Condemn first yourself,
Learn this art,
And only then judge your enemy
And neighbor on the globe.
First learn yourself
Not to forgive a single blunder,
And only then shout to your enemy,
That he is the enemy and his sins are grave.
Not in the other, but in yourself, conquer the enemy,
And when you succeed in this,
You will no longer have to play the fool –
And you will become a man.
(Bulat Okudzhava)
Question: This Russian poem still spreads over the Internet, which means that people feel it is relevant. How do you become a human in such a difficult world today?
Answer: This is a problem. I see that this is impossible without the help of the Creator.
You can admit your lowliness, the lowliness of your nature, anything. But if you admit that you have been given this from above for correction and you have to turn to the same source, to the Creator, who created you this rude, egoistic, etc. way, and you admit that you need to correct yourself, this can start helping in some way.
What’s the use of what Okudzhava summons? We see that humanity cannot do this. If we are only within the boundaries of our nature, we can keep on saying anything. There’s only one thing left for us to do—get drunk. What else? Drugs. Do you see what humanity is doing? Nothing!
Question: So you think that to learn practically the art of “condemn yourself first” is difficult?
Answer: I think it’s impossible. I even think we should not condemn ourselves, after all, we are created that way. And then a person stumbles upon some kind of internal contradiction, “What can I do if I am created worse than animals?”
Animals don’t act like us. We are ready to destroy everyone, animals don’t. Any animal eats another because it sees it as a source of food and nothing more. Therefore, whenever it destroys, it does not really destroy the other, it feeds.
This is a completely different attitude to life, to another, and to the world than our perspective. We destroy the other, not because it is necessary for us to survive, but to be above him. And our desire is not limited by anything.
We see that the world is not moving toward a better state. It can’t move to a better state. We have to get worse and worse. Our egoism is growing more and more, and no one and nothing can help us in this except the awareness of where it comes from.
It comes from the Creator specifically so that we understand why we were created in such a terrible, egoistic, uncorrectable, incorrigible nature.
Question: You are speaking such a bitter truth, and yet the Creator’s script is for us to try to get out of this nature?
Answer: When we begin to realize that nature, meaning the Creator, which is the same thing, created us like this and precisely for some purpose, and we realize ourselves to be so vicious, then on the one hand, we are somehow lost. What can we do if we are like this?
We need to accept that we are like this and cannot be different. And then we have the only opportunity to turn to the same source that develops this evil in us all the time: “I created the egoistic desire. I created egoism.”
Then we need to ask Him to give us the opportunity to at least somehow limit this evil, somehow occupy it.
Comment: Then this last stanza of Okudzhava: “Not in another, but in yourself, conquer the enemy.”
My Response: But it’s not us, it’s through the Creator again, through the same source.
Question: So the victory over the enemy is to turn to the Creator?
Answer: This is a victory over ourselves, over our own limitations, so that we turn to Him and always urgently demand from Him that He change us. For this He created us so creepy, terrible, egoistic, and limited so we could understand that our egoism cannot be corrected or changed in any way.
We do not need to blame ourselves, we do not need to blame others, and we must admit that we are the ones who are worse than the rest of the world, both vegetative and animal, and anything else, and we must turn to the Creator to change us.
Comment: And then, as Okudzhava writes: “And you will become a man.”
My Response: Yes!
Question: Then what does “man” mean?
Answer: A person is one who wants to do good, like the Creator. Then we will see that the Creator is not the one who created egoism, but who created egoism so that we turn to Him for correction.
The first part is the awareness of egoism. The second part is an appeal to the Creator to give us the strength to correct it and to teach us how to correct this egoism. And then proceed to this practical work on correcting egoism. Thus gradually, gradually, from oneself being opposite to the Creator, to make oneself similar to the Creator.
This is what is called human, this is our mission. And what will become of him, will be called a man, Adam, from the word “Edomeh – similar.”
[291281]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/25/21
Related Material:
Conquer Yourself
Who Benefits From Asking?
Rise To The Level Of The Creator
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Question: Do we ask the Creator for different things every time or should we eventually come to one universal formula?
