Question: Our egoistic nature seemingly has two sides. On one hand, the desire for wealth created inequality and poverty. On the other hand, it led to the development of technology, trade, and communication.

On one hand, the desire for power and glory was the source of various intrigues and wars. On the other hand, the state and legislation were established.

Today we are in a unique situation where selfish lures no longer work. What will be the driving force of progress in the near future if egoism has stopped working, when nature does not allow it to work, and there is little that attracts us from within?

Answer: I think we will come to realize that we need to move in a completely different direction opposite to egoism and develop the attitude of human society for the other levels of nature to be absolutely altruistic and integral.

We must pull ourselves together and begin to act with the understanding that we must go against our egoism to unite and take care of each other according to the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself,” and thus move toward a state where “love will cover all crimes,” absolute connection and mutual care.

Then we will be able to overcome the huge potential barrier between our own nature and the common nature so that we will begin feeling the good force that renews and contains all of nature. In this way, we will achieve the revelation of the Creator.

Question: Today a person gets pleasure from taking care only of himself. And you say that he will begin to enjoy taking care of others. How can such a transformation happen since it is against our nature?

Answer: It can happen under the influence of our desire and the upper force.

Question: Then why is egoism needed and what is its purpose?

Answer: So that we ourselves, in contrast to egoism, will become aware of the need to care and be connected by good ties with each other. This is our task.

Question: So egoism is not destroyed?

Answer: No, we must work above it, in spite of it.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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New Life 1174 – The Human Ego, Love, And Relationships
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

The human ego destroys relationships because it gives us a constant desire to receive and take advantage of others. We need to learn to use the ego correctly so that we can communicate effectively and actually serve others. Love is a desire to fulfill others and treat everyone like family. The wisdom of Kabbalah shows us how to reach this opposite reality, the upper world that operates in bestowal. A person who rises above the ego and constantly increases love over hate feels a new, positive force of closeness to others.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1174 – The Human Ego, Love, And Relationships,” 10/31/19

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Question: How can desires and needs disappear because of the crisis? The crisis, as a force from above, artificially compresses the spring of desires, and it only grows because of this. What causes my desire to change?

Answer: You contradict yourself at the beginning and at the end of the phrase. The crisis does not come from above, it appears inside of us since we have played enough with these “toys” and now we are tired of them. So we begin to get rid of them. This is what is happening.

We exist within the sphere of nature. And we play something until it starts to degenerate. Then the crisis comes: I can’t play anymore, I can’t act this way, I don’t want to interact with others like that. All this comes from within us involuntarily; we do not even realize it.

As a result, it turns out that we come to a crisis in our relationships.

Question: And what affects the change of desire then?

Answer: Our incompatibility with the absolute, altruistic, good sphere we exist in that is a mismatch to the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 5/17/20

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Question: Why is man the crown of nature? Perhaps there are more highly developed beings in nature and our life depends on them?

Answer: We see from our system of knowledge and sensations that man is the highest being.

Although, of course, we can hardly be called the crown of nature because our egoism destroys everything. But within the system of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature, man is the peak of creation, harmful and very flawed, but the peak nonetheless. If he corrects himself, and he can change himself, then he will truly be the pinnacle in every sense.

We humans are the ultimate goal of creation, not in our present form, but in the one that we can and must achieve.

This form of existence will be achieved when we overcome our egoistic nature that we were born with and have developed in. Therefore, we must come to its realization as evil, the opposite of the general system, the common integral desire.

When we correct our egoistic desire to an altruistic one, our distance and separation to connection and closeness, we will truly become the highest level of nature.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/30/20

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Question: Scientists say that the more a society or an organism is developed, the more vulnerable they become.

Now even the smallest blow is very strongly felt by a person. For example, many perceive isolation at home as a strong blow. We have been staying home for a month and we cannot take it anymore! People are going crazy. In the past, they did not go anywhere at all, they lived in their villages and communicated only with fellow villagers.

Is there a connection between egoism and our desires? Are egoism and desire the same thing? Or is it the form of filling a desire called egoism?

Answer: Indeed, people have lived in the same village for generations, without going beyond its borders, and nothing terrible has happened to them. Today, a person lives in a big city and he does not have enough. He gets on a plane and flies to other countries to travel somewhere several times a year. He needs change because his desires change. His desires are growing.

Remark: The concept of egoism comes from the Latin word “ego”—I. It means a person’s behavior, which is entirely determined by the thought of his own advantage and benefit when a person puts his interests above the interests of other people.

My Comment: Absolutely.

Question: Is the fact that a person flies around the world a lot, is engaged in music and art, not called egoism? I cannot harm others with this. Why is this bad?

Answer: Here we are already entering a completely different area.

What is man destined for and does he fulfill his function from the point of view of the system of nature? It may seem that he is a calm, normal person who has not done anything bad in his life. But in fact, he caused great harm to all of nature. Like a screw in a huge machine that does not spin, and the machine is disabled because of it.

So, is he doing something or not? He may say: “I am not doing anything. What do you want from me?” But in fact, his importance is such that the whole machine may not be suitable for proper use because of this small screw.

Question: Do you think that every person living in this world has caused some harm to nature?

Answer: Undoubtedly! Because we are all in an integrated system.

All nature is absolute, integral! All its parts are interconnected. Each of them has its own program, its own goal, which is part of the general program and the general goal of all of nature, which moves like a huge, complex machine. The whole mechanism of nature takes into account the participation of each of us.

Question: What specific harm does an ordinary person living, say, in Latin America cause to all? He does not pump oil, he does not fly to other countries, he does not even use this oil. What harm could he cause?

Answer: He is an integral part of humanity, its small particle, a small screw. He needs to study where and how he must act in order to be connected with all of humanity and fulfill his function. If he does not fulfill this function, he causes harm.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/23/20

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Question: Today, nature separates us through the coronavirus. In theory, considering our inner nature, it seems that we are supposed to enjoy it because everyone wants to be one of a kind, to show their individuality.

On the other hand, we are striving for communication, we want to get out of quarantine and begin life as before. What is the essence of this conflict?

Answer: Firstly, I don’t believe that our period is already post-coronavirus. We haven’t passed it yet and it isn’t known when we will pass it.

The coronavirus mutates, as all viruses breed and multiply, appear and disappear. People will seem to be getting ill again, but in fact, slightly different variations of this virus will manifest themselves in this way. Not soon yet we will part with the virus.

On the other hand, the virus separates us a lot. It gradually weaned us from being physically close to each other. I see how the queue is in public places now: at the post office, at groceries, at the box office, etc. Nobody crowds each other. On the contrary, everyone is trying to stay at a distance, not leaning against one another.

In general, this is commendable, since our past willingness to go literally over each other’s heads is bad, ill-mannered, and did not give anything except a false idea that we are close to each other.

The current state is more polite, helpful. Against this background, you can develop a real rapprochement between each other and feel that we can really be closer, but internally, more helpful, sociable, but on a different wave—more sensitive, coming from the heart, and not from the external movements of the body.

Therefore, I see a lot of positive, healthy manifestations from the coronavirus communications. Ultimately, the virus must show that we need to get closer internally, and then we will find the cure from it that we are looking for.

This is a new evolutionary stage in the development of our desires.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/23/20

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Question: What is a person? Is it a spiritual being or an animal?

Answer: It depends on the person in question. If we are talking about a person in our world, then, in principle, this is an animal that is triggered by an egoistic instinct. At every instant, he explores what is good for him, and tries to do only this. In this respect, he or she is no different from animals except for increased desire.

Our world is built on the desire to enjoy, and a person has a higher desire than others. Therefore he basically conquered the world. At the same time, this desire belittles him the most because it does not work for his benefit. In general, we do not go beyond the animal world.

There are four levels of nature: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. Man is the next level of our development, when we begin to rise above our egoistic desire to the opposite altruistic desire and can see nature, the world, and the forces that rule our world from above.

That is when we are called “Man” from the word “Adam” meaning “like the Creator.” The Creator is the whole universe with all its integral forces.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/24/20

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Question: If we analyze the evolution of our desires, almost all scientific discoveries were made in the middle of the last century, and recently we have not revealed anything new. From the mid-20th century until the crisis in 2008, the desire for wealth began to develop again. The cycle repeated.

Does this mean that the next development of desires will not lead to wealth, but to power? And then back to knowledge? Or is it not a cyclical process?

Answer: I don’t think it will happen again. I want to believe that this will not happen.

I hope that we will begin to develop at the next level of the cycle, striving to understand what is driving us forward. We will want to understand the common universal law of nature, which leads us to embrace all of nature in the volume in which we can feel it today and in the volume in which it actually exists—hidden from us.

I believe that the actions of nature over us, such as the coronavirus and other problems that it will bring to us, are precisely global problems: droughts, hurricanes, swarms of locusts, etc. They will work over the entire globe, and humanity will have no time to engage in power or anything else. It will look for how to survive! This is the most important thing.

We see a small coronavirus has arrived, and what has it done? Nothing wrong. A small number of people died, less than the number of people who usually die when we were not sitting at home, but were working, walking the streets, and running to different places.

Therefore, we cannot say that the coronavirus threatens the extermination of humanity and that something totally terrible and threatening is happening.

But look at how it changed the world, the nature of society; how people calmed down, the air and water cleared, and the climate became a little different. We see how much nature needs us to stop using our dirty, crass hands to get into its structure
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/23/20

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Question: Under the primitive communal system, basic desires dominated a person: food, nutrition, sex, safety. Then came the period of the era of civilizations, in which the desire of man for wealth prevailed.

During the Middle Ages, desires for power began to dominate. In the fifteenth to twentieth centuries, the period of the Renaissance, scientific discoveries, discoveries of new continents, etc. occurred marked by a desire for knowledge.

And now, in the twenty-first century, we see that we are at some new stage in the development of our desires. What are these desires? And for what?

Answer: In actuality we have come to a state where we have nothing more with which to fill ourselves. Absolutely nothing. Our world can give us nothing more. You can, of course, fight each other for a better place on the council, in governments, etc., but this is not growth.

Our growth has come to an end, since we have already mastered everything that is on Earth. And although we know little about it, we will not learn anymore, because we are closed in ourselves.

We are a thing in ourselves. The only thing we can do, and this is given to us as people living in our so-called world, is to reach the next level of the universe. But for this we must become one whole, if not completely, then at least to some extent.

As soon as we start internally getting closer so as to help each other ascend, unite into one common whole, we will immediately feel the integrity of our world. It will manifest itself in all of us, and we will feel ourselves existing at the next level of nature.

Question: But from what will a person receive pleasure?

Answer: From whatever higher levels of nature will be revealed, and this will fill him. This enjoyment of the integrity of nature, the enjoyment of how the different, opposite properties of nature complement each other and unite, will fill us.

Question: Take, for example, two people. One enjoys basic desires for food, sex, and family, and the second for knowledge. He can sit all day in the laboratory and spend all his life researching some bugs or inventing a vaccine, and this fills him. What is the difference?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. It is clear that everyone is engaged in what nature pushes him toward.

And then we will find a single whole between us and see that, acting each at his own level, we reveal the general integral force of nature, called the Creator. The comprehension of this force, which manifests itself in a variety of variations, but at the same time is one common whole, this is the source of the highest pleasure.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/23/20

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Question: Why doesn’t the Creator punish bad people?

Answer: The question “why” has existed since the appearance of life on earth. Why do wolves eat sheep and big fish eat small fish? All of this must be attributed to the state of nature, at the core of which is human egoism.

Correct human egoism—and you can do it—and you will see how in all of nature, wolves and sheep, live together peacefully.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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