Question: If the Creator created us as egoists, then this is our nature. What should we do and how?

Answer: Yes, our nature is egoism. We are created absolutely opposite to the integral quality, the Creator. Therefore, we should try to unite despite our evil beginnings and ask for nature (the Creator), inside which this integral force is located, to correct us.

Then, contrary to our original egoistic qualities and relationships, we will begin to feel the development of altruistic qualities in us.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/12/2020

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My new article on Linkedin “What the Protests Tells Us about Ourselves”

The death of George Floyd and the protests it excited put a mirror before us. They are showing us how we relate to one another. If we don’t acknowledge what we see in the mirror on the wall, we will suffer much worse punishments than shattered shop windows.

Both the violent protests and the more peaceful demonstrations, where there were no agitators to provoke violence, stem from the same root: the need for warm human connection. But there cannot be any warmth between us as long as we think so negatively of each other.

Bad thoughts make bad things happen. And the worst thing there is, which makes the worst things happen, is human nature, or as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth.” We will not solve the many social problems in America (or anywhere else for that matter) because we don’t really want to solve them. We enjoy looking down on other people so we want there to be people with a lower social status than ourselves. Even if we’re unaware of it, we constantly compare ourselves to others. When our ego detects someone who is in some way better than us, it invariably makes us feel uncomfortable and we cannot rest until we either find a way to feel superior to that person, or drive that person out of sight and out of mind. Malicious envy is the evil inclination, and it will not let anything good happen in our society until we overcome it in our hearts.

If there is one thing we should be thankful for in all this malice that is bubbling up to the surface these sorrowful times, it is precisely that the malice is bubbling up to the surface. Now we can look at ourselves, acknowledge our true nature, and start working together on overcoming it and forming a truly united and caring humanity. It can happen, but only if we work on it together.

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Comment: Kabbalah studies that the world is a single organism and all its elements are interconnected. Today, there is a lot of research on this topic. That is the first point.

The second point is that nature has created an element called “human,” which is opposite to this unity. It specifically created our egoism, which manifests itself in various dramatic situations. Not only the current coronavirus, but all the problems of humanity are the result of our egoism. It turns out that egoism is a real disease.

My Response: I would say that this is not even a disease but our faithful assistant that leads us forward and shows us where we are not in integration with nature. This is where the ego manifests itself, indicating exactly where we are ill. Therefore, egoism is help for us.

Question: Is it as if showing us the opposite state of what we need to come to?

Answer: Yes. It is even called “help against you.”

Comment: But the problem is that we do not see the director of this script.

My Response: Why? Nature around us is the director. Its inner qualities, inner plan, thought, everything is within it, only we cannot recognize them. We are like a little child who looks around and sees only a very small fragment of this picture.

Question: Does each one interpret all natural phenomena in their own way?

Answer: Of course. Each one does this to the extent of one’s egoistic development. Egoistic! Therefore, no answer can be correct.

Comment: It means that on one hand, there is egoism that separates us, and on the other hand, nature pushes us to integration, to connection.

My Response: Yes. It requires that we consciously move to a society of connection, an integral society.

We need to understand that this is what we need in the post-virus state, and we must ascertain all the common and private problems that will arise in building society after this blow when we start slowly getting out of it. I wish everyone good luck. And it depends only on our correct interaction. I am really counting on it.
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From KabTV’s “Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/2/20

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Remark: On one hand, nature, the upper mind, created egoism that is constantly dividing and differentiating us. If there were no egoism, there would be no diversity in nature.

My Comment: This is not the diversity of egoism, but the diversity of desires. The ego is not just a desire, but rather a desire to subjugate everything that surrounds us.

Question: On the other hand, nature has a quality to bestow, to create integral systems, to connect. In cosmology, this is called the grand unification period when all the elementary particles began to connect.

In the same way, people were subjected to the process of forcible connection into empires, nationalities, and so on. Today we are connected by religion, economy, and information. Why do you constantly oppose connection on this basis?

Answer: Such rapprochement does not imply the correction of egoism. Connections of egoists will anyway lead to the fact that people begin to fight, quarrel, and want to kill each other.

Any connection based on egoistic grounds without prior correction of the nature of egoists as participants is a priori doomed to fail. In the end, it will lead to an explosion between them, to war, to mutual destruction, and it is better to avoid it.

Question: But this does not depend on people. How can they know the upper plan of nature?

Answer: I will explain it to them. I have met with some of the leaders of the European community and they have a completely different intention, a different goal of connection.

Question: You are saying that we need to connect in order to feel a qualitatively higher reality, a new life. How can a person accept such information?

Answer: In no way. But gradually, we will be forced to. This is why we have such problems as wars, all kinds of disasters, cataclysms, economic shocks, the coronavirus, and so on.

Gradually, humanity anyhow is accumulating experience of what is happening to it. This is where knowledge comes from. You receive a blow, you do nothing; the second blow, you react differently; the third one, you start to see a system in this; the fourth one, you start to ask, “Where from? Why? Why do I need these blows?” Slowly, humanity is learning. After all, it is developing.

Question: Does it mean that after all these cataclysms, there will nevertheless be internal changes in humanity?

Answer: Certainly. The only question is whether the changes will happen in a good way through awareness, the use of reason, and some kind of good forces, which, in principle, we can develop in ourselves on the basis of possible catastrophes, or we will have to learn through the blows of fate, by the stick to happiness.

Remark: When you began studying 40 years ago, you were also told that there is a system to which you need to come by becoming similar to it in qualities. You also did not immediately believe it, you began to check, and it took some time.

My Comment: Yes. It took years. But this is how it was before. Today everything passes very fast over every person. We are approaching a state when all the processes are accelerating and we need to decide quickly in which way we should move forward.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/2/20

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Question: We see in nature how atoms combine into molecules and molecules into more complex substances. This process of unification we understand. Unified plants can cause rain. Ants organize themselves in colonies, etc.

And what about humanity? We look at the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, but we cannot see an example of how our society should be built. We cannot do it.

Answer: Why not? How is man different from inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature? By the fact is that he has freewill. It can act as an integral part of nature or it can act contrary to it.

Comment: But ants interact with each other instinctively.

My Response: And we must act not instinctively but consciously. I must consciously restrict my selfish impulses so as not to harm nature, not to go beyond the framework of its integral picture.

Question: Does humanity have any special role?

Answer: Yes. When we build ourselves in the likeness of nature, we begin to understand and feel it. We become intrinsically closed within it and gradually begin to see its inner meaning, the program of development.

We are included in this program, but do not want to match it. We want to do everything according to our egoistic program. And here, we are in conflict with nature.

Question: If we, people, begin to draw closer to each other, what will humanity turn into? What transformation will happen?

Answer: In order to get closer, we first need to rise above everyone’s petty, personal egoism. We must belittle it, control it. Thus, we will rise to the level of controlling our human nature, we will rise above it.

Through connecting together, we will create a system similar to nature on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels. And then, we will build a nature called Adam, Man. This is a single system, like the inanimate, vegetative, and animate have a single mind, single feeling, and common properties that combine together mutually complementing each other.

Building this system, we will understand that there is a single mind in it, which we will perceive as being born precisely at the connection between us, the egoists. And so, we will begin to feel the higher management of nature, the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/2/20

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Question: Why do you think that a billion people sitting in Facebook aren’t a manifestation of clarification of the correlation and relations between themselves and nature?

Answer: We’re very similar to wild animals, which are constantly fighting among themselves. But those people have at least some sort of clarification of the relationship, and this result isn’t observed on Facebook. Everything operates on the principle “you are a fool yourself.”

I don’t see people becoming wiser and better from such communication. Unfortunately, social networks are still in a dormant state.

Question: What do you mean when you say the development of relations between people? Is it another court, other laws, or other values?

Answer: All these and even more: the right relationship between people, when a person pursues one single goal in his intentions, so the other person would feel good.

Our closed, integral system of human society is tuned to this. If everyone interacts with others like that, then everything will be fine with us.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/12/20

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Medium published my new article “Fake News for a Fake World”

The director of the World Health Organization said about COVID-19: “Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus.” Indeed, if you’re looking for truth in today’s world, then the truth is that everybody’s lying. Every media outlet warps and manipulates the news according to the agenda of its owner.

We can keep avoiding the sincere soul searching that we need to do and go down the path we have been on for decades, but evidently, it won’t lead us anywhere good.

In the past, when newspapers and television received their funding from subscribers, from people buying actual copies of newspapers, the press was obliged to provide the readers or the viewers with true stories. Today, when the media is owned by media moguls and depends on advertisers for its existence, it is indebted only to them, and honest reporting has become obsolete. The good news, if you can call it that, is that today everyone already knows that everyone is lying.

We still consume news from the media, since there is no other source of news, but at least it’s with a grain of salt. And speaking of salt, the media today is like the food we eat: big, shiny, and flawless in appearance. But inside, the food is pumped with hormones, steroids, and antibiotics. We all know it, and we all eat it. What else can we do?

Here we need to be honest with ourselves. It’s true that the media is corrupt, but this hasn’t been news for a long time now. So we should ask, Where did the journalists come from? Where did they grow up? Where were they educated? Where did they learn to distort and manipulate? They learned it in the same place where we grew up, where we were educated, where we learned to manipulate one another. The media are not more corrupt than the environment that bred them, which is all of us. They are made in our own image.

To get truthful news, it’s not enough to condemn them; they cannot be better than the public that engendered them. Instead, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror, admit that the people we patronize with our self-righteousness actually do reflect who we are, and ask ourselves if this is the society we want to live in.

If we do, then there is nothing to complain about. But if we don’t, there is a lot we can do. We can start by learning how we are all connected to each other. Just as one person with the coronavirus can infect dozens of people, if not more, so can our actions and even our thoughts. When ill-will toward each other reins high, people will do bad things to one another, reflecting what they feel inside. But when they feel connected to their communities and countries, when they care about their neighbors, they will not harm them. So the root of the problem that creates bad press is that we ourselves are bad to one another. If we are bad to one another, can we complain that someone else is bad to us?

We are reversing JFK’s motto, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” and complain when it doesn’t work. In principle, we all agree with JFK, but we want everyone else to go first. With this attitude, we will die before anyone does something.

The present is the way it is because we have avoided dealing with ourselves, with how we relate to each other, and with what kind of society we are fostering. We can keep avoiding the sincere soul searching that we need to do and go down the path we have been on for decades, but evidently, it won’t lead us anywhere good.

Alternatively, we can decide that we have to finally get off our couches and start working for each other. It doesn’t require radical changes; we don’t need to donate our savings, if we have any, and we don’t have to sacrifice anything. We only need to look inside ourselves and observe how we relate to one another, because this is where we are really sick. This is the virus we are giving to each other morning, noon, and night. If we want to become different to each other, we will, provided we want it together. This is the idea we need to promote, that together we can build a caring society, whose people are responsible for one another. If we adopt that tiny shift in our mentality, we will see a different world. Together, we can move mountains.
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Question: I remember myself in early childhood in the 80s. We swam in rivers and drank water from them; flowers and berries in the forest smelled so strongly that their aroma was simply intoxicating.

And today I see how everything has changed. Now these rivers are unsuitable even for watering cattle. Consequently, I have a certain feeling that we, our egoism, gobbled up this planet. What can we do to cure egoism? How can we correct it?

Answer: In principle, this is not so difficult. We just need to want this together and support one another so that many thousands of people would gather together and try to act not selfishly, but above their egoism, using it as little as possible.

And we do not need to do anything special, but first of all, just spare nature, stop robbing our Earth. And secondly, to spare people, i.e., treat one another with maximum understanding and friendliness.

If we act in this way with regard to nature and man, we will call upon ourselves the positive forces of nature, upper light, as we call it, and it will correct us. We will become more friendly, open, trusting.

We will be able to see through nature how good and evil forces interact with each other. And we balance them like plus and minus in electrical circuits. After all, it is impossible without the minus.

We need to learn how to do this. My whole life has been dedicated to teaching people how to properly use both forces inherent in nature: positive and negative.

The negative power is our egoism. It manifests itself everywhere and just burns us. But there is a positive force that we are not revealing. It can emerge only as we are awakened to it. If it (awakening) is not there, it (positive force) does not appear, and we remain under the control of only one negative force. As a result of this, we come to a state where everything becomes solely negative: inanimate, vegetative, animate nature, and man.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah: Victoria Bonya,” 3/29/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some cool examples of two kinds of people?“

There are fundamentally two kinds of people in our world: egoists and altruists.

Egoists do everything out of a calculation for personal benefit, and need to see justifiable compensation, like more money or an improved social status, for any act they do to benefit others.

Altruists willingly concede of themselves and of personal compensation in order to benefit others.

Egoism is human nature. It exists in every single person. Altruism, on the other hand, runs against human nature.

However, there are a minority in the world—altruists—who are an exception to society’s majority of egoists. Altruists constitute up to ten percent of human society.

Ultimately, however, we are developing to a state where we are realizing that an altruistic modus operandi in society as a whole will be able to alleviate the increasing problems we see in our egoistic-consumerist society.

The problem with making altruism a social norm is that the majority of egoists would feel a lack of compensation to be altruistic. It would be like a turning on a machine without any fuel.

Our current fuel to work in our egoistic-consumerist society is reward and punishment. In an ideal egoistic-consumerist setup, working more means reaping more rewards, which means more wealth, respect, power and knowledge, and working less means receiving the “punishment” of being unable to fulfill those desires.

However, the more we develop in an egoistic-consumerist society, the harder we find it becomes to fulfill ourselves. Various crises will eventually bring us to a sensation of helplessness, that we can no longer find fulfillment by prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others.

We will then become readier to change our way of life and become more altruistic.

However, we will still require fuel for our altruistic society to function.

And what is altruistic fuel?

It is when giving, improving others’ lives and positive contributions to others become society’s leading values.

Developing an altruistic society starts by rewarding and appreciating acts of positive social contribution, and gradually, after a period of doing so, we would start appreciating altruistic values in and of themselves.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do people see the human ego is bad?“

The human ego is seen as bad when it is overblown, causing people to exploit, manipulate and abuse each other in the name of pleasure.

Due to the ego causing so much division and conflict in and between societies, many people try to lessen the ego’s impact, trying to restrain it using a variety of techniques.

I have been studying and teaching the wisdom of Kabbalah for over forty years, which fundamentally differs to many other approaches to the ego.

It does not deal with restraining the ego. Instead, using Kabbalah, we reach an acknowledgement of the ego’s purpose, and learn how to navigate the ego in a way that makes it beneficial to society.

The human ego differentiates us from animals. It is an additional desire to enjoy ourselves beyond our survival necessities.

While on the surface it might seem as if certain animals are bad because they live their lives killing other animals, it is far from the case. Animals follow an inner programming that leads them to fulfill their survival needs, and if they kill other animals, it is due to their programming to feed themselves and their offspring, which emerges naturally.

Humans, on the other hand, can kill out of hatred for others, enjoying from others’ pain, and of their own growth in status above those that the human kills. Such hatred and enjoyment in the pain of others is a quality unique to humans, nonexistent in animals, and which extends from the human ego.

The ego thus separates humans from animals.

On the other hand, the ego is a driver of human progress. Our pursuits in science, technology, arts, music, culture and many others, are primarily fueled by the ego that wants more than the other.

It has placed us at the top of nature’s four-layered pyramid comprising the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human.

The question then becomes when is the ego detrimental and when is it beneficial?

The ego becomes problematic when we use it to self-benefit at the expense of others. When we adjust the intention upon the ego, directing it to benefit others over its drives to self-benefit, then the ego becomes beneficial to other people, as well as to all other levels of nature.

The adjustment of our intention upon our ego from self-benefit to benefiting others is possible the more we acknowledge the tightness of our interdependence.

The more we feel dependent on each other, then the more we will realize that we need to aim our egos at the common good.

On one hand, blows such as the coronavirus pandemic increase our understanding and feeling of our interdependence. On the other hand, we need not wait for such blows to wake us up to our interdependence, but can instead learn about how we can realize our interdependence in a positive way, and by doing so, alleviate many blows that we otherwise feel.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the way of accumulating suffering and blows to wake us up to our interdependence is called “the path of pain,” and the way of actively waking ourselves up to our interdependence and how to adjust our egos to it is called “the path of light.” The latter path is one which the wisdom of Kabbalah offers a method to access.

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