Question: Why do the intellectuals of society, the leaders of the generation, feel the greatest hatred towards people?

Answer: It’s because they are also uncorrected egoists. Those who reach high levels in social, political, economic, and even scientific fields, are people with very great one-sided egoism. It is natural that they perceive everyone else as their potential competitors and suspect that someone will harm them.

It is impossible to complain about people who don’t learn the wisdom of Kabbalah, with the same demands that one would make to Kabbalists. Many times I have heard: “He is a great actor!” but in regard to his spiritual characteristics, he can be the worst and lowest person. We are mistaken if we immediately stick a label of perfection on him.

Spiritual qualities are in love for others, and everything connected with love for others.
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When we investigate nature, we are amazed at its wisdom, integrity, regularity, and infinite depth, which in every cell and atom reveals the interrelationship of all its levels—inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human—which communicate with each other in the universe’s distant corners.

Nature is so great and perfect that we cannot even comprehend it because we are only its small and insignificant work.

But why is it that man should be the crown of creation, the most complex and intelligent? Why, despite our highly developed mind, feelings, and possibilities, are we so bad, imperfect, and frivolous; why do we waste our lives and poison it for others and ourselves? There is some weird contradiction between our high potential and lowly deeds.

Why is man so bad that he enjoys when others feel bad? If we are the most developed beings, shouldn’t we be perfect, the most generous and noble? On the contrary, the more complex the creation, the worse it is.

How can an evil creation come out of a good Creator? It’s a contradiction, especially when we see how much wisdom there is in nature. And man also comes from the same source. Why is his great intelligence and strength accompanied by such evil, egoism, and desire to conquer and trample others? How can it mesh together?
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/18, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 26

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Question from Facebook: Is there a positive egoistic force?

Answer: No. Egoism cannot be positive because it detaches a person from any collective, from community, from connection, from nature. At the same time, the direction of human thought is only for oneself, for one’s own sake. Therefore, it cannot be positive because it is in the opposite direction from the general force of nature—from the Creator.

Question: So is it always destructive?

Answer: Always. It is good only when a person is in the initial stages of his development, like a small child. We allow him everything: we let him use his ego because it is necessary for his development. And then, from the age of 13 to 15, he must already control himself as an adult. And we begin to demand more and more from him.

It is similar to our spiritual development. At first, we were egoistic and went through a long egoistic path for thousands of years.

But now the egoistic progress is already coming to its end and we are obliged to start the next, completely different half of our existence—the altruistic one. Just as a person is considered a child, say, up to 15 years of age and then must lead the life of an adult.

We see that egoism has ended its development.

Question: What is progress now?

Answer: It is only a person’s transformation from an egotist to an altruist, when he will render himself and the whole world as a single whole. Only then can we properly and beautifully exist and evolve. Otherwise, we will lead ourselves to destruction.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/9/17

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Question from Facebook: I love my egoism. For others it might be a problem, but not for me. Why should I do anything about it?

Answer: You don’t have to do anything about it. But others around you who are also egoists do not want to do anything about their egoism either. And little by little you will begin to devour each other. Eventually we will come to a place where we will need to begin to cooperate because technology and nature is arranged against the individual. The surrounding world is entirely closed and integral. And all this exerts a great deal of pressure on us.

We cannot be different. Our innate nature is egoistic. And it is beginning to devour itself. We see that humanity is losing its orientation to freedom, the future, and even to caring about children or family, etc.

If we simply want to drag out our existence and die out like dinosaurs, then it’s fine. But if we want to live, we need to change ourselves. And nature is showing us which way to change.

Question: Is the statement “I love my egoism” correct?

Answer: It’s completely true. But what can we do? We will need to part with the method used now. Receiving only for ourselves, using our egoism only for our own benefit, will not work. We need to learn to use it for the common good, and then you will be fine, and your egoism will be very comfortable.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 11/9/17

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Question: What is the property of disgust? Where does it come from and why do we need it?

Answer: The feeling of disgust is a feeling of inconsistency with someone or something, when you feel that it is not yours.

Disgust arises when there is me and something outside of me, and this something is incompatible with me. Then I neglect it, disdain it, push it away. But when this “something” is inside of me, I feel the opposite, I love it.

It happens that a person, seemingly so squeaky clean, disdains anything and everything, but has no disgust with himself. This is an egoistic manifestation toward what is outside of me.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/13/17

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Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation: It is a natural law that the diligent class will exploit the backward class as best they can, like fish at sea, where the strong swallows the weak.

Today we see how the elites of all countries cannot stop in spite of the fact that they have already stuffed their own pockets. No logic can explain why a man with 50 billion needs another 50.

The fact is that the infinitely growing egoism requires this. Therefore, a person cannot do anything with himself; he must follow this. The miserable elites are also controlled by their infinitely growing egoism and are obliged to reduce the entire population to poverty, leaving them not even a crust of bread!

On the other hand, this is unnatural. Even during times of slavery, it was never like this. A slave was expensive! The owner had to take care of him, treat him well, etc.

Now we are separated from the connection between master and slave. An entrepreneur does not care that there are millions of people behind the gates of his factories. He must extract everything out of them!
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From Kab TV’s ”The Last Generation” 8/7/17

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Question: The truth is that we lie almost constantly and every day, starting from the small tricks and covering up small flaws to the biggest deception and slander. Lying is part of our life.

A child begins to lie from the early childhood, even without understanding what he is doing. We are touched when a child with his face smeared with chocolate confidently answers, “It wasn’t me!” to the question, “Who ate the candy?” So, what is the meaning of a lie and how does it develop a person?

Answer: Lies lie in the foundation of creation as the opposite of truth. Truth and lie are of equal importance because they cannot exist without each other. We must evaluate one relative to the other; otherwise, we will feel nothing. There is no evil without good; there is no good without misfortune; there is no darkness without light and so on.

Therefore, there is always a lie inside the truth and vice versa. If we delve deeper inside the basics of creation, then there is the Light, which is truth. After all, the Light is the only thing that exists; there are only bestowal and the common connection of all the parts of creation. A lie, the darkness comes every time wishing to separate, disunite and even break the entire creation.

This is precisely what happened during the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. It is written that a lie can only exist if it grows out of some kind of truth. Therefore, Adam and Eve (Havah) tried the apple first, because they were sure that it was possible to eat it and enjoy it for the sake of bestowal and there can be no prohibition. This indeed was the truth.

However, when they continued to eat, they already could not avoid the temptation and found themselves in a lie. That is, the lie grows out of the truth, and we are a result of the lie, of that tremendous shattering that happened to our souls in their very basis.

Therefore, if we want to come to truth, we must go through lies, tearing through it as if through a dark, dense forest, and then possibly we will gradually reach the truth.

It is “possible” because it is really extremely difficult to do. Besides, this opportunity depends on our development, which is provided by the wisdom of Kabbalah through the Light that returns to the source. After all, otherwise we do not see at all where the truth is and where the lie is, exactly like the child who assures that he did not eat the candy despite obvious evidence. We do not understand and do not realize our lie, because the lie is our primordial quality.

Therefore, we must forgive lies, treat each other with understanding, and we should learn to rise above all these lies, perceiving them as cute children’s mischief. After all, this is our nature.

The world cannot exist without lie, and it is only in the presence of lies that truth can exist. It is good if they exist in equal amounts, because so far we live in the world of complete deception. And those bits of truth that exist in it are meant only to make a lie look like truth.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/16/17

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Question on Facebook: Why aren’t people aware of their mistakes and why don’t they apologize for treating others badly? Does this happen consciously?

Answer: How can I be aware of my error if it means that I am an unreasonable, underdeveloped person?

Question: Aren’t there people who admit their mistakes?

Answer: There are, but they do it in a way that lets them receive greater benefit: “Look at how special, good, and objective I am—I admit my mistakes.” By that, they profit even more.

Otherwise, as egoists, we cannot really admit our mistakes since that humiliates us. We are only capable of admitting them in a way that raises us higher. I stand up in front of my peers and say: “You know, I am ready to admit my mistakes.” And they all applaud.

Question: Will man or humanity ever reach this state?

Answer: Only if a person starts admitting his mistakes, realizing that through it he will receive a higher reward. He cannot do it otherwise.

Egoism remains; it cannot disappear anywhere. We only replace one reward with another. That is, it is worthwhile for me to admit my mistakes; it is worthwhile to crush my ego; it is worth working with it differently in order to rise to the next degree. For that I need to develop the greatness of the altruistic goal, the greatness of love for others. Then I will be able to admit my mistake. One must be higher than the other.

Then I will need egoism only in order to reject it, to rise above it, because by doing so I earn more. That is how everything is arranged.
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From Kab TV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/2/17

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Question from Facebook: How do Kabbalists affect our world? Can they eradicate evil?

Answer: Absolutely not! Evil cannot be eradicated. We should have learned that from the thousands of years of our history. Annihilation of evil is impossible!

Evil is the foundation of the world. As it is written in the Bible: “I created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice,” not as elimination. Spice means that the evil remains, but we learn how to work with it correctly. That is what the science of Kabbalah is all about.

Question: You say: “Evil remains.” And so this always presents a hardship for a person?

Answer: Undoubtedly! What can you do? We have no other choice, we have to learn to work with evil. We have to understand it, respect it, and properly treat it as the Pharaoh (evil is Pharaoh): politely, with utmost courtesy, for it is only because of the evil that we are able to climb the ladder of more and more good.

Evil is the stimulus, the stage, over which we can constantly rise. On each level it is revealed in us even more, while we keep rising above it to goodness. Therefore, it is evil that advances us toward the good. The evil angel becomes the good one.

If not for evil, we would not be able to advance at all. Evil remains in all its glory, but we envelope it in a very good wrapping: goodness. It makes a wonderful “dish”: evil inside, goodness outside.

For we know, that every dish needs pepper added to it, salt, and something spicy. Even for children’s pastries cognac is added. Without it you cannot achieve the correct taste. Therefore, you have to taste some evil, but only for the purpose of elevating the good.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/2/17

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Question: Humanity’s history is the history of the exploitation of the weaker by the stronger and more advanced. If it were that rocks rather than people suffered, it would be easier to relate to all of this; it would be like watching a movie. But it was people who suffered. Or is that also a part of the movie?

Answer: It is difficult for me to answer the question: “Who suffered?” In reality, it is our egoism that suffered.

That is why, ultimately when we achieve correction, in the corrected state we do not feel that we suffered, we detach from it and rise to a completely different and opposite level from the one who suffered.

It turns out that Kabbalists, who rise along the levels of spiritual attainment, discover true states and do not attribute the past to themselves. They attribute it to the control of egoism over them.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 7/16/17

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