Question: When there are many people sitting in a hot room, there will always be one person who is cold and who forces everyone else to turn off the AC. Say most of humanity is able to adapt to the impending changes. But what should we do about those who are stuck and are not ready to leave the current state?

Answer: It’s important to correct yourself rather than the world. True, I want to elicit external movements and I try to help people understand the process and method of self-correction. However, in essence, I only care about how to correct myself. I do not correct my neighbor. I give him the method in the gentlest form possible, but I do not make him act; this is already his choice.

Therefore, we do not bother people who aren’t ready for change in any way, shape, or form. They aren’t ripe for it yet. When disseminating the Kabbalisic method, we let every person assess it for himself. I have already stated on numerous occasions that I don’t care how people accept our message. I listen to their responses only to improve the presentation: to state something in a new way and to answer a question that bothers someone. But if I have given all I have and a person still rejects and scorns my words, then I treat him with respect. To me this is also a sign of success because I was able to approach him and reveal his resistance. This is the correct reaction for him today, and nothing can be done about that.

We turn to the outside world only in order to improve ourselves. And if we improve ourselves to the best of our ability, then I don’t have any complaints about people’s responses. Let’s wait another year, or five more years.

However, if we go too far, this will be coercion and we won’t be leaving a person with the opportunity of free choice.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/11, “The Nation”

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“The experiment was conducted by a team of researchers led by Psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four students were selected out of 75 to play the prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.”… 12 students we asked to play the prisoners, 12 students were to play the guards.

“The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the “officers” to display authoritarian measures and ultimately to subject some of the prisoners to torture. In turn, many of the prisoners developed passive attitudes and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it.

The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his capacity as “Prison Superintendent,” lost sight of his role as psychologist and permitted the abuse to continue as though it were a real prison. Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days… instead of the originally scheduled fourteen.”

Conclusion: Most of the evil in the world happens not due to bad motivation, but because one is told: “Be part of our team, do as everyone else does.” Then, a person feels that he himself is not responsible, but this is his role, he was told so, and so he lets himself do things that he would have never done under normal circumstances.

Two months after the experiment, one of the guards said that he really could never believe that he was capable of such behavior. He was shocked that he became such a person, and when he was doing that, he felt neither remorse nor guilt. Only later, when he started thinking about that, he realized that it was some part of him that he had never noticed before.

Even when one detainee was given a chance to get out of prison and explained that the experiment was over, he was so deeply immersed in his role that he could not accept that. He worried more about his reputation in the prison, wanting to return and prove to other prisoners that he was not a traitor.

My Comment: As the science of Kabbalah explains, the environment defines and molds a person, and apart from the environment, there is no other force that affects us and determines what we are and what we become. Therefore, it is very important to create a suitable environment, in accordance with the purpose that you wish to achieve. And this is the core principle of Kabbalistic education: to be in the group that studies the laws of nature (the Creator) and wishes to achieve balance and unity with it (the Creator).
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A physiology experiment and its results:
Objective: “Does a belief in free will have a relationship with morals? Does the belief in free will make one more moral or less moral?”

Experiment: “A set of 30 people were taken and divided into two groups of 15 people each. One group was given passages and statements which seemed to state that free will does not exist. They were made to read the viewpoints of philosophers and scientists who were determinists and stated that free will is only an illusion. One of the passages they read was from Francis Crick’s book (Crick along with Watson discovered the structure of DNA), The Astonishing Hypothesis: ‘You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons.’

“So, one group was given ‘anti-free-will’ passages to read. The other group was given neutral passages to read that said nothing about free will or the lack of it.”

Test: “Then, the two groups were given a set of mathematical questions to solve on a computer. The computer program that asked the questions had a bug that the students could use to cheat in the test. After the test was over the experimenters checked the results of which group cheated more. The subjects of the experiment thought that the experiment was about math skills, but actually the experiment was about who cheats more.”

Result: “The experimenters found that the group that was given ‘anti-free-will’ passages to read cheated much more as compared to the group that read no passages related to free will.”

Conclusion: “So, the study suggested that a belief in free will makes one more moral. The person who believes in free will tends to take responsibility for his actions. A non-believer in free will tends to assign the moral responsibility to determinism – it had to happen that way!

“So scientists think that we may not have free will, but a belief in free will keeps society more moral. Our deterministic brain neurons fire based on its previous state, but one of the components of the state is our belief system. And having belief in free will in the system causes the neurons to fire more ‘morally’ than when the brain does not have this belief.”

My Comment: Kabbalah takes all of the opposite points of view and combines them, saying that a human being has no freedom in any regard; he is completely influenced by the environment. However, he can choose the environment on his own and thus change himself under its influence. This way, he can change his own destiny. (See Baal HaSulam’s article “The Freedom.”)
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In order to reach balance with nature’s integrality, we have to start treating each other differently in all areas of our activity. Even if the change is slight, even if it’s 1%, yet if it happens all over the world, it will bring about radical, enormous changes for the better.

In general, we underestimate small things. For example, over the last 50 years the world’s temperature increased by 0.1%, and look at what kind of changes this caused: the glaciers in Alaska and other places are melting, the ocean level has risen by several centimeters, and the climate is changing. And all this was caused by a mere change of 0.1% because it is happening in the whole world.

In the same way, the tiny change in every individual will be multiplied by seven billion souls which are absolutely interconnected with each other, a circumstance that was not present before. There is already universal closeness among us in some regard, and therefore this tiny movement will cause tremendous changes, transforming the world in an extraordinary way.

The current processes are happening on a very large scale. Therefore, this small change will bring about many consequences in our lives. Under conditions of mutual influence, every person influences everyone because we are all connected within a single net with our thoughts, desires, plans, and so on. Scientists are already talking about this as well. As a result, our thoughts and desires are coming closer and becoming inter-included in one another.

This is creating a completely different territory and platform for humanity’s existence. Through that, we, people, multiply our changes due to every person’s influence on everyone. A small change in each person is multiplied by seven billion, while seven interconnected billion people influence every individual that much stronger. A special progression gets created, like a snowball that keeps getting bigger. It’s as if you activate an engine whose rotation increases by virtue of multiplication, by virtue of our interconnection.

People are at the highest level of nature. The force of thought and desire that is inherent to us exceeds all other factors. The most concealed force is always the greatest. The force of the human level lies above the forces of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. Therefore, with our changes, we influence everything that surrounds us. And the results are not confined to the human society. By changing, we bring all of the forces in the world into balance.

Then the weather will normalize, all sorts of natural occurrences will calm down, and problems like the energy deficit and the dwindling natural resources will be resolved. In every area where we experience trouble today, we will experience changes and will attain success because we thereby create balance in the whole natural system, which constitutes one whole.

Therefore, we don’t just want to make our lives a little bit easier. If you observe the law of nature on your level, then, being a person, a creature that rises above all the other levels of nature, you exert an influence on them. As Baal HaSulam writes, all of nature rises and descends together with man. It does not have the freedom of choice to advance toward balance. Only man, who evoked the imbalance, is able to bring it to balance, to unity. All of nature adjusts to man from below, being a system that merely accompanies our human system.
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From a conversation about a new book on 7/11/11

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Question: What do you think about the current events and the current tendency, and in particular, how do you feel about the events that have unraveled over the last couple of days in England and Chile?

Unfortunately, the whole world will soon be enveloped in a fire of chaos because there is no remedy for what’s happening, and no one will find it either. Why don’t you wait it out until people see that nothing helps, and will then agree to listen to you?

Many years ago, during his post as Great Britain’s PM, the historian Gordon Brown along with many other influential individuals said that the world is one. They understood that only the unification of all people will give this world the solution to all of its questions and crises. Why, then, didn’t they resolve these questions through unification, by introducing a new kind of upbringing and promulgating the mutual guarantee, as you are doing?

Answer: Throughout all of history, humanity was nudged forward by the egoism that developed individually within every one of us. We aspired to realize and fill it. Our entire existence amounted to this. But in our time nature is not guiding us to develop our egoism further because it has developed to the maximum and has been showing us its emptiness for 50 years now.

Our egoism has become interlinked and that is why we are revealing that we are interconnected. This is what we call “the global world.” In reality, it’s not the world, but us who have become global. And therefore, as scientists ascertain, we should not develop egoistically, but globally, meaning we should correct the connections between us.

That is where all of the world’s scientists came to a halt because no one in the world knows how to do that. And the more disorder surfaces in the world, the more it will signify that the world needs correction more urgently.

Once the world became integral and interconnected, it started being governed by two forces: not just the force of egoism, which pushes us from behind systematically, by nature’s program, the way it did throughout all of its history; but also by the force of attraction toward the goal – to our unified state. However, we have to compel this force to influence us similar to how a child would remain an animal if he did not aspire to become an adult.

The method of Kabbalah is intended to evoke upon us the influence of the force that aspires “forward,” toward unity. Otherwise we will be pressured only by the negative force “from behind,” which will continuously evoke greater global suffering, down to wars. That is why Kabbalah is being revealed precisely at this time. All Kabbalists wrote about this. For example, see Baal HaSulam’s articles “The Revelation of Godliness,” “Mutual Guarantee,” and “Peace in the World.”

Besides, we have to understand that the more suffering is expressed in the world under the influence of the negative force that pushes us forward, the more it indicates that the world needs a force pulling it forward so our movement forward, toward unification will not occur as a result of suffering that chases us on, but by the good path, the good force that sweeps us forward.

Because the nation of Israel was created based on the method of uniting people, according to the principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” therefore, even after falling from this moral level it retained an “altruistic gene” that can evoke a force that accelerates progress and sweeps people forward, toward unity. But if Israel does not evoke this force and the world moves toward its goal pressured by suffering, then the nations of the world are right to assert that the nation of Israel is the source of all of the suffering in the world.

Although this nation did not choose to be the conductor of the method of correction, it is unable to free itself from this mission. The suffering of the nations of the world will evoke such great pressure from their end and such fury at the nation of Israel that this will obligate Israel to become the leader in the world’s correction.
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In the past egoism spurred us on from behind and from the sides, always leaving the path forward free. However, today the barriers are not arising along the sides, but in front of us. It’s as if a wall rises up before us, leaving us no place to run, nothing we can do.

This state is becoming more and more apparent: I don’t really want anything, I don’t feel that I can keep growing in my egoism. It is incapable of giving me answers to the questions that arise in me today. I have outgrown the previous phases and have entered the next level of questions, the level of adulthood and new necessities.

Food, sex, family—all of these are falling apart, taking on strange, “mutated” forms. Wealth, fame, and knowledge don’t seem to promise me a lot either.

Science is in a crisis and does not answer my questions, even though a mere 50-60 years ago it still seemed like it would give us answers to everything.

Power has become petty in our eyes: We see that its only objective is money. And money…. Is it really worth wasting your entire life on!? My questions have already outgrown any number of zeros that a bank account can display.

When a person loses the necessary “fuel,” emptiness emerges inside of him and he finds himself asking, “What is worth living for? For myself? But I lack fulfillment. For my children? But when they get older, they will leave the nest. And besides, why raise them at all? What bright future do they have ahead? Disintegrating families and a decomposing society?” A person does not feel attached to anything and does not have hopes for anything. That is the kind of impasse that our questions have led us to.

But there is also a completely different reason for the dead-end state: We are exhausting the natural resources. Today it is already clear that human progress won’t be infinite, both from the point of view of our demands and from the point of view of our existence as a whole. If we continue squandering the natural resources at the current rate, then very soon we won’t have any raw materials left even for the vitally necessary products.

90% of what we produce today consists of oil, be it energy, plastic materials, and so on. When the oil reserves end, we will be left with nothing. But nevertheless, we still keep on squandering it.

Thus, on one hand nature places a barrier before us in the form of ecology, climate, and resources, and on the other hand, egoism no longer pushes us forward. It asks questions that we cannot find answers to here, in our world, in this small children’s room where we had so much fun playing until now.

Today the situation already resembles suicide: We are irrationally using up the last remaining resources.

We have to understand that because of this, we find ourselves in the zone of choice. This is where freedom of will emerges, the freedom for us to start understanding the program of our development: “Who are we? Why are we here? What for?”, and together with us, the rest of the world. Now is exactly the time for us to solve this challenge. Otherwise humanity will find itself in a truly hopeless impasse.

In reality the gist of the problem is not the financial crisis, the technology crisis, or the crisis of families. We are in a crisis with ourselves. We have to understand who we are and what we are here for, both from the point of view of nature, which obligates us to this, and from our own point of view. Only then will we be able to set things right inside of us and in the world.
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From the Talk about a New Book 7/11/2011

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There are two contrasting states constantly alternating in creation: darkness and Light, separation and closeness, oppositeness and adhesion, a reverse form and an equal form. Our path unfolds through these opposite states and the essence is always: Are we “for” the Creator or against Him? The only difference is: What is creation’s level of awareness of its own state?

At first we go through these states unconsciously, which is called the “still” level of development. Then, on the “vegetative level,” we start to gradually understand them. Next, on the “animate level” we already attain ourselves in a certain way, but we still don’t know in relation to Whom we change and how. And when I already understand that I change in relation to the Creator and according to Him, this is already the “human level.”

Our entire history lies in this kind of development, based upon constant opposites: on our polar difference from the Creator or our similarity to Him. All of these states are already instilled, determined, and fixed in the plan of creation, connecting into one cause and effect chain that we have to go through.

There is nothing we can add to these states besides our awareness. And finally, we begin to realize that this process is aimed toward a specific goal. We aspire to discover and attain it on our own, to understand what is happening to us, what is this film we are living in. That’s when we start having the freedom of choice to participate in this process consciously, out of our own desire—to aspire to this goal or to resist it.

In our days, all of humanity is entering this very interesting phase of development where we have to gain awareness and to participate on our own, to decide whether we want to accelerate it or do not want to. We have to find how we can participate in this process on our own, influence its speed, and express our agreement or disagreement with the states we go through.

If I connect every state to the realization of the plan of creation, inside of which I develop, then I thereby accelerate my development, since it depends only on my awareness of my state. And the more I push myself to find out who I am in relation to the One who develops me, the only force that exists besides me, that is to say, the more I develop my participation, the more I strengthen my independence, my own thought, understanding, and desire.

That is how I create my “I,” which is born inside of creation—the goal for which this entire process is intended. And the final point is to feel the force of the plan in which we exist, and to cling to it. As for our independence, it lies in asking this higher thought to reveal to us the opportunity to participate in its work independently.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/11, Shamati

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Question: What does it mean that “Above, they always agree with a person’s choice as to what spiritual degree he desires to reach”?

Answer: Above, they always agree with how high a person wants to ascend, what his desire and intention are. The Creator lays down the law and does not change it, as it is written: “The law is set and cannot be broken.” It creates the desire to enjoy, and these two forces, bestowal and reception, begin to work in the universe. And it is the created being that sets the balance between them.

The force of bestowal that comes from the Creator is absolute, unlimited, and invariable. The Absolute cannot change; He is always ready to serve you. To what extent? He is ready to serve you as much as you want, but only to the extent that you want it.

In other words: “The upper one always agrees with the decisions of the lower one.” The Creator doesn’t interfere in our decisions; in fact, everything is done solely by Him but because you engage Him. He does everything, but always on your demand. It is as if you are always writing and sending your demands to Him: Do this or that, for the benefit or detriment—and it is so constantly. And He carries everything out.

It is said: “The shop is open, and the hand is writing,” meaning that we enter His store and take anything we want on credit regardless of whether or not we wish to repay. This is the way the Creator set up the universe: He works according to the law of absolute love and bestowal. And to whatever degree you are “for” or “against” this law, you will feel accordingly. And this very feeling will push you forward.

If you act in order to consciously bring yourself to bestowal, then the law will affect you positively, and you will feel less and less difference between it and you. However, if you don’t want to get closer to it or you move even farther away, you’ll feel worse and worse. But this feeling will still push you to return.

However, on the Creator’s part there is no change. After all, if He could change, he would not be called the Absolute as it would mean that He could be better or worse. And so it is said: “I do not change my HaVaYaH,” that is, “the law is set and cannot be broken.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/2011, Shamati #61

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Freedom of the Collective and the Freedom of the Individual Are Equal

The benefit of each and every person within his collective is evaluated not according to his own goodness, but according to his service to the public. And vice-versa, we assess the attribute of evil of each and every individual only according to the harm one inflicts upon the public in general, and not by one’s own individual value.

This is because what is found in the collective is only what is found in the individual. And the benefit of the collective is the benefit of each and every individual….

It thus turns out that …the individual is not harmed because of his enslavement to the collective since the freedom of the collective and the freedom of the individual are one and the same, too. And as they share the good, they also share the freedom.
– Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Freedom of the Collective and the Freedom of the Individual Are Equal

The collective and the individual are one and the same. And there is nothing negative in the individual’s enslavement to the collective because the freedom of the collective and the freedom of the individual are one and the same. And as they share the good, they also share the freedom.

Thus, good attributes and bad attributes, good deeds and bad deeds are evaluated only according to the benefit of the public.

The above applies to those who receive no more than they deserve. But if a part of the collective does not behave accordingly, it turns out that not only do they harm the collective, but they are also harmed.

The drawback, the place that needs correction, is that each and every individual has to understand that his own benefit and the benefit of the collective are one and the same thing. In that, the world will come to its full correction.
– Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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