In the News (ria.ru): “Friendship on the Internet may not be strong, because human emotions can not be replaced by symbols, but communication in the Internet has the right to exist as a communication method, according to Russian experts …

“Online friendship, especially when the sides do not know each other personally, is dangerous with its impersonality.

“‘Such a dialogue is always associated with the temptation to substitute real life with a virtual one. The interlocutor is no longer perceived as a living person and becomes a character set. Like in a computer game, we are not afraid to shoot and kill, and on the Internet, we are not afraid to say bad things, bad things that would never be used in a real conversation.’…

“”Friendship – it’s like a family, there is joy, there are sorrows, good and bad temper, quarrels and reconciliation. And when you’re dealing with a person without seeing or knowing him at all, you are not interested in his personal life. I do not think that that on the Internet someone will complain about his partner or job; typically correspondence comes down to “Hi, how are you?.”’

“Meanwhile psychologist Tatiana Popova of the Charitable Foundation “Family and Childhood” is sure socializing with friends on the Internet has a right to exist.

“‘This is a modern form of communication, just like in real life, relationships may be real and relationships on the Internet can be a substitution; in reality there is a certain ratio of these friends and acquaintances, as well and on the Internet…’ – she said.

“Sein said that the desire to have many friends on the social networks is more like a competition. ‘If a person has a lot of friends in the social media, he is popular. This is neither friendship nor even simple communication.’

“According to Alder ,.. ‘We need to clearly understand how many of these people you actually know, how many are ready to help you, and how many of them will help you in a difficult situation,’ – the expert emphasizes.

“Sein said …’Even communicating on the phone is better than the Internet. With verbal communication, when you hear the intonations, it is more intimate contact than correspondence on the Internet. …

“Alder asserts that removing your social media accounts can be a wonderful tool to understand who your real friends are and who are virtual. …

“According to Seynova, the uniqueness of Internet communication is that it provides an opportunity to speak out. ‘But this does not stem from friendship, but the effect of the possibility to be insincere, knowing that they they will never see each other. …’”.

Answer: Humanity is undergoing a period of recognizing the evil in its egoistic nature so that it will be able to hate it and to totally give it up. Our whole social evolution has been only for the sake of our ascent to the next level, to the full mutual connection between all the people, in which the upper world and its plan is felt, which means reaching the level of the Creator.

The development of communication in social media accelerates the process and brings us to the recognition of how vital it is to feel one another directly, without effort, as one body.
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In the News (cursorinfo.co.il): “On April 12^th, the World Health Organization released a report on the number of people in the world suffering from depression. According to the report, one in ten is depressed one way or another. …

“Even today in the United States, depression is the second ‘most common’ reason given for hospitalization, in Sweden – the first.

“It is projected that by 2020 depression will be the number one killer. WHO notes that today 45 to 60% of all suicides in the world make depressed patients.”

My Comment: We are a desire for pleasure. Moreover, this desire, egoism, is constantly growing within us. It compels us to advance and pressures us through dissatisfaction. In our time it is becoming more and more difficult to find enjoyment. So depression and dissatisfaction continue to grow.

In the future, pleasure will disappear and we will be unable to fulfill ourselves with anything. Then there will be the recognition that we need to change our nature: enjoyment through bestowal rather than reception. The wisdom of Kabbalah is designed for this.
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In the News (naked-science.ru): “Scientists are seriously concerned about the amount of space debris in Earth’s orbit.They are convinced that it will soon prevent further space exploration. But the greatest danger is the speed with which the debris moves – about 8 km / s. …
“According to the experts, according to the latest computer-aided study of near-Earth space, about 750 million artificial objects, of which more than 17,000 units are man-made are orbiting the Earth. This includes about 1,300 operating spacecraft, and all the rest are space debris.”

My Comment: The ego forces us to discount anything that it believes is not “its” possession. We can continue to be subject to it and obey it, or we can change it with the help of the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light – the Light that shines outside of us as long as we are not in a corrected state).

Humanity can condemn, scold and blame itself for what it does, in the manner of “stealing and blushing,” but that won’t change anything. Ahead for us is either suffering or awareness of its cause, which is the ego, and healing from it by taking the “medicine,” Ohr Makif.
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Question: Science today has reached a dead end. Is this related to the fact that scientists explore the world through their five senses?

Answer: We have reached the maximum fulfillment of the ego today, so it is folding in on itself. It is like the Hydra (the mythological serpent) that begins to eat itself.

Therefore, all of the sciences, arts, our society, our mutual relations, and mankind gradually are reaching an end. This process is not typical only of the sciences, but also of the economy, commerce, and the family. Everything in the world is managed by the ego that has reached a dead end and is beginning to devour itself.
[182776]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/28/16

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Question: In the corporeal world people lie, flatter, provoke intrigues, and gloat at the failure of others. Do such behaviors exist in the spiritual world too?

Answer: Human nature is egoistic. We constantly want to see ourselves in the best possible condition, to be superior to others, better than others, etc. Everyone measures his position relative to others or with respect to himself: am I superior to others or are they inferior to me, so then I feel better.

Tis does not exist in the spiritual world because there everything is felt in the opposite manner. The more highly regarded others are, the better we feel.

Question: If a person pleases another without receiving a reward, does it mean that the soul is happy?

Answer: It is merely a positive use of the ego. The ego is pleased and so it does it for others, which means that a person uses his natural ego correctly and safely.
[182005]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/21/16

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Comment: Few in the world succeed in living according to the ancient altruistic principle, “Do not do to your friend what is hateful to you” (Shabbat 31a). Leonardo Christov-Moore and Marco Lacoboni, scientists at the University of California, reached the conclusion that a method exists to get people to behave less egoistically and to experience greater altruism.

This conclusion was reached after many studies were carried out whose findings showed that it was possible to inject a vaccine into a person and obligate him to behave more pro-socially.

Answer: I would say this differently. A person is essentially a highly developed animal and it is possible to teach him to carry out particular actions so that he will not “dirty up” his house. It is just necessary to educate him correctly for this purpose, meaning that the concept must be conveyed to him correctly. Through it he will understand that he will be punished for some actions and rewarded for others.

We experience pain as a punishment and pleasure as reward. These create electrical impulses that flow through us and create various amino acids.

So it would be possible to invent a device that would transmit a signal with a particular frequency to a person that would penetrate a sensor sewn inside the person and this person would feel pleasure or pain according to his good or bad actions. In this way, it would be possible to turn a person into a “Pavlovian dog.”

If we begin to be involved with education according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it would seem that it suggests something else. It suggests that a person can be elevated to the level of the “device” that sends him the reward and punishment.

At the same time, a person must understand how he is built and develop to the highest state in which no punishment exists but only an immense reward. The person will understand that this exalted state is possible only when he is absolutely connected with others and builds an organic whole with everyone. In other words, we must bring ourselves to a state in which the positive impulse found in nature fills us all the time while the negative impulse gradually begins to function only to remove from us what is called the “dregs,” the residual garbage from our “good” efforts, and leave a place that can be filled with everything wonderful and eternal.

I believe that it is up to us to be in connection with the higher nature, not with the help of sensors but with whoever manages the sensors.
[180721]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/28/16

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Comment: Dr. Emma Seppala, Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, presents a world view that is opposite from your views. When asked whether human nature is egoistic or whether it is kind, she replied that there are those who believe that people are naturally egoistic and that tough competition is the key to their success, but the principle of the survival of the fittest is incorrect and that it is possible to advance without underestimating or humiliating others. It makes no difference what a person engages in as long as he works for the well being of others. From her perspective man is basically good hearted and merciful and not egoistic.

Answer: Does this mean that people were given a mind in order to behave nicely to one another and to understand each other. Is this what determines the relations between states and nations? Do we see that this is what guides and motivates us today and throughout human history?

Our relations are based solely on the individual’s desire to rise higher than others, to be better off at the expense of others, and to use them. We should study and get to know how the animate level of nature operates. We are no different from animals. Only we are given also the mind that we use for the same egoistic development in all directions, wherever possible. Therefore, people are the greatest evil in nature. That is what we see.This is the reason that man is the worst creature in nature and this is actually what we see. If Dr. Emma Seppalla wears rose-colored glasses there is nothing we can do about it.

Nature is basically absolute egoism and this is also what the Torah says: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” Therefore, as long as man doesn’t use the Torah correctly, which means that he doesn’t draw the Light that Reforms in order to correct the ego, while he studies, he is a complete egoist. We are trapped in a vicious cycle that we cannot escape any other way except through the influence of the Upper Light that can pull us out. Otherwise, all our aspirations and our impulses, which may seem good, are totally egoistic.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/7/16

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Question: How does the ego feel the plagues of Egypt?

Answer: The Egyptian plagues are felt once the ego is built in the form of Egypt and Pharaoh,which is opposite from the nation of Israel and Moses, is created in a person. These blows are needed to tear us away from the ego and to prepare us to break away from it.

Question: I don’t understand how we can ascend above the ego and love it at the same time. We are used to suppressing our ego, to eradicating it in every possible way, so what does it mean to ascend above it?

Answer: It means that you should focus your desires on filling others and receiving pleasure from that.

Question: How can I understand that the ego is evil if the groups don’t talk about it and try to blur it by playing games of love?

Answer: We should talk about it!
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Question: What does Pharaoh represent?

Answer: Pharaoh is an immense force. I will not talk about him as a personality because practically this persona doesn’t really exist. The wisdom of Kabbalah examines Pharaoh as the immense ego that is created by the Creator. It develops and absorbs everything into its egoism and is ready to devour the entire world.

It is insatiable and gradually becomes revealed as humanity develops. The more we strive to do something in the world and get something, the more it devours, leaving us no hope of changing the world for the better or a happy future. On the contrary, the world only becomes worse and worse.

More and more people are dissatisfied with life. We once thought that we could get along, but today we don’t. Today people no longer feel secure in the most distant villages, not economically or from the aspect of material existence. Now people are so tied to the whole world they cannot feed themselves. This is a paradox, but a farmer cannot feed himself from his own land.

Pharaoh (egoism) swallows this, because it brings us together so much that we cannot be independent from others. It makes our world integral, global, and interconnected, a small village in which we all depend on each other. And here we see that we cannot handle it.

Egoism leads us to the need to be properly interconnected with one another. This means that Pharaoh himself, by transforming our world so that it becomes mutually connected, brings us to a state where we hate it and then we transform our world into another one with good connections between us. Otherwise we will not be able to continue living. But then Pharaoh continually directs us against unity. So on the one hand, even though he awakens in us a desire for unity and acts so that we cannot live without making the right connections between us, since otherwise we cannot provide ourselves with even the most essential things, and on the other hand, he won’t let us unite. This contrast sums up the merit of Pharaoh.

Therefore he is called an “angel of the Creator.” He was created by the Creator like the two-faced Janus, where from one side he obliges us to connect and unite and on the other side won’t let us get closer to each other. So we begin to understand that we have no other way out besides rising above it, escaping from it. So we run away from him. This means that the flight from Pharaoh, from our nature, from our ego, is the Exodus from Egypt.

This is not easy because it is still up to us to discover all this within us. Our time is unique. We are now discovering everything that the Creator prepared for us in the form of Pharaoh. Pharaoh is now being revealed among us in the form of the global and integral world, and at the same time, individually it doesn’t allow us to exist in accordance with this integral world. So we need to respect Pharaoh because he takes us out of Egypt.
[181819]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/12/16

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Question: What are the “Ten Plagues of Egypt”?

Answer: The purpose of creation is going to the next level of existence, the upper world. While living on Earth, we have to feel the upper world, to see the system of management, the Creator of everything that exists in this world and is hidden from us today.

Egoism, which is our foundation, the enormous force of nature that we must transcend, is what “runs” us. On the one hand, the ego is drives us upward; on the other hand, it will not free us. After all, if it were to lead us as usual within itself through all the configurations and structures through which we have passed in the course of human evolution—the primitive era, the era of slavery, the feudal era, the capitalist era, and the socialist era—it would not be clear toward what we would continue.

But egoism puts a “wall” in front of us, we cannot move further; so the current phase is called “the last phase of human development on Earth.” In other words, egoism is requiring us to become rounded, to unite on the one hand, but on the other hand, it won’t let us unite. Therefore, the only solution we can come to is to transcend “Pharaoh” (egoism), above Egypt to the next level of existence, the higher system of management.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about. This is what we must reach. The “Ten Plagues of Egypt” exist in order to completely break away from egoism. This is because our egoism consists of ten parts, which are the ten Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Each one of them “portrays” for us a particular type of existence within the ego.

We must gradually release ourselves from these ten Sefirot, these ten modes of existence. This happens when we begin to see that each one of them is finite, incomplete, leading to a blind alley and giving us no hope of continuing our existence within the ego.

The final phase of each of these ten levels, these characteristics, these parts of our ego, is the ten plagues of Egypt. After them it is no longer possible to remain within the ego. Instead we must get up and run away from it blindly. On the present level, we cannot see the next level. So the flight from Egypt happens at midnight, in total darkness.

The ten plagues of Egypt are in fact a separation from our egoism, when we run away in the dark and it is unclear where we are going. But the main thing is that we are running away from it! And so gradually we develop before us a new life, a new world, new eternal, infinite, and perfect new expanses.

Question: Is it possible to get along without the plagues?

Answer: No. In fact it is not pain but insight, enlightenment. The plagues pass over our ego and in these states we rise above it!

Comment: It turns out that if I identify with the ego, I feel the plagues. But if I rise above it, i.e., identify with Moses who is leading me forward, I don’t feel them.

Answer: This how the plagues function. They obligate a person to rise above them, and then he stops feeling the ego. If the person is elevated above it, he stops feeling it. Then a relaxed, new life begins.

So in fact, the ten plagues are not really plagues. They are the highest gift that the Creator gives a person, pushing him out of egoism forcefully. So, let’s go, let’s run away from it and gain a new world!
[181795]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/12/16

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