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
“Shootings and Violence in the US: African-Americans Have Lost Hope”
“The Growing Frustration of Students in the US”
[189838]
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.
[189389]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/20/16
Related Material:
Shaping The New Man
Secrets Of The Bilderberg Club
The Frustration Of Globalization
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.
[188997]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/27/16
Related Material:
“Take Off The Rose-Colored Glasses!”
Egoistic Altruists
Egoistic Altruism: The Path To Superorganism And Fascism
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.
[188286]
Related Material:
Why Marry?!
America Retreats From Marriage
What Distinguishes The Family Of The Future?
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.
[182033]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/21/16
Related Material:
Program Of Life, Part 2
Program Of Life, Part 1
The Right To Change One’s Destiny
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.
[170929]
Related Material:
A Spiritual Person In A Carrier From Earth
Defining Vital Necessities
Like A Dog On A Leash
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.
[187666]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 6/2/16
Related Material:
A Secret Covenant With The Higher Power, Part 2
A Secret Covenant With The Higher Power, Part 1
Restrained By Bestowal
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!
[178440]
Related Material:
The New Image of the New Man
The Perception Of A Single Field
A Conscious Birth Of Humanity
Question: Why do all living creatures develop and change? Is it because the Creator has created us imperfect so that we will develop to perfection?
Answer: The Creator has indeed created us imperfect. By attaining our imperfection we discover the Creator’s greatness and begin to acquire His attributes.
We undergo part of the evolution of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature unconsciously. These levels of nature have evolved for billions of years while the human level has evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. Evolving nature gradually became more and more complex and in need of proper connection between all its parts.
In the development of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, the levels interacted in a particular harmony. But as soon as man developed egoistically, under its influence, the properties of nature began to change for the worse: animals began to devour each other, weeds appeared among the plants, and all of nature became impregnated with egoism.
We have been undergoing a spiritual fall for the last 6,000 years because we do everything that pleases our growing ego. Thus we corrupt ourselves and the environment instead of thinking of how to tie together all the elements of the creation into one organic whole.
When we begin to correct our egoism and reach a level that doesn’t disrupt the rest of nature, nature will restore its previous harmony. All will cease devouring each other, as it is written, “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them”(Isaiah 11; 6). And man too will be quite different. But today man is far more dangerous than a tiger.
[183961]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/13/16
Related Material:
Nature’s Self-Cleaning
Disorder In Nature Or In Me?
Everything Is Determined By The Human Degree
Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 1:44 – 1:45: And the Amorites, dwelling in that mountain, came out towards you and pursued you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, as far as Hormah. So you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not hear your voice, nor would He listen to you.
The connection with the Creator, i.e., with the force of Light, is very simple: If you are equivalent to Him you can connect to Him, and never otherwise.
There are no movements from the side of the Light, it is in absolute rest, and only we move toward it. But it seems to us that the Light is getting closer and then we feel good, and if we are opposite to the Light, we are moving away from it, and then we feel bad.
We think that the Light, the common force of good that fills the entire universe, performs all the actions, but in reality everything depends only on our internal movement.
By connecting more strongly with each other, we reveal the Light within us more and more. Egoism constantly supplies us with bigger desires so we can correct ourselves by getting closer to each other, until the complete revelation of the Upper Light is within us.
Question: Would it be an error to think that I will do everything by myself?
Answer: Of course. The fact is that we go forward without the Light, the entire development of humanity before our time was through the attempts to do something inside egoism. We were enclosed in our little black ego and all the time we were digging in the depths of the earth, ostensibly seeking to progress.
But the entire progress came down to robbing, stealing, and appropriating something from each other. It never took place due to good ideas or kind actions. Therefore, now we are left with nothing.
We have come to such a state because as the Creator said, “I am not among you.” After all, Moses, or the Creator, is the quality of bestowal (Bina).
Today, we finally begin to uncover the reason for our common universal suffering. Its source is the fact that humanity is in one single quality of egoism. And we don’t have the second opposite to it, the quality of altruism. Even the altruism we think exists in this world is purely egoistic.
[183996]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/20/16
Related Material:
How To Avoid A Hopeless Situation
Calling Out To The Creator For Help
Creating A Man Out Of Me
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
