Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does human nature work?“

Human nature is the desire to receive, also called “desire to enjoy,” and it functions by receiving what is beneficial to itself and rejecting what is harmful. Everything in our lives is built upon this calculation where we first try to distance ourselves from harm, and then seek how to draw ourselves closer to what is beneficial.

Human nature also includes a multilayering of systems that work simultaneously on still, vegetative, animate and human levels. One of those systems is our bodily one, which operates involuntarily. If our bodies are healthy, then they know what is good for them and draw that goodness to themselves. After the bodily system, there is the emotional system, which also functions relatively according to instinct. From the emotional system, we move to the mind, and from the mind to the intellect, and so on. That is, we have systems over systems that concurrently work on receiving what is beneficial and rejecting what is harmful.

Such is human nature and the essence of our lives. Our every desire, thought and action operates according to the calculation, “How can we receive what is most beneficial to us and reject what is harmful?”

Based on the video “How Human Nature Works” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Nitzah Mazoz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: When spouses are just starting to live together, according to biological processes, hormones support their relationship for the first three years. It is believed that after three years, hormones stop working, and a cooling occurs between a man and a woman, nothing holds them further. Does it come from nature?

Answer: Probably. In past centuries, it may have been different, but nowadays they say that it is, especially on the part of a man.

Maybe from the woman’s side, I do not know. Usually a woman gets used to a man. I don’t think she wants to change everything so much. Today, it is also a little different for women, but still not in the same way as for men.

Question: It’s not a fact that someone wants to change something, it’s just a question that there is no longer a physical factor that holds them back. How can spouses overcome this and continue to live normally?

Answer: Now is a special time—the time of correcting selfishness. And if the spouses are not engaged in its correction, they will not be able to coexist together.

There will be more and more divorces until there are no families left at all. People will converge for a day or two, for a year or two, and disperse. Children will be born not clear from whom and where. The world will come to this because a person will not be able to cope with selfishness if he does not begin to correct it.

And for the sake of correction, you will live with one woman because you will feel that you are kindred spirits with her and it is with her that you can correct yourself. And then all physical problems or cooling will be invisible because in your physical union with her you will feel spiritual unity, and then there will be no problems.

The world is coming to this. And now we are living in a transitional period when there is no such marriage as before, but there is also no new state of marriage as it should be.

But a person will be like that. He will live only in order to improve spiritually, to rise, to feel a higher state, but in no case to remain in this world and this life. Otherwise, there is no point. Otherwise, people will commit suicide, use drugs, and terrible things will happen in the world.

Comment: In principle, such a connection should ideally be.

My Response: No, not at all ideally. A person will feel spiritual needs above the base, earthly ones because in his eyes it will not be worth spending his life on them. We will survive this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Preserve Love” 12/19/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do we build an image of other people inside us?“

We are emotional cameras because we picture other people in our emotions, which are in our desire to receive.

The desire to receive pleasure is our nature and it makes us perceive everyone and everything via how we can enjoy from them.

For instance, if we look at another person’s face, we might register only their eyes and their smile, because we might enjoy those facial features the most. We do not acquire an exact physical photograph of the other person, like how police piece together facial composites, but we build an emotional impression based primarily on what we enjoy from the other person and their features.

Other than people, we also perceive animals, plants and objects similarly—in the desire to receive pleasure, which is ultimately what we are and where we perceive our reality.

Based on the video “How You Create an Image of Other People Within” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Tal Mandelbaum and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: How do you feel how far your student has progressed?

Answer: I conduct an analysis and see. The analysis is not of medical indicators, but of the spirit.

The spiritual is the same material, but not for everyone. For example, you can do an analysis of various waves, radioactivity, gasses, or some other natural phenomena, and I can measure the parameters of the spirit, and the other cannot.

Question: But how is this measured? Due to the fact that a person does some certain actions, or does he have internal changes after all?

Answer: Of course internal changes are taking place in him. I incorporate him in myself, as if in my laboratory, and measure using my ruler. Previously, he got, say, up to 20 divisions, and now up to 25.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Proper Self-analysis” 1/21/12

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do people see others as a mirror of themselves?“

Undoubtedly, we see people not for who they are. Also, it is not just people, but anything we see, we seemingly bring it to life according to what we want to see in it. People in and of themselves do not exist, but we see people according to what we want to see in them.

What does it mean that we want to see something in someone?

So many people in our lives simply pass us by, as if they do not stand out from the background. However, to the extent in which we get to know certain people, then we gain some kind of impression of them.

We then relate to them in a certain way. Then, even before we start communicating with them, we already picture their image in us based on our previous impressions that we accumulated. We register various impressions from people the more we encounter them. Therefore, we do not know any people for who they are. We only know these images that we sculpt within us.

Based on the video “You Don’t See People for Who They Are” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Tal Mandelbaum and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How should I relate to people?“

We have to relate to everyone favorably, i.e. to give a good example to everyone as much as we can in order to break them with love, out of our love for them.

What does “breaking other people with love” mean?

We first need to understand that what we perceive of other people are not them in and of themselves, but an impression that exists within us. We then need to want to invert our negative impression of others to a positive one, so that they will understand how much we really wish for their benefit.

We continue relating to them through such a tendency up to a point where, as it is written, “love will cover all crimes.” That is, over the initial negative impressions—the “crimes”—love will emerge: that we will perceive no flaws in people the way we perceived various flaws in them through our egoistic picture that we previously held.

Also, what does it mean that our initial impression of other people is always negative? It is that we view others through an egoistic filter, where we constantly calculate along the lines of “What can I get out of them?” and “How can I reap some kind of benefit from them?” If we cannot find any self-benefit from other people, then we find no point in relating to them.

Based on the video “What Is the Best Way to Relate to Other People?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Tal Mandelbaum and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you tell me more and more about the Hebrew language?“

A little while after I had started studying with my Kabbalah teacher, Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag (Rabash), a letter reached us from a prisoner who lived under terrible conditions in a prison camp in Siberia.

The letter was written in Hebrew, full of very complicated rhymes that I did not understand, and it was by a person who had no prior learning of Hebrew, nor was he connected to Israel or the Jewish people.

Rabash told me that probably what had happened was that, out of suffering, the prisoner came to feel Hebrew and the internality of the language.

How could it be, that out of great suffering, a person with no seeming connection to Israel or the Jewish people, starts writing in Hebrew?

The Kabbalistic explanation is that his suffering led him to a certain kind of connection with the source of his suffering, which is in the depths of creation, and there he found expression in Hebrew.

Kabbalists, i.e. people who hold a connection to the deeper layers of creation, see that it is indeed possible for a person to discover the Hebrew language in such a way as shown by the prisoner. That is, Hebrew is the base language that exists in the center of the world. It is at the root of all writing, talking and expression, and it lets us express our innermost feelings.

If we reach the depths of creation, then we discover life’s causal point—the common root to us all—and in that root, we have a single language and one force—of love, bestowal and connection—that created us, and which guides us gradually toward its revelation.

Based on the video “The Siberian Prisoner Who Discovered Hebrew Out of Suffering” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Tanner Mardis on Unsplash.

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One of the important qualities in spiritual work is patience; one should grit his teeth, shut his mouth, and go through all states.

This is what you do all of your life if you are dealing with the Creator, if He is standing before you, and His revelation and connection with Him is the only thing important for you since He is really the only reason for everything that is happening.

Where else can we go, and what else should we pay attention to? We need the commandment love your neighbor only in order to train and reach His qualities. Neither my neighbor nor I exist here, but only the way to reach the quality of the Creator.

Question: Is patience especially important during a quarrel?

Answer: A quarrel is the appearance of a contradiction with the Creator, when He puts me in such conditions that I do not accept the picture that He paints for me.

Question: In principle, when there is conflict between friends, is this also one of the elements?

Answer: Of course. They just do not feel it. If they are in a group, then this is a lesson for the whole group. They make a hole in the boat in which the whole group sits.

When they quarrel among themselves, they break the unity of the group, and the whole group suffers from this. Nothing can be done here! In such a relationship, no group will achieve any spiritual ascent or revelation of the Creator.

At first, all of this is forgiven and not noticed. Then it reaches such a state that we are obliged to work on ourselves so that the group is similar to the Creator. The relations in the group will always be terrible, nasty, awful, disgusting, and hateful, as in the example of the group of Rabbi Shimon, the creator of The Book of Zohar. But we must rise above this to love.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Conflict between friends” 2/15/14

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is it so hard for people to listen to someone without interrupting them?“

Why is it sometimes very hard to listen to others? Due to our egoism and pride, where we primarily consider our self-benefit over everything and everyone else, it is common for us to hold certain disagreements with others’ opinions. It might not even be a different opinion, but the sheer fact that another person is saying what I would want to say and not me is enough for me not to listen.

The opinion itself is not so important. What matters is the ability to express oneself.

Sometimes, a situation arises where one person pushes their views onto another who might have different views, and this gives a feeling that the one pushing their views is suppressing the other person’s sense of self. It is because when we listen, we fall under the influence of the other person. Where are we in those moments? We seemingly become nonexistent, which is why we feel a need to switch on our own mouths here and there.

In other words, we should not enter into conversations in a direct and forceful way, even if what we say is seemingly right and to the point. There needs to be preparation. That is, we need to give the person we are talking with a feeling that they are right. We can then talk our hearts away with them, and afterward, when the other person has discharged themselves, we can then start turning the conversation little by little.

Based on the video “Why Can it Be So Hard to Listen to Other People?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is Israel’s side of the story?“

Recently, at a border crossing in Huwara, a large town South of Nablus, a Palestinian terrorist was shot dead by an Israeli border police officer during a struggle after the terrorist tried to steal the officer’s weapon. The event was filmed, distributed on social media and presented as the execution of a Palestinian. Israel was condemned for the act by the United Nations, America and others, and it once again awakened the question as to whether others will see Israel’s side of the story. That is, the officer acted in order to protect his own life and the life of others, and it is also written in the Torah that if a person comes to kill you, you need to kill them first.

That others will see Israel’s side of this story depends solely on whether we Jews act out of a common unification toward each other, above our differences. The world will then shift its attitude toward Israel from negative to positive, i.e. to a people who bring peace and love to humanity. As much as we behave as a divided people, then the world will likewise feel that we bring sorrow and torment to the world—and they will continue viewing us in a negative light.

Israel is held to completely different standards than any other nation because there is more of a demand upon Israel than on any other nation. We initially became the people of Israel when we followed Abraham’s guidance and reached a state of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Attaining a state of a common love toward each other is a law that we need to abide by in order to realize what we need to do in the world. After we implement this law among our own connections, we will then be able to love others too, and then they will also love us in return.

It acts like a chain, and the first link of that chain is love for our fellow people here—among the people of Israel. If we reach a state where we positively connect to each other above our differences, we will then positively influence the rest of the world. Other nations will then gain an ability to positively connect, and then they will understand that Israel grants them this ability. We will then become treated contrarily to how we are treated today: as bringers of peace. Humanity’s good or bad future rests in how the people of Israel will attune their attitudes toward each other.

Based on the video “When Will People See Israel’s Side of the Story?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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