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.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/13/16

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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.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/20/16

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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