Entries in the 'Egoism' Category

Education Or Nazism?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: With the dictators who have come to power like Hitler, surely there is a sense that they proceed as educators to save the society.

Answer: Hitler was not a dictator. He rose to power in a democratic election. The people chose him. Therefore, it is impossible to say that he conquered the government through power as was done, let’s say, in Russia or some other countries. Also, Germany was not a nation that could be conquered with the help of military force. It was done through the power of persuasion.

Question: Are you saying that sages who need to rise to power now also must persuade the people?

Answer: They don’t need to persuade, but rather to educate them, to tell a person about the meaning of his life.

Persuasion is only possible when you act on a beastly level. Hitler achieved specifically this: He put pressure on the beastly instincts of the German people. The same thing can be done with any other group of people since all of them are internally convinced that “we are unique,” and this inclination toward uniqueness can be raised to the level of fascism, Nazism, that is, people can be gathered with this and directed against others.

In the integral society, a new paradigm that we advance toward is completely different: General humanity, full integrality, similarity to nature as to a single system, a balance between us and nature when each one is in his place so as to raise humanity, to help everyone to “exit themselves.” This exiting oneself will be felt by each like an acquisition of an absolutely new method of existence in which a person begins to feel life precisely outside of himself and not within himself.

Specifically this is what the sage, the leader of the new world, disseminates and advertises, and so this can be absolutely differentiated from what all leaders and dictators have done before him.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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A Smile Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do I pass the Light to a friend when I raise his spirit or do I simply make him feel good?

Answer: It depends on your intention. If you do it in order to reach adhesion with the Creator, which means with the attribute of bestowal, and by that bestow upon the friend the greatness of the goal so that he can advance, then you also advance with the attribute of bestowal. If you help someone advance, it’s a sign that the Light passes through you to him.

You don’t have to worry that the friend should bestow upon you in return any more since you have already connected to the goal of attaining the Creator, bestowal, and have helped the friend and this is already bestowal. When you do that, then the Light that Reforms passes through you from the Creator to whom you were connected before. Thus you already perform an act of bestowal, and that is all you have to do. You only have to perform several such actions in order to feel the result: to feel that you have actually acquired the force of bestowal.

It turns out that I can draw the Light for everyone at any given moment, as much as I want to, but I can’t draw it for myself! You cannot draw the Light for yourself, since it comes only as a result of your actions of bestowal. If you don’t perform actions of bestowal with regard to the teacher, the group, and humanity, you cannot draw the Light. Is it possible to draw the Light egoistically?

If you study together and want to reach mutual bestowal, then you will draw the Light, but if you only think about yourself, you will not draw the Light. It will be studying just in order to acquire wisdom and not the study of the Torah, which means drawing the Light that Reforms.

So whenever you smile at a friend you perform an act of bestowal. No one is stopping you from constantly bestowing and you are given a chance to do so every minute! But it is on condition that you understand that you are in prison, locked up in your ego, and you can only connect with the Creator if you become “Israel,” which means that you operate upon others and thus pass on to them the force of correction. Israel are those who push all of creation to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/04/13, Writings of Rabash

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It Is Time To Look Truth In The Eyes

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have received a shattered desire to receive for ourselves so that we will be able to attain the attribute of bestowal. In addition, everyone was given a spark of yearning for the Creator. It’s about people in whom this spark was ignited, while others have no choice and are totally managed by their nature. Only people who have the spark in addition to the shattered desire to receive, yearn to attain the spiritual goal having no choice.

If during the lesson they hear that only by our connection can we receive the powers to fulfill this spark, they advance by the path of the Light, by the path of “I shall hasten it.”  But if they cannot hear, if they cannot be incorporated in the environment that can wake them up and make them more sensitive, they will advance by the path of sufferings, by the path of “in its time.” Then years later, they will feel that this path doesn’t lead to any results since everyone’s minor powers don’t allow them to exit the corporeal level.

It may take a long time to reach this recognition, even 20 to 30 years. Only later is a person forced to do some soul searching and to look truth in the eyes and accept the condition of connecting with others in order to receive their awakening, having no other choice. Then his point in the heart has enough power to fulfill itself.

Only then does he begin to hear and to work on himself, but this doesn’t happen all at once either, but gradually. Still, he advances and has a sense of direction. He understands that he has to accept and to surrender to the conditions Kabbalists speak about and that are the foundations of the Torah: the connection between people and love of others, and not try to escape from it.

People try to escape and to hide from these conditions in different religions and faiths. Every religion claims that people must keep the rituals, the external personal or public actions, such as holidays and customs that characterize it. It’s all meant to hide the truth and not deal with the correction of a person’s ego that brings him to “in order to bestow.”

But the path of sufferings will eventually bring humanity to a dead end and will force people to see that there is no choice and that they have to listen to what the Torah says. Then people will ask how to do that, so we have to prepare the active method of correction for them and to try to shorten their path of sufferings.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13

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Against The Egoistic Urge

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that all of humanity is one closed system that cannot be awakened. In his time a man from the Vernadsky Academy and his followers wrote about this. Today this has become clear to all, but you still get the sense that it’s possible to handle the system as it is, to correct its orientation.

Answer: They are trying to do this with the European Union, but are they succeeding? And the Americans are also trying to act, from a supposition that the world is mutually linked. But both in America and in Europe they don’t understand this system of mutual linkage. The Americans have wasted billions of dollars on Iraq, and what has this brought? Nothing, they have only destroyed the nation, destroyed connections, and no more than this. And now America needs to leave quietly.

What happened in Europe? Haven’t they transformed the Common Market into a “collective market?” They decided one-sidedly to “link” everyone with everyone. Certainly this only led to a crisis discovered in an even greater form. It’s not known if they can simply disconnect previous affiliations.

Question: Is it possible to manage this system somehow?

Answer: It’s impossible if people don’t change. The person needs to change. He needs to think differently, to feel the world as integral and himself as a part of the integral world. This doesn’t exist in people. We are still egoists and nobody thinks that the whole world depends on him or that he depends on the whole world. This doesn’t appear in us.

The idea is that general rules operate here, absolutely different laws and trends. We have risen to such a level of human development where integral laws operate. These are laws of an analog system where everyone depends on everyone. The beginning, end, middle, everything is mutually linked and at every moment everything is found in balance, like a self-regulating system that supports and stabilizes itself.

All of nature is like this and we need to become like it to be within it: To begin to feel all of nature, the communication, the harmony, the integrality, and ourselves as an inseparable part of it. But for the sake of this, we need to change ourselves completely and not enter it with our egoistic “boots.” We need to bring ourselves constantly to the level of a life of social participation, equality, to a level of mutuality. This is not found in us at all; and this is work that we need to do against our egoistic inclinations.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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Call The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I cannot manage to locate the starting point that doesn’t serve my ego that will enable me to rise above it. Everything that is in me, even this question, is a result of my pride, so what can I do?

Answer: Cry.

Question: But I can’t cry.

Answer: So, you should cry out. Of course, you have no powers and you even feel that you are a bit corrupt, so, you are not really alarmed by it since it doesn’t look so bad. It means that you still are lacking many discernments by which you can be drawn to the goal, by which you are repulsed by the current state and exit it.

So, cry and cry out and ask to do everything that is in your power. If you cannot even do that, then you still have the environment to which you can turn to. Turn to the friends.

If you have no power to do even that, then at least be somewhat incorporated in them. A person must take certain actions and he is given a chance to do so.

Question: The envy I feel toward the friends really works but it doesn’t bring me to the desired point yet. Therefore, no matter how hard I cry out, my cries will only be egoistic.

Answer: It doesn’t matter; they still help. The Surrounding Light responds to egoistic cries. Therefore, it is the Surrounding Light and not the Direct Light and not the Inner Light, and so you operate it even by egoistic cries. So, cry out. Call out and it will awaken in response to that.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We Need To Think About The Future!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The years 2008 through 2009 showed the world stumbling into a crisis, the like of which had not been seen until now, and it was clear that those practices and methods that had worked in the past don’t work now. Independent observers, economists, speak about this more and more. We are entering a new kind of era. Where are we going and why doesn’t what worked before, work now?

Answer: Ten years ago, there already were some people in the world who understood that a crisis had begun.

If we look at the past from a greater distance, from the second half of the last century, representatives of the Club of Rome began to speak about an end to the egoistic development of humanity. Their view was based on this: The earth had completed its task, all of its resources were no longer being renewed, and this could not continue. We need to think about our children and in addition, about their descendants.

After this, ecologists took the stage to protect the ecological condition of the earth and claiming that it is impossible to continue this kind of contamination. The oceans and the air are polluted, trees are cut down, etc. It follows that we are not just depleting the contents of the earth, but are polluting it with industrial wastes so that for hundreds and even thousands of years this will remain the primary condition. The earth cannot process it, and it will not go away.

For example, the problem of plastic is an immense problem that doesn’t seem to have any solution. It cannot be so easy to live like this in the present, for although we think that humanity is wise, it is necessary in spite of it all to consider the future!

Why do we behave like this? After all, ultimately nobody will profit from this. We see that this only adds “green paper” to particular bank accounts, but  generally, nobody gets anything.

Gradually, the crisis has passed into a parallel form. It began with the development of a crisis in the family. The number of divorces reached 50%, then there was a crisis in science. People stopped continuing with it, and most space programs have closed. The crisis between fathers and sons began to gain momentum. Humanity is on drugs, depressed, suicidal, and in complete chaos.

Ultimately, we came to a financial and economic crisis. We confuse these two crises, linking them together, but basically, this is not so important. What is important is that all of the crises are crises of mutual relationships between us. The most recent financial crisis particularly revealed the deterioration of the irrational and egoistic relationships between humans, for finance is that system through which we are linked.

If not for the present system of buying and selling, if we didn’t need to profit from each other, people would not be interconnected. Therefore, the financial crisis is the last in a long chain of crises about which we can do nothing except uncover all the defects and flaws of modern society.

Moreover, society had to reach them. Throughout all of the history of humanity, we acted according to our nature. An ego that constantly grew evolved from generation to generation, so humanity developed evolutionarily. This doesn’t exist in the plant world or in the animal world, only in humans.

Therefore, we are found in what is called progress all the time; it is only conditionally called progress. Now, we have finally reached awareness that we are found in a deep crisis, but what else can be done and what is its nature? Humanity has not yet decided definitively. We are standing at that point.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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Overthrowing The King In The Company Of Thieves

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe sparks are the most important part and our correction depends on them. The Direct Light is dressed in the Returning Light; there are a Light and a vessel that become one whole and complement one another. It’s because they totally depend on one another to the same extent.

The Returning Light that has lead to the revelation of the Direct Light disappears and becomes a thick flawed Light, and is therefore called a “spark.” It used to be the most important Returning Light that the Creator’s revelation depended upon, but now it’s like a king who has been overthrown, which is a terrible ugly state, as it’s in a critical humiliated condition.

It is the Direct Light that doesn’t have the power to be the Returning Light, the Light of love and mercy. Now it’s possible to use it for different purposes: If you want to cheat someone, you can pretend that you are interested in him and use him to your advantage. You use the Returning Light in order to bestow, but your bestowal is false, and therefore it brings about an even greater shattering, greater fraud, the greatest crimes, and all by the Returning Light that has lost its power of love that enables it to be like the Returning Light.

After the shattering, the Holiness helps the shell and begins to serve it. My desire to receive uses my understanding of bestowal in order to get the greatest egoistic advantage very cunningly. All human wisdom and advancement now support the egoistic desire.

As long as the Direct Light and the Returning Light were dressed in one another, they complemented one another, but when they are separated, the Returning Light becomes thick and remains shattered below. But if we turn it around correctly, it will be able to provide us with an impression from the Light that matches it in spirituality and that once used to cooperate with it. If we try to remain in the Returning Light, it begins to mold in us the vessels that match the Direct Light, new attributes, definitions, and understandings as to which Light it can match when it’s dressed in it.

Thus we work with the sparks, with the Reshimot (spiritual genes) from the Returning Light. We don’t simply yearn for some abstract form of bestowal, but rather recognize the sparks of bestowal, the Reshimot, begin to understand what Light should appear before us, and get to know it according to the attributes that are opposite from it. In the concealment we gradually begin to identify the Creator. The darkness itself reveals the daylight to us.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Letter Samech Is A Sanctuary

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe letter Samech is such a beautiful letter, an attribute that saves and raises a person from the kingdom of the shells (Klipot) and gives him power, support, and confidence, a home. It is a round letter, like the womb for an embryo that provides him with shelter but cannot develop him.

It only helps a person exit the shells and acquire the attribute of Samech, which means the ability to be free of the domination of the shell, the ego. But in order to develop more, he needs to return to the egoistic forces, to the shells, and to take as much as he can correct from there, and thus grow by the correction.

It turns out that instead of being beneficial the letter Samech becomes harmful, since it’s in a person’s way of developing. It’s like a mother who loves her child very much, until she simply strangles him in her arms, holding him without letting him be independent and grow.

In order to grow there must always be two opposite forces working mutually in order to reach the goal, by the middle line. It’s impossible to manage without the letter Samech, which surrounds a person, provides him with a safe shelter, and guards him. A person hides in this attribute and can be free of the domination of the shell, the ego, and break away from it.

But what happens after he breaks free? He has nothing in this state, he cannot do anything! He must descend into the shell again and when he is protected by the forces of bestowal, continue to develop himself.

Therefore it’s impossible to create the world by the letter Samech. No letter and no attribute have the powers that can bring the world to the desirable correction. For each attribute there is an opposite attribute. This is done on purpose so that we can develop.

My matter is a desire to receive. First I have to change my intention of “in order to receive” to a neutral intention and then to “in order to bestow” by which I begin to use my desire to receive “in order to bestow.” This means that first I use my desire negatively, “in order to receive,” and then I begin to use the same desire positively, “in order to bestow.” So there have to be two opposite forces that operate on me, one against the other, and by these two forces I reach the middle line.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, The Zohar

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The Kabbalists About The Nation Of Israel And The Nations Of The World, Part 6

All of Israel are responsible for each other.

“There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples.” (Notes in parentheses are mine) Haman (the main egoistic characteristic of the person, one of the manifestations of Pharaoh, Amalek, and so forth) said that in his view, we will succeed in destroying the Jews (destroying the connection between those who yearn for the Creator in a greater and more final form), because they are separated from one another; hence, our force (the egoistic power that drives us away from bestowal and love) against them will certainly prevail, as it causes separation (of those who yearn for the Creator) between man (of each one of them) and God. And the Creator will not help them anyway, since they (through distance from each other) are separated from Him. This is why Mordecai went (the characteristic of bestowal in a person) to correct that flaw (the characteristic of separation, the Haman in a person), as it is explained in the verse (in Megillat Esther): “the Jews gathered,” etc., “to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life.” This means that they had saved themselves by uniting (Connection with the Creator)
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #144There Is a Certain People

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Instead Of Dollar Bills

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we are talking about integral learning, we get the impression that there is someone who already understands this method; it’s as if he controls the ordinary person and helps him pass to the next level. Who is organizing all of this for us?

Answer: In our world there are enough people that are not united but who already understand what needs to be done with humanity. Already ninety years ago the academic Vernadsky began to speak about the necessity for the integral unification of society. In his time, this gigantic “brain” had an enormous revelation; he saw the coming form of human development from the start. After that many of his followers appeared both in Russia and in other places. Today this is being discovered everywhere.

Question: All governmental and religious activists know that changing the consciousness of most humans changes society itself and the cooperation between its members, and as a result of this, the principles of managing the government are changed. What will happen to governments? After all, integrality is going to change and format the system.

Answer: On one hand, integrality will format the system, but I don’t think that this will remove the people who are in power. Those found at the peak of the government, the leadership, the economy, these are people who know and possess ability. Perhaps they don’t understand the future system, but they understand the egoistic system. They can organize the process in the right way even if this changes the entire egoistic society. This is to say, these are not ordinary people. They can help the new organization and can participate in it.

A person doesn’t enjoy the dollars that are lying in a safe, rather he enjoys the fulfillment, the feeling of importance, his superiority, that he is higher, stronger, and more important than others. The dollar bill is not fulfilling in itself but rather the spiritual equivalence in the value of this paper which gives security for today and tomorrow. Therefore all of the presently perceived constituents aren’t going anywhere. The power of money is simply going to be eliminated gradually, and in its place will come an absolutely different kind of government, a government of mutual integral cooperation: The more you invest in unity and connection, the more fulfillments you get.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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