Comment: If today you meet a simple man on the street and talk to him, he, in principle, does not know the names of the sages, or even, perhaps, King Solomon. But the name “Steve Jobs” is familiar to him. He is the founder of Apple, a man who has contributed a lot to our world.

There are some of his quotes that I would like you to explain from the point of view of a Kabbalist. ”I used to be way over on the nurture side, but I’ve swung way over to the nature side.”

Question: Does it mean that the environment can change my heredity?

Answer: I do not see anything negative about heredity, even if it is bad. The environment shapes a person. It as if puts a person in a vice and processes him as it wants, like on a lathe. The result is a completely new product.

Question: Do I have no freedom here at all?

Answer: No. Not at all! There are initial qualities, but the environment knows how to work with them and makes from a person what is required.

Question: Do I look for an environment or does the environment find me?

Answer: In principle, neither you nor the environment, but this is already from above, the upper purpose.

Quotation: Steve Jobs, “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

My Response: In principle, our whole life consists only of mistakes. It is when we recognize these mistakes at every step of the way that we are going the right way.

Question: Do we always make some adjustments after each step, and still make mistakes?

Answer: Of course. We only make mistakes! However, initially, in every step we reveal our evil nature, and in every step we try to correct it.

Question: Is it due to the fact that our nature is egoism that every step we take is a mistake?

Answer: Our every step is in advance a mistake, but it depends on us how to make it a proper mistake. That is, to make mistakes in order to learn.

Quotation: Steve Jobs, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

My Response: This is right. To find one’s own thing, own line, oneself and move only in this, and never give in to other people’s opinions, philosophies, and ideas, this is a very important task for a person. I think that this certainly is only for a few. One needs to experience a lot in order not to be receptive to other people’s ideas and follow them.

To experience means to analyze, process within yourself, decide, be afraid, get up, rise, and fall. In other words, it must be a person who always demands an inner meaning from life.

Quotation: This purportedly was Steve Jobs’ guidance in everything: “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

My Response: Yes. That’s for sure. Only when you find it will you really understand what you were looking for. If we knew in advance what to look for, we would not have to look for it. That would be clear to me.

Question: Is a Kabbalist searching? Does a Kabbalist have such a search?

Answer: The Kabbalist is searching for only one thing—a leap to the Creator. It does not matter what will happen at that. The main thing is to be closer. And this is his only task.

Comment: When it happens, does it turn out that he understood everything in a completely different way?

My Response: Of course! It does not matter, he does not ask this question at all! He does not order the future for himself —what he wants to be and how to feel. No! Only to be closer.
[270229]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/25/20

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Question: We see that every next generation strives more for freedom, breaks the limits of life’s restrictions, severs them. Where does this desire come from?

Answer: Each next generation does not break the previous framework, but simply cannot exist in it because the generation itself is different. It has different desires, different egoism, different priorities. Therefore, it cannot fulfill the conditions and restrictions that the previous generations performed with pleasure or with minimal energy.

Question: We see that the world is striving for greater interconnection. Integration is manifesting very strongly today. People move from place to place, privileges change, nations’ borders become more open. In nature, there are trends toward greater freedom and fewer limits. Is there any contradiction in this?

Answer: No. It is just that humanity is beginning to feel the next level of its development. Therefore, the previous framework no longer seems necessary.

We believe that the new generation does not want our conditions, our laws. It is simply created with such desires that can not comply with these conditions and feel them as necessary.
[269935]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/2/20

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Question: There are people who cannot live within a restrictive framework. And there are people who cannot live without the framework of our world. What is the correct approach to this phenomenon?

Answer: There is such an expression: freedom is a conscious necessity. If I feel the need for submission, then within this framework I am already free. But this is incorrect because nonetheless this is still a necessity.

If I investigate the nature I am in, then I begin to understand that this is not a necessity, but a conscious desire to obey all the laws of nature, all the forces affecting me, and to rise to the level of absolute bestowal. This is absolute freedom.
[269739]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/2/20

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Question: The very life of a person is a boundary for his I. It has natural limitations, i.e., the circumstances in which we find ourselves, for example, the pandemic that gripped the world today or the beginning of the financial crisis. Also, there are obligations that we as human society pose for ourselves. Kindergarten, school, army, sports, work, family, all these impose certain limits on us. A person is constantly in some kind of life limitations.

Where does the root of a person’s lack of freedom come from?

Answer: How can he be free? How do you imagine a person, and in general, anyone in nature who is free, if nature is an association of forces and laws that work only together based on one single goal from one point?

There is nothing free in nature, starting from the universe to everything existing on Earth.

What does freedom mean? To do what I want? What do I want? Who defines this?

In general, the concept of freedom is very relative. Let’s say I want to achieve freedom. It means that I think about how to do that. I always exist within some boundaries, circumstances, changes that affect me. Of course, in this, I am not free.

If I agree with what affects me and absolutely justify these influences and my reaction to them, then I will not feel their limitations, their pressure on me, and I will feel free.

Remark: It is an interesting approach. It turns out that some circumstances are constantly pressuring me.

My Comment: Billions of various factors! But I agree with them and happily join in their actions, not resisting at all, but on the contrary, each time gladly accepting their influence on me, and therefore I do not feel any resistance on my part. This is called freedom.

Meanwhile, I do not feel any pressure! I am free! But only on the condition that I understand what is happening to me, comprehend, feel, perceive, and absolutely agree with it.
[269689]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/2/20

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Question: What is the best way to start personal growth? What will help us start improving?

Answer: It is necessary to identify what I am really drawn to and not what is a consequence of being in a certain environment that instilled its values in me. I must find out what I am personally yearning for.

Question: Are there concepts of “early” or “late” in self-development?

Answer: Of course. Preferably sooner rather than later. But in any case, I will have to realize myself.

Question: What is self-realization for you?

Answer: Knowledge of your soul and its full realization.

Question: What is the difference between self-realization and the satisfaction of needs?

Answer: Satisfaction of needs is an animalistic existence, and self-realization is attaining equivalence to the Creator.

Question: At what age did you begin to seriously engage in self-realization and self-development?

Answer: I think it was only after I found my teacher, Rabash, when I was already 33 years old.

Question: How should one decide who to be, how to earn one’s living?

Answer: It does not matter what your occupation is. We come to this world not to somehow earn our living and realize ourselves within its framework, but to realize ourselves in relation to the Creator.

Question: Where can we find motivation for change and personal growth?

Answer: The environment. It is said that envy, jealousy, and desire for honor pull a person out of all states.

Question: What is more effective for personal growth: forcing yourself to leave your comfort zone or, to the contrary, listening to yourself and doing what you want?

Answer: Neither. It is imperative to enter the environment that will take you to the next level of development.

Question: How important is positive thinking for personal development?

Answer: In general, it is important. But at the same time, one must understand that there is also a critical view of this.

Question: If your close environment has chosen the path absent of self-development, is it worth running away from them so as not to become the same as they are?

Answer: You should always look for an environment that would push you forward.

Question: Why am I not applying what I know? Why are we made this way? What is stopping us?

Answer: It is the egoistic desire to hide so that I would not be in any way humiliated or defeated. We are hindered by the fear of losing some small egoistic obstacles if we engage in a higher purpose.

Question: How do we make sure that doubt and uncertainty do not hinder but help us grow and develop?

Answer: You must be very confident of yourself and, undoubtedly, aware of your strengths and capabilities to achieve the highest goal.

Question: How do you react to obstacles preventing you from reaching your goal?

Answer: I am sure that I can somehow get around them if I correctly check my goal and myself.

Question: What life achievements are related to self-realization?

Answer: Arrange the entire pyramid of needs correctly, and you will see how much simpler everything becomes.

Question: Is there a difference in self-realization of a man and a woman?

Answer: Yes. But it is the same with every man and every woman.

Question: A person has all his potential from the very beginning. You just need to start studying and discovering it. And this can only be done through the environment. Is this the technique of personal growth?

Answer: It all depends on the environment. Therefore, we must try with all our might to create the right society around us.

Question: Do you think that all psychological methods, when a person works on himself in order to improve his qualities, do not relate to realizing himself as human? Only in the right environment he can become human?

Answer: The psychological method is good until the level of similarity to the Creator is reached. And in our time, it will no longer work.
[269450]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Question: Can a person consciously move from a lower level of needs to a higher one?

Answer: This depends on the people around him and the environment in which he prefers to be.

In principle, starting from the moment when a person begins to stand out from the horde of animals, he can choose his environment. Gradually, by changing his environment, he can move up the degrees of the pyramid of desires, regardless of how the normal, natural ascent on it takes place.

Question: Do you think that personal growth can only happen consciously, or do we simply reveal our inherent potential?

Answer: Naturally, this is all determined by the fate of a person. However, at the same time, a person is given the opportunity to accelerate their development.

On the one hand, personal growth is determined in advance. On the other hand, it depends on the individual. In other words, the speed of the potential unfolding depends on the environment in which he exists.

Baal HaSulam, in the article “The Freedom,” explains how this can be changed and how to use this.

Question: What is more important for personal growth: potential, genes, or environment?

Answer: The fundamental thing is genes. They, in the end, push the person to realize himself. Then comes the influence of the environment.
[269333]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Comment: American psychologist Abraham Maslow, author of the well-known hierarchy of human needs, asserted that a teacher or culture does not create a person or instill the ability to love or be loved, to philosophize, create symbols, or create. But they do provide an opportunity, and helps, what exists in the embryo to become real and actual.

Answer: Indeed, the acceleration of personality development depends on the environment.

The importance of the environment is very great because if we choose the right environment and connect with it, this will radically change our destiny. Through communication with the environment, we determine the methods and speed of passage of various states.

Question: Signs of personal growth, as psychologists write, are an increase in the ability to analyze, see the connections of events and phenomena, and understand other people. This is inner freedom and independence, a manifestation of responsibility.

How else can you identify these signs?

Answer: Signs of personal growth are manifested in a person as he or she realizes the importance of the environment. This is most important. In addition to what we have and develop in a natural way, the only parameter that we can change by ourselves is the environment.

Question: Consciousness of responsibility for one’s life is one of the main signs of personal growth. When should a person say that only he or she is responsible for what is happening to him or her and when to transfer his or her responsibility to nature, to higher forces?

Answer: Being completely within a certain environment and giving yourself to it, we begin to feel through this connection what we receive through our efforts with respect to the environment, and what the environment gives us without our efforts. This is how we begin to share the impact on ourselves.
[269399]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Question: The environment affects us through three channels. The first is the media. The second, are the examples of people around us. And the third is through thoughts and desires since we are in the same system on the same globe and all are interconnected.

Which of these factors is most influential?

Answer: The strongest factor of influence on a person is the surrounding society, its examples and opinions.

Question: We humans can only change our attitude to the world, but is that enough? Or do we still need to change the world?

Answer: We ourselves cannot change the world. We can gradually change our attitude toward it, and then we will see another world.
[269173]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: From your point of view, is there such a thing as an objective opinion? Or is it always subjective?

Answer: Yes, opinions are always subjective. But if we change ourselves, then in this way we will change our opinion and the world we are in.

Question: Do you know any techniques that allow you to read a person’s mind? Do you think this is possible?

Answer: This is possible only if I can really work on myself in such a way that, as it were, I become a different person. That is, when I contact him, I transfer myself to his state, or as if copying it onto myself, and thus I can determine his thoughts and desires.

But this is not an easy job. To do this, I must constantly annul myself before him and try to really put on him. In this case, I no longer read his mind, but my own. Putting on the other, accepting him as something better than myself, I begin to feel the world as if through him.
[269215]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: If you had the opportunity to vaccinate people against egoism so that all people would begin to lead a social lifestyle and believe that society is higher than each individual, would you take the opportunity? Or would you still wait for a man to consciously get to this?

Answer: In no case would I do this because to kill egoism means to kill our nature. To make a man good without having to fight his egoism means to make him a kind, naive idiot.

A person must educate himself and rise above his egoism. This is immense work that does not end within one earthly life, but continues during many life cycles.

Therefore, we must not interfere with nature because we will simply remove the most precious thing from a man—his egoism and the opportunity to independently decide what freedom of will is and how he should try it on himself.
[269253]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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