The Only Form of Egoism

Question: Is it possible to describe the egoism that we must correct? After all, it has many forms.

Answer: Egoism has one very simple form: I want only good things and only for myself.

Question: And why is this bad?

Answer: It is bad because it means I am in conflict with wanting good for others. If before we used to build our lives in some way together with others, today we begin to build it only in contradiction with others.

We have entered into such conflicts, such contradictions, that we cannot create anything between us that would unite us. Starting from contradictions of a person with himself, with his family, with his children, relatives, parents, colleagues at work, and ending in relations between nations and the entire world.

A person begins to feel that he is against everyone, alone, and does not need anyone. If it were possible to replace everyone else or even just a couple dozen of people with robots so that they would serve him and he would feel good, he would immediately agree to this. This is our inherent nature.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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The Basis of the Consumer Economy

Question: The economy is a reflection of social relations between people, and therefore the crisis that we are witnessing today is a crisis of relations. I will give a few examples from our life that are directly tied to relationships between people. First, the sale of products with a limited shelf-life. We all suffer from this, but someone earns.

Second, the waste of food in order to keep prices in the market. It turns out that half of the population throws away food, and the other half does not know where to find food.

Further, banks pay scanty interest to depositors. There is the black market: some people pay taxes, others don’t, etc. I am not even talking about armed conflicts, which take a huge amount of money from us.

It turns out that in reality a crisis is a crisis of relations. In addition, it is very difficult to set up businesses because there is a crisis of trust between people. How is all this related to Kabbalah? And what does Kabbalah have to offer?

Answer: For thousands of years we have been developing in our selfishness. This is our nature, which all the time led us to more and more consumption. Minimum effort and maximum return, this is the nature of selfishness. Striving for peace, fulfillment, pleasure, and knowledge, but all this with minimal energy consumption.

This is how we developed until we reached a state, where in the 20th century, as it was predicted many centuries ago by the Kabbalists, we began to feel that such a movement was leading, in general, to nowhere. The time has come for crises, world wars.

Humanity has begun to produce so much that it is no longer able to consume. It has outgrown the border of reasonable consumption. Despite this, half of humanity is malnourished or even starving, and the other half does not know what to do with food and throws away what they have. The same goes for clothing and all other commodities.

In general, if earlier it seemed to us that we were in a world that was growing, improving, and ultimately leading us to the fact that everyone will have at least some minimum, people will enjoy life at least a little, will not die from hunger, from disease, and we will come to a more or less average level of existence, but now, starting from the 21st century, we find that our egoism does not allow us to do anything.

So from a friend who pulled us forward for millennia, selfishness turned into an enemy. Of course, it pitted us against each other in wars, in various problems, but nevertheless it led us forward, and humanity as a result was enriched and settled down. But in the 20^th century, and especially since the 21^st century, it became clear to us that the ego will not allow us to develop well anymore, it will lead us to destruction because it will not allow us to unite, to plan our lives so that everyone has something.

Despite the huge resources, immense scientific, technical, production, and economic opportunities, we absolutely do not set ourselves up to satisfy even our own population within the country and think about making the people more or less comfortable in life.

On the contrary, the further we go, the clearer we see that selfishness disfigures us, arranges everything so that we suffer from it. After all, we do not want to connect with each other, do not want to see each other in good relations and comfortable states.

That is, we have achieved what in the science of Kabbalah is called the realization of the evil of our nature. And now we need to come to a conclusion, which is also not very easy to grasp, say, and realize: We must definitely correct ourselves—ourselves, not some parties or trends, not something private in our society or in our relationships, for example, children, family, elite, etc.

We need to correct our nature, that is, what we received! Not what we created in the process of evolution, but what we received from nature.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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Question: In Kabbalah, there are three types of egoism. The first is everyday selfishness. The second is the usual relationships between people, their behavior. This kind of egoism manifests itself in those who unite in a group to reveal the Creator.

The third type is egoism that manifests itself directly in relation to the Creator when a person is in connection with the upper force. What is this layer of egoism?

Answer: This is the true egoism of a person. By desiring to rise above one’s natural ego, a person reveals what really is in it. By trying to get out of the boundaries of the ego, a person begins to explore them and realizes that he or she is not able to do it.

Revealing one’s egoism in all its manifestations, a person sees their limitations in sensations, in understanding. This prompts him to rise above the egoistic framework. Right here he needs the science of Kabbalah,  he cannot achieve his ascent without it.

Everyday selfishness is designed to satisfy the natural needs of a person. From the point of view of Kabbalah, this does not even need to be corrected. But egoism that is revealed in order to use another and even enjoy it is the main egoism that a person fights against if he wants to rise above his nature.

Question: When a person is already in spiritual attainment, in connection with the Creator, and wants to use that connection for his own sake, is this also egoism?

Answer: If he rises above himself, he can no longer use egoism for his own sake. It will not work.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/15/21

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Question: What is special for you in the present time in what is happening in the world right now?

Answer: I think our time is special. We are in a state of intensified development of humanity’s awareness of its destructive egoistic nature. I hope this will give us an opportunity to understand our state and find a way to fix it.

Question: What worries you personally?

Answer: Frankly speaking, nothing bothers me deeply except for one thing. As the great Kabbalist of the beginning of the 20th century Baal HaSulam writes, we are in the last generation, which means, in the generation that must reach the recognition of the final inferiority of our egoism, the impossibility of correcting it, and being cured of the ego by rising above it.

To bring a person to this, there are a huge number of negative forces that will cause suffering in us, up to the third and fourth nuclear world wars. Therefore, I am concerned about whether we will be able to achieve recognition and correction through it, or whether we will have to go through enormous suffering.

Question: So on one hand, you feel deep calmness, and on the other hand anxiety?

Answer: Peace of mind is that we will reach the final state anyway. It can be seen, but it’s very far away. In principle, it is close, but it depends on how you look at it because it is in our hands to make a leap to it, to reject egoism, to try to move to another level of communication between us. Otherwise, we will have to do it under the influence of a terrible coercive force.

Question: Is it realistic for an individual to see this final state?

Answer: Kabbalists see it. And the rest of the people will have to feel a little bit the impossibility of continuing life in the paradigm we exist in now and agree with this.

Consent gives a person the opportunity to realize that another form of his attitude to the world, to people, to loved ones, to the connection between us is necessary. We must exchange our negative egoistic interactions for positive, altruistic ones that will fill the entire space between us.

We must come to this realization. I say “realization” because actions are actually done by nature, but in accordance with our wishes.

Question: Is there anything that particularly inspires you now?

Answer: I am inspired by the fact that our time is very saturated with all kinds of events that are altering us at a great speed. This is incomparable with what we went through in previous generations.

I really hope that we will come to a state where we really realize the evil of egoism as our mortal enemy, and we will do everything possible to get rid of it.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21

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A person always wants to get the maximum return with a minimal investment. Nature works like that in everything. This is its general law. If we are dealing with the desire to receive, the desire to bestow, laws of development, absorption, and so on, we always see that nature strives for optimization.

Kabbalah reveals a more universal law of nature to us that takes its integrality into account. In principle, egoism remains, but it begins to take into account everything around it. And then I have to think about others, about correct interaction with them whether I want it or not, because otherwise everything will come back to me like a boomerang.

Therefore, egoism, willy-nilly, becomes altruistic and takes others in consideration because I cannot exist otherwise.

This form of mutual activity when we begin to see our integrality and work together on a common goal, on optimizing our life at all levels, leads us to unification, to mutual inclusion in each other where I must understand the other as myself, and myself as the other

Thus, we turn into one single community including all of us and the inanimate, vegetative, and animate forms of nature.

As a result, we come to a state where our thoughts change. We see everything not in a narrow, straightforward egoistic form, but in an expanded, integral form, where we consider the whole world to be our own.
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From KabTV’s “The Science of Management”

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Today, humanity is immersed in animal egoism that constantly pushes it only to enjoy, satiate, fill itself with everything possible: food, sex, family, money, honor, power, fame, and knowledge. Everyone wants it all immediately and to have more of it than others.
However, it is the opposite when it comes to getting closer to the Creator because there has to be a recognition of evil: I must see my egoism as evil and renounce it.

There are two components to this process. On one hand I can experience huge blows that will lead me to the decision to abandon egoism as evil, if I see the connection between ego and blows. On the other hand I can develop my mind so that even if I feel a small blow, I would say: “That’s enough for me, I don’t need any more.” But both have to develop in me.

As soon as the awareness of evil develops in me according to my state, I will be able to do everything to get rid of it.

To do this, I need to join a group of like-minded people and try to unite with my friends according to the Kabbalistic method when, through our unity, we evoke the surrounding light, a special force, that makes us give to each other and raises us above everyone’s individual egoism.

Then the quality of bestowal that arises between us we feel as being at the highest level, above our ego, above this world. This state is called the upper world, the spiritual world, and the quality itself is the Creator, which we perceive as fulfilling us, as a connection between us.

As soon as we achieve this, new egoism immediately arises in us and we must again, according to the same system, turn it into the quality of bestowal, love, and revelation of the Creator.

And then an even greater egoism appears. And so on, over and over until we climb all 125 degrees of the spiritual ladder of the ascent to the Olympus of altruism, love, and bestowal; each time we bury the ego below us and rise above it like a mountain. This is how Kabbalah works.

At the moment, humanity does not think about it, forgets it, and is even unwilling to focus on it. But gradually people will feel it on a subconscious level and I hope that eventually they will come to understand everything correctly.

The path to this realization can be either the path of light or the path of suffering. On the path of suffering, I will constantly receive blows, which will eventually be connected to the fact that I am deeply egoistic and I will arrive at the decision that I probably need to use my ego less and will stop being an egoist in order to receive fewer blows.

Unfortunately, until humanity realizes this, it may plunge into great troubles more than once, including, as Baal HaSulam writes, into atomic wars. But the conscious application of the method of Kabbalah will help avoid this.
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From KabTV’s “Methodology of Kabbalah”

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Comment: It is known that shame is inherent only to man. When we say “burn with shame, be ashamed of your deed, ashamed of your thoughts,” we refer to man. But I look at the world today and think: “Where is the shame? Where is the shame of being rich in this world where the whole world is starving?”

My Response: People remove everything from the world that is unpleasant to them, maximally. And so they bring themselves to a state where they have nothing to be ashamed of.

Question: That is, we are constantly afraid that we will be burnt by shame and we seemingly erase it?

Answer: Of course. Instead of correcting yourself so that you are not ashamed, correcting the world so that you do not see such manifestations you are ashamed of, it is better to erase them.

Question: You said: “There are two ways out. The first way is to erase the shame and the second way is to work with it, to correct the world.” Almost no one goes for the second one. Everyone goes for erasing the shame. Correct?

Answer: Of course. It is easier. In erasing the shame, you are not erasing it alone. You are gradually changing the laws, the restrictions of society, and therefore, society becomes such that it is no longer ashamed of what it used to be ashamed of, and people feel better. You kind of introduce such laws so as not to be ashamed.

Question: So what have we turned the world into?

Answer: We have built it on the clear basis of egoistic desire without any moral foundations. This can be seen especially in our politicians—in all of them. They have no ideals but only one thing: “I am a fakir for an hour.”

Comment: But such a world should in theory explode.

My Response: Yes, but it will explode not because we become different, but because we are in nature, which ultimately accumulates all negative phenomena in it and then raises humanity to a new level.

Question: And the negative phenomena in it are from us, from what we are?

Answer: Only from people, not from animals.

Question: So we actually transmit all the hatred there?

Answer: We are at the lowest point in the development of all nature.

Question: If our shamelessness constantly enters nature, then forces accumulate there to subdue us?

Answer: The worse the better. It is nearer to the end of egoistic rule.

Question: So you expect much bigger problems to follow after these viruses?

Answer: It was always like that. At all stages of human development, this was how it moved forward. It strives toward some new goal, egoism manifests in it, humanity still survives until it is thrown out from within to the next stage.

Question: Then where will nature lead us with its strong blow and pressure?

Answer: To the fact that we can no longer exist according to egoistic laws. We will have to change our behavior, our laws, our inner foundations. This is a very difficult job, but humanity will come to a state when these lies all around us— these fanatic rules—present, human rules—they will manifest in an explosive way.

Question: And the injection of shame will be introduced in man by nature?

Answer: Not only shame. There will even be no shame. It will be the revelation of the true state that we must achieve. And it will stand before us as a model from which we cannot escape. And we will definitely come to the conclusion that love and hunger will rule the world and not some false slogans invented by modern savages.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/2/21

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Question: Why is all of humanity divided into Jews and other nations in our world?

Answer: A clear division of humanity into two parts occurred once in ancient Babylon. The small civilization that existed suddenly plunged into huge egoism.

The Babylonians decided to build a tower to the sky to reach the Creator, to fight with Him, i.e., with nature. They became so egoistically opposite that they stopped understanding each other.

This is how two concepts of further existence appeared. One of them was formed under the leadership of Abraham; the second was under the leadership of King Nimrod.

Abraham believed that the egoism that manifested itself, which makes us reject each other and forces us to be separated, was created specifically so that we would rise above it. If we do this despite the fact that we are in contradiction with each other and remember how we lived together when there was one law and one nation, then we will reveal a completely new form of existence in connection with each other.

And then, feeling ourselves above material nature, we will feel a completely different life: eternal, perfect, and not within the boundaries of our animal existence.

Abraham said that egoism is the means of our elevation. Let’s treat it this way, separate ourselves from it, look at the ego from the outside and begin to rise above it. Egoism will constantly grow, and we, constantly rising above it, will become like a common force of nature: love, bestowal, unity, harmony.

This was the methodology revealed by Abraham who became one of the leading ideologists of that time.

And Nimrod’s theory said: “No, egoism develops in us in order for science, art, and human society to progress. Let’s develop together with the ego, not rising above it, not looking at our egoistic nature from the outside, but living inside it.” Naturally, this theory received great support because it does not require a person to fight with himself.

So humanity was divided into two parts: a small part went with Abraham (literally a few dozen people) and the rest followed Nimrod. Abraham’s method was for connection, and the second was for separation.

Otherwise how can egoists who mutually hate each other get along on a small piece of land? Then the Babylonians settled all over the world. This is written in the book Genesis Rabbah, in the works of Josephus Flavius, and in other ancient sources.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. The Difference in Souls” 12/11/09

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Question: Why have events, such as the revelation of The Book of Zohar in the sixteenth century in the time of the ARI, always been a turning point in the development of humanity?

Answer: It is because everything should as if sit above the common egoism, like a rider on a horse. Universal egoism is like a horse, and the level of development of a person who should connect with the upper force is like a rider.

Therefore humanity, developing at the bottom, comes to some stage, for example to the time of the Middle Ages, which was very turbulent internally with serious development that broke through a little later.

The Middle Ages is not a frozen state as it may seem to us. It was characterized by the rebirth of humanity from the level of “animal” to the level of “human.” Practically to this day, we are still reaping the fruits of our internal transition to existence within the framework of a rigid family, social, and religious way of life.

When a person breaks through this framework and, like a volcano erupts, nothing can stop him except his own limitations, which he is beginning to recognize today.

Only now do we come to the fact that the breakthrough that was made during the time of the ARI, that lava of the “volcanic eruption” that occurred in the Middle Ages, freezes and again feels like inanimate matter to us. We no longer know what will happen next, so today we come to Kabbalah.

Question: Does it mean that humanity had to make this transition in the time of the ARI?

Answer: Yes. Therefore, the ARI represents a completely new stage from which humanity can already enter the correction, the attainment of spirituality. Before him, Kabbalah was banned; the Kabbalists themselves hid it. This inertness has remained to this day.

Question: It turns out that we are 500 years behind, right?

Answer: No, this is not being behind; rather, this is gradual adaptation. At the time of the ARI, humanity was not ready to accept this because at that time the breakthrough of industry, arts, and science had just begun.

It seems to us that allegedly the church or the ruling power, or some other reasons held back development. It is not so; just at that time human egoism was at a small level and did not require more.

When it broke through from the animalistic level to the human level, then all development began, including Kabbalah. Then, in principle there was the method of correction of the ARI, which today we are beginning to implement. We are the first generation that begins to realize it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. The Difference in Souls” 12/11/09

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This wisdom is generally divided into two parallel, equal, and identical orders, like two drops in a pond. The only difference between them is that the first order extends from above downward, to this world, and the second order begins in this world and traverses from below upward precisely by the same routes and make-ups imprinted at their root when they appeared from above downward. (Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”)

We study that there are three axes, three lines, three vectors:

The first, a descent from the above downward from the world of Ein Sof to our world.

The second, the evolution in our world.

And the third, an ascent from the bottom upward to the world of Ein Sof, which means correction.

Question: Does this mean that our evolution has ended?

Answer: Not only has our evolution ended, it is reborn. If we don’t ascend upward, we see its maladies, like a fruit that rots if it is not picked in time.

We see that humanity has in fact become rotten. If we look at the time line, we reached the good right state in the 16th century. Today, however, we are in a state in which we should have started our ascent long ago, but unfortunately we are only preparing for it.

A long and demanding road from the bottom upward lies ahead, and everything has already been prepared for it: the wisdom of Kabbalah, books and different tools that explain how we should develop, how to establish a group, how to unite and to gradually reveal the Creator.

Question: What stems from the world of Ein Sof leads to the shattering etc., while what stems from our lowly world should lead to wholeness. What is the Creator’s rationale here?

Answer: The whole process is predetermined from the start in the thought of creation. The upper force enters us and shatters us.

Therefore, selfishness arises. Then, over almost 15 billion years, it evolves. And only then begins its correction, also with the help of the upper force.

But the correction takes place thanks to the fact that you draw the upper force that imfluences you in a wise and sensible way by raising MAN. When you raise your desire for correction, for unity, the light of correction descends unto you.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 8/18/19

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