Opinion (Vasily Klucharev , PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Psychology of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow): “We make decision only to activate (satisfy) the neurons of brain areas associated with obtaining pleasure.

“Biologists have found that pleasure and desire to get it are connected with the structures of the brain, rich in dopamine, the pleasure centers in the brain.

“Scientists implanted electrodes in these areas of rats’ brains and found that by pressing a pedal, the animal was engaged in self-stimulation for hours. The rat rejected food and endlessly stimulated its brain – and died from exhaustion. Similar behavior has been observed in humans.

“In ordinary life, we activate brain structures rich in dopamine, visiting restaurants, earning money, falling in love.

“Our senses send information to the brain neurons that are activated in proportion to the expected pleasure and make the decision to buy or not to buy this product – that is, how to command the motor areas of the brain that triggers our muscles.

“People around us influence our opinion, causing a change in the activity of the pleasure center. If our opinion matches the others’ opinion, it activates the center, and if it does not match, this inhibits its activity. It seems that we like to have a shared opinion, and I do not like being different.

“It turns out that the group with which we identify ourselves regulates the operation of our pleasure centers, changes our opinion, supporting the similarity of our views with the social norm and suppressing disagreement.

“We think that we understand why we make decisions, but in reality, we are not aware of the real causes of our behavior. We cannot guess the motives of our conduct, remaining under the illusion that we control our behavior. Therefore, it is difficult for us to accept the idea that our actions are just a means of activation the group neurons of the brain.”

My Comment: Behind the physiological pleasure center, there is the spiritual root, which determines all our actions. Overall, we came to Kabbalah through science.
[136331]

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Opinion (Sergei Mats, psychologist, filmmaker, lecturer at the Institute of Psychology of Russian University for the Humanities in Moscow): “Do feelings deceive you? – Don’t worry, they have been designed mostly for this. Each of us lives in his own individual surrounding world. This world is filled with personal feelings.

“This reality contains optical illusions, strange noises, little understood sensations and smells, pseudo hallucinations (cinema, computer monitor).

“People absolutely realistically see, hear and feel things that did not and could not exist. You are looking at a white cloth, illuminated by a projector, or a panel, consisting of RGB- triads, and it definitely seems to you that there occur the events that make you laugh and cry.

“Similarly, many experienced psychic phenomena; they actually ‘saw,’ ‘felt, and ‘heard voices”; for them they are all true, ’another reality’ that leaves no reason for doubts.

“Sometimes, someone’s life may depend on the complex psychological nature of human emotions. With what degree of truth can one assert that the witness really saw and heard everything that seemed to him to be seen and heard without doubts?

“It is a strange thing: evolution, which is supposed to bring us closer to the main subject of adaptation – reality, in many cases, in fact, separates the mind from it, encloses him in an individual world, which is not always comfortable, but is always felt. Why does it do this?”

My Comment: Our development proceeds along two lines so that we, (1) as a result of our development, (2) discover its complete inadequacy. It is this frustration that will enable us to (3) realize and accept a whole new way of development, opposite to the first one (1), to development towards unity, in which we will reveal a new sense organ and through it will start our existence in a new, higher world.
[135904]

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Opinion (Efim Reytblat, engineer, founder of the science of gominisologii): “How could it happen that so far there is no science of humanity? There are a few sciences of the human (anatomy, biology, physiology, psychology, anthropology, gerontology); there is a science of society (sociology), and there is no science of humanity! There is a science of animals, and there is no science of humanity! How do humanity and man affect each other mutually?

“The world order (humanity) should be aligned with the Laws of Nature.

“The human system is characterized by the process of self-organization, vertical and horizontal connections. In case of unsatisfactory vertical ties, the control of the system of an individual is broken. In case of unsatisfactory horizontal connections, conflicts between societies arise.

“The system of humanity is an open system. The basic principle of an open system is observed – a constant intensive exchange with the environment – with the system of society and the system of the future reality.”

My Comment: Humanity cannot understand itself. We can understand only what is below us. In order to jump on a table, it is necessary to jump above the table.

Therefore, the science of animals exists and there is the science of our animal body. But there cannot be a science about people, their communities, and even more so about humanity as a unified system of communities. We cannot have such a science and such precise knowledge before we rise to the level above our present state and from there, from above, begin to study ourselves.

These are the possibilities and scope of the science of Kabbalah. Only through its methods is it possible to rise above our current level and reveal the true system of connection of humanity, its path and its goal.
[135730]

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In the News (from Psychology Today): “A new study has confirmed that humankind’s capacity for love and friendship sets us apart from all other species. Researchers at University of Virginia have found that humans are hardwired to empathize with those close to them at a neural level.

“Interestingly, the ability to put yourselves in another person’s shoes depends drastically on whether the person is a stranger or someone you know. … Humans have evolved to have our self-identity become woven into a neural tapestry with our loved ones.”

My Comment: We are actually connected by much closer ties, so much that our thoughts, feelings, actions, all of us and in everything, we are one body—and only our egoism falsely shows us division into parts.
[134945]

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In the News (from RH Reality Check): “Focusing on finding ways to save premature babies, Japanese professor Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara of Juntendo University, has successfully gestated goat embryos in a machine that holds amniotic fluid in tanks.  On the other end of the process focusing on helping women unable to conceive and gestate babies, is Dr. Helen Hung-Ching Liu, Director of the Reproductive Endocrine Laboratory at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at Cornell University. Quietly, in 2003, she and her team succeeded in growing a mouse embryo, almost to full term, by adding engineered endometrium tissue to a bio-engineered, extra-uterine ‘scaffold.’ More recently, she grew a human embryo, for ten days in an artificial womb. Her work is limited by legislation that imposes a 14-day limit on research project of this nature.  As complicated as it is, her goal is a functioning external womb.”

My Comment: As long as we have not reached the intention to do everything for the sake of the whole of humanity, above our egoism, all we do brings us to the deepening of the crisis and increased suffering.
[133338]

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In the News (from The Conversation): “Bacterial diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Most of these bacteria were benign at some point in their evolutionary past, and we don’t always understand what turned them into disease-causing pathogens. In a new study, researchers have tracked down when this switch happened in a flesh-eating bacteria. 

“‘The date we deduced coincided with numerous mentions of streptococcus epidemics in the literature,’ Musser said. Since 1983, there have been several outbreaks of streptococcus infections across the world. For example, in the UK, streptococcus infections increased in number and severity between 1983 and 1985.

“It is the same story for many other countries, with Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia falling victim to what is now an inter-continental epidemic. The symptoms ranged from pharyngitis to the flesh-eating disease, necrotizing fasciitis.”

My Comment: Any part of our body and the environment can turn into a monster carrying death, as it is written, that the enemies of man populate his house. But the conversion into enemies depends on the relationship between people as enemies.

After all, we are at the highest stage of the development of egoism, and therefore our behavior as rational and conscious, requires that the lower levels of nature (still, vegetative, animate) establish the same relationship between themselves relative to us.

If we correct our relations to being friendly, we will become convinced in the truth of the Bible, which states that in the future the wolf will live with the lamb, and a child will play with them.
[132960]

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In the News (from The Guardian): “A new study sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

“Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that ‘the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.’ Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.’

“The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

“By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy. …

“These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: ‘the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity;’ and ‘the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]’ These social phenomena have played ‘a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,’ in all such cases over ‘the last five thousand years.’

“Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with ‘Elites’ based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

“… ‘accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.’…

“However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

“The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth.

“’Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.’”

My Comment: Human egoism cannot be stopped; it irresistibly leads us each and everyone to death. Even in the face of death, it will not be able to contain itself! So, we cannot even talk about the awareness of death. Only a global war, in which everyone will lose everything, will stop our egoistic civilization and compel us to reassess our attitude to life. Or we can advance if we accept the method of integral education and upbringing.
[130500]

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Science began to develop after the external sages received knowledge and wisdom from Kabbalists back in the days of the prophets, as Plato and Aristotle admit. They warned of the dangers of passing this wisdom on to students who were drawn not only to pure science but also to corporeal passions.

The desire for wisdom is considered spiritual in our world since a person wishes to know, understand, and attain phenomena that are above him, which are an objective part of nature, independent of his body, which have no practical benefit. If this is the case, he is allowed to study science and it can be revealed to him.

But if a person has other goals besides knowing the secrets of nature and his intentions are impure, this knowledge shouldn’t be revealed to him. After all, besides science, he wants more money, fame, and honor. And then he would sell this science; that is, he would begin to use it to achieve corporeal goals, and thus would destroy the whole world.

As long as we didn’t have science, the greatest harm we could cause each other, was to beat each other with sticks. How hard can a person beat another? But today one bomb can kill millions of people. In ancient times not many lives were lost on both sides in a battle compared to what wars can cause today when we use powerful weapons of mass destruction, poisonous gases, and weapons that affect the climate and can cause earthquakes.

Thus we see that we shouldn’t open the wisdom to people who are attracted to values other than pure science. Unfortunately, the wisdom has been revealed and all of today’s sages are controlled by the rich and by politicians who tell them what to do. Scientists are forced to seek grants, funds, and support in different ways in order to carry on with their studies. The studies themselves bring them money, but it’s only beneficial for those who want to kill, poison, and dominate others like they were slaves. This is what today’s science is like.

However, the prohibition to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah is hard to understand. How can it be harmful if there is a barrier to the spiritual world? If your intention is pure, you will go through it and reach the level where you feel the spiritual forces and desires and begin to use them for the benefit of others and through them for the benefit of the Creator. You discover and feel it; it is your world.

But if you have no intention to bestow, you cannot bestow upon the spiritual world, not upon others and not upon the Creator, and you cannot harm others, so why is it forbidden to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah? It would seem that it could be opened for everyone! But the wisdom of Kabbalah has been concealed for ages until the time of the Ari. Baal HaSulam says that the fact that The Book of Zohar was revealed before its time by the widow of Rabbi Moshe DeLeon is a great flaw. But there is an account from Heaven with regard to it.
[130024]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/14

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Question: If a higher management operates within everything, why is it said that the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed before its time?

Answer: The Kabbalists of the past let the nations of the world learn the wisdom of Kabbalah and get all of the knowledge that they wanted from there so they could develop the science and wisdom of this world.

Through this, the world could develop in an egoistic way and could reach recognition of evil. But the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed from the people of Israel; otherwise, it would not have felt that it was in exile. A little involvement with the wisdom of Kabbalah already gave them some illumination.

So on one hand, the Kabbalists revealed external wisdom to all of the nations of the world, and on the other hand, they concealed the internal wisdom. So it follows that the external wisdom was revealed more and more, and the internal wisdom was concealed more and more.

These processes approached each other: Spirituality descended and subsided, and materiality grew all the time. Eventually, we came to such a state that today we have an abundance of materiality; you can do what you want! But there is no satisfaction from this life.
[130012]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 3: It is known that the beneficial force and the detrimental force go hand in hand. In other words, as much as something can benefit, so it can harm. Hence, since the force of one person is greater than all the beasts and the animals of all times, one’s harmful force supersedes them all, as well.

Thus, as long as one does not merit one’s degree in a way that one uses one’s force only to do good, one needs a careful watch so he will not acquire great amounts of the human level, which is wisdom and science.

For this reason, the first sages hid the wisdom from the masses for fear of taking indecent disciples who would use the force of the wisdom to harm and damage. These would break and destroy the entire population with their lust and beastly savageness, using man’s great powers.

If humanity were given too much power that compared to its mind, it becomes dangerous. It’s like a child who grows to be two meters tall and weighs 200 kilos but remains mentally undeveloped and therefore he could perform dangerous actions.

It’s the same with humanity who has received nuclear bombs and is armed with immense quantities of the most modern weaponry. Weapons are the most common, most popular, and profitable commodity today.

However, unfortunately, the human brain lags behind technological advancement. Our leaders are becoming shallower and hardly know anything about this world and where it’s headed. The problem is that we have used advanced technology to develop tools that only empower our ego, the egoistic desire to receive, instead of weakening it. So we have brought ourselves to a position that we have armed our ego to such an extent that we don’t know how to get rid of it now, and this is a real problem.

This is why our sages warned that the wisdom mustn’t be revealed to just anyone because people can use it to harm others. Therefore, they concealed the wisdom from the masses. However, today things have changed and anyone can go to a university and study anything and then use it according to his egoistic desire. Today you can surf the Internet and find instructions for building a nuclear bomb by yourself. You can learn how to do anything.

But it was different when it came to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalists didn’t allow themselves to open the wisdom of Kabbalah and waited until people began to despair from the egoistic progress in this world. Only then, did it become possible to convey this wisdom to them and only so it could help them fulfill correction. Otherwise it’s impossible to use it.

It’s impossible to use it to harm yourself and to harm others. There is a condition to the wisdom according to which you cannot use its powers unless you acquire a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light, vessels of bestowal, love of others, and connection to others. You don’t have these features, but if you have them and use them wrongly, these powers will immediately disappear.
[129529]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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