New Life 814 – Revealing The Lie In Our Times
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Why does it seem that we are surrounded by lies? What can we learn from that about human nature and why is this study essential on our way to the next level of our development?

Today we are revealing the truth that we are living in a lie. The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that it stems from our egoistic nature.

We developed for thousands of years in egoism, and now the lie in it is emerging. This is very good progress. No one in this world is clean of the ego, so we are all liars. No one can see things objectively.

We will not be able to advance unless we realize that our goal is to reach love of others and that everyone should do whatever he can for the sake of the society.

The media and social networks are full of false information, and each loves his own lie. We need a general social education process through which we will get to know our nature and learn to upgrade it.

Soon all of humanity will discover that the connection between capital, power, and the press does not allow us to function at all.

The evolutionary process forces us to discover that human nature is egoistic and that we have to ascend above the egoism, above the lie.
From KabTV’s “New Life 814 – Revealing The Lie In Our Times,” 1/19/17

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

Filed under: Education, Egoism, New Life - No Comments →

Savages with a Nuclear Bomb in Hand

The global crisis shows that the evolution of humanity has reached the end of the path, and no one has a clear plan of further development.

If we continue to move in the same direction, we will make even more mistakes. This is why the program of exiting the crisis by way of the integral education offered by the wisdom of Kabbalah is becoming revealed.

In fact, it is a crisis of a human nature itself, not a particular social order, as it has happened before when more democracy, capitalism, liberalism, or socialism was needed.

Now it becomes apparent that all these social formations did not differ from each other because they all were founded on egoism. The only way out of the crisis is through the correction of egoism by means of integral education.

Question: But democratic regimes also taught people the values of liberalism and democracy, didn’t they?

Answer: It is true, but unfortunately it was nothing more than just pretty words with no real actions behind them. If democracy and liberalism are built on uncorrected and uneducated human egoism, everything becomes permissible. A person feels that he is free to do whatever he wants without bearing any responsibility for it.

In the modern sense, liberalism means that I am allowed to act as I please with no regard to anyone, neither a society, nor a family, nor a state, nor the world itself. On their own democracy and liberalism are marvelous qualities, but when they merge with human ego, they become destructive.

We see their consequences in the modern world that relied on supposedly democratic and socialist methods and ended up with complete permissiveness as a result.

Past thirty or forty years have broken all the previous social conventions and led to chaos. It’s impossible to find a country that has maintained order and that can be governed effectively. Obviously humanity cannot exist in such a way.

That is why this crisis is a consequence of liberalism and democracy running wild. They themselves are wonderful principles, but it is necessary to check what they clothe onto. If it is a human ego, they bring to the revelation of destruction.

Question: In the past, there have been many attempts to educate humans, which ended up being a complete failure. Isn’t it already clear that it’s impossible to change human nature?

Answer: It is true that in the past hundred years humanity has lost a hope to educate a human being. The world doesn’t know how to educate human beings and doesn’t see any positive results of education. Therefore, instead of education, we engage in the acquisition of knowledge, teaching people how to read and write and giving them professional skills so that they become good workers, engineers, and doctors.

But we do not think about how to educate a Human. We are only concerned about supplying a person with a profession to enable him to start a family, give birth to children, and raise them the way he was raised, without real education. We see problems that arise between parents and children, and a gap that exist between generations. Each generation falls lower and lower.

Humanity has to educate themselves, this is the only thing lacking. Everything else is abundant, both good and bad, with nuclear weapons on the one hand and the most powerful sources of energy and the high tech on the other. In a few years it will be possible to completely replace people in the workplace with robots. But if people have nothing to occupy themselves with, they will simply start killing each other.

A person is used to having to get up in the morning and go to work, to come back tired in the evening to watch TV, and then go to bed in order to get up again in the morning and go to work. This is considered a normal life. A beast feels in place when it has obligations and gets exhausted attending to them.

On the contrary, if a person is left to himself from morning till night without any obligations, he will never arrange his life properly. After all, our ego is at the basis of everything, so a person will end up doing every possible evil. Humanity will come out of boundaries of normal life in all directions, sink into all vices.

We see it on the example of American cities that have lost their industries, where people have not been working for a several years already. It’s dangerous to even enter these cities. Quality of life there is so low, you can buy a house for a few thousand dollars, because no one wants to live there.

It becomes clear from this why integral education is so essential. After all, without it, in just a few years we will turn into savages with a nuclear bomb in our hands.
[202640]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/17, Lesson on the Topic: “Mismah Arosa (Arosa Document),” “Plan for Getting Out of Crisis”

Related Material:
The Plan For Exiting Crisis, Part 1
Where Does The Program Of Development Lead Us? Part 1
On The Threshold Of Discovering The Goal Of Evolution

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism - No Comments →

Question: What is sin?

Answer: Sin is using the ego to harm others, but it is possible to explain the use of the ego in different ways. For example, I can cut down a tree that is still growing and according to the definition in our world, it is not a sin even though on the spiritual level it is a sin.

If a person in our world uses more than is necessary for his normal, respectable existence, all usage above this level is called a “sin.”

This is talking about regular physical existence on a normal material level. Every beast automatically strives for this. If you give a cake to a cow or champagne to a horse, they will not touch them and they will not lie down on a feather bed. They require only what is necessary for their bodies.

Even a person needs only what is required for his physical body and no more than this. Everything else should be directed toward spiritual attainment, going out to the spiritual world. This entire life is given to a person to discover the soul in order to attain the upper world, to exit to the upper world during his lifetime. A sin is when a person is not engaged with this.

Question: For a person involved with art, writing books, painting, music, accumulating money in the bank, earning interest,  and so forth, is all of this sin?

Answer: No, but he is not carrying out his mission. All of the inclinations a person has for all the various arts and sciences are given to him only for spiritual expression, directing the world toward unity. Everything else only confuses him.
[201032]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/9/16

Related Material:
A Concealed Intention
Judging Yourself
The Sin Of The Soul

Filed under: Egoism, Q&A - No Comments →

Life That Never Ends

Question: Does the world develop only according to the program embedded in it or is there a place for chance?

Answer: There is nothing accidental in our development. The beginning of creation and its end are linked together, as it is written, “The end of the action lies in the initial thought.” Therefore, there can’t be any mistakes or imprecisions in the process of evolution. Statistic and finances use approximate calculations and projections, but it is only because we don’t know the exact facts.

In nature there is nothing approximate; everything is uniquely determined by the final state that sets the beginning. A person moves forward stepping into darkness and not knowing what awaits him. But this is impossible in the evolution of nature. On the contrary, the end is predetermined and therefore how to reach it is known.

The example that demonstrates this is the electric eel that catches prey with electric shocks of 500 volts. It would seem that this property had to be developed gradually in the course of evolution.

But if the eel’s original charge was not 500 volts, but 1, 5, or 100, it wouldn’t help it catch prey since 500 volts is required! So how was this quality developed in him, if the small voltage wouldn’t bring any benefit?

However, “the end of the action lies in the initial thought”; this rule is valid always and everywhere. Therefore, nature unmistakably moves forward, but this is the way of suffering due to the blows that force the transition to the new state. All living creatures and cells are forced to annul themselves and die, but there is no loss.

In nature, the law of altruism operates, according to which every creature annuls itself for the sake of the general system. It happens automatically, not consciously. Only when we reach the human level do we face a problem.

After all, a person must comply with these laws of altruistic connection and cancel his egoism of his own volition. This way he becomes similar to the upper force, the Creator.

Life is connection, and a person aspires to this connection as to the essence of life. Due to his annulment for the sake of connection with others, like a cell in the healthy body, he begins to feel and reveal the upper force. In this way he reaches an equivalence of form with the Creator.

Therefore, the Creator initially created the desire to enjoy and shattered it so that a person would have the opportunity to renounce his egoism and become similar to his maker, the upper degree. The more we annul ourselves, renouncing our egoism, the higher we climb reaching equivalence with the higher level.

By killing our egoistic desire, we become free from it and can rise to the next degree. The one who is capable of it, reveals that life is precisely in annulment and in reaching the higher and higher existence. There is no death, there is self-sacrifice for the sake of connection. Unification is the main goal and the idea of life.

Therefore, the shattering was necessary. The recognition of our shattering is the foundation for implementing correction, i.e., unification.

I annul myself for the sake of existence on the higher degree where I continue to live. After all, my idea, my desire, and everything done by me exists there, as if I would have continued to live in my children, and they in their children, and so on. The one who kills his current egoism receives the next degree—the eternal continuation.
[200566]
From the 3d part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/17, Lesson on the Topic, “Mismah Arosa,” (Arosa Document)

Related Material:
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 5
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 4
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 3

Filed under: Body and Soul, Crisis, Egoism, Globalization - No Comments →

From “The Crisis and its Solution,” Arosa Forum 2006

Altruism—The Principle of Life

If we explore the principle of altruism in nature, we discover it is the basis of all life. Every living organism is composed of a plurality of cells and organs that work together, complementing each other. In this process, they are obliged to concede, influence, and help one another. The law of integration of cells and organs according to the altruistic principle “one for all” is effective in every living organism.

The law of evolutionary development forced elementary particles to connect into atoms, molecules, and then into living organic cells that are able to reproduce by themselves according to an intracellular program. Living cells have the desire to reproduce and create more complex organisms, and all this happens due to connection.

Connections become more extraordinary. Inside living bodies such processes happen with which human wouldn’t agree. For example, a cell is ready to die in order to make room for new cells, or serve as food for other cells, and so on. That is, in the process of development, the altruistic actions are performed on the part of nature when one takes care of the entire environment in general.

For example, cells of the human body exist in one system and are fully subordinate to it. It’s not because it has power over them, but because each small cell, according to its internal program, seeks to join the system. For them the law of the system, of the general connection, is the utmost and most important asset.

They themselves are willing to live or die—it is not important to them. The feeling of the law of the system in which they exist is higher for them than their own material existence. A cell kills itself in order to make way for a new life, and through this it gets connected to the general process or general program.

In terms of the general program, this cell doesn’t die, but precisely continues to live due to the fact that it provided the place for the new living cells.

It allegedly doesn’t conform to the fact that all of nature is based on egoism. The connection always involves concessions and annulment, and the more complex the living compound, the more annulment it requires.

When non-living plant and animal cells connect, concessions are not the result of a primitive egoistic calculation, but a desire to win at a level higher than the one visible to us. A cell, by annulling itself, gives life to more complex cells that appear in its place and through them gets a new existence on the higher level.

This way non-living material is transformed into a plant, a plant into an animal, and an animal into human. At each stage, the matter becomes more complex, and this high organization is only possible due to annulment for the sake of connection. This way connections become more qualitative. They have no egoistic calculations of the previous existence but only care about the higher connection.

Fish go to spawn and die for the sake of future offspring. Biologists think that this is blind instinct, but nature does not kill just like that. Due to the death of the lower level, the life on the higher level is born.

Through self-sacrifice at the previous stage, a more complex and advanced combination appears to such an extent that even conventional non-living materials become radioactive and emit particles. Any chemical compound, even the simple atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, is based on mutual concessions where each one sacrifices its independence in order to connect.

If the material then decomposes, it means that it is more stable in this form rather than in a connected one. This is the essence of all chemical reactions and processes. A more complex compound is a more valuable gain. This is the process of development that raises the nature to a more highly organized level, each time requiring more significant sacrifice.

Therefore, altruism is the principle of life, because without it, connection at the level of elementary particles, or atoms, or molecules, or any organisms would be impossible. There would be no complex living beings and only due to the complex organization do we have feelings and intelligence.

All highly organized forms of life that require the ability to match and compare one with another are based on annulment and connection as well as on the self-sacrifice for the sake of a higher state.
[200441]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/17, Lesson on the Topic, “Mismah Arisa,” (Arosa Document)

Related Material:
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 4
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 3
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 2

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Globalization - No Comments →

Question: Inside the narrow family circle, a person feels warmth and protection because there is no egoistic struggle between relatives. What would happen if this circle expanded and covered many people not connected by family ties?

Answer: The positive force of nature will be revealed between these people. If they try to maintain good relationships, the force hidden in nature will be revealed. There will be a place for it to be revealed because they will want to connect above their egoism.

The distance between the force of such connection and the egoism that resists it will be the place where the positive, anti-egoistic force of nature can be revealed.

There are two forces in nature: the negative that separates us and the positive that connects us. The positive force appears if we try to connect. We become its detector, creating conditions for its revelation.

The family is too small a group, hence it is difficult to feel the manifestation of this force in it. But a tribe that unites many families provides a place for the revelation of the positive force of nature.

Abraham spoke precisely about this in ancient Babylon 3,500 years ago. He said that we have no other choice but to unite despite the egoism that erupted and the social crisis that it caused and despite the mutual misunderstanding, what is called the confusion of language.

We must rise above this misunderstanding, that is, mutual aversion, so that love will cover all transgressions of our egoism.

If we cover egoism with love, we will discover the good force hidden in nature to the extent that we can overcome our evil inclination. Egoism will grow more and more in all possible shapes and forms, and we will have to overcome it more and more.

After all, evil is revealed only so that we can connect more strongly above it and uncover the positive force even more until we feel that we live in the ocean of goodness.

And who helped us? It was the same evil egoism that was constantly growing in us. And so it is called “help against it.” So we find ourselves in the world of absolute goodness, but it is built above our egoism, above the evil forces. Now these two forces begin to work together, helping each other. The evil force helps the good force in which we live.

This method is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. It teaches how to use the revealing evil egoism correctly, every time rising above it through the good force. This is impossible to do alone, as it is written “They helped everyone his friend.”

Therefore, we should go back to this brotherly love when we all felt like one single tribe.
[199350]
From KabTV’s, “A New Life” #794 11/29/16

Related Material:
Babel—The Second Round, Part 2
Babel—The Second Round, Part 1
We Are An Ancient Babylonian Family

Filed under: Ancient Babylon, Egoism, Israel Today, Nations of the World - No Comments →

New Life #396 – The Need For Community Life Today
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

Where does the desire to live in a community stem from? What is the social trend in this respect and how do we build the right community?

The lack of social life has been felt since the 1960’s. People began to gather in different communities. Life develops us in two different directions: indifference to others, and, on the other hand, the lack of warmth and mutuality. In the future, the community will be responsible for all the services a person received from the tribe or the extended family in the past.

In a community a person feels secure that if something happened to him, he would be supported. This is mutual help. When every individual nullifies his own boundaries and is connected with everyone as one man in one heart it is a community.

Today everyone has a very big ego that keeps us part. If we connect above it, it will be heaven on earth.
From KabTV’s “New Life #396 – The Need For Community Life Today,” 6/5/14

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

Filed under: Egoism, New Life, Society - No Comments →

The main thing required today is to recognize that there is a crisis and to understand that this isn’t just destruction, but the birth of a new humanity.

From the brochure “The Crisis And Its Solution” (Forum in Arosa 2006)

Egoism—All the Matter in the World

All matter constitutes different measures of the desire to be filled with power, life, and pleasure. The magnitude of desire to be fulfilled creates various levels of nature: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human and determines all processes that occur in them.

All nature—inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human—should be considered as a whole. Recently it is increasing revealed in our world due to the scientific research and the entire life experience. The nature of each material is its egoism and desire to exist at the expense of others.

It is the law of nature that cannot be avoided. We just need to check how this law operates, what is broken in it, and why we can’t reach the correct connection? Are we fully at the mercy of the laws of nature without any way out? Can we only accept the fact that each one eats the other, or is it still possible to correct?

Peculiarities of Human Egoism

With the exception of man, all of nature consumes only what it needs for its existence. Man desires more than he needs in food, sex, physical comfort, and especially in desires that are inherent only in him: wealth, power, honor, fame, and knowledge.

Human egoism is growing continuously, hyperbolically. Its growth stimulates and determines the progress of humanity, but at the same time, it leads to a dead end, to a global crisis.

By egoism dominating over man, it deprives him of instincts that ensure his survival. Egoism that grows on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels develops correctly in order to support the existence of the species. However, egoism that develops from the level of an ape to the direction of human begins to destroy the human species. After all, people care not only about necessities for existence, but about the excesses that always come at the expense of others.

If we live in the integral nature, in the closed system, then taking for ourselves too much, beyond what is necessary for life, we steal it from others, from the general system. It doesn’t matter if we know about it, or act unconsciously, we nevertheless harm the system.

Therefore, the entire development of humans on Earth was, in fact, egoistic, from the desire to use the environment beyond their natural needs.

It means that human behavior is defined by completely different laws compared to inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. Human egoism does not have any limits and when it sees something that other has, it immediately begins to want the same, even if he does not need it.

It does not happen in animals; they are absolutely indifferent to each other and they only feel their own requirements. However, the human differs from animals exactly by his excessive desire that doesn’t belong to the animate level. We are talking about this excess, why it was given to us and how to use it correctly.

The problem of a person is that he doesn’t associate himself with the general system, doesn’t consider the whole Earth as his home and humanity as his family. He simply is not capable of such an attitude because of his egoistic nature; it requires an integral education.
[200330]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/17, Lesson on the Topic, “Mismah Arosa,” (Arosa Document)

Related Material:
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 3
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 2
Eleven Years After Arosa, Part 1

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Globalization - No Comments →

Question: From the point of view of the wisdom of Kabbalah, how should a person relate to the rapid growth of genetic technological systems?

This can significantly change the life of humanity: artificial intelligence, neural networks, artificial bodies as an attempt to lengthen life, the general project of cyborgization, decoding and modification of the human genome, and the immense streams of information that overwhelm our consciousness.

Can the development of a manmade system be a danger to spiritual development and are some researchers infringing on the role of the Creator?

Answer: We are inside a small, closed, egoistic desire and there is no reason to imagine ourselves as superhuman.
[200401]
Related Material:
Will Artificial Intelligence Replace People?
Program of Life, Part 5
Humanity At Risk Of Extinction

Filed under: Egoism, Q&A - No Comments →

Germany has lost the EU leadership. The EU is in stagnation. Now it’s France’s turn to lead the EU. Who is next?!

The EU didn’t keep its promises to bring its citizens a prosperous economy, jobs, equality and social security. This is Germany ‘s loss!

Only by mastering the method of connection above differences, can we enjoy ever greater contradictions that strengthen the connection.

Kabbalah—the method of connecting egoists—becomes revealed precisely because society now faces its egoism, yet must remain connected.

Likutey Halachot [Assorted Rules] Item 4: The main requirement for man is to achieve connection above contradictions to the degree of love

Specifically politicians, who are in constant conflict, can appreciate the merit of Kabbalah: creating connection above contradictions.

Kabbalah enables a two-tier human connection: natural selfishness and rejection below, altruism and attraction above. This is the correction!

Kabbalah enables connection ABOVE contradictions. That’s why in the future only Kabbalah will turn people into true liberal pluralists.

Our egoistic development will expose our inability to understand each other. Then, we’ll need to use Kabbalah for human connection.

Liberals, Republicans, and the Jews Between Them

[#201914]
From Twitter, 2/12/17

Related Material:
My Thoughts On Twitter, 2/10/17
My Thoughts On Twitter, 2/9/17
My Thoughts On Twitter, 2/8/17

Filed under: Egoism, Kabbalah Study, News, Politics, Thoughts on Twitter - No Comments →