In the News (South China Morning Post): “China’s online education industry has grown rapidly in the past few years, but analysts believe more business opportunities will surface as technology advances and capital pours in.

“The country could become one of the world’s most vibrant online education markets in the future thanks to growing household spending power, an undersupply of education resources, and the introduction of the two-child policy, analysts said.

“The market is likely to grow 20 per cent annually, reaching 270 billion yuan (US$41 billion) in 2019, up from 156 billion yuan in 2016. Globally the online education market will rise to US$190 billion by 2019, statistics from iResearch and Decebo showed.

“This means big opportunities for online education companies in China, which had attracted 144 million users by June this year, according to data from China Internet Network Information Centre.”

Question: What this means is that the physical connection between people will cease. What is the benefit in this?

Answer: I think that this is a natural development of humanity. Egoism has developed and is no longer interested in being connected with anyone. If a person wants to, he will go to the pub in the evening, meet someone and so on. And if not, then he won’t. Four walls and a computer will be enough for him.

Question: Everything will be through the computer? And will emotions also be through the computer? They will connect electrodes and a person will be happy?

Answer: That is what will be until an inner resistance enters into consciousness because the spiritual genes within us that require forward movement toward the goal of creation are expanding, rising, and  opening in us. When they demand their realization, we will feel that we are living in evil and a lie; they will rebel against this situation. We will truly start a revolution and change the situation.

That is, if we survive until then, because the world is tirelessly galloping towards self-destruction.

Question: Does this mean that all progress, and everything that happens, one way or another, leads to a person hating evil and wanting to break out of it? Does this mean that all the logic in this world is required only for this? And does the entire world exist only for this purpose?

Answer: It is only for this. A person will delete all the content on his computer except for our website.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/16/17

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In the News (Front News): “The annual volume of bribes in the world is estimated at one trillion dollars. This was reported in the press service of the United Nations.

“’The annual volume of bribes in the world is estimated at one trillion dollars. At the same time, the world economy is losing another $2.6 trillion due to corruption. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in developing countries, corruption-related losses exceed the amount of official development assistance by 10 times,’ the report said.”

Question: What kind of a world are we living in?

Answer: We are living in an egoistic world that truly cannot get along in any other form.

If a person is managed by his egoism and doesn’t get any other education, he thinks only of how he can profit the most from any task, from any work. This is the natural wish of our egoism.

This is how we are arranged; it is our nature. How can a person limit himself and not take, not steal, not exploit his opportunities in the workplace? He must necessarily do this.

In principle, the efficiency of human society is almost zero. Absolutely everything is stolen!

Question: It turns out that almost every person in the world takes bribes?

Answer: Of course. Does he produce everything society demands of him? And if he shorts giving society even a little of his energy, even a little of his strength, knowledge, or something else, this is already theft. We cannot do anything against this without educating people.

Question: In what circumstance will a person not take bribes or steal?

Answer: In the event that he has a higher reward. He will begin giving everything to people to receive a connection with the Creator as a payoff.

If a person treats all people like he does himself, then in this relationship with others he will find a “secret door,” which is an exit to the Garden of Eden, to the spiritual world.

Everything there is managed according to other laws, according to the laws of bestowal and love. This is what we must attain. Today we are facing such an opportunity, and everything else we will reveal in this world is how unbearable it is. And so we will get closer to this possibility.
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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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