Entries in the 'Egoism' Category

“Media Thriving On Increasingly Egoistic Society” (Medium)


Medium published my new article “Media Thriving on Increasingly Egoistic Society.”

Take a step back to view human society worldwide as a human body for a moment, and what would you see? You would see its immune system hardly functioning, and the organs that should be forming a unified and healthy body disintegrating.

Problems on personal, social and global scales are on the rise, from depression, stress, loneliness, emptiness, anxiety, xenophobia, drug abuse and suicide, through to income equality, poverty, climate change and natural disasters, and despite countless efforts to deal with these problems, there is an enveloping deeper layer to them all that demands attention.

What is that deeper layer? It is none other than the human ego, i.e., self-love and self-concern overblown in every organ, bringing about the degeneration of the entire organism.

The human ego has undergone a recent growth spurt, reaching record levels: it has detached itself from all previously accepted norms, broken free from law and order, and it cruelly runs over established frameworks.

Who can resist the ego when it proudly inflates its chest? What law will block it? What factor can deter it?

The Media in an Egoistic Society

The ego has a strong backing: the media.

Today, the media, and social media in particular, enjoys widespread influence and power that it never had before. At any given moment, public opinion can be swerved one way or another. With a bag full of cash, you can buy advertising spaces, sponsored posts, and other media slots, slapping whatever you like in front of people’s faces.

Money can buy fame, and fame can overwhelm everything. Day after day, one washes the other, until all are gradually weakened and surrender, and the awareness of all the organs — the police and the lawyers, the educators and the judges, the leaders and the citizens — all fall before the media. Day in and day out, the illness of the body increases; the care for other people lessens, hatred for other people becomes greater, and the cancer eating away at the body of human society proliferates toward the body’s death.

A Positive Direction for the Media Heading into the Future

The media around the world needs to be informative and objective, not captive in the hands of people and groups with wealth and power interests. It should know its limits. The media has a role to bring us together and serve as an instrument designed to connect all organs in a single healthy body.

How good would it be if all different parts of society would sit together — the left and the right, the religious and the secular, representative of all different interest groups and those at the margins of society — and all work together for one boss: the benefit of the public. All their decisions would answer to it and it alone. Every opinion would have its own space, no opinion would be subjugated, and no voice would be silenced. They would sit and discuss in a wide forum, discuss positions with experts, delve into the data, quarrel and make up until they would reach a common decision and a common message to be disseminated.

A new rule would guide their work: publishing news and content that contributes to the public’s well-being, which strives to unite human society. No one would have the right to debilitate another opinion, but only to balance it with other positions and guide the varying points toward mutual complementarity. If the media would reach no agreement, then no public announcement would be made. On the other hand, only when the information benefits all would it come out. Such media pluralism would begin the process of healing the illness of a fractured society.

A Positive Direction for Leadership Heading into the Future

However, not only should the media act in unison, but also leadership. If all views seek to complement each other, they would pave a golden path. Representatives of all different sectors of the public would sit around a round table, and aim to become a unifying model for today’s society. Such a leadership would be considered a true democracy: the rule of the people, the rule of the majority, the rule of the elected representation.

The essential and decisive stage would be to lead participants to feel unified and to create synergy upon the differing opinions. Precisely when opposites reach mutual acceptance, society reaches a new stage of development. Such leadership is what our global and interconnected world needs today.

The introduction of a just and equal rule can make decisions for all based on the knowledge that they would benefit the entire body. In such a society, there would be no need for a star who would rise today and fall tomorrow, but it would suffice to have a circle of as many diverse opinions as possible. It would be the brain of the body of society, and all would follow it willingly.

With such leadership no one would be asked to give up his or her private opinion. It would remain and be enriched by other diverse and even opposing ideas. The new situation, which would include every possible contradiction, would give birth to a new development, giving everyone an equal place in society. Everyone’s unique contribution would be there for all to see. This is the wonder of mutual creation.

Just as every cell, organ or system in the human body wisely acts together to insure the sustenance and health of the entire body, all opinions would weave together to ultimately benefit the whole body of human society.

While it seems like a utopian fantasy to envision the media and society’s leadership working in such unification, it is only due to the fact that we haven’t yet implemented any method to connect in such a way. The method that can make such positive connection possible rests in the method that Abraham brought to the world some 3,800 years ago: the wisdom of Kabbalah. Just a little effort to look into this wisdom with a fresh mind, and it will soon become evident that there is a method capable of positively connecting human society, both diagnosing the root cause of all modern-day problems, and offering a method to solve them, thereby bringing about a harmonious existence for all.
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Male And Female, Part 5

Laitman_407.01Development of Relations Between Men and Women

Question: How can Kabbalah help establish a relationship between a man and a woman?

Answer: We see that as humanity evolves it becomes more and more difficult. Once relationships between a man and a woman were regulated by society: a village, a small town, religions, established customs, and so on.

For example, men had rights, women did not, and everything was arranged in this way. Everything was very simple. A woman knew what her purpose was. A man knew what his purpose was.

In principle, they both understood what they existed for and how they should live. There was no opportunity on their part to invent a new type of family, new types of cooperation, such as “quid pro quo” or something else. Everything was calm and clear.

The girl was brought up in her family, the young man in his. From the relationship of their parents, they saw what it meant to live a family life. They grew up for this, married, and this is how they existed.

All this continued until humanity began to go beyond its framework.

There are degrees in the development of egoism: basic desires, such as food, sex, and family, and social desires of wealth, honor, power, and knowledge. As long as the development of desires does not go beyond the basic ones, everything is calm; such societies can exist normally. They do not have any lofty impulses.

Once society enters the degree where it begins to be interested in wealth, power, and knowledge problems arise because these desires in people are much stronger than desires for food, sex, and family.

Therefore, a person leaves the family to achieve more elevated goals. In general, here we have the confusion that we see in our time.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/31/18

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Male And Female, Part 4
Male And Female, Part 3
Male And Female, Part 2

Family And Marriage, Part 7

laitman_600.01Go Beyond Your Ego

Remark: You said that a person instinctively experiences first love at the age of 12 or even earlier. Then for the first time one feels love for one’s children. All this in order to feel the model on yourself, how to correctly relate to our neighbor, to all of humanity.

My Comment: Yes. And then to the Creator.

Question: Are these relationships similar?

Answer: Each time they emerge at a different level.

If we are talking about children’s love, or love for children, or love for the family, then this is the natural love that exists in everyone as a bud, one needs to develop it.

If we talk about love for strangers, this goes beyond the framework of our egoism. Our egoism includes some kind of field: “This is mine, and this, and this.” Whatever is mine, I love, attract, and cherish it. I do not cherish anything that goes beyond the scope of my egoism. On the contrary, maybe I don’t need it and I don’t want to see it near me.

So, work on yourself is necessary here. Here I must see what is beyond my egoism. And practically outside of it is the Creator. As I begin to relate to what is beyond my egoism, so I relate to the Creator. Therefore, I must determine my attitude to the Creator and, based on this, relate to everything that is outside of my egoism.

Question: It turns out that if a person has a big ego, then one’s framework is narrowed? He doesn’t even feel family as his own?

Answer: Yes. But this does not mean that one cannot go beyond one’s ego. Maybe, on the contrary, in this way a person is pushed forward, given the recognition of evil.

Our movement forward is based on contraction and expansion: inhalation – exhalation, exhalation – inhalation. Therefore, if a person has great egoism and he does not feel anyone but himself, although, perhaps, he does not realize it, this moves him to deeper attainment of the Creator.

The greatest Kabbalists, before their correction, were very big egoists.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/1/19

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Family And Marriage, Part 6
Family And Marriage, Part 5
Family And Marriage, Part 4

“Black Friday”

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 11/29/19

Each year, right after Thanksgiving, human nature runs amok. We call it “Black Friday.” Let’s not kid ourselves; retailers aren’t losing money on Black Friday, they’re making a lot more of it. So why don’t they sell at these prices all year long? Because we customers are not united.

I’m not trying to suggest that unity for the sake of cutting prices will get us anywhere. It won’t. If anything, it will make things worse because there will always be people who will take advantage of the situation at the public’s expense.

But if we’re willing to stand in long lines, spend a lot of time and effort to save a few hundred dollars (at best), think how much we could save by collaborating? How much we could save by building our commitment to each other, and not just to ourselves?

Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 7/28/19

laitman_962.8Question: Humanity is evolving all the time; does this mean that it is becoming more compassionate, kind, and just?

Answer: No way! In the process of the development of egoism, we become more callus, rude, and have stopped being sensitive to each other. Of course, you can ask: “How can this be? After all, humans used to be barbaric!” Yes, but they were better able to understand each other. The more sensitive we become, the more sophisticated we are.

Question: Are our studies and dissemination advancing quickly enough or are we not advancing fast enough?

Answer: The speed depends on you.

Question: How will my egoism desire the truth if it depends on society and also negates this society by transcending it?

Answer: First you must learn all of this in your ten and only after that think about something else. It could be that this will take you a few years. Therefore, it is impossible in the meantime to talk about any other society. Do not build any illusions. All of this must be properly organized in the ten.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah.” 7/28/19

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Dissolve Our Egoism

laitman_963.8Question: How can I not be afraid of the feeling that I am dissolving?

Answer: If a person feels very ill, he is ready to dissolve without fear. Everyone has such moments when he is ready to disappear, not to hear anything, not to exist.

If we increase the importance of spirituality, we reach such a state where it is worth dissolving our egoism for the sake of attaining spirituality.
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From the Convention In Moldova “Day One” 9/6/19, Lesson 2, “To Become Ready to Be Influenced by the Society”

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Racing Against Growing Egoism

Laitman_115.05Question: Is the attainment of the future state in the present possible because the future already exists in spirituality and I just reveal it?

Answer: There is no present, past and future. It is all determined in our egoism. Therefore, we feel these parameters in us, in our qualities, and in our desires.

To the extent that our desires are corrected, we will begin to feel the corrected world and as if climb it. If not, we will feel the world falling more and more because our egoism is constantly growing.
It all depends on the extent to which we race against growing egoism.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

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Hikikomori

laitman_959Remark: There are people in Japan called Hikikomori. These are people who withdraw into themselves, isolate themselves, confine themselves to their homes; they do not go anywhere. Some never leave their homes and earn money by freelancing on the internet. Japan has more and more of these people.

My Comment: Very well. They live and have acquired a virtual identity for themselves. They should be given an opportunity to develop in various ways through this virtual identity. Each person will decide, according to their own egoism, what is best and more convenient for them.

They do not cost the government anything, they do not harm anyone, they do not kill or steal—nothing like that. That is all good. They do not sneak out at night to do something bad.

I would put all people on this “diet,” this lifestyle.

But, in order to achieve a higher life, a higher purpose, to acquire the ability to sense it, to come out of ourselves, to rise above this meager collection of still, vegetative, animate, and human bodies, our world, for this ascension, a person must exit one’s cell and begin to unite. But unite in the right way!

Question: Will they be able to break through and grow after some time? What will they achieve by sitting in solitude and not stepping outside? What will happen to them?

Answer: The question about the meaning of life will come to them. It will occur to each of them.

I am certain that people will begin to distance themselves from this hectic, raging mass, from this “Manhattan” that has spread all over the world. Thanks to emerging technologies, all the commuting from office to office, to and from work, will be reduced. Humanity will engage in inner work with the help of computers, producing a more internal intellectual product.

Therefore, many people will be confined to their homes, not just the Japanese. It is ecologically sound, cleaner, easier, more agreeable to people. Even the Torah says: “Happy is the one who earns a living not having to leave his home.”

Question: What what will it lead to?

Answer: People keep developing, their desire keeps growing, as is intended by nature, from above; they will start to feel: “What is it all for?”

Right now, humanity is preoccupied with their “games,” not realizing what kind of question is hanging over them. They will come to the meaning of life. The truth.

Question: A breakthrough toward it? From what, an outcry?

Answer: From a growing, expanding inner need. Actually, this is sweet suffering because it tells you about the search, that you are a human!

Question: Does this mean there is a great joy somewhere out there, but I have yet to discover it?

Answer: Yes. I have not discovered it yet, but it is shining at me from afar. That is, I am already connected to it but now I have to move toward it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/2/19

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New Life 275 – The Ego And I, Part 2

New Life 275 – The Ego And I, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

As of today, we are recognizing the evil inherent to egoistic development and are moving into a new approach in which we are all concerned about social connection, equality, and reciprocity. A new vision is rising that will also bring us into balance with the ecological environment we live in. The true self is one that enjoys life in all its fullness. The power to make a change like this is latent in nature and integral education is the method for locating it. This requires a higher power that is revealed when everyone is connected as in one heart.
From KabTV’s “New Life 275 – The Ego And I, Part 2,” 12/30/13

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New Life 274 – The Ego And I, Part 1

New Life 274 – The Ego And I, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

The ego is self-love. Without it nothing could exist, including both pain and pleasure. The ego develops via four stages in nature: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking or human levels. People are unique in their desire to exploit others for their own pleasure. We want what others have. We enjoy harming and humiliating others in order to feel superior. When people want to connect with others, they reveal resistance (the evil inclination). We have reached the peak of the ego’s development and are evolving into a new form of development based on mutual connection and harmony with others and with nature as a whole.

From KabTV’s “New Life 274 – The Ego And I, Part 1,” 12/29/13

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