Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How important to development is a father figure?“

In the words of Sigmund Freud, “I could not point to any need in childhood as strong as that for a father’s protection.”

The importance of the father figure is embedded in nature and our biology. A child who grows up with a distorted fatherly presence, whether the child experiences abuse or neglect from the father, leads to certain distortions that become part of them for the rest of their lives. On the contrary, a child who grows up with a positive father figure accordingly absorbs a positive influence. In our times, since the human ego has reached overblown proportions, in order to be a positive father figure to a child, men need to undergo an educational process that gives them the ability to rise above their egoistic drives and consistently exercise an altruistic attitude to other people, including their family.

If speaking in broader terms, then we can also say that humanity’s lack of feeling for its “Father,” i.e., the Creator, the upper force, is the cause of every problem that we experience in our lives. If we felt the caring attitude of our “Father”—the Creator, the upper force—which begets and cares for us at every moment, then we would bear witness to a completely different, positive, harmonious and peaceful world. However, it is impossible to feel such a presence with our inborn properties, because we would then possess no free will. We would feel the full love of the Creator, but we would also be subordinated by it. We thus have no such feeling, and it is in order to be able to act freely, i.e. to develop a similar attitude among each other in society as that of the upper force toward us. Until we do so, we will keep finding ourselves in a world that is full of increasing problems and crises.

Based on the video “The Importance of a Father Figure” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

Filed under: Children, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some like to spy on other people?“

The initial impulse of people who spy on others is to evaluate themselves as being above those on whom they spy. In short, it is an attitude of “they don’t see me, but I see them.” Secondly, it might give the ones spying an opportunity to gain an advantage over the ones they spy on, to command them in some way, or to defend themselves against them, depending on the situation.

In general, however, spying helps the human ego, i.e. our innate desire to enjoy at the expense of others. It expands the ego and makes us feel more in control, like rulers or masters.

Such a feeling is neither good nor bad. Rather, it should lead us to reassess our values so that we understand that the human ego—our desires to be better, stronger and smarter than others—is flawed.

Nature views us as a single whole, as one humanity. To position ourselves correctly, we need to aim at viewing ourselves in the same way, and positively connect to each other. We will then be able to accurately take control of our fate, ourselves and the world. Through positive connection to each other, we increase and expand altruism and lessen egoism. We can then rise above our egoistic nature, and we will then not abuse such actions as spying.

Based on “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Israel Shimshon on February 16, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash.

Filed under: Egoism, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is pain?“

Pain is an organism’s reaction to a problem it experiences. It is the organism’s way of communicating that something is wrong; it sends a warning signal of danger, and it protects us from harm or injury. For instance, if our hand touches a fire, pain makes us pull our hand away from the fire immediately, and so it protects our hand.

Pain compels our movements: to move away from something painful and move toward something enjoyable. It thus compels us to change our qualities, accept new opinions, realize the pain’s purpose, make conclusions and advance to new states of being.

Pain is a force capable of affecting the human ego. It pushes us from behind, making us develop and evolve. One form of pain are feelings of emptiness within us. They push us toward fulfillment. Our feelings come from clashes, contact and pressure, or in other words, from pain. We enjoy when the enjoyment is preceded by the painful sensation of an unfulfilled desire, suffering or expectation.

However, when we exit the human ego in order to positively connect with others and nature, we start realizing that instead of living our lives based on empty feelings, we can live on the basis of complete fulfillment. In other words, instead of pain at the basis of our drives, we can begin our motivations from love.

It is a completely different kind of existence, an alternative attitude to ourselves, our society, our world and to nature. When we achieve such an attitude, we discover a full picture of nature that is unblocked by the human ego, because we then become perfect like nature itself.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Jonathan Rados on Unsplash.

Filed under: Egoism, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “In 1-2 sentences, what is Kabbalah?“

Kabbalah is a methodology for the expansion of human awareness through the connection of desires. In such expanded awareness, we start perceiving the force that created and sustains our reality, which lets us know more about the world we live in, its cause and effect relationships, and which makes us kinder, more approachable and more contributive members of society.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the most important thing as a teacher to teach your students?“

The correct worldview: a view of the world, life, a person and an epoch.

That is most important for me—to position a person toward the correct view of his life. To do so, I need to more or less explain the picture of the world we live in, where it is headed, how to change it in the best possible direction, and provide the means to do so.

The world derives from our perception. We do not actually live in the world; the world lives in us. I thus need to teach that we create our world, painting it inside ourselves. It is quite difficult to reach that point. Starting to relate to the world in such a way is a very serious and internal spiritual revolution.

Moreover, our attention needs to be drawn to the fact that the world is not what we feel. The world is a derivative of our attitude to it, i.e.. we can recreate and readjust ourselves to the perception of another world. The world has no shape or form of its own. It is a picture that we can program. Therefore, we can create the world we live in, and it will change according to the change in our wishes, qualities and efforts.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” on December 9, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Education, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you define human progress?“

Human progress takes place in our attitude toward each other and to nature. The more we understand nature as a perfect mechanism, and the more we adapt ourselves to it, then the more we can consider ourselves making progress. By making such progress, we eventually enter into balance with nature, and by doing so, we achieve harmony and perfection.

Progress in our attitudes to each other and to nature leads us to balance between positive and negative forces, and the ability to successfully navigate ourselves among these forces.

We are born and we exist in the negative force, the human ego. This force makes us prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others and nature. We progress to balance among each other and with nature by aiming for a state where we each wish to benefit others and nature more than ourselves, and we work against our egos to achieve such balance.

Such progress in our attitudes to each other and to nature requires investing in educational programs that can make it happen. These programs should focus on guiding people to reach a state of positive connection to each other above our egoistic and divisive drives. If we progress in other directions, e.g., science and technology, without progressing in our attitudes to each other and to nature, then we will find ourselves in more and more of a tangle, using whatever we make or discover to our detriment rather than to our benefit.

Based on the video “Why New NASA Technology Doesn’t Impress Kabbalists” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I stop being superstitious?“

We are unfamiliar with nature as a whole. There are several acting forces that suddenly appear to us, and we do not know what to do with them. We then believe in all sorts of things that supplement our power of faith, which serve to make us familiar with, and take control of, such forces. Those are what we call “superstitions.”

Then, the question becomes, how should we relate to the unknown? First and foremost, we need our faith to be in the force of love and connection, that there is a single force sustaining everything and everyone in a single system. If we wish for everything and everyone to be as one, then we are on the right track.

We can thus stop being superstitious when we relate logically to reality: that there is a superior force of love, giving and connection in nature, and we can do certain actions in our world in order to reveal that force and adapt ourselves to it.

Therefore, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, if we wish to receive protection in our lives, we should direct ourselves at the force of love, giving and connection—the force of nature—and by doing so, we will attract this force into our lives. This is the meaning of what is written in kabbalistic texts, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”

Based on the video, “How a Kabbalist Relates to Superstitions,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I prevent social exclusion?“

Orphie, a 14-year-old girl who was socially excluded at her school, experienced violence for several years, and eventually became the head of a boycott patrol. The aim of the boycott patrol is to support others harmed by social exclusion. For instance, the patrol gave a girl, Elian, whose entire class shunned her, a birthday surprise, comforting her with the warm words that they are her family, and that she will not be alone anymore.

We have built a society where a lot of children and youth share this miserable situation, feeling that there is no place for them in the world.

I would advise anyone who feels the problem of social exclusion to work according to the lines of such examples as what Orphie’s group did for that girl, Elian, and to give rise to similar frameworks for helping children, as well as educating about the phenomenon. I would support their growth to become the most significant force in our society, so that no one feels worse off than others, and to show that the most potent weapon against hatred is love. If such a force strengthens, then we will be able to prevent social exclusion as we head toward a much more positively connected society.

Nobody needs to feel alone or excluded. To make that a reality, we just need to develop mutual support in society.

Based on the video, “The Solution to Social Exclusion,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Children, Education, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you lose your maternal instinct?“

Recent research shows that mothers’ engagements with smartphones and magazines are harmful to mother-child communication, which in turn harms the child’s development. In the research, mothers using their phones to engage with social media, and also mothers reading magazines, spent up to four times less time talking with their toddlers (aged two to three) than when they were not on their phones or magazines. Moreover, the mothers with phones and magazines responded less to their childrens’ calls, had a lower quality response than when not on their media, and sometimes even ignored their children altogether.

What does it mean when we see mothers—symbols of devotion, love and care—pay increasing attention to their phones and magazines than to their toddlers?

It is a present-day example of how the maternal instinct lessens and the natural connection between mother and child weakens the more that the human ego grows. The phones and magazines add to the situation, but also emerge together with our natural development, which is a continual growth of the human ego that increasingly detaches us from each other, up to a point of detaching mothers from their children.

As a result of our egoistic development, less and less people today want to have children or grandchildren, and more and more people are becoming concerned solely with their individual lives. Such development needs to unfold until we reach a state of helplessness and desperation, where we will feel no livelihood or fulfillment in a life of growing detachment to one another.

However, together with the growing helplessness comes the opportunity to correctly diagnose the root cause of our growing detachment to each other—the overblown human ego that resides in each and every one of us—and to stop identifying our egoistic drives as being our “self” or our “I.” In other words, by realizing the ego behind our growing detachment from each other, up to a point of mothers losing their maternal instincts, we should accordingly stop listening to its demands, and stop relating to it as being a part of us. We would then be able to start correcting it.

At every moment, the ego prioritizes the fulfillment of our own desires over everybody else’s. The more the ego grows, the more it leads us to thinking of ourselves more and more over even our own families. In other words, the ego is self-love, and it directs us to love only ourselves more than we love our own children, spouses and parents, up to a point where we feel no love at all for anyone else.

After diagnosing the growing ego as the root cause of increasing detachment, which causes an array of problems in our lives, we should then organize our relationships so that we relate to everyone with loving and caring attitudes. In other words, by raising awareness of the need to enrich our connections with more love, consideration, support and encouragement, then the wider net of positive connection we cast over society will serve to positively influence us to reignite love at the family level. Mothers would then experience a revival of their maternal instincts, albeit on a whole new level: they will not be mere “instincts” but the mothers’ new drive to draw closer to their children, families and relatives would emerge from acquiring a higher level of consciousness, i.e. connection with the positive force of love and bestowal that dwells in nature.

Based on the video “How Mothers Have Become Detached from Their Babies” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Children, Education, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will Israel let Iran go nuclear?“

Recently, Israel has been discussing an attack on Iran, and the Iranians are not holding their tongues either. They published a map with targets in Israel, stating that they can hit any place in Israel, and that all it takes is for Israel to do one mistake in order for Iran to finish Israel off.

In terms of whether or not Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, I think that it is just talk. The Iranians—a civilization dating back to ancient times—are no fools.

So what if Iran has a nuclear bomb? Americans and Russians hate each other more than Israel and Iran, and they continue their existence with their nuclear bombs.

I am not afraid of Iran having a nuclear bomb. If Israel truly wishes to put an end to the Iranian threat and enjoy peace as any other country does, it is up to the people of Israel to establish peace with the upper force.

The upper force is a force of love and bestowal. When we meet the conditions to let the upper force envelop our planet with love and connection, then we will see how the Iranian threat, as well as several other negative processes taking place against Israel, will simply fade away.

Unfortunately, we Jews are not letting it happen, which is why the world increasingly turns against us. The law of nature is to be in wholeness, perfection and peace with everyone, to love all people in the world, and this process starts with us Jews first implementing such an attitude among each other. Until we undergo a shift in a direction of positively connecting to each other in order to be a conduit for connection to spread worldwide, we will continue bearing witness to increasing pressure upon Israel and the Jewish people.

Based on the video “How Should Israel Respond to the Iranian Nuclear Threat?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Israel Today, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →