Comment: Anna writes, “Dear Michael Laitman, I am so inclined to say to my children: ‘Forgive me that I gave birth to you in this terrible world.’ I just cannot tell you how much I am afraid for them.”

There are more and more such letters.

My Response: There is nothing we can do about it. We must believe that we are in the complete control of the Creator and therefore, we must continue our life as much as possible, and as much as we understand it, in some kind of proximity to Him, that is, in the quality of bestowal, in the quality of connection between everybody, and to wish that the world would unite.

I think that we will still try to come to general correction in a good way, although if not, then, of course, the same kind force that is prepared for us in order to bring us closer to each other will be felt by us very harshly.

Comment: But you are talking to an ordinary, down to earth person who wants to live a simple, normal life.

My Response: It does not matter what he wants. What matters is what he has to do.

Question: Will we not be able to just live a simple life anymore?

Answer: No, we will not be able to. We will simply be tormented by upper forces that must bring us closer to each other and teach us how to interact with each other correctly until the Creator is revealed between us as a force of good, the force of love, the force of connection.

Can you imagine how much more we need to mature before that?

Comment: I can imagine. A person does not want to.

My Response: No one wants to suffer. Yet, we should not want suffering, rather we should want to make the world a better place without being forced to it by suffering.

Comment: Especially women who give birth to children who want their children to feel good in the future.

My Response: Naturally. This is the best force in nature. It is they who should make the entire world and all men to think about peace, about good connection, and about correction, precisely for the sake of their children.

Question: So, will we be having children anyway?

Answer: We have to! This process must continue. We will still come to peace in the world. The problem is in which way. We must try to explain to everyone that there is an opportunity to reach common connection, good connection, not in an evil way, not with the help of our nature, which will force us to correct ourselves, but in a good way where we ourselves understand that the process of correction can also happen with our participation.

There are two ways between us to reach the same goal. We will try to reach it in a good way.

Question: What is required of an ordinary person?

Answer: To try to find good connections with other people. And to tell everyone how crucial it is. Otherwise, nature will force us to do this in an evil way.
[295638]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/16/21

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Comment: A problem of this century is the loss of meaning in professional activity whereby employees are disappointed in their work and do not see the point in it. This condition can affect people who are quite wealthy, well-educated, or in leadership positions. But since they are still perceived as successful by others, it is difficult for them to share this and refuse this work. They continue to work like this and burn out.

They don’t see the point in their work. There is a job, there is work, there is money, but I don’t see the point.

My Response: It is natural. This is the growth of mankind, the gradual development.

The egoism of man is not filled. This is the same selfishness that is our basis. At one time he was filled. He enjoyed work, honor, fame, knowledge, money, and the opportunity to somehow implement all this. But today he is not filled.

He is indifferent to the opinions of others; he is indifferent to climbing some stairs, and even to big money. There is, one might say, some kind of fatigue, like with any metal or material. So it is here. There is even a term for it: burnout.

Question: At what point does this happen? I lived normally, I worked normally, I was on fire at work, and suddenly empty and for nothing.

Answer: Egoism switched to the next mode of operation. It is not enough for people that everything is given to them. What was before that caused satisfaction and fulfillment, vanity was filled, etc., but not now. I don’t know what to do, how to live, or what to work for. I do not know! It is completely uninteresting to me.

Something more is needed. What is that “more”? They cannot tell. There is just no satisfaction; there is filling, but no satiation. What to work for? What to live for? No. Everything. Give me a pill and that’s it. People will get there! Why not?

This is deliverance from suffering: “I would like to forget and sleep.”

Question: What should a person do in such a situation? You keep saying that there will be such a universal cry.

Answer: Yes, but this is a cry, the realization of a real desire to understand the meaning of life. So why do I need all this? To such an extent that even children, which are the most important thing for a person, and especially for a woman, will not be happy.

And everything is there, absolutely everything is there, but I cannot even do my work mechanically, something for their sake. Nothing! This is the real despair from the lack of fulfillment of the egoistic Kli.

Question: When will deliverance come?

Answer: Deliverance will come from this state, when there will be a huge howl to all of heaven, and after that humanity will begin to understand why it really exists, not earlier.

Only when there is a real need to understand the meaning of life. Then we will live!
[295184]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/31/22

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Question: Irina writes: “Only now do I understand that the whole history of mankind is going from war to war. Why? Battles for borders, the glorification of war, all progress works for war. Why?”

Answer: Because it is human nature to suppress and feel superior to the other. Without it, life, existence, it has no meaning.

This is the nature of our egoism; the Creator created it this way. From a higher level He created us so that by overcoming egoism we would become similar to that upper degree He wants us to ascend to.

It is by constantly suppressing our own egoism, that we must rise above it, and thus, from what is happening in us throughout the whole transformation of our egoism that we overcome, we will create a spiritual degree in us. Gradually, we will build it and mold it from the negation of egoism and the way we want to turn it over in a different way, to mold it in a different way.

Question: And what can be fashioned from our egoism?

Answer: Love, love, bestowal, self-sacrifice, everything!

Question: Out of this desire for war?

Answer: Precisely from it. We do not have any other material.

Question: Can I fashion the desire to be happy?

Answer: Yes. It is from the most disgusting feces, which is worse than anything, that it must be fashioned, precisely from this. You treat it differently, start presenting it in a different way, and then you will see that it is a noble material.

Question: My egoism?

Answer: But this will no longer be egoism. You will turn it inside out. It will be something sparkling. This will be the garment of the Creator. Can you imagine what opposite understandings, elements of nature we have to deal with here!

Question: So I live with this spark of love, the Creator in me, but I only have war in me now? And if it is turned over, there will already be love?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What kind of work should I do so that I understand and start toward it, toward love?

Answer: Love! Only to develop love in you. Love your neighbor is the main law of nature.

Question: Do we have to go through these sufferings, these horrors, these dead ends?

Answer: Absolutely! We not only have to go through them. We must master them, apply them to ourselves, try them on ourselves, see where it does not suit us and where it suits us, and change ourselves. Sometimes it is to lose weight, sometimes to get fat, sometimes to change ourselves so that these clothes are suitable for us.

Question: And this clothing will be what?

Answer: This is called reflecting light: intention for the sake of others.

Question: So the intention for the sake of others is my clothes? Am I living for others?

Answer: Yes. Egoism remains but in such a way that I want to use it completely for the sake of everyone.
[295551]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22

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Question: Igor asks: “It seems that Armageddon, the war of Gog and Magog, has been going on for a long time, but for some reason we have not seen or felt it. Is that true? Or will everything settle down, pass and be forgotten?”

Answer: Everything will pass, except for one thing, which is the last state we will come to. And it will contain all the previous states that are concentrated, collected, and taken all together. And it will be the basis for the last state.

That is, the last state will consist of two, one called “Kli” and the second called “Ohr“—vessel and light. So the vessel will consist of all the states that each of us and all of us together have gone through in history. This is a terrible amount of suffering, doubts, and misunderstandings, everything altogether.

Question: So everything that we have gone through, all wars and all sufferings come down to this vessel?

Answer: To one state that includes everything. And then this state is corrected by the upper light or the Creator, which is one and the same. And this state becomes equal to the upper light. That is, everything that is realized and comprehended in all the millions, many millions of sufferings that all of humanity has gone through at every moment, all this turns into light. And thus the Creator is attained.

Question: So there was nothing we should regret?

Answer: It never happened!

Question: And all the most terrible suffering?

Answer: It never happened. It’s not something that has been forgotten and now we don’t feel it.

Question: And these are not mistakes that we once made?

Answer: None of this happened at all! It existed only as a preparation for us to feel today’s absolute state.

Question: What do you mean never happened? There were: the Second World War, the Holocaust, the First World War, the Civil War, the blood spilled, it all had happened! Or did it? Or do we then go into a difficult explanation?

Answer: In the impossibility of explanation, perhaps. But I still have to say that this did not happen. We rise to another level of perception of reality, a sense of reality where nothing like that ever happened.

Question: Then what happened?

Answer: There was only preparation for us to feel the only existing state, the state of being filled with absolute universal love. And it in turn is simultaneously felt as absent, negative, and an aspiration to the positive. And the absence of love and hate, everything else, all this is included in love because it is impossible to feel one without the opposite.

Question: So this exalted love is shining on me and I feel it as hatred? I haven’t attained it yet and that’s why I feel it as hatred?

Answer: No. You attain it, but in what you attain, you also comprehend the opposite quality. Otherwise you won’t be able to feel it. We don’t feel one without the other.

Question: So it exists together all the time?

Answer: We are creations, created! The Creator, He feels one state, if I may say so, only love. And we can feel one thing only from its opposite.
[295513]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22

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Comment: Many viewers, quite a number, are asking this question: “How do you talk to children about the war? How do we explain to them what’s going on?” How does one explain why they are bombing and why childhood has ended to those children who are hiding with their parents in bomb shelters and in the subway?” And other children whose childhood continues, those who do not hear sirens and explosions but see what is happening to their peers, ask why this is so.

And the main question is: How do you raise children at a time like this when wars, suffering, and tears are non-stop?

My Response: Children can understand because they also fight with each other. After all, egoism works from a very young age.

So there is nothing here that needs to be hidden from them. Indeed, if we don’t bring up children correctly, then, just like they play in childhood and want to take away from each other and become such bullies, so they continue in adulthood, and that is why we end up with war as a result. Grown men no longer have just shovels or sticks in their hands, now it is something serious. And that is when war begins.

So what should we do? While children are little like yourselves, remember, we tell children, we need to teach you, to bring you up to be able to talk to each other, to come to agree with each other, and to learn to compromise. Then you will not get to such terrible, big problems like these men who start these wars. That is what comes from the fact that in childhood they did not obey their mother.

Question: Do you think that a child will listen to that?

Answer: When he sees this very thing? He is extremely impressed.

Question: When he is under fire? Can he be told just like this?

Answer: Tell him exactly like this. Of course. This is true education. This is the basis of wartime education.

Question: So it’s not to dwell on “enemy,” “hatred,” or “against us”?

Answer: No, they will not understand it; they have no concept of it, no foundation. But when you explain in terms of childhood play and give and take, “when you wanted to take something, but he didn’t give it to you,” you can talk about everything.

Isn’t it how it really works? These games of oil and gas and all sorts of international relations, are they not the same children’s games?

Comment: It has turned into something dangerous.

My Response: Yes, because they didn’t stop it in time or couldn’t explain it in time. So this is how it turned out. Because in childhood they could not explain to understand that it is never necessary to resolve disputes by force. Can you convince the others? If yes, great. If not, compromise.

Question: Should the child understand that disputes are not resolved by force?

Answer: They can’t be resolved by force; otherwise, we will destroy each other. Can you imagine it in the modern world?

Question: How are disputes resolved? What should the child we are raising understand? How do you explain to a child how to resolve disputes?

Answer: Only by persuasion, when you do not force another person to peace, but when you explain to each other how you can come to peace together, with mutual concessions, and not with the approach of “I am right and you are wrong, and now you will understand it.”

Comment: Now you have said a very serious thing, that a child should be able to compromise.

My Response: Of course! This is the most important thing in education. Otherwise what is all the education for? To teach how to hit first? To hit stronger? Or better? It is for the sake of being able to stop and compromise.

Comment: This is the most difficult thing, for children especially.

My Response: Of course. Because they have exposed egoism, small, but revealed.

Question: So you propose to teach concessions, to teach a child so he can yield to others?

Answer: Everything needs to be explained. And then sit in a circle and conduct practical exercises.

Comment: If there is an argument, let’s sort it out? How can we not fight but make peace. This is such a long system…

My Response: Otherwise it will take even longer.

Question: Can this be explained to children who are under fire?

Answer: To everyone! It all depends on the words, vocabulary, and expressions you use. You are explaining this to the ego, which is the same in a small child as it is in a grown-up man, it is the same egoism.

Comment: The main problem here is to train teachers, prepare those who can teach what it means to come to peace, and what annulment means.

My Response: Yes, this is the most important.
[295328]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/3/22

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Poor Earth, all our shadows fall on it ( Stanisław Jerzy Lec).

Question: Why is it poor that our shadows fall on it?

Answer: Well said! This is exactly why it is poor. Our entire egoism and everything we obscure with ourselves, with our disgusting “I,” all of this falls on Earth.

We want to cover the Earth with all our egoism, literally cover it with all our egoistic intentions, desires, and thoughts, in everything.

Question: How should it be? After all, we are egoists.

Answer: We have to make an absolutely transparent body out of ourselves so that the light fully passes through us to the Earth.

We should not leave any traces of our own on the Earth at all! We must live on Earth as animals live on it. They do not pervert or vandalize the Earth, they do not distort it. We should be the same.

Question: Then our shadows will not fall? Will there be no shadow then?

Answer: Yes, this is our problem. Do you understand what we are doing to Earth?!

Question: So we should cast no shadow on Earth?

Answer: No.
[295510]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/10/22

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Question: Olesya asks: “Why does the Creator embroil [animosity] between nations? This is His doing, isn’t it?”

Answer: Undoubtedly, His. The Creator puts us at odds in order to teach us so that we understand what a nasty nature He created in us.

You see, what a trick the Creator played that He made us so low and shows it to us all the time in order for us to hate what He created in us and turn to Him. Look how it’s done! It is to Him that we turn and beg to correct us, to make us the opposite of what He made.

Question: “Make us loving” is what we should turn to Him?

Answer: Yes! That’s what I want.

Question: And only He can do this?

Answer: Only He who made us hate each other can do it.

Question: So everything revolves around Him? Absolutely everything! And I can only love someone else through Him?

Answer: Of course! Provided that you love the Creator, to that extent you will love another. And in no other way.

Question: Was there any other way to perform this scenario from His side? Is it possible to make a creation immediately loving? Immediately happy?

Answer: And what would happen in this case? Then the creation would be at the level of an animal (or plant), and it would perform some functions. But it would not feel what it is doing. It would be a machine.

Question: And here it is needed for me to have my desire, my aspiration?

Answer: Of course. Otherwise there will be nothing. Because if there is no change, growth, and evaluation of oneself and others, it will not be creation, it will not be life.

Comment: It turns out this way: The Creator deliberately created egoism in us, develops it, brings it to the point that we hate each other, enter into wars, clashes, and are ready to destroy each other so that we suddenly stop at some point and are horrified at ourselves.

My Response: We would understand that we are going toward complete destruction and that we are starting to just cut each other and consume each other alive. In actual fact! And then a revelation arises in us: Am I really such a bloodthirsty wild animal?

Why do I have such a thought? Because there is a point of new awareness. It is not just born like that. This point is called the “human” level, which is born in me. And I begin to feel: I’m like a dinosaur tearing everything up and devouring everything, and suddenly I stop. And that’s where the human begins to develop in me.

And I throw away this half-eaten corpse, sit down on a stump in the image of such a dinosaur and start thinking: “What’s going on? What am I doing? Who am I? Who is doing this to me?”, etc.

And then the appeal begins in search of the reason: Who did this to me, whom should I address? And then the search for the Creator begins.

Question: So then it’s already moving to this address —Who did all this to me? Is that the most important thing? Is our main task to reach this straight line? From this point there: Who did this to me and why is this so?

Answer: Certainly.

There were thousands of years and millions, and even billions of years when none of this happened. When it developed just the way matter develops. And when self-awareness arises in matter, then there already, in this matter, a point arises, which we then call a point in the heart. And it begins to look for the root cause—the Creator. It has a feeling of longing: I want to know who my father is. Or not the father, but the Creator. This is the beginning of the history of humanity, and not just wildlife.

Question: So our entire thousand-year history of wars, tragedies, and sufferings only leads to this point?

Answer: Sure. Millions and billions of years and all this means nothing. Everything leads only to this point.

Question: But today it wakes up in a person?

Answer: It wakes up in many. This period is special.

Comment: Yes, you and I happened to live at that time.

My Response: Yes. But we’re not done yet. So, we’ll live for a while.

Question: Do you hope that this period has come now?

Answer: I only know one thing: I don’t want to ask about anything. I want to try to do what I can. That’s all.

Question: And what is the main task you have set for yourself?

Answer: To push as many people as possible as far as possible from the present state to the goal of creation—to the connection of everyone.
[295598]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22

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Question: Arkady asks, “It looks like the end of the world is near. And the worst thing is that everyone around is calmly talking about it. Only recently we wanted to live happily, we were making plans for the future, and we suddenly realize that none of this will happen. What do we do now?”

Answer: Who told you that what you wanted was good? Let’s sort it out.

Comment: People just wanted simple human happiness.

My Response: Get a shot and forget everything. Or even better, take a pill, fall asleep, be at peace.

This is not the purpose of our development. So we shouldn’t try to stay in the “sandbox” where we used to live and play that we were building toy houses from sand.

Question: So you think it was all child’s games?

Answer: Yes. A little egoism was developing. Now we must rise above that egoism. We must start looking forward and in a different way.

To play seriously means to play the Creator, to make  sure that the Creator is between us in all our thoughts and actions. This is called to play for real.

Question: Is it possible to say that before I do something I kind of try to turn to the Creator?

Answer: Yes. And do it in a way that you imagine that you are doing it for His sake, instead of Him, for Him.

For Him means for the sake of others. Nothing affects the Creator and He does not need anything. There is only one possibility: to get strength from Him to act for the sake of people.

Question: Does it turn out that the formula “I want to be happy” changes to “I want people to be happy, I want everyone around me to be happy”?

Answer: But really happy, not the way I want them to be happy, but the way the Creator wants. Because this is the law of the universe. It is absolute and objective.

Question: How does He want people to be happy? What is it for the Creator?

Answer: Move into other people, enter them, and start feeling what is most important to them. Then build it together with them.

Question: What do you think will be the most important thing for people?

Answer: To feel close to each other. In this, a person begins to feel perfection.

Question: Is there peace, happiness, and security there, at this point?

Answer: The end of everything. Not the end in the sense of ending, but simply perfection.

Question: Are all people close to each other, like all people are brothers and sisters?

Answer: Yes, they completely disappear in the form they are in now. They enter the realm of perfection.

Question: So now if I want to use the other for myself, there I want to give myself completely to the other, right?

Answer: Yes. This is the mutual bestowal of ourselves to each other. It is called Hashpaa (bestowal) in Kabbalah. This is the state of perfection, the spiritual state.

Comment: This is a great wisdom we are studying.

My Response: It will be revealed even more! It will be developed even more, and it will expand into feelings.
[295018]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22

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Medium published my new article “The Hunger Games of War”

After a month of war in Ukraine, an unprecedented world food crisis is anticipated. The wheat exports of Russia and Ukraine combined account for nearly 30 percent of global production, while Russia is the main fertilizer exporter in the world. Therefore, the conflict threatens to rapidly unleash a “perfect storm” in global agriculture, affecting food availability and prices. At its root, we need to realize that the impending hunger is not the result of a lack of food but a consequence of an excess of human egoism.

If we consider that around 45 million people in the world are already on the brink of famine, and nearly 283 million people in 81 countries are at high risk for food insecurity (according to estimates of the World Food Program), the forecast for the future is not promising. An energy crunch and skyrocketing increases in natural gas prices, have dealt a severe blow to food production and transportation costs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts a spike of at least 20 percent in food prices in the coming months, on top of the disruptions and cost increases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected that the situation will acutely exacerbate global food security and create social unrest and instability.

If the world had approached the problem of food security correctly, it might not have reached such a crisis as to endanger provisions that could put millions in danger of starvation. We could have approached the situation in a healthy way and assessed what we have, how much is needed, who is lacking, and how to best distribute our resources, as in a family.

The problem is that while the world is increasingly interdependent, at the same time it has become increasingly disconnected. No one really thinks about the welfare of others. In some places, the basic grains for consumption will be even burned in order to keep the prices high, causing people in other places to literally starve to death. So the food crisis we face is not a matter of limited provisions but the lack of mutual concern and responsibility between us.

This is not the first food crisis the world has faced and will not be the last one. The billions of dollars received by international organizations to tackle hunger could have fed the entire world several times over, but the problem is not solved because there is no real interest in finding a solution. Hunger is a profitable business and a way of dominance. Those who make a cash cow out of it will be happy to perpetuate starvation. Others, in a cold-headed analysis, even look at the global population of 8 billion and think that it would be easier and more advantageous overall to deal with half that number of people, as was the case one hundred years ago when fewer natural resources were demanded.

In my view, until we deal with the heart of the problem, which is the egoism in human nature and the war between self-benefit and the common interest, we will find no remedy for our woes. We have run out of options. Only rising above selfish interests for common benefit can spare humanity many more years of needless torment.

The food crisis we face should force us to reassess our priorities about how to deal with global problems. Only when people grasp that everyone in society is dependent on everyone else and that the world is like one body in which a severe illness in any of its organs affects the whole system to the point of collapse, will we begin to change. At that time we will begin to see acts of mutual concern, and support systems that are established by the community, authorities, and everyone responsible for the emergence of a new society of mutual responsibility. Humanity simply has no other choice, no other way to survive.
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Comment: Some scholars profess that we should understand that war is the normal state of humanity at all times. What do you think about this statement?

My Response: We see throughout history that peace cannot exist without war and that there are periods of peace and periods of war.

If this is what happened historically, then we must accept this as given.

Comment: But I do not want to accept this!

My Response: Then you need to find a method in which war does not take place in the form it does now. It will take place within the world. This is what Kabbalah says, that a person should fight with himself a little every day. And then he will have no need or no inclination to fight with others.

Question: With what should I fight in myself?

Answer: Fight with your egoism with which you want to conquer the entire world, tie everyone up, and so on. On the contrary, all this is unnecessary.

Question: Does it mean that it is egoism that bursts out into wars?

Answer: Of course it is our egoism that forces us to fight each other. Here we need to understand that we can slowly balance this egoism, and this should be our daily work.

Question: And then it will not burst out into wars?

Answer: In no way will it burst out because it will not be necessary. I will fight with myself every day, and thus I will not have to fight with someone.

On the contrary, I will need to take everyone as a helper against my egoism.

Comment: This is very practical advice!

My Response: Tell it to those who start wars.

Comment: How can we tell this to all of them? After all, this is really how wars arise, over pride, over egoism, over the statement “I said!”.

My Response: We can clearly see that.
[294595]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/24/22

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