Question: This burning topic of relationships has become vitally important in our time in the ruling circles and their negative impact on society under their leadership.

Governments get replaced, but each time the same situation returns. Only the actors and forces change, but the dynamics remain the same.

There are several main parties striving for power, and they are constantly at war with each other, trying to trip each other. If I beat you today, then all you do from this moment until the next election is try to knock me over.

And so a politician who came to power and wished to make changes conceived by him is unable to do anything because the rest of his opponents are trying hard to make sure he fails.

The next election comes, someone else wins it, and all the other opponents begin to interfere with him and try to trip him up. Everything returns to square one. By this time, the whole country is suffering from the fact that politicians are trying to blame each other within the government. This only hurts the citizens more.

This is our reality today. Why does this endless struggle take place and most importantly, how can one change things for the better?

Answer: It is natural that there is a struggle for power, because we are all egoists. A person who battles through towards the power often times is more egoistic than a simple person, because one rises to this level. In the ruling apparatus, the one or two hundred leaders and several thousand officials are the biggest egoists of all.

Therefore, a very heated and aggressive environment exists in which problems, bribery, and fraud are concentrated. This is natural. This is not a property of any particular country because it happens everywhere. In some countries it is less pronounced, like in Scandinavia, which is traditionally characterized by a rather quiet way of life and socialist values.

The same struggle for power takes place in all other countries of Europe and in America. As countries develop, they become players in the same governmental games. It is like a boiling cauldron that continually boils on top of a strong flame versus simmering over of a low fire.

Question: Let us say we have politicians who have agreed to go to the polls together, and managed to win in a coalition. Prior to that, we had a common interest that held us together. We came to power and were able to have useful reforms. If we continue to work together, at least in this cadence, things will go well.

But it does not work! Despite the general interest to remain in power, we cannot act as partners. There are endless selfish games and intrigues, which do not allow us to achieve any success. Why does it happen?

Answer: These are egoistic games that cannot be avoided. Egoism blazes inside us and demands us to climb higher and higher, walking on other people’s heads to get there. Only in this case, a person feels successful, strong, and special. Therefore, this egoism, still engaged in a struggle, picks a new intrigue without any justifiable reason. This is the life for egoism, otherwise it does not feel itself as living.

Comment: But in the end, it harms everyone, including the one who started the conflict.

Answer: It does not matter. While this intrigue takes place, it fills our lives. Our selfishness incites us to fight, even in situations where there is almost no chance of winning. We become aware that we are at a loss and still keep moving towards the conflict because we cannot stand the quiet life. In everyday reality, there are no jokes and no life. Egoistic struggle, conflicts, and frictions give us a sense of life.

This is why we engage in social fighting as rival mafia clans or as children who fight in the yard. Boys fight all the time, even if they are brothers. Otherwise they do not feel like they are alive. If we force everyone to sit quietly in the corner, then this simply becomes death for these people.

The struggle lies in our egoistic nature, and this is why everyone is susceptible to it, starting with small children up to top politicians.
[150436]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/23/14

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Question: If the Jewish people begin to implement the Kabbalistic method, what will happen in the world? How will it affect anti-Semitism in the world?

Answer: Instead of feeling anti-Semitism, people will begin to treat us with sympathy, respect, and love. The nations of the world will carry us in their arms because we will provide them with the method for a perfect eternal life.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we should correctly work with our ego so that it will not be just an evil force but a help against us, a help that stems from its oppositeness. When we fulfill this work, we will attain the peak of our evolution.

Question: There are people who offer different solutions to the problem of anti-Semitism, like suggesting that all the Jews should come to Israel or on the contrary, assimilate among the nations. What can you say about that?

Answer: Nonsense. Such plans will not work. It is because nature itself is managing the whole process. Sooner or later we will have to discover the potential hidden in each of us and become teachers for all of humanity.

We will have to discover the wisdom of Kabbalah by which we will be able to restrain the ego so that we will be able to use it correctly. It is very powerful and can be very helpful when used correctly. Thus we will reach the good cause.

As for assimilation, it is useless, and we are incapable of it. On the contrary, we are yet to reunite with the ten lost tribes and we will see that they haven’t assimilated either. They will come from every corner of the world and will proclaim their Judaism.

Question: Do Jews really have a kind of a protective shield that guards them from complete assimilation?

Answer: Yes. It is because of the profound basic difference that is concealed in nature itself, in the inner Reshimot (reminiscences) that operate the Jews and the non-Jews. The Jewish Reshimo is actually found in the nations of the world as well, but it hasn’t as yet been revealed, and hasn’t started to speak with them as yet.

It isn’t by chance that Abraham turned to all the people in Babel and said, “Let’s live differently and base our relations on a new principle.” But those who followed him were those in whom this Reshimo, this inner element of unity, was already revealed. Those who didn’t hear the message were those in whom unity hadn’t yet awoken, and thus they remained in their ego.

Today however, we are very close to the revelation and recognition of the seriousness of the crisis we are in and the uniqueness of this abnormal global world. People will feel that they have to unite and that they cannot keep on living any other life but the life that is based on mutual unity into one whole.

Question: Can we say that anti-Semitism is a call and a demand coming from the world “to teach us how to keep on living?”

Answer: Of course. This is the real reason for it. The nations of the world are actually telling us openly that we have the key for a good life. We may ask how it is possible to blame us for all the troubles in the world, but this is what they feel and they cannot get rid of this feeling.

The nations of the world are totally dependent on us. Only we have the solutions to the current situation by showing them how to organize and cooperate amongst themselves.

Question: Suppose I agree with you, what should I do now?

Answer: You should join the method of integral education and learn what it means to be a Jew. It makes no difference whether a person is religious or not, whether he is politically inclined to the left or to the right. We should understand what it really means to be Jewish (Yechudi), which stems from the Hebrew word “Yichud” – unity, mutual love, and how to attain it.

Then this wisdom and method should be passed on to your family and to others within your environment.
[149169]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/25/14

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: And humanity has already thrown itself to the extreme right, as with Germany, or to the extreme left, as with Russia. But not only did they not ease the situation for themselves, they have worsened the malady and agony, and the voices rise up to the sky, as we all know. 

Today all the means that were useful in the past are invalid. It makes no difference how we choose to advance, what plans we make, or what recommendations or innovations we come up with. Eventually all this will only deepen the crisis we are in, force us to waste our powers in vain, and increase pain and suffering.

So what can we do? A wise man tries to identify the whole process in advance from beginning to end in regards to a predetermined goal. If we do this, we will certainly save ourselves pain and follow the way that will still bring us to the same outcome.

On the other hand, as long as we keep postponing the only possible correction, the unpleasant phases will only be stretched out and prolonged. If we continue to advance along the corporeal egoistic plane, we raise our ego each time and overcome the bad states that are revealed. Our ego keeps on growing and we invent more and more new sophisticated innovations in technology, means of communication, or legislation.

Instead of a king, we have a parliament; we save money in bank accounts and give priority to private enterprises. Why is this so? In order to give people different opportunities to fulfill the egoistic desire and thus keep advancing. We are in perpetual motion, and on each level we discover its worthlessness the moment when we cannot satisfy the demands of our developing desire by ourselves and it forces us to keep on developing.

Today, the desire has reached a certain level of satiation and now we can decide what to do with it. It doesn’t matter what means we try, nothing is successful. Matter, the desire to receive, which has been the basis for the development of human society for thousands of years, is no longer fruitful. Competition can no longer be the engine of progress.

We are in search of new directions, trying to understand what else we can do. But we find nothing. There are no more opportunities in industry, commerce, or science. We have fulfilled and exhausted ourselves.

Of course, we would rather believe that this is a temporary dead end before a new breakthrough, but there is a fundamental problem here: We have developed society only in order to use the power of our ego. Today the ego doesn’t work anymore.

Therefore, we mustn’t continue our advancement in the directions that we have developed so far. The egoistic force, the basis of our progress has exhausted itself. We can already see that it has begun to consume itself.

In the past, a person wanted to have a family, bring up his children, build a home, and become rich. Only a decade or two ago, these goals and demands were clearly understood. But today, many people are not attracted to it. The old values are suddenly gone. It is therefore better to sit and smoke a joint, which has become practically legal, and that’s it.

Humanity has lost the hold and supporting pillar of the ego, which has been our engine of progress throughout history. Although governments and the media still manage to blur reality, there is actually nowhere else to which we can advance.

If we continue to hold on to the peak and keep on delving deeper into the diminishing pool of opportunities, the troubles will only increase. The more we continue to advance along this path, the quicker our negative development will be. The wrong use of the ego and its overuse in our times will eventually show us that it doesn’t work anymore. The uselessness of self-love is now becoming evident.

We already see behavioral mutations in the relations between people and countries. Many don’t even want to think rationally as to whether it is good or bad for them, but simply act out of their impulses and prefer not to think about the outcomes. Thus the ordinary egoistic behavior is gradually changing.

This is a very dangerous phase since it can lead to an outburst in any possible direction. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, and although it is seemingly an artificial thing, unnatural for us, it is actually the right and natural thing.

If we have already exhausted our human egoistic impulse to advance and develop, then there is only one thing left to do: ascend to the next level that is above self-love. There is another force in the world besides the force of receiving, which is the force of bestowal. So why don’t we establish a new humanity on the basis of this attribute? Why don’t we establish our relationships upon it? Let’s use the second force in nature. We mustn’t continue to ignore bestowal. It has always been at our disposal, but we didn’t feel a need for it because the ego pushed us forward and considered the force of bestowal redundant.

The force of receiving burnt in us more and more and we didn’t even think that bestowal provides us with greater opportunities to advance. It is because with the help of bestowal we use the external vessels of the environment, which are the desires, the attainments, the connections and the great mind, the great force that is on the outside. We never even thought that we could develop along the positive path with the help of the force of bestowal.

Bestowal is based on mutual benefit. It opens up infinite perspectives because humanity can finally unite powers instead of wasting them on inner struggles, because it is actually the separation that weakens us. It is just like a rich couple who gets divorced and their lawyers get all their money. Eventually the two sides are left with nothing compared to what they had before.

On the whole, competition and ambitiousness help us advance only if we don’t directly compete with one another on the basis of mutual hate, but instead, we do this on the conceptual level, for the sake of humanity. Today the competition between us is who is better and whose merchandise is better. In this kind of struggle each one wants to wipe out the competition, which is a destructive state not a constructive one. In such cases it isn’t the general wellbeing that wins and it is therefore harmful to all of us.

We have now begun a period of destructive competition. As a result, the ego begins to consume itself and becomes an illness that destroys people. In the past the ego was the developing force, but now it has become a destructive force.
[146290]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What does a strong family, a strong home, mean for a Kabbalist?

Answer: A strong family is a family that lives in a strong environment, and since an environment like this is good for them, this is a strong home for them.

A home is a human environment, not the stone walls or physical structure. Nowadays, the concept of a home has gradually changed its meaning, and it is understood that stone walls no longer can protect us from anything whatsoever and don’t provide any sense of security. This is because security is found in the good relationships and incorporation into all the circles of human society.

Today society is the next circle for a strong family home, and for society, a wider circle is the nation, and so on.

This means that the concept of a home as a cave, tent, tabernacle, apartments, etc., no longer exists. A home is about going out to establish interpersonal connection.

So here all of the physical borders have been destroyed and only internal contact between people remains. Walls, seas, and oceans cannot separate us, as we must be connected. The development of the Internet clearly shows this to us.

Question: Can Europe, which opened the borders between the nations of the European Union, serve as an example for us?

Answer: Unfortunately, Europe took this step from the point of view of egoistic benefit for itself, to make more money, avoid war, and exploit the weaker nations.

The nations of the European Union connected only the banks. In their program, the integration of all of humanity and the mutual penetration of cultures with each other did not enter into the plan. Only today are they beginning to understand how far they are from integration.
[147254]
From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/23/14

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This Old, Old World

Question: Europe has already had bitter experiences; it has known so many wars. Why doesn’t it try to break the present trend of xenophobia?

Answer: We live in different times. Contemporary modern Europe is not prepared to fight. For example, when I was in Germany I talked with politicians, mayors, and public figures; they admitted to me that people are simply exhausted, subconsciously exhausted. Clearly, it is possible to go out and protest with loud voices, but basically, the Europeans are not prepared to resist what is happening.

What is it that apparently prevents the leaders or others who appear to be unanimously against ideas that bankrupt multiculturalism, against disturbances to the “non-indigenous” sectors,  from taking to street demonstration? But no, people are not prepared to protest. The time of battles has passed, and today they are not ready to fight.

Basically nothing serious stands behind even the neo-Nazi proclamations. These are not the fascists who led the torchlight parades of the 20^th century.

Question: And yet people are voting for the extreme right-wingers, adding political weight to them.

Answer: It is political, but no more than this. They are not ready and are not prepared for a true war within Europe. The Europeans have no power and no incentive. They have aged, and this is very noticeable. Even though people disagree somewhat with what is happening, and even though the young still go out into the streets here and there, in general the old world has aged and weakened and put up its hands.
[144890]
From KabTV’s  “A New Life” 9/9/14

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Opinion (Central News Agency of New Russia): “Politics of the recent years tends to delay the arrival of fascism. But fascism will come everywhere, on the shoulders of liberalism, as a step towards fascism. Nationalism is the last brace of the people, fragmented, crushed by the market.

“Postulates of fascism:

“National pride, this is the only thing that the market leaves to the people; nationalism is developing everywhere, identifying itself with justice; nationalism is the ideology to which everyone resorts, after having been disappointed in others. In the beginning, national pride is called patriotism.

“Unity of the people and the state. From now, disagreeing with government policy, you will not agree with the people, with the entire nation. Unity of the will of millions of people with the will of the ruler is natural.

“Tradition, rejection of progress.

“Inequality. Fascist states are armies; they are characterised by inequality, but the inequality of the army fascism gets ready-made from the market. Fascism is constitutional inequality, embodied in the firm imperial hierarchy.

“Totality. Fascism will come everywhere, in all countries, in their versions of fascism. Today, nothing can be opposed to fascism.

“Paganism, a modification of the Christian religion to the needs of consciousness; division into pure-impure, the black-and-white picture of the world.”

My Comment: Baal HaSulam described all this at the beginning of the 20^th century. He warned that according to the law of social development, fascism arises after capitalism if it is not replaced by integral education and the “society of the last generation.” Therefore, we have no choice. We must spare no efforts in the dissemination of integral education and upbringing.
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In the News (from Vedomosti): “We received new information only when nothing threatens our outlook. Negative facts brought to the supporters of the regime cannot be digested by them and will not change their views. By virtue of these features of our consciousness, the existence of independent media and the Internet does not solve the problem.

“People perceive information that does not constitute a threat to their worldview and filter out all the rest. It is incredibly difficult for politicians and peoples to accept a dead end of the chosen path since changing a course undermines the worldview system.

“Having realized that the chosen political course does not lead to the expected results, the country often does not change, but on the contrary, intensifies the realization of the initial program, which worsens the economic situation in the country and leads to a tightening of the wrong political course. A mental trap brings a country into a vicious circle.”

My Comment: Although opposite to its course, the correct decision can be accepted only when it is viewed objectively. This is possible only in a workshop which is organized according to the principles of integral education, in a circle where people are equal and cancel themselves. They must be ready for full connection for the sake of revealing unity (the Upper Force) within it, adhering to the Upper Force through similarity of properties (mutual bestowal) in order to create contentment in it.
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Opinion (Martin van Creveld, Ph.D., Professor of military history at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, author of seventeen books on military history and strategy): “[Martin van Creveld] argues that the state, since 1648 has become a creature different to any previous form of civil government. Before that time, government was identified with some person or group of persons. After 1648, the state lost that personal identification and became a juridical person, a corporation. ‘As a corporation, it has an independent persona.’ All previous governments failed to make this crucial distinction between the person ruling and the ruling organisation. Louis XIV could say with much truth, ‘I am the state.’ Louis Napoleon could not. 

“He defines the state by three characteristics.

“Sovereignty, by which claim the state ‘refuses to share any of [these] functions [waging war, making peace enacting laws, dispensing justice, raising revenue, determining the currency, and providing internal security] with others but concentrates all of them in its own hands.’

“Territoriality,  it exercises such powers over all the people who live within its borders and over them only.

“Abstractness, most importantly, it is an abstract organisation. Unlike any of its predecessors at any other time and place, it is not identical with either rulers nor ruled; it is neither a man nor a community, but an invisible being known as a corporation.

“In the main, the threat to the state does not come either from individuals or from groups of the kind which exercised the functions of government in various communities at various times and places before 1648. Instead it comes from other corporations: in other words, from such ‘artificial men’ as share its own nature but differ from it both in respect to their control over territory and in regard to the exercise of sovereignty. A few of the corporations in question are of a territorial nature, but the majority are not. Some are regional and larger than states, others smaller and merely local. Some are intergovernmental, others nongovernmental. Some are primarily political by nature, others dedicated to different ends such as making money, protecting the environment, spreading some religious message, or propagating some special cause which may range from reducing pollution to animal rights. [Though] all have in common that they are more attuned to modern technology, communication and transportation in particular, than the state. As a result, some of them are able to grow much richer than most states; or take over some of the latter’s functions; or evade its control by establishing colonies and moving their resources outside its borders; or influence the opinions of its citizens more than governments can; or (as in the case of numerous guerrilla and terrorist organisations) successfully resist it weapon in hand; or, not seldom, some combination of all these things.”

My Comment: All of human development leads to the extinction of the state and the establishment of a unified, global social system.
[136642]

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In the News (from The Economist): “Faith in democracy flares up in moments of triumph, such as the overthrow of unpopular regimes in Cairo or Kiev, only to sputter out once again. Outside the West, democracy often advances only to collapse. And within the West, democracy has too often become associated with debt and dysfunction at home and overreach abroad.

“Adjusting to hard times will be made even more difficult by a growing cynicism towards politics. Party membership is declining across the developed world: only 1% of Britons are now members of political parties compared with 20% in 1950. Voter turnout is falling, too: a study of 49 democracies found that it had declined by 10 percentage points between 1980-84 and 2007-13. A survey of seven European countries in 2012 found that more than half of voters ‘had no trust in government’ whatsoever. A YouGov opinion poll of British voters in the same year found that 62% of those polled agreed that ‘politicians tell lies all the time.’

“Many Chinese are prepared to put up with their system if it delivers growth. The 2013 Pew Survey of Global Attitudes showed that 85% of Chinese were ‘very satisfied’ with their country’s direction, compared with 31% of Americans. 

“Wang Jisi, also of Beijing University, has observed that ‘many developing countries that have introduced Western values and political systems are experiencing disorder and chaos’ and that China offers an alternative model.”

My Comment: The egoistic stages of human development have gone through five stages of evolutionary development and had exhausted themselves by the beginning of the 21^st century, and now push humanity to the new stage, altruism, i.e., they need to be replaced by the new stages of development, by the five steps of the property of bestowal and love.

Awareness of the necessity of this rise is problematic because it presupposes the need to admit oneself below nature, to obey its integrality and globality, and to learn how to reach similarity with it (adhesion with it).
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Question: How will the force of unity in Europe help us reach our next level at the upcoming convention in America?

Answer: Europe and America have a strong influence on each other. But the fact is that the crisis in America is felt much less; there’s a possibility to gloss over it there. In America, there is one government, one power; there is no need to negotiate anything with anyone. They can do whatever they want and that’s it. They decided to print a hundred billion dollars more and printed them. The printing press is operating.

In Europe, it is much more difficult because it requires coordination between all the countries. That is why the crisis is felt much more there. If Europe had united, it could have dealt with the crisis easily. First, the crisis would have subsided quickly because the EU citizens had united above their egoism. In general, Europe is today’s Babylon.

But in addition, they would have begun to adopt a single solution and could do the same as the Americans. The whole crisis has spread only because Europe is divided. One part of Europe from Brussels dictates to the other part of Europe: And the other part doesn’t want this; in Nicosia, Cypress, the parliament refused to accept their decisions.

What kind of union is this? They will have to either truly unite or disintegrate.

In America, the condition is better from the point of view that they have simply decided, “We have no crisis.” They have determined this and live as if nothing has happened. But later of course, everything will “collapse.”
[104435]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/24/13, Lesson 6

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