In the News (The Telegraph): “There is a crisis in modern masculinity, with men struggling to deal with pressures in their personal and professional lives, according to a report by the mental health charity CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably). …

“Suicide is now the single biggest cause of death in men aged 20-49 in England and Wales, with males accounting for 78 per cent of all suicides in the UK. Female suicide rates, in comparison, are declining. …

“Roughly half of all the 1,000 men and women surveyed said they had experienced some form of depression, yet women were much more likely to seek help or confide in a friend. 74pc of women who had suffered depression said they had spoken to someone about it, while only 53pc of males had done so. 69pc of men who had suffered depression said they preferred to deal with the problem themselves.

“When it came to work, 42pc of men said they felt pressure to be the main breadwinner in the family, compared to just 13pc of females. Of those surveyed, men were much more likely to have lost their jobs previously (54pc compared to 35pc of females) and to have lost their job more than once (25 pc compared to 10pc of women). 29pc of men believed their partner would think they were ‘less of a man’ if they lost their job.

“When asked about relationships, around three in 10 men felt that they personally lacked qualities and abilities that sexual or romantic partners look for in a man. …

“Men also felt additional pressure to remain strong during times of crisis. Around 42pc of male respondants said they believe a man is ‘mostly responsible’ for being emotionally strong and taking charge in a crisis, compared to around 17pc of women.

“Speaking of the findings, CALM’s chief executive Jane Powell said: ‘The research underlines that so often their own worst enemies, men need new rules for survival. Outmoded, incorrect and misplaced male self-beliefs are proving lethal and the traditional strong, silent response to adversity is increasingly failing to protect men from themselves.”

In the News (The Guardian): “Philip Zimbardo is a superstar mainstay of introductory undergraduate courses in psychology – well, a lot of them. He’s the man behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, which provided insights into the psychological impact of being placed in either a position of power, or powerlessness in a confined prison setting. But in a new book out this last week, Zimbardo’s focus has shifted to – in his view – something much more concerning. Zimbardo thinks that there is a crisis in menfolk going on, and it’s all the fault of video games and porn.

“One of the main concerns that Zimbardo and Coulombe seem to have is that young men are playing video games to excess, and that they are using games as a form of extreme escapism from the worries and responsibilities of real life.”

My Comment: It is possible to detach from the screen only through an enticing of life that the screen cannot provide. When a man discovers that there is an exit to the next level of consciousness and existence, he will detach his attention from the screen, from the games and so on, and enter into contact with people like him to attain an exit to a higher dimension.
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In the News (Gazeta.Ru): “Love and a happy family life is not so necessary for people for mental balance and peace of mind, scientists have found. The Science Division of Gazeta.Ru tells about the latest research of psychologists and sociologists whose works were presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“We all know that people who have a stable relationship and a strong family, have much fewer problems with their psychological state of health than those who lead a lonely life. However, does this rule apply (which, incidentally, is supported by research, and psychologists) to all people? This issue took a group of researchers under the direction of Utica Girma from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

“As a result of the work it became clear that a single life makes some people happier than a family.

“As the authors of the study say, people who are happier without a family, do not necessarily have to be introverts. Most often alone is better for those who seek to avoid conflicts in any of their manifestations: family life and relationship in any way involve a certain number of skirmishes and quarrels. According to psychologists, for those who always seek in any way to move away from conflict, a lonely life – really the best way to maintain mental balance. …

“Those couples who are already parents, the researchers recommend that: in order to avoid quarrels, which often follow directly after the birth of children, to share responsibilities for the care of the baby evenly. The research team led by Daniel Carlson from the State University of Georgia found out how parents should share the burden of child-rearing.

“The authors emphasize that the husband and wife should share the responsibilities of all types: passive (monitoring the baby during its play on the playground), interactive (communication with children), and physical (such as feeding and bathing). If everything is distributed evenly between the parents, their relationship does not fade with time, and their sexual life is still active. …

“The authors emphasize that the husband and wife should share the responsibilities of all types: passive (monitoring the baby during its games on the playground), interactive (communication with children), and physical (such as feeding and bathing). If everything is distributed evenly between the parents, their relationship does not fade with time, and sexual life is still active. …

“It was found that in 69% of the cases the breakup was initiated by women – but this is true only in cases officially registered marriage.

“If it was an ‘unofficial’ relationship break-up, the ‘contribution’ of both partners was approximately the same.
The study’s authors attribute this to the fact that many modern women perceive marriage as a ‘relic of the past,’ which, in their opinion, infringes their rights.”

Answer: The ego is growing and in order to keep a marriage together new, stronger marriage ties are required, if people decide to get married at all. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah the only means for a strong marriage is a sublime goal that the couple share, which is the revelation of the Creator, a perfect eternal existence. This can easily be attained in a good marriage. Any other relationship or agreement will fall apart as we reach the end of correction.
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New Life #372 – The Attributes Of The Integral Woman
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

How can a woman operate ideally in an integral world and bring it to connection? What should she learn and what should she teach her children?

Summary

In ancient times women were connected to one another in the tribe or extended family. Today we are reconnecting once again.

We have to find the natural balance between the man’s place and the woman’s place.

In ancient times the woman’s state after giving birth was much better than it is today, she had support. Today we have to develop the feeling of mutual guarantee in society, so a woman will feel that she is not alone at home. We should have meeting places for mothers and babies, and offer them special courses and activities, etc.

A mother wants her baby to grow and to be very successful; today it means to be properly connected. We have to teach her how to make sure that the child develops as a human being and not just physically.

An integral mother works on a qualitative connection with other mothers and together they raise integral children.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #372 – An Approach to Life: The Attributes Of The Integral Woman,” 5/15/14

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Question: How do we work between a man and woman according to the principle, “living with faith in the Creator”?

Answer: To begin with, the couple must build the right mutual relationships between them. The idea is not to break through to the upper world immediately.

Our world is built according to the upper world. So first and foremost it is necessary to create a mutual connection built on the basis of mutual concessions, which is one of the working principles in a group of Kabbalists.

When I come to a group, I must nullify myself completely in regard to the others; I must become integrated with the friends, give them what they require, serve them, and do everything to connect with them.

Similarly, a married couple must operate mutually, he for her and she for him. Moreover, this must be done within reason without dwelling on the other. Rather, their relationship must be built carefully and sensibly

If we want to create a group that works according to Kabbalistic principles in a family, we must precisely establish the conditions that are written in the first 15 articles by Rabash about constructing a group. It doesn’t matter with whom we are mutually cooperating, with a partner or with the friends in a group. In every case, what is built is a system of mutual connection, of right and left lines, characteristics of reception and characteristics of bestowal, of one person with another.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/6/16

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New Life 712 – The Effect Women Have On Men
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

The matter of creation is a desire to receive, called a woman. A female is the desire to be filled and the man is the one who fills her. In the animal world a female’s desire exists only in order to have offspring and the male’s role is to fulfill her desire. On the human level we have freewill and we have to use it in order to resemble the Creator and reach a level of existence on which all our actions are aimed at the revelation of the upper force that operates us.

If nature, for example, evokes the sexual desire in a person, he has to discern and discover the upper force that operates him; his goal should be to discover the upper force that manages his life, which operates him and which is behind everything.

The Creator is dressed in a person like a hand that operates a puppet and His desire is that a person would be His partner. Freewill is in carrying out the upper plan in the correct way.

A woman is much stronger than a man in her ability to change reality so a woman has to guide the man toward the Creator in order to receive the spiritual filling through him. The Creator is revealed in the home they build by this common desire and the right connection between them. We are initially created as egoists and our goal is to fill the other and to complement one another, which is the creation of the soul.

The Creator is the general force of love that fills our reality, and a man and a woman want to discover Him in the love between them.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 712 – The Effect Women Have On Men,” 4/7/16

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Question: There are two qualities: male and female that connect with each other. Do you add some third upper factor to this?

Answer: This factor is the most important one. Man and woman connect specially for it, in order to merge with it and reach its degree. We exist in this world for this purpose; we perform different corrections and connect with each other.

The third factor is the upper force that is called the Creator or love. The feeling of love is reached through mutual completion, when each feels oneself fully devoted to a partner. If we exist only for the sake of completing the other, then we attain the force of love.

Question: Is this the same force that we are looking for all our life?

Answer: We dream about the force of love, but we are mistaken if we hope to find it between our bodies and not between our souls.

Question: Isn’t it good that the man and woman receive pleasure from meeting with each other?

Answer: Sexual pleasure is one of the basic corporeal pleasures, next in importance after food, without which it is impossible to exist. Once a person secures the necessary existence, he thinks only about sex.

Question: What distinguishes pleasure from the force of real love that includes the third upper factor?

Answer: Pleasure from real love is called heaven. We are so devoted to each other that I only look for ways to complete the other, in order to reveal the force of love between us that is called Creator.

And today we demand love from each other egoistically, which is completely opposite to love. We need to rise above our egoism, and then instead of demanding love from another, we will be showing it, meaning we will love not in reception, but in bestowal.

“Adam – Man” means similar to the upper force, to the Creator, by being in perfection. And he can achieve perfection only through connection with a woman. When they both annul one before the other, each one annulling egoism, then they connect in mutual bestowal.

This can be expressed in all kinds of corporeal actions, but here one intends to give to the other in order to reveal the Creator between them. It is said, “A man and a woman and Shechina between them.” Only in such a form can we reach perfection, and this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.

Question: Normal man dreams to posses all the women he sees around him. And doesn’t the spiritual man want this as well?

Answer: He wants the same, but not in a corporeal form. He wants to take all the female force that exists in the universe and all the male force and complete one with the other.

And so all men and women work only in order to complement each other, and in this mutual completion and connection, in the center of humanity, reveal the spiritual world, the spiritual force, and the upper force of the Creator.

The Creator created us in this form and we return to it. And then we attain love in the point of connection between us and the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/16

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New Life #371 – An Approach to Life: The Feminine In A Connected World, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is there in a married woman that is not in one who is single? Why are more and more women entering the labor market today? When will we reach a stage in which women will be capable of making their peace with men?

Summary

By giving birth, a woman creates life, she is also reborn, acquiring additional emotion and intelligence.

A man can see what is ahead; a woman develops and gives birth to them.

A woman who becomes a mother understands life and the world better than a woman who doesn’t go through this.

In serious fateful decisions, it is worthwhile to rely on women with a family more than on those who are single. Certainly today in the business market there are other examples, but we are talking about a new, balanced life.

Today the world is working against mutual connection; the world of tomorrow will work in the direction of reciprocity.

Who would be a better prime minister, someone with a family or someone who is single? It would be someone with a family. Women are less corruptible than men, for a man sees money and corruption as a game; after all, he is a child….

Perfected development will only be through the right integration of feminine power and masculine power.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #371 – An Approach to Life: The Feminine In A Connected World, Part 2,” 5/15/14

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New Life #370 – An Approach to Life: Femininity In An Integral World, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

How can society raise the importance of women correctly and what is the special role a woman has in an integral world, and how can she fulfill herself in combination with her family life?

Summary

We in are living in a time of great uncertainty. The family is breaking up and the labor market is about to undergo a great change:

Good relations between people are going to become essential and the female force has a great responsibility in this respect.

In this era of communication, even a housewife who is at home with a baby or two can be connected.

The labor market will change because of technology. People will be required to engage in creating interpersonal connections.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #370 – An Approach to Life: Femininity In An Integral World, Part 1,” 5/15/14

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Spiritual Nest

Question: Presently, men and women receive pleasure from the fact that they dominate over one another. How is it possible to enjoy our equality and mutual completion?

Answer: Only completing each other brings us real sexual pleasure. When each of us connects with a partner above their animal sexual feeling, in a corrected spiritual coupling, we turn into a spiritual man and woman who complete each other in order to reveal the upper force, and an eternal, heavenly life between them.

This force of life is revealed between these two to the extent that they are able to make a correction called “A man and a woman and the divinity (Schechina) between them.” In this way we create the upper world between us, and then we exist in it, and it exists in us.

Question: What does a woman have to do in order to feel equal to a man and enable their mutual completion?

Answer: A woman must help a man and a man must help a woman to really feel equal with respect to correction and connection to the upper force. We can never be equal in any other sense.

Only through revelation of the Creator between us, when all desires of a man and woman complete each other, an eternal and complete state is created that is called the “Garden of Eden.”

To do this, one needs to think about the other and help the other to reach a correct spiritual conduct. A man must help a woman in this, and a woman must help a man. And in this, a woman has a much higher mission than a man. After all, she needs to show him that she expects from him exactly this, so that revelation of the highest spiritual level will become more important to him than dominating a woman in any way: spiritually, financially, or sexually.

A woman wants to adhere to a spiritual man. And a man has to receive the proper education so that the revelation of the spiritual state will be the most important goal for him. And because he is unable to reach this goal without a woman, he requires her, her inner strength and support.

He needs a woman that will support him and will be building a spiritual nest together with him, not for an animal coupling, but for a spiritual one. Spiritual merging between man and woman is called coupling where each invests their force of bestowal above the force of love for their unity.

This is not power of one over the other and not an acquisition, but a special completion of each other above their personal egoism and their joint egoism. Joint egoism is the physical coupling where they materially complete each other and become like one body. However this is only a bodily connection.

They want to unite spiritually. When a man and a woman reach such completion, they really come to the perfect life.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/16

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Woman is monogamous by her nature and gets attached to a man with whom she has an intimate relationship. And man is polygamous and usually doesn’t bind himself to a woman with whom he had sex. These qualities came to us from the animal world. Nature arranged it so for caring for the young.

Therefore, only the woman has a special symbol of virginity, which testifies that she never was with a man. And men don’t have this symbol. It is because there is a special value in woman that belongs to one man only.

After all, every man that had a relationship with a woman leaves his genes in her. If a woman had ten men and then she gives birth to a child from the eleventh, then this baby has psychological, physiological, and spiritual data from all previous ten. A memory of an intimate relationship with each man, both material and spiritual, is left in the woman.

We are not talking about simple recollection, but about genes, hormones, internal impressions that are imprinted in her body. And if she gives birth to a child afterward, then all the genes from her previous men will manifest in him.

Therefore, it is so important for a girl to be a virgin and to belong to one man only. If a man wants the child that she gives birth to, to have only his qualities, he needs to look for a virgin.

Question: It often happens that a man uses his position and power to become intimate with a woman that is his subordinate. There is an opinion, that it isn’t just a desire to have sex but a way to assert his authority.

Answer: When a man gets power over others, he wants to own women that are his subordinates. And ownership is established by the sexual relationship. We see it in animals and in humans, and therefore we will witness more such scandals in the police, in the government, and in all other parts of the society.

We need to understand that this is a natural phenomenon that can be partially avoided only through correct organization of the workplaces. But it is impossible to eliminate these cases completely because we inherited this behavior from the animate degree.

A man who has some status in the society begins to consider women working under his management as belonging to him. Therefore, proper education that will build a different system of relations between us is necessary. We are bound to come to such a society where we are all equal despite the fact that we are totally different.

Our goal will be equality and connection within it, when there can’t be small and large, superiors or subordinates.

A healthy man feels that every woman in the world, except his close relatives, potentially belongs to him. The only solution is a state of complete equality. The state “A man and a woman, and the Shechina between them” is possible not when one dominates another but when both are completely equal.

It means that both of them, a man and a woman, have to work against their natural egoism and assist one another to complement each other so that there won’t be any difference between them. And this is just for the sake of revealing the upper force, which becomes the most important thing for them. The revelation of the upper force between them is the cause of all corrections they want to perform on themselves.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/16

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