We can’t develop egoistically any further. Egoism has suddenly turned into our enemy. One may wonder: “How come? Let’s continue to develop technology, culture, and science, and travel to other planets. The quest for new frontiers can be endless.”

The problem is that the end goal, the purpose, and the thought of creation are different. Nature functions so that having reached the final egoistic state, we begin to suffer from our egoism unspeakably and don’t wish to evolve in it anymore.

In other words, we come to a certain crisis which tells us that egoism is finite. It’s the end of you, you’ve got nothing more to do. You wont’ be able to evolve inside it and be fulfilled; you won’t be able to reach a comfortable state in it. You will feel empty, finite, and transitory.

It’s a challenge in order to make us rise up to the next level—the level of the Creator, the upper Nature. It’s a threshold the world has reached today according to the predictions of all Kabbalists. Whether we like it or not, egoism will demonstrate to us its insignificance and inability to provide us with fulfillment; it will become a “help against us.” It won’t give us what we want either at home or at work; it will bring us neither health nor safety. Most importantly, it won’t help us answer the most pressing question: “What are you living for?”

Faced by that question, our entire “self” gets wiped away. It’s the most important, the most dramatic question which nullifies my very self, my pride, my existence, my essence: “Who I am and what I exist for?” A petty insect or an animal does not occupy themselves with it, they just live on and fill themselves fulfilling the program that runs inside them. I can’t do it, I am more miserable than them.

If not for the upper program of development, we would continue to exist as before. The United States with its consumer society and limitless capacities of Hollywood seemed entirely natural; humanity used to think that it’s our future and that nothing limits us. It turned that the end came very quickly and definitively.

That’s the fact we have to wake up to, that we can’t ignore: We are experiencing a global crisis, a crisis of our attitude to ourselves and Nature. It’s not temporary, there are no alternatives. We used to stir up revolutions and conduct social reforms; we tried to do something with ourselves and the environment, to change something to the better. Now we have nowhere to turn to. We feel that we don’t even have a desire to change anything.

That’s what the crisis is really about. On the other hand, however, it’s the level from which we begin our ascent into the upper world. Humanity, one social strata at a time, comes to that realization; it begins to feel it and little by little approaches the recognition of and transition to the next state.

Actually, we are the first to enter this state. Others will follow us, and we can see that with each passing day more and more people are beginning to at least understand the goal we are pursuing, and if not accepting it, at least considering it.

The problems of the world and our solution are coming closer, and it makes the solution more understandable; people lend their ears to it. And although the change requires tremendous inner revolution in one’s heart and mind so as to bring humanity to a new state, the process has developed quite rapidly over the past several years.

Humanity has never experienced such sharp turns as it does now. Kabbalah has entered the public domain only a decade ago, and look what has happened. Events are developing at a furious pace.

Still at least a few years may need to pass until we can address the world so it will listen.
[34025]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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The entire progress of humanity over the course of several thousand years is hurting nature and us. It is purposefully “wound up” in a way that brings us to the realization of our evil. By constantly concentrating everything in ourselves, we come to realize that all of this is not right, it does not work when it comes to exiting outside.

Then why did we need this entire historic development? Why do I need to come back to this world and suffer in it from generation to generation for thousands of years? After all, we have been in this world many times, we have lived this life many times. What for? In order to realize this final state? Was this the only way to bring us to disappointment? Or is there another possibility?

Actually, this is not the point. Everything we have experienced and gone through over the course of thousands of lifetimes in this world was necessary. Only now we begin to rise and come out of ourselves with this egoism and the experience of its bitter “groundwork.” We need a big “black hole” of egoism. It had to manifest with all our problems.

We have put so much hard work into trying to fulfill this egoism and the next day it would disappear, and once again we would have to pursue this life, its fulfillment, different values, and so on. However, all our actions are stored in an enormous egoistic memory, which we begin to gradually unravel in the opposite direction only at a later time. Then the efforts spent on fulfilling ourselves are turned back and help us to seemingly unwind outside of us the entire history we have been through.

It is impossible to simply begin a different, outwardly-directed altruistic development from the egoistic development. It is impossible to begin to perceive the spiritual world without preparation. This can only be realized after a person fully experiences his entire egoistic essence, completely discovers himself, completely realizes that he is inside this egoistic nature, that everything is inside him, he collects everything within.

At the same time, this sets the terms of our circulation. We do not impose Kabbalah on anyone; we only offer it to the people who already feel: “That is it, this is the end, I must come to the next level.” That is the only way. If a person is not ready for this, Kabbalah will not do anything for him. In this case, he must continue to exist in this world for some more time, in order to complete his entire egoistic “package.”
[34044]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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Karl Marx felt all the Kabbalistic conclusions rather well and expressed them quite openly, but at the same time did so unclearly for small people like Lenin and his associates. Baal HaSulam writes about this.

Karl Marx’ original works clearly indicate that he supposed that once people began to work with their egoism, they would realize that it is impossible. Technically, this is what people in Russia felt once they started building socialism after the Revolution. But they followed a path that Karl Marx definitely never thought would happen: the path of force.

When you are setting a condition of “love thy neighbor,” you cannot impose this condition, this law, through force. This was a Russian invention. This can never exist!

But Bolsheviks turned everything this way, and at the end they created terror and killed forty million people. Still, this did not lead to anything. You cannot artificially change human nature according to your own way, especially through force. It is impossible. When referring to nature, can you really do anything against it?

This ideology of so-called “love of neighbor” was imposed through force all the way until the final years of the soviet regime, until people had become completely disappointed in everything. It sounded nice on the outside, but we understand that it was nothing but terror on the inside.

Karl Marx assumed that people would realize the need to come together and would understand that there is no place for exploitation, that capitalism is corrupt, and that socialization of means and results of production is necessary. We will come to this anyway. The entire global crisis is leading towards this. We cannot avoid this.

Karl Marx wrote out all these Kabbalistic conditions as economic laws: Every person must be compensated for their work only with what they need to exist in our world. This refers to whatever is needed for every person to exist normally: an apartment, a job, a family, vacations, pension, healthcare, childhood education, everything that one needs on the level of our world, in our normal human society. Every person must have this.

But everything beyond the necessities becomes public property. And it must only be used for the benefit of the society, and only to the necessary extent for this society. Only then we will be in balance with nature.
[34053]
From Lesson 3 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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We think that each of us has their own issues and their own problems. “I wish to reach spirituality and I don’t care for the rest of the world. Sometimes I think about them, but essentially, what does it matter? Where’s the world and where am I?”

Obviously, it is a normal egoistic response. But what can one do? We have only one choice: Think really hard about how we are connected with one another. Kabbalah states that all humans are interconnected. We already feel it, and today we are more or less aware of it.

Alas, there aren’t any results from it yet. It’s evident that governments and individuals alike, no matter how smart, still can’t change and continue to live inside their personal, egoistic shells. But the problem is actually global and can be resolved only if we get connected.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that all of us are separate individuals tied together by various types of connections. It is an enormous, heavy, very intricate, and very multifaceted system comprised of seven billion interconnected parts.

In this system, I can feel my “self” within myself, and then I sense our world. Or, I can feel what is outside of me: the other parts and the ties between me and all the others. In that case, I will perceive the upper world outside of me.

It is regarded as upper because I am governed by what is supplied to me from everybody else. Everything that occurs in me does so because ties from all seven billion parts run to me.

Then how do we solve the current problem that Nature forces onto us? It looks like we have to find a benevolent connection between us because it is the integral system that sends us all these troubling signals.It requires that we transcend ourselves and start feeling the surrounding space. Outside of me, there is the world of Infinity. Thus, we must all step outside and experience the field that lives between us. No one can feel it inside oneself.
[34028]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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When we listen to environmental news on television and radio, we need to understand that people confuse the cause and the effect and don’t see the purpose. Their objective is to balance everything in order to return to a comfortable state. But Kabbalah’s perspective on this is entirely different.

When we speak about returning the world to a good state, we do not pursue the same objective as the rest of the world. We understand that the external force of Nature specifically created the current situation according to a particular program. Kabbalists foretold this and gave us very precise time frames, even predicting the actual year of occurrences. The Zohar mentions events 1,800 years before they actually took place.

The problem is not the contamination of our environment. How could Kabbalists have such specific knowledge about this? The purpose of the program of Nature is not for us to contaminate or clean something. And this is why it will not help to invest money into anti-pollution measures. It is the same as making new laws against theft and drug use. We know that this does not help. By incarcerating people you separate them from society, but you cannot teach them through this.

And this is why we do not regard natural occurrences as moral warnings, but only as the reason for us to change within in relation to others. We will never be able to do anything good to us or nature by stopping pollution. From the beginning, everything is made this way in order to raise us into the next world, instead of turning us into good egoists in this world.

Here is a serious difference between our attitude towards the occurrences and the attitude of the rest of the world. Even once the world realizes the forthcoming catastrophe, they will only want to go back, “erase the smut” of nature. But we perceive all of this as a reason, a message to correct ourselves, rise above, and create balance between us on the human level, instead of creating balance with the environment.

And this is why a little time is needed to understand what Kabbalah speaks about. We will not be able to explain it to people in a quick and easy manner.
[34006]
From Lesson 2, Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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Question: To date, the Internet communication network Facebook has registered 500 million users. It’s more than the entire population of the United States and signifies that every 12th person in the world is using this system. Do you think that such a system can bring us closer to the spiritual communication that Kabbalah describes? How do you see Facebook’s role in mankind’s evolution?

Answer: I think that all means of communication developed by humanity, specifically the Internet, a global communication network, will do us a lot of good. All of this derives from our desire to be more connected with each other, connected namely not at the corporeal, external level, but through a deeper, inner connection.

We haven’t yet learned to use the opportunities presented to us. As in everything else, we, as egoists, start by using all novelties somewhat to our disadvantage until we find a more appropriate form. But I am very happy to hear how successful the development of such networks between people is, and I have great expectations with regard to them.

Isn’t it evident that nature is pushing us toward a tighter interconnection? Today, we discover that all of us are interconnected and interdependent. These are the laws of nature that are being revealed to us today. And if we go along with them, we will definitely win.

The same goes for any law of nature: If we know and follow it, we benefit from doing so. Therefore, using the social Internet communication networks that help people connect is very useful, although they act like little children there, always fighting and arguing with each other. But later on, they start gradually learning how to communicate correctly and respect each other’s opinion.

I think that mankind will quickly pass through this childhood and come to a state when it will start utilizing all these social networks in a dignified and correct manner and that through them, we will start realizing that essentially we are all as one man, one system.
[33936]
From a TV Program “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/20/2011

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Question: Virtual space (the Internet network) is made of people’s desires which populate it. Is there an analogy between the Internet and the spiritual world?

Answer: So far, we can’t analyze spiritual analogs of the Internet because this network lacks any order, even an egoistic one. It is ruled by “egoistic anarchy” where everyone is doing whatever they please.

On one hand, it is good since it helps this system to get organized as quickly as it may. But on the other, in this transitional period, there is no order whatsoever. Yet we should fear a possibility of any restriction on it. The Internet should evolve absolutely freely in this mess until it straightens itself out.

Humanity will get more and deeper engaged in this system in hope to receive fulfillment there. After all, the Internet seems to have it all! We are approaching a state when a person will not want to go anywhere and travel anymore: Why hassle when the Internet has everything I need? Why get out of the house when I have the Internet? Why study and learn something if I can always search the Internet and get all the answers?

The Internet system will respond to all personal needs: We will work, socialize, live, place food orders, and do everything else there. The Internet will give us everything except one thing: We will not get fulfillment in it. This is what it will eventually reveal.

And that’s when we will have to do something with the system itself since this is a system that connects people. Above it, there is nothing else left! This is the last and the highest degree of humanity’s material evolution. Therefore, this system will have to assume a form which will, indeed, respond correctly to all personal needs, that is, will teach how to work for the sake of bestowal.

A person who lost faith in this world withdraws into the virtual one. But when he loses faith in it too, we have to ensure that he or she finds the wisdom of Kabbalah there and from it, through the virtual world, arrives to the spiritual world. Being present in this virtual space ourselves, we have to demonstrate that there is no way out: One can search the entire Internet, but he won’t find happiness there.

The problem is not in lack of connection, but rather that it is a wrong type of connection. Connection has to be based on bestowal. And since a person who lives in the virtual world is a regular Internet user and to a certain degree feels this interconnection between people, then it should be even easier to explain to him or her that it is the type of communication that determines everything for us. All we need to do is to just find simple enough words for such explanations and create a Kabbalistic Internet society which everyone can link to.

It doesn’t obligate a person to anything: He or she may come in whenever they’d like and look at anything they are interested in. The person is not required to disclose their name, go some place, drive somewhere, spend money, or enter a new group – just click a button and he is there.

If we can build such networks that will make a person feel that he bestows to others on the Internet, he or she will gain a special fulfillment. In the virtual space, it can be arranged very fast because it is very flexible. The realization of the evil inclination can occur just as quickly and develop an awareness of what egoism we live in. The Internet is a marvelous instrument for the kind of revolution that we need to make in order to switch a person from the tracks of reception to the tracks of bestowal.
[33692]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Some ten to fifteen years ago, a question was raised about Russia’s national cause, the program of rebirth. It has quietly disappeared and was replaced with a spiritual void. How do you see Russia’s national cause, the program of its development?

Answer: Over the course of these years I have met with many people, cabinet members, mass media, and I have spoken a lot. I was hoping to find a response specifically in Russia. First of all, it’s because I have traveled around the world and through all of my students around the world, I feel the soul of every nation. And I have never seen anywhere else the same response and aspiration for truth like previously in Russia.

There was a national cause. I was hoping that this national cause would serve as the basis for showing how it needs to be realized. In other words, some time ago (I am emphasizing some time ago), the desire of the Russian people was to show to the entire world that they have a soul, a purpose, and that this purpose is above pragmatism, above one’s pocket and other materialistic interests, that they have something ahead of them, something for mankind to follow. It was really like this until year 1995 or 2000.

Lately when I begin to speak to people about this and continue to develop the same ideas, regrettably, people seem to laugh at me and speak to me as if to a child. They say that all of this is in the past and think that there is nothing to discuss there. Unfortunately, I see that this cause has simply died.

But I do not think that this is possible. I think that people are simply suppressed, and eventually it will be possible to resurrect it because this inner request needs to exist among the people. I hope that it will manifest. But currently there is simply no one to speak to.

Back then I also met with very influential people and spoke to them about the things that can be done. I warned them: Look what is written in Kabbalah, a science of general nature and its development, look where we are heading. Essentially, everything happened the way I said it would happen: the financial crisis, and so on.

I do not want to be a prophet, but this obviously and naturally comes from the egoistic curve that keeps developing. But I heard a very simple answer: “We have money and an army. If we can change something using these two things, then we are ready to listen. We do not have anything else.” From the government’s point of view this is the truth; every country says the same.

But I continue to think that the world is still to be well shaken up, we cannot avoid it. And then everything that is now stagnant will get agitated, and it will be possible to speak about bringing this cause back. But this cause must be based on similarity to nature; it cannot be some made-up idea forced onto people, like the Bolsheviks did.

When you work together with nature, you do not make mistakes. You can be going ahead of it or trying to catch up. But when you go with it in unison, this becomes the best and most comfortable social development. But when you go along with it knowing the formula of its development, what it demands of you, then you completely protect yourself from any catastrophes and even any negative influence. In other words, there will not be any illnesses, large epidemics, earthquakes, or fires, there will not be anything. You simply exist comfortably.

And you suddenly begin to feel that all your actions in the world bring you five hundred, a thousand times more benefit than today. This is simply because nature seems to favor you; you are properly going along with it. This is the only thing Kabbalah reveals: the formula of human development that we must follow together. In other words, one can either develop under nature’s steamroller which rolls over us and develops us in spite our egoism, or if we choose to go with it, this will be an easy and pleasant development.

I do not see another force in the world like the force that the Russian people have in their character, their aspiration to have a cause, live for it, even suffer in its name, as long as it is a real cause. And this is why I still think that this movement comes from the inside, this request is still to arise and it will be possible to properly realize it. And then you will really become teachers of the masses who will simply want to find out about the world they live in. It will be possible to tell them about it, show it to them, reveal it, and in this way reach the state where the entire world will be kind as nature requires us to be.

I think that this will happen. I think that it will not take long, judging by the rate of development, the events around the world, it will quickly make us come to our senses.
[33801]
From Lesson 3 in Moscow 1/16/2011

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Question: You have mentioned that social Internet communication networks match the natural laws of development. Indeed, Facebook is phenomenally successful: It has half a billion users. It is becoming a vital attribute of modern life. Why does man enjoy virtual communication so much? What is so special about it?

Answer: Our nature is the desire to receive pleasure, to fulfill ourselves, to feel, to understand, and to hear something new. As we see, today’s television offers thousands of channels, but if you go on the Internet, it has absolutely everything you want, an infinite amount of information. And all of it derives from our desire to enjoy.

If this desire can find its fulfillment, it’s good. But if we cannot fulfill it, we develop Internet communication networks in such way as to receive greater and greater fulfillment. This goes on until, gradually, we realize what’s what, and then all that doesn’t completely satisfy our ego, our evolved desire, gradually loses popularity and expires.

Even the ego itself can see that it benefits from being connected to others. Although it’s still a long path, yet little by little, not only individuals but entire countries that used to hold each other as rivals start realizing that today they don’t have much choice. We can’t fight forever, or is it worth doing so until we destroy each other? And we can’t but agree that it’s better for us to establish certain ties and communicate. Thus life teaches us to unite.

Therefore, Facebook is quite an exemplary phenomenon. It is accessible to anybody in the world who wishes to be visible, from a president of a country to a porter. As an example, the President of the United States Barack Obama has 17 million “friends” on Facebook. And anyone can do the same. It’s good because to a certain degree, it meets the demand to reach internal connection. And I think that it will teach us how to develop more internal ties to replace the physical, material ones.
[33930]
From a TV program “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/20/2011

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