Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why are children not left out of wars and conflicts?“

Shahid, a 10-year-old living in a refugee camp in Syria, was interviewed and asked what she wished for herself this upcoming year, to which she replied, “A tent, to have a tent.” This broadcast on Arab social media deeply shocked many who were watching, that a child’s dreams can reach such a low.

The broadcast surfaced questions such as “How have we come to such a world?” and “Why can we not just leave children out of our wars and conflicts?”

The answer to this question is simply that no major player wants to leave children out of such situations, neither the UN, UNESCO, nor any other international organization or government. Funds are given to armies and terror organizations, which force people to continue living in refugee camps around the world. While there are organizations such as the UN and UNRRA that seemingly exist in order to protect children, it is all a lie. They are merely players in politicians’ hands.

Syria has been experiencing civil unrest for several years between Assad’s supporters and enemies. The grownups are engaged in fighting, killing and torturing each other, and the children gain nothing from this situation. Also, the children hold no influence over the grownups, who continue their conflict regardless. When such children grow up, they will likely also join the conflict.

If asked what I would wish for Shahid, then I would explain to her that she and everyone else can have not just a tent, but a home, and that the world is full of abundance, but the human ego pits us up against each other, not letting us enjoy the abundance that is right before us.

Our egoistic nature, which makes us each want to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, leads us into conflicts and does not give us peace.

If we want a good future, free from conflict, and if we want to enjoy the abundance that exists in the world, then we need to readjust our attitudes to each other: instead of letting our egos lead us into conflict, we need to start coming closer to each other. Our positive connection above our egoistic and divisive drives holds the key to us all enjoying a perfect and abundant life.

Based on the video “Why Are Children Not Left Out of Wars and Conflicts?” 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: “I want to explore my mind, but cannot have recreational drugs. What is a good alternative?“

The potion of life.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, taking the potion of life means filling ourselves with high spirits so that our perspective of the future becomes so appealing that we start receiving from nature a fulfillment that is stronger and more complete than anything else. It is a real potion from above, which provides us with the best possible feelings, and which immensely expands our perception and sensation of reality.

The way to attain this potion is by mutually connecting in a harmonious and positive manner to the whole of nature, i.e. to the positive force that dwells in nature. Our distancing from one another draws upon us a negative illumination from nature, which leads to a limited and negative experience of life. Alternatively, if we positively connect to each other, then we experience a positive illumination from nature, and enter its higher levels.

On the contrary, taking drugs disconnects us from life, and several drugs get us into a destructive cycle of addiction that make us want to take more and more of them until we die. But if we realize the full potential of our positive connection to each other, then we feel the eternity of nature and enter into an eternal world. Moreover, anybody and everybody can achieve such a lofty state.

Based on the video “The Alternative to Drugs: The Potion of Life” 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 did a perfect God create flawed human beings?“

We have been given a perception and sensation of reality as being flawed—that human nature is a terrible and deficient desire to enjoy for self-benefit, which is opposite to the perfection of the Creator’s attitude of absolute love and bestowal—in order to learn upon our seemingly flawed state how to attain likeness to the Creator, and by doing so, correct that flaw.

It is similar to how we give children jigsaw puzzles or model car and plane kits. We do so in order for them to learn what is a complete thing, and how to construct something complete from something broken, fragmented and incomplete. In order to build completeness, the Creator needed to create something seemingly incomplete.

We create everything in our world based on incomplete foundations. Take, for example, how we prepare food or how we build a house: we start from various pieces or fragments of the whole thing that we wish to make, and we construct it until we can use it correctly.

We can only construct something complete if we engage in its construction. As this process unfolds in our corporeal lives, it is also the case in our spiritual lives.

Our understanding and feeling of the world starts off as incomplete in order for us to construct our understanding of the world, and develop our sensation, until we attain wholeness and perfection. The connections that we make in the process are in order for us to develop our understanding and feeling of the completeness of the Creator, and by constructing ourselves seemingly by ourselves, we discover the Creator. It is written about such a process in kabbalistic texts: The Creator says to those who construct themselves to become as perfect as Him, “You made Me.”

Based on Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman’s commentary on item 13 of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag’s article “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” in the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on February 8, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Anubhav Saxena on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is winning the lottery a blessing or a curse?“

Margaret Loughrey, 56, from Strabane in Northern Ireland, was found dead in her home. In 2013, she won 27 million pounds in the lottery, acquired real estate, bought a house, a pub and opened a recreation center for residents of the city. She planned to build affordable housing for residents on her property. She spent half of her winnings on charity. The recreation center was set on fire more than once. She also received a suspended sentence for drunk and disorderly conduct. She later claimed that people stole millions from her. Shortly before her death, she said: “I regret winning the lottery […]. I was a happy person before. I am a human being and all it has done is destroy my life.”

We mostly think of winning the lottery as a blessing, that if we had won the lottery, we would have used the money well. But there are no such examples. Winning the lottery is a curse. Our seemingly good deeds within the framework of our limited understanding of the world, i.e. giving millions of dollars to one or more causes, will always fall short and boomerang back to us in negative ways.

I see no solution to such a problem other than an extensive worldwide educational program that teaches us to develop a sense of mutual responsibility and consideration toward each other in society, and to prioritize positively connecting to each other above our divisive drives.

Humanity will come to realize that after all the unsolvable global challenges, the only cure left will be to implement unity among each other. We need different conditions and not people or organizations trying to manage these massive amounts of money. My conclusion is to not award such sums of money. Do not incite a person in such a way. I personally would also ask to not have such sums of money offered to me.

Based on the video “Is Winning the Lottery a Blessing or a Curse?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash.

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Comment: You received the following letter:

I watched one of your videos yesterday in which someone wrote very sincerely that he is sick and is worried he about his father who wanted to help him. Thank you for responding to such letters. I decided to write to you. I have Alzheimer’s disease, and I’m only 47 years old. Mostly old people suffer from it, but I am in that small percentage of young people, what can you do?

I’m not complaining. I’ve been watching you for a long time. I understand that everything is in the hands of the Creator, and I honestly don’t care what happens to me. Only one thing bothers me: I don’t want to be a burden to my loved ones, and everything is coming to this. I know what awaits me: immobility and dementia. There is no cure for this disease, which means that everything falls on the shoulders of loved ones.

My Response: From a medical point of view, I would only advise him to walk a lot and to listen to and read scientific materials, meaning, to give a load to the brain. And moreover, if he knows our materials, then delve into them as much as possible. This will take him in another direction. He will heal himself.

Question: Can a person not become a burden? Let’s say he enters these materials and does not think about it.

Answer: He will dive into our materials, and if he lives inside them, then everything will change. And he won’t be a burden to others.

Question: Will this life bubble in him even in any state?

Answer: Certainly.

Question: And will those close to him feel that he is not a burden?

Answer: They will feel from him that he is busy with his business, that he has withdrawn into himself so to speak, into his occupation, that he walks a lot, thinks a lot, and works a lot with both his head and body. And gradually, gradually, he will overcome in some ways and be able to stop the progress of this disease.

Question: If, as he describes, this is really such a state of mutual love and mutual support, is it possible to at least keep this spark of love and connection in any state a person may be in?

Answer: Yes. But his problem is different. He worries about others, not for himself. He regrets all the time—being sick, how he will become a burden for them, and so on. There is nothing you can do. There are possible objective reasons that he will not be able to overcome in any way, and then he may only have thoughts of leaving.

And this isn’t right.

Question: And why are these thoughts and these states given to a person from above?

Answer: For the correction of the soul.

Question: Whose? His or his loved ones?

Answer: His soul and the others, his friends, acquaintances, and relatives. We live only for the correction of the soul, not for the correction of the body. Our body lives and dies. There is nothing to it. This is our animal degree, and we have to think about the next degree.

Question: If we could see that this is how it is, that it is given for the correction of the soul, how would our worldview change?

Answer: We would all live for a different purpose, for the sake of elevating the soul. And then indeed our whole life would receive a completely different direction and different meaning. We would put ourselves in a completely different framework. We would treat each other differently; we would live differently. It would change everything.

Question: What would an incurable disease turn into then?

Answer: It is quite possible that we would simply understand that this is not a disease, that this is the natural end of earthly life and the body. It exists for a certain amount of time in order to allow the soul to develop after that.

Question: What does it do to a person then? Does it give him some kind of freedom?

Answer: Of course! In general, everything happens differently.

Comment: Your teacher’s wife was immobile for five years. She was practically paralyzed. And I know that between them, as you said, there was great love.

My Response: Yes.

Question: How did he feel, and how did she feel about what was happening?

Answer: She couldn’t do anything, she couldn’t even talk. She was just completely paralyzed. And he took care of her and did everything he could. It is incredible when an 85-year-old man takes care of his paralyzed wife at that age.

Question: It was thanks to this connection, and only to this connection?

Answer: Yes. They loved each other. It’s not just a habit for 50 years of life; it really was love.

Question: How does one get to such a state?

Answer: These are special souls.
[293334]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/2/21

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can someone find a sense of meaning from suffering?“

When we—by our actions, by our way of life—will cause such suffering that we will be unable to turn away from it, it will make us think about the meaning of the suffering, or in other words, about the meaning of life, because life will be filled with suffering.

We will then start thinking whether we should live at all, whether we should suffer, whether it all makes sense, and what we should do with ourselves. We will then start asking serious questions about our lives and will try to find their answers.

Then, we will reach the conclusion that our life is incorrect and we must find the correct way of life so that everyone feels good and so that life itself does not end but rather leads us to its optimal outcome.

We will then become ready to start positively connecting to each other above our divisive and destructive drives, and by doing so, we will start attracting the positive force dwelling in nature into our lives.

Our lives will then undergo a dramatic shift to a new harmonious, peaceful and positive form that is more balanced with nature.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” on December 2, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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

Love is our most exalted connection with everything outside of us, which harmonizes us with nature and its laws.

Love is a means to become like nature, which is a quality of love, bestowal and connection. It exists outside of us. There is no love in individual beings.

Love is the exclusive quality of nature that is given to us, and with the help of such a quality, we can elevate ourselves from the animate degree of existence to the human degree. In Hebrew, the word for “human” (“Adam”) comes from the word for “similar” (“Domeh”), and a human is considered one who becomes “similar to the most high” (“Domeh le Elyon”). In other words, becoming a human means becoming like nature’s quality of love, bestowal and connection, which is outside and opposite to our inborn animate qualities.

Based on “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 6, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do societies change, and what are the major forces of change?“

Our nature is to enjoy, to receive pleasure, and our desire to enjoy constantly grows. As a result of its development, it demands new and different fulfillment time and again. Likewise, the more the desire to enjoy grows, the more humanity develops increasingly sophisticated ways to fulfill itself.

We are currently in a unique state. Capitalism has reached its dead end. We have been trying to revive it for the past 50 years or so, but it has not worked out. Today, nature is developing us into a new state against our will.

In the past, we participated in transitions that transpired throughout society, because such transitions aligned with the growth of our egoistic desires, our nature. We developed each successive degree of our society, taking steps to shift from slavery to feudalism, and then to capitalism, which is what we now have.

Today, however, we will not find peace by remaining in a capitalistic system, and we will be unable to create the next level of development by the force of our own will, because we have reached a satiation of our egoistic development. Our ego no longer needs to grow to a new level of development, and we thus have no need to build any new state through our ordinary means, as we have done in the past.

Our next degree of development will be one that opposes our ego. We will need to adapt to our next degree of development by inverting our egoism, as well as ourselves. We will need to grow consciously, to recognize that the egoistic force that has driven our development until today is a negative force that leads us to more and more problems and crises in our current era. Through realizing the negativity in our egoistic desires, we will then need to conclude that we need to rise to an opposite state.

Today, the ego no longer develops us. Nature is developing us according to its own form, which is altruistic, interconnected and interdependent. We thus need to adapt ourselves and build humanity in harmony with nature, and no longer develop by contradicting it. We must develop ties of positive connection throughout human society instead of letting the egoistic forms of exploiting others in the name of self-benefit proliferate.

Today, we are on the verge of a whole new kind of transformation and transition. We can no longer develop by naturally following the ego’s growth, because the ego has become overblown and has satiated its development.

It is very difficult, because humanity does not understand that we have satiated egoistic development, and governments certainly do not understand. Crony capitalism is in a state where each of its proponents holds up the others, and does not wish to think about any change.

Kabbalists today feel it as their duty to explain what humanity will soon encounter, because as opposed to the revolutions we had in the past, which changed the face of humanity, we now encounter a time not of revolution, but a complete inversion. Let us hope that we will succeed in explaining this, and by doing so, that we will help understand and mitigate the changes that human society needs to undergo. Otherwise, humanity will undergo the next phase of its development through a lot of unfortunate pain and suffering.

Based on the video “Why Do Changes Happen?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Chaim Ratz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is pride evil?“

Pride is a key expression of our egoistic nature, where we want to feel that we are above other people.

Pride is given to us in order to realize the extent to which we are indeed egoistic, that we think and care about ourselves over others. Such a revelation should bring us to the conclusion that if we wish to be beneficial parts of society and nature, then we need to act according to nature’s force of connection and altruism, outside of our egoistic nature.

Pride is thus a positive quality. It is given to us in order for us to realize that we are insignificant when we are under its control, and that this realization of the evil of our pride and our egoistic nature in general would enable our desire for a different control upon ourselves: the unfettered control of nature’s altruistic quality. In other words, the evil of pride is in order to lead us to the absolute good.

We have been given pride in order to eventually come to feel it as a foreign force that controls us. It makes us submit to benefiting ourselves over benefiting others, and when we feel it as a foreign controlling force, we then come to seek strength from—and a genuine connection to—the altruistic force of nature.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” on November 4, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the spiritual meaning of the color white?“

First, white is not a color because it does not absorb anything. A color absorbs something, but the concept of white is that it receives nothing from the outside.

Therefore, white is felt as nonexistent. White is seemingly transparent. It demands nothing, and it draws no attention to itself.

If we adjusted our attitudes to each other and to nature accordingly, i.e. with no demands to receive anything for ourselves, we would find ourselves living in a harmonious and peaceful world, free from the problems we encounter today.

In other words, when we do not want anything from nature on any of its levels—the still, vegetative, animate and human—and wish only for everyone’s benefit, then it means that we act like white.

What would sustain us in such a state? We would then find that we receive from everyone and nature exactly what we need in order to exist. We then use any surplus that we receive for the benefit of others and nature.

We then develop ourselves in our service to others, which is possible if society mutually operates according to such lines—where each member of society thinks about how to serve the others their respective needs.

That is the spiritual meaning of white. By contrast, the spiritual meaning of black is self-centeredness, to show us that by prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others, we ruin our lives.

It is necessary to see the black part of our lives, because if we would not see it, then we would not want to turn it into white, i.e. we cannot rise above our self-centered nature into a new altruistic, harmonious and peaceful reality if we do not feel living in our self-centered nature as a major problem that requires correction.

Based on the video “What Is the Spiritual Meaning of White and Black?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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