Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the difference between the laws of nature and ethics and morality?“

The laws of nature are unchanging laws of love and bestowal, which harmoniously connect all of nature’s parts, and which take the benefit of the whole into consideration.

By contrast, morals and ethics are codes of human conduct at a given moment in time. For instance, if harsher methods of communication were considered norms in the past, even to the point of cruelty, then the more we developed, the more moderate and friendly these behaviors became.

Laws of nature are opposite to human nature, which is a desire to enjoy at the expense of others, and which is in constant growth. The more the human ego grows, the more our morals and ethics change in order to let ourselves get along with each other more conveniently at different stages of our development. However, no matter how much we develop in our morals and ethics, we always find ourselves lacking something, and more and more problems and crises abound in our relations.

Human development gradually leads us to the need to reach balance with the laws of nature. Today, we are more ripe for the discovery of the laws of nature than ever before.

Yet, how do we make that leap from being governed by the human ego—trying to adapt and observe morals and ethics in order to get along as optimally as possible—to becoming governed consciously by the laws of nature, where we harmoniously connect with each other and discover the positive forces dwelling in nature within our harmonious connections?

We make that leap by learning and exercising the laws of nature in a social setup, i.e., how to positively connect in society so that there will be an envelope of love and care in our relations. That is, by connecting as a single whole in human society, we match the perfection and wholeness of the laws of nature, and then come to experience a whole new kind of harmony, happiness, confidence and peace filling our lives.

I discuss this topic in more depth in the program, “Communication skills. Moral principles and social norms”: Watch the video here » [54:02]

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are there any positive benefits of laziness and procrastination?“

The more we evolve technologically and psychologically, the more we connect around the world and find ourselves working more and more.

Societies around the world today are completely different to how they used to be. In the past, we spent most of our time at home, in villages, participating in several different activities. We did not work from dawn to dusk, or all through the night, as many do today.

Today’s incessant work atmosphere is a chain reaction from industrial developments in the 19th century, such as the steam engine. The more inventions we make, the more we work. It is as if we latch ourselves onto a carriage, and then have to pull ourselves along.

However, this is incorrect.

We should indeed work less. We would be much better off if we would sit by a fireplace, like in the old days, take our time doing things, visit friends and relatives, and participant more in social events. Moreover, most work we invest so much time and effort into today is completely unnecessary, and exists only in order to increase profits as an end in and of itself.

Laziness is thus very beneficial.

Laziness gives us time and space to scrutinize our next moves very scrupulously, to check whether they are really necessary or not.

Laziness thus lets us act in more accordance with our needs, lessening our chances of finding ourselves running around in circles for the sake of “doing something with our lives,” which eventually leads to destructive outcomes.

Therefore, Kabbalistic sages have such saying as, “Sit instead of standing, and stand instead of walking,” and “Sit and do nothing—better.”

In short, the benefit of laziness is that the less we move, the less problems we encounter.

I further discuss this topic in episode 754 of “New Life”: Laziness and Effort. Watch the Video Here »

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I love myself?“

Show people how to find happiness in their lives.

By focusing on the fulfillment of others, their happiness and fulfillment will become your own.

We cannot detach from society, so in order to make the best of our connection, we need to see our own happiness in helping and guiding others to achieve happiness.

By aiming to love others without regard for ourselves, we will come to understand that this is self-love.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I become more spiritual?“

Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes in his article “The Freedom” that our single means by which we can change our state is by choosing a suitable environment.

“There is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart to him good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that appears to him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and easier to come by. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice.

Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”

If we continually choose a more powerful environmental influence that guides us to spirituality, then we become worthy of spiritual progress.

Choosing and strengthening a suitable environment for spiritual progress is primary to becoming more spiritual, and not performing what we usually consider as “good deeds.” This is because we are ultimately not in control of our behaviors. Rather, our environment determines how we think and behave, and so if we place ourselves into an environment that guides us spiritually, and increasingly strengthen our connection to that environment, then it moves us in such a direction and we become more spiritual.

Photo: World Kabbalah Convention at Ganei HaTa’arucha, Tel Aviv, Kabbalah.info.

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Question: It is widely believed that if you don’t love yourself, no one will love you. A slightly less discussed opinion is to love others, you need to love yourself. And even less discussed, but perhaps more valuable: to love yourself, you must first love others.

How to love yourself?

Answer: There is only one way out: try to do to people what they want or what is really important to them. Show people how to find happiness. This will be your happiness and the happiness of all; a person cannot disconnect himself from others. It is necessary to make sure that by showing or drawing people to happiness, you see your happiness in it.

Question: That is, literally to love others regardless of yourself?

Answer: Yes. From this you will understand that this is self-love.
[274589]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/6/20

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How Do You Love Yourself?
Love Without Conditions
Know Yourself

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is an example that nature can be so cruel?“

There are no such examples, because although I understand how people can perceive nature as being cruel, nature is not cruel at all.

Nature is a quality of absolute bestowal and love, without a shred of self-interest. When we feel nature in our opposite quality of egoistic self-interest, then we experience the opposite end of nature.

When I was a child, my mother scorched me about getting low grades at school. It made her anxious and distressed, but even though I experienced her as cruel in those moments, she was in fact acting lovingly and caringly toward me, wishing for me to develop as optimally as possible.

Nature is total altruism, and our quality is egoism. We feel opposite to nature’s kindness and love to the extent that we think and act contrarily to nature. This is the source for all of our negative feelings and suffering, and it is why we perceive ourselves as living in a bad world.

Yet, nature does nothing bad. It holds a constant benevolent attitude, and due to human nature’s opposition to nature in and of itself, we feel myriad phenomena in life as bad and evil. We need not blame ourselves or nature for this, it is simply a given situation that we were born into.

However, we have been granted an egoistic quality in order to be able to correct it and make ourselves as altruistic and complete as nature. Moreover, the more we evolve, the more our ego grows, and the more we feel our opposition to nature as one that causes greater and greater suffering in our lives. This development is in order to lead us to a point where we develop a sincere desire for self-transformation: to change our egocentric self-aimed modus operandi into one that is balanced with nature—altruistic, caring and loving. The process of changing ourselves to become more like nature is called “the process of correction,” and we have been given a method by which we can undergo this correction with more awareness and understanding than if we were left to our own devices.

For the time being, however, we have no such awareness, and we are like the child who does not understand why our parents are yelling at us.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you overcome fear?“

We can overcome fear by establishing positive connection to each other above all the phenomena that we are afraid of.

Positive connection is one where mutual support, encouragement, kindness, understanding, care and love prevail over all differences, problems and fears.

We would then generate a balanced and peaceful atmosphere that would make our every interaction positive and fulfilling.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I learn to live in the present? What does it mean to live in the present moment?“

Every moment, how we can be in a mutual relationship with nature, and how to communicate with it such that we understand how it influences us and how we should optimally respond.

Doing so will make our lives meaningful and complete.

We will enter into a constant relationship with our closest partner—nature—and start feeling how we merge with the outside world in the present moment.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is freedom of speech and what are the limits of free speech?“

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression definitely require limits. The first limit is that we should not hurt or offend anyone.

Causing no harm to others should act as an inbuilt “constitution” that first and foremost determines the limits of our free speech. It is similar to how we consider it a criminal offense to break into another person’s home and cause damage to its property.

Suppose I have a neighbor whose father passed away, and I start making fun of his father. It would be disgraceful and disrespectful to my neighbor, and I would awaken hatred by doing so. How could I let myself do that? It is completely irrational.

If we want to hurt and offend others, then it is precisely these desires that require correction. Their correction initially needs a restriction of their outward manifestation. Afterward, we need to bring ourselves to a state where we hold nothing against anyone in the world other than our own self, and we can then truly be considered free. In short, we can be free in every aspect of life on condition that we each refrain from harming each other.

In such a state, we can have criticism, disagreements and arguments, but we would need to learn how to not awaken hatred in each other while doing so. We would therefore need to regularly engage in connection-enriching learning, to elevate our sensitivity, empathy and inner intelligence so that our common goal to live harmoniously, peacefully and happily with each other would envelope all of our thoughts and aspirations.

In short, we cannot let ourselves hurt each other. On the contrary, we have to respect each other. We each feel different ideas, people and objects in differing levels of importance according to where, to whom, and how we were born and raised. One person considers something to be very important, and another person considers something else to be very important. However, above what we each consider as important, we should try to see what we all have in common.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I not be afraid about coronavirus?“

I think that the coronavirus will keep spreading and that it will lead us to a situation where we will be simultaneously afraid of it, and accustomed to its place in our daily lives. Moreover, our fear of the virus will have no impeding effect on our day-to-day functioning.

We can add the coronavirus to a long list of risks that we have learned to live with. Yet, we would be wise to learn how to observe a few rules that the coronavirus sends our way. Moreover, we can expect other crises to surface, and at each juncture we will have to adjust ourselves.

In the future, we will also look back at the coronavirus pandemic in a positive light, in that it served to align humanity’s relations more closely with nature’s interdependence and interconnectedness.

Firstly, it compelled us to consider how we were living our lives, and think of how we could renew and improve our relations.

Secondly, it slowed down the consumerist train we were riding, giving us room to differentiate between our life’s essentials and what we could do without.

Thirdly, it showed us clear examples of how nature restores itself when we calmed ourselves down for a few moments.

We are still in the midst of a major lesson in interdependence that this virus brings us, from the need to exercise mutual dependence in our respective localities—maintaining personal hygiene, wearing masks and upholding social distancing conditions—to witnessing our tight global interdependence in how the virus surfaced as an outbreak in one part of the world, and quickly spread to become a global pandemic.

I have spoken and written at length about crises being opportunities for us to seek better connection with each other, and that they serve to progress us to a state of balance with nature.

Fighting the coronavirus head on is futile. We will increasingly discover how viruses are impossible to fight. They are inside us. Our bodies have billions of viruses, and so there is no point in fighting our own bodies. We would thus be much wiser if we learned how to align ourselves—our thoughts and desires—to positively connect with other people and nature. Our bodies will then healthily support our aspirations to realize the fullest meaning of living as human beings, i.e., adjusting our attitudes to each other in order to match the tightening interdependent and interconnected conditions that nature sets for us. We will then experience life much more happily and healthily.

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