The Age of Unreasonable Consumption

Question: The entire economy, in principle, is built on consumption. If people stop consuming, how will the economy survive?

Answer: We do not need such an economy. We drain the Earth, we pollute it, we drain all our resources, we engage people with completely useless businesses. We need to free people from everything except the essentials.

Comment: But we live much better than before.

My Response: If I have 20 suits hanging in my closet, how is it better for me? Offer me what is really necessary today: to be healthy, to feel that my children are being brought up correctly, that my wife and I have no problems, that I do not work for nothing, just to do something and then quickly throw it away. The fact is that we are able to arrange a reasonable life from the tools we have, but we cannot do it because of our egoistic nature. Therefore, we need to balance it, put it in order. And then, with our current capabilities, we will be able to make it really comfortable.

Question: So you are in favor of reasonable consumption? Does Kabbalah speak about this?

Answer: How will it be reasonable? How much does a person need so that he feels that he does not need anything? It depends on the upbringing. But in any case, a person should not suffer. He does not have to eat grass.

Comment: Today we have been brought up to consume in such a way that if I don’t change my mobile phone every year, I feel bad. I have to change it.

My Response: You were brought up to consume in this way because capitalists need it. Why do you need to change your cell phone? To chat with the same shallow people? For example, I have been using my mobile phone for 6 to 7 years. I need to call, I call 2 to 3 times a day and that is enough. I don’t need anything else. What for? Everything I need in the world is in the computer.

It seems to me that this is just a tribute to fashion and nothing more.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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Money Is a Cover for Egoistic Desires

Question: Money in Hebrew is called “Kesef.” What does this mean from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Money (Kesef) is from the word “covering” (Kisufa). We can say that with its help a person can cover all his expenses, everything he wants. In other words, it is a cover for one’s egoistic desires.

However, if he actually acquires what the concept of Kesef means, i.e., the screen (covering, Masach), then he will begin to rise above himself and instead of material fulfillments, he will feel the upper fulfillment of the next degree.

Our egoism needs covering. Either you cover it by giving it everything it wants or you cover it by stopping it at a certain normal level and begin to work above it.

Question: In our world, money is a measure of value: how much your time is worth, how much this or that thing is worth. In spirituality it is a measure of the strength of my screen, an anti-egoistic quality. Is the extent to which I can cover pleasure, i.e., enjoy not for my own sake, but for the sake of the other or the Creator, called “money”?

Answer: However, you do it in order to reach the goal. You do not just bestow to someone else by making some kind of charitable donations, but you have a certain goal, and you are bestowing for the sake of it, in order to rise to the next degree. And although this action is anti-egoistic, it pursues this goal.

One may ask: “Why is it anti-egoistic? After all, I replace one with the other.” Let’s say I give $100 million and want some spiritual fulfillment for it. Here we also need to understand how we bestow in order to receive spiritual fulfillment and how I replace one with the other.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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Question: Why are the true causes of the crisis partially hushed up and partially slowly revealed?

Answer: Because it is unprofitable for those in power. The people who are in power today and profit from what they do in the world are unhappy themselves. They are like a squirrel in a wheel, spinning and spinning, more and more. Who has $100, wants $200, who has $200, wants $400, and so on.

This is a vicious cycle humanity finds itself in. It will be able to get out of this circle only when it reaches some critical point at which, on one hand people will receive a correct explanation of where they are, and on the other hand their suffering will force them to open their eyes and see where they exist.

The correct explanation and the feeling of being at a dead end makes a person stop and look for a way out. Then it will be possible to talk to them about what this way out is.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21

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In the News (Fox News): “Inside Wikipedia’s leftist bias: socialism pages whitewashed, communist atrocities buried

“‘The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone,’ co-founder Larry Sanger said.

“Big tech has faced repeated accusations of bias and censorship, but one platform has escaped much scrutiny: Wikipedia.

“The online encyclopedia, which claims ‘anyone can edit’, is the 13th most popular website in the world, according to Alexa’s web rankings. Google gives it special placement in search results.

“But critics – including Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger – tell Fox News that many Wikipedia pages have become merely left-wing advocacy essays.

“‘The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone,’ co-founder Larry Sanger said.

“‘Wikipedia’s ideological and religious bias is real and troubling, particularly in a resource that continues to be treated by many as an unbiased reference work,’ he added. …

“Wikipedia bills itself as the ‘the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.’ But experienced Wikipedians say new users will find they cannot simply fix things.

“One prolific Wikipedia editor, Jonathan Weiss, told Fox News that ‘bias on Wikipedia somewhat reflects the bias in academia and journalism. It’s easier to find an open Marxist rather than a center-right conservative,'” he said.

“Weiss mentioned one Wikipedia ‘administrator’ as an example. Administrators are a select group of people who make final calls about what goes on pages. One has a photo of Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin on their profile paired with a Lenin quote about how even ‘The most democratic bourgeois republics’ are ‘organs of class oppression.’

“Weiss is in the top 100 Wikipedia editors by contributions, having made more than 415,142 edits on the site since 2006, mostly on sports-related pages.

“But he said that the political pages have largely been taken over by editors with a political axe to grind. …

“Encyclopedia Britannica provides one alternative. A study by Harvard researchers published in a peer-reviewed journal concluded that, ‘we find that Wikipedia articles are more slanted towards Democratic views than are Britannica articles, as well as more biased.'”

Question: If only one version of the facts is allowed, then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power. And they do that. What can be a source of objective information in this world? What do you think?

Answer: You cannot trust any information until we correct egoism. How can you know its source? There is nothing inherently objective. Neither this world, nor us; there is nothing objective neither in it or in us.

Question: Then what do you personally call objective information?

Answer: There is no such thing. How can a person objectively inform you about anything, to begin with, when he himself is 100% egoistic?

Comment: But we have to consume, live, and eat something. We also absorb a lot of information! We gobble up a lot of information! One does not live without this, you cannot be a member of society.

My Response: I think humanity is already approaching a state where it realizes that it is feeding on garbage. It just doesn’t know how to block it off, isolate itself from all this.

However, it must reach a state when it will have to, as Baal HaSulam writes, that the angel of death brings a drop of poison to the dying person at the tip of his sword, and one cannot help but swallow it because for him it tastes so sweet. He knows it’s poison, and there’s nothing he can do.

We must achieve the recognition of the evil of our nature, and we are moving toward this. You are on the right path, friends!

Question: Will this bias of information lead us toward understanding this, feeling this?

Answer: We will feel that we are feeding on carrion altogether! And that there is no truth in this world! Nor do we even want it, we turn away from it in every way! Such is our essence.

Question: Then where is the truth?

Answer: In this world, you cannot find it anywhere! This is a pure egoism that is programmed in us, incapable of providing us with anything else.

Question: But a person must reach the truth, by and large?

Answer: A person cannot reach the truth by himself. He can only reach a state where he will reject, simply push away everything he has in this world because he will realize that it brings him only harm. And this too, actually, will be an egoistic decision and action, but it will still lead him to understand what the truth is.

The truth is simply to imagine everyone else above yourself. Only this! And in this case, to ask, to demand, the opportunity to give something instead of receiving. Somehow it will work out.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/5/21

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What do the Rich Get Pleasure from?

Question: There are several causes that will drive this consumer society that we have created over the past 100 years to a crisis.

The first is the lack of trust caused by constant stress at work, competition, lack of free time, and so on. This is what causes depression.

The second reason is limited resources. If the entire world starts consuming as much as America consumes, these resources would very quickly run out.

The third reason is the growing inequality between rich and poor. We see that the gap is constantly increasing, and due to our increased egoism, we can no longer tolerate it.

The fourth reason, from the point of view of Kabbalah, is that the egoistic development of a person grows and the understanding that no amount of money can buy happiness grows with it. It is clear that a person needs some minimum amount of money, but as we can see even from all kinds of studies, more money no longer gives a person pleasure and one must seek it elsewhere.

What does Kabbalah offer? What will a person get pleasure from if not from the amount of money he gets?

Answer: Ask the super-rich and they will tell you that it is not money itself that gives them pleasure but the fact that they play with it.

Question: The very process of earning money?

Answer: It is not about earning money. A person experiences excitement, an inner drive that stimulates him, and he engages in it. He enters into competition, into a game with other people like him. He is in the grip of excitement like people playing cards. No more than that.

We see that a person earns and earns and then gives half of it away.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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The Only Form of Egoism

Question: Is it possible to describe the egoism that we must correct? After all, it has many forms.

Answer: Egoism has one very simple form: I want only good things and only for myself.

Question: And why is this bad?

Answer: It is bad because it means I am in conflict with wanting good for others. If before we used to build our lives in some way together with others, today we begin to build it only in contradiction with others.

We have entered into such conflicts, such contradictions, that we cannot create anything between us that would unite us. Starting from contradictions of a person with himself, with his family, with his children, relatives, parents, colleagues at work, and ending in relations between nations and the entire world.

A person begins to feel that he is against everyone, alone, and does not need anyone. If it were possible to replace everyone else or even just a couple dozen of people with robots so that they would serve him and he would feel good, he would immediately agree to this. This is our inherent nature.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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Question: As a consequence of the pandemic, now there is a growing crisis in the production of microprocessors, microchips that are literally in everything, from cars to phones. On one hand all things are becoming smart; on the other hand crises in their production is growing.

Therefore the production of cars, phones, etc. is being reduced. For those who produce microprocessors, the queues are scheduled for several years ahead. This means store shelves will begin to empty after some time; a global shortage of smart equipment is coming.

What is the future of smart technologies for humanity in terms of consumption?

Answer: I don’t see anything wrong with that. Of course, I’m not in favor of collecting all the books and burning them. But if we won’t be chasing microchips in every refrigerator and in every iron, I don’t think we will suffer from it.

On the contrary, we will be able to devote more time to our ordinary everyday life; we will learn to receive small joys from the world, from family, from children. I believe that all this technology is a huge failure of humanity in trying to occupy itself with such toys.

Question: It is excessive consumption. On the other hand, this technique, as if from the outside, demonstrates to a person the external connection of things. And if this does not develop, will the connection shift into some internal things?

Answer: Of course. Why wouldn’t we go back to somewhere in the last century in a village, with the right books, maybe even with the right computer, but without the Internet, without everything that clogs our brains and takes up time?

Why can’t we normally, calmly surround ourselves with smart things that will make us smarter, and not just turn us into idiots using the achievements of others who are also worthless?

I believe that the time has long come to make a reassessment of values.

Any development always comes to something. So I think this will too. The only problem is that in our time, too many people, based on purely mercantile interests, are interested in everything continuing the way it is. Therefore there is not much hope that the change will happen peacefully. But on the other hand I’m sure this will end soon.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21

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Question: Which signs of the global crisis are currently going undetected but should be paid serious attention to?

Answer: The most central point, the root of the global crisis, is in people distancing themselves from one another. We sit behind our computers and play games like children and nothing else.

We must understand that only getting closer to each other through good forces can lead us out of the general crisis. That is, it is a crisis of people distancing themselves from each other, their desire to everyone being in some kind of a cocoon, and not think or worry about anything else.

Question: Why don’t people really feel that there is a crisis? Is it being underestimated? For example, I can assess the crisis in overproduction. I go to the store and see empty shelves. But the crisis in mutual relations is somehow hidden from a person. We don’t understand what is behind it or how serious it is.

Answer: People get entrapped by the “toys” they have invented. Their interest in games distracts them from their real problems. Therefore, on one hand, humanity seems to be advancing, and on the other hand, it is dying out. Everything lies in the awareness of the wickedness of this state. In the meantime, we are only filling the bottomless pockets of those who rule and control everyone.

I do not see anything good in the future. We need to explain to people what all this will lead to. It will mean realizing a very bitter, long journey during which we worked for our own enemies who thought only of how to enrich themselves at our expense only to throw everything we had accumulated and handed over to them into the sea. This is how fierce human egoism works.

It is necessary to realize the evil of our egoism and understand that this is the only evil. Then we can talk about how to get rid of it.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21

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The Basis of the Consumer Economy

Question: The economy is a reflection of social relations between people, and therefore the crisis that we are witnessing today is a crisis of relations. I will give a few examples from our life that are directly tied to relationships between people. First, the sale of products with a limited shelf-life. We all suffer from this, but someone earns.

Second, the waste of food in order to keep prices in the market. It turns out that half of the population throws away food, and the other half does not know where to find food.

Further, banks pay scanty interest to depositors. There is the black market: some people pay taxes, others don’t, etc. I am not even talking about armed conflicts, which take a huge amount of money from us.

It turns out that in reality a crisis is a crisis of relations. In addition, it is very difficult to set up businesses because there is a crisis of trust between people. How is all this related to Kabbalah? And what does Kabbalah have to offer?

Answer: For thousands of years we have been developing in our selfishness. This is our nature, which all the time led us to more and more consumption. Minimum effort and maximum return, this is the nature of selfishness. Striving for peace, fulfillment, pleasure, and knowledge, but all this with minimal energy consumption.

This is how we developed until we reached a state, where in the 20th century, as it was predicted many centuries ago by the Kabbalists, we began to feel that such a movement was leading, in general, to nowhere. The time has come for crises, world wars.

Humanity has begun to produce so much that it is no longer able to consume. It has outgrown the border of reasonable consumption. Despite this, half of humanity is malnourished or even starving, and the other half does not know what to do with food and throws away what they have. The same goes for clothing and all other commodities.

In general, if earlier it seemed to us that we were in a world that was growing, improving, and ultimately leading us to the fact that everyone will have at least some minimum, people will enjoy life at least a little, will not die from hunger, from disease, and we will come to a more or less average level of existence, but now, starting from the 21st century, we find that our egoism does not allow us to do anything.

So from a friend who pulled us forward for millennia, selfishness turned into an enemy. Of course, it pitted us against each other in wars, in various problems, but nevertheless it led us forward, and humanity as a result was enriched and settled down. But in the 20^th century, and especially since the 21^st century, it became clear to us that the ego will not allow us to develop well anymore, it will lead us to destruction because it will not allow us to unite, to plan our lives so that everyone has something.

Despite the huge resources, immense scientific, technical, production, and economic opportunities, we absolutely do not set ourselves up to satisfy even our own population within the country and think about making the people more or less comfortable in life.

On the contrary, the further we go, the clearer we see that selfishness disfigures us, arranges everything so that we suffer from it. After all, we do not want to connect with each other, do not want to see each other in good relations and comfortable states.

That is, we have achieved what in the science of Kabbalah is called the realization of the evil of our nature. And now we need to come to a conclusion, which is also not very easy to grasp, say, and realize: We must definitely correct ourselves—ourselves, not some parties or trends, not something private in our society or in our relationships, for example, children, family, elite, etc.

We need to correct our nature, that is, what we received! Not what we created in the process of evolution, but what we received from nature.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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Question: As a consequence of the pandemic and perhaps some more global reasons, there is an energy crisis in Europe, China, and Asia. There is an explosive rise in prices of coal, gas, and to some extent oil. Many people say that the main currency of the world is the dollar, but in reality, it is energy.

What do you think is the future of energy in terms of human consumption?

Answer: Humanity is driving itself into a corner. If we are to blame for the development of all kinds of energy consumers, then what can we expect? Of course an energy crisis.

In principle, if you take a sensible look at the world at how much energy it needs for food, clothing, and doing everything necessary for a normal, quiet life without any excess, then we would see that there is a huge overproduction of energy in the world, and we do not need to rush anywhere and do anything. We just have to grasp this a little and cancel all unnecessary things.

Let’s click on the switches and check what we really need in our life as energy consumers. Then we will understand that we will be “in the positive” and do not need to rush. And the energy deficit that we all of the sudden notice is being pumped up on purpose.

So, I do not think this is a problem for humanity. This is a problem of unreasonable humanity. But all the same, we will have to come to some reasonable decision.

Question: How do you feel about the global boom in transitioning to green energy?

Answer: This is all just the policy of the “Green Parties” and others. I do not know who and how. There is nothing in this.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21

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