Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a meaningful interaction?“

A meaningful interaction is any interaction where we consider:

Why is it happening?
What is its source?
What is the desired outcome?
By relating as such to our interactions, we would start moving in a direction where we start thinking that every person, animal, plant and object has its place and time.

The world is hidden from us, and it reveals itself to us one interaction at a time. These interactions are imaginary forms that exist solely in our perception and we make them meaningful by organizing our attitude toward this movie that is playing at every moment, i.e. toward the world.

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

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Question: Mark writes: “Why is it that whenever we want good, we come to bad? If we want peace, we come to war. We want happiness, we get only suffering. We want to educate children, and as a result they are brought up by TikTok, corrupted peers, and scandalous media. It turns out that we do not care about our children. Yet, we have no strength to change anything. Why do you want one thing, but always receive another?”

Answer: Because you, a human, have created a world that affects your child and affects him from all sides. You raised all his friends, you built all this mass media and so on. You did all of it, with your own hands. Now all this affects your son and forces him to be this thing that is embedded in all these means that put pressure on him.

You are responsible for the entire world.

Question: Can you say this to everyone?

Answer: I can. You are responsible for the entire world. Therefore, there is no need to hide somewhere or run away;  nothing will work.

Question: Did I make the world bad?

Answer: You!

Question: How can I make it good?

Answer: First of all, think about the fact that you are responsible for this world, and you can return it to a good state, correct it. So now you are thinking only about the way to correct it. In fact, by correcting yourself, you are correcting the entire world. If you are really sure of it, then it will happen that way.

Question: What do you mean by “correcting myself”?

Answer: From egoism to altruism. That’s it!

Question: Is that all there is?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can you imagine, that’s all there is, and here around us there is such a complex world?

Answer: There is nothing around us. This is all just a display of our idiotic, shoddy egoism! And a shallow one at that, at its lowest level! These are not the great upper forces of nature, negative and positive ones at a morally high level, and so on. This is a little thing that we mess around with like children in a sandbox.

Comment: So, you answer affirmatively to the questions, of which we have a million. They say: “Laitman reduces everything to egoism.”

My Response: Yes, that’s right!

Question: Is it the basis of everything? Of all the troubles, all the suffering, everything in general?

Answer: Yes, and the basis of happiness as well.

Question: Is egoism also the basis of happiness?

Answer: Yes. And it is not going anywhere. We just need to handle it correctly. Thanks to it, we will come to happiness.

Question: In what instance? What do I need to do?

Answer: Use it correctly.

Question: Is this the only thing that is required of me?

Answer: The only thing. You have nothing but egoism in your nature. You have to stand on this egoism, and you have no right to destroy it (even if we assume that there is such an opportunity). No way! Kabbalah forbids it. It even prohibits all kinds of diets and other things like that.

You have to be a normal person. Normal! And to think only about one thing: How can I transform my egoism so that it works for bestowal and love. There is nothing easier.

Question: So, is this the only thing that the wisdom of Kabbalah is engaged in?

Answer: That’s all we need to be engaged in.

Question: Then what is hidden about it?

Answer: It is concealed from us. Therefore, it is hidden. But there is nothing hidden about it.

Comment: Hidden wisdom, signs, letters, gematria…

My Response: It is all because we have nothing to do with this! As soon as you start to move toward this, you immediately begin to understand what it is talking about—about the reverse side of our world.

Question: So, is one simple formula at the heart of everything anyway?

Answer: Yes, invert egoism to its opposite.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/28/22

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Comment: Yulia writes: “I feel disconnected, weak in this world, unable to protect my loved ones, to help them. You say that prayer is the most powerful weapon. I have it in me, and it is precisely about peace, about the good connection between people, about what we lack so much today. But I have a strange feeling: I am starting to fear that the more you ask for it, the worse it gets, the closer we get to the fiery pit where we can all perish. And I am already afraid to ask. What should I do?”

My Response: No, you need to ask. It is necessary to ask, for people to understand how to reach goodness. We lack only one thing in this world: the manifestation of goodness, some example of goodness so that we feel this example and envy that there are such actions in the world that are called goodness. And we do not see them, absolutely do not see them. There is a lot of goodness in the world, all around.

But where, how, who, to whom, what? I do not see since with my egoistic eyes I cannot see it. That is what we need. At least ask for yourself to be kind. Ask for it.

This is the most important quality of the Creator. In this way, we are coming closer to the quality of the Creator, the quality of love.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/28/22

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Question: Is the sensation of the past, present, and future also a form of perception? When I perceive some of the forces that currently act upon me, do I inside of myself attach them to the past, present, or future? Why are these categories necessary?

Answer: They are for the purpose that I would try to come closer to the state when all these categories merge into one common whole. After all, it is all happening within me. If I always try to tune myself to the correct perception of reality, it is as though I move from the present to the future, while the past is crawling to the present. It turns out that I constantly live in the plane on which I fixate what is occurring at a given moment like in a photograph.

Question: What should a person base himself on every moment of time? What algorithm should be here: past, present, future?

Answer: The algorithm is very simple. At each moment of time I want to reveal a new layer of nature in the new desire that appears within me and to be unified with the world in this perception.

Question: Does it mean I want to reveal the future when I base myself on the present and in some way using the past?

Answer: It is possible to say it this way as well, the only thing we should avoid is confusion.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 4/29/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it necessary for a good leader to be charismatic?“

We do not need charismatic leaders today. We need leaders who can understand and empathize with people, and who can resonate with people emotionally to guide them to a common goal.

However, I see no examples of such leaders in our world today. The human ego blocks us from feeling others. To become such a leader requires rising above the ego’s influence, and discovering what it means to become a human being in the fullest sense of the term: as one who positively connects to others, who feels that they are a part of a single system with others and thus who needs to devote themselves to the benefit of others.

Today’s leaders are the opposite. They are unscrupulous and egocentric, willing to tear down anything and everyone in their way. It is due to the fact that our economy runs on egoistic principles—“what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours”—and so whoever can work out how to trample on others more effectively becomes more powerful in such a system.

We thus need a new economy if we are to find leaders who can understand and empathize with people. What is this new economy? It is an economy of the heart, an economy that speaks to life itself. People sustaining and living according to such an economy would feel that they can earn and build the world from a different kind of material, one that stems from positive human connections.

That is the kind of economy and leader of the future. Although it is very far from where we are now, we are nonetheless destined to reach such a state.

Based on the video “Is it Necessary for a Good Leader to be Charismatic?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Hudson Hintze on Unsplash

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Question: We recently had students enroll in new courses on the study of Kabbalah. If you could address these thousands of students, what would you wish for them?

Answer: I would wish them the opportunity to devote the maximum amount of time to studying the foundations of Kabbalah, which they would master in such a way as a basis for further insight into society, nature, and the world.

Question: Many of our friends help students by supporting their learning process, organizing groups and workshops, and helping them advance in their studies. What would you wish for these friends?

Answer: What they do is very important. Just as blood vessels in our body deliver nutrition, information, and a huge amount of everything necessary for each organ of the body so it lives, so the spiritual life depends on these people.

They bring through themselves, through their connection with beginners, all the data that is in Kabbalah in such a form and to such an extent that it is absorbed by people whom it gradually raises along the spiritual degrees; into the state of real, correct, and mutual coexistence with vast nature, with the Creator.

So their work is extremely important!
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 4/29/22

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Question: Nadezhda writes: “Today I have a great desire to address the women of the whole world about peace and love. I am sure that only women can save the world. Do you think if I write a letter to all the women of the world and send it out, it will change something in the world? Or is it all my illusion and everything is already predetermined?

Answer: It is desirable to do this by all means. Write from a pure heart such an appeal, not just an appeal, but a proclamation that would really glue them to your appeal, and all this common force would go around the Earth.

Question: So I shouldn’t think, but write as I feel?

Answer: No, you need to think about it. Because people will not read it in the state that you, the writer, experience it. Therefore, you have to think. Think about how the person will perceive it. But still in the end he should be imbued with what you want to convey to him.

Question: So if a person wants to write about love and peace, then it breaks into peoples’ hearts?

Answer: Yes, write, definitely.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/10/22

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Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth (Mark Twain).

Question: In principle, we consider something to be the truth and something to be a lie, this is in a way the basis of our perception of the world. Is there any mechanism to distinguish between truth and lie? How can a person orientate himself?

Answer: I do not think this is quite simple. Finding the truth is the goal of many quests of all people, from a small child to great minds, depending on the level and how they see this truth.

The search for truth is, of course, a very unrewarding task, but it is at the same time a very human one. It develops us and pulls us forward. Basically, we live in order to understand the meaning of our life. This is our most important quest. This is what we exist for.

Question: Does the truth somehow differ from verity? Are these different concepts?

Answer: Truth is when we can say that it is true or false, the greater truth, the lesser truth. Verity is something that is unshakable. We want to attain it. Each degree toward attainment of verity can be called truth.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 4/29/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is desire so destructive yet natural at the same time?“

Specifically the desire of the human is destructive both to itself and to its environment. We do not see the same kind of destructive desire in nature’s other levels, i.e. the still, vegetative and animate.

We humans have destructive desires because we are made of a desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, and this desire is in constant growth. In our era particularly, we experience life through an overblown desire to enjoy, and we thus bear witness to much more destructive phenomena than in any other era. Nature’s other levels do not have the same amount of desire to enjoy that we have as humans, which makes us the sole destructive element in nature.

However, there is a purpose to our destructive desires. They develop us to a state where we realize the need for serious introspection, to see that our desire to enjoy is pushing us to destroy ourselves and our planet. Such a realization should urge us to reach a decision for change: that we have to build a different life, one based on positively connecting to each other with ties of mutual love, support and consideration. When we undergo a significant attitude shift from an desire for self-benefit to one aimed at benefiting others and nature, then we will see a whole new, harmonious and peaceful life of happiness, safety and confidence open up to us.

Based on the video “Why Are Our Desires So Destructive?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Nitzah Mazoz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Ethan Sykes on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the single best way to fix the climate crisis?“

We can bring the world to balance only if we ourselves achieve balance in our relations. We will then find ourselves in a world that provides for everybody’s needs and satisfies everyone.

This is no pipe dream or utopia. It is a state that we will reach voluntarily or involuntarily. If we create balance in the world at the human level, then nature’s lower levels—the animate, vegetative and inanimate—will also enter into balance.

Today, there are people who expose all kinds of governments and organizations for climate inaction, but they provide no solutions. It is because the solutions that will ultimately bring the world to a state of balance are in changing ourselves to cultivate positive human connections.

I also support the creation of a serious organization of scientists, politicians and economists who collaborate on conducting in-depth research and reports on the world’s state, and who discuss what could be done. However, the solution will remain the same: to create balance in our relations in order to enable balance throughout the world.

Instead of making all kinds of governments and organizations the enemies and pointing the finger of blame on them, we should each view our inner selves as our sole enemy: the egoistic self within that prioritizes self-benefit over benefiting others.

Either we start changing our egoistic nature—upgrading our attitudes to each other from negative to positive, which would start bringing nature into balance—or we experience increasing suffering from climate crises together with a wide range of other crises that stem from the same root. In short, bringing ourselves into balance is possible only if we gradually create an atmosphere of “Love your neighbor as yourself” throughout society.

Based on the video “What Is the Single Best Way to Fix the Climate Crisis?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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