Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Mass shootings are the symptom, not the illness”

The recent barrage of mass shootings has emphasized the need for less tolerant gun laws and for other restrictive measures. While it is obvious that mentally unstable people should not be permitted to carry or own guns, it is also evident that gun restrictions alone will not abate gun violence. The whole society has become violent and aggressive, and people’s sensitivity to violence is decreasing. Today, people almost expect mass shootings to happen. Therefore, stopping it requires more than gun laws; it requires finding its root and plucking it out.

Even a few decades ago, people did not feel so removed from one another. Alienation in society has increased to such levels that today’s normal levels of antagonism toward society would have been diagnosed as narcissism at the turn of the century. Worse yet, the level of division and hostility in society is constantly rising, and at an accelerating rate.

The ego itself is not inherently corrupt. Our entire development has relied on our ego. As it evolved, it developed human society, technology, art and culture, and medicine. Were it not for our ego, we would not have civilization.

However, because the ego is the basis of our actions, whether we are aware of it or not, there are always aggression and violence between us. At times it is overt, and at times covert, but it is always there. This is why for all our efforts, we cannot create a just society.

Human nature demands superiority, dominion, prominence. As a result, as long as we do not change human nature, there will always be ubiquitous oppression and abuse in our society, in every conceivable and inconceivable form. We conceal that drive for superiority behind “benign” terms like “competition” and “motivation,” but underneath lies the same evil inclination that pushes us to climb to the top of the heap, preferably by stepping on everybody else’s heads.

Therefore, in order to curb violence, including mass shootings, we need to “self-reform” human nature. In other words, we need to decide that we must change ourselves if we want our lives to be safer and more peaceful.

Even more important, the urgency for change must percolate large portions of society because one cannot change one’s attitude toward society without a society that supports it and strives for the same goal. Therefore, once we decide to change, we must establish community-wide educational programs that will focus not on curbing violence, but on enhancing empathy toward others, on fostering solidarity and mutual responsibility.

In order to succeed in the transition from an alienated and violent society into a cohesive and caring one, it is important not to focus on the negative, but to enhance the positive. Because the ego is constantly evolving, focusing on the negative makes us try to suppress it until we are exhausted and it bursts out even more violently than before. In addition, we have wasted our time on futile efforts and did not build an alternative to violent egoism, so there is no alternative to choose instead of more violence.

To create a positive alternative to egoism and violence, we need to foster positive values in society so we can base the relationships in our communities on them. The more energy we put into nurturing positive connections among people, the more positive will be the atmosphere in the community. This, in turn, will diminish the overall levels of violence and aggression.

For any transformation to succeed, our rule of thumb should be enhancing the positive rather than constraining the negative. If we work in this way concerning violence in the community, we will succeed. If we settle for stricter gun control, matters will continue to go downhill.
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Question: Today they write a lot about such a phenomenon as “the end of the world.” Not in the sense that we will cease to exist but as the beginning of a certain period where you do not know what to do. What is this stage in the development of mankind?

Answer: It is a wonderful stage!

We were born and live now in a period when the first generation was born in our world that really got off the trees, not because we have developed technologically and are able to make all kinds of cars, locomotives, and airplanes, but because we have come to a state where we have to decide why we have appeared on this globe at all, what we should do on it, and how to truly realize ourselves.

Such a monkey appeared, developed into a little man, looked around, and thought: “And what am I for?” It looked around a bit more, saw all this: “Well, okay. And what’s next?”

Today we are coming very close to this issue in our historical development: “Why did we appear? We climbed down from trees and developed technology and social structure. What’s next? Does man have some higher purpose?”

Of course, this is not a simple question. Until it cuts through humanity, until it is realized from within that this is precisely what we are asking, that this question is a challenge that nature poses to us so that we realize and in the end give ourselves an answer or at least begin to look for an answer to the question of the meaning of life. This is a very special moment, and this generation—it is special too.

So, it is searching, without understanding why and how, trying to solve all these issues either through terror, drugs, divorce, all kinds of searches, adventures, or space, no matter what. These attempts, everything we do is practically a search for an answer about the meaning of life.

Let’s say I am heading somewhere. We see that all space programs are being curtailed: “Well, what will we find there? Stones. Nothing else.” And what will we find in some technological developments? Or in culture? We once thought that with the help of culture we would develop ourselves. And all of a sudden, they were exhausted. In the 19th century this practically ended.

The 20th century came, the century of technology: nano-technologies, computers, everything. Today we are coming to a state where the Internet connects everyone together, and we suddenly see that we are working with a machine, that is what is interesting. A person begins to discover that his connection is mainly with machines even if he communicates with other people through them.

These are machine responses, this is automation, and there is nothing here. A person wants to go out somewhere, to escape! But in which direction can he go?

And if not, then again: back to drugs, to some kind of reassurance, just to forget. Why are sport games so developed today? All governments want to shift the attention of the masses to football and other games. Occupy people! The main thing is to forget yourself. That is why such a large number of media outlets are aimed at this.

And if you look ahead, the development of technology does not stop, and billions more unemployed people will appear in the world, not millions, but billions of people with good qualifications who can do everything. And what to do?

With the help of new technologies, we will soon come to a state where 5% of the world’s population will be able to provide for everyone else. What is next? Overabundance on one hand. The lack of distribution on the other.

In general, we are in a state of misunderstanding the meaning of life. That is the most important thing we need to answer.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Around the World” 2/20/11

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Question: People without exception are busy with diets and all sorts of food values. Now there are a lot of forums that are fond of organic food and promote it. Why have we come to this state?

Answer: It serves us right! We must learn from our mistakes in order to return to normal living conditions. In the meantime, we see what’s going on. This is the method of Beito, with the stick to happiness, since we do not want to advance correctly.

We don’t want to engage in normal farming. Fifty percent of the food produced is thrown away, and fifty percent of the world’s population is malnourished. We are some kind of irrational creatures.

If you look at our Earth from the side, then humanity has come to absolute insanity over its many thousands of years of development and, of course, it looks just awful. People are engaged in exploiting themselves, making slaves of themselves.

And although they are dissatisfied with everything, they still continue to fiercely cling to their petty, mean existence, just to annoy each other, to show off in front of each other, to be no worse than others, to indulge their base aspirations for fame, nobility, and fake superiority.

What is life wasted on?! Life itself is also worthless! And what an end to it!

As a result, there is an accumulation of suffering, which should subsequently manifest itself. They accumulate, accumulate, and then come out. This is an accumulating process according to the rule of the system of nature, which “swallows and then regurgitates.”

Our egoism swallows everything into itself: our efforts, our helplessness, our unsolvable and unresolved problems, and then gives everything out, as if burping them. And then we see that we have come to a dead end, reached the bottom and are obliged to do something. This is how we develop.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Organic Food” 10/21/09

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The problem with humanity is that we should have invented some developmental goals for ourselves earlier, but now we can’t because the next degree is not in the same direction and perspective as previous levels of development. Previously, we developed instinctively, under the pressure of nature, and everything was fine. In a way, we sort of thought, sort of did, sort of even made revolutions. In fact, it is not “us” at all.

There is no freewill here, but it seemed so to us because the development took place according to growing egoism, which was constantly increasing in us. We were just looking for the best way to realize it. And so we realized it, some this way, others that way, in accordance with their internal natural data, which we call mentality, a particularity.

But now we must ascend to another degree and, contrary to our egoism, build a connected society, something that was not done in Ancient Babylon. Then we were given the opportunity to settle apart from each other, and therefore, we did not need to dock together.

And now we have come to the need for full communication again. Absolutely complete! But we have it one-sided, economic and egoistic. We need to make it different exactly according to the condition of ancient Babylon, as Abraham told all Babylonians, all people on Earth need to get together and be friends, to become “as one man with one heart,” one desire, one family.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Organic food” 10/21/09

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Medium published my new article “Imagine Your Child Is Not Your Own”

Imagine a man becoming the father of a baby boy after many years of anxious childlessness. ‎The longing intensifies the father’s love for his son, and he plunges headlong into fatherhood. He holds his baby boy after meals so he can burp, talks to him, and changes his diapers. As his son grows, he teaches him everything he knows, takes him to little league ‎practices and cheers with the other proud parents during games. Whenever his son gets in trouble at school, with other kids, or with his teammates, his dad listens and gives him some fatherly advice. And every night, before he falls asleep, his dad sits by his bed and reads him a bedtime story.

The father is so proud of his son that his friends at work tease him about it. They say that he thinks there are no other children in the world except his son, and because he loves his son so much, he doesn’t like other children. The father laughs, but admits that as with any ‎teasing, there is some truth to it.‎

Then, one day, two police officers and a social worker knock on the door and show the father papers proving that there was a terrible mistake and babies were switched at birth. His son is not his son, but someone else’s, and his son’s biological parents have already been notified and want him to come live with them as soon as possible. Their son, who is his biological son, also wants to get to know him and come live with him. The social worker and ‎the officers explain that his son would have to go live with his biological parents.‎

We may not be aware of it, but the father’s tragedy is very similar to a process that all of humanity is experiencing, with one major difference. In the case of the father, the loss is unbearable. In the case of humanity, we are about to find out what a nasty son we’ve had, and what a wonderful son is about to replace him.‎

The strangers’ son we have been raising is our ego. Ego has demanded everything from us and felt no gratitude. Every time we satisfied him, he demanded more. Finally, he demanded more than we could provide; we have depleted the supply; we have run out of money, run out of resources, and run out of strength.‎

What’s more, our son, Ego, has been inciting us against all other boys, made them look awful in our eyes, and made us hate them and their parents. He even made us fight against them. He blinded us to the fact that we really needed those other kids and parents, that they gave us everything we have: work, companionship, and everything we needed in life.‎

Because we have reached the end of our strength, we are beginning to open our eyes and see that Ego is not such a beloved son, but a monster. Even more important, we are beginning to realize that he is not really our son, and nothing really binds us to him except his lies about our connection. Gradually, we are discovering that our real siblings are everyone else. They, all ‎of humanity, are our family.‎

Now that we are beginning to realize the truth, we can develop a new attitude to ‎other people. Initially, we will take baby steps. But as more and more people recognize the truth about their ego and about their attitude toward others, we will learn to walk more confidently together. We will learn to care about others where before we felt only indifference or even spite. We will direct our malice toward our enemy within, and by doing ‎so, we will defeat our one and only enemy, our fake son, Ego.‎
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Comment: A child serial killer Mary Bell was born in 1957 in England, her chilling story began after the baby’s seventeen-year-old mother, who worked as a prostitute, failed to provoke a miscarriage. The baby was an unwanted child. The mother tried to get rid of her child after birth as well, but again was unsuccessful.

The child Mary was abused and become a child murderer. The press called her an “evil born monster.”

My Response: In such cases it is also necessary to take into account the human psyche. It is possible that she was mentally ill and this has not been determined.

Comment: Usually people who stand trial for a crime are examined and have to be recognized as sane.

My Response: This is also a problem because psychology is not a perfect science. A person has such switches in the brain when he suddenly becomes absolutely normal after the fact. We cannot necessarily evoke in him those same states that prompted him to commit a misconduct, and therefore we give them a different interpretation. All this is very conditional.

But the problem is really a universal one. Each of us should blame the environment that brought him up for his wrong attitude toward life. And of course, we all feel bad. We can see this from the global state of things today, for example in the way people drive on the roads without observing traffic rules or how they communicate with each other.

In general, our entire human community is arranged in such a brutal way. Each one builds himself on the suppression of the other, on power over the other. This indicates the misuse of our initial human data. It doesn’t make anyone feel good, but still we don’t find the strength to change things. The intelligent humanity does not find the strength to realize this and start acting differently.

Therefore, unwanted children will appear more and more often and this phenomenon will become widespread. It is a consequence of our growing egoism, which does not want to consider anything or anyone
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Unwanted Children” 11/28/10

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Question: Why at this stage, is nature so ruthless toward us and will not forgive our segregation?

Answer: Because we have grown out of the past state.

For 5,000 years, and even more, we were evolving egoistically. Nature only pushed us: “Advance, advance. If you want to separate, separate. Build. Make revolutions. Do whatever you want.”

And now we have reached the peak of egoistic development in science, culture, technology, and in everything. We have passed this peak and that is it, now we are going down. We need to go further, but with a different attitude to ourselves and to nature, in merging, uniting, and rising above our egoism.

Having passed the egoistic peak, we wanted to continue to rise egoistically. But as soon as we proceeded with this, we immediately began to fall. We cannot continue to rise egoistically but only upon the connection between us, only above the ego.

This is where the breaking point begins, which is now being felt more and more acutely. Therefore, according to Kabbalah, humanity will either come to huge wars that will lead to even greater suffering and will force us to think and abandon our egoistic development, or we will realize that we cannot develop further egoistically. Then where do we get the power that transforms our egoistic energy into the energy of connection between us, into bestowal, into mutual correct human coexistence?

This power is in Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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Question: Is including the entire world into oneself the correct perception of a person? Or, on the contrary, is it the dissolving in the entire world? Can there be such extremes?

Answer: These are not extremes, but essentially the same thing. This means that I have to annul my egoism, my “I,” in relation to the world, and then I will feel that I am within it or it is within me.

The reason for the division between oneself and the entire world lies in a person’s egoism, when I divide everything I sense into “I” and something outside of me. If I gradually erase this boundary, then through leveling my egoism, I will feel the world as a part of me.

In order to perceive the world correctly, I have to annul my egoistic perception, and then I will see the world as it is. Ideally, this is, of course, a long way. It is possible to get closer to this only through connection, adhesion, and coming closer to everyone around.

Inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature exist around us. If we get closer to them, then we are gradually coming closer to embracing all of nature so that it is fully felt by us.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 4/29/22

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Question: Some countries have adopted a law stating that a woman who has three or more children is considered to be a mother of many children and is supposed to devote herself to the family completely.

Why are there periods when the birth rate exceeds the death rate and vice versa when the death rate exceeds the birth rate?

Answer: It depends not on the conditions of our world, but rather on the period when a certain correction takes place in souls. Since our egoism grows and cannot remain in such a huge size in every person, it is like this person has to be divided into a few people. Then each of these people will have less egoism and they will be able to correct it. It is like in the example when we want to lift a trunk of a tree and since it is too heavy we call one more person and one more.

Question: Does it mean that legislation to stimulate the birth rate will not help if the souls will not have a necessity to divide the egoism into a great quantity of parts? It can still correct itself on its own.

Answer: Yes, of course. But on the other side, at the corporeal level, we have to act as usual following the principles accepted in the society. This way we will act on the spiritual principle as well. If people, based on their egoistic interests, want to have more children it will lead in the end to a greater amount of egoism that can be corrected at any given moment of time. Therefore adoption of such laws is still a beneficial thing.

For our egoism today we still lack a few billion people and the correct education. Then we would quickly be able to correct all universal egoism and come to the good state.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Outlaw” 12/19/10

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The state to which we are headed is predetermined by nature. It should be such that from the recognition of the inevitability and absolute helplessness, we would come to the conclusion that we have nowhere to run. What is left for us is only to jump out of our essence, out of our nature, to get out of it, to rise above it.

Egoism, which supplies all these problems for us, makes our life worthless, useless, and lately simply unbearable, is, as it is said in the Torah (Bible), “help against you.” Thus, it pushes us out of itself, like the Egyptian plagues that went through people and pushed them out of Egypt. This is how figuratively the development of humanity is presented in the Torah.

That is, attaining our egoism and revealing what an enormous problem it is for our existence will force us to abandon it and move to a different state where we will be connected with each other through other ties of brotherhood, mutual assistance, and kindness.

As a result, either by a good or a bad way, or through war, or through awareness, we still will reach the level of complete interconnection, will become harmonious with nature and absolutely balanced with it.

Then, in this ideal state of balance, we will find ourselves existing in a completely different form, at a level where eternity and perfection, like nature itself, are revealed to us. We will come to this anyway, but perhaps through bad development. Here is a very critical point in the development of humanity where Kabbalah may or may not play its positive role.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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