Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we have a nature that rejects what is harmful and absorbs what is beneficial?“

Human nature is the desire to receive pleasure, which wants to receive what is beneficial and push away what is harmful. Such is the essence of our nature, and everything else in our lives is built upon it. We thus instinctively first make sure to reject what harms us, and afterward, when we are certain that we somehow protect ourselves from harm, then we look into how we can enjoy, acquire and draw closer to whatever brings us pleasure.

It is how we behave and we are not in control. A smarter system decides on what gets pushed away and what we can leave. The system operates in four stages: still, vegetative, animate and human. That is, there are phenomena that we do not control, which are only parts of our bodies. Our body is built such that, if it is healthy, then it knows what is good and bad for it. Afterward, there is an emotional system, which also knows what is good and bad for it, and it functions instinctively and relatively. From the emotional system, we move to the mind, and from the mind to the intellect, and so on. That is, systems over systems interact, and they function by receiving the beneficial and rejecting the harmful.

In every single thought, desire and action in our lives, we thus operate by trying to move away from pain and move toward pleasure.

Based on the video “Why Does Our Nature Move Away from Pain and Move Toward Pleasure?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can Israel have more condemnations from the UN human rights council than all other countries combined?“

It is because Israel is responsible for everything that happens in the world, everything bad and good. We determine the attitude of the upper force of nature in terms of how it relates to everyone.

The UN singles out Israel because we are indeed special. We cannot get rid of our uniqueness and be normal ordinary people that are judged by the same standard as everyone else. Why? It is because we cannot escape being Jewish. I have written and spoken extensively about the role of the Jewish people, how our nation is unique in that we share no biological foundation but an ideological one, that we attained a state of positive connection (“love your neighbor as yourself”) above division (”love will cover all crimes”) and today, the world needs such a tendency to emerge in order to transition to a harmonious and peaceful state.

Everything that unfolds in the world is a result of the relations inside of Israel and nothing will help unless we positively connect with each other. Only through our positive connection will we bring about a major shift in the world, an inversion of the myriad increases of crises and suffering to a state of calm, tranquility and love. It is indeed in our hands to do, and the disproportionate hatred toward us is in order to tell us that we have such a role, which we are not yet carrying out.

Based on the video “Why Israel Has More Condemnations from the UN Human Rights Council Than the Other Countries Combined?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Déjà vu is a state when a person clearly feels that he has seen or heard something somewhere before. How does this happen?

Answer: The fact is that when the brain begins to compare different things, it seems to a person that this has definitely already happened, and this, and that, and one begins to embed one video fragment into another, one picture into another. So it turns into “déjà vu.”

But, on the other hand, there is also premonition, foresight, when a person (thanks to one’s intellect or sense of being in the system of nature) feels that such and such an action should happen now. He begins to feel the thoughts of others or to anticipate some waves coming to him. And all this is because we are in one unified system of nature and can guess the next event by some preliminary signs.

There are people who have developed this feeling, like Messing or Bedouins in the desert. The sense of nature in them was developed very strongly, particularly in Messing, for years ahead. He could simply predict because he felt that such events would happen. But that does not mean he could change anything.

And Kabbalah allows us to mitigate the upcoming events. They will happen anyway but in a milder form. It depends on whether we will unite between us, whether we will treat each other and our progress kindly, or leave the whole matter to our egoism, which naturally will torment us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, What is Déjà Vu?” 5/19/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the biggest problems faced by humanity, and how do we go about solving them?“

Following a string of heatwaves, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin that “We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.”

The problem is that we simply cannot act together even facing such stark choices. Our egos do not let us unite. From the inside, we simply cannot act even in the face of imminent catastrophes. We host a quality that disallows our connection to others, even in a state where we could die without connection.

There is a vicious animal inside us that we are starting to recognize: our egoistic nature that wants to enjoy at the expense of others. It does not let us take others into consideration. It is a barrier that we cannot leap over.

Human beings are nature’s most ignorant creatures because in the worst possible state, we still seek how to take advantage of others.

We have to finally acknowledge how unbounded our ego really is. Such awareness is the beginning of our healing. Then, the healing will come from above. We have to acknowledge that it is in our ability to ask and pray for our connection. And then, by our connection, all of nature’s forces will reach balance.

Nature created us with the ego so we would rise above it toward the force of love, bestowal and connection. We will see how we are going to finish off our entire civilization and our lives until we understand that we have no other choice but to connect, and then we will be willing to connect.

Based on the video “Collective Action OR Collective Suicide: Is Humanity Smart Enough to Survive?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: You said that drama makes a person go through all the experiences himself, but comedy does not.

My Response: But in comedy you can go through more states than in a drama. In a drama, you stand still, freeze, and kind of stop. In humor, on the contrary, you roll forward and can go through a great number of states. We think humor is light and drama is deep, but it depends on your point of view.

Why is everyone really afraid of comedians and satirists? Because humor can be very deep. This is the deepest digging of human nature or all kinds of social phenomena.

The humor I have in mind is very deep. It is a certain attitude to our flaws. But they can be opened in such a way that we simultaneously understand how they can be corrected.

Tragedies, however, suck you in. You become petrified, cemented in this very phenomenon, and in the experience when you sit and just devour yourself. This is silly.

I think humor is smarter than tragedy, not humor such as all sorts of stupid jokes, but real subtle serious humor designed for connoisseurs, for smart people. It is always kind.

These are not some tricks and hints, but very deep expressions of our secret, subconscious feelings and thoughts. In general, a very useful thing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Comedy or Drama?” 5/22/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What advice would you give to someone who just won the lottery?“

To build something good for children and the elderly.

Children and the elderly are always in need of support, so giving the money in that direction should give the lottery winner a feeling of satisfaction that they contributed positively to people’s lives, and that they made meaningful use of the prize money.

We derive a lot more fulfillment and happiness from helping other people than from pleasing ourselves, indulging in luxuries.

Why? It is because what we give others lives on in them.

Whatever we receive for ourselves, we immediately bury in the spiritual graveyard, whereas what we give to others passes from us into the ever-expansive collective soul, the collective consciousness, which increasingly advances in a state of eternity, wholeness and perfection.

The key to happiness is to live outside one’s self-aimed desires, in the desires of others.

Based on the video “A Kabbalist’s Advice for Lottery Winners” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: How does a Kabbalist attract spiritual reality to himself?

Answer: He does not attract it. He needs to build it in himself. Spiritual reality does not exist! There is no spiritual world, there is no heaven, hell, there is nothing! You have to create all this yourself. Then it will exist. The one who does not create it for himself does not have it.

Question: But there is some form or formula. How is it created?

Answer: There is a formula by which it is created, but not a form.

Question: Do all Kabbalists, using this formula, perceive reality differently?

Answer: No. This reality is felt as one single whole, and they feel themselves existing in it because they have an equivalence of qualities with it. But everyone feels it in his own way, as each of us feels this world in his own way.

Comment: The point is that it does not exist, but still its perception is automatically given to us in our heads.

My Response: It is because instead of you, nature itself forms an egoistic image within you, an egoistic desire in which you feel it. However, a spiritual, altruistic desire, you have to form by yourself.

Question: How do we all form some kind of reality together when, let’s say, there is a congress?

Answer: We must gather together, help each other with our thoughts and aspirations, and make an effort so that we would want to reach the quality of bestowal and love. Then, in this common quality, we will begin to feel the upper world. Each one to the extent that he has invested in it.

Question: This is a cumulative process. Nevertheless, some amount of effort should be accumulated inside a person. What should be the limit so that a person is ready to just burst?

Answer: He receives what he wants just before he bursts. But only if he is bursting from the desire for connection and love, from the desire to bestow and fill others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reality on the Other Side of Perception” 7/18/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will Russia’s attempt to invade Ukraine and the subsequent consequences show that war is a 20th century idea that is no longer feasible in a financially interdependent and globalised world?“

Today, we have more interdependence between people, societies, cultures, economies and countries than ever before. And the ongoing Russia and Ukraine conflict presents a very sharp and painful example of our tightening global interdependence. The fact that mass starvation and other massive supply deficits could quickly impact entire populations as a direct outcome of the war already shows how we have no lack of food or supplies; we only lack positive human connection.

Through such suffering, nature wishes to teach us about our globally-interdependent state: that we can cultivate anything we want, but if we lack positive connection, then whatever we do acts negatively upon us and will lead to suffering.

Nature thus gradually teaches us, by coupling our tightening global interdependence with increasing suffering, that we need to perform a 180-degree flip of our attitudes to each other: from our inborn egoistic attitudes where we prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others, to its opposite—a genuine desire to benefit others over self-benefit.

Impacting a shift from a path of suffering to a path of increasing understanding, fulfillment and happiness in today’s globally-interdependent world requires positively connecting with each other above our differences, and feeling ourselves as a single global body.

Based on the video “The Infeasibility of War in a Globally-Interdependent World” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: When a person studies Kabbalah, he is sometimes squeezed through all sorts of states, as if through a grater. How can we relate to this with humor?

Answer: Nothing can be done. You can’t really relate to this with humor when you are greatly torn. If you associate yourself with this state, that this is indeed “me,” then you are in this wash.

And if you get used to looking at it from the outside, since it happens to your body, to your donkey,  egoism, then you will take it more calmly. But at every phase of our development, there are moments when you nonetheless fall into this feeling and in it so deeply that you can’t look from the outside.

Comment: There is a desire to look at it from the outside, but it is really absolutely impossible.

My Response: Move forward because nothing can be done. If you have a strong environment, then you will be able to overcome these states and stay, for the most part, above them. The environment will hold you, will not let you fall, and will pull you, as if through the air, above these states. Instead of crawling over rugged terrain, you will have a balloon or a magnet that carries you over this space.

Question: When a person experiences all this, there is some kind of cumulative process. Why is it important to endure these states?

Answer: There is no need to endure! On the contrary, it is necessary to sweeten them as much as possible. It is not good if you are in one of those states where you have to endure. Always be cheerful and justify the Creator for all the actions that He does, because He leads you forward all the time.

Going through the four stages of your development, you really feel like you are in a washing machine: the water starts, with the detergent powder, the drum turns, the water is drained, the rinsing starts, and then the spinning. These are the stages that you feel on yourself. But when you feel that you are being thoroughly washed, cleansed, scrubbed, and rinsed, and this is necessary for the goal, you rejoice. Everything depends on the goal.

If you understand that correction is taking place in you every minute, then you are inspired. After all, watch how mountain-climbers climb a mountain, how much work, how much courage. And what?… A person rejoices, although he is high in the mountains in very difficult conditions.

That is, everything depends on attitude. This is a difference between, let’s say, a casual walk and a forced march. The forced march has a goal ahead, whereas, during a walk we enjoy the process itself.

Question: But in such situations, students often ask you for advice on what to do, how to be. What do you tell them?

Answer: What can I tell them? Accelerate! And you can accelerate only on account of the environment. Let it put pressure on you and you act. That is all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Look at Yourself From the Outside?” 5/23/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will AI-powered translation bring people closer together beyond languages?“

I think that it would go the other way and bring about more harm, because we need to listen to each other’s hearts, to communicate from heart to heart rather than from mouth to ear.

Unless we correct ourselves, developing positive ties to one another, then the less we talk to each other, the better. Moreover, if we would correct our nature and relate to each other favorably, then we would not need such devices, because we would then feel other people’s hearts.

In other words, we would understand each other’s hearts without needing to understand each other’s languages. We would have no need to elevate what we feel in our hearts to our minds, converting our feelings into words and sounds in order to explain what we feel. We would rather immediately feel our common heart, existing together, as it is written, “as one man with one heart.”

Based on the video “Will AI-Powered Translation Bring People Closer Together Beyond Languages?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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