Temperatures are rising, and one colony of ants will soon have to make a collective decision. Each ant feels the rising heat beneath its feet but carries along as usual until, suddenly, the ants reverse course. The whole group rushes out as one—a decision to evacuate has been made. It is almost as if the colony of ants has a greater, collective mind.  

A new study suggests that indeed, ants as a group behave similar to networks of neurons in a brain.   

Rockefeller’s Daniel Kronauer and postdoctoral associate Asaf Gal developed a new experimental setup to meticulously analyze decision-making in ant colonies. As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they found that when a colony evacuates due to rising temperatures, its decision is a function of both the magnitude of the heat increase and the size of the ant group.  

The findings suggest that ants combine sensory information with the parameters of their group to arrive at a group response—a process similar to neural computations giving rise to decisions. 

“We pioneered an approach to understand the ant colony as a cognitive-like system that perceives inputs and then translates them into behavioral outputs,” says Kronauer, head of the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior. “This is one of the first steps toward really understanding how insect societies engage in collective computation.”  (Rockefeller University)

Question: How would you apply this to a human being? Is it applicable to a human being? Can a person reach such a state with another person?

Answer: No. It is possible to reach this state through tremendous internal work but not simply instinctively the way birds or fish or other animals do.

Question: For animals it is instinct whereas for us it is work to achieve this state?

Answer: Of course. You see how fish in the sea all swim in a huge school that can include hundreds of thousands of them.

Question: And man often abandons another person and runs away because he is hurt.

You, as a Kabbalist, do you think we should reach a state where we start to feel one another this way, where we exist in one breath?

Answer: Generally, we will have to. But it will not happen the way it does with fish or birds but by us calling out to the Creator and asking Him to connect us within Him. For Him to connect us in His upper mind, in the desire, and then we will roll together with Him. This is what we want to strive for.

So, the Creator will be the force that unites, governs, and guides—everything!

Question: Then thoughts about me, that I feel hot, will go away?

Answer: I will be inside of Him. What thoughts are there? Everything is done.

Question: Meaning, I am entirely inside of Him and rely only on that?

Answer: Yes. He has already swallowed you. It is the same for everyone.

Question: And then we become a single body, heart?

Answer: Yes. Look at those fish—they are in Him instinctively. But we need Him to do this for us.

Question: When we see this—the way birds, ants, and fish move— why are we being shown this? For us to see it and maybe even envy them?

Answer: It is for you to see that there is a state of adhesion, unity, and obedience where each one annuls himself for the sake of everyone. Our purpose is—in spite of our egoism and individuality—to reach the same state.

Question: And what if we were not endowed with this individuality?

Answer: Then we will be like fish or birds. And what is the rationale for that?

Question: Meaning, then we would not feel that happiness?

Answer: Only if we want to do it in spite of ourselves! Then you feel pleasure from submitting to the Creator in spite of yourself in order to be together with everyone you want to separate yourself from! Do you understand what kinds of opposite forces are operating here? And at the convergence of these opposing forces is precisely when you reach adhesion with the upper one.

Comment: Bliss, as they say.

My Response: Yes.

Question: The feeling of not wanting to connect with others, does this feeling not disappear in me?

Answer: No. You rise above it.

Question: So, one way or another, I am left with this black hole inside of me?

Answer: Of course. “Love covers all transgressions.” That is, egoism must always be below, and there is connection and love above it. Otherwise the love will disappear.

Transgressions must be there.

Comment: We are very different from ants.

My Response: They don’t have it, they just calmly work.

Question: So what, they don’t have this feeling of happiness, then? Happiness, revelation?

Answer: No, they have the sensation of carrying out their instinct. That is, they feel themselves executors and self-sufficient—but no pleasure.

We were given the opportunity to receive pleasure and be happy.

Comment: Precisely when we overcome ourselves.

My Response: Only then.

Question: Otherwise, a person cannot attain happiness?

Answer: No.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/4/22

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1. One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. This amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year, worth approximately US$1 trillion.

2. All the food produced but never eaten would be sufficient to feed two billion people. That’s more than twice the number of undernourished people across the globe (World Food Programme).

The U.S. throws away up to 11.3 million tons of textile waste each year—around 2,150 pieces of clothing each second …

Only a fraction of what’s manufactured gets recycled. Eighty-seven percent of the total fiber input used for clothing is ultimately incinerated or sent to a landfill. Fashion brands have come under criticism for practices such as destroying unsold products and sending piles of clothes to landfills (Bloomberg).  

Question: I also heard that two million cars have been produced globally that were never sold over the past two decades. Over the last 20 years, two million more cars were produced than were sold globally.

In conclusion—an incredible conclusion—we have reached the limits of our world and now need to expand beyond our planet, i.e., to economically develop other celestial bodies.

But today this is not possible. So what should we do? Imagine coming to such a conclusion! They don’t say: “We need to stop this madness somehow. What are we doing?!

Answer: We can’t do anything else. How can we stop it? Stall everything? Turn off the lights?

Comment: We’ve messed up here, so now we need to move to another place, and there we will…

Answer: You are not going to go anywhere, nor will you do anything here either.

Question: So they ultimately ask what we must do? How can a person come to the right conclusion from these true and frightening statistics?

Answer: We have exploited this planet, sucked everything out of it, and polluted it. So now we can die in peace.

Question: Are we unable to stop anything? Over the years there have been so many economists and so many proposals for change!

Answer: No, there were no proposals. These were all unrealistic utopias, nothing really to work with. If you don’t change man, there’s no sense in changing anything else.

Comment: So there’s only one real conclusion—to change man.

Answer: Yes, for one to feel what is worth living for.

Question: And then will he then stop producing so many cars and throwing away so much food unnecessarily?

Answer: He will work only for what is necessary, to make necessity sufficient.

Comment: Your conclusion is very simple—to change man to get by with necessities.

Answer: Yes, because we cannot change the world.

Question: In that case, here is my usual question: Doesn’t each person have their own set of necessities?

Answer: It depends on their upbringing. Everyone will apply this education to themselves personally.

Question: But will it ring true in their minds and hearts? “I don’t need more, this is enough for me.”

Answer: Of course.

Question: Well, you know, this is utopian.

Answer: If this is utopian, then we will go down a different path, a path of self-destruction. Only very simple self-destruction. Stop having children, stop producing anything. Stop the process, begin stalling this planet.

Comment: That is, if we don’t make do with necessities, then it’s self-destruction and there is no other way.

My Response: Yes.

Question: At the point of reaching necessity does one experience happiness that he has enough and needs nothing more? Is this a good, happy state?

Answer: What can he replace it with? After all, his greed also knows no bounds. How can you stop it? My neighbor has more! It’s a race!

An arms race, a technology race, a race of anything. What can you do? We need to change the character of man. We cannot change his nature, but we can change the typical application of his nature. We will either come to this or we will die.

Question: That is, the “I want” will not change. My desire that needs to be filled—this will not change. I have to be filled with something. So how will this sentence conclude?

Answer: I have to be filled so I feel I get everything from the world at the same time! And then I don’t need anything else. I will only get completely fulfilled when we mutually fill each other.

There’s no getting away from this. We will have to figure this out and how to come to this.

We will not be able to destroy ourselves, but rather we must bring ourselves to the realization of this need for change.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/7/22

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The living conditions of the last generation require every member of society to know how this society operates, for what purpose it exists, and in what form it should exist.

He must understand that there is no other way than the way nature advances us and affects us from all sides, and our duty is to consciously move toward the right goal of our development, without making mistakes.

The very first thing a person should learn and explain to others is that peace in society, peace on the planet, and peace in each country depend on each other. We see the shattering that the world is in today, what conflicts countries are involved in, and how it affects every person. There are still people who are dissatisfied with the country and are trying to change the government in it.

We need to understand that there is only one way to fix the world; otherwise, we will face the same problems and wars all the time. Therefore, it is so necessary to spread the wisdom of Kabbalah, which explains the structure of the world and the purpose of its existence and discusses the possibility of achieving this goal in the only way: increasing mutual connection between all people.

Only in this way will we be able to come to a good life and not just live comfortably until the end of our days, and after us through the flood, but to achieve eternal life. No one dies, because there is no death; there is only a change in the form of our existence. Time after time, our form is renewed in many cycles of life.

People have always dreamed of eternal life. It is only out of desperation that a person tries not to think about how short life is and how much suffering there is in it. We have to start getting closer to each other; otherwise, the world has no future.

In this sense, a person is more unhappy than an animal because the animal does not know that it will die and does not make any plans for the future. A person knows that death is ahead and still continues to live and move toward it—a completely disgusting state.

What a relief it would be to know that life does not end and that there is life after death. Our universe is infinite and eternal. It is time to say goodbye to the communist idea that a person has nothing in life but an animal body. The animal body of course will die, but everything else in us, human spirit, will remain. We have the opportunity to correct our soul, our inner part, the non-disappearing human self, and belong to eternity.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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Question: What is democracy in your view?

Answer: Democracy is the latest fairytale of humanity, when it is slowly discovering that with our nature, human nature, we will remain in a state of absolute barbarism if we coddle and pamper our nature as we are doing now and ask it what to do.

Currently, all kinds of adornments of this barbarism are going through the process of the realization of their pettiness. They are gradually falling off humanity, and what remains is the evil, grumbling, salivating “muzzle” of the modern generation that no longer has any thirst for anything.

The last generation has hit the wall, so to speak. It does not want to leave home from mom and dad, does not want to make decisions on its own, does not want to do anything, everyone wants to be freelance artists.

They are not interested in great accomplishments. Even in the area of egoism they do not want to invest in anything. They calmly allow their moms and dads to work and do not make any decisions without consulting with dozens of friends on Twitter or Facebook.

This generation is completely opposite to the previous one. In the 1960s, during my college years, the generation was boiling, ambitious, marching out. What ambitions and aspirations are there now? There are none! “Leave us alone! Figure out everything for us. We do not need anything from you and wish you would not want anything from us. Just provide for us in some basic way, and that is all.” That is the generation we have now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Democracy?” 10/12/13

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Question: How should we treat incidents from a human and Kabbalistic point of view? For example, something is happening, or someone is getting beaten. How should we react to this? Is intervening worthwhile?

Answer: Today we have been put in such a framework that people are afraid to interfere in anything. There are even studies on these topics. People pass by, they are afraid to get involved in conflicts: either you will get a knife in your side, or “it is not my business at all” so that they do not drag you through the courts.

We have created for ourselves such conditions of human community where it is impossible to just stand up for someone, even for simple, normal support or compassion. It is impossible to calm people down, it is impossible to break up a fight, because then they will do anything they want to you.

Humanity is very confused! It tries to compensate with laws for what is not filled with education. Men are not men, women are not women.

Look at how much humanity has changed internally and externally in 20 years, what they are becoming in their desires and aspirations, in everyone’s attempt to solve their questions and problems. It is just incredible! There are the scariest mutations! And where we will end up? We have just started this journey!

Comment: But there are old laws where one has to help the other.

My Response: Today they limit you. These are not the former laws of honor, which were clear to everyone, or the laws of chivalry, or the laws of samurai, or the laws of courtiers, which speak about the honor of a woman, justice, etc. If we are talking about a simple civil society, then we have destroyed it all.

No one respects another. There are no smart or stupid, old or young, men or women. There is some kind of unisex where there is no difference, you are afraid to interfere, you do not have any guidelines. You can be dragged through a legal fight just for some little thing! They will make a case out of it and, in general, do anything. There is no public response to this, because everything is corrupt.

Even during the Inquisition, there was relative order. The most ardent executioners and fanatics still behaved according to some canon.

Today it is very difficult for a person to promote some idea or advocate for something. This is natural. The last cry of dying humanity.

Question: Is it right to strive for honor and justice? Did we live correctly before?

Answer: It is impossible to say what is right and what is not because this is the natural development of humanity. There is no escape. If we do not correct egoism, we descend into really ugly forms.

In accordance with this, we continue to drift in the direction where it is generally unclear what awaits us. The same egoism keeps carrying us. We forget all the old forms when it was more or less balanced at the animate level, and now it is already taking mutational forms.

Children leave home, they do not want to work and do not want to study. And you cannot blame them for that! This is also our egoism, which goes through such stages of its mutational development. But this is also development, so to speak, a period of decay.

Solution is only in education.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Fight for Justice” 11/23/13

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There are two ways in the development of humanity. One way is terrible and full of suffering. There is constant growth of egoism without something to oppose it, when suffering gradually beats us to death time after time, generation after generation, drives us to war, famine, diseases, all kinds of climatic disasters, into all sorts of troubles!

Any problems may arise here! Suddenly, such a disaster can sweep across the globe that half of the population will die of some kind of infection. We have a lot of all kinds of infectious and genetic problems ahead of us, anything at all. Therefore, we are given the wisdom of Kabbalah so that we do not go through all this, and gradually test our egoism, which would push us forward.

After all, we have to reveal egoism from the smallest egoistic level of our world to the great egoism of the highest spiritual degree. If we move from our current state, the lowest on this scale, then until we reach the 125^th degree, we will have to experience enormous, incredible suffering. At the same time, people will not be able to die, because death for them is a salvation, they will not even be able to help themselves by committing suicide.

We see how easily our world turns into people devouring each other. We have no idea how the upper forces are playing with us, how shaky our civilization is.

We need to show the world how we can advance in a good way and gradually establish  our interactions with the help of the upper force. People do not believe that this is possible because there is no way to attract the upper force into their arsenal. Only we have it. We are establishing this contact because we are studying Kabbalah, which passes through us, through me.

The group receives and will receive through me, even if I am not physically there. This connection does not disappear anywhere, it stays no matter what. In the same way, all other Kabbalists are the connecting links, the chain, to the upper light.

Therefore, we need to give this opportunity to people. It is like we are saying to a person: “Take it! Look, I have a tube through which the upper force, the upper light descends. You can take it, correct yourself and behave in the best way in this life, in this world. This will give you spiritual energy, a sense of where you live, why, how, and for what. You will be able to adjust your life correctly.

Now, from this moment on, you will be developing in our world without suffering, in attainment of the eternal good pleasures of the upper world. You will attain the entire universe, the Creator, such levels and such dimensions that you cannot even imagine. This is not Hollywood with its fantastic pictures. You will be a person standing in the middle of the universe, in the middle of all the worlds.”
[305252]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Two Ways of Development of Humanity” 10/19/13

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We need to set an example for the whole world of what we achieve if we use the knowledge of Kabbalah to unite, not even the masses, but several tens of thousands of people.

How much better, more airy, and more spiritual they will begin to feel. What good interactions will develop between them. As the safety and cleanliness in their areas where they live will increase, there will be fewer diseases and fewer problems with children. Even the money they have will suddenly be enough for everything. A person, without changing anything, will stop experiencing any problems.

The upper light that manifests between us will begin to somehow average everything and pacify. And people will agree with this and be happy with it. They will stop being ill, they will start smiling. This is how Baal HaSulam describes the future society in his article “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator.” We can come to this.

Can’t we make people happy? I would give everything I know and understand for this.

Today, for most countries, this would be a method of salvation. And tomorrow it will be the same for the whole world.
[305297]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Two Ways of Development of Humanity” 10/19/13

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Question: The West believes that democracy is the best method of interaction between people with freedom, everyone can speak out, etc. Why are they trying to present this system in such a way? Supposedly, America was built on freedom and human rights.

Answer: The fact is that if it becomes unprofitable to keep a slave, he is given freedom. This is just like in the ancient world.

When a slave could provide for himself and his master, the master kept him. When all kinds of mechanisms and devices began to develop, the slave’s labor became not as productive because he was working only under the whip.

I would rather he work not under the lash; therefore, I will give him freedom, but he will give me as much as I need and keep some for himself. He will supposedly have freedom, but I will also receive more from him.

It all comes down to productivity. If it is profitable, the slave is given freedom. How was it done with Africa? When the question arose that slaves should be fed, they gave them freedom and left.

After all, people do not leave countries with such rich resources for nothing. They just do not want to take on the burden. Previously, they pumped everything out of there, but in order to pump it out productively, it was necessary to build and teach.

Question: What is the most optimal regime for human development?

Answer: I do not know what to call it. Most likely, “the last generation.” Maybe it sounds too cool or threatening, but, in general, this is the last egoistic generation, or the transition to an altruistic one. But this is real altruism, not what we mean by it today.
[305102]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Democracy?” 10/12/13

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There is no evidence that it was human activity that caused the critical climate changes taking place today. The globe is so huge and complex that it is impossible to prove that by our actions we can influence the deterioration of the climate.

We are trying to blame the increased content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and other similar phenomena, but perhaps that is not the problem. The main reason is the egoistic relationship between people. But this dependence cannot be clearly demonstrated to everyone and proven.

We will gradually fall lower and lower, and move away from the conditions of normal life to such an extent that our life will really become abnormal. And perhaps then people will agree that it is impossible to continue like this and we need to start changing.

There is no other way to fix the situation, the Creator will not allow us to do it. He wants us to become kinder to each other, and then the whole of nature will change for the better. And the fact that we will make the air cleaner won’t fix the climate. The Creator wants us to reveal that our life depends on our relationships, not on fresh air.

We must take into account the advice of Kabbalists who tell us that the whole problem is in our egoistic relationships, and if we correct them, then our whole life will change for the better.
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From KabTV’s “Conversation with Journalists” 10/31/22

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If people know the plan of nature, they understand that humanity must come to similarity with nature, which is reached by absolute, mutual complementation, not egoistically, but above-egoistic. We need to come to this. We cannot escape from this. But with a limited egoistic view of the world, the problem cannot be solved.

For years, elites have been implementing policies on annulling the institution of marriage, elevating all kinds of unnatural relationships (homosexual and others), and this is their business. But listen to what we Kabbalists say, what Kabbalah says.

The problem must be solved in a global form because if you do not go in accordance with nature, you will not succeed. You will not be able to simply reduce the number of people on the planet to two or even half a billion, which is considered optimal in order not to disturb the ecological balance of the Earth.

Even this will not work, although it seems to be reasonable. I understand you. If I did not have knowledge of the upper law of nature, its implementation, scheme, and structure, I would be with you.

But your plans will not come true. You will encounter obstacles in your plans that will lead to great problems because you are going against the law of nature.

Reduction in the population will occur not due to a decrease in the inhabitants of the planet but because you are going the wrong way, not uniting people, not turning them into one whole as a harmonious, single integral nature.

This is what I would like to say to the elites and to people in general. That is, I do not see anything wrong with what is being done, but this is all irrational. Here there are laws of nature, which still need to be taken into account.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Destruction of the World’s Population” 9/7/13

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