Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to support someone?“

Supporting someone means dressing into their desires. We have to feel what the person-in-need truly needs, what they lack, whether it is an ability, strength or knowledge, so that we can fully realize their need. Then, we can try to provide them with the support they need in a way that they will not reject, but that they will gladly accept, with gratitude and understanding.

To begin with, there can be no connection between the person in need and the supporter, because the supporter needs to integrate in the person-in-need’s problems. Then, the supporter builds a model, an inner template of the person-in-need’s problem, and through such a model, the supporter can support the person in need.

Supporting others thus requires building a form inside ourselves of their needs, problems and lacks. In the language of Kabbalah, such an action is called building a “Partzuf.” Only after we build the Partzuf of the other person within us and work on that image, on how to help them, then after building such an inner model, we have a plan of how to support them. We then can approach the person in need to support them.

In such a process, we need to be precise about truly becoming integrated in their deficiency, and to live out their deficiency inside ourselves. The precision is necessary because it is the model through which we can support them.

More generally, the purpose of our lives is for us all to come together, for humanity to unite “as one man with one heart,” and by doing so, we will reach the image of a complete human being. This is not a physical image of a human that we currently perceive, but an inner one of a perfectly-connected humanity. Building that image of the human being—the perfectly-connected humanity—is the essence of the support that we should wish for each other, as such a state is our final destination.

Based on the video “What Does it Mean to Support Someone?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you think Israel is broken? If yes, how can we fix it?“

We have long been broken. We face alienation and generally negative relations toward each other, and it is indeed a problem. We need to reach a state where we take care of each other, to explain to ourselves that there is no other place for us.

The positive aspect of our broken state is that we have the power to change it. If we come closer together and decide that we are one nation, then we can mend our currently-broken connections. We certainly need to work on that more and more.

On the other hand, many would argue that we are familiar with slogans about our unity from a young age. We hear about it regularly throughout our upbringing. However, we see that it fails to bring us any closer together. It is because the explanations we currently receive about our unity lack the understanding of our foundation as a nation. Moreover, neither side of the political spectrum in Israel discuss it.

Our foundation as a nation resides in the tenet, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we fail to sustain such relations among each other, then we are not Israel. There is a superior law to our existence as a nation that requires us to unite above our differences. If we adhere to this law, that “all of Israel are brothers,” then we can truly fix our broken connections, and build the State of Israel in a new and positive way.

Therefore, while we are broken, we have the power to fix our shattered state, and become a united nation based on mutual relations of love. We would then also see that the negative sentiment toward us would fade away, as we would positively affect everyone in the world with the positive unifying force that we would realize among each other.

Based on the video “Is Israel Disintegrating?” 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: “What are the full implications of ‘Deepfake’?“

While there is a lot of anxiety regarding the implications of deepfake technology, I think that it could help correct the world.

Deepfake could help bring us closer to the truth, prompting us to outsmart the phenomena that we create in order to confuse each other. In other words, it could help us reach a state where we simply believe nothing that we see and hear in the media. Therefore, I see such developments as positive because they become part of our path to a state where we see that the whole world is fake.

We will come to realize that there is no truth anywhere, that everything we produce is us lying to ourselves. We actually live that way today, but we are not yet fully aware of it. Deepfake technology would help clarify that we are living in a lie. And when we reach such a realization, we will gain a stronger demand for a greater truth, a genuine perception and sensation of the true reality that we exist in.

Based on the video “What Are the Implications of Deepfake?” 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 can I shift my emotions from negative to positive?“

Throughout nature, negative feelings run in parallel to positive ones to sustain the balance. We should thus first understand that negative feelings surface in us from nature in order for us to enter into balance with nature. Doing so will lead us to understand both negative and positive systems in nature, and we will be in between them as its masters.

We thus should not try to suppress or cover up negative feelings, but complement them with positive ones. Suppose that we take a negative feeling like depression: it needs to balance out with joy and happiness. I understand that this sounds far fetched, because joy and happiness are the most distant feelings from depression. However, doing so becomes possible if we engage in connection-enriching learning on a regular basis.

If we are in an environment that regularly explains and promotes to us that negative feelings are an invitation for us to develop to their positive opposites, and which provides support and encouragement to do so, then it is possible to make such a shift.

The process is quite simple to explain, but it requires regular engagement in a supportive environment connected to such learning in order to implement. The process is as follows: A negative feeling arises, and we then have to find its source and its purpose—that the negative feeling arises in us from nature in order for us to seek its opposite, joy and happiness. We then have to learn how to relate to negative feelings as to positive ones, and be equally grateful for negative feelings as for positive ones. By doing so, we learn how to live between the two because there can be no plus without a minus.

If we engage in such a process, then we become masters of our state. We will know what to do with negative emotions when they arise, and we will understand that nature awakens such feelings solely in order for us to enter into balance with it.

Moreover, we need to understand that as we develop into the future, we can expect more and more negative feelings. From one day to the next, things will get worse. I promise. The world will cry and shout, and no remedy will help. If today we can take some pills or shots to try alleviate our pains, tomorrow we will find that they will no longer work. Drugs will not help us in the future because nature will lead us to a state of feeling a complete sense of depression and negative feelings. It might seem cruel, but it is in order for us to reach a much better state, one that we have yet to experience, through realizing the correct solution: that we need to want the positive force, that it would balance out the negative force in us, which is the reason for depression and all other negative sensations.

Based on the video “How to Shift Your Emotions from Negative to Positive” 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: “Can we consider all humans as being ill? If yes, why?“

We are ill in the fact that we cannot distinguish good from evil, and we cannot gather and integrate the good in ourselves so that it gradually covers the evil.

Evil in this case is egoism, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature. We need to reach a sensation that we are complete egoists and that it is our collective illness, and when we feel how this quality is evil—that it is the cause of every shortcoming and pain that we experience—then we will seek some kind of remedy.

Today, we already experience an accumulation of suffering that evokes a luminescence of a good light upon us, which can reveal where the evil is in us. Together with our egoism, we also have a tiny spark, a very small good desire, which we still have yet to fully clarify, but which connects to egoism’s opposite: the positive force of love, giving and connection that dwells in nature.

Remedying our egoism is by learning how to develop and expand the good point within us. Doing so requires applying a method of connecting these points between us in order to attract more and more of the positive force dwelling in nature into such a connection. In the process, we will be able to distinguish good from evil, and amplify the good quality so that it covers the evil. We will then experience a whole new harmonious and peaceful life.

Based on the video “What Is Humanity’s Illness?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does crisis bring people closer?“

I recently received a letter from a lady who explained that she and her husband had to move into their basement after their house got destroyed, and they felt liberated as a result. In her words, she wrote that “caring for others supplanted all thoughts of self,” and she continued to ask about how that happens, requesting an explanation.

Indeed, we host an inner quality where we try to escape from suffering, fear, hatred and other negative states due to our desire to feel good. As a result, we suddenly find ourselves caring about others, and we then realize that it feels right to come together.

Such states of crisis make us lose the feeling of corporeal fulfillment that we usually seek in money, honor, control and knowledge, and all we have left is spiritual fulfillment, where we fulfill ourselves by helping others, and feel like we need nothing else in our lives. It is a spiritual state that emerges out of suffering.

However, the state where crisis and suffering brings people closer together—that we then feel fulfillment in caring about others in order to run away from our problems—is only an elementary spiritual state. Later, we will care about others simply because we receive such an opportunity and feel it as our mission to do so: that we feel a strong drive to communicate the need to increase mutual care throughout the world, and that caring about each other and coming closer together also vitalizes us with new elevated harmonious, joyous and peaceful sensations. In other words, we can learn from times of crisis that caring about others and coming closer together has a special fulfillment that we previously failed to realize, but if we were to voluntarily advance ourselves to come closer together and increase mutual care in society, then we would alleviate the need for crises to bring us to such a realization. We would then progress to greater states of fulfillment, peace and harmony by attracting nature’s positive forces into our lives.

Based on the video “Why Crisis Brings People Closer and Increases Care among People” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the solution to gun violence without harming the liberty and freedom of gun-owners?“

First, I think that it is unrealistic to disarm hundreds of millions of people. The solution to gun violence is in education. Even if somebody had the power to forcibly confiscate everybody’s guns, gun violence would remain a problem. People who would want guns would find ways to get them.

There is no solution to gun violence other than through society’s gradual and systematic education in relation to what leads us to violence in the first place. We as a society need to reach the realization that killing others is bad. Although this message is already widely understood, for instance it is generally at the heart of major religions and spiritual practices, and it is voiced over and over again in a variety of ways, we nonetheless see that gun violence becomes a greater problem from one day to the next. The reason gun violence worsens is due to the continuous growth of human egoism, where the desire to serve oneself at the expense of others proliferates in many ways throughout society, and some people then grab their guns in order to fire back at this seemingly despicable society of egoists.

Therefore, I see no solution other than serious universal education, which begins from a young age and continues throughout our entire lives. Such education should lead us to a state where there is no room for violence. Anyone who raises their hand against another needs to be punished, and understand that they have no right to exert power over the life of others. We should rather relate to others solely in considerate and responsible ways, and lead by example. Nobody has any right to resort to violence. It is simply not within our rights. That is, we have no right to act against the will of other people. It is true that many have taught such principles throughout history, but we see that there is talk and there is action, and we then see several examples of people doing quite the opposite.

What is lacking in educational efforts to make such principles settle into society’s consciousness is the positive force of nature, i.e. the force of love, giving and connection that precedes and begets our existence. We can truly internalize the principle of doing no harm to others by attracting that force into our lives. Therefore, we need to teach the principles of mutual consideration, care, support and encouragement, or in other words, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” to every person without exception from a young age. Moreover, such education should be regular, on a daily basis, and take place on countrywide scales, with all educational systems and influential media involved in educating and promoting such principles. We would then bear witness to a dramatic decrease in gun violence, as such education would have a lasting positive impact.

If such an educational process entered society, then we would attract the positive force that dwells in nature into our lives, and we would also gain a clearer perception and sensation of who we really are, what goes on around us, what causes our suffering and problems, and where we are headed.

Again, such an education is beyond how we normally think about education. That is, it includes teaching of such principles in our commonly-known educational institutions like schools, colleges and universities, but in addition, it requires influential media creators, filmmakers, radio show hosts, creators of TV series’, journalists and writers of all kinds getting on board. All of our social and environmental influences should be primarily focused on communicating messages that lead us to happiness, peace and harmony. Otherwise, our egoism—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—will keep conjuring up forms that suit it, and we see the tragedies and the dead end that such an approach leads to.

Therefore, if we organize our education—our complex web of social and media influences—to create a society of mutually considerate, responsible, supportive and encouraging members, then the way we speak, communicate and think would take a positive shift. At the very least, the extreme tragedies of gun violence would cease, because there would be no room for such actions in a society that has increased in its awareness of why it is so important to rise above basic human egoistic drives in order to positively connect. That is, the desire to enact gun violence in such a society would simply not surface in people. The education itself would grow a common understanding and feeling in people that they would willingly restrict themselves from enacting gun violence, because it would go against everything they value and know.

Based on the video “What Is the Solution to Gun Violence?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Jane Palash on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we deal with negative emotions?“

Negative emotions awaken in us first in order to signal that we have to advance from where we are to a better place. That better place is an essential change in human connections, which ultimately comes down to mutual relations of love.

We currently do not know what that kind of love is. Love means that we feel what is good for others and try to do that for them, and that others try to do the same for us.

Usually when negative emotions arise, we try to find an escape from such feelings. However, such an approach fails to let us realize the positive change that the negative emotions invite us to make.

In order to not escape from the negative emotions, and realize them positively, we need to learn the kinds of relations that we should have in our world, because our world has to reach balance with the greater system of nature that controls us. Precisely that system awakens negative emotions in us so that we adapt ourselves to it, open it up and reveal it.

How does developing positive human connections adapt us to the greater system of nature? It is because nature is interconnected and interdependent as a single system, and its subsystems are in sync with each other, supporting one another. Therefore, developing relations of mutual love “clicks” us into balance at the human level with nature’s own interconnectedness and interdependence, thereby realizing our part in nature.

Based on the video “How to Deal With Negative Feelings” 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: “nnnnNAMEeeeee“

What is the meaning of life? At a certain point, we realize that there is no sense in living, that we live in vain. Life passes us by every day, and maybe it would be best if we did not exist to begin with?

Indeed, we have sought the meaning of life for thousands of years, and we as a humanity have yet to find an ultimate meaning to life. It is as if we live in order to ask this most fundamental question in every generation and to not find an answer to it.

The question about the meaning of life arises within us involuntarily. Although it might seem better and easier not to ask about the meaning of life, if it would be so, then we would remain at the animal level. Humans, rather, keep evolving, and our constant development is expressed in us increasingly asking about the meaning of life from one generation to the next.

We cannot help but ask about the meaning of life and why we are here. The mere fact that we keep questioning ourselves will bring us to the point when someday we will start discovering the real answer to life’s biggest question. I hope that such a day will come very soon.

What, then, is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is to discover the meaning of life.

What is it though? We will need to discover it. We live in this world in order to seek the answer to specifically that question, and we all subconsciously seek its answer regardless of age, nationality, gender and profession. We are locked in a constant search for the meaning of life, and we have no idea about the base motivation behind such a search.

It might seem as if some people manage to find themselves in life, saying that they live life well and achieve a lot, regardless of a specific search for the meaning of life, but such people simply convince themselves of such statements. However, the desire to find the meaning of life lives within them as it does with everybody, otherwise they would not be alive to begin with.

Every moment of our life starts with the question about why we are living. We do not realize it, and we thus live through the given moment, and then in the next moment we ask ourselves that same question—”What am I living for?”—and we do so time and again. We continue living in such a way during the course of our entire lives, but we still lack a clear answer. Nonetheless, we re-enter that quest, living through every moment with that question at its basis, and move throughout our lives in such a way. Our life’s flow is a continuous question about the meaning of life and a constant search for an answer that we never discover.

Moreover, the question—“What is the meaning of life?”—precedes our physiological perception. It is our most important and fundamental question. Moreover, it is a question that relates to our spiritual quest. After we ask about the meaning of our lives, our body and our organs start revitalizing and blossoming, and we develop as such.

Eventually, after living millions of diverse lives, we eventually will indeed find the meaning of life, which is to reach a clear perception and sensation of the source of all life. We will all reach that discovery. At a certain point of our development, we will shift from unconsciously asking about the meaning of our lives at every moment, to a state where we will start seeking the meaning of life consciously. That is, we will improve in our ability to imagine what the source of our lives is, and how, on what basis, with what qualities and intentions, we can approach it, grabbing hold of it like a baby to its mother. When we do so, we will then have a certain tool by which we can start connecting with the meaning of our lives, and when we reach that stage, then we will start actively seeking our lives’ source, working out what it wants from us, what we expect from it, and why the entire meaning of life is only to eventually draw and adhere to the source of our lives. At such a point, will we truly start absorbing and understanding the meaning of life.

The search for the meaning of life is a pathway to eternity, and eternity is a state of constantly coming closer to the source of our lives, increasingly holding onto, clinging to, and adhering to it.

Based on the video “What Is the Meaning of Life? Why Do We Ask about the Meaning of Life?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should children be allowed to choose their gender?“

I understand that there is an inclination in some people to fervently yearn to feel themselves in a foreign body of the opposite gender, as I have known such people. However, they were individual cases that happened without any propaganda or coercion. But in terms of what is happening today, where such an ideology is fed to society regularly with a “So, who else is with us?” attitude, I think it is completely wrong.

On one hand, it goes against nature-given circumstances. However, on the other hand, every quality of nature has exceptions to the rules. We thus naturally have men, women, and a number of individuals with feminine traits among men, and those with masculine traits among women, i.e. people on such a borderline. There are indeed psychological nuances, and a lot goes on in nature, and each instance needs its own evaluation.

Nonetheless, what is promoted throughout society greatly affects our development, especially children’s. Influences in children’s social, educational and media settings shape the children. That is, children can go to school and get convinced of just about anything, including changing their gender.

For instance, children who have no proclivities whatsoever for changing their gender could reach the conclusion that they have to do it. Why? It is because of social influence and pressure: that such a topic circulates the children’s social influences, and children constantly consider where they fit in with others, in terms of their inferiority or superiority to them. They require the approval of their peers and their social environment, so they could go to great lengths for that approval.

However, despite today’s increase in the promotion of such influences, nature will sort everything out. The promotion of gender change to children is one of several scrutinies that humanity is undergoing in order to lead us to a point of helplessness, a dead end. We can already see how nature continuously guides us through many different paths, and each one results in a dead end, i.e. that we find no ultimate happiness or satisfaction through the various directions that we take.

In short, my advice on this topic is to simply advocate that whoever has no such inclination naturally should be kept in their own natural state of being.

Based on the video “Should Children be Allowed to Choose Their Gender?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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