Comment: Extremely high percentages of employees have encountered symptoms of professional burnout, feeling exhausted and irritable, indifferent toward their work, and lack confidence in their professional abilities and some have complained of frequent headaches and insomnia caused by work-related stress.

There is a belief that if these problems were openly discussed and addressed that many of these types of difficulties could be avoided.

People who clearly suffer from burnout syndrome tend to be unmotivated and passive. They lack orientation toward results and are difficult to work with since they are not geared toward constructive problem-solving and problems only worsen when they are involved.

My Response: An unfulfilled ego can only be temporarily pacified through rewards, vacations, talking about problems, etc. because there is no real solution to this issue on the level of our world. The ego has reached its natural limit of growth, and nothing can satisfy it anymore. When we try to further stimulate it, it just spins its wheels.

In the end, there will be only one way out: to change its job from filling itself to fulfilling others.

Changing ourselves on our own is impossible, but the force that created us can change what it has made. And it is ready to do so, but only at our request so that we may thereby establish contact with it.
[81311]
From KabTV’s “Work and Health” 6/25/12

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Question: One day I really wanted to do something for someone without expecting anything in return. Suddenly, I saw a poor, sick girl on the street who clearly needed help. I gave her some money. She did not expect it and was so happy that I even teared up. Was it my ego crying, or did I cry because I had made a truly altruistic act?

Answer: A person, by definition, cannot do anything selflessly because he is an egoist. You helped the girl and were so moved by your own act, feeling like you were special, like you had done something selfless and unconditional. You lost a quarter from your pocket and felt good about it.

I am not denying the nobility of your act in any way. But it is earthly nobility, not spiritual. Because you, as a human being made 100% of egoism had to feel satisfaction in order to commit this seemingly altruistic deed.

Therefore, if you receive pleasure from your actions, it is called a reward, payment, or compensation. Your action cannot be called unconditional. Moreover, it was not selfless from the start, because you were moved by compassion; meaning, someone else’s suffering affected you.

And I am not even mentioning that, perhaps, the girl was pretty, in tears, in need of support, and some masculine qualities may have flared up in you; in other words, your egoism was working at full force.

You have to know your nature well in order to understand the reasons behind these inner impulses aimed at helping another person. But until you make a connection with the Creator, they will always remain egoistic.

Inside us, a very interesting machine is at work. That is why people serve each other in different ways, run around hospitals, look for victims, and do all sorts of things for others. All this because egoism, in this special form, pushes them to exchange what seem to be good deeds. But in reality, they are just satisfying themselves, their own vanity!

Through these actions, you elevate your status in your own eyes: you gave to someone, they enjoyed it, and you became higher than them, nobler, you started to respect yourself even more. This is your reward for what you did for them.

Question: So if a person has not revealed the Creator, who provides him with altruistic fuel, does he have any chance at making an altruistic action?

Answer: None. It is self-deception.

Comment: But the act itself is noble.

My Response: Noble means “bringing about good.” And these actions bring no real good—on the contrary, only harm.

If you want to bring true good into the world, draw the upper light into it, that fuel which will help us truly perform even unconscious actions directed away from ourselves and not toward ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 1/10/16

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Comment: Chow Yun-Fat, a  Hong Kong actor and filmmaker is a millionaire; however, he lives on limited budget, uses public transportation, buys clothes only on sale, saying: “As long as it is comfortable, I do not need anything else.” He has had a small phone for 17 years and just recently replaced it with a smart phone. He says that he does not need wealth for the sake of wealth.

My Response: He was created this way. There are people who like to live precisely such a lifestyle; they feel better this way. It is not overcoming of their egoism, but rather an expression of their nature.

His egoism is balanced. Large egoism exists in a huge number of people eager for everything and ready to sacrifice their lives for the achievement of some egoistic, earthly goal. Here we must show how it is possible to balance these aspirations in order to be happy.

Question: Do you feel even closer to people who are bursting and their ego is raging?

Answer: Yes, such people are closer to me because they are the ones who are people. But he is like: “Here I have green grass, and this is good. Sun, water, and that is it!”

Question: Do you say that you are closer to those millionaires who go and make more and more money and even step over others?

Answer: Yes, they realize the enormous egoism of nature that exists in humanity. For that reason, humanity will come to recognize the evil of egoism. Precisely thanks to these millionaires. They are working correctly for the general law of nature, and we have to be grateful to them. They show all of humanity how quickly we have to burn this egoism; otherwise, nothing will happen.

We have to realize its futility, uselessness, and emptiness. Most importantly, it does not bring us to any good goal. This knowledge and this experience of accumulation of negative results are necessary for us.

Question: Meaning, it is all opposite. People admire this person. However, you are closer to someone who steps over people, makes millions and billions, and that is all. He rages! And he is closer to you?

Answer: Of course. Precisely thanks to them, humanity understands what it has to correct within.

Question: Will it come to this fast?

Answer: Certainly. It will come only through recognition of evil and the nature of egoism when it grows and is gradually more and more recognized by everyone, and through revelation of its corruption on our side.

Question: Only in this way?

Answer: If there is a possibility to do something in a good way, then this is the only choice. And if not, then it will be through suffering. Let’s hope that it will not happen this way.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 11/15/19

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Comment: Researcher Jerry Burger replicated Stanley Milgram’s controversial and infamous experiment of testing people’s willingness to inflict pain in the form of electric shocks on others in increasing increments at the prodding of an “authority figure.” After the experiment started Burger offered subjects full payment for participating in the study even if they chose not to continue inflicting increasingly stronger electric shocks on their counterparts. His study yielded nearly the same results as Milgram’s that was conducted some 50 years earlier. Compliance rates of subjects inflicting suffering at the behest of the studies’ authority figure were only slightly lower in Burger’s study and he too found no difference in the rates of obedience between men and women.

My Response: If the experiment had been conducted under more natural, real-life conditions, the researcher would have found a 100% willingness to exploit others in any form just for the smallest personal benefit or even without any benefit at all. Because the worse it is for the other, the better it feels for me. This is how a person measures his state, it is measured relative to others.

Events will inevitably lead us to reveal our evil nature and to recognize the evil force that rules over us to such an extent that we would agree to change it toward good and love.

In essence, whether we receive or give does not really matter. The main thing is to feel fulfilled!

If we were born with the quality of bestowal instead of reception, we would not understand how it is even possible to receive instead of give.

This transition is nothing more than a psychological shift. After all, the main thing is to be fulfilled!
For now, a person sees fulfillment only in himself, and measures it relative to the downfall of another.
[2732]
Entries in the section ‘Development of Egoism’

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Comment: Psychologists conducted a very interesting study that showed that volunteer workers engaged in charitable activities experience burnout more than anyone else. Emotional, physical, and mental burnout is caused by stress. They often suffer from what is called “compassion fatigue.”

My Response: This happens because of the complete powerlessness to do something above one’s own egoism. A person egoistically wants his altruistic actions to succeed, but in the end, they do not. As a result, he begins to hate it all.

He sees a wall in front of him, and he sees how much the demands of altruism are opposite to his egoism, to his nature. And there is nothing he can do about it.

Question: So what is real charity that would not lead to burnout?

Answer: Real charity is when a person works for the world in order to bring the world to perfection, fully understanding what that perfection is.

Question: And what is this perfection?

Answer: It is only in unification among people. In accumulating and developing the feeling, the quality of unification, in individuals and in nations. We have hardly seen any large-scale attempts of this kind.

Comment: People constantly unite against someone. But you are saying they should unite in order to unify the world.

My Response: Yes, that has never happened, and that is true charity.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/13/20

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Comment: In the process of human evolution, many concepts of design, appearance, and everything else changes.  For example, what occurred in the seventies now looks ridiculous.

My Response: I am not afraid to seem ridiculous if I create something. I create it in my time, based on the desire and the properties that are revealed in egoism at a given time. Since I am a product of my era, then naturally I create what corresponds to it.

Of course if we watch old movies, we see how naive they seem. But they were relevant for that time, for that level of egoism.

For our time, when egoism develops in its overt negative form—I would say, undisguised, impudent, and naked—when it completely exposes your naked nature to everyone without a drop of shame or embarrassment, I think that this is wonderful! I think people will finally understand who they really are.

When I see your impudence, assertiveness, and selfishness in everything, your unwillingness to openly take anyone or anything into account, I see you, and not some beautiful cosmetic picture, and therefore I am glad that such things are revealed in our time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Evolution of Ego” 9/22/10

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The soul of Abraham, like all souls, is a result of the shattering of Adam HaRishon. Within all these souls are various parts, and as they naturally unfold from the beginning of correction to its end, this leads to the emergence of special souls who begin to feel that the world is not as it appears to the rest of the souls.

The feelings of the souls stem from the fact that their discernments have not yet reached a sufficient measure to reveal and feel that although the outer picture of the world seems to contain many separate forces, there exists a deeper picture in which all those forces are governed by a single force.

We are precisely in such a state since in our attitude toward life, we do not perceive it as governed by a single force that influences us with a single intention that wishes to bring us pleasure. We do not understand that the Creator’s attitude toward us is revealed in various forms according to the changes in our own state. Yet He Himself is one, unique, and unified.

The contrast between Terach and Abraham essentially repeats itself among us in the fact that we, like Abraham, want to reveal something different from what the world sees and from what we ourselves were in our previous state, which is called “the previous generation.”

A special readiness in the soul is needed in order to feel the demand to reveal nature, all of reality, as a single system, a single force, a single thought.

This idea can be grasped only by the most “refined” layer of souls that emerge as a result of the shattering of Adam HaRishon. Then, more and more souls can begin to join them. From generation to generation, the desire to receive increases within all souls. The souls of the earlier generations are essentially the same souls that return in later cycles, only with an added desire to receive, with the revelation of “coarser,” more substantial Reshimot.

But since the souls go through suffering in this world precisely because they become coarser, these sufferings prepare them to begin asking questions and to increasingly feel that something is missing, something that would bring order and unify all the forces of reality, to feel that behind all the diversity of visible forces there must be a single program, a single thought.
[344154]
From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Until today humanity still perceives that there are many forces, many purposes in the world, that there is no single thought, no single force, no single desire, no single goal; that we are driven by various impulses, urges, and that over us stand numerous “commanders” and causes for what occurs.

But suffering, both in previous generations and in ours, on the good path and on the bad one, gradually purifies the Aviut (coarseness).

Precisely because on the one hand a person becomes more “coarse,” and on the other investigates more and more, and comes to understand that he is incapable of understanding and investigating, this brings him to the revelation of the truth that he does not understand how creation is structured. This gives him the prerequisite to demand the revelation of the Creator, just like the demand that arose in Abraham.

Therefore when Abraham began to seek the Creator, he was alone. Later others joined him, those spoken of in the Torah, people who grasped this idea and went along with him: his sons, grandchildren, and students who constantly joined him.

All of this became a special system for educating future generations within Abraham’s group.
[344159]
From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How do we understand Rambam’s words that “you may not reveal the meaning of ‘slavery’ to women and children?”

Answer: A person is in various forms of dependence on his desire to receive. If his desire to receive is not satisfied, one will not be able to advance and will be obliged to provide his desire with what it needs first. Therefore he is called a “slave” of desire.

The level of “slaves” is divided into several categories. There are genuine slaves, who do not understand they are in slavery and are unaware of their bondage.

There are also “children” and “little ones” who already feel weak and small in regard to their desire to receive, and who know that it dominates both their minds and hearts. Sometimes a person has the opportunity to get to know himself from the outside and see how powerless he is; sometimes he falls into a state where he just does something, like a small child, without reason.

By “women” we mean a state in which we feel dependent. There is a desire to receive, and it is like a husband, like a master. And so we feel dependence and lack (unfulfilled desire), which we must fulfill. So we fulfill it.

We are talking about various attitudes. There is nothing we can do. People employ them, and that is how they exist. Otherwise, it is impossible to live. They look for additional pleasures to fulfill their desires: fashion, public opinion, or something else.

People must have some goals in life so that they gradually fulfill themselves. Let it be football or some other game in life. There could be some changes for the whole world, one thing, then another to feel alive.

This is called life, a change in types of pleasure. This is our world. You can see it every time there is a new fashion, every time something is announced as an event or innovation. “Harry Potter,” then The Matrix, then something else. It gives you a sense of life. Otherwise, what is there to live for? That is the way people work: they look for something new to keep alive.

This is called a “woman.” She feels addicted and falls for this addiction because there is no other way. How can she exist? It is said that she “depends on a man,” “wants a man.” The Talmud and the TES say that a woman prefers “one measure and stupidity (i.e., being dependent) to nine measures as unmarried.”

We can talk a lot about these three categories: “slaves,” “children,” and “women,” about how it manifests itself in our world from the point of view of psychology, how it works in social circles, how it descends into matter and functions in it. We are already seeing this. Given that the public understands this, we can already start explaining it in lectures, and from there move to the reasons, the spiritual roots.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Comment: According to statistics, when someone attacks another person and sees signs of weakness, the attacker often feels an even greater urge to harm them.

My Response: Naturally, that is our egoism. When we see someone else’s weakness and we are confident that we will not be punished, we instinctively desire to suppress them even more.

We are very easily drawn to extremes, either one way or the other. It all depends on society, on the environment, which can influence us in either direction. It is an enormous force that resides within us, a terrifying force!

Right now, we are at a pivotal point in historical development where we can turn one way or the other. We could slide back into fascism, only this time, it would be far worse culminating in a world war of such magnitude that only a small remnant of humanity would survive, which is a scenario like those shown in Hollywood films: a destroyed Earth, with the remaining people living among heaps of metal and junk, the last remnants of everything that once existed.

Kabbalah says this is possible. Still, the people who remain will fulfill their task of bringing egoism to its corrected form. But this will happen through immense suffering.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Homosexuality and Kabbalah” 9/2/10

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