Entries in the 'News' Category

A New Civilization

294.2In the News (Forbes): Years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about clay pots, tools for hunting, grinding-stones, or religious artifacts.

But no. Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000 years old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. This particular bone had been broken and had healed. …

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.

My Response: This is mutual assistance.

Question: Mutual assistance, is this how civilization began? If we do not come to the point where civilization began, if we do not develop it today, does it turn out that we are moving backward from civilization?

Answer: Certainly. If we develop something, it is only in order to earn money. Today, if there were no desire, no thirst for money, would medicine and surgery develop? Nothing would have developed. We would live in a primitive society. You broke a leg? Well, so you broke it.

Comment: A small group of caring people managed to break through, to create a new civilization. Someone was nearby and put two sticks on his leg, for example. Is the breakthrough happening in a small group?

My Response: Of course. This is true, and it should be this way.

Question: And even during the Renaissance it was the same?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And today, how will there be a breakthrough from indifference to connection? Will it be made by a small group of people?

Answer: It goes through the awareness of necessity anyway. If this happens then we will break through.

Question: Is there such a necessity today?

Answer: As far as I see it, the modern world is doing everything to eliminate this need for mutual assistance for survival.

Comment: You have been pessimistic about humanity lately.

My Response: I’m a realist. Egoism is growing exponentially, surprisingly fast, literally vertically upward, and we have nothing to oppose to it.

Question: But still it is flying to some kind of dead end?

Answer: No. It does not feel this impasse, and it is ready to fight with everyone who is against it.

Question: Where will a new, real civilization begin? At what point will it arise?

Answer: If not with an atomic war—general, serious and total—then there may be some huge volcanic eruptions where nature simply closes us together inside some kind of box. Then maybe we will sit in the dark and realize.

Question: So complete darkness is needed for this?

Answer: Yes. We must understand that there is nowhere else to go otherwise in order to create a certain contract between us, that we will relate to each other only for the benefit of the other, without taking ourselves into account. Such a revolution.

Question: This is a complete revolution of thinking. And then the darkness will vanish?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/30/21

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Does The Future Belong To Female Leaders?

204

Comment: According to Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Bangladesh are among the most pandemic resilient countries. All of these countries have in common the fact that their prime ministers are female.

Some suggest that female leaders have qualities that give them advantages, especially in crisis situations, such as knowing how to listen, mediation skills, genuine pragmatism, resistance to conflicts, as well as knowing how to be economical. It is also suggested that women leaders work better in crisis situations than their male counterparts, and in this crisis, they prioritized healthcare over economics. Lately you have been talking more and more about the fact that a woman can drive the progress of humanity.

My Response: Yes, she can drive progress.

God is also masculine; He is afraid of women, like all men. 🙂

Question: “It is better not to mess with them.” Is this what He says?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do women really have such special qualities?

Answer: They are capable. They are in conflict all their lives with people around them, with other women, with children, with husbands. They have to handle everything—the household, work…

A man leaves everything to a woman and goes somewhere into politics, to some job that nobody needs. These jobs are falling into decay and crises. For a woman, however, everything remains the way it was—work, home, children—besides these, she bears children, gives birth, and feeds.

Therefore a woman is really capable of giving birth to a new world. This is not a man’s job.

Question: So can we say the future belongs to women? If we understand this, will we advance?

Answer: Yes. It is written in the Torah that God said to Abraham, “Listen to what Sarah tells you.”

It is because He created everything in this way. Listen to the corrected egoism.

Comment: This already is a Kabbalistic concept.

My Response: This is very serious. Listen not to yourself, but to corrected egoism. In principle, at our everyday level a woman is much more practical, much more sober, and much more balanced than men.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/20/21

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Does A Child Have To Be Strong?

547.05Question: The parents of fifteen-year-old teenager Ethan Crumbley were arrested in the United States. He shot four people at his school.

A teacher saw the boy viewing images of bullets. The boy explained that his family engaged in shooting sports. The school attempted to immediately informed his mother about it, but only was successful to get a corroborating response from the mother a day later.

The following day, the day of the shooting, a teacher saw the boy’s drawings that depicted a semi-automatic weapon, a person who was shot, a laughing emoji, and the words “Blood everywhere,” and, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” The school called the parents in for a conference and requested the parents to take the boy home. The parents refused and left their son at school.  They also failed to disclose that the boy had a weapon that the father had purchased for his son.

On the same day the 15-year-old shot and killed four students and wounded 7 others in his shooting rampage in a high school in Detroit, Michigan suburb. He killed four students, and seven others were injured.

What kind of parents are these?!

Answer: They themselves are a product of our society, of our state. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know how to react to it. They are in some kind of confusion. And it’s not just them.

Question: But if they buy military weapons for a child or teach him to kill in some way, what is the parents’ idea? What is their philosophy?

Answer: The idea is that, in the end, he would be able to protect himself in this terrible world.

Comment: Which means in advance they are saying: “Son, the world is terrible, and you have to be strong.”

My Response: Yes. That’s what he feels.

Question: Where will we arrive with such a philosophy?

Answer: We will destroy each other.

Question: But we ourselves will die, right?

Answer: Well, then we’ll die.

Comment: In principle, we give birth to a child and at the same time we say: “In order to survive, you have to be strong, stronger than everyone else.”

My Response: Yes, that’s how the world works. Look at everyone from state leaders to everyone you see on the street.

Question: But what about this idea that we constantly uttered that we always wanted our children to be happy?

Answer: We don’t know what happiness means. Maybe happiness is, as they say in a song, “a warm gun.”

Comment: The concept of happiness is all mixed up. The understanding of happiness has ceased to be somehow warm, close, or dear.

My Response: No, no, it needs to be taught for a long time and really from a young age. It’s not easy. Today the world is not like that anymore. Today if you talk about such values, they will laugh at you and no one will be friends with such a child.

Question: So the child should be strong? The strongest in the class?

Answer: He should be feared. The cult of power, in principle, is the cult of our time. Be the first.

Look at what is being done between countries and states, in all kinds of enterprises, and between everyone. The most important thing is to be strong, to be physically strong like a bodybuilder, strong in money, strong in some game, in something. In general you have to be strong. And such a state leads to despair; it’s easier to just buy a weapon and employ lynch “law”.

Question: The fact that the boy has such hopelessness as evidenced by what he wrote on the day of the execution: “Help me! The world is terrible!”—is this a consequence of this parental affection, this parental love?

Answer: Maybe. Because he sees what a difference there is in relation to him from the outside world and from his parents. His parents are ready to do anything to give him everything. Even buy a gun.

Question: So are we the first to break the world with our love, as you say?

Answer: It’s due to incorrect parental love, which is realized in this way.

Question: How do the parents direct their love in today’s world so that a different child grows up, so that everything works out differently?

Answer: It all needs to be changed. We need to change at the root, at the core. And if the basis of our world is egoistic and we don’t think about it, then we simply can’t think of anything else except to stock up on weapons and each one to fence ourselves off, batten down, and live like this.

Question: And shoot back?

Answer: Yes. There’s no getting away from this. “My house is my fortress.” And this is the way to think and act.

Question: But how should we raise children?

Answer: That’s the way to educate: that he needs to constantly think and worry about his own safety. And such thoughts about his own safety, which the surrounding world imposes on him, lead to the fact that he draws the appropriate conclusions: I need a gun and I must, after all, destroy my haters.

Question: Then the question is: how will we change this world? What should we do to change this world?

Answer: You can’t ban guns; that’s understandable. You can’t ban hatred between people. The only thing you can do is teach them how to use love and hate correctly.

Question: How do you do that? How do you use them correctly?

Answer: This is already a whole science, and it needs to be learned at school.

And all these activities in class, in all kinds of subjects they study at school, geography, history, and so on, are secondary. The most important thing to teach a person is to interact correctly with others and with their environment—with the still, vegetative, animate, and people. This is the most important thing. And we don’t teach them that.

They came out of their mother, were born, and somehow in the first years we teach them how to interact with this world. And then, when we have to teach them the sciences of how to interact with this world correctly, we stuff them with all sorts of empty material.

But we do not teach how to treat other people, how to create the right society with them, how to make a person look at you favorably, or how to create a community.

Question: And this should be taught?

Answer: This is the most important thing! There must be a school for this. Because school exists in the transition between a small child who practically just came out of his mother—and for the first 5-6 years he is still next to her—and then adulthood. And adult life is with strangers, with other people, and so on. That is, the school should be in the transition from birth to getting out into the world. We do not give this preparation.

Question: So are we talking about a school for children as well as for parents? Because there should be the same atmosphere at home.

Answer: Of course, yes.

Question: And is a school for teachers as well?

Answer: This is naturally a common task.

This is called pedagogy; this is called teaching; this is called raising and educating children. It’s called parenting!

And what are they given? They are given a completely unnecessary education. It’s not parenting.

Question: What will happen then if the gun is still in the child’s hand? If he is brought up the way you say, what will he do with this gun?

Answer: He will protect everyone. From whom? From animals, from aliens, I don’t know. He will have the idea of protecting everyone. This Earth and this is all mine. I want everyone to feel good.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/9/21

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An Unusual Sentence In Odessa

559Comment: Two young men, aged 19 and 23, were tried for stealing car radios in Odessa. They admitted their guilt. Yet instead of three years in prison, they were sentenced to probation. The judge heard the case and decided that although they are adults, they were actually still children in their development, with a primitive vocabulary and so on.

The sentence obliged them to read 5th grade literature including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, White Fang by Jack London, and Taras Shevchenko’s poem “Days Pass, Nights Pass.” The judge decided that classic literature would help criminals understand universal values and attitudes to private property.

Do such extraordinary human decisions mean something?

My Response: Yes. This shows us how much we lack the correct humanistic education.

Question: You are talking about humanistic education. What do you mean by that?

Answer: A kind attitude to others, that’s all. It is when your inner preparation does not allow you to be mean or rude or to cause harm and pain to another.

Simply put, it is when you care. Correct literature, particularly children’s literature, especially in childhood when children cannot feel this, should instill empathy for the other within them. This is the most important thing in birth and development, the feeling of the other, feeling what he feels, empathizing with him, and so on. There is absolutely no such thing in children by nature, and we must somehow teach them this.

Today we say the opposite: “If they punch you in the face, punch them back even harder!”—and so on.

This is our current education—TV programs and everything else.

Question: Would you want to turn it all around and provide only humane education instead?

Answer: Yes. Only empathy for others can bring us closer together and save humanity.

Comment: It seems like the judge might have had such a spark to educate in this way.

My Response: Maybe he is just a wise man and understands that nothing else will work on them. Young fools.

Question: Would it be even worse if they went to jail?

Answer: Yes, of course. They would go through the “school of life” there and will come out even bigger criminals.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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The Japanese Princess’ Choice

294.2Question: There is a stir in Japan. Princess Mako of Japan has married a man of common origin whom she met at university. Marriage to him deprives the princess of the status of a member of the imperial family. According to Japanese tradition, women are deprived of this status, but men are not.

Princess Mako is the first member of the imperial family to renounce the traditional ceremony of the imperial wedding and almost one and a half million dollars dowry. The couple is about to move to New York where the husband works as a lawyer.

Opinions were divided. Some say that this cannot be done; it violates all traditions; it is terrible. Others say: “What if it’s love?”

Whose side are you on?

Answer: I am on the side of the princess. Give up your happy life for the sake of some ghostly Japanese etiquette? I think they tested each other. After all, he is a lawyer and she is a princess. These are extraordinary people who understand what they are doing. And there are also a lot of politicians, advisers, and all the others around them. So I think the choice was right.

Question: In principle, are you for love—for these feelings?

Answer: I believe in love.

Question: Don’t you think she will regret it after some time?

Answer: Today I don’t think so. Today there are no such edges or distances or anything like that. They will accept her, she will visit them, and they will visit her. After all, what does princess mean?
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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How Can We Keep Love From Cooling Down?

962.6Question: Anna writes: “My husband and I have been married for three years, and feelings are only growing. But I can’t let go of the thought that this is all temporary, that all this can pass. I don’t want our feelings to cool down. How can I do this?”

Answer: If you share these feelings between yourselves, then the mere fear that they will pass will somehow continue them.

And the main thing is to study your nature mutually, you and him, and thus help each other in manifesting this egoistic nature and rising above it together. You have to understand that this egoism is against you, and when together you create more and more bonds between each other, you will thus rise above it. But it will not go anywhere and it will constantly grow and force you to grow in the same way.

Question: So is the trepidation a good thing? Should there be constant fear that the relationship will suddenly change?

Answer: Yes. Trembling, fear, and anxiety that we will fall from our good attitude toward each other is the guarantee that we will hold on to it.

Question: So your advice is not to destroy this anxiety?

Answer: No. This is called “Ira” in Hebrew; it is not just fear, but anxiety, a special anxiety, the anxiety of maintaining good relations.

Question: Does this mean that they are getting closer to true love between them?

Answer: Yes. They seem to be climbing a mountain. Egoism grows all the time and becomes more sophisticated and therefore sharper. But it is the joint work that raises them and brings them even closer together.

Question: And what is there at the top?

Answer: At the top, spiritual rapprochement will begin, which will create a higher connection between them, which is in fact supra-egoistic. And they will begin to connect with each other in such a way that they will understand each other internally without words, instead only with thoughts, and will intertwine with each other.

Question: Is this the highest state of connection?

Answer: Yes. Just as snakes in a pit intertwine with each other, so they will intertwine, not selfishly, but in a mutually kind attitude toward each other.

Comment: You compared it with snakes, and immediately it became somehow uncomfortable.

My Response: Why? This is very relevant and direct.

Question: Are these snakes in us?

Answer: It is thanks to our great, insidious egoism that if we start using it correctly to draw closer and to wrap ourselves around each other, that in this way we will rise closer and closer to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/3/22

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627.1Comment: A letter from Irina: “We were together since the first grade at school, and we never quarreled. He used to carry my school bag already in the third grade, and all the boys laughed at him. But we became even better friends, and everyone envied us. After school, we studied at the Institute of Technology together, in the same department. In the third year we got married. Our parents were friends. We gave birth to two children. I do not understand where the irritation, rejection, and hatred have come from, we knew each other thoroughly!

Today we are already divorced. Until now court trials and disputes have been going on. It was a terrible break-up! I cannot hear his voice, I cannot see him! I have constant inner pain! I do not understand how this could have happened to me! I do not know what I did wrong!”

My Response: You did not work on yourself. You thought nothing would change. But a person is constantly changing, not to mention two people, and even more so those who have known each other and have been together all the time. They change a lot throughout their lifetime. And since they were used to each other, for them the slightest changes lead to very sharp internal reactions.

It turns out that I can suddenly see another person as mean, disgusting, opposite to me, constantly perceiving me and my attitude ambiguously, and so on. It is precisely because they know each other too well. Therefore, now even the slightest change causes huge disturbances between us.

Comment: According to human logic, the better we know each other, the closer we are and the greater is the love between us. And you claim that it is the other way around.

My Response: The bigger the commotion can be. Therefore, we need to constantly arouse all sorts of allegedly negative properties and relationships between us so that we can train with them and turn them into positive ones.

Question: So you say that marriage is a constant exercise?

Answer: A permanent one! As my teacher said: “Love is a beast that lives between you, an evil beast. And if you constantly feed it, then everything is fine.”

Question: What does this beast grow into if it is constantly fed?

Answer: It will be big next to you. And you will be dealing with it together until old age.

Question: And this beast is called love?

Answer: Yes. And in fact, it is very, very scary.

Question: So they must see in advance that their relationship will change sharply and oppositely?

Answer: Yes, they should foresee it. And they should even play it.

Question: What do we feed this beast with?

Answer: With concessions. That is, we can deliberately annoy it and learn to concede.

Question: Please, reveal the secret of a long married life together. What does this mean for you?

Answer: For me, it means to let the husband live his life.

Question: And what about the wife?

Answer: The same about the wife. And if they have something in common, it is, of course, children.

But neither with my studies nor with my profession do I in any way invade her respective area and she does not invade mine. In this way we give each other the possibility of life—inner life, basically, after all.

And the most important thing is taking care of children. It is our common area. In principle, after all, people couple and get married in order to give birth and raise children and grandchildren.

Question: What is love?

Answer: Love is the desire to let another person exist next to you in a way that is comfortable for him. This, I think, is the secret of love and a long, normal life together, although it is very, very difficult because we live for a very long time, twice as long as we used to. And that is why it is not easy.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/9/21

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How To Learn Empathy

293Question: Not long ago there was an earthquake in Haiti. More than 2,000 people died, 40,000 houses were damaged and destroyed. Another 15-20,000 people were injured.

This news disappeared after a day. It was immediately replaced by news about fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

Is it possible to develop empathy toward another person?

Answer: It depends on education. Education should be such that we all have to get closer if we want a better future for ourselves. Egoistically. If you want there to be no earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and deaths, then you have to get closer to others.

Because nature is one and we humans, are at the top of its chain, if we create correct relationships between us, help, care, and so on, then all nature under us will calm down.

Question: Does Kabbalah talk about this?

Answer: Yes. We can certainly influence nature in this way.

Question: And then the word “empathy” will not sound strange?

Answer: It is a normal human condition when we understand that we depend on others and others depend on us. I am talking about the egoistic attitude toward each other. When we are like one family, there is no other way. Nature forces us to understand in the end that we depend on each other. And it will lead us to it, but gradually with such blows that it will not seem enough.

That is when mutual support will become a natural concept. We have nowhere to go. We do the same in the family whether we love each other or not it does not matter. We understand that we are interdependent.

Just as we go to fight for our country because we depend on others, they depend on us, and we cannot escape anywhere. Same here. If humanity does not unite in order to act not against nature but like nature as a united front, then nature will teach us.

Question: Finally teach us?

Answer: It will teach us! That is certain. But the whole earth will be like Haiti after the earthquake.

Comment: It is better to do it ourselves.

My Response: I think so. Because nature is preparing very unpleasant surprises for us.

Question: So you still believe, as the great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam said, that the whole world, one way or another, will be one family, it will not escape from this?

Answer: We will have to come to this either as a result of a world nuclear war or by good means and understanding.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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When Gold Is Devalued

547.05Question: In 2020, gold was becoming cheaper, but it was the beginning of a pandemic so people were not up to buying it.

But in 2021, prices suddenly shot up and today the price of gold has reached 30-year record high. People are actively buying physical gold in the form of bars, coins, and jewelry.

I want to ask you, as a Kabbalist, what is it about gold? After all, it is all about beautifying…

Answer: Beautifying the ego!

We just want to put our efforts into some kind of material objects that are immutable, that won’t disappear or decay, that won’t rust

Question: What is gold on a spiritual level?

Answer: It’s egoism in its purest form. Gold relates to Keter, and silver relates to Bina.

Question: Can you explain it in a simple way?

Answer: When true egoism is corrected, it is represented by gold, and when it is on the way to correction—in other words, halfway toward correction—it is silver, Bina and Keter.

Question: Let us proceed from the fact that the spiritual affects us one way or another. We are branches, while the roots of everything are spiritual. But then what about gold?

Answer: It remains.

Question: Nothing can replace it?

Answer: No.

Question: Even in times of hunger? Even when there is no bread?

Answer: No. When there’s no bread, then no. But once we start adding something to bread, gold immediately begins to appear. It is made for the living.

Question: This means that when we talk about necessities, we are talking about bread. But what about when we talk about our world, the world of excess?

Answer: “People die for metal.”

Question: What conclusion do you draw from all this?

Answer: My conclusion is very simple: as long as egoism rules, gold will be the universal, global equivalent of these egoistic forces. But once people trade their egos for good connections between them, gold will simply be equated to an ordinary metal, a regular material, and will no longer be used for trade. Only the value of bestowal to each other will be used as a measure for trading. This is a completely different material.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/3/22

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Will We Sprout Up On Another Planet?

746.01Question: We are constantly worrying about climate change. Yet at the same time, a million animals and plants around the world are under threat of extinction. Scientists believe that this will be worse than climate change.

It is like starting to remove rivets from a plane in flight. One missing rivet is not so bad, but at some point, when too many rivets are missing, the plane will fall because it is one single system.

Tell me please, can the plane really crash or not?

Answer: It is quite possible. All this may fall apart, because the degree of connection that should be between inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature is gradually weakening more and more, up to the point that everything can really crumble. But so what?

Millions of years will pass and we will germinate on another planet, in another system.

Comment: But it is said that the Earth will not disappear.

My Response: This is the way it will not disappear. It is said that a second of the Creator is millions of years. Well, a couple of seconds will pass.

Question: A couple of millions of years! Will there be a planet with water, air, and a suitable atmosphere?

Answer: It doesn’t matter how. Perhaps we won’t be in our current form.

Comment: But you keep saying that humanity will not disappear. That is, a catastrophe may happen, but there will still be a handful of people who will have to fulfill the purpose of creation.

My Response: Yes, they will have to fulfill their purpose. But I do not know in what form.

Question: At the same time, do you assume that everything there is can disappear?

Answer: The fact that we are moving toward a huge thermonuclear war, and not even to one, but to two of them, is exactly what may happen according to the prediction of Kabbalists. It may happen.

Or, if, let’s say, we start working on ourselves, our minds, our heads, and seriously think about what we need to do in order to continue a normal life…but this means putting an end to our life that is anything but normal.

Question: Is it possible? Many people think that it is unknown whether humanity will come to its senses or not.

Answer: It is unknown. This state where humanity does not know is still a good state. This means that it is still possible to pull them so that they understand where the correct path is.

Question: Does some kind of leader need to appear for this or should it all come from below?

Answer: I do not think it should be some kind of leader. It should be teachers, many teachers in many languages. Each in his own style will explain to all the people on Earth how we can get rid of the terrible end and move to the next state in a good way.

Question: Can you say in one sentence how we can get rid of it?

Answer: Only through mutual care, love, and connection, by coming closer to each other.

Comment: You always have one and only conclusion.

My Response: This is so according to nature. I cannot invent it myself, and nature does not give me anything else.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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