Human progress takes place in our attitude toward each other and to nature. The more we understand nature as a perfect mechanism, and the more we adapt ourselves to it, then the more we can consider ourselves making progress. By making such progress, we eventually enter into balance with nature, and by doing so, we achieve harmony and perfection.
Progress in our attitudes to each other and to nature leads us to balance between positive and negative forces, and the ability to successfully navigate ourselves among these forces.
We are born and we exist in the negative force, the human ego. This force makes us prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others and nature. We progress to balance among each other and with nature by aiming for a state where we each wish to benefit others and nature more than ourselves, and we work against our egos to achieve such balance.
Such progress in our attitudes to each other and to nature requires investing in educational programs that can make it happen. These programs should focus on guiding people to reach a state of positive connection to each other above our egoistic and divisive drives. If we progress in other directions, e.g., science and technology, without progressing in our attitudes to each other and to nature, then we will find ourselves in more and more of a tangle, using whatever we make or discover to our detriment rather than to our benefit.
Based on the video “Why New NASA Technology Doesn’t Impress Kabbalists” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
We are unfamiliar with nature as a whole. There are several acting forces that suddenly appear to us, and we do not know what to do with them. We then believe in all sorts of things that supplement our power of faith, which serve to make us familiar with, and take control of, such forces. Those are what we call “superstitions.”
Then, the question becomes, how should we relate to the unknown? First and foremost, we need our faith to be in the force of love and connection, that there is a single force sustaining everything and everyone in a single system. If we wish for everything and everyone to be as one, then we are on the right track.
We can thus stop being superstitious when we relate logically to reality: that there is a superior force of love, giving and connection in nature, and we can do certain actions in our world in order to reveal that force and adapt ourselves to it.
Therefore, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, if we wish to receive protection in our lives, we should direct ourselves at the force of love, giving and connection—the force of nature—and by doing so, we will attract this force into our lives. This is the meaning of what is written in kabbalistic texts, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Based on the video, “How a Kabbalist Relates to Superstitions,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Orphie, a 14-year-old girl who was socially excluded at her school, experienced violence for several years, and eventually became the head of a boycott patrol. The aim of the boycott patrol is to support others harmed by social exclusion. For instance, the patrol gave a girl, Elian, whose entire class shunned her, a birthday surprise, comforting her with the warm words that they are her family, and that she will not be alone anymore.
We have built a society where a lot of children and youth share this miserable situation, feeling that there is no place for them in the world.
I would advise anyone who feels the problem of social exclusion to work according to the lines of such examples as what Orphie’s group did for that girl, Elian, and to give rise to similar frameworks for helping children, as well as educating about the phenomenon. I would support their growth to become the most significant force in our society, so that no one feels worse off than others, and to show that the most potent weapon against hatred is love. If such a force strengthens, then we will be able to prevent social exclusion as we head toward a much more positively connected society.
Nobody needs to feel alone or excluded. To make that a reality, we just need to develop mutual support in society.
Based on the video, “The Solution to Social Exclusion,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Recent research shows that mothers’ engagements with smartphones and magazines are harmful to mother-child communication, which in turn harms the child’s development. In the research, mothers using their phones to engage with social media, and also mothers reading magazines, spent up to four times less time talking with their toddlers (aged two to three) than when they were not on their phones or magazines. Moreover, the mothers with phones and magazines responded less to their childrens’ calls, had a lower quality response than when not on their media, and sometimes even ignored their children altogether.
What does it mean when we see mothers—symbols of devotion, love and care—pay increasing attention to their phones and magazines than to their toddlers?
It is a present-day example of how the maternal instinct lessens and the natural connection between mother and child weakens the more that the human ego grows. The phones and magazines add to the situation, but also emerge together with our natural development, which is a continual growth of the human ego that increasingly detaches us from each other, up to a point of detaching mothers from their children.
As a result of our egoistic development, less and less people today want to have children or grandchildren, and more and more people are becoming concerned solely with their individual lives. Such development needs to unfold until we reach a state of helplessness and desperation, where we will feel no livelihood or fulfillment in a life of growing detachment to one another.
However, together with the growing helplessness comes the opportunity to correctly diagnose the root cause of our growing detachment to each other—the overblown human ego that resides in each and every one of us—and to stop identifying our egoistic drives as being our “self” or our “I.” In other words, by realizing the ego behind our growing detachment from each other, up to a point of mothers losing their maternal instincts, we should accordingly stop listening to its demands, and stop relating to it as being a part of us. We would then be able to start correcting it.
At every moment, the ego prioritizes the fulfillment of our own desires over everybody else’s. The more the ego grows, the more it leads us to thinking of ourselves more and more over even our own families. In other words, the ego is self-love, and it directs us to love only ourselves more than we love our own children, spouses and parents, up to a point where we feel no love at all for anyone else.
After diagnosing the growing ego as the root cause of increasing detachment, which causes an array of problems in our lives, we should then organize our relationships so that we relate to everyone with loving and caring attitudes. In other words, by raising awareness of the need to enrich our connections with more love, consideration, support and encouragement, then the wider net of positive connection we cast over society will serve to positively influence us to reignite love at the family level. Mothers would then experience a revival of their maternal instincts, albeit on a whole new level: they will not be mere “instincts” but the mothers’ new drive to draw closer to their children, families and relatives would emerge from acquiring a higher level of consciousness, i.e. connection with the positive force of love and bestowal that dwells in nature.
Based on the video “How Mothers Have Become Detached from Their Babies” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Recently, Israel has been discussing an attack on Iran, and the Iranians are not holding their tongues either. They published a map with targets in Israel, stating that they can hit any place in Israel, and that all it takes is for Israel to do one mistake in order for Iran to finish Israel off.
In terms of whether or not Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, I think that it is just talk. The Iranians—a civilization dating back to ancient times—are no fools.
So what if Iran has a nuclear bomb? Americans and Russians hate each other more than Israel and Iran, and they continue their existence with their nuclear bombs.
I am not afraid of Iran having a nuclear bomb. If Israel truly wishes to put an end to the Iranian threat and enjoy peace as any other country does, it is up to the people of Israel to establish peace with the upper force.
The upper force is a force of love and bestowal. When we meet the conditions to let the upper force envelop our planet with love and connection, then we will see how the Iranian threat, as well as several other negative processes taking place against Israel, will simply fade away.
Unfortunately, we Jews are not letting it happen, which is why the world increasingly turns against us. The law of nature is to be in wholeness, perfection and peace with everyone, to love all people in the world, and this process starts with us Jews first implementing such an attitude among each other. Until we undergo a shift in a direction of positively connecting to each other in order to be a conduit for connection to spread worldwide, we will continue bearing witness to increasing pressure upon Israel and the Jewish people.
Based on the video “How Should Israel Respond to the Iranian Nuclear Threat?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Shahid, a 10-year-old living in a refugee camp in Syria, was interviewed and asked what she wished for herself this upcoming year, to which she replied, “A tent, to have a tent.” This broadcast on Arab social media deeply shocked many who were watching, that a child’s dreams can reach such a low.
The broadcast surfaced questions such as “How have we come to such a world?” and “Why can we not just leave children out of our wars and conflicts?”
The answer to this question is simply that no major player wants to leave children out of such situations, neither the UN, UNESCO, nor any other international organization or government. Funds are given to armies and terror organizations, which force people to continue living in refugee camps around the world. While there are organizations such as the UN and UNRRA that seemingly exist in order to protect children, it is all a lie. They are merely players in politicians’ hands.
Syria has been experiencing civil unrest for several years between Assad’s supporters and enemies. The grownups are engaged in fighting, killing and torturing each other, and the children gain nothing from this situation. Also, the children hold no influence over the grownups, who continue their conflict regardless. When such children grow up, they will likely also join the conflict.
If asked what I would wish for Shahid, then I would explain to her that she and everyone else can have not just a tent, but a home, and that the world is full of abundance, but the human ego pits us up against each other, not letting us enjoy the abundance that is right before us.
Our egoistic nature, which makes us each want to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, leads us into conflicts and does not give us peace.
If we want a good future, free from conflict, and if we want to enjoy the abundance that exists in the world, then we need to readjust our attitudes to each other: instead of letting our egos lead us into conflict, we need to start coming closer to each other. Our positive connection above our egoistic and divisive drives holds the key to us all enjoying a perfect and abundant life.
Based on the video “Why Are Children Not Left Out of Wars and Conflicts?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, taking the potion of life means filling ourselves with high spirits so that our perspective of the future becomes so appealing that we start receiving from nature a fulfillment that is stronger and more complete than anything else. It is a real potion from above, which provides us with the best possible feelings, and which immensely expands our perception and sensation of reality.
The way to attain this potion is by mutually connecting in a harmonious and positive manner to the whole of nature, i.e. to the positive force that dwells in nature. Our distancing from one another draws upon us a negative illumination from nature, which leads to a limited and negative experience of life. Alternatively, if we positively connect to each other, then we experience a positive illumination from nature, and enter its higher levels.
On the contrary, taking drugs disconnects us from life, and several drugs get us into a destructive cycle of addiction that make us want to take more and more of them until we die. But if we realize the full potential of our positive connection to each other, then we feel the eternity of nature and enter into an eternal world. Moreover, anybody and everybody can achieve such a lofty state.
Based on the video “The Alternative to Drugs: The Potion of Life” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
We have been given a perception and sensation of reality as being flawed—that human nature is a terrible and deficient desire to enjoy for self-benefit, which is opposite to the perfection of the Creator’s attitude of absolute love and bestowal—in order to learn upon our seemingly flawed state how to attain likeness to the Creator, and by doing so, correct that flaw.
It is similar to how we give children jigsaw puzzles or model car and plane kits. We do so in order for them to learn what is a complete thing, and how to construct something complete from something broken, fragmented and incomplete. In order to build completeness, the Creator needed to create something seemingly incomplete.
We create everything in our world based on incomplete foundations. Take, for example, how we prepare food or how we build a house: we start from various pieces or fragments of the whole thing that we wish to make, and we construct it until we can use it correctly.
We can only construct something complete if we engage in its construction. As this process unfolds in our corporeal lives, it is also the case in our spiritual lives.
Our understanding and feeling of the world starts off as incomplete in order for us to construct our understanding of the world, and develop our sensation, until we attain wholeness and perfection. The connections that we make in the process are in order for us to develop our understanding and feeling of the completeness of the Creator, and by constructing ourselves seemingly by ourselves, we discover the Creator. It is written about such a process in kabbalistic texts: The Creator says to those who construct themselves to become as perfect as Him, “You made Me.”
Based on Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman’s commentary on item 13 of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag’s article “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” in the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on February 8, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Anubhav Saxena on Unsplash.
Margaret Loughrey, 56, from Strabane in Northern Ireland, was found dead in her home. In 2013, she won 27 million pounds in the lottery, acquired real estate, bought a house, a pub and opened a recreation center for residents of the city. She planned to build affordable housing for residents on her property. She spent half of her winnings on charity. The recreation center was set on fire more than once. She also received a suspended sentence for drunk and disorderly conduct. She later claimed that people stole millions from her. Shortly before her death, she said: “I regret winning the lottery […]. I was a happy person before. I am a human being and all it has done is destroy my life.”
We mostly think of winning the lottery as a blessing, that if we had won the lottery, we would have used the money well. But there are no such examples. Winning the lottery is a curse. Our seemingly good deeds within the framework of our limited understanding of the world, i.e. giving millions of dollars to one or more causes, will always fall short and boomerang back to us in negative ways.
I see no solution to such a problem other than an extensive worldwide educational program that teaches us to develop a sense of mutual responsibility and consideration toward each other in society, and to prioritize positively connecting to each other above our divisive drives.
Humanity will come to realize that after all the unsolvable global challenges, the only cure left will be to implement unity among each other. We need different conditions and not people or organizations trying to manage these massive amounts of money. My conclusion is to not award such sums of money. Do not incite a person in such a way. I personally would also ask to not have such sums of money offered to me.
Based on the video “Is Winning the Lottery a Blessing or a Curse?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash.
When we—by our actions, by our way of life—will cause such suffering that we will be unable to turn away from it, it will make us think about the meaning of the suffering, or in other words, about the meaning of life, because life will be filled with suffering.
We will then start thinking whether we should live at all, whether we should suffer, whether it all makes sense, and what we should do with ourselves. We will then start asking serious questions about our lives and will try to find their answers.
Then, we will reach the conclusion that our life is incorrect and we must find the correct way of life so that everyone feels good and so that life itself does not end but rather leads us to its optimal outcome.
We will then become ready to start positively connecting to each other above our divisive and destructive drives, and by doing so, we will start attracting the positive force dwelling in nature into our lives.
Our lives will then undergo a dramatic shift to a new harmonious, peaceful and positive form that is more balanced with nature.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” on December 2, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you define human progress?“
