Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do people lose motivation?“

We are driven by our desires, and in our time, our desires are ending their individualistic linear development and entering into a new phase of collective and integral development.

In other words, our desires have increased over the generations from individual desires for food, sex, family and shelter, through social desires for money, honor, control and knowledge, and in our era, a new desire has appeared that cannot be fulfilled directly like our past desires.

The new desire can only be fulfilled through a harmonious connection with other people. It is a fundamentally new and different kind of development to how we have been developing for thousands of years, and we have yet to grasp how to navigate our lives after the appearance of this new desire.

Phenomena such as globally interconnected technologies and economies that have emerged in our era are a superficial expression of this new desire. In other words, we have created systems that increasingly connect us, however we have not yet positively connected our attitudes to each other. Connecting superficially through technological and economic means fails to ultimately fulfill us because we need to connect positively on a mental and emotional level. Doing so would reveal a whole new kind of fulfillment in our lives.

The more we externally connect while remaining internally detached, and the more we continue trying to fulfill ourselves according to our past methods, then the more difficult we find it to stay motivated running after the pleasures laid out on our corporeal smorgasbord: food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge. In the same token, however, we have not yet come to terms with the new desire emerging in us, what it ultimately wants, and how to fulfill it.

In order to refresh our motivation and zest for life on a whole new level, we need a new method, new education and influences that guide us to become acquainted with this newly emergent desire, how we live in a significant transitional era from an individualistic-linear paradigm to an integral-analog one, and how we can realize our newfound interdependence and interconnectedness harmoniously.

Many people lose motivation today because they no longer feel that they can fulfill themselves by individualistic self-serving means. We thus need to change the way we fulfill ourselves: that we build a sincere intention to fulfill others, and when we aim at fulfilling each other, we will discover nothing less than a perfect life.

Moreover, the laws of nature, which are laws of interdependence and interconnectedness, stand behind this development. They guide our way to more and more connection with each other. So the more we take active steps to realize our increasing connection positively, the more we align with nature’s laws, and accordingly, awaken positive forces dwelling in nature to enter into our newly-established connections. When that happens, we will get a taste of unbounded life, outside everything we currently know and feel, and we will feel a whole new surge of motivation stemming from an atmosphere that encourages us to exit our egoistic selves and connect harmoniously with others.

Image: Global Interconnectedness by Wannapik Studio.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we read someone’s mind?“

It is possible if we work on ourselves in such a way where we become different people. In other words, if we pass ourselves over to the states of others, as if copying their states onto ourselves, then we can read their thoughts and desires.

However, it is no simple task. Doing so requires prioritizing the thoughts and desires of others ahead of our own, devoting and even annulling ourselves to them. We then make our mind as their mind, and can feel their desires and thoughts.

Such is the outcome of a process of increasing the greatness of others, up to a point where we feel them as being of utmost importance. When we start relating with primacy to the thoughts and desires of others, we then start feeling a whole new and enormous world open up: Instead of perceiving within our own narrow individual perspectives, we add a perception through the thoughts and desires of others. It can be likened to how cells feel their host organism as much greater than their own individual status, which causes them to act maximally for their host organism’s benefit, and receive from the host organism only what they need in order to act for the host’s benefit.

When we discover that kind of connection to each other—where we each think of the other as greater and more important than we are to ourselves, and create an atmosphere of support and encouragement in providing each other with everything necessary in order to nurture that connection—then we will experience a newfound harmony stemming from our unified inclinations to come out toward one another.

The laws of nature, which are laws of love, altruism and connection, set the scenario that reading someone’s mind is possible on condition that we approach them with a genuine intention for their benefit. If any shred of egoistic and exploitative intention is laced within, then we will remain mentally and emotionally detached.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “As a new Quoran, how should I deal with hate comments on Quora?“

You should be thankful for their responses, that what you write touches them. It means that you share a certain level of connection, even though it is negative for the time being.

However, you should try to understand why they think the way that they do, and also not focus on who is right or wrong, but on what is ultimately the truth.

The truth is a complex concept because a person can hold an opinion believing that it is the truth, but an examination into that opinion’s sources could very well reveal that it is in fact not the truth.

Therefore, we should support each other in emphasizing a sincere search for the truth. Our opinions would then hold less importance than questions about where we actually exist, and what might happen to us while we are here.

It is because today we find ourselves standing on rickety foundations, discovering from one day to the next just how fragile we are. Whether it is the coronavirus or myriad other problems in health, money, relationships or some unforeseen disaster that could affect us at any given moment, today’s problems can hit any person in any location, and of any race, age, gender and class.

Our current era is characterized by increasing global interconnection and interdependence. We would thus be wise to examine the extent to which we are connected, and how we could realize our connections positively. Also, we would be wise to prioritize such a scrutiny above the battle for who is right or wrong based on our current level of understanding of ourselves and the world.

We would also be wise to seek how to put aside our anger and accusations, and let simple common sense guide us to a more neutral zone where our personalities and emotions are secondary to a search for facts on what is happening in our lives, the world and nature. It would be similar to how scientists conduct research, with an attempt at freeing the investigation from emotional baggage.

If we could support each other to centralize our focus on that kind of neutral direction, freeing ourselves from tendencies to sway one way or another, then we would set foot on a path more optimally directed at the truth.

I thus wish us all strength to rise above our divisions and differences, and to observe our circumstances from aside, as much as it is possible. If we develop mutual support in order to view our lives from a neutral viewpoint above our emotions, we will then be able to energize our lives with a renewed sense of hope. A new and more unified perspective would open up to us, and we would see our common goal of greater unification above hatred and division as worthwhile for us all to reach.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is today’s society being consumed by hatred more than love?“

The fact that there are masses of needy, sick and poor people is a sign that love is indeed lacking in today’s society.

It is normal to think that governments and various organizations should take care of people in need. The problem is that we might be ready to contribute some money and time to help out, but we fall short of giving all of our heart in such contributions.

Our heart, which is made up of self-serving desires, prioritizes our own needs over the needs of others, and no matter how much we invest into providing for others, by nature we lack a sincere and complete concern for them.

Our world is thus full of poverty and disease. As long as our heart prefers self-benefit over benefiting others, then no matter how much we contribute to the well-being of others, there will always be masses of people with unmet needs.

Therefore, instead of acting out of genuine love and care for others, any contribution we make seemingly toward society’s betterment is in order to free ourselves from the burden of loving and caring about them. We might be willing to donate a sum of money each month to a certain seemingly philanthropic organization or cause, but the intention behind this contribution focuses on freeing us from the weight of feeling responsible and truly caring about all people.

Yet, nature is developing us toward genuine relations of love and care, a state where we shift our focus on self-concern to concern for others, thereby giving all of our heart to benefiting others.

In the meantime, we see no shortage of poverty, crime and a range of other problems in the world’s wealthiest countries. On one hand, the egoistic engine running in us, which powered humanity’s progress, has given rise to intricate scientific and technological sophistication; yet on the other hand, we bear witness to a world of perpetual crisis.

The missing element is the sincere motion to love others as we love ourselves. Most of us grew up hearing about and agreeing with “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but we did not learn how to implement those words. Instead, we became increasingly refined egoists who favored self-benefit, and at most, routinely donated some of our money and/or time seemingly for prosocial causes, instead of integrating with each other’s desires, needs and feelings, and developing genuine love and care throughout society.

If we achieved the full meaning of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” then we would literally experience heaven on earth.

Nature, which fundamentally functions according to laws of love and connection, is evolving us all toward a state of total interconnection and interdependence. Today’s world has already become more connected and interdependent superficially, such as through globally-intertwined economies and technologies, yet we experience this connection negatively, as evident in growing cases of depression, loneliness, anxiety, stress, mental health problems, and in all the hatred, division and polarization abounding in society.

Nevertheless, we will need to realize our increasing connection positively at one time or another, as it is an inescapable law of nature. Until we do, we will continue entangling ourselves in an increasingly complex web of troubles.

The more we let our inborn egoistic nature navigate our thoughts and actions in life, then the more we let hatred and division proliferate throughout society. And the more we let hatred and division proliferate throughout society, then the more remote we become from the fundamental unifying law of nature, which leads to everyone suffering more.

On the contrary, the moment we make moves to positively connect, developing a loving and caring atmosphere throughout society, we will then feel each other more and more. Also, our renewed focus on positively connecting to each other will awaken the force of love dwelling in nature. We will then experience a new atmosphere of calm, support, encouragement, positivity, happiness and confidence sweep throughout society, as if inverting the current negative waves of hatred and polarization to their positive form.

In a nutshell, we live in a single system of nature, and our experience of this system as harmonious or painful depends on whether or not we positively connect.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the harsh truth of life?“

Truth constantly slips through our fingers the moment we get a grasp of what we think is true.

We can exert a lot to reach what we consider to be the truth, and as soon as we make a move in its direction, we discover added depth based on discrepancies in the truth we previously sensed. As such, we continue seeking the truth over and over again.

Human development continuously heads toward our ultimate attainment of what we call “truth.”

What is that truth?

Generally speaking, truth is the initial point of creation, a state where we are all adhered completely to nature in its entirety without any partitions between us. Moreover, only by attaining contact with that point do we reach the truth.

There are many stages on the way to attaining that ultimate point of truth, but they are all partial and incomplete. Therefore, even though we can attain the absolute truth, it is still very distant from us.

Nature, in this case, means nature’s altruistic quality of love and bestowal, with no consideration of self-benefit. We are born into an opposite egoistic quality of reception, what we call “human nature,” where we primarily consider self-benefit. Therefore, the stages on the way to attaining the ultimate point of truth are those of rising above our egoistic quality time and again to a more caring, giving and loving one, only to discover that what we attain each time ends up becoming lost in our egoism, as if sucked into a black hole, again and again.

Also, if we continue strengthening our environment, i.e., everything that influences us, to impart us with positive examples of rising above our egoism and becoming better connected, more considerate and altruistic as is nature’s quality, then we continue applying our own yearning to “pull” ourselves to that ultimate harmonious point of truth much faster, more enjoyably, and with a lot less suffering than if we would not implement such a motion. Alternatively, if we fail to strengthen our environment so that it positively influences us, then we let the harsh steamroller of evolution run us over with its myriad crises, which serve only to goad us in order to wake up to the need for changing our lives’ direction, as well as the environment that we create in order to navigate our way there.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will there be a civil war in the US after the elections in November?“

Even though hatred, polarization and unrest accumulates from one day to the next in American society, and even though riots could emerge in relation to a range of issues, I doubt that there will be civil war in response to the elections.

American society has a deep-rooted consensus on its democratic values, and it has made breakthroughs in providing its large and diverse population with equal rights. These same values that most Americans hold will be why I think that they will hold together after the elections in November.

However, the fact that there are questions about whether there will be civil war in America after the elections shows that division in American society is definitely a major problem that needs to be treated. It seems like an impossibility to bring together people with opposing views, and it is true: we cannot solve such a problem on the same level as the problem.

The solution to the increasing division in American society lies not in bringing the opposing factions closer together, nor in tilting people on one side to another. Rather, it is in uniting above the division. In other words, every person has a right to their opinion and can fiercely reject the opinion of others, but above these opposing opinions should begin to emerge a common understanding of the need to unite above the conflicting opinions, that society’s survival and well-being depends on it.

Although it might seem far-fetched that an umbrella of unity will miraculously appear and hover over an increasingly polarizing society, there are two factors that make it possible: one is the growing awareness of how nothing positive emerges from a increasingly divided society; and the other is the need for a nationwide educational campaign, which will raise the idea of how and why uniting above the divisions is more important—for people’s survival, health, happiness and well-being—than giving into divisive drives. Moreover, since America stands on the world’s stage, when its hundreds of millions of citizens start connecting above their growing differences, they will positively influence people worldwide with a similar unifying tendency.

Therefore, after the elections, I would advise the President or President-Elect to gather America’s leaders from every vocation in order to first reach a unified decision on how to make America coronavirus-free. Afterward, I would advise the leaders to select a few cities in different parts of the country as test cases to implement programs aimed at unifying people above division. As test cases, their progress would need regular monitoring and examination in order to see what is needed, through all kinds of situations that could surface, in order to create, sustain and grow a positive unifying atmosphere. There is absolutely no harm in implementing such an experiment. Rather, it holds the potential to create a new model for far-reaching improvements in social health and happiness.

As deepening polarization gives rise to more and more outbursts and anxiety in America, then precisely this bleak landscape can act as the background needed in order to realize a new positive shift. I indeed see a lot of potential in American society, with its pioneering and innovative spirit, its values of equality and freedom of expression, and its vast influence throughout the world, to face the challenge of its social division and realize that in unity everything will become much better.

Image: Earth From Space – USA to Venezuela seen from the ISS (Great views of Florida and Cuba). Space Videos.

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Question: During the first quarantine, there was a surge in domestic violence. Now the second quarantine is on its way. It has already been introduced in Israel. Public organizations are sounding the alarm.

What should spouses do during home isolation?

Answer: I would advise them to keep their distance to the extent that they can be on good terms. Regulate physical closeness with each other depending on the spiritual disposition toward each other.

You cannot do anything here; we are people. It is very difficult for us to control our egoism, our nerves, and our habits. We need to understand each other, talk about this topic within the family, and try to manage it.

Remark: It is interesting that the principle “the closer—the worse, the further—the better” works here.

My Comment: This is because we are egoistic. We are used to running into each other for half an hour in the morning before work, a half an hour or an hour in the evening, perhaps when we have dinner together, and somewhat when we go to bed, although this is more likely communication not between people but between the sexes.

Based on this, our life, of course, is rather poor.

Question: So, the main thing is to talk to each other more often, to communicate more?

Answer: Of course. But this does not mean that we should impose something on each other. We need to discuss everything as frankly as possible, not hide anything, so that the other understands what I think, what I want, etc. I, in turn, should try to express my personal opinion and not the one that I caught from some television series or from somewhere else.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/27/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are coronavirus masks REALLY effective?“

Masks are a very interesting phenomenon in this pandemic. Common health guidelines consistent worldwide include keeping our distance from each other, maintaining personal hygiene and wearing masks, and masks in particular serve mostly in order to stop our spreading the virus to others.

Why are masks so interesting?

It is because many people wear masks as a protective measure to not catch the virus from others, but masks work mostly in the opposite direction: they prevent the virus’ spread from the person wearing the mask to others.

If we view the coronavirus pandemic as nature sending us a lesson in human relations, then the long-term mask wearing conditions worldwide can be seen as a lesson for humanity in mutual responsibility and consideration. It is similar to how we raise children by telling them to behave fairly and kindly because it is ultimately good for them to do so, but in a broader context, they learn how to relate positively to each other.

Humanity has yet to become aware of how nature is operating behind the scenes: that it is raising us to become increasingly connected, and that it ultimately wants us to realize our connection harmoniously. For the time being, we feel this tightening connection as intensifying pressure and stress, and we suffer a lot from it. If we, however, enable a fundamental shift in our attitude to our increasing connection—from intending to benefit ourselves alone to intending to benefit others—then we will literally experience a new world. We will feel how our tightening connection is an opportunity for us to undergo this fateful egoistic-to-altruistic attitude shift, and by doing so, we will feel ourselves exit our narrow self-serving individual corners, and enter into a great new harmonious world of peace, love, unity and perfect connection among us all.

Mask wearing can also illustrate a filtered-down example in our current lives of four stages of attitude shift that the wisdom of Kabbalah describes; stages we traverse in order to discover our perfect connection to each other.

Receiving in order to receive: I wear a mask solely with the thought of protecting my own health. This is the most egoistic of the four stages.

Bestowing in order to receive: I wear a mask with the understanding that I protect others from myself—for instance, if I am an asymptomatic carrier—but by doing so, I also hold the intention that I will ultimately protect myself by doing so. In other words, I care about others because I care about myself. This is still egoistic, but it has an element of altruism laced within.

Bestowing in order to bestow: I wear a mask purely with the thought that I do not want to infect others with the virus. In other words, “bestowing in order to bestow” is an intention to not want to do any kind of harm to others.

Receiving in order to bestow: In addition to wearing a mask in order to not harm others, I think about what I can do in order to bring goodness and benefit to others.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, these four stages describe much higher states of spiritual attainment than the filtered-down examples presented here. However, they offer a small taste of a path toward positive connection that lies ahead of us. We can thus relate to mask wearing as an exercise in our positive attitudes to each other, and by doing so, improve our connections and the world we live in.

Photo by Pille-Riin Priske on Unsplash.

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Question: Now the next wave of coronavirus is beginning all over the world. Many countries are getting ready for the second lockdown and for Israel it is already a fact. Economies are collapsing, the world is renewing itself. How can people survive in the new world?

Answer: First, we have to understand that we really are living in a new world, which in the end will be drastically different from the previous one. After all, we are transferring from the physical world to the virtual world. There are technical, moral, ethical, and other prerequisites for this.

In the future, everything will depend on the moral efforts of people, how much they will understand and realize their good attitude toward each other. It may seem impossible, but this is exactly the world we must come to.

We are talking about the correction of our egoism, about an aspiration of a person to be closer to others and act for the benefit of all. From the former divided world, humanity is moving toward becoming an integral, unified whole. Nature makes us that way. We must understand this tendency and correspond to it to some extent.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/27/20

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Question: It is no secret that 95–99% of the time we spend in internal dialogue with ourselves. Scientists claim that, on the one hand, this is bad because a person spends a huge amount of energy on it. On the other hand, without such reflection, it is impossible to absorb the experience that a person gains throughout his life.

How can one stop this internal dialogue?

Answer: There is no need to stop it. On the contrary, it is this internal dialogue that promotes the growth of a man in a human being. The only thing we need to do is to check from where we get additional fueling, from what sources, books, television, etc.

I am in favor of a person always rechecking what affects him, what sources of scientific, sensory, technical, or other information can ultimately form him and affect him in the correct way.

And the most important thing is the environment: friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. One needs to check out well with whom one communicates so that he can develop under the right influence that shows him the way to good connection with others. Whatever it is, this is what wins.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/27/20

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