Entries in the 'Education' Category

Will Warren Buffett Be Loved?

627.2I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster (Warren Buffet).

Question: Do you agree with this?

Answer: This is true, of course.

Question: Must one strive to be loved? Is this the right direction?

Answer: A man would like to be loved; at least to finish with such a result is good.

Comment: But we are very often forced to take some unpopular steps.

My Response: We are in a completely opposite world.

Comment: Where no one loves anyone.

My Response: Of course. How can we even express such ideas here as “in order to be loved.”

Question: And if I do everything for this? Here he is, a billionaire; he donates, he wants to be loved, and he comes to this thought. Is this the right thing for these people to do?

Answer: No, he will not correct the world in this way. All his actions will again turn into egoistic ones and they will not lead people anywhere.

Question: So when you say “to be loved,” you mean something different from what he does?

Answer: Of course.

Question: So what do you mean?

Answer: I cannot advise him on anything because it is useless.

Question: He no longer needs it, so advise us. What does it mean to live like this, to be remembered, and to be loved? What does a person need?

Answer: It is only necessary to engage in education. Only education! Otherwise, nothing will happen in the world.

Question: So you claim that the most respected job for a man is to be an educator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How does he educate people then?

Answer: He must explain to them in every possible way what the purpose of creation is, that only in realization of the plan of creation can a person achieve happiness.

Question: What do you mean by the purpose of creation? Should he also attain this purpose of creation?

Answer: The educator himself must attain it and then convey to people that when a person himself does good to others, he fills and enjoys himself.

Question: Let us delve deeper then if possible. What do you mean by good?

Answer: By good I mean filling another person with what he desires.

Comment: But he has a lot of different desires.

My Response: No! This already depends on education, fill him with the right kind of education so that he would require a normal minimum filling.

Question: This needs to be clarified. A person needs to be clarified in such a way that he lives on such a normal filling and does not require something big, billions of dollars, and so on?

Answer: And feels that if other people can be led to this, then this will be the complete happiness.

Question: That is, in order that people live, rejoice in the necessities that they have, and do not demand anything more beyond that? Is this what you call a correct education?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you not want to move on, to say something higher?

Answer: When I cut bread, I cut it into slices. So this is the first slice.

Comment: Then let us stop at the first slice
[317243]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/7/23

Related Material:
Why Respect A Person?
The Law Of Life In Society Of The Future
The Opposite Of Success

Is it Possible to Regulate the Birth Rate?

962.3Question: Can birth rates be regulated?

Answer: Birth rates can be controlled with the help of money and housing. If young couples are provided with conditions such as money and living space, then, I think, this can increase the birth rate. But these are huge public expenditures.

Question: You once said that there is a certain global plan in increasing or decreasing the birth rate with the help of which a correction is made. What is the meaning of this process from the point of view of Kabbalah, from the point of view of a common desire?

Answer: Of course, this refers to adopting a certain general plan for the movement of mankind to a certain limit.

But I do not think that we can talk about it now because we are still in an absolutely imperfect state. First, we need to solve a lot of problems, and only then, when we see what a family can be, what a person, children, and so on can be, will we be able to solve questions about the reproduction of generations.
[316610]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23

Related Material:
On the Ruins of a Dream of a Bright Future
UN Is Against The Traditional Family
A Single Place

Once Again about Children

152Question: How can we reveal the uniqueness of a child?

Answer: I think that as much time as possible should be devoted to self-education.

Question: Is it necessary to bring up a boy in accordance with “men do not cry”?

Answer: I think that in general this is true but, on the other hand, it depends on what the price is.

Question: Does it matter how a child is named?

Answer: In general, no. But I would recommend consulting respected people.
[316850]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23

Related Material:
The Proper Upbringing Of Boys
The Proper Education For A Person
The New System Of Education

To Dream or Not to Dream?

229In the News (Inc.com): “‘64 Years of Data Proves That the Bigger Kids Dream, the More Successful They’ll Be, A new study shows that how big kids dream matters as much for future success as IQ or family background’
“A recently published study analyzes surveys of 17,000 children conducted 10 times from 1958 up to the present day and finds that when it comes to how much kids achieve in life, big dreams matter as much if not more than IQ or the family’s socioeconomic situation. …

“The scale of kids’ dreams helps determine their future circumstances–and adults have a big role in shaping those dreams. …

The study found that when kids harbored unrealistic goals in their teenage years, they did end up unhappier in early adulthood when reality set in. …

The data shows that when parents and teachers push kids to dream big whatever their current circumstances, kids elevate their expectations. And the result is greater career success and happiness in adulthood, no matter where kids start out in life.” 

Question: The question is very simple: to dream or not to dream?

Answer: If a person does not dream, then one will be an animal.

Question: And if these are completely unrealistic dreams? The dreams of a child are somewhat…

Answer: Even if they are unrealistic, it is still necessary to dream. You don’t have to live in dreams and by dreams, but, in principle, it is necessary to dream.

Question: What is it? What does this dreaminess develop in a child?

Answer: This develops a lot of qualities in a child. Firstly, he begins to imagine his life as he would like to see it, what he needs to change in himself and change in general, what he would like to change in life and in the world. And all this puts him face-to-face with the world. That is, he is no longer just some weak-willed and accepting individual, but he really is what he would like to create in the world.

Question: So this reality that the child sees, he wants to improve and live in it all the time?

Answer: Yes, of course, at least make it for yourself, maybe it’s not better, but it is for yourself.

Question: Why is it that when children dream unrealistically, many become unhappy at the age of 18?

Answer: It depends on how much he understands, how much he is in criticism of his dreams. Here it is necessary to take it reasonably after all.

Question: So at some point the thought comes that this is just a dream?

Answer: Yes. It is necessary to train him, it is necessary to tell him, explain. And he must understand that there is a long way from a dream to its realization. But, in principle, he can implement part of it.

Question: At some point, do dreams begin to leave a person, or does a person have to dream all the time?

Answer: No, the fact is that a person goes through many different stages during his life, mainly in his youth, in adulthood. The main stage is hormonal development when he is already drawn to creating a family or connection, and so on. And then there are a lot of questions that contradict his earlier dreams, ground him. But this is not a stroke of fate for him, on the contrary. All this is a form of development.

Question: Does a person need to continue dreaming like this until old age?

Answer: Absolutely!

Question: Do you have a dream?

Answer: Yes, there is a dream.

Question: You have kept it that long? Were you going through life with this dream?

Answer: No, it has changed over the course of a lifetime. It is getting more and more sober, realistic to implement in life. It remains, but it is far from the dream that I had in the beginning.

Question: If a person is cut off, stops dreaming, and everything is gone what is this?

Answer: I feel sorry for him. What is left for him in life then? Just a pension.

It is necessary to dream, to realize your dream, at least in a partial form. Choose from it what is real and implement it.
[315807]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/17/23

Related Material:
Mutual Guarantee: Not Rosy Dreams But Real Life
Medium: “The Pursuit Of Happiness And The Fading American Dream”
“Imagine A Better World, It Can Become A Reality” (Linkedin)

Principles of Correct Examples

963.5Question: When artificial intelligence is created, it is trained on trillions of parameters, literally on everything that humanity has created during its short existence by cosmic standards. There are no other options. But everything created by people did not really work for their benefit. Then how can the correct information be uploaded; how can we educate it correctly and give correct examples? Where can we take them from if the entire set of examples that exists in the human world is negative?

Answer: We do nоt care if the results are positive or negative. The main thing for us is that we can agree that they are like this. That is, on all the examples that are given to humanity, I can learn both good and bad.

But, in principle, we are talking about the fulfillment of two conditions. The first condition is to act for the benefit of all mankind, second is to not cause irreparable harm to nature.

Therefore, everything that is loaded into a person is evaluated only based on these two principles, and on this basis, a conclusion is made whether to use this example or not.
[316573]
From KabTV’s: “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

Related Material:
Artificial Intelligence Will Teach Us Happiness
Can Artificial Intelligence Acquire A Soul?
Will Artificial Intelligence Replace People?

What to Do if Your Children Do not Call Anymore?

627.1Comment: From a letter:
Dear Michael Laitman, I am asking for your advice. We raised our children, gave them everything, and they disappeared and do not even call. They are not in our life. My husband started developing dementia. I take care of him by myself, I literally fall down  from exhaustion. I have no strength anymore. Our children are gone, our children have abandoned us.

Why are they so ungrateful? What did we do wrong? Why couldn’t we instill some basic respect for us in them?

My Response: We are not talking about basic respect. Maybe children are somewhere far away, busy with something, they have families, they have everything. But old people demand care and attention. I mean, I understand both parents and children.

The modern world is not made in such a way that we live together as several generations under one roof. Even children do not get attention, let alone the elderly. I do not expect anything else from the world. In no way.

Perhaps it will happen so that people will work half a day, and they will have a lot of time and will really devote part of it to parents, part to children, and part to themselves.

Question: Are you saying that we need to understand our children who are distancing from us with their families?

Answer: We ourselves have prepared such a life for them.

Comment: But this is not exactly how we lived; I remember that.

My Response: We did not live like that because we were in a different world.

Comment: By the way, you yourself have always said that it is good when three generations live together.

My Response: It was so, but now it is impossible. So, let’s stop talking about fantasies.

Question: Then the question about the future is: what will we come to in this way?

Answer: We will come to the point that we will have to really rebuild this world in order to make it more human.

Comment: You are still in favor of these good human relations one way or another.

My Response: Everyone should understand what they have to create, what kind of world they want to see. But, of course, this will not happen today or tomorrow yet.

Question: What should enter a person? What kind of world should he want to create?

Answer: A person must be imbued with desire, compassion, love, and concern about others. About others in general and not only about their relatives.

When he understands this whole system we all have to participate in, then together with others, with strangers, he will be able to create such systems of interaction, support for infants, children, youth, and so on, up to the elderly and all others where everyone feels good.

Question: You have just said a key phrase. You said that a person should understand in general this system in which we exist. Then will everything start falling into place for him?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Comment: This is the most important moment! We do not understand this strategically.

My Response: No, we cannot depict this picture for ourselves.

Comment: We can say that the world is interconnected, but we do not imagine this picture. But the world is like that.

My Response: The world is like that.

Comment: And these connections are good ones.

My Response: These connections are good, and they do not end in this world! They continue in the next world! Therefore, in addition, we must understand where we are and how we are included in each other, where such a combinatoric takes place between us that we cannot escape anywhere, we need to have a good attitude to each other all the time.

Question: I am leaving and coming back, I am leaving again and I am coming back. Does all this take place in this system?

Answer: Yes, everything is in this system. This is called that there is no death, as it were,  and everything is infinity.

Comment: This is beautiful! I wish people would understand this!

My Response: There is no need, this is very hard.

Question: But will we come to this understanding?

Answer: Yes. But we have to be ready for it, and on the other hand, we have to be ready to do it and understand that it will be better for us. We should not look at it as a huge responsibility.
[316501]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/31/23

Related Material:
The Problem Of Fathers And Sons
Education Of Parents – Guaranteed Benefit For Children
Why Has It Become Difficult To Raise Children?

When Love Harms

963.5Question: “What is unconditional love? How and why does it harm both parents and children?”

Answer: It is because absolute love does not educate children. Children must understand that there are certain conditions for the manifestation of love. And parents should also feel some kind of reciprocity from their children: right-wrong, correct-incorrect, toward themselves-away from themselves, and so on, so that there would be some kind of correct contacts, mutual contacts between them. And not just “I love you” and that is all.

There may be such an attitude toward a baby but not between adults. Even when children are growing up there should be mutual relations built on attraction and rejection, the carrot and the stick. Children must understand that they are permitted to behave in a certain way and not allowed to behave in another way, that there is reward and punishment.

Question: So when it is said that a child was brought up in love, grew up in love, what does this mean in your opinion?

Answer: In my opinion, a child grows in love when he understands what he is rewarded for and what he is punished for. That is called in love.

Question: And if it is in absolute love?

Answer: In absolute love a child will be crippled. He will not be able to live with other people, and it will be very difficult for him to exist in the world. He will be spoiled so much that he will be good for nothing. As a result, he will have no friends and no relatives. I do not know if he will be able to have a family.

Question: Can you explain why?

Answer: He does not feel that he owes something to somebody, and he will not correctly perceive people’s attitudes toward him. After all, he must live in the world in which he is connected with other people through reception and bestowal, but he is not ready for it. Because of that, he will just be an unhappy person. He will be rejected, people will not be able to interact with him, and he will not be able to interact with others. It will be very difficult for him not to feel unique.

Question: What is proper education?

Answer: Proper education is a balanced attitude toward a child from the side of his parents that is built on two lines: reward and punishment, mercy and severity.
[315994]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/17/23

Related Material:
Who Should Be Educated First?
Education Of Parents – Guaranteed Benefit For Children
A School For Young Parents

Bill Gates: “Take a Break when You Need To”

626Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said during a speech that he wished he had discovered the importance of work-life balance years ago. 

Speaking at a Northern Arizona University (NAU) commencement ceremony Saturday, Gates told the graduating class that during his early days at Microsoft, he didn’t believe in taking vacation days or having weekends off, noting that he used to keep track of employees who would leave early or stay late. 

“But as I got older — and especially once I became a father — I realized there is more to life than work,” Gates said during his commencement speech. “Don’t wait as long as I did to learn this lesson. Take time to nurture your relationships, to celebrate your successes, and to recover from your losses.”

“Take a break when you need to,” Gates added. “Take it easy on the people around you when they need it, too.”

Gates also encouraged the graduating class to live in the moment and “have some fun,” adding in his speech that what they are currently doing right now won’t impact their future  (The Hill).

Question: What is this message to students—take a break when you need to? How do you feel about this?

Answer: It means spending more time on creativity. Because if you bury yourself in work, you will not be able to give your brain, yourself, and your thoughts a creative direction.

A creative person should live by absorbing from the air, from the environment, from something that is not simple mechanical work with effort. He should be free, as creative intellectuals have always lived in general.

Comment: That is, the rest itself, even when you walk through the forest and it is a rest on the one hand, on the other hand, it is work.

My Response: Creativity. Of course.

Question: Do you completely agree with him?

Answer: He speaks correctly. A creative person should be free. Otherwise, he will not invent anything and will not give movement, an impetus to progress.

Question: What if we translate this to education, to children? A school that is based on homework, on coming to the blackboard and giving answers: “Tell me what you did at home.” And so on, and so on. If that is all, do you think, it does not prepare creativity?

Answer: It trains technicians who can work, calculate, and do something, but they will not have creative spurts.

Question: So, you are for the formula of creativity. Is it possible to bring everyone to this formula?

Answer: I think that it is possible. Especially since from our time and onward, the period of humanity’s development in the direction of creativity begins. We will see less and less production and more and more of those who work at a level above production.

Question: Are you saying that creativity is inherent to almost every person?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Why? How did they place this point of creativity into us from above?

Answer: So that we express more what is characteristic of a person, not a machine, not a beast, and so on.

Question: So, if we see that a person has resigned himself to mechanical work, does it mean that he has not found this point in himself?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Does it exist in him?

Answer: It is there. Maybe he is looking for it, but it has not been revealed yet. Therefore, he has to do or chooses to do mechanical work. Maybe it helps him, it organizes his thoughts somehow.

Question: Do you think every person should look for this point in themselves?

Answer: I think that if a person has the right inner attitude, he will come to this.
[315046]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/8/23

Related Material:
New Trend: “We Are Against Work”
There Is No Point In Working
What Determines The Motivation To Live And Work?

Mother Tongue

543.02Question: Most people know some other language in addition to their native one. Why can a person never master a foreign language at the same level as his native language even if he is fluent at it?

Answer: It is because the original information is written within us in the native language like for example in a computer: every program is written in English and after that other languages are added to it. Exactly in the same way the original programs are written within us. This is why it is called “mother tongue.” A person receives it from his mother. You cannot escape it!

Comment: Even when people have lived in another country for a long time and have learned let’s say English or French, it is still easier for them to express themselves in their native language.

Answer: Of course, this is the way the person has recorded his perception of the world: this is called red, this is yellow, this is so and so, and so forth. This information is initially written within him. However, the second and third layers, other languages come to him as additional ones, and they are based on the first language called mother tongue.
[315654]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mother Tongue” 9/21/11

Related Material:
Timeless Language
In Which Language Should One Study Kabbalah
Language Without Words

What Pear Would You Give?

112Question: A little boy plucked two pears from a tree and brought them home. Mom asked, “May I try one pear?” The boy thought about it, then took a bite from both. Mom thought that her son was greedy and she needed to have a conversation with him about greed. But the boy suddenly handed her a pear and said: “Both are delicious, but this pear is much sweeter.”

How can one learn to give the better thing to the other?

Answer: In general, this is the correct state in children. Because for them to take a bite, try, and then give it to the other is natural. Just like small children pull a pacifier out of their mouth and hold it out to you as a sign that they love you.

Question: Yes, exactly so! But here the emphasis is precisely on the fact that he gave his mother the better pear. The sweeter one. Is that what you mean?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Why do we, once we grow up, give the others the less sweet pear?

Answer: We are getting smarter. This is a child; he does not have much egoism yet, and therefore he does it wholeheartedly.

Question: What is our cleverness and our growing up? I mean, our growing up is that we do not give the best to others, but we keep the best for ourselves. Is this growing up?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Why does this happen?

Answer: Because our egoism always turns everything to the opposite.

Question: Are we aware of this?

Answer: We are aware of this. I remember it even on myself, that about two years ago I also did this; I gave the best to the other. But then I had to mess it up. They gave me two postcards, and they said to give one of them to my cousin. I did not know which one to give, because they were both beautiful, so bright, colorful, and nice. I had to do something with it, so I bent the corner of one postcard, rubbed it a little and then gave it away. I was already smarter.

Question: But did you realize that it was wrong of you to damage it specifically to give it away without a worry?

Answer: So that I know which one to give, otherwise I could not choose between the two.

Question: And the further the scarier?

Answer: Of course!

Question: When do we receive this feeling: “What am I doing?! How is that possible?!”

Answer: We need to learn a lot through examples. This is not easy.

Question: But does it always come to a person or may it never come?

Answer: It depends on the person.

Comment: That is, it may come, and then he is horrified that he wants to give the worst to the other all the time.

My Response: Yes. You see, I still remember this example.

Question: Apparently it does go into the heart.

When a person understands this, feels that he is like this, and he does not want to live like this, in such a nature, what should his actions be? Let’s say, I felt completely how I am giving the worst to the other

Answer: If this is already changing in a person and he begins to recognize this, then this is already the road to correction, to self-examination, and so on. This is already a cool thing.

Question: So can I internally tell myself that I am already going down some wrong path?

Answer: Probably, yes. Somewhere you are already getting close to self-examination.

Question: I remember you told me how you were sitting with your teacher, sorting coffee beans. This sorting them bean by bean was really annoying. Suddenly your teacher said to you: “Imagine that you are sorting these beans for your teacher, and the teacher will drink coffee made from these beans.” And let’s say, these others are for the friends.

Tell me, did that thought give you strength at that moment? You, in principle, perceived your teacher practically as a father. Does an exercise in thought give strength to a person?

Answer: Frankly speaking, at that moment, I do not think I understood it yet. But in general, of course, this is a great example.

Question: Did your teacher RABASH live like this himself?

Answer: He lived like this. I remember when he told me this, I realized how much I was not on topic.

Question: When a person finally understands that he is on topic, does it mean that he has reached some kind of straight line, has reached the path?

Answer: Yes, it is good for a person to reach this state.
[315571]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/8/23

Related Material:
I’d Rather Have My Cow Die than My Neighbor Have Two
Nobility Is Inherent in Us
Save Yourself Or The Child?