Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is egoism?“

Egoism is the desire to attract life or forces of life to oneself. At its basis, the matter of our world is different levels of egoism.

We humans are unique because contrary to the rest of nature, we do not use our ego solely for the barest necessities. The still, vegetative and animate levels of nature receive for themselves only the amount of food and energy that they require for their existence.

Egoism has been inserted only into us humans, and it leads us to consume excessively. We derive enjoyment not only from having life’s essentials and even something extra—but we also enjoy when other people lack something and suffer, unlike us. This gives us the feeling of even greater fulfillment.

This is why we consider only the human ego as truly egoistic compared to the other desires in nature. With the exception of the human, egoism does not develop in any part of nature. For instance, a one-day-old calf is like a grown bull, that is, even the representatives of the animate level complete their lives just as they were born. Their ego does not develop, whereas we humans develop by means of growing egoism, over the course of our individual lives, as well as over the generations. Each generation progresses due to its egoism being more developed than that of the previous generation.

This egoism pushes us to civilizational progress. However, now that we have reached the last stage of human development, egoism is leading us to a dead-end. We no longer know where to progress, and we become immersed in a global crisis in all spheres of our activity.

In essence, the forces of nature comprise a single closed system—besides us humans, who in our egoism consume more than our life’s essentials. It is precisely us human beings who are the imbalanced elements within nature, since we use more than what we need in order to exist. This is why only we humans are the sole elements of nature that harm other people, as well as the other levels of 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: “What comes after capitalism?“

Humanity develops by means of the ego that grows in it. The human ego develops us such that we always think that something positive is in front of us. At least in the past, we always thought that something positive lay before us, and we ran to meet the future. Time after time, we develop like a baby who grows up to become a mature adult.

We thought that we were headed to a better culture, economy, and world, and if we felt off at the time, then we thought that our children would feel much better.

This is how our world unfolded according to the growing human ego, and it led us to our current times, when we no longer see ourselves headed to a better future.

Today, we have become disillusioned in our development, and find ourselves standing before a major dilemma: On one hand, if we continue developing by means of our ego, then Nazism will emerge globally as well as a Third World War.

Or we will implement altruism around the world.

The latter option is possible if we realize that altruism is the law of nature. In essence, altruism is nature itself. We will merit life and the forces of life, and we will be saved from destruction, on condition that we will observe this law. Similar to how observing the laws of physics, chemistry and biology brings us positive results, if we will observe the law of nature—altruism—in human society, like in a living body, then we will merit a positively-connected altruistic structure of society and achieve balance with nature, equality among human society, as well as happiness, confidence and safety.

If we fail to realize positive connections fueled with nature’s altruistic quality, then we can expect a very unfortunate future of suffering, with Nazism spreading throughout the world, and together with it, severe destruction.

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 do developing countries become developed?“

We can develop each nation beneficially by developing education that is inherent to all people in the world, such that the development and the culture will correspond to the nature of the nation.

We need to understand that, in general, there are 70 nations of the world, and they are all different. Analogously to the body’s organs, these nations are obligated to complement one another. Therefore, if we will express an equal and benevolent attitude toward everyone, and one that conforms to the nature of each, we will then see that they can create and add a wonderful contribution to humanity. Then, we will extract the maximal benefit out of each nation. It all depends on having a kind and sincere attitude toward each on so that it would be able to serve humanity precisely to the degree that corresponds to it.

We need to understand that nature divides among the nations and countries in such a way that leads us to the state where we each complement the others. As a result, we can find ourselves in an equal and perfect world, where each person complements the others and achieves global harmony.

We will then merit seeing that each nation plays a wonderful role in humanity. It is only thanks to mutual complementarity that we can merit perfect life throughout humanity—in love, perfection, respect and esteem for everyone.

Firstly, we need to reveal that every nation has its own place, similar to how bodily organs have their places. Until we see the unique necessity of each nation, we will be unable to value and elevate it to our own distinctive realization.

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: “Are third-world countries destined to be poor?“

What happens to third-world countries is caused by European civilization replacing several of their local mentalities, cultures and traditions.

Foreign cultures and values were imposed on these countries, disrupting their natural development and bringing about their corruption. This is what led to their poverty and disastrous state of development.

However, if we feel that we depend on each other, on the general law of nature, love, altruism, global interconnectedness and interdependence; if we see that in essence each one of us is a cell in a living organism that depends on all cells functioning optimally; if we see that each and every one of us is extremely important because we are each cells of this living organism, and without the life of any one of us, then the world is incomplete; if we see the immensity of our interdependence—then of course we will know how to treat all nations and countries, including the third world, with love and understanding.

Peace in the world will then emerge, and there will be equality—but for each one of us according to our respective mentality, culture and all of the accompanying circumstances.

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: “Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone?“

Indeed, the world produces enough food to feed everyone, but the problem is that we cannot divide it correctly, genuinely and fairly. Our ego does not let us distribute products well and correctly, equally for everyone. Food is thrown out in some places of the world, while in other places, people starve to death.

Such is our nature, and it will not change until we reach the conclusion that we need to change our nature from egoistic to altruistic. Until we do, the situation in the world will also not change, and the polarization in the world will become more and more diametric. We can expect to see a sharper division of the world into some places where people starve to death, and others where people discard of excess food.

The problem with changing our nature from egoistic to altruistic is that we cannot overcome the ego while we remain in our ordinary boundaries. In order to undergo this transformation, we need to discover the law of nature, which is a law of love and altruism, in our human relations. By seeing that nature acts this way, we will also be able to change ourselves in order to prevent self-annihilation. Everyone will then discover how to realize our global interdependence and interconnectedness harmoniously, and we will be able to divide all products equally, so they will be balanced among everyone.

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: “Is GDP an accurate gauge of an individual citizen’s happiness?“

There are several examples of countries that have a high GDP and a low level of people’s happiness, which show quite clearly that GDP is not an accurate gauge for people’s happiness.

Why is it the case? It is because people are made to enter a framework where they feel constrained, unhappy, and forced to task like slaves, and accordingly, their happiness levels are low. They lie to themselves, thinking that they are happy, but have no idea what happiness is.

Happiness does not mean working most of the time. Rather, happiness is an inner state that is inseparable from our connection with society and nature—a state of harmonious connection between everybody and everything. Therefore, GDP is far from being an accurate indicator of happiness.

If we wish to increase our happiness, then we would be wise to revise the way we currently think we make ourselves happy, and start focusing on how we can discover true happiness through achieving harmonious connection with each other in society and with nature.

Based on KabTV’s “Conversations” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 9, 2021.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you find your life’s purpose?“

We can find our life’s purpose by learning the higher plan and program of nature that develops us toward life’s purpose at every moment.

By learning nature’s plan, we gradually start feeling what we can realize in our present incarnation, what our fate was in our previous incarnation, how nature operates, why we were created the way we were, and how we develop the way we do under the environment’s influence.

We can then understand how to click into this system and control it. Using our desires and intentions together with guidance based on learning nature’s higher plan, we can enter into nature’s control room and discover how and why everything was created the way it was.

Asking about the purpose of life is the first step toward this discovery. Over the course of history and our individual lives, we develop through desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge, which are all desires that belong to our current level of perception and sensation.

The desire for meaning and purpose already belongs to a higher level of perception and sensation, and asking about the meaning and purpose of life is the seed of its discovery. By learning how to direct this desire at the purpose of life, which is eternal and whole, we learn how to rise above our physical level of existence, and find ourselves living in a higher reality where we perceive how and why everything is operated. Moreover, from such a level of attainment, we also learn how to influence our very destiny.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 20, 2015. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is one reason to live in one sentence?“

The reason to live is in order to reach “love your neighbor as yourself” through which we discover the higher, eternal and perfect existence among each other and with nature.

Based on New Life episode 401 with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum Moshe on June 12, 2016.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will we ever have world peace?“

World peace seems like a far-fetched utopian concept when we look at today’s world.

To start with, what is peace? Is it simply the opposite of war? When we look into the word “peace” from the perspective of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we find a different definition to how the term is commonly conceived, and we also receive a method on how to achieve it.

Peace is commonly considered a state of no war. Humanity has created several peace treaties, ceasefires and armistices after tough conflicts, wars, and much suffering, and it is always a question of how long they will last until the next outburst.

The term “peace” in Hebrew (“Shalom”) equates to “completion” or “perfection” (“Shalem”). Is it enough that we have an absence of war in order to experience perfection? Of course not. If we look deeper into the word “peace,” we arrive at the common root of our nature, before we divided into different genders, races, species and diverse nations.

In today’s world, where we find ourselves among a rapidly rising global population of billions of people, we perceive ourselves as separate from each other, and often not at peace. Moreover, our lack of knowledge on how to reach peace is our main problem.

The wisdom of Kabbalah describes how nature develops us toward a state of total world peace. Approaching peace, however, requires recognizing that nature is an interconnected and interdependent system, and that we humans are the only disrupters of the sensitive balance in nature. More specifically, the human ego, which is a desire to enjoy at the expense of others, harms us, the world and nature.

Interestingly, as far back as 1930, in his article, “Peace in the World,” Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) recognized the interconnected state of the world:

“Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world, because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society.”

How, then, do we achieve world peace?

Achieving world peace requires a long-term comprehensive social form of education that aims to raise us to discover a state of completion and perfection, and this is where the wisdom of Kabbalah, which describes nature’s causes, plan and functionality, can be of assistance. Kabbalah describes how we can impact self-transformation to change our egoistic nature to an altruistic one—a necessary change in order to reach a state of peace. As part of this transformation, we learn how to rise above our divisive drives that bring about separation between people and nations. Similar to a couple that makes up after an argument, uniting above division is what strengthens our connection.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov explained, “The essence of peace is to try to make peace between two opposites” (Likutei Etzot, “Peace”). Also, it is written in Proverbs (10:12) that “Love will cover all transgressions.” Nature also contains a plethora of opposites working harmoniously as a single common system: light and darkness, heat and cold, sweet and bitter, and so on.

A process that leads to world peace thus depends on the development of an inclusion between opposites up to a point where a new feeling of the world emerges. Instead of feeling “them and us,” we come to feel a common whole in which we are all important parts.

Moreover, the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that we are all headed to a state of world peace, and Kabbalah is a method that lets us achieve this state faster, more enjoyable and with growing wisdom, knowledge and consciousness of the nature we all share.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the main reasons for increased divorce rates?“

The enveloping reason for increased divorce rates is due to natural human evolution. Our times are characterized by exiting the animal level of development and rising to the human level. In other words, nature is urging us to connect as a single global interdependent framework of humanity.

Since there is a growing need to connect as a single global system, we find our personal connections breaking more and more. Nature wants us to look beyond the family framework in order for us to later return to it on a different level, i.e. where we feel humanity as a single family.

In our individual lives, we experience a feeling of being in love, where we are overtaken by powerful emotions, excitement, inspiration, and a seeming perfection that was worth striving for in order to be together and upon which we could build a family. However, over time, we lost this feeling. Why, then, do we naturally fall in love if later that feeling dissipates?

What we need to understand is that we are in a system that nature runs. In this system, nature wants us to discover true eternal love, i.e. as love exists in nature itself. In the process, it wants us to detach from the conceptions and feelings of being in love that we experience temporarily in our current reality. We thus need to change our instinctive attraction to the other sex, which is fueled by natural passion and hormones, to a more goal-oriented connection.

We form the connections we currently know because we live for our children or our shared household. Moreover, being together is convenient because it lets us support each other as we grow older. Today, however, we need to find a new deeper kind of connection. We thus see more and more cases of divorce because we are in this transitional era where we already start feeling an increasing lack in the traditional frameworks that once held us together, that there is an additional and more sublime drive that we need in order to sustain and grow a happy family in our times.

If we can tap into this drive, which we have yet to accurately identify, we can set ourselves off on a path to discover a completely new feeling that emerges in a more goal-oriented connection to each other. We can then springboard from our increasing distaste toward our current frameworks to seek connections on a whole other level: a much stronger and warmer family-like connection among all humanity. If we enter such a sensation, then we discover a fulfillment that we have never felt before. It is as if we float freely, becoming very light and feeling an eternal thrush of life permeate us.

While we have the opportunity and the ability to determine these new goal-oriented connections through connection-enriching education, we see how these explanations go largely unnoticed. Nature thus prods us from behind by means of pain and suffering, and we find all kinds of connections that we once held shattering, with divorce being a key indicator of our broken connections in relation to the family. The purpose of this increasing feeling of detachment we feel, including the increasing divorce rates, is in order for us to get sick of our separation and develop a sincere new desire to connect on a whole other level. Eventually, we will make motions to connect in this new way, since we will find that otherwise we will be cornered. When we start connecting as nature requires us to, we will then discover the beauty in such connection.

Therefore, together with the increasing irreconcilable hatred and disagreements that break up more and more families, there surfaces a new sincere need for love. If we all understand the sublime fulfillment that true love brings, then we will want to have these feelings in our families. We will then return to the family after we learn how to love the entirety of humanity, and we will then wish to share a deeper and more uniquely personal and internal version of this connection with a spouse.

Based on New Life episode 19 on February 2, 2012 with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum Moshe.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

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