Question: In an ancient Chinese parable, a married woman who could not bear the reproach of her mother-in-law decided to get rid of her. She went to an herb merchant who was an acquaintance of her father. She explained everything to him and told him: “I want you to sell me poison.”

The herbalist said: “Okay, I will help you. But first of all, you cannot poison your mother-in-law right away because people will guess what happened. Therefore, I will give you herbs that will gradually kill her.

Second, to avoid any suspicion, you must tame your anger, learn to respect her, love her, listen to her, and be patient. Then no one will suspect you when she dies.”

The girl agreed, took the herbs, and began to add them to her mother-in-law’s food. In addition, she learned to control herself, listen to her mother-in-law, and respect her. And so, six months later they were already as close as mother and daughter. And then the girl ran to the herbalist and begged: “For God’s sake, save my mother-in-law from the poison that I gave her! I love her!” The herbalist replied: “Don’t worry, I just gave you spices. The poison was only in your head, and you got rid of it yourself.”

I want to ask you: we kill each other with words all the time. And whoever is smarter kills gradually, not immediately. In order not to become the enemy, he acts through others, starts rumors about others, and so on. It is our nature to put another down.

Why it does not hurt me that I am quietly humiliating another, getting him out of my way, killing?

Answer: I believe that the other does not let me live, that he is my enemy who sees me standing in his way, and must destroy me.

Question: Why were we given this nature—to live like this?

Answer: This is all for the same reason—so that we correct our egoism. So that we can be convinced that “love your neighbor as yourself” is the main law of the world.

Comment: In that case, it should make me feel bad at some point that I am like this.

My Response: Yes, of course.

Question: Now I see all these wars, all these murders directly, not directly, and so on. And at what point comes the feeling of: “What am I doing? It is all in me. How can I get out of this?”

Answer: At the moment of enlightenment.

Question: When does this happen? Can it be accelerated or something be done? I understand that this is the main moment in life, really. That everything is in me, that everything is because of me, that I am the killer. Does it come to a person at all?

Answer: When a person becomes convinced that he is full of evil, then his true nature is revealed in him, and he can no longer tolerate it and turns to the Creator.

Question: Does this happen unexpectedly for a person? Or does he kind of want that already?

Answer: No, this enlightenment usually comes with such a serious push.

Question: So there is something before that, is there some kind of push, after all?

Answer: Yes.

Question: When this is revealed to a person, does prayer to the Creator become natural? That is, the understanding that everything depends on Him alone?

Answer: Yes, then a person turns to the Creator, judges himself, and by correcting himself, corrects the world around him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that today, in a world where nuclear bombs exist, there is no other way to survive than to just start considering each other. We cannot openly use others anymore. Is this understanding not enough for us?

Answer: No, this requires consent and reshaping of each person and everyone together so that we all begin to move from an absolutely egoistic system of our world, our society, to an absolutely altruistic system.

In order for a person to begin to fight not with his own kind, but with his own ego, a great transformation must take place in him.

Question: Is it not enough for us to understand that our ego leads us nowhere?

Answer: No, that will not do anything. A person needs to realize the evil of his nature so much that he stops using it. Egoism must be revealed in him to such an extent that he sees that taking something from another is like death, thinking badly about another is like killing yourself.

Comment: But as I understand, nature itself or the upper mind cannot give us such a system; otherwise, we will not have freedom of choice and we will just be like robots.

My Response: Of course. Therefore, it will always be concealed.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

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After recognizing their egoistic nature, people come to the second stage: “That which you hate, do not do unto your friend.” This is already a qualitative change in a person when one understands that by harming another, one harms oneself.

Comment: We see that people in extreme situations, for example in war, can even give their lives for another let alone not do harm.

My Response: Yes, but these are still the first stages of getting out of egoism.

Question: Is it not enough to recognize the evil of our nature? Do we also need to understand that there must be some higher goal and higher values? What could they be? After all, there should always be two points.

Answer: The highest value lies in the absolute exit from egoism when everything a person does, he does for the sake of others and not for himself. This is one degree.

The second degree is his desire to become like the Creator. The Creator is an absolutely anti-egoistic system to which a person must rise, adhere, merge into it, and thus achieve his purpose: adhesion with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

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In order for an individual to want to get rid of his egoistic nature, he must, on the one hand, understand what evil it brings to him, that it is like a disease that does not allow him to live a high-quality life. On the other hand, he must have the desire to become like the upper force that gives him eternal life.

In other words, he needs to somehow see the benefit of fighting his egoism and understand what he loses by not being within the Creator’s system. Otherwise, the mere recognition of evil does not achieve anything.

After he stops himself based on the principle “do no harm to others,” the next stage is that he must open up and start emanating good, become its source. At this point, there is already some closeness to the Creator, with His quality, and to others, because the quality of the Creator is attained through closeness to others.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

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Question: The spiritual development of the State of Israel and the connection of the country of Israel with the whole world can be divided into five stages.

One of them is the awareness of the evil of our selfish nature. Do you think this is the first stage for further development?

Answer: Yes selfishness is our primordial nature, and we we cannot get out of it by ourselves. The only thing we can realize is its depravity, its doom for us, but nothing more.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that our natural selfishness is the essence of every human being and it gives us a sense of self. As each develops their abilities, they are ready to enslave others, take over the whole world, and control it. Why did the Creator create mankind like this?

Answer: The Creator specially created humans this way so that in the end we would reveal our egoistic essence, want to change it, and start developing from selfishness to altruism consciously.

Therefore, our egoistic essence is the foundation from which we begin to grow. Thanks to it, we see who we are and do everything only for ourselves in our narrow animal egoism. From this point, we begin to rise.

There are several means by which we can rise a little above selfishness, explore it, and then change it.
We have been given the worst foundation, the worst condition on purpose, and we must rise to the opposite.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that a primitive person uses his egoistic nature without being ashamed of anything. A more developed person already feels some kind of shame and tries to use others in a veiled way.

But he gradually begins to realize that and is ashamed of his nature. He is looking for where he can somehow correct it until sparks of altruism appear in him.

Do you think that in our country, in Israel, we are already at a stage when people recognize the evil of their nature and understand that it separates us?

Answer: No way! This recognition can be reached only through the study of Kabbalistic sources and with their help a person can expose himself to the influence of the upper light located in them, i.e., under the influence of a special quality—the quality of bestowal, love, and connection with all humanity.

If a person works in order to attain these changes within him, then they occur in him. Then he begins to see that he cannot bear his present nature and is ready to rush into the future.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

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Question: Can we say that at some point in history humanity took the wrong path?

Answer: Of course! Since the time of Aristotle and Plato.

At one point they shouted: “Under no circumstances give science away to the ignorant! They will misuse it, they will sell it to the rich, they will put it at the service of progress!

But we need spiritual progress, not technological progress! We cannot open universities to everyone!

Science should be pursued only by people who with its help want to understand the meaning of life, the lofty matters that lie beyond the boundaries of our world!”

Science should develop only in the form in which it raises a person above our world! Anyone who might use it for evil purposes has no right to engage in it!

Even the invention of, say, a special meat grinder is also evil. You do not need it, and you can live without it! After all, in the end, it is by adapting science to our world that you begin its development.

There is no other way, either external development or internal. The world followed the external path of development. Historically, this happened 3,000 years ago.

Question: But was there another option for development? Or did we still have to go through this stage?

Answer: It is hard to say because in order to understand the answer to this question, you need to be in two worlds, in the duality that we are talking about.

Everything comes from the Creator, and at the same time depends on our freewill, on our choice.

We are not able to compare these two free functions; our mind is not adapted to this. To understand this, you need to be in both worlds: the spiritual one and ours at the same time. Then you will not have contradictions; you can perceive absolutely opposite facts and information as complementary and not mutually exclusive.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-End Path of Human Development” 1/24/12

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Question: A husband and wife ran a hotel for ordinary people. One day, a wealthy merchant came there. The wife saw his rich belongings and told her husband: “I have a powder called “forget everything.” I will add it to his rice, and he will forget some of his beautiful possessions.” So she did.

The guest had dinner, praised the hostess, and set off at dawn. The husband and wife rushed to his room to search for valuable things that had been forgotten. Suddenly, the husband shouted: “He forgot, he forgot!” “Forgot what?” his wife exclaimed joyfully. “He forgot to pay for the night.”

The question is this. We always want to let down one’s trust, which is our condition—a smile, good actions, deeds, and so on. A person can sit with an aging father or relative knowing his property will become his. Women marry millionaires, and so on. All soap operas are built on this. A person is not punished for that; this is how he receives. It is our world. In the parable, they are punished—the merchant forgot to pay.

Please tell me whether a person is still punished for this because he is trying to put another to sleep and take something from him.

Answer: Naturally, he is punished.

Question: Even though he maybe does not feel it?

Answer: Nature does not care that he does not feel it. In nature, all this is perfectly balanced.

Question: But all of humanity is this way. We smile the same way to get some position and befriend people to get something out of it. Is this human nature?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And we are still punished for it. By what? By having this world?

Answer: Yes. It is our punishment. This world is a punishment.

Question: So, is everything that happens, including wars and all this suffering, caused by our attitude?

Answer: Yes. We do not wish happiness and kindness to anyone, or anything of this sort.

Question: Simply to wish. But it is not our fault, is it?

Answer: Go to the one who created you and tell Him: “Look how You created me! What can I do? I only scatter seeds of hatred around me. And it was You who made me this way.”

Question: And He expects us to go to Him with that?

Answer: He is waiting for us to reveal it and say it to Him, and then He will fix it.

Question: How do you feel about the proverb, “Don’t dig a hole for someone else; you’ll end up in it yourself”?

Answer: I do not particularly believe in this proverb.

Comment: Although you just said that we are being punished.

My Response: Yes, but it is all relative. How many holes have we dug for others and then not noticed that they are coming to us? If they came, it would be good. We would learn quickly.

Question: How does this match? You first said that we are being punished in some way. So, are we still being punished?

Answer: Yes, but we do not know what for, why, or how. It is a problem.

Question: If we did something wrong and got it right away, we would understand it was terrible. So we do not get it?

Answer: No.

Question: But it is good like this: what if I did something terrible and got it right away? Is it good or bad?

Answer: No, this is bad. It would not educate us. We would be like soldiers.

Comment: But a person would realize: I do something terrible and get punished.

My Response: He would do this because he realizes his actions were wrong.

Question: But in reality, how should it be?

Answer: Not to want to do evil in the first place.

Question: Not to want to hate? Should this be our main request?

Answer: Yes.

Question: I must feel that I want to do evil and hate?

Answer: Yes! Necessarily! I feel bad that I discovered this and asked the Creator to change this property in me.

Question: Will we ever get there?

Answer: Necessarily!

Question: So, is this the ending one way or another?

Answer: Yes.

Replica: If I can now somehow pull myself together and feel that I…

Answer: You cannot.

Question: When that hour comes, what can I do? You say that they are taking us there.

Answer: This is called the “last generation.” We are at the beginning, still only at the beginning.

Question: What is the last generation?

Answer: It is when humanity reveals its evil nature, opposite to the Creator, and passionately desires change.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24

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Question: How can a person discover that he desires the force of bestowal if he was born with the desire to receive, and sees only that around him?

Where is an example of a permanent desire to bestow so that humanity could notice and appreciate it?

Answer: Of course we see that the whole world is in egoism, in the desire to receive rather than to bestow. But alongside this, we also see how egoism is constantly progressing in the world, and with it, so do pain, sorrow, and death.

In other words, egoistic desires manifest themselves as a source of all sorts of problems. Therefore people may not see a way out of them, but they understand that egoism alone is their enemy. Gradually, humanity is coming to realize that there is nothing to replace egoism, and therefore it sees no way out.

However, at the very least, it understands that our nature itself leads us to such unpleasant states.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”

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Question: What does it mean that the power of faith above reason cancels out all the forces that exist in the world?

Answer: Faith above reason is a special force that raises a person above his reason. It can only be increased with the help of actions above reason.

If a person is in such faith, then it indeed cancels out all forces that exist in the world that could influence him and turn differently.

By rising with the help of this force, we reach the level of Bina.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Rabash “He who Hardens His Heart”

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