Entries in the 'News' Category

A Thought Is A Material Object

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from the Ohio State University): “Bothered by Negative, Unwanted Thoughts? Just Throw Them Away.

“If you want to get rid of unwanted, negative thoughts, try just ripping them up and tossing them in the trash.

“In a new study, researchers found that when people wrote down their thoughts on a piece of paper and then threw the paper away, they mentally discarded the thoughts as well. On the other hand, people were more likely to use their thoughts when making judgments if they first wrote them down on a piece of paper and tucked the paper in a pocket to protect it.

“’However you tag your thoughts – as trash or as worthy of protection – seems to make a difference in how you use those thoughts,’ said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University. …

“’At some level, it can sound silly. But we found that it really works – by physically throwing away or protecting your thoughts, you influence how you end up using those thoughts. Merely imagining engaging in these actions has no effect.’

“The findings suggest that people can treat their thoughts as material, concrete objects, Petty said. That is evident in the language we use.

“But how important is the physical action of throwing these thoughts away or keeping them in your pocket? To find out, the researchers conducted a third experiment using computers. In this case, 78 Spanish college students wrote their thoughts in a computer word-processing document. Some later used a mouse to drag the file into the computer recycle bin, while others moved the file to a storage disk.

“Just as in the previous studies, participants made less use of negative thoughts that they had trashed — by dragging them to the recycle bin — than did those who saved the thoughts by transferring them to a disk.”

My Comment: The thought is not only material, it is also much stronger than any corporeal action, and in addition, it remains forever in the network of spiritual connections between us.
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“2012 Debt Tipping Point Results”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Darryl R. Schoon): “The bankers’ bet that sufficient credit can reverse an economic contraction is no longer on the table. This does not mean central bank credit will tighten. Just the opposite will happen. Monetary easing will continue until the very end. Central bankers are trapped. The end game is now underway. …

“The world has entered a paradigm shift of immense proportions; and the collapse of the bankers’ economic world is a part of that shift. The bankers’ credit fueled a 300-year global expansion which transformed the world. The bankers’ credit, however, has now become debt which increasingly cannot be repaid. …

“Prior to capitalism, the underlying economic dynamic was supply and demand. … After gold was removed from the global monetary system in 1971 and after initial inflationary concerns were addressed in 1980, embedded constraints on monetary and credit growth no longer existed. The attendant rise in debt is noteworthy—as will be the consequences.

“What central bankers did not anticipate from the explosive growth of credit was the resultant levels of massive debt. Fixated on growth, central bankers miscalculated the inevitable effects of the unrestrained increase in monetary and credit aggregates on their heretofore successful ponzi-scheme of credit and debt. …

“There are only two possibilities left in the bankers’ end game. Either deflation’s growing momentum will pull today’s faltering economies into the ever-growing maw of a deflationary collapse or the continued printing of money to stave off such a collapse will end with the complete debasement of paper currencies in a hyperinflationary blowoff. …

“We are in uncharted territory; and, unlike most, I view the collapse of the current economic paradigm as a necessary and ultimately beneficial rite of passage, a prerequisite for the better and more highly evolved paradigm that will follow. …The end game draws near.”

My Comment: The simple linear egoistic world of the past is over! The world has become round, interconnected. It has a right to exist only with deepening mutual guarantee, striving for connection and the development of love, in spite and above everyone’s egoism, according to the principle: “Love will cover all transgressions.”

We are trapped, and Kabbalah offers the only way out, with “little loss.” All the other attempts to save the current paradigm, the attitude to the world, social and economic relations will lead to the same result of everyone merging into a community of equal and loving people, but through a world war.
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Accepting The Need For Change

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Anatoly Wasserman, political consultant): “We are experiencing a crisis, connected with deep conditions. The deeper conditions are, the deeper the crisis is. Now, the causes are not only not resolved, but the real reasons that led to the crisis are not really understood.

“This means that we cannot get rid of these causes, and they will continue in the future, as long as we do not understand them. And in order to understand, it is necessary, among other things, to drop the economic theory, which for political reasons was proclaimed the only true and acceptable one. As long as we are told to consider this theory exclusively true, we will not get out of the crisis.”

My Comment: Insight comes gradually. All that was said to politicians, sociologists, and in general to everyone in all our materials is starting to become clear to them from their failures, losses, crashes, and coming disasters, until a world war.

When the realization and acceptance of the need to change society, through the method of new integral upbringing, to match to the new laws of nature and society, the law of integral interaction (mutual guarantee), depends on in which way we reach the next stage of development: a long path of suffering and war or a short kind, peaceful path.
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European Revolution Is Not Far Away

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Utro.ru): “The EU responds to record-high unemployment, budget deficit and public debt with a record number of summits and minister meetings (several times a month).

“However, the results of these activities are woefully modest: neither budget nor bank union has been created; the Union budgets (for the current and next year, as well as long-term) were not accepted, etc. … The summit on the EU’s 2014-2020 budget that began in Brussels was interrupted after a couple of hours. While all this debate is going on, time passes.”

My Comment: The fall continues and the end is not in sight. The only question is when will the EU officials begin to be afraid of losing their seats and savings so that they will be forced to listen to the need for social change? As long as they have an opportunity to quietly settle in any part of the world, they will continue this game …
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Crisis For The Sake Of The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Steen Jakobsen): “Steen Jakobsen, Chief Economist of Saxo Bank the online trading and investment specialist, stated that the human mind does not accept changes easily.

“We are programmed to seek safety, stay inside the box and avoiding confrontations – basically to avoid any changes of habit in our thinking and actions. This is particularly the case on a political and societal level, not just for the individual. It’s this mentality that keeps us from engaging in a bold new course of action, even when things have clearly gone wrong. …

“Any government will always start by denying there is a crisis – the denial – they will claim it’s temporary, it’s due to external factors. … A year to two later there is some stabilization, but it’s still a crisis because the underlying dynamics have not been altered by any real structural changes. … But eventually, the pain of not changing our ways becomes so great that we have no choice but to strike out in a new direction. . …

“At least half of the effort in getting out of a crisis is a change of mind – what a behavioural economist might call overcoming the sunken cost of past ways of thinking. Once a majority of us get over the mental hurdle of admitting that real change is necessary, then the exercise of ending the crisis becomes relatively easy – and even invigorating.”

My Comment: A crisis takes place in the mind. If humanity does not have enough willpower to accept the inadequacy of its nature for survival and to change itself, to make the agenda to implement integral education and training everywhere in order to achieve positive change—Nature, as usual, will make these changes on—and the extinction of suffering. Most important in resolving the crisis is the desire for change!
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Interconnection That Affects Happiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from DailyMail): “New research has shown how positive social relationships in childhood and adolescence are key to adult well-being, while academic achievement has little effect.

“Scientists do not know much about how aspects of childhood and adolescent development – such as academic and social-emotional function – affect adult well-being.

“They define well-being as a mixture of sense of coherence, positive coping strategies, social engagement and self-perceived strengths. …

“Results showed there is a strong pathway from child and teen social connectedness to adult well-being – showing the significance of positive social relationships over the lifespan to adulthood.”

My Comment: Happiness is in connection with the environment, in harmony with the world. Who needs research! The world must change, or rather we change it, and we will become happy, we and not those who dictate us today from what we have to be happy…
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“An Outrageous Prediction” By Saxo Bank

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Steen Jakobsen, Chief Economist & CIO, Saxo Bank): “Policy makers are finally realising that social tension can overtake much needed reforms and financing needs by virtue of rallying the voters. Note that the groups of people demonstrating across Europe are no longer just unions or public employees. This is now a national issue for many countries. One generation of youth has already been lost, with all the negative consequences expected for productivity, innovation and pure outlook on life. …

“IF – the policy makers ignore this call for ‘change’, then the voters will be radicalised, moving to the extreme left and right politically. We are considering having an Outrageous Prediction for 2013 that include a serious move back to Communism in Eastern Europe and towards more autocratic states in Southern Europe. …

“In times of crisis people go to extremes – and this is now a full blown crisis, as we have a banking, economic, political and social crisis in place. It can’t get much worse actually, which is probably a good thing. … Is it time for change now? I doubt it, but this is a step in the right direction, and it proves, once again, that to create a mandate for change you need to see a serious crisis.”

My Comment: If Europe does not understand its only remedy—integral education—it will split not only into states, but even into smaller formations to match the ego.
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“Nobel Peace Laureates Call for ‘Military Embargo Against Israel’”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Israel National News): “A group of Nobel peace-prize winners, prominent artists and activists issued a call for a ‘comprehensive military embargo against Israel’ following the recent hostilities in Gaza. …

“The 52 signatories include the Nobel peace laureates Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Perez Esquivel; film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach; author Alice Walker; notorious anti-Israel academic Noam Chomsky; Roger Waters of Pink Floyd; and Stephane Hessel, a former French diplomat and Holocaust survivor who was co-author of the universal declaration of human rights.”

My Comment: This statement looks like a mockery of all the attempts of the Israeli army not to harm the people of Gaza, even risking the lives of Israeli people. The truth is restated once again—the Jews are expected to correct the world rather than to become similar to other nations. The claims of the nations of the world that the Jews are the cause of all the world’s ills is fair because only they can correct the world.

With the worsening of the global crisis, the nations of the world will increasingly put pressure on us and force us to carry out our business, the duty to the world and the Creator—to give an example for the world to unite in “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” We will have to realize this biblical instruction on ourselves, by consciously becoming aware of it or under strong pressure and suffering. The choice is ours.
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The Food Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (George Monbiot): “Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch. You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by three-quarters over the past year, that of wheat by 130%. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. …

“There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, will feed people.

“I am sorely tempted to write another column about biofuels. From this morning all sellers of transport fuel in the United Kingdom will be obliged to mix it with ethanol or biodiesel made from crops. The World Bank points out that ‘the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol … could feed one person for a year.’

“While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals – which could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.”

My Comment: But if we could establish equal reasonable allocation of the necessary food, no one in the world would have felt hunger or lack; Earth can feed billions more people with coordinated organization of people, but more people will suffer from hunger in the uncorrected state of society in order to come to its correction.
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Consumers Don’t Believe In Getting Rid Of The Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Nielsen): “Global consumer confidence increased one index point to 92 in Q3 2012, and is up four index points from the same period the previous year (Q3 2011), according to global consumer confidence findings from Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy. …

“Seven in 10 global online respondents (69%) changed their spending habits to save on household expenses, an increase of two percentage points from last quarter and three percentage points from a year ago. Half of global respondents (52%) said they spent less on new clothes and cut back on out-of-home entertainment expenses (48%). Other actions taken by global respondents include saving on gas and electricity (47%), switching to cheaper grocery brands (39%) and cutting down on telephone expenses (33%).”

My Comment: Forced savings will not save us, but it will help us in the transition to a new economy of reasonable (necessary) needs, and the rest of our resources and energy should be directed at the development of a homogeneous integral society.
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