“One does not die with half one’s desire in one’s hand.” “He who has one hundred wants two hundred” (Baal HaSulam, “Wholeness in Life“).

Question: How can we understand this?

Answer: “He who has one hundred wants two hundred” means that we can never be fulfilled with what we have; we will always lack something. Even if we are lucky in filling our egoism with what we desire, our egoism will immediately give us a new task so that we get twice as much.

After having received twice as much, our egoism immediately puts the desire to get four times more before us. And so on. We are like a dog chasing its tail and trying to grab it all the time, but in vain.

Comment: Suppose I look at a rich person, and it seems to me that if I had at least 10% of what he has, I would be satisfied.

My Response: But the rich man is not happy. And you, after attaining what he has, would also be dissatisfied.

The essence of this is that our gains increase our egoistic desire. And so, one who wants a hundred and gets it, wants two hundred, and when he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred. And so on.

Comment: In principle, this is not so bad; there is something to strive for.

My Response: But at the same time you never have peace. Peace is the root of the Creator. On one hand, we want to be at peace, but our desire for pleasure does not provide it for us.

Comment: And it is still not bad. After all, when a person strives for something, he lives on future pleasures.

My Response: If this is within some kind of restrictive framework that gives him the opportunity to work, earn money, travel, have a good leisure time, and so on, then this is good because it fits into the general life of a man. But still, he is in constant anxiety.

After all, if he cannot always achieve what he wants, it causes him suffering.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/18/22

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Question: When spouses are just starting to live together, according to biological processes, hormones support their relationship for the first three years. It is believed that after three years, hormones stop working, and a cooling occurs between a man and a woman, nothing holds them further. Does it come from nature?

Answer: Probably. In past centuries, it may have been different, but nowadays they say that it is, especially on the part of a man.

Maybe from the woman’s side, I do not know. Usually a woman gets used to a man. I don’t think she wants to change everything so much. Today, it is also a little different for women, but still not in the same way as for men.

Question: It’s not a fact that someone wants to change something, it’s just a question that there is no longer a physical factor that holds them back. How can spouses overcome this and continue to live normally?

Answer: Now is a special time—the time of correcting selfishness. And if the spouses are not engaged in its correction, they will not be able to coexist together.

There will be more and more divorces until there are no families left at all. People will converge for a day or two, for a year or two, and disperse. Children will be born not clear from whom and where. The world will come to this because a person will not be able to cope with selfishness if he does not begin to correct it.

And for the sake of correction, you will live with one woman because you will feel that you are kindred spirits with her and it is with her that you can correct yourself. And then all physical problems or cooling will be invisible because in your physical union with her you will feel spiritual unity, and then there will be no problems.

The world is coming to this. And now we are living in a transitional period when there is no such marriage as before, but there is also no new state of marriage as it should be.

But a person will be like that. He will live only in order to improve spiritually, to rise, to feel a higher state, but in no case to remain in this world and this life. Otherwise, there is no point. Otherwise, people will commit suicide, use drugs, and terrible things will happen in the world.

Comment: In principle, such a connection should ideally be.

My Response: No, not at all ideally. A person will feel spiritual needs above the base, earthly ones because in his eyes it will not be worth spending his life on them. We will survive this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Preserve Love” 12/19/13

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The four types of exile that the Jewish people went through are identical to the basic formula of nature “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey.“ According to this formula of the gradual development of desire, the development of any phenomenon in nature takes place.

Moreover, the first exile was not felt as an exile at all, just as people at the dawn of the existence of mankind did not feel slavery in the slave-owning order. Then the desire was so small that if a person somehow satisfied it, this was already good. And people agreed with that.

Then the desire developed more and more, more freedom was needed, and more of our own incorporation in life, development, and communication, to the point that nature made us completely integrally interconnected with each other, but we have not yet come to this.

We are late regarding this formula, this condition of nature, to develop us to the necessary degree. Like a newborn baby—what is he, who is he? He does not communicate with anyone; he has no group or social motives. And then he gradually begins to feel that he needs society, family, and everything else.

All our progress is based on the fact that we gradually begin to feel ourselves in our natural egoism in exile from the upper state, from the next degree.

There are degrees of inanimate, vegetative, and animate matter and “man” in nature. Kabbalah talks about how we gradually move from the degree of animals to the degree of man. This is the next degree, but we have not reached it yet. All of humanity is at the animate level of development because it cares only about how to live, feed itself, and raise children.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14

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Comment: A well-known parable explains our nature in the most colorful way. Once upon a time there was a poor man, he had a rich neighbor. And the poor man prayed to the Creator: “I want to be as rich as he is.”

The Creator told him: “Please. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give it to you, and I’ll give him twice as much. You will be rich; he will be twice as rich. You’ll have a house;  he’ll have two houses.”

Then the poor man said: “Then pull out one of my eyes so that the neighbor will lose two.” And there is another ending: “Then beat me half to death.” There are a lot of different options here.

My Response: Yes. We see this today too in skirmishes, in wars.

Question: Is there still such a thing: “It’s not as scary that my cow died as it is that my neighbor’s one is alive.” Humanity has come up with a lot of such beautiful quotes.

Tell me, why can’t we focus on our happiness?

Answer: You can’t experience happiness in isolation from others. Only in comparison.

Comment: But I was given a house, I have a warm home, I have all the wealth. Why do I have to always notice that he has two houses and suffer from it?

My Response: For this, it is necessary to correct the nature of man. There is no other way!

Question: I will always suffer if he has better and more than I do?

Answer: Yes. This is egoism. I can’t look at what I have, I look at what the other has. And I may have several times more than him, but he also has. And as long as he exists and he has something, that’s what I want.

Look at children as they take toys from each other. You convince them: “You don’t need it, look, you have this,” no, it doesn’t matter. He hides his toy behind his back and demands what the other has. That’s what nature is.

Comment: But I, as a parent, instruct him and tell him the right things. I say, “Give the other…”

My Response: But he doesn’t want to listen.

Comment: He doesn’t want to listen, but I want him to do it.

My Response: It doesn’t matter, the Creator wants it.

Question: Through me?

Answer: Yes, sort off. You’re acting like a Creator here. And it doesn’t help.

Question: So I pick up this formula when I’m a parent, nevertheless?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Comment: I like this formula.

Answer: Because you are no longer a child.

Comment: Yes, but I tell him: “Share with him, give it to him.”

My Response: No, he will hold and cuddle it.

Comment: That’s for sure. But I lead to the fact that I myself continue to be the same as a child. I look: it’s better there, and I’m already nervous.

My Response: That is absolutely right.

Question: This is how we eat ourselves. We just devour everything inside ourselves. Is that what we’re dying from?

Answer: Apparently.

Question: And what should we do with all this?

Answer: Continue.

Question: Until when?

Answer: While we are living. 🙂

We still have to spread our idea, the Creator’s plan, and it will work.

Question: What is the Creator’s plan?

Answer: It is for us to rise above our egoistic nature. And it will work.

Question: And then how will I look at my neighbor if I rise above nature?

Answer: As a partner in the implementation of a common plan.

Question: That he, too, is moving toward rising above egoism?

Answer: Yes. We just need to educate everyone!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/13/22

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For the last two thousand years, the mixing of people has taken place on Earth. This does not mean that everyone lived together and produced offspring from each other. The fact is that the mixing was in views, feelings, rapprochement, and the transfer of all kinds of states. It ended in the time of the Ari, and starting from the 16^th century it was possible to begin the correction.

This happened under the leadership of the Baal Shem Tov. In fact, we are guided by his method because Abraham did not have a method of extracting a point in the heart from egoism. He worked on it and all his followers continued to develop it above egoism, but there was no such state to extract a point in the heart in the conditions that developed after the expulsion from the spiritual world.

People existed in attainment of the spiritual world before the destruction of the Second Temple, and then there was a complete expulsion from the spiritual world, and now we are starting to rise again.

Baal HaSulam created the practical method of ascent, formed it, and Rabash supplemented it with group work. We are now implementing this method in action, in practice, and giving it a finished practical form.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Evolution of Mankind” 11/16/13

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Comment: When a person with an inclination for spiritual growth encounters Kabbalah for the first time, one simply feels this is what one needs. Then he gradually accumulates analysis of what is right and what is wrong.

My Response: What kind of analysis can there be, correct or not, for one who evaluates everything from his stomach or pocket? How can we objectively define something if we are completely inside our desires? All inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human matter is the desire to enjoy. Moreover, it is also selfish and wishes to constantly consume over and above itself and keep growing this way.

Inanimate, vegetative and animal matter are not self–developing as, for example, computers that do not develop independently, they just work. But there are such artificial programs that keep developing, improving themselves, and growing.

That is how we are as people, while the rest of the world, including animals, is not like that, it doesn’t need anything. The monkey lived in a tree five or fifty thousand years ago, and so it does now, and everything is fine. But the human generation differs from the prior generation so drastically that you can’t even put them next to each other.

This is a desire that is aimed not only at an independent evolution, but at development and, as it were, self-development. In fact, this is an inner program, but the desire is still looking for the best ways to grow: “Which directions should I develop in?” Thus, how can we, bugs living inside a pie, even think of anything other than the pie?! We don’t know anything else.

Comment: Precisely based on sensations. This truth is felt from the beginning.

My Response: Yes, you feel what you sense in your qualities, in your mind, which was formed out of your qualities. But where are the other qualities? Where are the other forms of sensation that are not yours? Where, naturally, is another reasoning, not the one you have today? You don’t know that.

You exist inside this pie like an insect or worm inside an apple. This is your world, in accordance to which you have been organized and developed, and this is what you feel. Your mind is created precisely this way.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Evolution of Creation” 10/5/13

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Comment: Suppose a person lives like a worm inside an apple. And suddenly something awakened in him.

My Response: Where did something awaken from? Only proceeding from the fact that he lives within his environment, and what awakens in him arises only from connection with the environment.

How can you better use the environment is your self-development program: use your internal and external capabilities for more fulfillment and more comfort. This is how it is today and how it has been for billions of years of the universe’s development.

We do not imagine that we can exist in a different paradigm, and Kabbalah is slowly taking us out of the old one. It says: If you act in such and such a way, you will attract to yourself that force that is outside egoism, it will begin to change you inside your egoism, and emanate onto you.

There will be such radiation, such an influence from outside, that you will begin to develop inside this apple and move toward the exit from it, that is, toward the exit from your egoistic nature.

Gradually, to the extent that you will change, you will begin to feel that there is another paradigm, outside of this apple. But changes will take place only to the extent that you perform certain actions that cause this external force. Only it can do it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Evolution of Creation” 10/5/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should I try to boost my ego or keep it in check?“

We should know the final goal that we are destined to reach, and that the ego develops within us in order to reach that goal. However, it develops within us in order for us to make correct use of it, and then we can consciously progress toward the final goal that is in front of us. In other words, we need to understand and inquire about the purpose of creation.

What is the purpose of creation? It is for us to resemble nature on the level in which the ego is in control, because the ego actually brings us out of nature’s still, vegetative and animate levels. It makes something very strange out of us where, on one hand, we control nature, and on the other hand, we depend on nature.

Here we have a problem. What were we given such a big ego for? On one hand, the ego is supposed to elevate us above everyone. On the other hand, we see that the ego’s development leads us to the lowest and most ignoble states.

At such a juncture comes the wisdom of Kabbalah that explains how we should use the will to receive, the ego, in a very special way. On one hand, we feel a desire to suppress and control everyone, but on the other hand, we have to work on it the other way around where we suppress and control ourselves.

We then see this ego as a help toward the higher state to which we aspire. It is as if it wants to put us to death, to push us into struggles and to control everyone. We see that it is bad for us and so we take it and control ourselves. This control over our ego elevates us above our ego and ties us to nature. We then reach a state where we truly become superior masters, like nature itself, by wanting to control the ego. We even become greater than how nature created us, because nature created us in an ego, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination,” and we rise above the ego to a higher degree, that of nature itself—the force that created the ego.

Here, we are discussing the ego as the force of reception and separation, a force that makes us wish to enjoy ourselves at the expense of others; and we describe nature as the limitless force of love, bestowal and connection. So when we discuss rising above the ego to a higher degree, we are talking about how we become similar to the altruistic force of nature. Doing so leads us to host a combination of these two forces within us, the natural egoistic force and the higher force of nature, which we develop above it. We then reach a vision of the world from one end to the other—seeing and feeling everything, and that we control everything in the direction of benefiting all people and nature.

Based on the video “How to Navigate a Big Ego” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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There is no escape; after all the twists of history that may still happen, we will all the same come to the decision that we must rise above human egoistic nature and come to bestowal (Lishma). And only this goal stands before us—unlike the material ideal of getting rich and becoming the king of the world.

It is impossible to pursue two goals at once. The desire should always be big and unique. It is either a spiritual ideal, the desire to get closer and unite with the Creator, or a material ideal, to master all the riches of the world.

Although, there have been many Kabbalists in history who were rich people, this was not their goal; it was just the way life turned out. And at the same time, there were Kabbalists who lived in poverty.

All people who have existed throughout history are divided into these two groups: those striving for the spiritual and those striving for the material. And although we all come out of the material world, out of the desire to receive, life gradually teaches us that we need to move on to spiritual development.

Nowadays we are experiencing a genuine revolution although we may not feel it yet. People are beginning to turn from material desires for food, sex, family, wealth, honor, and knowledge toward a new direction, to spiritual values. Of course, this does not happen to everyone at once but little by little, step by step, it is capturing new layers of the world’s population. Gradually, this change is taking place in the entire common desire of mankind.

According to the program of creation, the whole world must achieve Lishma, the intention to bestow, like the Creator. As it is said: “Everyone will know Me from small to great, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption”

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Our world has come to its egoistic end today. We have revealed that all of it is a closed system. Once we thought that we could do everything: produce, achieve, expand, and conquer. Suddenly, it turns out that we are alone in the universe, we have nowhere to fly.

The Earth is a closed, very limited system. Humanity is limited in its consumption and there is nowhere else for it to develop. There is not much to accumulate because it is not going anywhere anyway and everything is pretty small and enclosed.

Here, we are faced with the end—the final egoistic development we are in now. The next stage is, that from the increasing pressure that we will experience and from the crisis of the end of egoistic development, we must reach the next level.

The next level is completely different—the level of nature opposite to us, the level of bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Victory Is a Sign of Defeat” 8/2/13

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