Question: Our egoistic race is turning into a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s clear that it would break at some point, but no one can stop its motion.

Answer: It’s true. Egoism is our only nature. If we had one more force, opposite to it, we could stop. However, we have no other force.

It has to become crystal clear: We are all arrant egoists. Boundless self-love forces people to drink the cup of poison to the bottom, until the very last drop. Even at the moment before death, they will not be able to stop.

It’s impossible to convince anybody of anything: Everybody will be left with his thoughts and will not hear the warnings. I can deliver a speech before the entire world, bring all the data, write all the facts, invite leading scientists and the most prestigious public figures, and together we will cry out: “Friends! Brothers! We are heading to our death!” Their response will be: “Really? What are you talking about?!” And the public will return to their business of burning the rest.

Everybody is an egoist; each one of us is like a machine and cannot act differently. Someone spins; someone leaps; someone moves back and forth. We are created in this way and are not capable of anything else. People don’t hear calls coming from a higher degree and existing above human nature.

Only by uniting among ourselves will we help them recognize the problem. Only then, having understood the situation and sensed the threat that it carries, will people be ready to listen to us at least a bit. And united with them internally, we will give them the Light that Reforms.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/2011, Talk on The World’s Overpopulation Problem

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The essence of the global crisis is that humanity has “gotten stuck” or “bogged down” in nature and does not know what to do. Nature has turned its harsh side to us, threatening us with crises in various areas, and we don’t have an answer to that challenge.

On one hand, we developed inside of our nature and have reached a completely lawful result. If we had a chance to turn back time a few centuries and do it all again, we would still take the same path.

That is because this is our very nature—the growing egoistic desire with all of its derivatives. Scientific and technological progress, industry, culture, education, and human society are all natural results of egoism, and nothing can be done about them.

Until now we have developed the way our nature ordered us to. So how can we now influence it and correct it in any way to change the direction? Has anything like this ever happened in history? Never. In the best case scenario we can recognize the results of our development—whether they are good or bad, depending on the observer’s point of view. Meanwhile the train moves farther and farther along, and maybe we really don’t have another way out?

Scientific research of the manifestations of the crisis is a useful thing, but what does it give us? We are looking out of the window of a train, watching the view that is flying past us: At first it glitters with different colors, the sky is clear, and the green fields are filled with sunlight. But then, the colors start to wither, the grass becomes replaced by sand more often, and there are increasingly more glimpses of garbage dumps, dirt, and waste drains, and the sun becomes obstructed by smoke and smog. Can we do anything or will the train ride down this track until the end? Should we put a veil over the window and come what may?

There are many uncertainties here, but the science of Kabbalah does not even discuss this route and where it will lead us. It deals with the root of the problem: We are riding down the train of our egoism, which is constantly growing.

Development is necessary, but will we direct it in a different vein? Let’s reject the egoistic path in which we are unable to agree on anything and inflict so much harm to ourselves and nature. After all, every person thinks only of himself, and that is why we inevitably destroy our lives and the surrounding environment.

What if, instead of that, we will unite in love? Would we then treat nature and the environment differently? Would we still exhaust the earth’s abundant resources? Would we burn such inconceivable amounts of fuel? Would we throw out food when there are a billion people suffering from hunger? Would we give birth to one child here and to ten in another place? Would we then be able to reach balance?

Or maybe we wouldn’t have to look for balance between us? Maybe people’s attitude to each other and to the world as a whole would correct this world? And then the train itself would change and would ride forward differently? By correcting our attitude, maybe we would ensure an abundance of natural resources and crop yields so there would be more than enough for everyone?

Baal HaSulam wrote the following in the newspaper “The Nation”: Our planet is sufficiently rich to feed all of us. So why do we need this tragic war for survival, which complicates our lives from one generation to the next? If only we would achieve unity, compassion for one another, and love, then everyone would have enough of everything. That is because then the upper Light would fill all of our necessities. Nature itself would change from the inside.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/11, The World’s Problems, Overpopulation

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We must properly assess our current state of affairs on the earth. The defects are intended for us to correct them, to use them as a means for ascending into the upper world. Otherwise, what am I living here for? Why am I experiencing all of these troubles and attempting to resist them? I want to overcome them. I am aware of the situation and grateful for the crisis because by correcting it, I will enter the upper world. If not for this crisis, where would I work, where would I change myself in order to rise to a higher level?

We are talking about a means that enables us to improve and correct ourselves. We are revealing the illness, but now, by working on the treatment, we will attain our nature and understand what we lack in order to acquire the Creator’s nature.

Obviously, the crisis is not a reason to get enthusiastic, but the revelation of evil. However, we should have a practical attitude to it. Suddenly I am discovering that I am cruel, greedy, and love to rule over others, that I don’t have a care in the world for anyone else—and I evaluate these revelations as a means on the path. I am happy about the flaws that become revealed because I realize what they are intended for.

That is why we shouldn’t silence or conceal the world’s problems from ourselves. On the contrary, we have to expose them to people, and not in order to scare them, but to cure the illness. We have to show everyone that we have just one way out: to treat the crisis practically, to use it for making qualitative changes.

Then we will suddenly feel that we are doing wonderful work on correction, whose result will be eternal, perfect life. What can be better? We won’t want to remain on the animate level, being born and dying over and over again. Besides, that’s impossible because through our development we have already reached the need to ascend to the next level, into a higher dimension.

We are not just explaining the nature of the crisis to people, but are pointing to its higher goal. The issue here is not that it is educating us and bringing us closer, forcing us to unite. All of these are just means, a ladder by which we will ascend to a new level of being.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/11, The World’s Problems, Overpopulation

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Question: Even if my intention is egoistic, if I start thinking about the benefit of others and the well-being of the world, can this already be considered an action?

Answer: Of course. Do you really think that giving out bread to the poor is a real action? This will only cause more poor people to exist in the world.

Your action is to attract Light. It, and nothing else, returns you to the Source. So what else is there to think about? Especially at a time when the whole world is in trouble and in danger. We only need the Light. The lack of Light is the reason for all the wars, crises, catastrophes, and other problems.

Precisely the lack of good actions by the Light evokes troubles at the four phases of development—still, vegetative, animate, and human. The evil we encounter is a projection of the lack of Light.

Punishment does not come from above. If I have to reach a specific reward, the revelation of the Creator, similarity and adhesion with Him, and I don’t do that, then I experience the gap that this creates as punishment or lack of goodness. And vice versa, by attaining this, I will feel a reward.

Thus, I feel reward and punishment in the same desires. If I have corrected and filled my desire, this is the reward, but if I cannot correct and fulfill it, this is punishment. There are no penalties from above. I do not receive a speck beyond what I inflict upon myself. I create my own punishment.

Therefore, we have just one task—to attract the Light. Especially today, considering everything that is happening and accumulating in the world. There are no other means.

I am constantly in touch with people who are “in the know,” and I read all kinds of articles, visit websites, and follow the newspapers, but I don’t see a solution offered anywhere. They cannot offer anything and they don’t even want to think about this because they don’t have the slightest connection with correction.

Just yesterday I was talking about this with a famous writer and he did not say anything—he avoided answering. This indicates a lack of sensitivity, a lack of understanding the corrections.

“The world is round and we have to unite,” I say to people. “That’s right, we’re also acting in that direction,” they respond. People don’t even realize that in reality they are going in the opposite direction. After all, in the end every person is just strengthening his own party or movement. There is no one to talk to.

Therefore, we have to create conditions in our midst for a positive force to emerge. Only then will its waves ripple through the whole world. Nothing else will help. We do not depend on others, but we have to help them so that later on people will quickly catch these waves, understand their message, and feel that they are coming from us.

The materials have to be disseminated ahead of time, but in essence the source of these waves is us. And therefore, the most important thing is to unite, to merge with one another more and more.

I place great hopes on the upcoming conventions. They are the means by which we have to bring to life unity, consolidation, and mutual care for the world and for our correction, which will help the world.

The time has come for the Creator to become revealed in the creatures. The means is simple and it is in our hands. All we have to do is use it. We ask the world to wake up, but are we awakening ourselves?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, “Peace in the World”

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Question: What should we expect from the upcoming conventions? What intention should we build?

Answer: We are approaching very powerful changes due to our unification and I hope that the upcoming chain of conventions will help us to keep the intention together for a whole month without leaving it. Work, family, children, personal problems—despite all of this, unconsciously, in some corner of my mind, I leave a place for the most important thing and constantly worry about our unity, about how we advance from one convention to the next, from one day to the next, in our intentions and our inner solidarity—until there, inside, we will reveal the Creator.

We have been studying this theoretically for a long time already. So let’s truly wish for Him to be revealed. We have heard about this thousands of times—so let’s make the effort.

We cannot fall into doubts, “Again? How many times have we been through this?” We are at the threshold of a breakthrough. And the world is also demanding this. After all, it doesn’t have the slightest chance of finding any solution. In the Internet we see what kind of “solutions” are being offered in response to the modern crises, how people are trying to conceal and silence them because they don’t see any way out.

In a form that’s comfortable, clear, and close to the people, we must inform the world that there is a solution, and the faster we start realizing it, the less suffering this will cost us.

Therefore, our intention at the conventions is to start “permanently living” in the group that is bringing the whole world the solution to the crisis. There is nothing more important that we could possibly prepare or do for the world.

Right now we are at a very important point: There is a sick patient lying in front of us and his illness is almost fatal, but we can create a medicine and cure him. Then he won’t just be healthy, but will rise to the Creator’s level, to a new, eternal dimension.

Therefore, we must attribute the greatest possible importance to our efforts and our status—the ascent we are starting during these days. We have to hold ourselves accountable for what kind of task we are carrying out. Who are we to receive such a great mission—to actually participate in correcting not only the world, but all of reality?

We need to be a little bit prouder; that will help us to feel our responsibility.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/11, “Peace in the World”

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Nature controls us with the help of four categories: mercy, truth, justice, and peace. Of course, the best one is peace, which means perfection, and it can be achieved with the help of the quality of “truth.” However, we are incapable of making this come true because according to the truth, a person must be completely pure of the egoistic desire and be entirely in bestowal. He must receive only whatever is necessary for his life and bestow to others with all his might.

We still haven’t attained these states. Our society is incapable of this. We do not belong to the still, vegetative, or animate levels, which operate according to the laws and forces that nature awakens in them. Unlike those levels in nature, we are egoists and as such, our desire for pleasure desires to absorb and use everything.

As a result, we cannot affirm the category of “truth.” But without it, humanity faces a problem: If we don’t give and provide each other with everything, then society is flawed and therefore experiences all kinds of troubles and disasters. When there is no balance, people feel disadvantaged or, on the contrary, privileged.

Therefore, in order to avoid destroying the environment completely, the category of “mercy” awakens in us. “Mercy” is a sort of compensation, a way for the powerful to make up for things because they have the ability to use all of society for the sake of their own interests and then to allocate a little bit to the weak. That is how we use the categories of “mercy” and “justice.”

Of course, these compensations are inadequate, yet with their help we have been able to balance society out. Humanity has done a lot for the sake of this balancing act: charity and humanitarian organizations, all kinds of revolutions, public health services, education systems, and so on. However, nature demands much more from us. Lately we are finding that it requires us to create a system of mutual bestowal.

According to all the indications, today we have to rise to the level of “truth” and “peace”—in other words, to live by the principle, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his necessity.” On the the still, vegetative, and animate levels, this principle is maintained by nature absolutely and instinctively, whereas people have to come to this by reaching total correction, by ascending above their egoism and establishing the appropriate interconnections within society.

Today humanity is at an intermediate phase. We are no longer animals or primitive barbaric tribes living in a natural communism, yet we are still not corrected either. Right now we are at the beginning of realizing the crisis of our nature, our egoism.

So let’s listen to what Kabbalists say: They explain to us that there is a way and a means that can help us to create the perfect society.
[43222]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/11, “Peace in the World”

A Social Agreement To Cease Hostilities
Is True Equality Possible?
Learning Isn’t For Us, Is It?

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Question: How can we disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah to the masses whose points of the hearts haven’t awakened yet? How do we withhold the Torah, meaning the method of correction of the evil inclination?

Answer: In the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam writes that, basically, everybody has this point since after the breaking of the collective soul, its parts have intermixed and become included into each other. However, some points are so big that when they awaken, they start pulling a person to the right place where he can receive correction and fulfillment. Whereas the other points are hidden, and such people are 99% of the population of the world.

We should address them according to their present desires. To those who come to study with us, we tell about the desire to go straight to the Creator and give the method of revealing Him in mutual connection with others. As for the other 99%, they have no relation to it, nothing in common whatsoever. They don’t need spirituality; they look at us in total surprise, unable to understand what we are lacking: There is soccer, there is the Internet, everything is fine.

And still, they do have problems and experience grief. Today, the entire world is sinking into a whirlpool, and it’s not our fault. Because of us, the Creator wouldn’t stir crises, cause disasters, and put humanity under the threat of exhausting our natural resources. He does it because of them.

We advance without needing this crisis since there is a force that is leading us forth. But for them, there has to be a force that will be pushing them from behind. This force is suffering.

Thus, when we address the masses, we have to offer them a method of how to resolve the global crisis in all areas of life, including family, education, drug abuse, depression, economy, climate change, and so on. We possess a method that makes it possible to correct all that’s bad so that we may feel good in this life, in this world.

We don’t say a word about the future world since people have no need for it whatsoever. If they hear anything about the spiritual side of the issue from us, they will write us off as mystics or madmen. Hence, we need to approach them adequately: without mentioning Kabbalah, the Creator and the created being, the purpose of creation, and so on.

We simply have a method, an instrument that can correct the current bad state, the crisis that is consuming the whole world. We have something to offer them; we know what to do. Nobody knows but us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, “The Freedom”

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Unity is not equalization, but mutual inclusion. The method of education is based on this idea as well: Everyone is unique, and hence children develop through discussions that allow them to learn other children’s opinions no matter how numerous these opinions are.

Thanks to this method, each child absorbs from the others, becomes imbued with their way of being, and grows to be even more unique. The child receives from everyone else and grows on that, developing his own properties.

This is what we want to achieve with our method of education. People unite correctly, making a contact, communicating with each other, and build a human society themselves, a society which is based on mutual inclusion of each into all and all into each. As a result, everybody’s uniqueness flourishes even more.

To do this, children conduct discussions, which we direct and manage just a little bit. Meanwhile, everybody has an opportunity to speak out, experience the role of a judge and defendant, advocate and prosecutor. We develop a human being in each child only through mutual inclusion.

Then, from year to year, children will grow more different from each other. The difference between them will strike one’s eye every time, but so what? Namely this will give power to the following unification. That’s the entire point: Without suppressing the individual, we build a community from great personalities.

Thereby the method of Kabbalah allows us to use the entire creation. Otherwise, we simply destroy a person, reducing him to a cog in the machine, whereas in fact, each detail, conscious of its indispensability, should put this machine into action.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2011, “Peace in the World”

Related Material:
Can Different People Be Equal?
Be The Chief Of Unification
Fathers And Sons: Who Lacks Understanding?

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Thus you find that the attribute of truth has no practical ability to organize the path of the individual and the path of the collective in an absolute and satisfactory manner. Also, it is completely insufficient for organizing life at the end of the correction of the world.

The Creator seems to be playing with us. On one hand, He says that everything needs to be done according to the attribute of truth: Everybody has to give as much as possible and receive life necessities, according to his nature which he did not choose. At the same time, bestowal, even wholehearted, also depends on the innate qualities and differences.

It means that everyone is unique in reception and bestowal. How do we solve the problem and remain in the category of “truth”? What criterion should we use? Working hours or output are not suitable because everybody is different. The Creator created us so that we are simply unable to draw comparisons between ourselves. How can we establish the correct interconnection between us?

For example, I may spend hours to get a smile from someone, while someone else smiles right away. Everybody has his own character, habits, mood swings, and a thousand other internal parameters. How do we work with each other?

Does the Creator “trip us”? “You have to be equal,” He says. But we are different! How is it possible to evaluate a human according to a benchmark? Where would a suitable criterion be found?

It is time for us to build a human society in which all of us will be connected like cogwheels. Nobody knows how he is supposed to rotate in relation to others. What example can be used? How would it be realized? The task seems simply unreal, and this is a very big problem.

All of humanity has to understand the difficulty that lies here and its cause. Today, we already understand that we have entered a new epoch and must unite in an amicable way. There is no other choice: We have to reduce consumption, limit our evil inclination, our egoism, to begin to decrease the standard of living in one region and share the released surplus with the other. But how?

Each of those who succeed in economy, industry, science, culture, and so on can stand up and say: “I have achieved everything with my own hands. I worked on my success, so let them do the same.” And it would sound fair.

In other words, a person says: “Go to the Master who created me. He put me in such conditions, and I have achieved everything.” That is, direct all your claims with respect to our inequality to the Creator. It is He who created people different and requires them to achieve unity, without which it’s impossible to continue our existence.

This is the problem we have yet to resolve.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2011, “Peace in the World”

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