Comment: The first of December is World AIDS Day. The HIV virus, which causes AIDS, was first discovered in 1981 and since then great efforts have been made to find a cure or a vaccination for this disease which is still incurable.

Answer: There are many such “dirty tricks” prepared for humanity to deal with.

When do diseases manifest? As soon as there are egoistic conflicts between us, when we use the egoism that has just been revealed in its most hateful forms, based on the resentment we feel toward each other, we are immediately shown a similar response.

This response descends from the spiritual level to the level of our mutual relations, to the corporeal level, and is revealed in the form of AIDS and many other infectious problems that spread throughout mankind. Suddenly diseases we thought were eradicated a long time ago emerge.

Question: Do you see a correlation between the problems that emerge and the egoistic evolution of humanity?

Answer: Yes, absolutely. I can’t say how exactly it will be revealed, but it is clear that if there is new egoism and we don’t correct in time, it leads to such outcomes on our level.

Question: Can we fight diseases with medication?

Answer: We can to a certain degree. We have to make great efforts and invest great resources to somehow mitigate the blow in the corporeal world, which on the spiritual level can be done at once.

One drop of medicine on the spiritual level operates almost immediately, whereas on the corporeal level, it involves spending billions of dollars. In any case, it is a violation of the balance of nature.
[198220]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/30/16

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Question: Why do people whose time for correction has not yet come still need to suffer? And during the period of thousands of generations when the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed, until the year 1995, what could they have done besides suffer?

Answer: Suffering is caused by the fact that our egoism must develop to point where it will truly want higher, special, and eternal pleasures.

So we had a long way to go, beginning from the creation of atoms, molecules, soil, and water, then primitive organisms, plants, animals, and finally to the human in his present state. This was a really long way and all of it in suffering.

It is only today that we have begun to develop in our final phase. But we now have the possibility of advancing with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is a special method by which it is possible to attract the Upper Light.

And then we can advance by the way of Achishena (hastening time), by accelerating our development without nature pushing us from behind through suffering, but through yearning to move forward by anticipating attainment. It is in this way that suffering stops. It means that it is possible to “run” forward toward the goal of creation faster than the “stick” that is always behind us, so that it will not catch up to us.
[197485]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/28/16

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Judging by the state of the world, we can conclude by all indications that the old era has ended. As Baal HaSulam predicted, from 1995 onward, the wisdom of Kabbalah started becoming revealed in the world. Humanity thus began understanding the process it is involved in.

The evil force of egoism had been continuously and increasingly developing in humanity, through all social formations: slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism. Egoism was a developmental engine. It progressed us. Today, however, it has completed its work because it has reached its maximal realization. The successful ones arose, like cream, and the rest remained at the bottom, like skim milk.

Capitalism stopped working not only for those who remained at the bottom, but even for the elite. The US government debt reached epic proportions and society became divided. It is impossible to continue this way. An incredible amount of people are in distress. The problem, however, is that the egoism of the wealthy elite won’t let them properly share their wealth with the needy.

Corporations still manage to pump out profits, but only through deception. There is nothing behind this apparent wealth; it is not covered by a gold equivalent. It is all a financial bubble that will burst the same way it did in 2008. Its explosion will be even more destructive than war.

The only solution is to make a shift to the new era’s industry. There is total abundance in the world. Our planet can feed us all. Modern technology makes it cost next to nothing. The only problem is how to attract the positive force that is missing in the world.

Egoism completed its work by bringing us to the peak of its capacity. Some thousandth part is at the top, and the rest are at the bottom. The elite can continue in this manner for a few more years with the help of various tricks, but it will be very dangerous because more and more unemployed will accumulate at the bottom without any hope of climbing the social ladder.

If egoism has exhausted itself, then we have nothing left but to continue in a different way. If we start to strengthen our connection, we will generate a positive force within it that will balance out the negative force. We won’t destroy egoism, but it will start working at a higher level.

The egoistic desire doesn’t have room to develop further and this is the reason for the crisis. We have fully exhausted its earthly use in this world. So how can we work with it further? Only by attracting the positive force can we allow egoism to grow further. The competition will continue, but it will be based on a different method.

The more we connect with each other, the more our desire to enjoy grows. It becomes integral. That is, it acts on a completely different level of connection, becoming many times bigger. This is the method of further development based on the desire to enjoy that grows indefinitely in its spiritual form. Compared to what it is capable of, our current egoism is like a tiny bug.

Today, our use of our egoism is very limited, primitive and stupid: to steal a little over here and to snatch a little from over there. Also, the ego explodes and pushes us to further develop. However, we need to supply it with fuel and energy, which is the positive force of bestowal.

It will then spread to the whole world, and the whole world will be yours since you will feel it as yourself. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the wisdom of reception”: the art of using creation in its entirety, everything created by the desire to enjoy.
[198459]
From KabTV’s “A Talk About the Current Situation In The World” 12/2/16

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Question: In recent years a lot has been said and written about the new generation born from 1996-2000 called “Generation Z.”

This is the first generation that was born in the Internet era. They don’t divide the world into the digital and the real, their life flows smoothly to the screen and back. They have developed immunity to advertising, they just don’t notice it.

They learned “arm in arm” with technologies used to crisscross the study of subjects; they are used to thinking globally because they instantly receive information from all around the world. They value security because they grew up in the era of terrorist attacks and wars. They are going to work a lot and earn a lot. They don’t want to destroy the system but slowly and surely are going to make the world better.

What do you think about this generation that was born in the Internet era?

Answer: Our world is only filling the digital field for them. Whatever fits the smartphone screen exists for them and everything else doesn’t. Their way of thinking and their attitude toward life changes accordingly. The most important thing for them is what is displayed on the small screen.

Question: But this phenomenon hasn’t just appeared, there must be some kind of plan?

Answer: The plan is very simple: to give people the possibility of unlimited global communication as much as possible, without division into languages, continents, and countries. They are using this and living within it.

They think that through this technology, which is inextricably linked with their body, they will be able to fill themselves. Yet all this means nothing. They will still find that their hands remain empty and all that they truly need is human contact, human connection.

Question: Will it be easier for them to achieve the feeling that they are inside the system?

Answer: Yes, but they need to discover that this system is filled with absolute emptiness. If the previous generations had some ideals to achieve special knowledge, goals, realizations, and discoveries, for them it’s business in the form of computerized “toys.” I think that by 2025 Generation Z will end.

The next generation, with the help of these gadgets, will be in contact with each other in order to be interconnected, because through this they will be able to reach union with nature and reveal it.

Today smartphones in the hands of youth are a goal for them and for the next generation they will become the means for connection, not between mobile devices, but specifically between people who will discover a new level of existence. This generation will be beyond the boundaries of the alphabet; after all, “Z” is the last letter in it. Baal HaSulam wrote about this and he called them the “Last Generation.”

Question: How will the wisdom of Kabbalah be revealed to them?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah will be revealed to them as the emptiness in the world they are living in and as an opportunity for the true fulfillment. But this will be only when the technology in their hands will be used not as a goal but as means for attaining connection and fulfillment between people.

Question: But the degrees are reduced all the time, the life of the generations becomes shorter and shorter. How do you determine the life of the last generation?

Answer: The last generation, focused only on the union between people and revelation in their unity, the next level of existence, the next world, will exit the boundaries of time.

They will feel themselves outside of time, space, and limitations. Gradually, the levels of the inanimate, animate, and vegetative nature will come out of us, evaporate, and we will stay only within our sensations.
[195067]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 9/28/16

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Opinion (Micael Widell): “Sweden is famous and reputable for its social safety net which provides world class safety and physical comfort. The Swedish model of welfare is known around the world. …

“Institutions have been built to ensure that the individual is always independent. You shouldn’t have to depend on a spouse or on parents or children for your material well-being. So we built a society where you don’t need anyone else to support you. …

“Our unique material safety net takes care of us, so that we don’t have to take care of each other. And when we don’t need each other, we let go of our ties and sense of community.

“Sweden has the loneliest population on earth. Half of Swedes live alone. One fourth die alone. The documentary shows the government workers who visit homes where someone died months or even years ago without anyone noticing. …

“If we can afford to be independent from other people, it seems we take the opportunity. We don’t initiate contact with other people unless we have good reason to. The poorer the neighbourhood, the more dependent everyone is on other people, and the more social bonds between neighbours. …

“You can have material safety and wealth in a society, or you can have people who are close to each other with rich social lives and happiness as a consequence – but it seems you can’t have both at the same time.”

My Comment: That is certainly how it is; when people dream of building capitalistic individualism and then socialist individualism, they reach an individualism where nobody else matters to them. Everyone lives in isolation, everyone has everything and ultimately nothing at all.

The ego shows us a dead-end road in all its delights, in all variations. The ego “eats” itself exactly like a cancer cell that devours the body and then dies itself because it no longer has anything to feed on. The same is true of humanity on Earth, humanity is destroying it and then it will die.

Question: What does Kabbalah say about loneliness? How can one deal with it and work with it?

Answer: There is no way to do that. We can only accept the method of correction of the wisdom of Kabbalah and realize the evil of our egoistic nature that we subjugate ourselves to and obey blindly. Only then will people be able to hear, to move to another type of existence and begin to thrive. But it is only in the case that they want to hear.

A person must feel great suffering regarding what he has accomplished and how this life, despite its softness and comfort, lacks purpose, is meaningless and empty. By itself, life is death. It isn’t that it leads to death, but in its present form life itself is death!

A person must feel that he cannot remain in it, that he must leave it now! Not in 10 to 20 years, but precisely now it should be clear that he is already dying, despite his seeming well-being.

Only then will people accept the method of integral unity instead of absolute separation, rise above individualism, and leave its benefits. For this, a person must work on himself internally rather than making steel and producing cars. This is not talking about industry, but specifically about working on oneself, on the ability of a person to apply pressure to himself, and to begin to connect and to unite with others. It is not simple.
[196761]
From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 10/31/16

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Question: For several thousand years, humans have domesticated many kinds of animals. But some cruel and dangerous ones, we have never even tried to domesticate.

Among them is vicious biped that misappropriated himself the nickname “homo-sapiens”; it exterminates its own kind on such a scale that is not seen by other carnivorous and herbivorous inhabitants of our planet.

To domesticate a human requires only one thing: not to kill each other. This quality can be very easily attained through proper education. So why from the day that we are born, are we taught to kill our own species in large quantities through movies, computer games, songs, and stories?

It is because we are being prepared for life in a competitive environment that at any time could turn into war. Such is our present culture that is called Capitalism. And every one who protects capitalism becomes an accomplice to murder.

Answer: The problem is not in capitalism, socialism, or communism, not any of these “isms,” and in general not in any society. Rather, the root of the problem is in human nature that is constantly changing for the worse.

From the time we left the caves, we scattered over the face of the earth and consolidated into peoples, groups, and clans, forming states and kingdoms. This process happened under the direct influence of our egoism that demanded greater grouping, greater subordination, and greater return. And it’s not because we wanted this, but because that is the way our nature develops—from within.

Nature teaches us how to act.  Philosophy and everything else develops after we become different and begin to study ourselves: what happened to us.

Nature creates within us the feeling of competition, the need to rise above each other and defeat others. And we can do nothing about this.

We can see competitiveness among little children, how they fight with each other and don’t want to share anything with others. And we see it in all relations between adults in culture, in science, and everywhere else. It is expressed prominently in beauty contests, sport competitions, and in the Olympics. It blossoms at work, in services, in international trade, and in businesses.

It is so everywhere—competition and struggle. And struggle is considered a norm of our lives. The relationship of a person with the bank, with his boss, with life, and with a vast health care system, education system, etc.—all of this is a constant struggle.

That is, we don’t try to understand the process from the good point of view of how to balance our lives, how to build it correctly; rather, we act as a result of our relationships that someone might snatch a bigger piece.

It’s a terrible life! If we look at it soberly, then, of course, it is a constant war, but at least one that we are used to and not a physical war in order to kill.  

The correct assessment of events is that everything comes from a nature we cannot change. We can just somehow interact with each other better. Nature will continue to push humanity forward in its egoistic development, only through egoism.

Therefore, an anti-egoistic education, which psychologists speak about, will not help humanity. Only the study of proper interaction between them will. We begin at a tender age, sitting a child in a circle and gradually developing skills in him that it is not “I” but “we.”

This training is very serious. I haven’t seen it in a pure form in psychology. And Kabbalah explains this method clearly, and we have used it in practice for long time.

The essence of the method is that a child begins to interact correctly with his team and understands that in this case, the team is his personal “self.” At the same time, he becomes an inseparable part of his, team, his society, it loves him and he considers it to be his home. He begins to feel all of the participants in his society as himself. And this is its mission: to create relationships between people where they feel themselves as one person. 

Later, if the person moves to another society, he transfers these habits there. Of course, such a transition is not easy; it is necessary to learn how to in advance.

Thus, if he reaches the right interactions with others, a feeling of an external person, a friend, appears in him—a feeling of people according to their thoughts, intentions, and the degree of closeness between them. He begins to feel others as himself. With every person he has a momentary contact with, either positive or negative, he at least understands them.

Thus, competion is replaced by cooperation, by common activities, by partnership with friends.

Question: Does he develop a desire for others to succeed?

Answer: This is a necessary feeling because that creates the same great platform for total union where he begins to feel that this is the only truth.

Question: But you said that in principle this is against human nature. How does this work?

Answer: It is against human nature, but is in accord with the education he receives. And specifically with actions contrary to nature, he begins to rise above it. He understands that now there is a greater power in his hands than the rejecting egoistic force. This is an altruistic, attracting, unifying force. When, thanks to his efforts, this force begins to dominate, he sees that the two forces, both the altruistic and the egoistic, produce each other, are designed to go together, like plus and minus in an electrical current or in the poles of a magnet, like an electron and positron in matter. The two forces cannot exist one without the other and a person begins to work with them correctly.

This is the beginning of a higher psychology. Psychologists simply cannot insert the positive force into our world. Yet this is our main task because our world is entirely built on the negative force, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination” (Tractate Kiddushin 30b). This is the only force that acts in our world. And even its positive manifestation that we see is also derived from competition, from the need to acquire, to attract to oneself.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches how to insert the  hidden positive force into our world; we can reveal it and bring it into our daily lives. Then we will act with the two forces, the positive and the negative, and will be able to work on ourselves.

Question: Does it mean that the guides must be Kabbalists?

Answer: They must be Kabbalists in partnership with psychologists. Psychologists must understand that alone they don’t have the tools for correcting people. Therefore, psychology is also in crisis today.
[194530]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 9/14/16

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Question: Do I perform an act of bestowal if a person asks me for some water and I give it to him?

Answer: I am sorry to say that there is no bestowal at all in any action that we perform before the Upper Light corrects us. All of our actions are only disguised actions of in order to receive. Our actions stem from shame or because this is how we were brought up, and so on.

This means that, from the Kabbalistic perspective, there are no examples of bestowal in our world.

There is no bestowal nor love in world, only egoistic receiving.
[197085]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/28/16

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Question: Why doesn’t history teach society anything? Why are people unable to understand and accept clear and self-evident facts and draw conclusions from them about the present and the future?

Answer: Humanity learns gradually, but only from its mistakes. Suffering pushes humanity forward. According to what is described in the books of the wisdom of Kabbalah, it had to be this way until our time. Until the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century, humanity developed according to “blows.” And from the end of the 19^th century, the world began to change. The First World War was the beginning of the manifestation of global processes in the world. This trend gradually continued and was manisfested more distinctly after the Second World War. And today we already live in a global world with distinct integral connections.

In our era, when humanity has reached such an integral ego, we are fully entering mutual connections and people are beginning to come into contact with each other over oceans and continents. It is already possible to explain to people that they are not just integrally connected, but that the connections that we have built are bad. Poorly built global connections are fraught with danger.

Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed and it begins to explain that we must rise to our next level of development. This means that we must begin to comprehend the world through a common mutual connection between us, not each one of us personally through his or her senses. When this happens, we will feel the world in a completely different way, on another plane, in another dimension. We will see it as a  fully interconnected system, a system in which a single force acts, managing everything.

It is similar to a flock of birds. Their number can reach into the thousands, and yet they all obey a single desire, one intention and motion. Between them exists a collective connection, a collective intelligence, a collective feeling, a collective goal. None of them have personal goals. They all aim only toward instinctive cooperation, realizing a collective program and attaining a common goal. If we were to feel this common system of mutual connection between us, despite our egoism, then through it we would begin to feel what is called “the upper world”; we would reach the feeling of a common nature, a state of eternity and wholeness.

We must reach this state independently and not instinctively as happens with the birds, fish, bees, and the like that are found on the animate level. We must reach this despite and in opposition to our egoism by rising above it and connecting to each other. Then we will begin to feel the force that manages everything.

When the various ants, birds, or fish connect, the general collective force manages them. This is also a higher power, which manifests itself among the birds in such moments. They move without conversing, precisely within this general collective force. This is also what needs to happen to us through the right connection. This is what is called the revelation of the Creator among people.

If we were already in such a connection, we would be able to discuss the next level of our development, an existence that is not within the body, but outside the body, within our common collective intelligence and desire. Then we would traverse our present egoistic and personal perception of reality and become a single being of the one upper world.

We can do this in our world in our day, and we must attain this either against our will or consciously. Now the wisdom of Kabbalah is emerging, explaining to us that we must try to attain this state consciously, otherwise we will endure great turmoil.
[194830]
From a Kabbalah lesson on 7/10/16

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Question: If all of mankind are savages as Baal HaSulam says, does that mean that we should expect a similar fate that befell savages who were destroyed by more developed civilizations? Does the continuously developing egoism in great masses of unaware people guarantee the apocalypse of our civilization?

Answer: The savages were not destroyed. We were all savages, too, so we shouldn’t think that we are different. Even today, we are savages in a certain sense. Judging by how we interact in society, in the family, it is hard to say that we are intelligent creatures.

Our egoistic instinct drives us at any given time. We actually look worse than apes. Apes do not engage in self-destruction, whereas we engage in collective self-destruction consciously and deliberately.

There is no other species like homo sapiens in nature, an intelligent human being who aspires for self-destruction. We can live a happy life, but we make our lives miserable by constantly filling it with uncertainty, fears, and worries, which eventually lead to self-destruction. This is what makes us unique.

But our civilization will not be destroyed. We still must reach the predetermined goal that nature has intended for us. We can choose the road we take. We can choose whether we will reach the goal along the path of suffering or along the good path, the way of the Light, which means by summoning the upper force unto us so that it will collect and organize us correctly.
[195051]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/10/16

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Question: As a mother, I feel that my great love for my children is mixed with anxiety, and it seems that the Creator mocks my ego through my children.

Answer: The Creator doesn’t abuse anyone. It is actually people who abuse themselves by not performing the actions of corrections that they can perform and, thus, invoke suffering in vain.
[195432]

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