Comment: Elon Musk once said: “I want to be part of what changes the world. Making mistakes is not scary. The main thing is to make new mistakes each time.” I would like you to comment on this.

My Response: That is correct.

Question: So we make mistakes all the time?

Answer: Without that, it is impossible.

Question: It has always been said: “We learn from mistakes.” Do we really learn from them?

Answer: Not everyone does, but mistakes come precisely so that we may learn from them.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 6/30/22

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Comment: Social networks love touching stories. Recently, there was a buzz with the story of a female soldier whose mother could not pay her electricity bills.

While traveling on a train the girl was explaining over the phone to the electric company employees that her mother is disabled, receives a small pension, and cannot pay for electricity until her pension money is deposited into her bank account. Crying, she asked that electricity not be cut off for her mother.

Suddenly, a man approached her, found out what was going on, called the electricity company, gave his credit card number so that 2,000 shekels could be withdrawn from his account to pay off the soldier’s mother’s debt, and then he disappeared. But someone managed to snap a photo of him. It turned out that he was a former military man.

My Response: Such extraordinary actions are very touching. We need more such insightful examples to encourage everyone toward kind interactions.

On the other hand, the electricity company’s policy is business, and there is nothing you can do about it. At the same time, it is necessary to consider that there are special consumers, such as pensioners, who should be treated differently, possibly through redistributing the burden among others.

Question: Do you like such stories?

Answer: No, I do not want these stories to be tearful exceptions to the rule. I want them to be consistently carried out in real life by a correct society that deliberately and systematically cares for all its citizens so that there would be no such cases that are good for a movie, but not for life.

There are still many such cases, but we do not hear about them.
[177958]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/21/16

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Comment: Extremely high percentages of employees have encountered symptoms of professional burnout, feeling exhausted and irritable, indifferent toward their work, and lack confidence in their professional abilities and some have complained of frequent headaches and insomnia caused by work-related stress.

There is a belief that if these problems were openly discussed and addressed that many of these types of difficulties could be avoided.

People who clearly suffer from burnout syndrome tend to be unmotivated and passive. They lack orientation toward results and are difficult to work with since they are not geared toward constructive problem-solving and problems only worsen when they are involved.

My Response: An unfulfilled ego can only be temporarily pacified through rewards, vacations, talking about problems, etc. because there is no real solution to this issue on the level of our world. The ego has reached its natural limit of growth, and nothing can satisfy it anymore. When we try to further stimulate it, it just spins its wheels.

In the end, there will be only one way out: to change its job from filling itself to fulfilling others.

Changing ourselves on our own is impossible, but the force that created us can change what it has made. And it is ready to do so, but only at our request so that we may thereby establish contact with it.
[81311]
From KabTV’s “Work and Health” 6/25/12

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It is known from the science of Kabbalah that as a result of all our development in this world within the framework of beliefs and religions, in the field of technology, public and social life, in the field of government and international relations, we must come to complete disappointment in this development, stop and admit: “We do not know what to do next.” We tried to achieve something, to fulfill our desires, and we did not achieve anything. This endless race has led to nothing.

Of course, when a person sums up such a result for himself, he is not happy about it. But it is precisely this anxious state that makes him stop and think about what to do next.

But it is precisely this anxious state that makes him stop and think about what to do next. Then, in hopelessness and impotence, he begins to discover that there is another form of development. But it cannot be revealed until a person has reached complete disillusionment with the present and hopelessness in the future in this whole life, given to us supposedly by chance on this globe where we live like animals, without understanding why and what for. And indeed, if you look at us from the outside, from anywhere in the universe, our whole life on this planet will seem very strange, because we consistently destroy ourselves. For what?

When pondering, “Why do I need this whole life,” a person begins to realize that he needs a guide who could guide him and direct him along the way. And then he comes to the true books, whose authors have already comprehended a new form of life, not on the thin, fragile layer of the Earth’s crust covering this planet where we exist in complete dependence on it in everything, but life in a completely different dimension. After all, besides our Earth, our universe, and other galaxies, there is a breakthrough into another, higher dimension.

Of course, this requires a guide who will guide us along the way. But it is as if all of humanity is in Noah’s Ark, which must now break away from this world and break into the next dimension.

This guide is a special force from above, which The Zohar calls the “donkey driver.” Donkeys, Hamorim, (this is us), from the word “Homer” (material, the desire to enjoy), which needs to be developed, that is, to lead forward, showing him how to achieve a different form of existence.

Therefore, “The Donkey Driver” is a special article in The Book of Zohar. As we read this article, we should try to connect with this force, our driver, who leads us forward, provided that we can grab onto him and want to follow him.

The Zohar allegorically tells of this force, the donkey driver, as a man who goes ahead of those people whose donkeys he leads, pricking them with a sharp stick to keep them moving forward. After all, the donkey understands only one thing: it hurts, it goes forward; it does not hurt, it stops. This is how our material behaves.

And that is why we need this external force that will “tingle” us, and then we will need to move forward; otherwise, we will stay in place. After all, we are created out of a desire to enjoy and are not able to “stab” ourselves or summon this force from the outside. How can I willingly bring suffering upon myself?

Therefore, according to The Zohar, this external force is sent to people who are already able to ascend to a higher dimension, and in addition to life in this world that they feel in their body, in their “donkey,” to acquire an additional life, in the spiritual dimension.

This is quite possible, but you need to listen to that donkey driver who is sent from above to every person. This driver awakens within us and moves us. We just need to be sensitive to his actions.
So let’s find it in ourselves and wish to rise up!
[38415]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/11, Introduction of The Book of Zohar “The Donkey Driver”

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Comment: The economic downturn is hitting not only people’s pockets but also their mental well-being. Workers are plagued with depression and severe stress. Absences due to illness is pretty high as well. Stress is a normal phenomenon of the body that is necessary for its development and protection. However, if stress becomes chronic, we have no time to recover, and exhaustion sets in. The immune system is the first to suffer from stress.

My Response: But it is stress and depression that will trigger the need for true healing and the search for a good, comfortable feeling as more important rather than profit or power. The desire for simple peace of mind will lead people to understand true values. They can be achieved only by universal rapprochement, by creating a positive overall environment.

The fatigue of competition and the senselessness of profits will manifest itself in everyone and define a new kind of existence for the sake of attaining the root of life, rising to a new level of sensation of nature, its eternity and harmony. This is how nature leads us to our goal through suffering.
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Comment: Judging by the number of natural disasters lately, we see that humans bring disorder into nature. But it is commonly accepted to treat nature like an inanimate system, and think that we only cause it “mechanical” damage.

Yet you say the root is on a higher level, in the incorrect relationships between people.

My Response: The main problem is learning to see ourselves inside nature, not outside of it as we usually think. We are responsible for nature, for the house that we live in. We have been placed in a house full of buttons, but we do not know what they do. We press one button and a hurricane hits us; we press another and there is a tsunami or a fire. Press a third one and everything is wonderful.

So what are we to do? Humanity is like a helpless child who sits in a small house in the middle of the forest, and does not know how to behave. This means that we must grow correctly in order to become truly free.

When a person leaves their home to go into the forest or mountains, they think they are “going into nature,” but that is a false perspective. It is as if they are stepping out of their house into the house of animals. But nature is also their house! We must stop viewing nature’s integral system as something external to us.

We need to feel that we are inside nature, that we influence it and it influences us, and that this mutual connection is currently incorrect. Therefore it is the person who must change.

The still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are in instinctive harmony with the system of nature. A human being must also be in full harmony with it, despite having a nature that is completely opposite.

If we want to rise above the animate level, we must consciously develop a correct attitude toward nature to feel that we are within an integral system and to learn how to be integrally connected to the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature.

We are obligated to build the human system based on the same principles by which the rest of nature operates. That means that we must learn from nature how to structure the human system since we have completed our development at the animate level, and are now beginning to evolve further. And here, on an inner human level, we are now required to complete ourselves.

A person’s task is to learn from nature how to be connected with it. Nature shows us that all its elements are in mutual connection. This interconnectedness is evident on all levels.

So the question arises about how a person can become integrated in this system in a way that allows them to feel their environment correctly and engage in mutual exchange, to receive and to give in balance with nature, just as all other parts of nature behave? The still, vegetative, and animate levels instinctively maintain mutual balance.

To us it may seem that they destroy and kill one another, but this is only how it appears from our egoistic viewpoint. In reality, they instinctively preserve the correct balance that the general law of nature obligates them to keep.

But that law does not compel a human being because we must observe it consciously.

Animals are guided by instinct, but humans must apply their own effort to reach balance with nature.
[213433]
From the Conversation 9/6/17, “Climate Cataclysms”

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Question: How can humanity create the balance that exists instinctively in nature but is absent in human beings?

Answer: A human being does not have an instinct for balance with nature. That is why he is given the opportunity to build human society on his own and through his efforts to attain the force of connection and the mind that enables him to reach balance.

Therefore fighting environmental pollution is useless because the main source of pollution is the human being who has entered a new era. If he does not take care of his own correction, then even a minimal disturbance, just a gram of improper inclusion into nature, throws the entire system of nature out of balance. And this is what we are only beginning to see now.

Humanity will not disappear, but until the very last moment any kind of catastrophe is possible: nature will drown us in the sea, freeze us, roast us with extreme heat, and burn us in wildfires.

Question: For many years, the United States conducted nuclear weapons testing on two atolls in the Pacific Ocean, after which they naturally became unfit for human habitation. But nature blossomed there extraordinarily like nowhere else. As a result, scientists concluded that the harm caused by human presence is worse than that from nuclear radiation. How can that be?

Answer: Nature knows how to heal the damage caused to it on lower levels, but of course even that has its limit. If the damage is too great, the changes will become irreversible.

Question: What kind of harm does a human being cause on the “human level”?

Answer: Man caused no harm at all until the last hundred years. All his harm lies in the fact that he is not in balance with nature, which is his obligation as its central element.

The main reason is not the mechanical harm done to nature, not that man burns it or dries it up, but the fact that we should have begun to bring ourselves into balance with nature from the time of the ARI, from the 15^th century, or at least from the time of Baal HaSulam, who defined that period as the “last generation.” Our inconsistency with the integral system of nature—this imbalance—is what causes all the disasters.

Of course, this does not mean that upon reaching balance with nature we would be allowed to pollute it, but we simply would not even think of harming nature, we would instinctively act correctly.

To be in balance with nature means to attain good, integral relationships between people—in thoughts, desires, and intentions—not to harm human society and the whole of general nature, as well as the higher system.

To be integral in thoughts means to perceive the entire system of nature as one organism. And in accordance with the proper connections between people, all the other levels—still, vegetative, and animate—rise up, become included in the general system, and are corrected together with the human being. Then there will be no catastrophes, and balance will be established in everything.

A very strict condition operates: “The individual and the collective are equal.” This means that one person can cause as much harm as all of humanity.
[213290]
From the Conversation 9/6/17, “Climate Cataclysms”

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Question: In 2017, Hurricane Irma was raging over the Caribbean islands; it was the most powerful in the history of the Atlantic to that point. The hurricane was rapidly approaching Florida when the evacuation of the population from the threat of destruction and flooding was announced.

At the same time, thousands of miles to the west, the situation was exactly the opposite; there was drought and intense heat, which led to extensive forest fires. What is happening to nature?

Answer: Everyone is talking about protecting the environment, that we must protect nature in its original form, to preserve the natural balance. In nature, one devours the other, and so a certain balance is maintained. Once man comes and distorts this balance, which affects animals and plants, even the earth begins to crack and dry out.

People have always thought we must protect nature, as if man stands apart from nature and must preserve its correct shape and balance between inanimate matter, plants, and animals. Over the past 50 to 60 years, great attention has been paid to environmental protection and it is believed that this would guarantees us a good life.

But the science of Kabbalah says that this is the wrong approach. Nature gets out of balance precisely because of man, who is not in balance with it. The reason is not that he pollutes nature, burns trees, plows the land, or pumps out water.

Man must also be part of the overall ecosystem. Humanity must change and become integral, like the whole of nature, and occupy and fill the cell assigned to us between the inanimate, plant, animal and human levels of the ecosystem.

That is, we are talking about correcting man himself. But no one ever talked about that. Everyone thought the main thing was not to spoil the inanimate, plant, and animate nature, and everything would be fine. All the efforts are being made for this, all organizations are focused only on how to burn less oil and pollute the environment less. But what about man?

By our lack of an integral approach to the general nature, we ourselves cause its greatest imbalance. In fact, the only reason is not man’s negative attitude toward nature, but his lack of inclusion in the general system.

In the general system, there is a special law according to which the individual and general are equal. This means the power of one uncorrected individual, not even his destructive actions, but of the inner attitude, is enough to ruin the entire system.

The individual and the general are equal is a harsh condition for being in an integrated system where we all found ourselves against our will. After all, it is enough for me to commit the tiniest wrongful action to upset my balance with the system by just one gram, but because of the integrality of the system, I produce millions of times more harm with my microscopic violation.

After all, my gram is multiplied by what is included in every element of the system. Therefore the harm is general.

We do not yet understand that the individual and general are equal means either zero or 100%, and there can be nothing in between. But we are developing in such a way that nature hides our true, integral participation in its system.

That is why we do not have much influence on nature. Like a merciful judge, it evaluates us according to our level of development. If nature had not protected us, we would have reached the point of complete destruction, not only of ourselves, but of the entire universe.

It is only through concealment that a certain protective buffer is formed. And although I am wrong about everything, I have little impact on nature. However, nature has already begun to change, starting with the last generation, which is a sign that it is time for us to correct our involvement.

The further we go, the more nature will remove the protective shield, the buffer between man and general nature. And we will have to become integrated in consciousness, the heart, in perception, in all actions: physical, mental, internal in our relations with each other, and in relation to the whole system, until we achieve complete adhesion with it.

You can call it merging with nature or with the upper force, but we have to do it. We need to understand that we are in a classroom. Nature, or the Creator, teaches us and will teach us very concisely and quickly. This can happen through nuclear explosions, hurricanes, fires, or epidemics.

Nature has many ways to bring humanity to reason so that it understands that it must be balanced, and in full harmony with nature, like the inanimate, vegetative, and animate world.

Rocks, plants, and animals do not have the intelligence to go against nature; they act according to their instincts. But we humans, with all our evil, must act the same way animals act instinctively to achieve the same level of conformity to nature.

How is this possible if we do not have such instincts?! This is why we need the upper force to balance our evil. And the upper force is revealed only within our connection.
[213284]
From the Conversation 9/6/17, “Climate Cataclysms”

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Comment: Many insect species are declining, are endangered, or have disappeared altogether. Scientists say that their decline can lead to a catastrophic collapse. The loss of insects impacts plants, animals, and humans negatively. The number of cockroaches, flies, and other pests, they write will increase.

My Response: The Earth is gradually dying out.

Comment: Bees are disappearing. They say this is the basis of what will be bad.

My Response: Sure, because bees are necessary in the process of reproduction of the plant world. This is a problem!

Question: Is it possible to stop this by scientific methods, as they are trying to do now?

Answer: No, you cannot do that. There is no way. Make artificial bees?

Question: So you do not believe the “robot bees” or robotic pollinators will work?

Answer: I do not believe in any of the tricks of man in which they invest billions. I do not believe that that can help stop the moral decline of humanity, the decline of humanity in its relationship to each other, and help humanity survive. Humanity is moving toward a state where it is burying itself.

On the contrary, all these scientific tricks confuse us. If they did not exist, we would have wondered what we should do a long time ago.

Question: So they give hope?

Answer: Yes. We shift all this to science, and believe that we will put billions more dollars into them and everything will be fine. They will come up with everything for us, and we will continue to rest on our laurels. It will not work.

We must understand that only our changing toward the world, toward ourselves and between us will make the world integral and restore everything that is necessary for the proper integral development of nature. Nature is a closed system, and if we violate the integrity in this system, no one can make up for it.

Question: Even if we violate with our thoughts, not only with our actions?

Answer: Of course! But the thing is, we are still hoping and thinking: “We will build greenhouses. One greenhouse can replace a million hectares of land. And everything will be fine. We do not need anything in the greenhouse. We will pollinate them. We will do something.”

Comment: By the way, there are such proposals.

My Response: Yes, of course, I understand them. But it will not work! Nature acts very wisely. It has to bring us to a certain state so that we can change. We have changed! We did not just fix what we messed up, we have to change! And we do not want that.

We do everything. We continue to spread all over the world, we try to conquer nature, we try to fill our egoism in some way, and in the end no one is happy.

Comment: All of humanity respects scientists, Nobel laureates, and professors who conduct various studies and invent something. But when I talk to you, I always have the feeling that they are all like children. They do not understand the main thing.

My Response: I welcome science only in the form in which it allows us to see the integrality of nature, where everything is closed, everything is interdependent. A sense of the integrality and harmony of nature is very important for a person. Based on this, he himself begins to strive for harmony and for integration.

Therefore we need to talk about these achievements and these conclusions, and we need to take them from science, and thus bring them into human society. All other scientific achievements will not bring any happiness to a person in the end.

Comment: And are all the conclusions that it is possible to come to something scientifically untenable?

My Response: It will only eventually lead to a state where you will be forced to change yourself.

Question: What can be done to prevent insects from disappearing so that the ecology is normal?

Answer: Just explaining to people that each one is an integral being and must bring oneself to the right interaction with nature. And then we will see, as the Bible says, that everything, absolutely all animals, plants, and inanimate nature come into harmony, following man. “And the wolf and the lamb will live peacefully, and a little boy will shepherd them.”
[246228]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/30/24

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Question: There are people who study Kabbalah who have previously tried many paths, including drugs. But when they come to study Kabbalah, most of them automatically stop using them. Does it turn out that this is a side effect of Kabbalah? In theory, does it cure drug addiction?

Answer: Yes, Kabbalah works precisely as a side effect. After all, it affects only the person who wants to study it, who finds a purpose in life, but at the same time his body pulls him toward drug-related fulfillment. And then an internal struggle arises in him as a result of which he leaves drugs. But there are those who are unable to overcome it.

I do not keep track of my students. I am completely indifferent to what a student is like, what he comes to me with. These can be people with any inclinations, with any distortions. Today, all of this is generally considered the norm. So I do not look and do not delve into it. I am not interested in it.

It is said in Kabbalah that it is a remedy for all the problems of humanity caused by our egoism. And since it cures egoism, it should cure almost everything—from common illnesses to all kinds of distortions that exist in our time and are already accepted as the norm.

I teach Kabbalah, and to the extent that people adapt to it and are able to apply it, it affects them.

I had a severe ulcer and other problems. I suffered a clinical death, with great losses of internal organs, and saw how all this gets restored; how the more a person advances in Kabbalah, the younger, more vigorous, stronger, and more resilient one becomes, because the person is supported by the fact that one is dealing with the upper force, with the light.

This is not just some kind of personal faith, but a real upper energy. I feel it in myself. It does not let you do foolish things or strive for unnecessary achievements in this life in order to become, for example, a great athlete or someone else. But this energy gives you the opportunity to function day after day for many years, to lead people toward something exalted.

That is, Kabbalah is indeed a source of great power. I think that by studying it, humanity will see how it is cured of all problems.

Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that all the problems in the world: murder, theft, drugs, terror, diseases, mutual hatred, betrayal, family discord, problems with children, basically everything that separates us from perfection by even a single gram,—all of this is born out of our egoism. Only Kabbalah is capable of correcting it and bringing us to absolute perfection, eternity, and peace.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Kabbalah and drugs” 8/27/10

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