Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

A Minus In Humanity’s Bank Account

Michael LaitmanQuestion: If you look at the Internet, you see that what most people are looking for is an answer to the question of how to get out of debt, how to come out of a minus in their bank account. Can you comment?

Answer: First of all, we are being kept in a minus deliberately. A minus is a kind of slavery, a kind of connection between people that is used to confuse a person and in this way to enslave him. We do not understand this and consider ourselves free. But you are not free in any regard. If you cannot freely feed yourself or your family today, then to the same degree, you are tied down by iron chains. And if, in addition, you have a minus in your bank account, then you are enslaved completely.

All kinds of taxes, payments, and debts that every person has are a form of modern slavery. It seems like everything is OK, you can borrow some more money, things are not so bad….

This new period of people living in debt began recently. Entire nations live in a minus. The debt of certain nations amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s a minus in the country’s account. And then you can’t do very much. Your accounts could be “blocked” so you won’t receive anything until you pay up. Thus, an entire country becomes enslaved until it begs, “I am ready to do anything you tell me—just give me food!” Like a slave working for food. This is exactly what is happening to people and entire nations, and there is no way out of the minus!
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/1/11, Lesson on Money

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Who Should Be In Charge Of Mass Media?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Who should be in charge of mass media in order to influence people positively?

Answer: Mass media should be managed by the spiritual government (the Sanhedrin, the assembly of Kabbalists) which knows how to build the correct and hence most beneficial relationships between man and the entire society. Mass media owners should know what goal they are leading humanity toward since they possess the most powerful instruments to impact the public.

There is no other means to affect humanity except the means of communication. There is no other way to reach every person. His or her views are based not on what they studied in school, but rather on the information that mass media feeds them. Therefore, anyone who will be in charge of the Internet will receive reins over the majority of its channels, and will have control over the entire world.

Using mass media, the public could be prepared for anything since people absorb everything from it. Mass media creates the information field that feeds all humanity. All seven billion are being cooked in this “broth” that fills the Internet, and we see what the result of it is. Hence, it is necessary to know how to “cook” them and for what purpose, in order to bring them good and not harm them instead.

The Internet of the future will be ruled by unity since that is what it is designated to. It will be unity where all are connected together and depend on each other in a positive way, where everybody “joins the good.”

You cannot unite with everybody in a negative form since if you do, you will cause destruction. But in unifying with love, we are not only creating a benevolent system with kind relationships and a happy life, but we also ascend to another dimension of existence, to eternity. We join the upper force and ascend to a higher dimension of this web, from the virtual to the spiritual level.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Why Do We Need Money?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is money related to spirituality and how does it help us advance?

Answer: Money (Kesef) is a covering (Kisui) over my egoism. It is a force enabling me to cover my egoism, to fulfill it, or to use it for fulfilling others. Money gives me the opportunity to work with my egoism—either for its benefit or against.

Therefore, in the integral world, money has to be used only for the sake of connecting between people. A person has to leave only the necessities of life for himself and give all the excess to the world’s correction.

In the generation of the future, in the corrected world, money will disappear. I will receive everything I need from society, so why would I need money? If the whole world will be corrected and every person’s necessities will be provided for, and in addition no one will need excessive fulfillment, then what is money for? There won’t be any need for it.

It will be necessary to somehow regulate the processes of exchange and transfer from one company to another and between factories in order to provide for the whole world and to attain the corrected, perfect form, but this won’t happen by way of paper money any longer. We will have to somehow measure the connection between us. We will, indeed, assess it by “money,” but it won’t be the same money that is in circulation today, but the degree of one person’s bestowal to another.

If we shift to bestowal, then we also need “money.” However, it acquires the form of a screen which is measured by the unity to which it leads.

“How much did you pay?” The answer is: to the extent of the unity that emerged! In the meantime, today the price I pay is determined by how much I will receive for myself by detaching from others and thereby creating separation between us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/1/11, Lesson on Money

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There Are Many Surprises Up Ahead

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does the root of the soul depend upon what kind of connection exists between the souls?

Answer: There are many conditions applying to the connection between the souls, just like in an integral system where every element is connected with all the others. We are unable to even imagine this.

Suppose that one person has to be corrected, and because of him thousands upon thousands more elements of the common system become involved in the process of correction, meaning souls and creatures on various levels. This is somewhat similar to an embryo’s development. It grows in a very strange way: Suddenly a tail-like extension is formed, then it disappears, and certain forms get replaced by others.

Why do we have to go through all of these states until we take on the form of man? And that happens even in an embryo! Why do we have to receive nourishment through the belly button? Isn’t that strange? In essence the intake of food through the mouth also looks strange, but at least that comes from equivalence to the spiritual Partzuf that receives Lights (tastes, Taamim) through the mouth, Peh which is in the head, Rosh of the Partzuf.

It’s senseless to ask about this because the ways of development, the conditions and interconnections all come from the connection between the souls. Why do the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature have to develop precisely the way they do, producing such great varieties of fish, birds, animals, thousands of species of plants, and billions of different creatures?

All of this comes from the development of desires and combinations between them. It is written, “The end of the action lies in the initial plan.” If we did not have to attain total inter-inclusion in one another at the end of the action, in the final correction, then we would not need such a variety of species on every level of development on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature.

All of these levels appear and disappear to the degree correction takes place according to the given period of development. That is why certain species of animals and plants have already vanished from the face of the earth, while others are only now being revealed.

Every day scientists discover new species of animals that were unknown before. Did they exist or not? They did not. They are only now being revealed. Suddenly this form begins to be revealed and to exist because our desires, which manifest in various combinations, present a new vision to us in the form of these creatures.

Previously these connections between the desires did not exist and it was as if these creatures did not exist. After all, they are only an external appearance of specific combinations of our desires.

Many more things will become revealed. But in the end all of this comes from the same principle.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/1/11, The Zohar

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A Big War For A Little Person

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As I understood, you wish to turn mass media into educational resources as though every individual has to be schooled. But do you really think people will comply? As a matter of fact, they don’t like to study and prefer entertainment instead.

Answer: You simply don’t realize that while you are swallowing the information with which mass media are “entertaining” you, you are schooled indeed, but by a very bad school! You just don’t register it, but mass media do whatever they want with you. They reform you, which means that you are in their school, and it is educating you even more than you think!

You thought that there is no agenda behind them, no politics? Somebody pays for everything and defines in what key it will be presented. From dawn till dusk, people sit and think what the tone of the newspaper should be, what trend it should follow. And this regards all mass information. There is nothing that would be published just to entertain. Step into showbiz and you will see its policies and ties with the newspapers.

A little person doesn’t understand what huge wars are being fought for the right to control him or her. You are being thoroughly schooled day by day; they brainwash and modify you to the core.

This aim at changing a person should remain, but changing him for the better! All of us are the product of mass media, and look at our society, what we have come to. School is not only when I sit at the desk and stare at the teacher. Everything around us is a school, and all of it is arranged by someone, supported by some ideology.

Newspapers should keep being fun and interesting for the readers, but it has to have a good purpose. It requires great skill. It’s easy to photograph and publish murder scenes. It is much more difficult to present it so that a person wouldn’t want it to be repeated, which is against our egoism.

Harder yet it is to evoke in a person regret that this did happen so he might feel compassion, so that the media worked to truly connect people. The modern mass media cultivates man’s ego, everyone’s desire to feel pleasure. And we, on our part, must employ all our channels, use all our interrelations and our ties with the world to work on them, pouring the wisdom of Kabbalah through them.

And it’s alright if people don’t understand or listen, but one day, suddenly, it will start surfacing within them, and they will start talking about it themselves, clueless of whence these new thoughts came to them.

In other words, we need two things: The world ego must mature as quickly as possible, but our dissemination of Kabbalah must grow ahead of it! And when these two components, one’s great egoism and our influence aimed at bestowal, will link within each person, it will produce the right outcome.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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An Educational Channel Instead Of Commercials

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that mass media must change and instead of being a commercial tool, it should become an educational one. What will they teach and how will they raise us?

Answer: A person has to be raised gradually, by way of various articles, information, and a special approach. In other words, the content itself could remain the same, but the key is how to present it and why. Any article in a newspaper, a video clip, a breaking news report, even an ad, everything is accepted and published only on condition that it leads us to correction.

There is a place for everything, but let’s focus on how we use it: What do we wish to achieve with it, what transformations in a person? Instead of chewing on all negative events and screaming, “Look what is happening in our schools, with the police, in the slums,” we should use it for correction and analysis of why this occurred, how to resist it, what can be done so that tomorrow it won’t happen again.

Mass media has to organize human society since they are called “the means of communication,” and our salvation lies in the connection between us. They have to mobilize us all to unify and, together, put these fires out, heal all these sores that are opening here and there in our society.

Mass media must build society, rather than fish some tiny accident out and blow it out of proportion in order to sell themselves at a higher rate. We need a completely different approach and media hosts. Mass media should be in the hands of wise men that understand the purpose of creation and know what humanity must be moving toward.

They must be great guides in order to use everything that exists in the world. After all, we can publish information about anything (nothing must be hidden), but the key is how to explain it in reference to the spiritual goal: Where it is rooted and where it leads to, how not to repeat the same mistakes, how an event that took place in one region impacts the entire world, why it occurred, why there and not here, and so on.

It has to be an explanation accompanied by explanation and not merely an exaggeration of a certain accident; on the contrary, it must be a call for sympathy, connection, and realization that the world is global and we are totally interconnected.

I spoke of this in Arosa, Switzerland, as long as five years ago. Mass media will keep reporting the same news as they do today; the only difference lies in how the information will be presented, how it will be approached, disclosed, and served. That’s what the focus should be on!

It is a very delicate thing. It could be just a few lines, but they will be presented at such an angle as to point a person in the right direction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Egoism And Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can pleasure that one gets from spirituality be egoistic?

Answer: It surely can. Spirituality is love and bestowal. I’m willing to bestow to you and love you if it’s going to benefit me. And if not, then why should I? This is called Klipa (shell), and this is corporeality, not spirituality.

Each one of us is able to love in this way. I love my kids because they are mine. But if they are not mine, I have no regard for them. I can love someone if my well-being depends on them, but if it doesn’t, I don’t need them. In other words, I love and invest because I receive a personal benefit from it. However, this isn’t love and bestowal; this is using others.

Love and bestowal described by the wisdom of Kabbalah has nothing to do with receiving for one’s sake. I simply love in order to benefit the other person. This is even greater than our love for our children because we love our kids instinctively.

I must reach the kind of love of a fellow man that doesn’t benefit my egoism. But if my egoism receives something from this love, it’s not love: I simply love myself and fulfill myself in a round about way. Hence, it is all defined by my intention. But how can I check myself?

I have to rise to the kind of love where I’m only concerned about a fellow human being, not about myself. It’s something we must know because nature will force us to attain this level. According to the program of creation, we must become similar to the Creator. The Creator is good and does good without any regard for Himself. He desires to fulfill us and this is called love.

How can we draw closer to this state? My current intention can only be corrected by the Light that Reforms. It created my egoism and now it can lift me above it, perform a miracle: take me out of Egypt. When I ascend, I begin to correct myself.

This Light can only be sensed by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. While reading The Book of Zohar, a person begins to notice it acting upon him. The study itself contains a force that transforms him. It is said in this regard: “I created the evil inclination, and I gave the Torah for its correction, the Light that brings one back to the good.” This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed in our time and is becoming available to everyone.
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From a TV program “Ask the Kabbalist” 4/4/2010

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To Grow Is To Change

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we accelerate the rate of the group’s development?

Answer: An egg, for example, won’t hatch before its time. It relates to the animate nature and obeys strict laws of development. In time, people watched a hen and learned how to simulate these optimal conditions in incubators. In contrast, not only should we take example from nature, but we also can employ natural forces and accelerate our own growth, modifying its quality. In other words, it’s all about how we perceive it.

In truth, our evolution is not limited to one beaten path. It’s not just that I enhance my own properties a few times. It isn’t enough. I must change myself, transform myself into the opposite.

Hence, I need auxiliary forces that first and foremost will let me become aware of these transformations. If we were not supposed to reform ourselves in the process of spiritual growth, who would mind? Who doesn’t want to grow? Even an egg wants to become a duckling, and a duckling wants to be a duck. This is a law.

However, if we shift from the property of reception to the property of bestowal, then receiving won’t help me achieve bestowal; it will only form a negative attitude within me toward myself. In that case, I will feel evil in receiving, start hating it, and wish to transform into its opposite.

It turns out that in order to evolve, I have to build an environment for myself. I have to create conditions that will assist me in being constantly aware of my current internal state as harmful for me so that I may wish to step out of it, to change.

My development is not that I simply grow, but that I become transformed. I don’t need to become big from being small. Rather, I must become similar to the Creator, assume an opposite form to my own. That is why I learn from the Creator to have qualities that must become mine. Then, I arrange the environment that will help me view these qualities as desirable, while viewing my current attributes as undesirable, evil, and harmful. Acting thereby, I do create a “green house” that will raise me correctly.

Thus, I am working with two opposite forms of nature: the nature to receive that characterizes this world and the nature to bestow, the force of the Light that characterizes the future world. I form an environment that will help me replace my values and realize that my current values are evil as compared to the spiritual ones that I will assume tomorrow. This is the only way I can advance.

What is necessary is not just to “warm” the current condition up. It must constantly stand before me in contrast to today’s and tomorrow’s qualities, showing me the direction I need to take to change and enhancing the importance of these changes. Then I will want to become “great” not in receiving but in bestowal. Knowing that my current state is evil and harmful, I will be happy to leave it behind.

In brief, you must arrange all the necessary conditions for yourself. We must work not on ourselves, but rather on the environment, on the “green house,” the “incubator,” and it will accelerate our growth. Then, we will reach a desired state not at the end of the allotted time period of 6,000 years, having gone through suffering under Nature’s hand, but we will come to it earlier, in a nice, easy, and pleasant way and in the shortest time.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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The World Is Awaiting Your Verdict

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I keep trying to unify the world if I see an enormous amount of weapons and preparation for war in it?

Answer: We need to do what is up to us. The world has reached a threatening state and is rapidly moving toward undesirable events, but regardless, it still remains divided into groups, and no one is willing to yield their interests, even in the face of an imminent threat of explosion.

Every country defends itself and conducts a policy of protectionism, trying to separate from all the others. This tendency leads to war. After all, no one wants to unify with the others and take their interests into account. It is similar to children’s games where little proud egoists come into conflict, except that each of them holds a deadly weapon in their hands.

We need to accept this as conditions placed on the collective soul that needs to be reformed and try to instill the correction of all these phenomena. We ought to perceive everything we see in the world as a testament to our lack of effort.

All other people are deprived of free will and the ability to comprehend what is going on. How, then, can they correct anything? They are managed from Above. We need to make it so that on the scale of the world, the cup of mercy may outweigh the cup of guilt. This choice is in no one’s hands but ours.

All other people are blameless, and the states they are going through are merely the consequences of our actions. Their distancing from each other shows us how rapidly the flaws instilled in nature unfold in comparison to how quickly we make corrections on our part. We are lagging so far behind!

Those who are given free will and are shown to what degree the world keeps shifting toward the cup of guilt must be aware of what they are doing. It is written, “One should always consider oneself half sinful and half righteous,” and “if one performs a good dead, he sentences himself and the whole world to a scale of merit.”

So, where are they, our “good deeds”? It looks like we are able to do much more than we do. If you see that the world is experiencing greater problems, it points directly at you, all of us, telling us that we haven’t achieved that unification, dissemination, oneness, self-annulment, and guarantee that we were supposed to achieve. Let’s hope that we will wake up, as well as all our friends around the world.

We must think it over really well since the condition of the world is very threatening, and everything depends on us. I appeal to all who are listening and join us around the world. It is only we, our thought of oneness, who are capable of correcting the world and not letting this dangerous state grow to such an extent that it may enter confrontation and collapse.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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