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.
[329373]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

Related Material:
Rising Above Earthly Nature
The End of Egoistic Development
Insidious Human Nature

Filed under: Egoism, Israel, Israel Today, Nations of the World - No Comments →

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.
[329412]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

Related Material:
Recognize the Root of Evil within Me
The Truth of the Recognition of Evil
What Is Evil?

Filed under: Egoism, Israel, Nations of the World, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

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.
[329233]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

Related Material:
The Basic Principle Of Spiritual Development
What Is Needed For Our Spiritual Development?
The Choice Is In Favor Of Spiritual Development

Filed under: Egoism, Israel, Israel Today, Nations of the World - No Comments →

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.
[329273]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24

Related Material:
The Enemy Is Among Us!
We Are Strong When We Are Together And We Are Weak When We Are Separate
The Israeli Nation In The Modern World

Filed under: Egoism, Israel, Israel Today, Nations of the World - No Comments →

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.
[328806]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-End Path of Human Development” 1/24/12

Related Material:
A New Stage in Human Development
The Next Phase Of Human Development
Does the Development of Humanity Yield Happiness?

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Free Will, Globalization, Kabbalah Study, Science - No Comments →

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.
[327301]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24

Related Material:
The Last Generation of the Renaissance
The Last Generation—Perception of Reality
A Sign of the Last Generation

Filed under: Egoism, News - No Comments →

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.
[327906]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”

Related Material:
What Is Recognition Of Evil?
Engaging In One Thing Only
Study: Elixir of Life or Potion of Death

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Globalization, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

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.
[327926]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Rabash “He who Hardens His Heart”

Related Material:
What Is Faith Above Reason?
The Force of Faith Above Reason
Up The 125 Steps Of Faith

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Globalization, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: A mouse found a treasure and widened the entrance to its burrow to fit the treasure through, with it, came a hungry cat.

The story is about a mouse. Does it follow that we should be content with cheese and a burrow and not seek to find treasures? Should we draw such a conclusion from this?

Answer: The conclusion is simple. What you have is enough, you do not need more.

Comment: But it even warns you of the danger that widening the entrance for the treasure will result in a hungry cat coming in.

My Response: Yes.

Question: So it is even dangerous for us to accumulate, to want more?

Answer: Hoarding is definitely harmful.

Comment: But wanting more, more, and more than enough; I was fine with cheese, but I suddenly found a treasure.

Answer: If you have enough for today, you will have more for tomorrow, don’t worry.

Question: Do you state this as a rule? If I have a piece of cheese today, will I have it tomorrow too?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And you should not seek anything above it?

Answer: Nothing.

Question: Is it possible to appease humanity this way? It is always in search of better “cheese.”

Answer: I have nothing to say here, that is the nature of man. But in general, you should not.

Question: Can we find the treasure, but not let the hungry cat in?

Answer: What are we going to do with it?

Comment: I don’t know: put it in the bank to generate some income.

Answer: No, you will have to deal with preserving it and protecting it so it does not diminish, and so on.

Question: So a lot of money requires care and maintenance?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Do our lives pass in pursuit of this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: This is a rather Kabbalistic parable about growing desires that require fulfillment. It is human nature. How does a person limit these desires? They keep growing.

Answer: You need to convince yourself this will never make you richer, you will never become more confident or at peace. On the contrary, your life will turn into an endless pursuit of everything.

Question: Should I feel some danger in this?

Answer: Yes, we must try to somehow distance ourselves to protect ourselves from this.

Question: And you should convince yourself that what you have is enough?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is the upper law the same if we are speaking of spirituality?

Answer: Calmness, the main thing is to calm down concerning all material acquisitions.

Question: Then in this calm I don’t want anything, or do I still want something?

Answer: No, I only want what I have for today, what I need. That is all.

Question: And do you think that if I come to this thought I will have enough for tomorrow?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can we calm everything down, all revolutions, wars, and so on?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can a person achieve this, or is it just a fantasy to work with our nature like this?

Answer: A person can achieve this.

Comment: So the correct conclusion is to bring into the house only what fits in the burrow. Not to widen it.

My Response: Yes.
[325761]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/15/24

Related Material:
A Reasonable Balance
Run Away from Big Money
How To Deal With Financial Losses

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Globalization, News - No Comments →

When you get older, you will understand that you can somehow live in the world only under one indispensable condition: you must understand that selfishness is a natural property of man.

When you come to terms with the idea that everyone lives only for themselves, you will be much more lenient towards your neighbors. They will stop disappointing your hopes, and you will begin to treat them more mercifully. People strive for only one thing in life – pleasure. (Somerset Maugham,Of Human Bondage).

Comment: We need to come to terms with the idea that everyone is an egoist, that everyone lives like this, and from this everything will calm down.

My Response: Of course, if everyone accepts this condition.

Comment: If we understand that everyone lives in their egoism—and I do, too—everything will calm down.

Answer: Yes, sure.

Question: “What is yours is yours, what is mine is mine.” This is still the law, right?

Answer: This is the first law on the path to real peace, that I accept all the weaknesses of others. It is called “what is yours is yours, and what is mine is mine,” and we do not interfere with each other. We respect each other.

It is not yet talking about convergence, merging, or “love your neighbor as yourself,” but about understanding our general law of nature.

Question: So, do you think this law is fair? Is this the law of our world?

Answer: At some stage, yes.

Comment: But Sodom was built precisely on this principle.

My Response: Why do you think that Sodom is evil? If today we were offered Sodom instead of our state, then having understood this, we would gladly accept it. We would be content. There would be no war, and there would be no atrocities. We would simply peacefully coexist.

Question: Why did the Creator not like this Sodom and overturn it?

Answer: This is not the end of creation. It is not the purpose of creation. The purpose of creation is for everyone to live in caring for each other.

Comment: That is clear. And in Sodom, those caring for each other were punished. But in any case, it would be suitable for the first step.

My Response: I am not saying we need to take these steps exactly. The Torah shows us that such a society will still be destroyed.

Question: That is, does such a society have no future?

Answer: That is correct. But as an intermediate, it exists. Here we are given an example.

Question: We have not even gotten to that first half step yet.

Answer: We are still a long way from Sodom.

Question: Before “What is mine is mine, what is yours is yours”?

Answer: Yes. You see what happens between neighbors, states, countries, and everywhere in general.

Comment: “What is yours is mine” is the main principle today.

My Response: We are at the lowest stage of egoistic development.

Comment: It always seems that this has already passed, that we are already somewhere…

My Response: No way!! Look what is being done! How people treat each other, what thoughts they have!

Question: If let us say we come to this step: “What is mine is mine, what is yours is yours,” is the next step “I do not harm another”?

Answer: Yes, by no means do I harm anyone else.

Comment: Do not do to others what you do not want to do to yourself.

My Response: Yes, but this is also not good.

Question: This is like the second step. And the third?

Answer: The third step is to imagine myself in the place of another and do good to him as I imagine what they would do to me. This is called “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Question: That is, we have three steps: first Sodom, as you say, “What is mine is mine, what is yours is yours”; second, “Do not do to others what you do not want to do to yourself; third, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And what do we come to then if we take these three steps?

Answer: To ensure we all have the same desire: to do only good things for each other.
[324055]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/4/23

Related Material:
Principle Of Sodom—Not To Help Others In Anything
Sodom—A Ban On Communication Between People
New Life 185 – Sodom And Gomorrah

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Globalization, News - No Comments →