Entries in the 'Egoism' Category

From the Old Paradigm to the New

424.02Comment: 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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“Should I try to boost my ego or keep it in check?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael 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.

Revolution of Desires

537There 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 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption”

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The End of Egoistic Development

115.06Our 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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Where Is the Way Out of the Impasse?

115.06The development of humanity leads to the growth of egoism,  individualism, and the desire to gain as much as possible at the expense of others. At the same time, the modern world strives for integration, and therefore, whether we want it or not, we must move toward connection and mutual integration between everybody.

But we do not do this and a sort of scissors is formed. On one hand the world is moving toward technological and economic development, and on the other hand, there is no corresponding social development. It turns out that we ourselves produce all the problems that arise in modern society.

This discrepancy leads to crises, conflicts, and wars that carry the danger of escalating into global world war. Therefore, we must recognize our nature and how egoistic the direction of its development is. Instead, we do not care about correcting it and we treat each other worse and worse. We cannot stop and cease our constant quarreling, competing, and even fighting.

Therefore, it is not surprising that we fail to improve our lives. After all, we do not correct humanity, we do not give children the proper education and understanding of what kind of society and world they live in and in what direction they should develop.

We completely neglect the development of human society year after year and invest only in the development of technology, in mobile phones and computers. But it is just a shame to see what kind of information we fill these modern means of communication with and how degraded we are.

We are able to create microprocessors that already operate at frequencies of several gigahertz that provide our connection.

But at the same time, our separation is growing in direct proportion.

How can we expect that with such ”advancement” our world will come to a good life? With all the power achieved in economics and finance, our entire tomorrow, our entire future existence, is in question. This only shows how weak we are, how much we do not understand what means we have in our hands, and how we could improve the world if we established a connection between us. This is our only problem.

It is necessary to change the system of education in order to change the nature of a person so that he does not reach only for material acquisitions, but sees a great advantage in bringing people closer together and together building a correct, more merciful and kind society. At present, we are not building such a society and we are not teaching this to our children.
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From KabTV’s “World” 9/22/22

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When We No Longer Want to Hurt Others

632.3Comment: Recently an experiment was conducted: Two beautiful girls stood passively in front of a table, and on the table were cosmetics, jewelry, food, and paint. Spectators came up to put necklaces on the girls and apply makeup. Suddenly someone poured red paint, similar to blood, on one of the girls. Then it erupted with tearing the dress of another girl and so on.

From this experiment, it is all clear that this is how a man is. On the other hand, it also happens in families. Suddenly there is an explosion. The same happens between countries that they lived normally with each other and suddenly there are murders, tears, and crimes!

My Response: It is inside of us, and there is no getting away from it.

Question: How can you catch this criminal? How can we neutralize him within us?

Answer: Commit “hara-kiri” and get him from within yourself. We have to perform this operation on ourselves and extract this bastard from within us. He is in each of us. The more he is hidden inside us, the more insidious and cruel he is. That is, insidiousness and cruelty in the world have yet to be revealed.

Question: Does it mean that first of all we must reveal that each of us has this criminal within us? For now, I am horrified by what someone has done there, but do I instead have to reveal that this criminal is within me?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Are you saying that each of us can do the same thing at some point?

Answer: I am talking about everyone. There is not a single person in our world who is free from the most terrible egoism. From the most terrible!

Question: Do you mean in everyone, even the quietest person sitting on the sidelines?

Answer: It does not matter.

Question: So, the first thing we have to do is to understand that this is in each of us. And the second thing is to ask ourselves how to pull this out of there? Should we be horrified that this is within us?

Answer: Yes. We should be horrified; we should ask ourselves how to get this out. We have to solve this issue, we have to get an answer to it that it can be done, and we have to get this inner scoundrel out of ourselves and just correct it. It is impossible to kill it. It is like some kind of little devil.

Question: Will it live in us all the time?

Answer: Yes, and it is eternal. We can only correct it. The operation on us is necessary in order for a person to agree to it, to the fact that he is ready to “cut” himself just to get rid of his evil. Then he will begin to receive such qualities that will really gradually correct this evil and extract it.

Question: Is it possible for a person to agree to such an operation?

Answer: It depends on how much he is suffering.

Question: Is this operation painful?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Does it happen “under anesthesia”?

Answer: If it is under anesthesia, then this is not an operation. Moreover, this is a very slow operation, which is carried out by the person himself, and it lasts a long time. He gradually pulls this evil out of himself. Every time when he pulls it a little bit these are terrible states!

Question: So, he pulled it out a little bit, and then, is there more? Does he pull it out again?

Answer: More and more! It does not end.

Question: What is there? This has to end somehow. Should there be any hope that I will pull everything out?

Answer: This is when a person agrees to everything! He actually agrees to everything not in words. Anything in order to get rid of this evil! Not from pain or some other states, sorrows, and so on, but from evil!

This is evil because he hurts others. It hurts him. This is why he agrees to everything to get out of this state so that he will never, in any way, hurt anyone. This is the most important thing for him, and he agrees to everything so that it would not exist within him.

Question: Can you imagine? The feeling of pain from the fact that he hurts the other is greater than the feeling of pain from being cut.

Answer: Of course!

Comment: What a crazy shift in thinking must happen there!

My Response: It is better not to talk about this at all.

Question: Do you not say that this will come, one way or another? The person will begin taking care of himself?

Answer: Yes. It will happen when we feel that we cannot, we have no right, and we are afraid to hurt the other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/11/22

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To What Does the Cessation of the Growth of Egoism Oblige Us?

115.06Question: It is believed that all revolutions in the world proceed according to a certain plan. Special services under the guise of terrorists attack somebody. Is there any limit to this technique?

Answer: What difference does it make in what form this is determined in our world? Hot spots are everywhere. So many weapons have  amassed that we do not know what to do. A man can make anything at home.

The point is not in the instruments of murder and not in the reason but in the fact that it is necessary in order to further implement the program of creation in a bad or good way. Which way exactly? It is only about that.

The world is following the path of unification anyway. You cannot get away from it. The problem is only in the extent to which it understands that it must reach this and contribute to this, to this extent the path becomes better. If the world does not understand, then it is punished, like a child, until it understands.

We are in a state where we can already explain this idea to the world, and we are explaining it. I think that we do it more or less successfully and at a good pace. At least we see how it works. The world is beginning to understand that it has nowhere to go; it is beginning to feel that new, completely unusual changes are taking place in people, that their egoism has stopped growing.

For the first time in the entire history of not only mankind but the existence of the universe, which developed from a small egoistic nucleus to the planets of the solar system (and this was constantly accompanied by the development of our ego), egoism has suddenly stopped growing by itself.

It began to become round and to connect, and to demand from people that they become the same as the rest of nature, all parts of which are in harmony with each other. And man is not in this state, not among themselves or with nature.

Therefore, all of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature that surrounds us is driving us to do this now. For the first time in the universe, in the entire world, egoism, which has lately been constantly growing exponentially, has reached some gently sloping line and has begun to become round. It is no longer growing, but it obliges us to become integrally interconnected in mutual guarantee.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. USA, Intelligence Agencies, Conspiracy” 3/10/13

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An Invitation to the Celebration of Connection

229If you look at the entire history of mankind, it is clear that people have always strived to improve the conditions of their existence in human society; meaning, they were looking for how to exist together.

Wars ended and peace was established for a short time, but then they started again. And until now humanity does not understand how to come to a good life, peace, harmony, and rapprochement between nations.

It is clear to everyone that if we give up mutual claims and reach mutual understanding, then life will be better. But we are not able to do this because of our egoism. Within everyone there is an egoist with his desire to enjoy that opposes his connection with others.

After all, connection presupposes my willingness to help another and his willingness to help me so that we are like one person with no calculation of what benefits I will receive and what he will receive, but only to make sure that it is good for everyone.

This formula is not clear to us, and we are not able to implement it to even a minimal extent. Therefore humanity is constantly looking for ways to approach the state of universal connection in which everyone will support each other and provide everyone with a good and safe life—children, women, and men. With this agreement, the globe will be able to provide all of us with its resources; it will only be necessary to distribute them correctly and kindly so that everyone has enough.

Subconsciously, humanity understands that it would be better for everyone. But at the same time, for thousands of years we have been increasingly disconnected and do not think at all about how to fulfill this natural condition of living in brotherly love as one person.

But more than once over thousands of years of ordeals, humanity has had this idea of how wonderful life would be if we could get closer, unite, and take care of each other. How much it would spare us suffering and the exhaustion of strength and resources. All the work could be done together easily and with pleasure, confidently and joyfully.

Mankind has been talking about this and thinking about it for a long time, and in fact at some point in ancient times, in different parts of the world, there were such communities that acted together as communes. They existed until egoism exploded in each of these communes and destroyed all harmony and unity.

Today we are at a stage when all these attempts have already been passed and discarded: extreme right-wing ideas and extreme leftist, radicalism, capitalism, socialism, anarchism, etc. In all these formations, there was not a single principle that we could keep so that it would more or less satisfy everyone.

And that is why, since the end of the twentieth century, the science of Kabbalah has begun to be revealed to mankind, and it is being revealed especially decisively today. Before that, Kabbalah, in contrast to all other methods, was hidden and banned for distribution. Kabbalists carefully concealed it and waited for the time when humanity would understand that existence is possible only if it rises above its egoistic desire, its nature.

Today we can already say that we have tried all the methods and all the techniques, attempted to implement them, and we are convinced that it is impossible. What remains is only to follow the science of Kabbalah. Only a little involvement is required on our part, but in the end all corrections must be revealed from above, which means from nature itself.

That is why we have gathered here in order to try, through our connection, to achieve the joy of awakening, in which all the dreams and hopes that have accompanied humanity for the many thousands of years of its life in this world are realized in the optimal, best form. Then humanity will see that we are finally coming to the right decision.

The upper force, the upper light, the Creator, shines on us and we feel His impact since the closest to Him according to the nature of creation, the root of our soul, is the so-called “point in the heart.”

Therefore we are obliged to approach the Creator and help the process of development from our side so that it comes not only from the side of the upper force, which wants to bring together and unite all the parts of creation, but also on account of those parts of creation itself that are awakening in our time, which is why it is called the “last generation.”

These are not only select individuals as it was for thousands of years in previous generations. A lot of people have been awakened today, both men and women. They are ready to work on their internal changes in order to raise the whole of humanity from its current degree, where it has existed until now in suffering and troubles, to a sublime beautiful state, to understanding and awareness, to a huge revelation of the perfect state, to attainment of the nature of the Creator.

There is no other force except Him, the good who does good, who loves everyone. And we have to get closer to this love and become incorporated in it. This is what we need to learn so that love reigns between us, and then the Creator will reveal Himself between us.

I hope we are close to this revelation. Everything depends on our efforts. It is necessary to reveal love between us so that it fills up all the space between us. And then the Creator will manifest within this love, which we are preparing for His revelation. Go ahead and good luck!
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Celebrating the Joy of Connection 8/28/22, “Deriving Joy from Unity with the Creator,” Lesson 3

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Life According to the Laws of Instinct

543.02Comment: You said that primeval people who lived in caves felt like a pack, as one.

My Response: The fact is that they had instinctive connections with each other; they lived according to their own laws. But animals also have their own laws. These laws are correct, natural, and innate. Animals spare each other and are under the power of these laws; the laws govern them.

Question: But did people feel as we do now that there are “me and others”? Or did they think it was all inside them?

Answer: They didn’t think. The animal does not think. It is controlled. His life is called instinct.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ancient People and Cultures of the Past” 3/8/13

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Will Homo Sapiens Become Extinct Like Mammoths?

3

  • We rule the world because we are the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in our own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights. …
  • Sapiens will soon disappear. With the help of novel technologies, within a few centuries or even decades, Sapiens will upgrade themselves into completely different beings, enjoying godlike qualities and abilities. History began when humans invented gods – and will end when humans become gods (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari).

Question: Are we becoming extinct as Homo Sapiens?

Answer: No, we are moving from one stage of development to the next one. And we cannot understand this transition process.

Everything that is happening in the world seems irrational. That is, it happens rationally, but according to the new rational plan and we have nothing to do with it yet, we do not see it as what it is. We participate in it and it seems to us irrational, somewhat inconceivable, and we do not know how to live with it.

Our mind is not suited to new relationships, to the things that are happening. It is like we are given another degree of development, but we have not matured for it yet. We do not understand it.

Question: Does it mean that we are in a gap between the degrees?

Answer: This is always the case.

Comment: And all the irrationality, lack of logic of all these wars, and events…

My Response: Well, what can you do if we are not adjusted to them yet? We need to rise to this degree.

Question: Where are these events pushing us, in principle? If the next moment is irrational, and the next one is also irrational, can it be that someone will reach for the nuclear button?

Answer: It is not about a nuclear button. These events are going to make us recognize the real world we inhabit today. This world is not about a nuclear button, and it does not matter whether we will be saved from it or not.

This is a completely new world, with new goals, with new attitudes to it. Therefore it requires new people, which we must become. But do we understand this? We do not understand yet. Are we aware of this? We are not aware. Are we ready for this? No. Do we want this? Likewise, no.

And it turns out that here we have four degrees of development toward a new degree.

Question: Are you saying that now the world nevertheless needs to produce new leaders?

Answer: Leaders, of course. There should be certain preparations in society for the fact that we need this. And then rudiments of a new leadership, understanding, awareness, teaching, and teachers will appear.

Questions: In any case, should there be suitable people for these leaders?

Answer: Yes. There must be people who will accept them and elect them. In principle, we have a good future ahead of us. Ahead of all of us. There will be another circle, another reincarnation. It will be better next time.

Comment: There is no great humanism in all this.

My Response: Only if you cannot see. When a small child is punished, he also believes that his parents are monsters.

Comment: Does it mean that we need to turn on “other brains” after all?

My Response: This is called “phase transition to the next degree.”  In the end, everything is for the best. Only that we have to mature for this best.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/31/22

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