Question: I know that many of our friends have major health problems, but I want to ask about my mother. She is a friend of our group and very invested in it. In the last two years she has been very ill and suffers so much that you can’t bear to see it.

Whatever we do, nothing helps. This causes anger at the Creator and interferes when you go out and want to convey His love to people. I don’t know how to handle this.

Answer: I understand that it is difficult to speak about love for the Creator when it is clear to us that everything comes from Him. Certainly if we receive great blows of fate, we are not prepared to justify Him.

This is because these are two mutually exclusive feelings: injustice and misfortune and immediate justification. One extinguishes the other because we don’t comprehend how it can be that from a good and beneficent power suddenly all the problems and sufferings of humanity emerge.

We have not yet reached a state where we can see the truth. We are not in a dimension in which the opposites are connected and there is no contradiction between the sufferings of a person and the omnipotence and uniqueness of the Creator.

This is a bit like the paradox: is an electron a particle or a wave? It seems to be both this and that. It depends upon the observer, how he looks at it. And what is the person himself? We don’t know what he is himself. It is the same thing here.

In any case, it is necessary to act: Go to the doctors, carry out their recommendations. And despite all the contradictions, my advice is to turn to the Creator. On the one hand, ask for help for your mother (in general, this is your need). On the other hand, ask the Creator to help you, not to understand Him, but to depart from the state where you condemn Him.

Question: Indeed for many of our friends throughout the world there are difficult problems like these.

Answer: Nobody can guarantee that we will develop in exceptional goodness. Once, ten or twelve years ago, I was getting ready to travel to Moscow to give lectures and disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah. But one day before the trip I was in an accident. As a result, half of my liver was removed, I underwent a number of operations for my lungs, and in addition to that my leg was broken.

Looking at it logically, I needed to fly to Moscow to begin dissemination there, and look how they stopped me. So what is there to do after this, stop everything? We don’t know where we are going. But the blows do what they do.

Question: How much can the support of the group, the world Kli, help our friends in situations like these?

Answer: Basically, we say: “Let’s pray, let’s think.”, but essentially these words are not worth anything. Only our combined efforts give results, not words and exclamations.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

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Question: Why are diseases and physical sufferings needed?

Answer: These are the results of the general uncorrected ego. As long as it exists in the souls, even the corrected soul, that are in complete connection with the uncorrected souls, will feel suffering.

Question: It is possible to understand why suffering is required for Kabbalists so they can learn to rise above the level of the beast, but what about ordinary people?

Answer: We are all in collective dependence as a single entity, the soul, a desire to receive. If it is “for its own sake,” then we suffer, if it is “for the sake of the Creator,” meaning similar to the Light, then we enjoy.

Question: Isn’t this cruel to fill poor creatures with suffering?

Answer: The Creator takes our final state into account; His conduct is derived from the need to bring us to the complete end of correction and perfection.
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In the News (from The Raw Story): “Humans face the very real risk of a future without antibiotics, a world of plummeting life expectancy where people die from diseases easily treatable today, scientists say.

“Experts tracking the rise of drug resistance say years of health gains could be rolled back by mutating microbes that make illnesses more difficult and expensive to cure and carry a higher risk of death.

“At the base of the problem are doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or unnecessarily, and the ease with which medicines can be obtained without a script in some parts of the world, including Asia and Africa.

“As much as 70 percent of antibiotics are given for viral infections, against which they are wholly ineffective, the experts say.

“Without antibiotics to tackle opportunistic bacteria that pose a particular risk for people who are very ill, major surgery, organ transplants or cancer and leukaemia treatment may become impossible, he explained.

“’In some parts of the world, already we have run out of antibiotics,’ said Timothy Walsh, a professor of medical microbiology at Cardiff University.

“Resistance to drugs emerges through changes in the bacterium’s genetic code — altering the target on its surface to which antibiotics would normally bind, making the germ impenetrable or allowing it to destroy or ‘spit out’ the antibiotic.

“The wrong antibiotics, taken for too short a period, in too low a dose or stopped too early, will fail to kill the altered microbes.

“The World Health Organisation (WHO) says drug resistance ‘threatens a return to the pre-antibiotic era.’

“’Many infectious diseases risk becoming untreatable or uncontrollable,’ it states in a fact sheet on antimicrobial resistance.

“Antibiotics are thought to have saved hundreds of millions of lives since Alexander Fleming first discovered penicillin in 1928.

“But even Fleming’s own warnings of impending drug resistance went unheeded, and now scientists say people may start dying from infections like meningitis and septicaemia that are eminently curable today.

“’If we keep going like this, the vast majority of human bacterial pathogens will be multi-resistant to antibiotics,’ said Courvalin.”

My Comment: There is only one solution that will stop our fall: striving to resemble nature so as to become similar to it through interconnection and integration. After all, our differences from its increasing integrality cause our multi-faceted crisis. If we start looking for other solutions, instead of becoming similar to it, we will trigger even greater problems.
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Opinion (Ilya Pluzhnikov, Associate Professor, faculty of Neuro-psychology and Abnormal Psychology, Moscow State University): “Fear is a product of evolution. All fears are fixed in the course of evolution, considered useful, stay with us.

“Modern Western-European society is a society with a high proportion of emotional distress; it is narcissistic, which implies that everything should be perfect; you have to be the best one, which is virtually impossible and causes anxiety due to a mismatch between a person and the standards.”

My Comment: The environment defines and sets everyone’s life purpose. If we had developed in the jungle, we would have striven to become the best warriors. It is therefore necessary to treat the neuroses and the environment, but not the person.

As soon as society changes the vector of its development and assumes spiritual ideals of equality, fraternity, and mutual support and evaluates a person by his giving to society, everyone will feel as if he is in a good mother’s arms.
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Opinion (Vasily Klucharev , PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Psychology of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow): “We make decision only to activate (satisfy) the neurons of brain areas associated with obtaining pleasure.

“Biologists have found that pleasure and desire to get it are connected with the structures of the brain, rich in dopamine, the pleasure centers in the brain.

“Scientists implanted electrodes in these areas of rats’ brains and found that by pressing a pedal, the animal was engaged in self-stimulation for hours. The rat rejected food and endlessly stimulated its brain – and died from exhaustion. Similar behavior has been observed in humans.

“In ordinary life, we activate brain structures rich in dopamine, visiting restaurants, earning money, falling in love.

“Our senses send information to the brain neurons that are activated in proportion to the expected pleasure and make the decision to buy or not to buy this product – that is, how to command the motor areas of the brain that triggers our muscles.

“People around us influence our opinion, causing a change in the activity of the pleasure center. If our opinion matches the others’ opinion, it activates the center, and if it does not match, this inhibits its activity. It seems that we like to have a shared opinion, and I do not like being different.

“It turns out that the group with which we identify ourselves regulates the operation of our pleasure centers, changes our opinion, supporting the similarity of our views with the social norm and suppressing disagreement.

“We think that we understand why we make decisions, but in reality, we are not aware of the real causes of our behavior. We cannot guess the motives of our conduct, remaining under the illusion that we control our behavior. Therefore, it is difficult for us to accept the idea that our actions are just a means of activation the group neurons of the brain.”

My Comment: Behind the physiological pleasure center, there is the spiritual root, which determines all our actions. Overall, we came to Kabbalah through science.
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Question: I grew up in nature, on a farm, surrounded by fields and gardens, in a world of sounds. What is the music of nature?

Answer: If a person lives in a place like this, then the music of nature is actually what should fill him and tune him correctly. The music of nature provides the right background for a good and healthy life. Trees, flowers, and the wind are all sounds that are actually vital for a person’s state of balance.

Question: How is the natural world of the sounds of nature around us related to a person’s health?

Answer: It is common knowledge that music can heal, stabilize the heart beat, our inner frequencies, and the inner organs. Everything depends on the sounds that we hear.

People have not yet learned to make proper use of that, but there is a great potential in it. It is a wonderful way to cleanse, correct, and tune a person.

Comment: This is very interesting since I lived in India for a while after my military service, in remote places, far away from any form of civilization, and I felt very healthy, healthier than I ever felt before. When I returned to the ordinary urban environment, I realized to what extent the music of nature had healed me.
[134622]
From the program “A New Life” 4/27/2014

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In the News (from The Richest): “Depression is an illness that plagues millions of people, all over the world. Sure, we all can feel sad or down sometimes, but when someone is dealing with depression, it is a never-ending and sometimes all-consuming battle. …

“While depression doesn’t discriminate against people, there seem to be some demographics that tend to be more depressed than others. Whether it is economics, the culture, or background, the fact that there are countries that have a higher rate of depression than others is worth looking examining. …

“According to the United Census Bureau and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 5.4% of the world’s population deals with depression.

10. Italy – 3.8%. It’s interesting to look into the societal views of depression in Italy. Based on a national survey, 75% of respondents believed that those suffering from the mental illness should avoid talking about it. Italians are no strangers to the illness, with almost 4% acknowledging that they may suffer from the condition. When it comes to the cause of depression, it varies anywhere from dynamics in the personal lives of the participants (i.e., death, divorce, school, money), while the recently struggling political and economic environment in Italy could well be a contributing factor.

9. Mexico – 4.8% Studies have shown that depression in Mexico affects more women than it does men, and increases with age. But there were lower rates of depression among those in the population who were more educated. When it comes to depression in Mexico, it’s worth taking a look at the Mexican culture. With more success, depression rates are reduced. Success could mean anything from marriage, to having kids, to getting a good education: Depression was much higher among women who were single, divorced, or widowed.

8. Spain – 4.9% In terms of the percentages, adolescents are greatly affected by depression in the country.

7. Belgium – 6.2% Depression has become a recent epidemic in Belgium. The country made headlines recently when it became the first country to legalise euthanization in certain extreme cases of terminally ill children. … The idea is that the high numbers of depression sufferers might mean more Belgian citizens contemplating suicide, and with euthanasia becoming more readily available, those who may have considered ending their life may be able to do so through more convenient, legal means.

6. Lebanon – 6.6% Life in Lebanon is undeniably stressful which leaves many worried about the future of their homes, jobs, and families. Trends show that the citizens of Lebanon prefer medication over therapy, likely due to the rising cost of the latter. But the cultural perception of therapy has also been cited as a possible reason behind depressed Lebanese citizens avoiding therapy – a 2011 report on the issue in the Daily Star Lebanon stated that Lebanese ‘don’t believe in talk-therapy’.

5. Colombia – 6.8% The country has been through its share of political hardship, war, and economic downturn – it’s speculated that if there were more resources for treatment, the depression rate could be reduced.

4. Netherlands – 6.9% Compared to the rest of Europe, the Dutch have notably higher depression rates than most – which seems to, in some ways, contradict recent studies suggesting that the Netherlands is the best place to raise children. But residents of the Netherlands are asking the world to think about context and perception – they say the Dutch culture is just generally a bit more morose than that of their neighbours.

3. France – 8.5% The French may be the most likely candidates to suffer from clinical depression, given the stereotypes of the French of often wearing black, drinking coffee or wine, all while smoking a cigarette and approaching life in a cynical manner. … In 2008, it emerged that the citizens of France consume more antidepressants than any other country in the world.

2. Ukraine – 9.1% It is common knowledge now that tensions are high in the Ukraine. … However researchers, psychiatrists, and psychologists have explained the depression rate by crediting it to the transition to a post-communist state and the ongoing recovery from the stress of the 1986 Chernobyl incident. Of course, the current political upheaval occurring in the Ukraine right now probably hasn’t helped matters.

1. United States – 9.6% No doubt that the North American country has its troubles in terms of politics and the economy. People are losing their jobs, and the economy is slowly recovering from a recession. In a country where prices are rising and wages are falling, it might be said that Americans can be justified in their feelings of depression.”

My Comment: Of course, this all is according to the polls, but people prefer not to talk about their feelings. But the main thing is not the indicators but the trend. Ahead of us, there is either the darkness of the Middle Ages or re-education towards love and bestowal.
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In the News (from The Conversation): “Bacterial diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Most of these bacteria were benign at some point in their evolutionary past, and we don’t always understand what turned them into disease-causing pathogens. In a new study, researchers have tracked down when this switch happened in a flesh-eating bacteria. 

“‘The date we deduced coincided with numerous mentions of streptococcus epidemics in the literature,’ Musser said. Since 1983, there have been several outbreaks of streptococcus infections across the world. For example, in the UK, streptococcus infections increased in number and severity between 1983 and 1985.

“It is the same story for many other countries, with Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia falling victim to what is now an inter-continental epidemic. The symptoms ranged from pharyngitis to the flesh-eating disease, necrotizing fasciitis.”

My Comment: Any part of our body and the environment can turn into a monster carrying death, as it is written, that the enemies of man populate his house. But the conversion into enemies depends on the relationship between people as enemies.

After all, we are at the highest stage of the development of egoism, and therefore our behavior as rational and conscious, requires that the lower levels of nature (still, vegetative, animate) establish the same relationship between themselves relative to us.

If we correct our relations to being friendly, we will become convinced in the truth of the Bible, which states that in the future the wolf will live with the lamb, and a child will play with them.
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Question: Suppose that parents organize a club for their children where they arrange discussions. But in this group two of the youths are troubled children who are deeply depressed that could infect the others. What should be done about that?

Answer: If the communication between the youths takes place naturally, then it’s necessary for them to relax through soulful songs around a campfire so that they will not be closed within themselves and will begin the conversation from a distance. What can be good for a person in life and what can be bad? Our nature seeks only good. But if we are locked in, eating ourselves up, are we having fun? So why don’t we escape from this?

What is this force that exists in me that puts me into a state of despair, darkness, and emptiness all the time? Could it be that this is the thing that I must struggle with somehow? And if I do struggle, I will discover such forces within me that act in opposition and that will raise me to particular heights in art, literature, science, sports and so forth. So it’s necessary to accept, with a blessing, everything that there is in a person, even the most depressed state that basically pushes a person towards the good, but only when this doesn’t lock the person inside himself like a cocoon.

On the contrary, a state of dissatisfaction pushes us forward, so it’s necessary to make it creative. And this is possible only with the help of the environment, where one person pushes forward and the other pulls backward, and between them a mutual movement appears. They check each other, inspecting the general movement between them etc. In other words, it’s necessary to support depressed children so that their condition can be creative.

Lots of famous writers, composers, and scientists experienced depression, and in order to get out of it, they engaged in creating. This was a cure for them, a salvation. They gave humanity creative gifts of classical masterpieces precisely thanks to their success at rising above their depression and using it in the right way.

How can we creatively use despair, difficulties, disappointments, and depression that are so widespread in the world today that result in neglect and disregard for everything? After all, from these states the next human, social, political, and national condition will be born.

Therefore, it’s forbidden to cast these states to the side and to consider them as something that is not good. On the contrary, it’s necessary to yearn to transform their strong, negative energy into something positive.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13

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Question: How does one deal with a child’s suicidal tendencies?

Answer: Suicidal tendencies in children are treated only with a good collective. Without a collective there will be more and more isolation of the child, and he will go inward since this is all psychological: Life seems unnecessary, everything collapses, and there is just hopelessness around him.

From this to a state of happiness, all that is needed is just one small twist. But who will do it? That is the problem. I am sure that it is only the collective that is able to do this. It’s very important to develop some kind of hobbies for the child. When I was a child, my parents constantly gave me all kinds of extra-curricular activities.

First, they bought me a good camera with a zoom lens and gave me money for film developers and fixers. I was very interested in this. Before that, they presented me with a bike, and with friends, I would often take cycling trips outside of the city. Afterward, there was table tennis and then athletics where I won first place. They constantly engaged me into various activities. Also, I was never alone, but was at least with one or two other friends.

I think it is necessary to do this. A child should not sit at home. Besides being at school, he needs another circle of friends. If something fails at school, then the child will succeed in another place. Let’s suppose at a dance class or at volley ball.

The best thing is some kind of group sport. When you go into competition, “one on one,” like running different distances, this isn’t so good. Tennis and other group sports are much more effective. It’s essential to involve the child in something.

You can even agree with other families to come together to organize activities for children in a circle of ten to fifteen children and hire instructors that will help with it. For a reasonable fee, you can organize a very good activity.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/11/13

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