Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can humans rise above their animal nature?“

There are three key steps involved in humans rising above the animal nature:

1. Acknowledge that “love your neighbor as yourself” is the comprehensive law of nature that we have to achieve, and nature will make us reach it one way or another, i.e. either through our own conscious participation, where we progress to that law pleasurably and with ever-growing awareness, perception and sensation; or without our conscious participation, where increasing suffering will prod us to acknowledge this law.
2. We have to examine the extent to which our nature is opposite to the law of nature. It is written about our nature that “man’s inclination is evil from his youth.” In other words, our animal nature initially takes no one but itself into consideration, and such a quality is evil. It is evil specifically because it leads us to enjoy from harming others. Enjoyment from harming others is a quality specific to the animal nature in people, and it should not be confused with the nature in animals, where some animals harm other animals solely out of survival necessity. With us, however, beyond our survival necessities for food, sex, family and shelter, our animal nature further develops us by making us want what others have—to receive, buy and even steal from them—up to a point where we enjoy harming them without there being any other kind of benefit in it for ourselves. In other words, our animal nature develops to a point where we might not need anything that others have, but we enjoy stripping them away from what they have.
3. We then go through different forms of recognition of evil, i.e. understanding different magnitudes of the evil in our animal nature. That is, the second stage is mere knowledge of our animal nature’s oppositeness to nature. We can have knowledge of such a quality yet still enjoy being evil. The recognition of evil is a more developed stage where we understand and feel that our evil animal nature actually harms us, the very person that it resides in, and to the extent in which we gain such a recognition, we correct this animal nature—we start the process of rising above it to reach the higher nature of love, bestowal and connection. This is called a process of “correction” of our nature, and there is a specific method that guides this correction process up to the full attainment of nature’s law, i.e. fully rising above our animal nature and becoming human—a being with an intention similar to nature’s law of love, bestowal and connection.

Based on the video “How Humans Can Rise Above Their Animal Nature [in 3 Steps]” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Yael Leshed-Harel and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Pablo Soriano on Unsplash.

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Question: Why has disparity always been felt by a person as evil?

Answer: Because the relationship between people is egoistic. When they become altruistic, the disparity between us gives us the opportunity to receive or bestow to another in some kind of disproportion between us.

This gives everyone a feeling of bestowing and receiving, which, in principle does not matter, but only expresses our inner motives.

That is, in the future society, a person will become completely different, his concepts of eternal values will radically change. He will be glad that the Creator created us unequal.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22

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Comment: The environment influences a person, builds him up. But this does not always happen. For example, soccer used to be very popular and still is. A lot of people are fans of this sport. However, among the fans there are those who seem to be present at the matches, root for it, immerse themselves in this environment, but remain unaffected.

Similarly, people engaged in Kabbalah should immerse themselves in a certain state, but they are perhaps not ready for this at all?

My Response: Football is one thing, but striving for the goal of creation is quite another since every person must move toward it because his personal life and everything connected to it depends on it.

The fact is that everything that happens to us is necessary precisely in order for us to take at least some small step toward the goal of creation on our own, like a child who is learning to walk. A small step for a person is a big step for all mankind.

Even if one person takes a small step toward the goal of creation, toward its realization, it resonates throughout humanity because we are all integrally interconnected. Therefore, there is a big difference in whether I am interested in soccer or in implementing a program that depends on me.

Take any person, whoever he may be, even if he only participates in it mentally or by a small action somewhere, it is recorded in his spiritual genes, it affects him, the whole of humanity, and the whole picture of the world revealed in the next moment because everyone who accepts a reasonable, conscious participation in it spiritually improves the overall situation, and it becomes much easier for everyone.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Impact of Football on a Person” 2/18/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the Third Commandment prohibitions?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, prohibition equates to impossibility.

Accordingly, the third commandment—”You shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”—means that we cannot reproduce the name of the Creator because doing so requires making ourselves similar to the Creator. In other words, it is impossible to reach a perception and sensation of the Creator if not through exercising His quality through connections with other people.

How does this work? It is because our inborn nature is egoistic, a desire to benefit oneself alone, and the Creator’s quality is the opposite, one of love and giving. It is thus only possible to reveal the Creator if we invert our inborn egoistic quality to one of love and giving, similar to the Creator.

Since the Creator is concealed from our inborn egoistic nature, then we cannot establish a direct connection to the Creator by ourselves; we would be dabbling in fantasy and imagination. We thus need to exercise the quality of love and giving in connection with other people, where we can more tangibly examine and work on our attitude.

Based on the video “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Michael Sanilevich on June 7, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Can the difference between us give a person pleasure and comfort?

Answer: Nature has created us different from each other. And here the question arises, should we strive to neutralize absolutely everything there is between us? Or should we maintain this disparity and somehow move forward while preserving it?

I think practice will determine this. People will use disparity between them and will understand how much they need its manifestation.

Disparity will not increase, but it will be felt more acutely. Sensitivity to it will become more and more obvious in people, which will help them manifest themselves in an even greater rapprochement with each other, despite the disparity.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22

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Comment: You said that now we are approaching the war of Gog and Magog.

My Response: This war is already underway. In different sources it is called differently, but in principle, it is a war of the sons of light with the sons of darkness.

The war of Gog and Magog is the last battle for the correction of egoism by the upper light. It is very difficult for a person to separate himself from his ego despite the fact that he is disappointed in his condition, is ready to break away from this world, and sees only continuous losses in it: “Why to be born, suffer and die if our life is worth nothing, there is no sense in it?”

We used to live like animals: you were born, and you live. And now we have reached a level where we realize: “Do we really need this? No. Who benefits from this? Nobody.” Worthlessness, aimlessness…

But when we talk about rising to the next degree, we have to act against egoism. And although it—in principle—manifests itself as an absolute evil, we still cannot break away from it.

This is where the so-called war of Gog and Magog arises: when we all need to unite against our egoism and not against each other. Will the method of bringing people closer to a common good Babylon be correctly perceived straightaway, and will the corrections of our nature be made with the help of the upper light to the degree of “love your neighbor as yourself” and us merging with the upper force, with the Creator?

Will this be done in a good way, or will humanity still succumb to its dark, low instincts, fascism, Nazism, and will protectionism prevail for a while? Then we will go through a certain period of suffering, which will eventually convince us that there is no other way out.

But it will lead to a very bitter, terrible experience, which humanity has not yet had when a small fraction of people will remain, and all the rest will be destroyed. This small handful of people, will have gathered all the suffering of humanity into themselves and will be able to correct their egoism and achieve the final, predetermined upper goal.

This is the plan of nature, the plan of our evolutionary development, and there is no getting away from it. Its active part began to be implemented at the end of the last century with all kinds of problems of humanity, with individual crises here and there, which gradually merged into one general crisis, into a state of universal interaction, universal dependence of all countries, nations, and civilizations. This is the beginning of the war of Gog and Magog.

Either this war will be realized on a spiritual level where humanity will struggle with its basic egoistic motives realizing that they were given only to overcome them, or it will close its eyes and follow the path of dark instincts, and then it will experience all this, as it is said, in the flesh, that is, on itself, on its own skin. Then a very difficult time will come. Kabbalists warn about it.

They even write: “I would not like to live at this time” the state of the world will be so terrible. Mothers will devour their children out of hunger, people will hunt each other like barbarians, like cannibals, mutilated by all kinds of radiation effects.

The international system of communication will fall and people will find that they have absolutely nothing to eat, clothe themselves, or provide themselves with electricity, fuel, and so on without it. It will be a collapse that will turn people into savages.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The near future of humanity” 11/3/09

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will society improve in the future?“

Society will improve in the future by becoming the happiest and most perfect society ever, where positive connection, love, mutual responsibility and unity become the sole criteria for humanity to live in total harmony, peace and joy.

We could imagine the future state of human society as a family, where we all mutually wish to make each other happy, helping each other wherever possible, raising each other’s spirits, and likewise our systems would function to help us receive whatever we need in order to reach balance among each other and with nature.

The laws operating in a loving family are the exact same laws that we now break as a society—laws of a single, integral and perfect system—which is the reason we feel society filled with myriad problems and crises. By making moves to implement laws of a single, integral and perfect system in our social connections, we draw positive forces dwelling in nature upon ourselves, which let us observe such laws, and which also start filling us with a sensation of harmony and perfection.

Based on the video “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Israel Shimshon on June 24, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: A person faces internal difficulties that he needs to overcome when in a Kabbalistic environment and while performing actions aimed at the common goal. Why does this happen?

Answer: Because we are within the framework of our world and have absolutely no contact with the spiritual world. It is possible to move to the spiritual world only if a person receives upper energy for ascent.

This happens only if you really want to break away from all the egoistic reasons that motivate you to act in this world and you perform an action that is outside of you, has nothing to do with you, and is directed only toward the Creator.

Since we do not feel the result of this action and do not have any profit from it, we do not have the energy to perform it. Our body (egoism) cannot work in this direction, and in this I feel completely disconnected from the opportunity to ever be in the spiritual world.

I see that this is highly unlikely because I am not some kind of engine that can work without energy. I am an engine that works with energy. The energy for me is the future reward, and then I have the ability to act.

In the beginning of the path, when I come to the group, I have the energy to act because I feel that they approve of me and I am together with them doing important work. I get involved, I am burning because here they talk about the purpose of creation, about the fact that the entire world will soon turn to this. The greatness of what we do arises in me. But it is still egoistic.

As I participate in everything and grow, an understanding arises in me that I am going to start acting on a completely different fuel, which is the fact that what I do is important to others and is for the benefit of the entire world so that some kind of Creator, some force, will receive contentment from it. And maybe even so that the entire world will feel good and the Creator as well, but they will not know about me at all, and even I myself will not know that I perform such kind, good, great actions.

Then the question arises: how can I perform them? What for? And most importantly, with what energy? Where is the completion of this task? My egoistic organism is not able to do anything if it does not see a better future state.

In our world, I can convince myself: if I do this, I will gain this, and if I do that, I will gain that, and so on. I always choose the most optimal state—to achieve maximum benefit with minimal effort.

Here, however, I have nothing at all. How can you apply some supernatural efforts without any benefit for yourself? That is, my engine does not work. Then there is a need for an environment, for help from above to come and give me such ability.

Yet, do I wish that I had such an ability to work on “air” and not on “gasoline”? It requires the joint efforts of friends, groups, and very strong support in order for a person to gradually approach such a need and understand that it is possible. After all, there is another participant in the process of correction, of coming to the perpetuum mobile: the upper light, the Creator.

It is better to call this “light” because we associate the Creator with some object and the upper light is more abstract. This is the quality of bestowal and love that can affect me and help me create such conditions.

Thus, a person, a group, the upper light, and dissemination, all these necessary conditions together gradually turn into sufficient conditions for a person to begin to receive upper energy, which gives him the ability to perform altruistic actions outside of himself.

This is how he comes to his first spiritual action and in it he begins to feel outside himself, that is, a completely different structure, system, and connection that is revealed between everyone. He sees this world as a corridor through which a person must pass to the upper world and begins to understand the meaning of everything that happens to him and to other people.

He receives a completely different attitude toward the group, toward his friends, he lives a new life; the eternity of the system in which he exists is revealed to him because he entered the level of Adam (man). Before that, we are considered animals because, in principle, we are the same highly developed but more corrupted animals. This is how we advance.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Impact of Kabbalah on a Person” 6/11/14

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How important is education?“

First of all, what is education? Education means any kind of environmental influence on us—any one of us, and any kind of influence, anything that we absorb. It could be natural phenomena, animals, a forest where we live, or the ocean. It could be society or several societies that we mingle with throughout the day. Everything that we absorb from outside of us influences and changes us. That is the general meaning of the term “education.”

We are constantly receiving an education. We are enveloped in an atmosphere and an environment that educates us, whether intentionally or otherwise, and each day is new. Therefore, if we are discussing education, we have to precisely discern whether our influences are intentionally directed at us, at each and every person—that we shape them a certain way—or whether the influence is unintentional and seemingly random.

We then also need to examine the kinds of environmental and social influences we receive on a daily basis, and the kind of societies we belong to. The examination and choice of our environmental and social influences is crucial to how we advance in our lives, but we also have to know how society influences us, because otherwise we do not know where we currently are and where will we end up.

We have to see our future and the future of humanity, or an entire society in a certain country, as the outcome of our impressions in life. If such impressions are intentionally directed at us, and they influence our thoughts, values and behaviors, then we have to take that into consideration. It is like parents who want their children to be free from influences of crime, drugs and other negative phenomena. As it is obvious with parents toward their children, so it is with adults, too. Also, our social influences include what we absorb on the Internet, the television, movies, the radio, and other such media. Everything influences us, so we have to reexamine the environment and the values that we find ourselves in, and check whether our influences are positive or negative, and what kind of environmental and social influences—i.e. what kind of education—we would need in order to guide our development to a harmonious and peaceful state.

I discuss such an educational method in several other places and if you are interested, I recommend following the links in my Quora bio for more info on it.

Based on the video “What Is Education and How Important Is Education?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Yael Leshed-Harel and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a human?“

Human is the highest of four levels in nature, the still, vegetative, animate and human. In fact, there is no form of a human in nature itself, there is only the still, vegetative and animate, and the human level emerges as a result of our undergoing a special kind of education that elevates us to such a level.

When we look around at humanity, can we say that it is full of people who live at the human or at the animate level of nature? Here, we need a clear definition of the two levels.

There are people in this corporeal world who know how to behave with each other in a cultured and civilized manner, i.e. in ways that do not harm others. Perhaps they did not even go to school, but they have a certain kind of inner intelligence that guides their behavior. On the contrary, we might also see somebody who graduated from Harvard University, but who acts like an animal. Therefore, we need to understand the difference between the two levels, human and animate.

The wisdom of Kabbalah differentiates two-legged creatures into “human” and “animal.” An animal means one who has the same image as a human, but who desires to fulfill the inborn egoistic desire with food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge. That is, we could fulfill ourselves with everything that this world has to offer, all the wealth, respect, fame, power, knowledge and artistry, however we would still be defined as being on the animate level—not the human—if our intention is to self-benefit from such a range of fulfillment.

The human level defines those who change their intention from the inborn self-aimed one, to aim at the benefit of others and nature. In Hebrew, the word for human is “Adam,” which comes from the word for “similar” (“Domeh”), from the phrase “Domeh le Elyon” (“similar to the most high”). The “most high” is the loftiest quality in reality, nature’s quality of love, bestowal and connection, which has no shred of self-benefit attached to it. That is, just as nature at its foundation functions as a quality to love, bestow, connect and hold everything within itself together, if we set the achievement of nature’s quality as our goal, and we learn to benefit others and nature to the same extent as we naturally wish to self-benefit, then we are called “human” according to such an inclination.

It is important to understand that nature is a quality of love, which we attain in our connections to each other. When we attain love for each other up to a level of, as it is written, “love your neighbor as yourself,” then we reach a state of similarity to nature. According to Kabbalah, achieving resemblance to nature’s quality of love, bestowal and connection—rising from the animate to the human level—is the highest state we can reach in our lives; it is the purpose of our lives, and its attainment gives us a sensation of eternity and perfection, unlike any limited and incomplete sensation we experience in our animate lives.

Based on the video “What Is a Human?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Yael Leshed-Harel and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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