Question: During the UEFA Cup in Marseilles, a bloody brawl broke out. What is happening to humanity? What have we come to?

Answer: People must release inner tension, let off steam.

Question: They didn’t need that in the past?

Answer: In the past, egoism, which is the heart of our nature, was not so great, terrible, and wicked. In the present state nothing can be done, people need to relax themselves somehow, to get rid of the accumulation of strong tension.

Unfortunately, training in sports clubs doesn’t help. Instead people are just puffing themselves up for such violent acts like these. Even passive types of recreation like fishing and hunting don’t help, besides these are not mass events. In contrast, soccer is already another matter.

In ancient Greece, during sports competitions wars were suspended! Sport was somewhat similar to religion. It was impossible to bribe athletes, they had no substance abuse problems, and they were not tested because they didn’t have a desire to deceive anyone. They were respected because of their talents and achievements. Sports were noble. Today, sports are dirty. Each nation endeavors to win by any means; the main thing is to hoist its flag.

I believe that national affiliation should be removed from sports and the buying and selling of players to the highest bidder prohibited. What kind of a custom is this?! If I had a billion dollars, I could assemble a team that would become the world champions in soccer. Is this sport?! This is a struggle between nations for their name and prestige!

What kind of prestige is this if players from Africa represent Norway for instance?! The problem is that sports have become a political struggle. I don’t see anything in this except the growth of egoism, and one that you cannot be particularly proud of; it is unreasonable, not acceptable to humanity, not placed in the right framework, not giving any pleasure, nor producing a good result.

I would simply transform this into an amusing game, putting a thousand people on one side and a thousand people on the other side, a wall facing a wall, to come out into an open field without any clubs, to measure their strength under the supervision of the police, with cameras all around for a live broadcast, and let the whole world would see how people hit each other.

Question: So is it useless to be engaged in their re-education?

Answer: That would be their re-education. They would be letting off steam and that is all. After that everyone would be given a awarded a liter of beer and everyone would feel calm and relaxed. They would sit satisfied, each one with a black eye and a beer!

It also puts them on TV for the whole world to see, and everyone is happy to see—to what we have come to in the 21^st century!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/19/16

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Comment: Citizens of Iraq are selling their kidneys in return for thousands of dollars because they are so impoverished. The country is gradually becoming the biggest center in the Middle East for the illegal trafficking of organs. The world is losing its humanity.

Answer: Is the world able to maintain humanity in the face of developing egoism? The world is losing more and more of it to the same extent that egoism is growing in us.

Question: How is it possible to escape from this?

Answer: There is no way. On the contrary, you are sinking deeper and deeper within the ego, but since you don’t want to suffer, you try to pay less attention to what is happening. People will produce different pills, films, drugs, and will establish sports competitions, etc., just to relax and not feel the problems. It is a natural human form that runs in its natural nature called egoism.

Sooner or later man will come to the point when he will discover that it’s no longer possible to continue in this way since the next object that they can break into parts and sell will be himself and his family, although towards his family he would already be indifferent. We already see some distance that exists between parents and children, and about the distance between couples there is nothing new to say. Thus, all of this is natural, when the main thing is the worry for my beloved self. We are in a certain plan of nature, in a matrix, that works on us and consistently leads us to the need to recognize the evilness of our nature, which claims that the most important thing is myself and no one else, and wants to get rid of the others. .

When I feel that I am completely dependent on those surrounding me, then I will begin to erase the difference between us. If they begin to relate to me in a good way, then it will be good for me and for them, and if they relate to me badly, then I will feel badly.

Only through feeling badly will I reach that state and begin to think of how, in any case, to correct the world that I am dependent on each moment of my existence. In this way I reach the need to worry about others. Thus, the negative relations between people are unavoidable. Through them we will feel the need for mutual connection and then we will begin to correct the world according, if necessary, like after a war when people are all engaged in building something together that is shared and essential for existence.

When we recognize this out of necessity, we will gradually feel that in the connection between us there lies hidden a great state of unity that reveals a completely new world and new sensations to us.

This is the way to happiness, although it is a long way. By studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, you begin to understand that everything should be quick, nice, and good. There is no need to wait for terrible crashes and ugly situations. We need to be do this now and start to implement it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/21/16

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My conversations with our friends, my students, father and son, Seth and Jesse Bogner rose to first place in American social media space.

Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Seth and Jesse Bogner

“Violence in the US”

“Shootings and Violence in the US: African-Americans Have Lost Hope”

“The Growing Frustration of Students in the US”

”Political Corruption”

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Question: If the desire for freedom comes from the Creator and according to this program, leads to our individualism and liberalism, where does this lead us to in the world today?

Answer: It leads us to the feeling that our plans are baseless, to a dead end of our goals, and to our inability to lead a sensible normal life, which means to the recognition of a total collapse.

Humanity is reaching this point, and then it will begin to realize that there is a totally different way to advance.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/20/16

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Comment: Research shows that people are basically ready to cooperate with others, but it is the environment they live in which makes them indifferent and cynical.

Answer: It is human psychology and not the results of a certain experiment.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the ego is the basis of human nature. The Creator said, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice,” and that’s all.

This means that evil, egoism, caring about yourself as opposed to caring about others, is living according to the principle that the better off I am, the better I feel compared to others, or rather, the worse they feel, the better I feel, and this the basis of human nature. Human history throughout the ages proves this claim.

Although philosophers and psychologists from Harvard University have come up with their own theory, life proves the exact opposite.

Question: Is it better to say to a person, “you are kind and your nature is based on connections of love” or rather “you nature is basically the ego and this is your starting point?”

Answer: It is always better to speak the truth since it pushes us to start the correction of mankind before it totally deteriorates and loses its humanity! After all, our egoism grows bigger every day, and so the sooner we begin the correction, for which we must reach the recognition of our evil nature, the sooner we will manage to better our life.

If we don’t do that, we will let our egoism erupt in the form of neo-Nazi regimes in most countries and a world war will break out between them.

The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam in his writings told a parable about training cats to be waiters in order to attempt to prove that their basic nature could be altered. But the moment one of the guests lets out a few mice, all the tamed “waiters” throw the trays they were holding and began to chase the mice.

This is exactly how our nature operates! Therefore, I advise all of us to observe nature and accept it the way it is,

Question: Does this mean that you are in favor of the hard truth?

Answer: Of course, we shouldn’t confuse people. We have to rely on serious knowledge and not on a few random studies, and at the same time we need to change our attitude to nature.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/27/16

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In the News (Russian Bazaar): “‘No one disputes the fact that the institution of marriage is dying, – says Bauer.- The question is how to deal with this fact. We can not turn back the clock and make the church a major institution in the country. Also, we can not force the young to have the reverent and sacred attitude toward marriage inherent in the older generations. So maybe everything that happens – is for the better ’

“If the ‘anti-marriage’ trend does not change, then already in 2025, Americans will be much more likely to get divorced than to marry.”

My Comment: Growing egoism separates people from each other more and more. Bringing them together is possible only by the upper Light. Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah spurs and summons the action of the Light. Otherwise we will see masses who are estranged from each other.
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Question: Mankind has made impressive achievements, they have discovered continents, developed transport by air, sea, and land, and they have reached Antarctica and flown to the moon. What is the benefit of all of this development?

Answer: Nothing has been done in vain. All the achievements of humanity have been necessary so that human beings will understand that their development is not in this.

We have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, but it has been insignificant relative to spirituality because it is not at all the evolution through which we will later grow but only a negation of physical existence.

We must be within this physical “point.” The sense of our universe and everything that came after the “Big Bang” is basically just a small black dot that exists so that it will be known that within it nothing is found, whereas evolution must go beyond the limitations of that point. And then humanity begins to go out to the upper world.

When a person looks from a different perspective, he sees a small black dot that is finally beginning to evolve in the right direction, precisely by negating its material existence.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/21/16

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In the News (Harvard Business Review): “We humans need to make an evolutionary leap. We’re in much deeper trouble than we allow ourselves to recognize.

“Thirty years ago, an ecologist named Garrett Hardin wrote an article in the journal Science titled, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” His thesis was that individuals, acting in their rational self-interest, may ultimately destroy a precious and limited resource over time.

“To illustrate, Hardin used the metaphor of an open pasture — ‘the commons’ — to which herdsmen bring their cattle to feed. The herdsmen, living at subsistence levels, understandably want to feed as many cattle as possible to maximize their income and improve their lives. As demand rises, however, the effects of overgrazing take a progressive toll on the commons, until ultimately they’re destroyed for everyone.

“‘Therein is the tragedy,’ Hardin wrote. ‘Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit — in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.’

“How different are the rest of us in our blithe assumption that we can draw down the resources of the commons — think oil, electricity, water, for starters — regardless of the consequences in the long term?

“The same is true of our own internal resources — our energy. Organizations continue to demand ever more without recognizing that sustainable performance requires that we intermittently renew our energy. We’re all too willing to keep pushing ourselves, chasing the hope that more, bigger, faster will eventually prove to be better.

The tragedy is that the more we myopically focus on our immediate gratification, the more we hasten our collective demise. Spending without replenishing eventually leads to bankruptcy — in the world, and for ourselves.

“How can rational human beings allow this to happen?

“The answer lies in the ways our brains work. Much as we may believe we make rational choices by using our prefrontal cortex, the fact is we’re often run by the more primitive parts of our brain. And they’re concerned solely with our immediate survival.

Two powerful default instincts still guide much of our behavior: the fight or flight instinct to avoid pain, and the pleasure-driven hunger for immediate gratification. These instincts helped alert us to predators thousands of years ago and kept our focus on finding food and passing on our genes. They serve us far less well in today’s vastly more complex world.

“The modern version of these primitive instincts is the individualistic drive to accumulate more and more. We crave money, possessions, and power, hoping they’ll make us feel happier and more secure.

“The truth is, we’re all in this together and our choices all affect the commons. To the extent that we’re not part of the solution, we’re unavoidably and increasingly part of the problem.

“So how can we aim higher? The evolutionary leap I have in mind — for all of us — is to move from our current focus on ‘me’ and ‘mine’ to a wider and shared commitment to ‘we’ and ‘ours.’

“The ultimate scorecard isn’t how much value we build for ourselves, but rather how successfully we marshal the advantages we’ve been given and the skills we’ve developed to add more value to the world than we have spent down.

“Waking up begins with more consciousness and humility. It’s about pushing past our infinite capacity for self-deception. It’s about catching ourselves when we begin to automatically default to whatever makes us feel better in the moment. It’s about widening our lens from narrowly self-serving to truly considering what choice we could make to better serve the commons. It’s about having the courage to pause before we act to ask, ‘How would I behave here at my best?’

“The irony is that the willingness to make personal sacrifice and endure some discomfort in the short term, in order to better serve the commons in the long term, is ultimately a form of enlightened self-interest. It’s a vote for sustainable survival — especially for our children and grandchildren.

“So how, practically, can we resolve to evolve? It’s tough to do all it alone, given the power of our more primitive impulses, the force of our habits, and the endless temptations we face. We need others to make these commitments with us — to cheer us on, and hold us accountable. We need communities of practice.”

My Comment: That is correct, except for the solution. We cannot even reduce our need and think about our descendants egoistically. “After us, the deluge will remain, the basic principle of the egoism. It develops in us unceasingly.

The purpose of evolution is to guide humanity toward the recognition of the need to “replace egoism with altruism.” It is possible to implement this only through the intervention of the upper force, the Creator.
This is done so by nature (or the Creator; they are the same thing) intentionally, so that we need to discover Him to the degree of that we resemble Him. Eventually we become similar to Him and enter into a state of Gan Eden (paradise), eternity and perfection.
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Question: What is this union that the Creator concludes with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai?

Answer: One shouldn’t imagine the events at Mount Sinai through Hollywood movies. We are talking about the laws of nature. The Torah is eternal and it means that now we also live inside this system. This is not a situation that arose once and disappeared.

It is said that the giving of the Torah happens every day. This refers to a special force hidden in nature that is called the Creator. It is a good force that is revealed on the condition that a person wants to reveal it. Everything depends on the desire of a person.

We are created by the evil egoistic force, as it is said that “The Creator created the evil inclination.” The upper force created us opposite to itself, as evil egoists, and each one of us thinks only about himself and is unable to think about others.

The force of egoism that acts within us is our entire nature. We are not capable of being different. It is necessary to realize and accept this fact in order to see everything in the right light, to check our nature and to decide that that which was originally given to us is defined. Therefore if a person doesn’t correct himself there is no point to expect him to have a good relationship with others, meaning with either inanimate nature, or plants and animals, and even more so, with people.

And if he does something good for others it is only because he expects to receive some benefit for himself from it. In such circumstances he can be seemingly kind, but this is not a kindness to another but a more cunning use of him.

This is the way we live, and it doesn’t matter what type of connection we are talking about, either love between parents and children, mother to the baby, boy and girl who connect in order to create a family, or a nation united by common borders and native land.

Whatever it is, everyone always thinks only about his own welfare. And when we build between us systems of connections they always must be organized so that each one receives some benefit from them.

It is especially typical for a human, as we have the biggest egoism that isn’t balanced by anything. At the lower levels of nature such as the still, vegetative and animate there is a balance and minus is always balanced by plus.

But people don’t have it and therefore from generation to generation our egoism grows more and more. We have to bind ourselves by all sorts of laws, dependencies, and obligations to somehow live together and not to kill each other.

5,777 years ago one man, whose name was Adam, discovered that there is an additional positive force in nature. It is possible to extract it from nature and to balance a negative force in a person with it and turn him into a perfect system, where negative and positive forces act together. And then a person’s eyes open, giving him a different look at the entire reality.

He looks at everything not only through one negative force, but through the positive force as well, and through the interaction of both. By this he discovers a completely different dimension, a reality located above our world because the positive force acts in it.

He sees how the positive force of nature influences from above downward the negative force that acts on the level of our world and how these two forces can interact. A person understands how much he is controlled by these forces, positive and negative, and learns to control them by himself. He becomes a master of these two forces.

From this moment onward an opportunity to rise above this life is revealed to humanity, above our nature, above our miserable and even dangerous condition, above eternal enmity, and above a fleeting life, full of suffering and problems.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 6/2/16

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Question: You keep saying that a person who doesn’t ask the question of “who am I and what am I living for?” is on the animal level and when this question awakens in him it is a sign that he develops to the human level.

If the Creator is whole and perfect and has created only perfection, the beast to serve man, and man to serve the Creator, why are we called the animal level?

Answer: When we are managed by pleasure or sufferings, we are on the animate level of our development. When the desire grows in people, a yearning to discover the meaning of life appears. This is an egoistic desire, which is higher than the instinctive beastly desire according to which a person only wants to manage in this world in the best possible way.

The desire to attain and to know the meaning of life on the other hand, leads a person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, and he begins to develop himself by his efforts to resemble the Creator. To the extent that he resembles Him he is called man, Adam, stemming from the Hebrew word “Domeh,” to resemble the Creator, while in his natural desires he remains a beast until he corrects everyone so that they resemble the Creator, the attribute of love and bestowal unto everyone!
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