Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is your ideal vision for the future of the Earth?“

The cells of any living organism, despite being egoistic, nevertheless by working with each other they unify into a single mechanism, one altruistic system, where each cell attaches itself to the organism and becomes entirely immersed in caring only about how to integrate into the organism, how to provide life to the organism and its general functioning, as otherwise it will itself lose life.

This should be the common attitude in human society: if we want to survive, then we need to accept the same law of how cells function in any living organism, and everyone should take care of everyone else. That is how we should envision our future.

Over the course of our life on Earth, we develop by means of egoism. We have grown to become increasingly egoistic over our development, but now we have arrived at the end of egoistic development and are in a completely different dimension. We need to understand that a new reality and a new system are opening themselves up to us, in which we are increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Accordingly, we need to accept the integral system that we are parts of as the law of life between us. Therefore, if we accept this as a fact, we will see our future life be good.

I hope that this is precisely what we will see.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the most important subject in the arts that needs to be discussed and why?“

The arts, culture and education needs to discuss positive human connection, i.e. the correct connection among people, and not the connection that exists today, but the connection that should exist.

If we will discuss the fact that we belong to one global family, that each person needs to express this attitude toward others, that we depend on each other and need to thus love each other and in such a way correct our relationships—if the arts, culture and education, with everything they encompass, will enact their power upon us through movies, the theater, fictional literature, and everything that we see, everything that influences us, then we will accept this altruistic idea no matter how opposite it might be to our nature.

The role of culture in influencing us is very important. I hope that in such a way, we will merit crossing from the egoistic way of life to the altruistic one quickly and without a preliminary phase of suffering.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is modern life more complex and stressful than primitive life? Didn’t we invent technology to make life more simple?“

Egoism, which develops in us constantly and ceaselessly, forms an increasing desire in us to fill it. However, by desiring to fill it, in essence we discover that we are unable to. Everyone knows that we feel a strong appetite before eating, but our desire decreases as soon as we begin eating and we stop feeling the pleasure. This way, the pleasure or fulfillment itself neutralizes the feeling of pleasure or fulfillment. It is because the desire to fulfill oneself and the pleasure that fulfills it are two opposites.

Therefore, we will never achieve perfection if we want to fulfill ourselves directly. We want to achieve several things, but as soon as we achieve something, the pleasure disappears. Why does it disappear? It is because by receiving pleasure, we neutralize the very desire for pleasure. This is why we never feel continuous pleasure in our lives.

The pleasure can be felt only on the condition that we will separate the place of accepting the pleasure from the pleasure itself. For example, a mother wants to give something to her baby, and the more she gives to her baby, the more she herself becomes fulfilled. If we would love each other like a mother loves her baby, then we would feel pleasure to the extent of our bestowal upon others. It is possible to bestow without limitations, and by doing so, constantly fulfill ourselves. This is the principle of eternal fulfillment, and thanks to it a person can feel eternal life. It means that in altruism there is an inherent foundation for an eternal and full life, permeated with love, fulfillment and happiness, which can never happen in egoism.

When humanity will understand this and feel how much it loses in its short life, which is full of suffering, while it is possible pass to eternal life, full of pleasure—then it will begin changing itself. I hope that then our life will stop being so stressful.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is it in your life that calls you to be bigger than what you think is possible?“

I understand that humanity is in the midst of a crisis. This crisis envelops humanity: depression, drug addiction, the disintegration of the family unit, terrorism, and the global ecological threat. Constantly, from one day to the next, this disaster in humanity continues increasing, and the conflict between civilizations also deepens. According to scientists’ opinions, humanity has little time left to somehow stop the crisis’ development in the direction of a third world war.

However, as doctors say, the correct diagnosis of a disease is already half of its cure. This is why we need to reveal this crisis to the world and stop silencing it. By doing so, we only bring ourselves closer to an irreversible state. If we reveal this crisis to humanity and simultaneously, all of us together, try to understand its cause (our ego) and its cure (the ego’s correction)—by doing so, we will discover a peaceful and harmonious life.

Humanity needs to undergo this transformation. Therefore, this vision pushes me even to things that are beyond my abilities, in order to use all opportunities possible so that I can explain this to the world.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will reparations for slavery actually help end racism?“

Definitely not. There will be no end to all kinds of people starting to demand what they supposedly deserve. More and more people will start whetting their appetites against one another. It is foolish to rethink history in such a way.

I am in favor of reinterpreting history as the development of our egoistic inclination, i.e. the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, through various stages. Today, when we realize the ego’s insignificance, perniciousness and inferiority, we start shifting to the next degree of our development where we will need to realize a positive connection to each other, supporting, encouraging and caring about each other with no complaints about the past.

If we start engaging in digging into the past to make reparations, then we enter an endless process of looking backward in order to demand what we supposedly deserve.

Such a revision of history is based on egoism. We cannot buy the past with money, just as the future cannot be built with this money. We should only seek to understand how nature and human nature works, and how we can use this knowledge to start a new process of positively connecting to each other.

The more we discover our tightening interdependence in today’s age, the more we will reveal the faulty and detrimental nature of our egoistic nature, and the need to correct it by developing altruistic connections above it. We will not correct our ego by the approach of “Pay me, and I’ll be nice.” It is simply a defective approach.

Based on “News with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman” on July 8, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would you use the Internet to improve your community?“

The Internet is equal to all, and if it would explain to everyone that we belong to a global system, that in essence we are a small village, a single system, we must relate to each other correspondingly and also raise the next generation. In this network, we must speak about the fact that we belong to a single organism and that we must change ourselves. If we discuss this on the Internet, then this huge mechanism, which envelops all continents and everyone together, will carry out its predestination. It will then serve to unite us. In all languages and on all levels, it will connect us and give us the sensation of the fact that is was intended precisely for this purpose.

The Internet is unique in that simultaneously, in one instant, in real time, it can connect us and make us into one connected bunch of people around the planet. I hope that this will indeed take place in the near future, and we will feel our tight interconnectedness and interdependence—including the means of information that act across the Internet—in such a way that we will discover how integral it is, and begin behaving accordingly. We will then change our culture, education, economics and our approach to life.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How could the technology boom of the past 70 or so years have been more beneficial to humanity if it were not largely driven by military or market forces?“

Humanity’s development happens by means of and under the pressure of egoism—the desire to self-benefit at the expense of others—which increases in humanity from one generation to the next, and in our individual lives from one year to the next. This is why such development is already flawed, and leads us to problems and misfortunes. It is why everything that happens in a mismatch from nature, unaligned with the altruistic law of nature, but according to our egoism—is flawed and will fail in the future. After all, such developments do not come from the postulate of care and love for the neighbor, from the understanding and realization of the fact that we live in a single integral system, where life and the world are interconnected as a small integral village.

On the contrary, we each care first and formost about ourselves, which is completely opposite to what nature demands of us. Our technological development thus looks no more like attempts and efforts to somehow fulfill our egoism. Instead of cutting it off from ourselves and correcting the way we use it for humanity’s benefit, we try to fulfill it directly. In other words, instead of bringing ourselves to equivalence, unification and balance with nature, we increasingly distance ourselves from nature. Therefore, instead of achieving delight, goodness and perfection, we experience amassing problems, crises and disasters.

If we thus use our technologies for the benefit of humanity, to correct humanity from egoism to altruism, then we will merit perfection and happiness.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can a brain be connected to a computer?“

Unquestionably, it will be possible to connect a human brain to computers in order for them to work conjointly. And approximately by the middle of the 21st century it will also be possible to replace all parts of our body with different artificial forms.

We must understand that we are not discussing the inner part here, i.e. a person’s own “self” or soul. In the end, we are speaking about parts of our body, about that which is animalistic. Even today, by means of genetic and biological engineering, we have no problem performing all kinds of changes in the human body, replacing and removing organs. In all of its wisdom, there is nothing in this science that is above human abilities. Such acts are on the animate level, while we ourselves are on the speaking level.

Our problem, our correct, high and highly unique activity lies in ascending from the cares of the biological level, the level of the animalistic body, to the speaking level. We will then work in our soul, in the human self, which is above the body. Precisely there we will perform such manipulations that will let us perform actions in the soul called “corrections.”

As for the body, obviously, we will keep making such advancements as connecting our brain to computers, among others. In the end, it solely depends on technological development.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why don’t we get rid of intellectual property laws and stop restraining creativity and innovation?“

If we reach the understanding that everything we achieve and discover can benefit humanity and will be recorded about each one of us in our soul’s eternal account to the degree of benefit that we contributed—then the approach of guarding that which we discover and not wanting to free it would disappear.

There are such discoveries that people have made, which they do not want to open up to free use by everyone. If we were to understand that our reward is precisely in our giving to humanity, and that it becomes registered on our name forever—then we would act out of a reward not of money, but of recognition. Nature would treat us in a useful and favorable way, thanks to which we would merit feeling eternity and perfection above this life.

However, for the time being, we remain as egoists, i.e. people who wish to enjoy at the expense of each other, and fail to understand nature in such a way. It turns out that we use nature in the most egoistic way, for personal benefit alone. As a result, we live in a world where we each guard our intellectual property, and the world progresses via an indirect path toward its eventual balance with nature.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can architecture better serve the social, economic, political and environmental concerns of our present and future?“

The effectiveness of architecture, as with any other art, science and technology that we have developed, depends exclusively on the intention that we apply to its use.

It is not arts, sciences or technologies themselves that are good or bad. Rather, it depends on whether their producers use them for benefit or harm.

Therefore, when we will understand that it is most beneficial to take care of our necessities, and to give everything else to society’s benefit, then we will stop excessively using architecture. Just the opposite, we will do everything incredibly effectively, realistically, and will invert other excesses to favor human society.

This is a tendency that we will witness in architecture, and generally in all spheres of human activity. If we will change the person, then architecture and other arts, sciences and technologies will also assume a different form and appearance.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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