Entries in the 'Free Will' Category

The Strongest Factor Of Influence On A Person

423.01Question: 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.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Feel The World Through Others

101Question: 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.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Do We Need A Vaccine Against Egoism?

552.03Question: 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.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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In The Framework Of Their Desires

423.03Question: According to Maslow’s pyramid, 90% of society’s members are at the level of development of basic desires: family, sex, security. When a consumer society dictates such values to them, then naturally, it falls onto fertile soil.

If this is created by nature, how can we change it? A person wants nothing but to satisfy himself or herself with the simplest natural pleasures. How does one instill new values in society?

Answer: A person with this level of desire can also direct himself or herself toward the same goal as the surrounding society, but his or her direction and progress towards it will be somewhat passive relative to others.

There are different types of people among us: choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic. You can’t change that. If a person is of this nature, given to him by nature, then he or she can hardly change themselves.

Comment: But you say that it is necessary to raise a person to the level of “human,” that we must take care of society and do everything for its good.

My Response: He or she will do it, only at their own pace, within the framework of their desires. Gradually, under the influence of society, these desires will change. But the pace with which it begins to move relative to the whole society toward the same goal as society will depend on the character of the person.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Up The Pyramid Of Desires

275Comment: It is believed that the higher the quality of needs, the fewer people have it.

My Response: Naturally. This is the same pyramid of desires.

Question: Does it mean that not everyone needs to realize themselves at the highest level?

Answer: Of course. At the very bottom, at the base of the pyramid, are people who still have simple animalistic desires: family, work, sex, and hobbies.

Question: Is everything so deterministic that one cannot move from one level to another?

Answer: It mainly depends on the person, on the way one came into this world, so to say. Very little of it can be changed by the environment. Baal HaSulam writes about this in his articles on the influence of the environment.

It is possible to change one’s destiny, but to do this, a person must realize himself in a new environment, subjugate himself to others, bend his head, and then he will receive from others their desires, aspirations, and values.

Question: If I am, for example, on the third level of the pyramid and I realize myself there, does it mean that I reveal the meaning of life at this degree and I do not need more?

Answer: No! You only reveal the meaning, but you do not realize it yet. Realization goes further.

Eventually, all of humanity will reach the highest degree, which will turn into the center of a circle or of a sphere, and all people, that is, all souls, connecting with each other will form one common wholeness and exit the framework of our world.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Do We Form Our Environment?

laitman_423.01Question: Society affects us totally. Firstly, it promotes unrestrained consumption, and the individual has no freedom of choice. He just has to keep buying.

Secondly, public opinion affects people’s minds. For example, there were experiments where people were given cheap wine but were told that it was expensive, costing several hundred dollars, and they enjoyed it.

Do you agree with the statement that first we form our environment, and then it forms us?

Answer: The question is, are we shaping our environment? After all, there are many other factors around, such as family, friends, society, and time. Everything without exception pushes a person to some certain choice.

However, in general, if there is free choice, it is only in the choice of the environment. Therefore, we need to educate people so they understand how to use this choice.

Question: In our life, everything is determined by the scale of values accepted by society. These values, in turn, are determined by our desires.

What is the way to change social values if it all depends on desire and desire depends on nature and the time period in which we live?

Answer: I can nevertheless choose a certain society, a group in which I will develop, and it will be very different from other groups.

For example, there are people who acquire a certain profession and work on themselves according to a certain program, but they are all very different from each other. After all, society consists of many fractal mini-societies sometimes completely unrelated to each other.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Toward Integral Responsibility

laitman_600.04Question: In order to bring oneself closer to observing the laws of nature, must one learn to receive from society only what is necessary and give as much as possible?

Answer: Not as much as possible, but to use all your forces and abilities to give, to receive necessities but only for ordinary, normal, human existence.

This means that I am in balance with nature, giving everything to it at the human level and receiving what I need at the animal level. The pandemic will lead us to this; if this one does not, then the next one will.

Question: In such a case, where is our free choice?

Answer: This is the free choice: “by the stick to happiness,” as they say.  🙂

This is obvious today from all that is happening. And you can try to equalize yourself with the state of complete, mutual, integral responsibility.

Question: Why should I believe this? Maybe this is all not true?

Answer: If we proceed from ordinary laws, there seems to be nothing special in this. But if you begin to logically calculate everything that a person does based on his egoism, you will see that this force simply drives us into the grave.

On the other hand, how would we act if we are on the same small globe and have become practically a single community? Get together and decide how we can coexist properly.

Question: Despite our inherently selfish nature, we can, under the influence of our environment, cultivate certain values that are opposite to our selfish inclinations. Is this freedom of choice?

Answer: Yes. Excellent wording, simple and clear to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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The Choice Is Voluntary, But The Steps Are The Same

laitman_565.01Question: Once upon a time in my childhood, my grandmother told me that every person is endowed with freedom of choice because he or she was originally created in the image and likeness of God.

I remembered that if I use the freedom of choice, it means that I am the creator of my destiny and my life. It turns out that I already have this program? Or is it just my choice?

Answer: No. Your only choice is to take a step forward, which you must take. Either you make it your free choice now or you will be given a couple of blows and you will still be forced to make it.

But everything is absolutely predestined. The only difference is whether we go voluntarily or under blows; the difference is in sensations, in states, in perceptions. But the steps are the same.
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From KabTV’s “Together about Important Things” 7/14/20

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Can A Person Choose Something Freely?

laitman_546.03Question: Our nature is egoism, which works according to the program “maximum pleasure for minimum energy consumption.” We probably have some choice within this framework. However, this choice is not free because there still is a framework.

For example, I can say that now I choose to drink tea or coffee. But in fact, this decision has already been made by some predetermined conditions. Can a person choose something freely?

Answer: No. Absolutely nothing.

According to Kabbalah, the only thing we can do is influence the environment that shapes us. We cannot influence ourselves directly, but we can choose the environment and influence it so that it will be like this and not different. By environment, we mean a lot of factors that affect us, shaping who we will be.

Question: Let’s say there are rich people who send their children to study at Oxford. They sort of choose this environment. But is this really a choice?

Answer: Yes, this is some sort of a choice.

Question: Again, within a certain framework. What I am interested in is whether it is even possible for a person to choose neutrally?

Answer: No. On the basis of what data will he choose neutrally? There must be primary parameters.

Question: Then what does it mean that he chooses the environment? This is not a choice either.

Answer: No, it is still a choice from several possible options. Maybe we do not know why he chose this one. Some circumstances, hormones, genes, and so on prompted him from within.

Nevertheless, we are still not free to do anything. We are free only to direct ourselves to the most correct goal possible with the help of an appropriate environment.

Otherwise, I can choose a different environment, for example, some criminals, thieves, and thus ensure a completely different future for myself.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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The Illusion Of Freewill

Laitman_707Question: How can a person who is totally managed reveal anything? It turns out that any revelation is from above.

Answer: This is true. The only thing that exists is what we feel and what happens in practice. As long as this discrepancy is maintained, we have the illusion of freewill.

By observing nature and its absolute laws and the total mutual connection that we reveal from one day to the next as increasingly more integral, is it possible to say that we are free to do whatever we want, free to think whatever we want? No! Only man can think this way since he lacks the true perception of reality.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/2/18

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