In the News (from psychologytoday.com): “A new study has confirmed that humankind’s capacity for love and friendship sets us apart from all other species. Researchers at University of Virginia have found that humans are hardwired to empathize with those close to them at a neural level.

“People in your social network literally become entwined with your sense of self at a neural level. ‘With familiarity, other people become part of ourselves,’ …

“Humans have evolved to have our self-identity become woven into a neural tapestry with our loved ones. James Coan said, “Our self comes to include the people we feel close to. This likely is because humans need to have friends and allies who they can side with and see as being the same as themselves. And as people spend more time together, they become more similar.” …

“‘The correlation between self and friend was remarkably similar,’ Coan said. “The finding shows the brain’s remarkable capacity to model self to others; that people close to us become a part of ourselves, and that is not just metaphor or poetry, it’s very real. Literally we are under threat when a friend is under threat. But not so when a stranger is under threat.”

“‘It’s essentially a breakdown of self and other; our self comes to include the people we become close to,’ Coan said. ‘If a friend is under threat, it becomes the same as if we ourselves are under threat. We can understand the pain or difficulty they may be going through in the same way we understand our own pain.'”

My Comment: In general, we are parts of a common network, a web of relationships. We have yet to discover its universality. Accordingly, we can understand the extent to which we each shape each others’ lives, which means that a complete connection between us will bring us to a perfect existence. Out of necessity, everyone becomes close and connects as in a network.
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In the News (Scientific American): “More than 400 years ago Renaissance scientist Nicolaus Copernicus reduced us to near nothingness by showing that our planet is not the center of the solar system. With every subsequent scientific revolution, most other privileged positions in the universe humans might have held dear have been further degraded, revealing the cold truth that our species is the smallest of specks on a speck of a planet, cosmologically speaking. A new calculation of exoplanets suggests that Earth is just one out of a likely 700 million trillion terrestrial planets in the entire observable universe. But the average age of these planets—well above Earth’s age—and their typical locations—in galaxies vastly unlike the Milky Way—just might turn the Copernican principle on its head.

“Astronomer Erik Zackrisson from Uppsala University and his colleagues created a cosmic compendium of all the terrestrial exoplanets likely to exist throughout the observable universe, based on the rocky worlds astronomers have found so far. …

“With the estimated errors taken into account, the researchers conclude that Earth stands as a mild violation of the Copernican principle. Our pale blue dot might just be special after all. ‘It’s not too much of a fluke that we could arise in a galaxy like the Milky Way, but nevertheless, it’s just enough to make you think twice about it,’ says Jay Olson from Boise State University, who was not involved in the study. Both he and Zackrisson think the Copernican principle could be saved by some unknown caveat to the findings. ‘Whenever you find something that sticks out…’ Zackrisson says, ‘…that means that either we are the result of a very improbable lottery draw or we don’t understand how the lottery works.’”

My Comment: We exist in a world of natural laws where the Creator is the highest force of nature that combines everything. Besides this force, or more precisely, this thought, everything is just a figment of our imagination.

In general, we do not exist, except in our subjective sensations. So to talk about other planets and about the possibility of conditions for existence on them is meaningless. It is best to grow into the likeness of the Creator, to feel the true state – only the existence of the Creator, because “there is none else beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35).
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In the News (globalscience.ru): “Psychologists say that the society will cease to exist in the near future. Such a conclusion was made by a group of psychologists after a large scale sociological research gave answers to their questions.

“The assumption of psychologists about human differences with society is understandable. For the vast majority of citizens it is enough to communicate on the Internet: on the social media networks, using data transfer programs and other means, which shifts the actual interaction with others to the background.

“’We spend too much time on the Internet,’ said one of the members of the research team. If you do not limit your online time and minimize the communication through the virtual exchange programs, the demographic crisis will come sooner than we think.”

My Comment: The development of egoism is inevitable, and it leads to a lonely existence in which everyone feels comfortable and secure. But at the same time, everyone will experience “death,” seeing how the movement of life fades and depression increases. It seems like a comfortable loneliness and depression contradict each other, but the reason for this is that nature is pushing us toward unity while our ego is opposing it. These two opposing forces will bring us to a decision that we must integrate individuality and connection, which is “love above the ego.”
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Comment: Scientists have discovered that every object, from cars, birds, or people’s faces to the letters of the alphabet seem different to people who know them from those who see them for the first time.

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah differs from other sciences since it immediately shows a person the world on the next level, and so all the current and future studies, which always reveal something new to the ego are not considered new according to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Kabbalah immediately provides us with the basis for the egoistic perception of the world and that which is above the ego, therefore everything that exists on these two levels, and between them, a person who studies Kabbalah begins to perceive absolutely correctly.

There is never an actual face or form, so a person’s perception depends only on the extent to which he is an in absolutely objective state, that is, rising above all his sensations.

After all, everything that we feel we sense in our desires, characteristics, and feelings. If our attributes changed, we would see the trees, the sky, the birds, the earth, people, and everything that surrounds us differently from the way they are depicted to us now. It depends on our internal attributes.

If a person from another planet came here, he would perceive everything in this world in a totally different manner than the way we perceive it in our attributes. It is therefore impossible to say that there are forms in this world, sights, attributes, or laws that are objective and independent. Everything is revealed and exists only in a person’s individual attitude.

Let’s become acquainted with different objects and the world more deeply, meaning what they represent. And then we would cease to see our world and instead would begin to see the upper spiritual world: the forces, the mutual connections, the intrinsic properties, which are now depicted to us as corporeal objects.

And if we penetrate more deeply, we will cease to see corporeal objects since they don’t exist. We will only see the properties rather than the material bodies.

If a person has been married for forty years, for example, he is used to seeing a certain figure instead of his wife, and she also perceives him as an image that is built by his attributes, by their mutual relations, etc. People get used to each other and don’t pay attention to certain attributes that each one has.

This can somehow be compared to what would happen to us if we began to acquire the attribute of the upper world. We would simply see it instead of our world. It is just as a wife sees her husband in a totally different manner than a stranger would see him, since for her he is a more internal image than the external image.

This is also how we would see the internal image of our world that is called the upper world. We would see forces and attributes, not the external wrappings that our five corporeal senses depict for us.

Everyone can do that. We only have to learn about the upper world, and then the internal attributes that match its attributes will appear in us. We will begin to feel it just as it really is and our world in the form of objects will disappear.

Question: If I see a table, a wall, you, etc., on the dimension of this world, will I see forces when I rise above this dimension?

Answer: Yes, forces that depict in you such objects that don’t really exist.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/10/16

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Comment: The leader of the left wing Isaac Hertzog said that the actions of the extremist on the right and the left will lead to the establishment of a new state in Israel called “Israstine,” and that we need to unite.

Answer: What does this unity come down to? After all, a politician doesn’t think about anything but reaching a higher position. This is the reason he is a politician.

I believe that political bickering has always been the death of Israel because we are a nation based on the unity between different peoples. Abraham formed a group that was later called Israel from peoples who lived in ancient Babylon who were very different from each other, and so what forms the Jewish nation is actually the unity between its people.

The Jews have no nationality and whoever joins the idea of unity, the right mutual integration between people, is called a Jew. The word “Jew – Yechudi”  stems from the Hebrew word “unity – Yichud.” Therefore, “love thy friend as thyself” is the main natural law and the basis for the existence of our nation.

But we have forgotten all that and have not been living according to that for ages. We are not the same Jews who lived in ancient times anymore. We don’t have the same ideology, the same basis, or the same constitution. Nevertheless nature still treats us according to the same principle, which means that we have to exist above all the differences, in unity, since otherwise we will not be a nation.

This is how the First Temple was destroyed. Then we united a bit and built the Second Temple, and then we began to fight one another once more and because of this the Second Temple was destroyed.

This means that the most important thing for our nation is our unity, despite all the problems that come up between us, as it says “love will cover all our transgressions.”

We should understand that we have to live on two levels. On the lower level we can feel repulsion to such an extent that we will not speak to one another, as often happens among Jews. There is a Joke about a Jew who builds two synagogues, one that he goes to and one that he says he will never set a foot in. He builds the second synagogue on purpose so that he will not set a foot there. This expresses the Jews’ attitude toward one another.

Today we simply have to restore the two levels, establish an attitude of love above all our transgressions, and live on these two levels. On one hand, we don’t accept one another according to the earthly ego on the animate level. As a human being I don’t accept and hate you, and others too, but nonetheless, I cover that with love in my connection with others, without destroying the ego. It is actually as a result of living in this dual attitude of the two levels that I don’t love you, but in spite of myself and my attitude to you, I love you.

It is a very complex system of mutual relations, but only in the connection between these two dimensions is the Creator revealed, and the system of the upper Leadership that descends to us from Above. When we focus on this system of mutual relations, the upper world is revealed to us, so this is what we should do.

No one understands that, not those on the left wing, the right wing, or in the center, so we will not succeed unless we implement the rule of our mutual relations.

I know I am an egoist, but we have to build a bridge between us above the abyss that separates us. The abyss remains, but we constantly keep our intentions as we sustain and build the bridge between us more and more.

It is actually above this abyss, in the connection between us, that the upper force that will enable us to feel the true world, true existence, eternity, and wholeness is revealed. We will reveal the meaning of the creation of this world. And then we will see and discover what the Garden of Eden is and enter it. This is the way to happiness.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/6/16

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Question: Scientists have found the “Achilles’ heel” of cancer. They have discovered how to fight the disease with the help of the immune system that identifies and annihilates the cancerous tumor.

Answer: Cancer is a cellular system gone out of control. In principle, all of our cells can become cancerous. Functioning correctly and in balance, each cell both absorbs and gives. It absorbs everything required for its own functioning, but it functions only to strengthen and support the entire system of the body.

The main role of the cell is to work for the benefit of the others, and it only receives for itself that which it needs in its existence for the sake of others.  That is how all of the systems in nature operate, except for humans, and our minds.

So as soon as we begin to think only about ourselves, our system starts slowly being “impressed” by our thoughts and desires, and so the same program is excited at the cellular level then the system begins to devour everything for themselves without giving the others anything. This is the principle of the formation of a cancerous tumor.

We swallow everything for ourselves, and that is how humanity becomes a cancerous tumor on the body of the Earth. Our planet is wonderful, but we see what is happening on the levels of the still, vegetative and animate. Everything preys on everything else, and it all is derived from the human level.

Even in the Torah, it is said that, from the moment that Adam sinned, everyone began to devour each other, and before then everything existed in harmony. Since the sin of Adam, the cancerous tumor began to spread, and ultimately we have reached a state in which humanity is devouring itself.

Question: Based upon this explanation, is it possible to find a cure for cancer?

Answer: Certainly, but not on the level in which we exist. Every problem is solved on a level higher than the level in which the problem itself is found. From there a signal comes down that instructs the lower level. Therefore, it is up to us to solve the problem of our relationships with one another.

Once the relationships between people become mutual, beneficial, and humane and we are connected into one beneficial system, then all of the systems found on a lower level, and our heart and intellect, will return to normal, and everything that exists on Earth will calm down. As it is written, “And a wolf shall live with a lamb, and a leopard shall lie with a kid; and a calf and a lion cub and a fatling [shall lie] together, and a small child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6), and everything will exist in harmony.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/9/16

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Question: For the first time in a decade, the number of rich people in the world is declining. The number of people with capital of $30 million or more has declined in one year by 5,500. Do you believe that this trend will grow?

Answer: Of course. It doesn’t mean that humanity will become poorer but that the number of rich people will decrease and their wealth will increase. If I am a rich man and I own ships, railroads, banks, factories, and so forth, would I be interested that others be on the same level? No, on the contrary, I want them to be the most ordinary people who eat what they have earned today and who have nothing tomorrow so that they will depend on me.

Question: Is this what a rich person wants with regard to another rich person?

Answer: Of course. Therefore, it is natural that the number of rich people in the world will decrease, but each one’s wealth will be greater. Thus, 99.9999 percent of the planet’s population will be poor, since all will be concentrated in the hands of one or two thousand people.

Question: Is this natural from a Kabbalistic perspective?

Answer: Yes, it is so natural that there will be only one rich person left, and all of the others will be absolutely poor. This is called the natural evolution of the ego. The question is, what will happen then, and at what point will the rebellion below start? But I think there will not be revolutions or wars since humanity already has been through this phase.

People are nearing the phase of maturation and ripeness. Their grapes of wrath regarding the Creator, the nature, the fate of everything, have ripened, and that is a good thing because people are beginning to realize that it is actually man who must change and that we will not be able to do anything any other way. We don’t need to change nature, society or anything. Everything depends on individuals and on the way that they are connected to each other. Only the connection between them can change society.

People are beginning to realize that they need a qualitative change, and they will look for it until they find our method. I believe that this phase is coming soon because all of the other options already have been exhausted. No one has any reasonable solution, not philosophers, politicians, political scientists, economists, or others. This is the reason that we Kabbalists should come forth and loudly proclaim that we have the solution, that by a special method of education that we have, we actually can make people feel and understand after a few lessons and special meetings that there is a special force here that can change our entire society.

There is everything in the world, and the problem is only in distributing the resources. The distribution can be right only according to the right connection between people which we must organize. The right and good connection should be a connection in which everyone is simply equal, and then everyone will feel good.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/3/16

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Question: A worker in a government office in Cyprus Marios Droushiotis wrote a letter to the president of the country expressing his dissatisfaction with his high salary for his actual lack of activity. He wrote, “I sit. I don’t do anything and get 5,000 Euros. The state would have saved more money by simply telling me to stay home and paying me that way. At least, I wouldn’t be running up costs like heating, lights, and water by being at the office!”

Answer: As far as it seems, he wants to be the Prime Minister.

Question: Does that mean you don’t believe that he has a conscience?

Answer: It reminds me of how a person can steal and blush. There are covert motives here. If this were derived from a cry of conscience, he would have turned quietly and nicely and written a memo, “Reduce my salary by half.” The idea is that, ultimately, we don’t understand egoistic development. The ego doesn’t develop quantitatively by just growing. Rather, it also becomes greater qualitatively. It evolves in a direction of enhancement, acquiring newer, subtler, and more sophisticated forms. So, it can no longer be satisfied with money. People no longer aspire to honor, glory, and power. All of this has ceased to fulfill them.

Question: Where will this lead?

Answer: It will lead to people not wanting such a large choice of food and sex. They will not want to raise a family and have children. This desire simply will disappear, and people will have nothing to do with the idea. After that comes depression, the use of antidepressants, drug abuse, and suicide. The question is, what will be fulfilling?

Question: If the previous spectrum of egoistic values disappears, what will be the result?

Answer: All of us will reach one, big, universal outcry, like a wolf howling at the moon. That is how people also will go out and begin to howl upward, crying out toward the Creator, “What did you create us for, in the name of what, and why?! What do you want from us?” There will be a great howl like this all over the Earth toward the source of our existence, even unconsciously. It will lead us to decide that we must find the meaning of life. Nature couldn’t have been created with such perfection where there is no beginning or end, and there be no purpose to it. We just don’t see it.

What we are seeing today indicates that if a desire appears in us, it means that the source of its fulfillment, which is hidden from us, is illuminating us and stimulating this desire in us. This is to say, we can attain this fulfillment. Nature doesn’t just create something. A state of dissatisfaction appears, which is basically egoistic, and it directs us to search for the higher power, the higher source.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/4/16

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In the News (polosa.co.il): “Last week, the concept of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by dividing the land of Israel into two independent national states ended. In other words, last week, the idea of creating a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria died. The death of this concept was announced almost casually, as something self-evident. It was announced not by Netanyahu, Abbas, and not even Barack Obama. It was announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin.

“After the meeting, Merkel said ‘now is not the time to move towards the creation of a Palestinian state.’ Do you understand? Now is not the time. For nearly five decades, Europe has called, insisted, and demanded only one thing ‑ Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and the establishment of a Palestinian state there. And suddenly – it does not.” …

My Comment: Merkel already understood her mistake back when the EU was established, but it is impossible to change the European attitude and make them realize that this idea will not work without first changing their psychology and without re-educating them first in the spirit of unity, connection, and even of brotherhood and love.

To create an alliance, or least a cohabitation of neighboring nations, all of the parties involved have to agree without any external pressure. It is only after being educated for some time that the two new states can be built cooperatively.

Kabbalah can help here. By the way, we must re-educate the Jews in the spirit of unity, no less and even more than the Arabs! This doesn’t stem from the policy of the EU, but from the purpose of creation and the Creator’s desire for the two nations
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Comment: Scientists claim that the greatest egoists are altruists, and it has been proven on a neurological level and on the economic level. There is even a term “altruistic punishment,” which is when we punish those who harm society, those who don’t make people happy, those who harm our freedom, and we enjoy doing that and as a result our ego grows even more.

Answer: Of course we can buy a person if we give him presents, serve him and show him love. He will thus receive continuous pleasure from us, will enjoy, will get used to the pleasures, and we will bring him closer to us. On the whole, this is a female’s work: when a woman supports and cares for her man, he feels that she is the motherly figure and needs her.

I don’t see anything wrong with that. That’s the way we egoists communicate. If I didn’t need someone, I wouldn’t even notice that he is standing by me. I always notice only what I need and what I can benefit from or the other way around, what disturbs or threatens me. This means that we notice everything that affects our desire whether negatively or positively.

The biggest ego is indeed the altruistic ego. It is a very sophisticated and developed ego. When I realize that behind every simple good action, like helping a small animal or taking care of a baby, I gradually tame it or I deceive it by filling its desire so that it will not be able to go on without my filling. I thus invoke a certain reaction in it and it feels that it owes me.

Question: If we only see the ego behind every action from now on, where will it lead us?

Answer: Nowhere. It is an advanced phase of the ego by which we understand how to work with other people who are also egoists and that if you treat them altruistically, you will buy them and will not have to manage them by force, but simply treat them nicely.

It is the same egoistic benefit but on a higher level, and as scientists realize today, this is how all the people will feel: that it is merely the same egoism. It is similar to the relationship between a mother and a child: The mother loves her children in a normal human way and gives them everything, and as a result, she needs them and they need her.

Comment: But people are sure that motherly love is true altruistic love.

Answer: We have to look at life a bit more seriously. I greet, respect and also love my mother who is still alive.

I know how I treat her, how I should treat her, and how she treats me, but we should understand that it is nature that invokes this feeling in us and not the person who educates himself to be like that. This is the difference.

We must understand that man operates according to the law of nature that spurs him this way, and this is the reason that he chases food, sex, a family, and love of parents.

It is different if he does that against his ego, if he educates himself to establish totally new relations with everything that is external to him, around him, the still nature, the plants, the animals, and human beings. Then every change he undergoes of his own will, as a result of education against his initial instinctive egoistic nature, a change that is the result of force and effort will be considered an achievement and therefore something of which he can be proud.

Egoistic Reshimot develop inside us, which are data records that are dictated to us, and we have to ascend above ourselves in order to attain a higher egoistic state. How else can I understand the next state if it isn’t depicted in me egoistically? This is how I feel it, “I want!” I want not only this world; I also want the upper world, the future that is above death and above everything. I want to see everything, to control everything, to understand and to feel everything.

Then I am ready to hear what the wisdom of Kabbalah says and how it helps me from now on. This help is given to me so that I will be able to act against my nature and then I invert myself internally and begin to think differently, not with the intention of in order to receive, but with the intention to bestow, not caring about myself, but by caring about others.

In this state I feel peace, a filling, and I don’t yearn for it anymore. It is totally different from the love of a mother to her child. She feels an instinctive love by which she fills herself, but here I fill others and not my own child to whom I feel a common personal human feeling, but total strangers who may be opposite from me and by whom I am repulsed. This is how we will reach the fulfillment of Kabbalistic consciousness. Although it is a great effort, we will succeed.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/4/16

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