once did. If socialism means a society in which collective problems are not ignored, and where people care about other people and the environment in which they live, then what’s the problem with it? Yes, perhaps a quarter of a century or half a century ago, unsuccessful experiments were conducted under the rubric of socialism; but today’s experiments have no similarity to those of the past. In other words, the failure of the experiments of the past does not allow drawing conclusions about the new attempts….

“Today, the expectations of young people, regardless of their level of income, are directly opposite. Throughout his life, he looks forward to a lack of job security. …

“Today’s college graduates are burdened with debt – and the poorer they are, the more they owe. …

“Often these college loans are hanging over them 20 years or even more. Buying a home for them is a distant dream. …

“The feeling of social injustice (the feeling that the game in the economy is fraudulent) increases, since young people see bankers who caused the financial crisis (the reason for the continuing illness of the economy) are fired with mega bonuses. And almost no one bore responsibility for their misdeeds. They committed massive fraud, but for some reason did not. Political elites promised that ‘reform’ would bring unprecedented prosperity. And they brought it, but only one percent of the population, the richest. All others, including young people, are in an unprecedentedly unstable position.

“These three realities – social injustice of unprecedented scale, massive inequality and loss of confidence in elites – define our political moment, and deservedly so.”

My Comment: Only a drastic restructuring of society on the basis of a general obligation will be able to fix the existing situation. And this is only possible after the preliminary spreading of nationwide public education.

Educating the people instead of stupefying it through the media is the necessary condition for our survival. Therefore, Kabbalah specifically teaches about this action, and the goal of the work of its students must be this!
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New Life #578 – Appreciation And Admiration

New Life #578 – Appreciation And Admiration
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

To develop, a person needs examples before him—a father, mother—just like animals do. The elites provide us with examples to admire, athletes, models, and entertainers, so that it becomes easier to control us.

When the appreciation for a particular image grows, it becomes active admiration. Without there being admired images for a person, it is difficult for him to live; he must be connected to something, to someone. Already from childhood, children imitate their kindergarten teacher. And when we grow, the media provide us with images that will become an example for us.

Appreciation becomes admiration when it is felt how much this thing has become valuable to me. Then I feel a sense of belonging. We must create a public appreciation of belonging to a social movement that is working for connection between people, working for the sake of doing good.

It is difficult for parents to influence their children because they are influenced by the friends that are around them. To replace the values for a child, the parents must attract the child to additional environments, providing him with alternatives. Every day we must check: toward which values do we want to advance? And accordingly, we must build the right social appreciation.
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From KavTV’s “New Life #578 – Appreciation And Admiration,” 5/31/15

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New Life #577 – The Power Of A Kind Word

New Life #577 – The Power Of A Kind Word
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

All of us know that words have power, so you should take a balanced line, a middle line between critical words and kind words.

The compliment exercise: A person who is complimented feels enormous satisfaction, his soul is filled directly. He feels like a baby whose mother lifts him by her hands and so he opens all lines of communication.

When a person makes an effort to flatter someone else, even artificially, it builds a true appreciation for the other. The person who compliments him, even though it is not true and is artificial, is very moved by the compliment.

Today our entire culture is filled with bad words, everyone makes fun of and embarrasses each other. The phenomenon of shaming on the Internet is rising and rising. To change this requires a revolution in perception. We must learn what our world needs to advance toward .

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that we were created with an egoistic and evil nature so that we would develop a good and loving nature within us by ourselves. If we want a good life, we need to open good ties and relationships between us. We have to stop and say: Enough!

In the development of good relationships with others there are three levels: thought, speech, and action. If you don’t think good thoughts about me but you start to say good words about me, your attitude toward me will be changed.

A working exercise for home or anywhere else: select someone and everyone flatters him. He will get better! Even if you hate someone and begin to talk to him nicely or with kindness, your attitude toward him will change. And the other person, as a result your attitude attitude toward him, will truly change for the better.

More than the power of words, there is the power of thought. Good thoughts are the strongest power in the world. Try to think about people positively. What seems to me as bad about them is because of my ego. A thought like this will cause both him and me to improve because all of us are connected in one internal network.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #577 – The Power Of A Kind Word,” 5/28/15

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Unity Across Races

laitman_423_03In the News (gazeta.ru): “The United States mistakenly detained a black athlete, confusing him with the real culprit. Why do members of other races for a man ‘all look the same’…

“Nevertheless, there is also a scientific substantiation of this phenomenon, which is not a racist prejudice, as many think. For this phenomenon there is even a special term – the effect of “cross races» (cross-race effect). By this phrase researchers understand cognitive phenomenon, which consists in the fact that members of one race is more difficult to distinguish and identify the members of another. …

“Throughout the XX century, the world, at least parts of it, have become more tolerant. Nevertheless, the ‘cross-race’ effect has not stopped. No longer be held, and research. For example, a Canadian-German group of researchers in 1995 was able to experimentally confirm that it is very difficult for members of one race to understand what emotions are expressed in members of the other race. Further research only confirmed the assumptions that were expressed before. …

“According to psychologists, the ‘cross-race’ effect is mostly due to the fact that people do not often come into contact with members of other races in childhood. …

“Moreover, the [Texas] state government…developed a special training course for police officers.The main task … was to teach the servants of the law ‘not to arrest the first blacks or Hispanics,’ they came upon and to distinguish between and identify them. The experiment failed: the only effective way was to use police officers of the same race as the alleged criminals. …

“Nevertheless, there is a way to save children from the problem of distinguishing other races. To do this, you need to actively show them before the age of nine months. If you miss the moment, the child will join the number of those for whom they ‘all look the same.’”

Answer: In the future, when working on the unification of all races and peoples, we will have to raise children of different races together “from the cradle” so they will have a better mutual understanding. This may also be solved in a mixed group of adults who work on getting closer and on revealing the attribute of mutual connection in order to reveal the Creator in the group.
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“We’re Bad Judges Of Our Own Friendships”

laitman_628_1

In the News (Tel Aviv University ): “Most of us think that friendship is a two-way street — but that’s true only half the time, according to research from Tel Aviv University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Their new joint study says only half of your buddies would consider you their own friend. People have a very poor perception of friendship ties, and this limits their ability to influence their “friends,” according to the research, published in PLoS One on March 22, 2016. …

“‘It turns out that we’re very bad at judging who our friends are,’ says Dr. Erez Shmueli, who conducted the study with Dr. Laura Radaelli, both of TAU’s Department of Industrial Engineering, in collaboration with Prof. Alex Pentland and Abdullah Almatouq of MIT. ‘And our difficulty determining the reciprocity of friendship significantly limits our ability to engage in cooperative arrangements. We learned that we can’t rely on our instincts or intuition. There must be an objective way to measure these relationships and quantify their impact.’

“The researchers conducted extensive social experiments and analyzed the data from other studies to determine the percentage of reciprocal friendships and their impact on human behavior. The team also examined six friendship surveys from some 600 students in Israel, Europe and the United States to assess friendship levels and expectations of reciprocity.

“They then developed an algorithm that examines several objective features of a perceived friendship (that is, the number of common friends or the total number of friends) and is able to distinguish between the two different kinds of friendship: unidirectional or reciprocal.

‘” Dr. Shmueli says. ‘If you think someone is your friend, you expect him to feel the same way. But in fact that’s not the case — only 50 percent of those polled matched up in the bidirectional friendship category.’

“Why is this important? According to Dr. Shmueli, influence is the name of the game.

“’Reciprocal relationships are important because of social influence,’ says Dr. Shmueli, who utilized the ‘FunFit’ social experiment in the course of the research. ‘In this experiment that analyzes different incentives for exercising, we found that friendship pressure far outweighed money in terms of motivation. We found, not surprisingly, that those pressured by reciprocal friends exercised more and enjoyed greater progress than those with unilateral friendship ties.’”

My Comment: Indeed, we only see ourselves reflected in our environment. Therefore, we need to fix this some how.. On the one hand, we see an incorrect and absolutely false world. On the other hand, we don’t want to correct the incorrect mutual relationships between us, even though it is possible to correct them.

Question: At what point would there be correct assessment of reciprocal friendship?

Answer: This would be when all of us begin to work for closeness between us, without any connection to what is happening between us. This would be when our goal becomes connection between us in the center of the circle in order to attain the next level of development, to rise to the next level of nature, of creation, of formation. Then, we would no longer have any problems.

Question: This is very difficult for people.

Answer: No, we can do this as a “guided tour” on a spiritual roller coaster, and this will be a joy. This is wild spiritual fun. I recommend this to you!

Question: Even the researchers concluded that friendship is a stronger motivation than money. So, the most useful method for attaining results in every area is to perform work together with friends.

Answer: This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about. It is up to us to work together for the sake of unity. Then, we would have everything, including money, undoubtedly! This is because the upper force that manages everything in our world, including the regulation of all of our commercial problems, only comes down to a place where unity exists.

Question: Does this mean that everything I have will be enough for me?

Answer: Even more than that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/11/16

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New Life #372 – The Attributes Of The Integral Woman

New Life #372 – The Attributes Of The Integral Woman
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

How can a woman operate ideally in an integral world and bring it to connection? What should she learn and what should she teach her children?

Summary

In ancient times women were connected to one another in the tribe or extended family. Today we are reconnecting once again.

We have to find the natural balance between the man’s place and the woman’s place.

In ancient times the woman’s state after giving birth was much better than it is today, she had support. Today we have to develop the feeling of mutual guarantee in society, so a woman will feel that she is not alone at home. We should have meeting places for mothers and babies, and offer them special courses and activities, etc.

A mother wants her baby to grow and to be very successful; today it means to be properly connected. We have to teach her how to make sure that the child develops as a human being and not just physically.

An integral mother works on a qualitative connection with other mothers and together they raise integral children.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #372 – An Approach to Life: The Attributes Of The Integral Woman,” 5/15/14

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International Day For The Protection Of Children

laitman_629_3Comment: June 1st was the international day for the protection of children.

Answer: How can there be a day for the protection of children?! Children all over the world are the least protected members of society!

If we really cared about children they wouldn’t grow up to be such wicked adults. A child who doesn’t feel that he is cared for grows up to be a rigid barbaric person who wants to vent everything he did not receive in his childhood.

Question: What do you consider taking care of a child?

Answer: Taking care of a child is first of all bringing him up. He needs warmth and simple basic attention.

How can parents give something to their children today if they work all day long and only have time to pick up their kids from the different institutions they are placed in, put them to bed and take them back there the next morning? We say that a child seemingly grows up in family, but in fact he spends the whole day at the “kids’ home.”

This is the situation we have arrived to! A mother has to engage in bringing up a child and then we will have no problems.

Question: What does a mother bringing up her child mean?

Answer: It means that a mother visits the same educational institution her child does where there is a class for the children and a class for their mothers. There the mothers learn how to raise their kids, how to be connected together, and how to strengthen the family. This is how the upbringing and the education of mothers and children is done.

The fathers also should have mandatory training for one or two hours while at work about how to bring up a child and how to behave properly in the family. Then everyone at home will understand one another.

We are constantly developing so this type of education is vital! Animals don’t need this type of education but even among animals the mother is constantly by her young and doesn’t let anyone else take care of them until they grow up.

Comment: This means that we have to build increasingly stronger family connections because it is like a small cell in a large body.

Answer: It is vital that we change the world for the sake of the children so that they will grow up to be good parents. This is our role.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/11/16

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Who Needs Kids Today And For What?

laitman_624_03_0In the News (gazeta.ru): “The vast majority of animals raise their chicks, puppies, kittens, lambs, etc. to a certain age (height and weight of mature individuals, as a rule), and then immediately loses all family feeling. For a cat, her one-year-old kitten – is just another cat or a cat.

“Only people who have learned to consider the degree of kinship, have invented names for them, and have introduced numerous rules and prohibitions concerning not only marriage, but in general the relationship between people based on their blood relations and, therefore, between the older and younger.

“Now, the foundation of the social structure begins to waver.

“The expansion of children’s rights, giving humanity a great warning against the disgusting abuse of children, at the same time leads to overt unilateral commitments. It turns out that the child has considerably more rights and a parent – has many more responsibilities. …

“Children, at least in the ‘golden billion’ countries, have long ceased to be a guarantee of a secure old age for their parents.

“Some people naturally raise the question: Why do we need children? Why have them? If it takes you almost a quarter of a century to raise them, and then they leave? …

“So why? Who needs children?..

“Very rich and very poor children solve the problem on its own. The very rich do not need care and support in old age, they have great-grandchildren grandchildren who may provide moral support; it is also possible to buy, hire, a loving people… .

“Very poor generally live within the traditional framework of mutual obligations in the family, with greater cohesion and branched multigenerational families – almost communities.

“But the middle-class need children as a source of … love, both spiritual and physical at the same time. The first smile, first steps, first word “mama,” the child beaming adoringly, the first class, the first notebook – for it one can give everything!

“But parents pay dearly for the few years of enjoyment of parental love, unconditional love. financially, with time, and, most importantly, emotionally with the subsequent disappointment, resentment, loneliness. …

“It is possible that in the course of all the cultural fractures another quite interesting cultural shift will occur. Parents will perceive their grown children about the same as a cat does – as grown kittens.”

Answer: In the future a person’s attention will be focused on attaining the upper state where relations are not determined by earthly connections but by the connections between individual souls and the one general soul.
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