Question: Some psychologists believe that there are five main neuroses of the 21^st century. They classify this as the epidemic of narcissism, in which the pronoun “I” is used more often than “we.” Personal success is placed above caring for others. Is this neurosis?

Answer: This is self-love. It exists in every person.

How does a person love himself? I look at the other and I don’t like it. I look at myself; I have the absolute same thing! But mine is better than his. Why? Because it’s mine. That’s all. There’s nothing else. As in the joke, “But mine is still better.”

Question: Psychologists consider this a neurosis. Should something be done about it or should the “I” be transformed into “we”?

Answer: Kabbalah does not advise doing it the way it is done by psychologists, neurologists, and so on. Kabbalah says this should be explained to us as a process of becoming a mature person.

This process is not about suppressing my “I,” this function, and so on, which will all still come out. It will come out somewhere else! It is like a tumor or something. You don’t want it to grow and it will come out in another place and get even worse. Therefore, this is not the way to handle it.

In no way should you force anyone! Gently teach a person to see his emphasized “I” not as a positive quality but as something negative and the person will gradually heal himself.

The most important thing is not to put pressure on him. He is already self-conscious and it is all so stressful. By pushing him more, you can break him.

In such cases, what should be done? If you are great, you are big, you are strong, and you are smart, go into sports. Apply it in such a way in society where you can stand out and have it accepted properly. Such is sport. There, they will put you in your place. Especially if it is a group sport, it is very good.

Question: Another neuroses is called “Fear of Missing Out.” This is about: “I could have been somewhere else, become someone else, lived better, succeeded more…” What to do about it?

Answer: Don’t start!

Question: But it’s gnawing. I know it myself. It’s like a worm sitting there and gnawing at you: “What have you done?! When you could have…!” and so on. How can a person fight it or work with it?

Answer: I believe that, firstly, everything has its own fate. Therefore, everything that is, everything that was, and will be, let it all come.

Question: Can I do anything about it?

Answer: You should not! A person should live in a state where he can be told at any moment: “Lie down and die.” Thus, I lie down and die. So what?

Question: If only it were possible to let go of yourself like this. Can I actually let go like this?

My Response: Absolutely!

Question: Is this how it should be? To never look back?

Answer: Do not control your life or the world and, in general, nothing and no one. Just go along with it. If they stop you, they stop you.

Question: Then it ceases to be neuroses? I instantly calm down.

Answer: Sure. I have lived and I have done something; I hope I have done something good in life and I’m thankful for that.

Question: Psychologists say: Fear of Better Options neurosis or “the problem of the ideal choice” is when you stand in front of three roads and each one seems to lead you to the ideal place, to your dream and the person is bound by thoughts: “How can I make a choice? What to choose?” How to choose where to go?

Answer: I don’t think it’s a choice at all in this case.

Question: A choice between three options. You think, “somehow one is better than the other or this is even better.” Then you are driven by thoughts that: “No, this is better and this…” and so you stand and agonize. How should one act in such cases? Cast lots?

Answer: In general, yes. And the Torah says so—”Pur”  – “lot.”

Question: If you had to make a choice, what would be the main thing you would establish in order to choose?

Answer: To break away from myself and only then make the right choice. Only then will this choice be correct.

Question: So I have to stand before making this choice and try to break away from myself? Before these three paths. So that my “I” is not in control?

Answer: Of course.

Question: How is this done?

Answer: Break away.

Question: So you don’t want to listen to your inner voice here?

Answer: No. You can’t rely on anything here.

Question: What about examples? Let’s say others tell you: “Look, I went there. I am already a scientist, a PhD. I’m already a Nobel laureate. Follow this path.” While the other says: “But I’m already a businessman.” There’s a lot of noise all around you. Should you not listen to this environment?

Answer: Actually, it is better not to choose anything. As they say, you should rely on God’s will. Don’t do anything and just sit and wait. As it says: “Better sit and do nothing,” and then God will send it your way.

Question: Can I rely on Him?

Answer: No, you have to work and do everything you can. Although such fundamental fateful decisions are always difficult to make.

I used to be frequently asked for advice on the choice of profession, university, or something else, and I usually would not give advice. A person must figure out where his soul or hand is leading him.

Question: I still want to follow in your footsteps and learn more about you personally. How do you make a choice? How do you decide?

Answer: I always decide for the maximum benefit of society because I know for sure this is what the Creator wants.

I do not know if I am right or wrong. Usually we do not know whether we are right or wrong.

Question: Perhaps we are more often wrong?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. You never know what the alternative would be. Thus, I try to think: where does the greatest benefit for the Creator lie? What the Creator would like me to do. And this, as a rule, is what’s best for the society, for the people.

Question: Next is the need to adapt. A very common situation nowadays is when a person barely finishes studying for a profession and it is getting replaced by computers or artificial intelligence. He was studying this and he invested five years! Now he doesn’t know what to do.

What should one do in such cases? Today this happens all the time. Unnecessary professions! While colleges and universities go on. You are being taught, but when you graduate, no one needs this profession anymore.

Answer: A person should still understand that the baggage he has accumulated is not in vain. Society still needs educated people. Although they might not be able to apply themselves in the specialty they dreamt of working or advancing, these people with higher education, these serious people, are still of value. It means a lot.

Question: You mean, even if you have studied something random that will never come in handy, for example, like higher mathematics?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. He was still learning something and absorbing information. He also took exams and took part in educational processes. He possesses different information and has a different filling in his brain and heart.

Question: So you want to say there are no wrong professions?

Answer: Any profession shapes a person and makes him a proper part of society after all.

Question: And is it possible to re-make yourself later into something different?

Answer: Of course, he is already used to learning, hearing, listening, reading, and writing. He has developed a need for it. The hand reaches for pen and paper. It’s not like the tramps who sit in a pub not knowing what to do with themselves and only strum the guitar.

Question: So it turns out that it is not all neuroses?

Answer: These are not all neuroses. All of this needs serious revision, understanding by society, and adaptation.

Question: That is, if I direct myself toward society and not to myself, then all this ceases to be a neurosis?

Answer: Yes. You instantly eliminate a lot of societal problems, diseases, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “News With Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/14/22

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In the News (Business Insider): “Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes death is critical to human progress. Death is ‘important,’ he said this week, because people rarely change their minds — ‘they just die.’ ‘If you live forever, we might become a very ossified society where new ideas cannot succeed,’ he said.

My Response: Why all these scrutinies at all? To create some kind of longevity pill?

Comment: Yes. I mean, he does not want to do it. He says: “Everyone is engaged in it, but I don’t want to. I believe that people should die in their own time.”

My Response: I do not know what “in their own time” means. Today, let’s say, I am 75. 20 – 30 years ago it was already an exorbitant age. And today, it is such that you can easily live for another 10 – 15 years.

Now the question arises: “What is the point?” Should we create such a pill that a person could swallow and live another 10 – 15 years? The fact that we will naturally live so long is another matter. But really?

Question: Then in which case does a person need to go on and on and on?

Answer: Only if a person knows exactly what he exists for and if can benefit himself and others. Only in this case! But this then turns out to be a selective attitude to life; they will not all live like that. But if so, if the benefit to people is constant, then everyone should live like that. Then it makes sense.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/27/21

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can nature really heal us?“

There is a therapeutic approach in Japan called “forest bathing,” which sends people with various medical conditions for a long stay in nature. Research shows that a long stay in nature can decrease blood pressure, stress hormones, treat anxiety, depression, and in general, help you heal from different medical conditions.

Indeed, nature has healing powers. Anybody can feel how a walk in nature, being in nature, and going out to stay in the country for a few days, has a healing effect.

Nature consists of the still, vegetative and animate that we need to connect with as opposed to the jungle of stone and bricks that we live in with their stress and tall buildings.

However, the human ego, which wishes to exploit others and nature for self-benefit, increasingly detaches us from nature, making us destroy and distance ourselves from it, and such a process will eventually lead us to at least see how wrong we are in doing so.

In the future, however, I think that everything will work out. We will reach an understanding that our ego is killing us from one moment to the next, and that we need to revise how we conduct our lives, together with understanding what will happen if we continue along the same trajectory. We will then stop letting the ego drive us to harm ourselves.

However, we do not need to go and live in the woods. The solution is among each other, that we start living in unity, with love and mutual support. Such an approach would heal us of all the different illnesses that we have. We could make a thousand-page list of illnesses, and if we develop connections of unity and love, then we would heal ourselves of them all. Reaching relations of love and mutual support among people would balance us with nature at the human level, the highest level of nature.

Based on the video “Can Nature Really Heal Us?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: I have heard of such cases when a person seems to be terminally ill, doctors predict that he has very little time left to live, and somehow suddenly he is cured.

My Response: Firstly, it depends on the person. Secondly, with respect to medicine, there is nothing to talk about at all. Health care workers themselves do not understand how pharmacologists fool them. They shove all sorts of nonsense in front of them, and they already work according to this nonsense, just as economists do not understand what they are supposedly given in the economic theories they nonetheless work according to.

Both are absolute lies. The same economy and the same medicine, but with completely different drugs, different attitudes, different data, and facts about all diseases! And all this fanaticism is just for the sake of business. Only just! Otherwise, there would be no additional billions for those who already have a lot of them.

Anyway, my words will not help anyone. This will be revealed gradually in the future. People should reveal evil to the extent that they can cope with, realize, understand, and accept it. If not, it will only bring them completely useless suffering.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Cause of All Diseases” 7/23/13

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Comment: It is said: “When you’re sick, you should see a doctor. He is given the right to treat.”

My Response: This was not said about our doctors and not in our time. It was about the times of Hippocrates and Avicenna, about the times when there were great Kabbalistic sages among the Jews before the collapse of the Temple.

The collapse of the Temple, meaning the fall of that part of humanity called the people of Israel from the spiritual degree greatly affected everything! The Middle Ages arrived, everything went into stagnation, and everything went into decline. Before that, even the Romans and Greeks were not so cruel.

Of course no one is to blame for this. It is the upper program that created such conditions through them. But the fact that through them the upper program destroyed Israel in the form in which it existed, even though it had already slipped to the point that it had to be destroyed, it turned the whole world around. Since then, medicine and everything has gone into a completely different direction.

Before that everything was different. Even relations among other nations were not as barbaric as later. Where are these ancient Greeks? Look at Greece for the last two thousand years. What was it like? And the Romans? And so on. Even the ancient Arab world. Everything has collapsed everywhere. Wars and battles were not needed.

However, all this is nearing completion.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Cause of All Diseases” 7/23/13

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Comment: They say that in nature there is a kind of convergence of celestial bodies and displacement of orbits.

My Response: Naturally! It really affects us physically with all kinds of problems: solar flares, the earth’s magnetic field, reverse polarity; who knows what can happen here. We depend on it very much.

Basically, our body is a bag of electrolytes in which all kinds of currents wander, so a little drop of pressure, a little dust storm (when sand particles rub against each other then electricity appears) and people go crazy! And if such a reversal occurs or the sun suddenly “sneezes,” then that’s it!

We may suddenly be subjected to such a flick that we ourselves will die out and everything else will remain intact. Such an impact by an electromagnetic wave and that’s it, it could possibly involving a pulse that we won’t be able to withstand. In this regard, we are very sensitive, not protected.

If we continue to thin out the atmosphere, and I don’t mean the air atmosphere but everything that protects us from space, from the sun, and is arranged in an equilibrium (dynamically), if we continue to destroy it, then we face very big problems up to destruction.

After all, our entire biological system is so tied to the environment that we are just stupid creatures who do not understand what we are doing with what we depend on!

Question: But it can be influenced somehow by actions or thoughts?

Answer: We need to change ourselves! Then our actions will change, but first of all we change our thoughts. Ultimately, Integral Education is what we need immediately. It should become our most important occupation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Sun, Moon, Earth” 5/26/13

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Question: A lot of people write to us about the fear that permeates everything, that there is fear for oneself, fear for loved ones, fear for children, fear of death. Moreover, the situation cannot be changed and it is frightening.

The main question is how to overcome fear. Is it possible?

Answer: Let go of the situation. Don’t think about what will happen in the next moment. There’s nothing we can do. We don’t know anything about it. And that’s why it’s best for us to let go.

Question: But is it within a person’s power at all?

Answer: Yes, it is. This is achieved by a little bit of training, but in principle, it is necessary.

Question: So can I exist inside a real dramatic situation, threatened with death, with anything you can only imagine, as if it doesn’t exist?

Answer: Yes. You invent a dramatic situation, to use your words, and you annul it. Or other things: you say that it can’t be, because it can’t be. I already know that I’ll be fine, that I’ll be well. Or I’m not interested in it at all, not even now! It’s the best thing—to let go of the reins and not control anything.

Question: So you think that fear arises from the fact that a person tries to manage this situation?

Answer: He wants to manage it and cannot. That’s where the fear comes in.

Question: And when I let go, I seem to control it, but, as it turns out, from a different side?

Answer: Sure. Think about the fact that of course you will die, of course everything will be after, and something will exist after you. You don’t lock this world up and go somewhere out there. It is not known how this can be imagined. So it’s okay. Imagine this is normal; agree with it, and that’s it.

Question: I understand the general situation that I need to let go. Can you offer a few steps on how to let go of any situation?

Answer: No, different people do it differently. There are people who are starting to think: “What will happen to the world after me?” “How will my loved ones and relatives be?” “What will happen to my inheritance?” “What will happen to my creative legacy?” And so on and so forth.

Question: Then the question is: why is fear given to a person?

Answer: So that he can correct something additional: his attitude to life and death.

Question: What should this fear turn into? If it is given from above, what should this fear flow into?

Answer: It must flow into absolute submission to the will of the Almighty, the Creator, and to the fact that one still has something to do in those moments (there may be a huge number of them) until one really finishes his earthly journey.

Question: Basically, does a person have to do something one way or another? What should he do?

Answer: Calm down. Nothing else. This is what a person should do.

Comment: You once said that the Creator is at peace, and man should come to the same peace.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: Then give us the definition of peace.

My Response: Peace is when the next moment doesn’t bother you. It absolutely does not bother you! Not that you live in it. If you live in it it doesn’t bother you, because you live in it. But it just doesn’t bother you. We must come to this.

Question: Then am I living in this moment?

Answer: And there is no such moment. Don’t think that you exist at all.

Question: That is, I am as if floating on the river, floating and that’s all?

Answer: This is also a bad attitude to life. “Lift the oars” and “float” are also not good.

Comment: This point is not very clear.

My Response: It is not clear to anyone. This is the point at which we achieve absolute calm.

In other words, it can only be this way. “I rely on the control of the Creator. He controls everything, including me in every moment of my existence. And in general, He controls the whole universe and everyone. So I have nothing to worry about. Do I want to crawl into His correction, His governance, His force over all this? No.” If not, then sit still and get on with your life.

There should be no difference between how you exist now and afterward when you decide how you should exist.

Question: Such a point of stillness?

Answer: Yes. This indicates agreement. This means that you agree with the Creator. And it’s not easy. After all, we always want to grab His hand, check what is planned there, and argue that it should maybe be done a little differently.

Question: Is there no need to grab anyone here? Just like that and that’s it?

Answer: Let go.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/30/22

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Question: Why are people always eager to lose weight?

Answer: Because weight-loss products are more expensive than weight-gain products. And so, someone is profiting from them.

Question: But in reality, what is the problem with being overweight?

Answer: It is very easy to get fat from today’s products, but it is very difficult to lose weight. Therefore, weight-loss is taken as a cult, as some kind of high achievement.

In fact, it has no bearing on anything, and people do not live longer, do not become healthier. It is just taken as a form of worship. I think it will pass soon. Any kind of violence against yourself is not good. A person should be normal. But no one knows this norm and cannot establish it. It is just that a person should eat normally.

If we get rid of all the excesses that flood our food markets and everything else and come to a rational way of life, then everyone will have a normal weight. Well, you will weigh not sixty kilograms but seventy. Your measurements will not be 90-60-90 but a couple of centimeters more. So what? You will not have plastic surgery because you will begin seeing not the appearance of a person but his inner world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Lose Weight” 3/3/13

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In recent years, new technologies in medicine have been developed that make it possible to extend human life to limits that previously seemed to be fantasy. But is there any point in extending life to 200 years?

A thousand years ago, people lived for 20 years and this was considered normal; today life expectancy is already approaching 100 years and this is considered normal. The question is how to fill this life so that it will not be filled only with trips to the doctor.

First of all we need to find out what benefits this brings to humanity so as not just to prolong human life. After all, we see increasing the number of years a person lives does not change one’s views on life. Over several centuries, life expectancy has increased many times, but nothing, in fact, has changed. Egoism does not change. The question is, what to live for—for the benefit of humanity or for yourself? What does a person live for, and is it worth prolonging such a life?

If we needed the long life provided by modern artificial organ transplant technologies, then nature would have given it to us.

For how many years is it worth living? For as many as a person can really benefit himself and others. If the meaning of a person’s life is to achieve the purpose of his existence, to reveal the upper force, and thereby rise to the highest level of human function, then it is really worth the effort to prolong life. But without an upper purpose, why prolong life if half the time a person will suffer from medications and operations and never leave the doctor’s office?

First of all, let’s try to use the allotted years of our lives correctly, in order to find out what we live for, and if we succeed, we need to tell others about it. There is no greater achievement in life than to find the reason for life, its purpose, and to help others reach the same.

The purpose of life is to understand the formula of life, and in accord with it, become perfect in our actions and justify and fully agree with the force of creation, the Creator, and humanity. After all, this means that you do not curse the Creator and are in solidarity with His creation. You understand creation, what happens in it, your life within it, how it embraces you, and how it acts.

Agreement with creation reveals all our sensations, and we begin to feel it directly, as if we were skinned. To attain the essence of creation, to attain the Creator, and to attain the root of creation and its purpose means to experience the entire creation directly, as if you exist inside this one force with naked perception.

We achieve all this through love for the created beings, because when we come to the feeling of the Creator, we feel that we are connected with all created beings.
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From KabTV’s “Conversation with Journalists” 8/9/22

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Medium published my new article “More People Are ‘Autistic’ because More Connection Is Required”

Today, more and more people are diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. According to statnews.com, “CDC researchers reported that autism rates in the United States increased from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 54 in 2016, and the rate now stands at 1 in 44 children [as of 2018].” But are we really more autistic than before? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, autism “is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave.” It therefore makes sense that if communication becomes more demanding, but people’s ability to communicate does not improve, more people will be diagnosed with autism.

The level of connectedness in all our engagements and on all levels has been growing exponentially for decades. Today, you really cannot get away from society. You cannot isolate yourself because your mobile phone is always with you, and people can reach you not only via phone, but also by texting, video chats, social media, and countless other ways. And if you try to turn off your phone for even one day, you will probably find that you are hooked, and isolation is an unachievable fantasy.

In the 1970s, for example, people’s communication needs were very different than they are today. A regular person went to work in the morning, came back in the afternoon, ate something, read the newspaper, watched TV and went to sleep. Communication skills did not need to be as developed as they need to be today because communication was not as ‎intricate and demanding. Today, people are communicating all the time, with multiple people, and on multiple platforms, especially the younger generation. These demands expose their inadequate communication skills, causing them to be diagnosed on the autistic spectrum.

Additionally, people’s growing self-absorption makes it even more difficult for them to communicate, an added challenge that did not trouble people in the second half of the previous century, who were clearly not as narcissistic as today’s youngsters.

Because demands have changed, people should acquire the appropriate skills to meet them. If previously, the education system could suffice with imparting information, today, information is the least of our problems. Anyone can learn anything online more easily and quickly than a single teacher can teach in a physical classroom.

Rather, the main problem today is communication between people; it is dysfunctional on every level and stands behind people’s most daunting problems. Substance abuse, depression, violence, bullying and abuse, all those very serious problems do not stem from lack of knowledge, but from inadequate communication skills. If we want to “treat” autism, we need to address our disconnection from each other, our inability to connect and communicate positively and constructively.
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