One of my students recently updated me on Dr. David Sinclair’s research at Harvard, which demonstrates how to slow down aging, and which suggests that we could become younger by activating recently discovered vitality genes, and the student asked for my response to this phenomenon.
To start with, aspiring to be “forever young” is a curse. Instead of holding such aspirations, we would be much better off letting nature manage us, allowing everything to happen in its due course.
The loss of physical strength as we age should have no influence over our happiness in life. It all depends on the extent to which we connect harmoniously to nature and let its forces positively affect us. We could then happily let life flow as it should until our current life ends, and we would then have no regrets.
We should only aspire to be “young” in our hearts, which we can achieve by aspiring to increasingly connect positively to each other and to nature. We would then have an energy and a zest for life similar to children, who constantly discover the world anew, and which would give our lives meaning and joy. We would then see that there is no decline as we age, just more and more of an ascent that brings us closer to the purpose of our lives: a state of complete balance and harmony among each other and with nature.
Based on a talk “An Inside Look,” between Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
By implementing connection-enriching education—the wisdom of how to positively connect above divisions and differences—on a mass scale, through educational systems, the media and other social influences, we would draw an immense positive force into the world that would make it a better place.
Based on a talk with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 8, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
We each have different roles in the intricate interdependent system that we live in.
Similar to how a human body is a complete system, but which has different parts with different functions, likewise we each occupy different places in the system we share. For instance, some of us are closer to the system’s “brain,” and others, to the system’s “hands,” “legs,” “body” and so on.
The complete perception of the full extent of our interdependence is beyond our current narrow individualistic worldviews. However, if we saw the complete picture of the system we all exist in, then we would see how each person holds a unique and different root in this great big system. We thus each have different destinies, initial conditions and final states.
While it might seem unfair that some people suffer disproportionately in relation to others, if we discover the perception of the complete system in which we exist, then we would see exactly why everything unfolds as it does.
Likewise, the purpose of all suffering is ultimately to awaken in us questions about its cause and purpose, and such questions serve to lead us to a point where we become willing to rise above our narrow and limited worldviews, and enter into the perception of the complete picture of reality. By doing so, we discover the reason for all suffering, and how to conduct ourselves harmoniously and peacefully in the system we all share, alleviating the need for further suffering.
In short, if we positively connect to each other so that we would realize our relationships in this system harmoniously, i.e. where we each complement each other and achieve a state of equilibrium, then we would discover our interdependence in its positive form, and why we have each been given specifically the place and the function that we have been given in this system. In the end, while we each hold different roots and functions in this system, we will find how we are all equal in relation to what is required of us—to positively connect to each other above our initial conditions and states—in order to discover a harmonious and peaceful existence.
I also recommend reading an answer I wrote to a similar question recently for further detail on this topic: “Why do bad things always happen to me?”
Based on a lesson, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 16, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Is a machine that can accurately calculate different moves intelligent? We have no possibility of creating a machine that will be as intelligent as a human. I say this first on the basis of my background in medical biocybernetics—a teaching about devices and cybernetic apparatuses in living organisms.
We can create machines that can think and calculate much faster than us, but intelligence is a quality that we inherit from above our minds. Since we inherit intelligence from above our current level of understanding, then we cannot create this quality in mechanical or biological material.
Machines will never be wiser than humans. They might be smarter, but not wiser. They can conduct calculations faster, and operate with less or even no errors, but they will never become more intelligent than humans.
Likewise, as the soul comes to us from above, we thus cannot create the soul through any mechanical or biological material.
Based on the lesson, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah: Is the World a Reality or an Illusion?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 15, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
The goal of humanity is to reach an inclusive mutual connection with one another, where our desires for self-benefit will invert to desires to benefit others and nature, and by doing so, we will resemble the perfection of nature’s quality of love and bestowal. By attaining such a goal, we will achieve prosperity in the fullest sense of the word: a sensation of paradise.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Indeed, we often find ourselves asking why bad things keep happening to us, especially when it does not stand to reason that we deserve all kinds of negative outcomes from our seemingly positive or even just neutral behavior.
What is the connection between our behavior and the outcomes we experience in life?
To add salt to the wounds, we can find people such as criminals living seemingly good lives, while people who worked hard to enter professions that serve society could be suffering their entire lives. And we are then left to ponder why life could be so unfair.
Our inability to make sense of this dilemma stems from our inability to understand the complexity of our interconnectedness and interdependence. We cannot grasp the rippling domino effect of our behavior in the world, and have no clear or direct perception of the responses to our actions.
Yet, every single one of our thoughts and actions influences the system we exist in, and enables a response. We simply cannot piece together why things take place the way that they do.
We commonly try to find solutions to this dilemma by looking at our past behavior, i.e. that it led to bad things happening later in our lives. However, trying to piece together this dilemma in such a way is over-simplistic, and it fails to take several variables into account.
We thus need to understand the function of negative experiences in our lives. Negative experiences serve to surface questions about their reason and cause, so that we would wish to break out of our small individualistic cells of perception, and expand our perception to encompass a much greater and fuller perception of reality. The more negative experiences we encounter, the more prepared we become to balance ourselves with the interdependent and interconnected system of nature we live in. When we start exiting our individualistic worldviews and entering more complete and integral perceptions of the system we live in, then we start understanding the extent of influence we have on our lives and our world, and what behavior can be considered positive or negative.
We currently evaluate our lives according to extremely limited parameters, and we will keep accumulating suffering until it will prod us to seek beyond our current limitations. We can be compared to unsupervised children who eat only sweets, without understanding the harm that we cause our body, which will catch up to us later on in life.
We should thus refrain from pointing our finger at someone, some group or something else that we think causes bad things in our lives. We should also refrain from digging into our past for actions that might have brought about our current negative experiences.
What, then, should we do with bad things that happen to us?
We should accept their inevitability, and use them to spark questions about their cause and purpose: that they come in order for us to exit our individualistic worldviews and enter a much greater and complete integral one. We do so by better and more actively connecting with our surrounding society. We should thus seek a society that encourages and supports us to rise above the current level of our lives, where we have no access to perceiving the complexity of the system we exist in, and enter a much greater perception and sensation of reality. We do so by positively connecting to others, where we each develop attitudes of mutual giving and concern toward one another, and by doing so, we gradually acquire a new sense through which we feel life.
Through enhancing and enriching our connections to each other, we will find our lives become more and more balanced and harmonious. Such is the way to become truly happy, confident, safe and comfortable. In other words, the cause of our life’s troubles is our incomplete perception that fails to account for our interdependence, and the solution is in realizing our interdependence with positive and altruistic connections.
By attaining newfound balance and harmony with the interdependent system we are all parts of, we then reach the perception of every single event happening in life as perfect, since we acquire a new spin on everything that happens in life: that it is a means to rise above our current narrow perception and enter into a much fuller and greater one. And a much greater and fuller perception is one where qualities of love and giving dwell in our attitudes to each other.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
We should take care of healthy nutrition, a balanced diet, physical activity, stress management, leisure time, and having balance in our free time, e.g. from sitting and listening to music through to playing with kids, playing sports, and so on. These are all elements of a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
In addition to taking care of balancing our nervous system, it is written in Kabbalah that “all shall be clarified in thought.” That is, we should inspect our inner thoughts, desires and intentions, and a correct review of them should bring us to what is known as “the middle line,” i.e. balance between life’s many forces. We then reach an optimal state of spiritual and corporeal life as one.
In the middle line, we can correctly use nature’s forces, which includes our innate powers inherited from birth as well as the achievements of the previous generations.
Question: Why are the true causes of the crisis partially hushed up and partially slowly revealed?
Answer: Because it is unprofitable for those in power. The people who are in power today and profit from what they do in the world are unhappy themselves. They are like a squirrel in a wheel, spinning and spinning, more and more. Who has $100, wants $200, who has $200, wants $400, and so on.
This is a vicious cycle humanity finds itself in. It will be able to get out of this circle only when it reaches some critical point at which, on one hand people will receive a correct explanation of where they are, and on the other hand their suffering will force them to open their eyes and see where they exist.
The correct explanation and the feeling of being at a dead end makes a person stop and look for a way out. Then it will be possible to talk to them about what this way out is. [289549] From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21
Question: Which signs of the global crisis are currently going undetected but should be paid serious attention to?
Answer: The most central point, the root of the global crisis, is in people distancing themselves from one another. We sit behind our computers and play games like children and nothing else.
We must understand that only getting closer to each other through good forces can lead us out of the general crisis. That is, it is a crisis of people distancing themselves from each other, their desire to everyone being in some kind of a cocoon, and not think or worry about anything else.
Question: Why don’t people really feel that there is a crisis? Is it being underestimated? For example, I can assess the crisis in overproduction. I go to the store and see empty shelves. But the crisis in mutual relations is somehow hidden from a person. We don’t understand what is behind it or how serious it is.
Answer: People get entrapped by the “toys” they have invented. Their interest in games distracts them from their real problems. Therefore, on one hand, humanity seems to be advancing, and on the other hand, it is dying out. Everything lies in the awareness of the wickedness of this state. In the meantime, we are only filling the bottomless pockets of those who rule and control everyone.
I do not see anything good in the future. We need to explain to people what all this will lead to. It will mean realizing a very bitter, long journey during which we worked for our own enemies who thought only of how to enrich themselves at our expense only to throw everything we had accumulated and handed over to them into the sea. This is how fierce human egoism works.
It is necessary to realize the evil of our egoism and understand that this is the only evil. Then we can talk about how to get rid of it. [289519] From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 10/19/21
Kabbalah is the study of the forces that are perceived and examined through an additional sense that we develop and discover through the study. This additional sense is our desire to enjoy that undergoes a correction from egoism (enjoying at the expense of others and nature) to altruism (enjoying through benefiting others and nature).
Since it is a science that operates at the level of our desires and intentions, Kabbalah says nothing about various actions and rituals in our world. It rather discusses the correction of our egoistic desire by means of attracting, revealing and working with the altruistic forces dwelling in nature.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How much closer are scientists getting to reversing, slowing, and stopping the aging process?“
