Entries in the 'Sex' Category

A Pill Against Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (Theory and Practice):Love is not always good; it can cause pain of loss, provoke violence. In terms of brain physiology, love is just a hormonal process that can be controlled by desire!

“The desire to get rid of love occurs when this feeling is similar to a disease.

“Love, which can bring people together and keep them close to give birth and bring up offspring, is the basis of survival of the species. It runs: 1) sexual desire, 2) sympathy and 3) attachment.

1) Sexual desire drives us to meet with potential partners, 2) sympathy lets you choose among them the suitable one, 3) attachment helps to create a long-term relationship and gives us the strength to work until the parental duty is fulfilled.

“The work of each of the three systems is based on hormones, produced by the body. Sexual attraction is associated with estrogen and testosterone – sex hormones in men and women.

“The ability to assess the attractiveness comes from pleasure and stress hormones (dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline), which direct us to the object of desire, causing a sense of excitement in his or her presence.

“Affection is born of the action of neuromodulators (oxytocin and vasopressin); they inspire us with a sense of calm and confidence, ease in relationships.

“But since these three subsystems operate simultaneously, we may desire one partner, consider the other attractive, maintain an ongoing relationship with the third one.

“Testosterone creates attachment, and oxytocin binds attachment to attraction – so that the most favorite is the one who is closest.

“In the first months, love resembles obsessive-compulsive disorder. But a year later serotonin levels go back to normal, and the idealization of the partner disappears.

“The hormones that are responsible for attachment and reducing stress (vasopressin, oxytocin and dopamine) are produced during touching, cuddling, sex, breastfeeding. They hold together couples, mothers and their offspring.”

My Comment: The main thing is not to interfere in a natural process with pills. Education in line with global good relationships, as the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us, will balance the secretion of hormones and lead to improved relationships—friendship, love, and family.
[153632]

Related Material:
Forecasting How Long Love Will Last
Hugging A Loved One Strengthens Health
Love Is Ordained By Nature

What Is The Meaning Of A Kiss?

Dr. Michael LaitmanComments regarding a research study on kissing: What a strange thing the kiss is. Why do humans cling to each other with their lips and express their love in this way? Besides us, only chimpanzees do this.

Researchers have not found convincing or decisive evidence that the main function of kissing is to stimulate sexual arousal.

Scientists consider the main function of kissing to be very pragmatic and useful: This is to evaluate one’s partner. As far as it seems, humans who aspire to a long-term relationship ascribe great importance to kissing.

Those who conducted this research learned about many kinds of functions of romantic kissing through investigating the attitude towards the significance of kissing in various situations in the development of couples. The hypothesis about this was confirmed. Kissing serves a useful purpose – evaluation of the partner.

Women participants ascribe great importance to the evaluation of a partner, as well as great value to socio-sexual intent. They ascribe a greater degree of importance to kissing in romantic relationships, reporting that the first kiss can influence their attraction to a potential partner to a high degree of probability.

Men value the importance of kissing less, as well as people who don’t value socio-sexual intent. Regarding the importance of the kiss in the preliminary stage of mutual relationships they reported that partners don’t ascribe much importance to socio-sexual intent.

Women consider the kiss as being more significant in long-term relationships. Other than that, kissing is associated most of the time with a feeling of satisfaction in a mutual relationship. The authors of the study didn’t find significant evidence for the hypothesis that the main function of kissing is to arouse the partner.

My Response: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there are three levels of approach between spiritual objects: embracing, kissing, and coupling. These correspond to the three phases in the growth of a spiritual object: Ibur (conception) – immaturity, Yenika (suckling), Mochin (adulthood) – maturity. So, according to the law of the root, the cause, and the branch, the result, we must use connection between us as we would a kiss.
[139966]

 Related Material:
Hugging A Loved One Strengthens Health
Relationships With People Affect Health
Forecasting How Long Love Will Last

It Is Pleasant To Be Next To The Beloved

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What role do psychological tests determining the similarity of partners play with regard to love? We, indeed, have particular feelings toward one another which are different from an intellectual examination of someone with whom it is worthwhile for me to start a business. How do we integrate emotion with intellect?

Answer: This is already the second stage. First of all, intuitively, we always try to follow our feelings, and only after this, do we activate the intellect. However, emotions can change in a moment.

A first acquaintance is enough for me not to reject a potential partner. His external appearance, behavior, and manners must cause at least neutral feelings in me, and even attract me a bit. Indeed, a family that must exist together for many years cannot be based upon egoistic sexual attraction.

Comment: However, it is not enough for me that a woman doesn’t just repulse me. I want to find the most attractive woman in the world in every sense: beautiful, sensitive, wise, and sexy. It is a dream that I have looked for all my life!

Answer: Love doesn’t depend upon the external form. It is enough that the external appearance of the partner will not seem repulsive and will be somewhat pleasing to you. You need to be ready to eat out of her hands! You must feel pleasure from touching her, from her concern.

There must be some magic with her. This is not a maddening attraction where you lose your head because of her, rather simply pleasure from physical, intellectual, and emotional contact. You must have pleasure from this and nothing more!

This is not yet love. Love comes later as a result of developing all these connections. Love is a habit of attributing the pleasure that I get with the partner. So, I begin to love.

Here is a possible example: If I take a dog that begins to live by my side, and I feed him, take care of him, and am concerned for him, he will begin to love me. However, what is the difference between a person and a dog? It is known that people who adopt foreign children and begin to take care of them eventually love them no less and even more than they would loved them if they were their biological children. You see that they invest much more effort in these children because they are afraid that they might not love their adopting parents.

The same thing happens in relationships between couples. If we invest effort in one another and know how to develop this shared investment, the emotion that is created from it is called love. This means that love is my attitude towards the person next to me, where it is pleasant to feel him next to me all the time.

I love his friendship, his relationship to me, and his contact. I need to be connected with him. In fact, this is called love, and it is not connected to sexual attraction at all. This is talking about an inner feeling where I miss feeling this person near me.

Often, partners complain about the difficulties in building intimate relations. However, intimate relations are not built upon sexual connection. After a need for contact  with another person is awakened in me, I feel pleasure from his being near me. Above this, we build completely different sexual relationships.

These relationships are a wonderful addition to an even deeper connection between us, and then we truly can enjoy one another. I don’t use my partner, her body, but it is truly pleasant for me to feel that she enjoys me and my enjoyment of her.

This is the entire range of connections between us on different levels, and so the emotion from an intimate connection is absolutely different, for it is much deeper and intense. Specifically because I bestow to another, waves of love and union come to me. This is just as it is written in Psalms, Song of Songs 6:3: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”
[132935]
From the program “A New Life” 6/09/2013

Related Material:
Mentality – The Internal Language Of Humans
An Attractive Cover Or A Never Ending Story?
Stop Playing The Roles Of Other People And Return To Being Myself

Quick Sex – Laitman Unplugged

Men’s Outlook On Sex – Laitman Unplugged

Family, This Is Eternal Renewal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that with the help of the mind it is possible to awaken emotion and emotion awakens the power of love. After I heard this, I felt a happiness that remained with me all day. Towards the evening I was not tired even though I worked until it was late.

More than that, in the place where I teach, the spirit of love and happiness also passed to the students. Within an hour they were “stuck” to my feeling. And in general, everyone I was in contact with that day absorbed this spirit. And so I paid attention that a clear link exists between love and happiness. What is that link?

Answer: Happiness is collateral and proof that you are found in the good right spirit. Certainly it is possible to feel this even while carrying out crimes, but if it comes as a result of a good deed, it concludes and proves that the deed has been done in the right way.

Question: With the supposition that the mind makes it possible to awaken the power of love, is it prepared to awaken longing in us?

Answer: Everything depends specifically on the mind, on the brain. Everything is found in the head. We come into the world like “little wild animals” and begin to adopt values after that from the environment, from parents, kindergarten, school, television, the Internet and additional outside forces. All the values that are crystallized later establish all my happiness and disappointment.

Ultimately everything is artificial, everything is according to discernments that we acquire from outside. In the beginning the discernments were mental, but after that with the influence of the environment they become a measuring rod according to which I evaluate my condition; and as a result I am happy or sad. If I adapt to the environmental measuring rod, it is pleasant for me, and if not, I become sad.

So everything in me is constructed according to the mind, which combines with the first unprejudiced comprehension of the infant and an inner picture is molded from it that makes self-assessment possible, bad or good. I have nothing fundamental or basic of my own, rather everything depends upon the opinion of the environment. Therefore isolated people who live somewhere in a forest, who compared to us lack everything, can be happy about life, since according to their measuring rod they have everything they need. For us this would be a bitter fate; whereas they are happy with their lot.

Here is hidden the key to happiness.

Question: The force of attraction between couples that appears spontaneously begins to fade with time…

Answer: Right, the initial enthusiasm doesn’t last long. According to the data of biologists, the hormone secretion lasts up to three years. Incidentally, we can take hormones artificially and “light the fire” through this. This is possible. But the natural enthusiasm is for three years at the most. They say that this is the amount of time that would be enough for a man to support a woman before birth and during two years of breastfeeding. In other words, nature no longer links a father to a mother and to a child.

It is clear that in our time, as a result of various external influences, conditions have changed. But there is a basis in human biology.

And so, in the beginning, there is a hormonal character to our passion and later we can renew it with the help of mutual mental work that makes it possible to give shape to a feeling about the partner.

But first of all we must clarify why the natural attraction is weakened. It could be that this is about physical problems, even though these are isolated cases.

I would suppose that there are psychological problems with 90% of couples. And here a game solves everything. For if this is already talking about psychology, then everything is in our hands, we can solve these problems. It is clear that we need to maintain sexual intercourse between the partners and it is necessary to excite them because this gives them a feeling of connection. This is because without such a system of relationships, the family would not exist for long in its true form nor as an official connection. Without physical contact there is no feeling of intimacy, sharing, or family unit. That is how we build it. And therefore we are obliged to strive for sexual intercourse on a regular basis, a commitment to the partner which the two partners accept upon themselves.

Question: What if the partners don’t want this?

Answer: Then we need to help them so they will want it. Sexual intercourse is imperative as long as this is possible. And adult couples can sit and embrace each other. In the life of the family as much physical contact as possible is imperative, since nobody can cancel the laws of nature.

Question: So what is there to do if someone has lost a partner?

Answer: I repeat, this is talking about a mental game and nothing else. With the right help it is possible for a person to acquire new preferences and he would begin to be attracted to blondes or brunettes, thin or heavy. All this is imposed from the outside. So why would it be impossible to force him to be attracted to his wife, to see her in a different light? For if physical contact with her brings renewal, then the connection between them will not end.

Our problem is that every area in life that we don’t renew becomes a routine. This happens in all areas. Only children satisfy us all the time with something new, and it is specifically for this reason that we continue to love them. If they did not grow we would leave everything that has to do with them. But they grow, stimulating us all the time; they awaken the child in every one of us all the time and don’t let us rest.

So in relationships between partners we also lack play; therefore, we lose interest in each other and look at each other like an object or furniture. So what is there to do?  Internally replace the “furniture.”

We must understand human psychology here. Essentially how can we become new for each other?  How is it possible to enchant the partner again?  In many Eastern cultures we see similar examples, the woman dances before the man and together they play music and after that sit and eat delicacies…

Similar methods were accepted in previous generations. But today the new technologies, the backbreaking labor and the increasing pace of life, empty them of content. We are so superficial that it is a wonder that the institution of the family still exists. It is amazing that some people can still maintain a family structure without renewal, without hormonal attractions, without hope for a new source of life, a new pleasure… due to the ego that grew for thousands of years, many already don’t feel any need for family; all that is left is external pressure.

Question: So how do we discover something new in the partner? After all, he is still the same person.

Answer: We already gave a prescription for this; it is necessary to renew relationships between us all the time, to put new life into the love and devotion, to go towards concession and closeness. Then the new portions of ego will push us with new steps towards one another all the time.

If we work above the ego, then there will be renewal all the time. For each one will bow his head and concede his territory, making it possible for the other to enter it. Each one wants his partner to enter, penetrate into him more and more with a connection between them. We want to be like two intertwined natures.

And then we will truly experience permanent renewal. Our ego will change all the time and grow, various disturbances will enter and we will need to work above these disturbances. This will be like a game; it is necessary to find a solution for helping each other all the time. The ego distances us from each other all the time, it returns to its corner, and we again want to come close with force and maintain the connection. We awaken conflicts and desire all the time, flirting between changes of state, rejected again and approaching again. And all these inner changes renew all of the relationships between us including sexual intercourse. Every time that we succeed in approaching each other, we also want carnal coupling as a result of the connection that we have attained.

Sometimes it happens that subconsciously we awaken some familial conflict and after that when we have completed this with each other we go to the bedroom. An additional example is with lions, it is difficult for them to mate in a natural way, so it is as if they fight and after this they complete each other. And so in order to arouse passion we must be “a helpmate against,” the opposing force. Otherwise we don’t succeed. These are the general rules of the game that run everything. It is always up to me to awaken a negative force in order to emphasize the positive cause. You see all of nature is the evil inclination and there is no positive force in it. Therefore so that in spite of all this we will maintain connection, we need to take advantage of specifically stimulating the evil, the “helpmate against.”

Question: Let’s take an average couple with standard problems and many familial disputes. In addition to this, one partner is no longer attracted to the other. And through the integral method they enter into a process where they are approaching each other. How will this flow?

Answer: The partners will overcome the fights and will even utilize them. The shared new work arouses new disputes between them, but now they control their lack of understanding, they understand what is happening to them and that is how everything should be. In this kind of form the process is under their control and they create a “common territory” above their arguments. In that territory they feel their mutual opposition because they belong to two different sexes, and simultaneously they are connected in one structure, in one system. This causes mutual attraction, including physical coupling.

More than this, within the renewed mutual connection, I will receive much greater pleasure.

Both human pleasure and spiritual pleasure will be added to the physical pleasure, and these are weighty additions. With the connection between bodies we suddenly feel something greater, a greater and greater higher pleasure that appears and erupts, a more acute pleasure that seemed to disappear but burns inside like a spark of upper Light that sparks within the coupling between us… for we have reached this with the help of mutual concessions for the sake of the unity on the level of the “Adam – man,” and we only want to add the physical component to it to complete the picture.

Question: So why in regular life don’t arguments create attraction like this?

Answer: Since the couple doesn’t carry out the second half of the work, this doesn’t compensate for the arguments between them, and so the arguments extinguish desire. To say the least, how can I enjoy my partner if I am not attracted to him?

Therefore if a couple doesn’t behave wisely and the arguments between them extinguish the sexual attraction, this arouses greater and greater separation; ultimately this is liable to lead to divorce. And the opposite, the “right reaction” makes it possible to use the “fuel” of the arguments to hold on to mutual passion, including sexual passion. The evil inclination was designed only so that it would be transformed to good. That is how we are built. So come, let’s be wise and use the opportunities that are given to us.

Question: If a quarrel develops between us, how can it be used correctly? How is it possible not to get sucked into it?

Answer: First, it is up to me to stop. More than this, it is up to me to stop demonstratively, to give an example to my partner. I “step on the brakes” demonstratively. Sometimes partners learn this after years of experience and succeed in remaining “silent” at the right moment.

And further it is also necessary to use these conflicts in order to transform them to the good. For they will be aroused all the time until the end of our days, if the vicissitudes of life don’t inure us in an automatic way in regard to mutual agreement, “to walk between the raindrops,” to gloss over the conflicts without hurting each other. In general, I see a wonderful life and world all the time, I live in a fantastic family, I have a wonderful wife and I say this openly. And she responds by commending me for being a most wise and noble man, a fantastic father, and so forth. Maybe everything is upside down, but I have already become “biased” and this is good. This is how we need to work with each other. It makes no difference who we are; everyone sees the pinnacle of beauty, wisdom, justice, and other virtues in his partner. After all, there are no fixed criteria, there is no absolute truth. Everything will happen the way we want. Since we have already decided to see one another as the pinnacle of perfection, this picture will paint itself for us.

It is clear that this is not possible without preparatory courses that will teach us how to play correctly without “cheap lies.” And even after this we must study together with other couples once or twice a week. We must understand that this is talking about a game that requires increase all the time. Therefore we require sensitive facilitators, together with the support of the broader environment as much as possible, and then success is assured.

Essentially, a very profound game is concealed here, we play against the ego of the other and thereby help him rise above it, thanks to love. Even though it seems that I am just flattering, admiring his ego, this is not so. I give him an example that encourages him to do the same for me.

And this is not really a game already; this becomes a system of true relationships between us. Instead of the Hollywood and television standards, we develop our own values; begin to appreciate each other more and then each becomes a source of pleasure for the other. Who else would tell me how fantastic I am? Who else would relate to me as if I am the “whole world”?

And in continuation I will discover that I don’t have such fascinating and innovative relationships as these with anyone else, and relative to these all the rest seem secondary, untrue. Therefore other women don’t interest me; I would surely discover in them a lack of true feeling, not what exists in a family. For here they respect me, appreciate me as a person, as a man, here they cherish me above all.

This is simple psychological influence; the words of the partner penetrate into me and work on internal systems including the nervous system, hormones, and so forth. As a result of this method, we are all assured that a partner will be connected to him and not to anyone else.

Everything depends upon approaching a person, we are concerned for him, praise and exalt him, and he “melts” from all the happiness like a little child who enjoys praise. So how can she leave me after this? Essentially, I become for her the only person in the world who is wholeheartedly devoted to her.

But reciprocity is important here, since one-sided love, on the contrary, breeds contempt. If someone loves me unconditionally, forever, then my relationship towards him is no longer important to me. My ego tells me that “the account is already closed with him” and he is mine forever. This happens in a general way to parents who love their children with absolute love.

Therefore everything depends only on reciprocity. It is clear to both of us that each one is overcoming himself and passes through changes of state all the time. And if we act correctly, then thanks to our mutual concessions, the process continues in a natural manner. We work with each other on mutually beneficial nullification, concede, submit ourselves in order to reach a stronger and stronger connection between us. We begin to appreciate this connection and it draws us more and more deeply. And in the meantime, the ego appropriately changes in us all the time, like a special engine that moves us through familial turbulence that is created intentionally.

And gradually we realize the inner essence, the inner drive, the life force that encompasses us together, that intentionally awakens the inner urge. We discover that everything is derived from that source that awakens us to this “game” with the help of mutual movements forward and back, inside and out, right and left.

And in the end of the matter we feel incessant renewal. Before me is not just a person, rather a new person all the time. I don’t see his corporeal image but the changing essence, his inner image. I suddenly discover that I have discovered the game of my life, and that incessant changes in it bring me to the source of a pleasure that is not found anywhere else.

But here theory is not required, rather practice: workshops, exercises, home lessons in the framework of the family according to the material that we learn, and so forth. And then all of us together will acquire a new feeling and understanding.

Question: How exactly does this happen? Let’s describe it as a change from the point of view of the partner.

Answer: She says to her husband all the time that he is a very unique person, wonderful, profound, talented, and understanding and how much she appreciates him. This is not just a compliment that we lavish on children, rather compliments meant for someone who is already a big boy; indirect, but logical, matter-of-fact. She “feeds” her husband with them so much that he truly begins to identify with the image that she describes.

As a result of this he feels perfect, and now, due to this perfection of his relationship to her he must meet these criteria. Therefore his wife is obliging him to be better, and he can no longer escape this responsibility.

Ultimately the husband receives security and also a push to prove himself. And here his wife adds her “feminine weapon”; she shows him that she wants him, expects him, and enjoys everything that comes from him. Generally, she “swells” his ego, but not grossly, rather gently, and together with this, shows a little bit of desire to come close to him, to contact his bright personality. Without a doubt, this influences the male nature and forces the partner to respond accordingly.

The renewal here is composed of two states:

  • First, compliments from the wife in regard to the husband.
  • Second, her desire to be joined with him.

Therefore, the essential work is specifically hers. And in my opinion it is good that nature made this so, for the woman is more ready for this.

Regarding a man, we must provide him with at least a minimal understanding of what is happening, so that he will not ignore his wife’s efforts and will understand that along with him she is now building a new family, a new connection and couple.

Question: And essentially why are sexual relations so important in a family?

Answer: The first reason is that without them there will be no next generation. This is the essential difference between humans and animals who are satisfied with one encounter that ensures the next generation. This happens with them instinctively, often in particular seasons determined by nature, and after that the couples separate, and the fathers don’t even recognize their offspring.

Humans are found above time, we require a permanent and stable family that forms the framework for unity between us. This is because human offspring, in contrast to animals, require care for a long time. Only after at least fifteen years, does a person “stand on his feet” after receiving many examples from his parents, relatives, friends, and acquaintances. It requires much time and effort to develop a person from an infant, and for this sake we are required to build an environment for him.

This is not like “a day old calf is called a bull.” He is essentially like an adult bull but on a smaller scale. He already stands on his legs and runs after his mother, and what is missing for him is only additional weight, but not internal maturation.

The infant is born helpless. He must acquire life wisdom and other characteristics that are not transferred from the parents. In order to be a man he requires a family, friends, and a multitude of examples, a multitude of impressions from the environment. And therefore the mother cannot grant him all that is required by herself.

Therefore even if we leave aside all the lofty aims, the continuation of the human species requires a large society, including: father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, other people and after that their own children and grandchildren. Each of them conveys his accumulated experiences to others, and this system expands and encompasses all of humanity. This is not the case in our day; a person requires the entire world for normal development.

Question: Must the partners continue to have sexual relations after the birth of the children?

Answer: If there are no sexual relations between them, then there is no family. The lack of the right connection between the parents will become expressed in all the rest, since this is speaking of the origin of life. On the corporeal level, this is the strongest connection that there can be between life forms. With animals it exists as an instinct and with humans it is found above instincts and makes it possible for them to continue with a shared life. Therefore we need mutual agreement in all that touches upon the corporeal connection. The partners need to enjoy each other on all levels, beginning from the beastly level to the level of the “speaking.” One thing can compensate for the other, but in the end of the matter they need to be a single whole so that they can move together.

Even the children feel when a connection is correct or incorrect between the father and the mother. This influences the entire continuity of their lives.

Until recently, the person could not get along without family in order to provide himself with the necessities. But in recent times we have reached a state where people don’t require more of the family, because they can supply themselves with everything until old age and also in case of an unforeseen disaster.

And in spite of it all, according to nature, the person was created as a life form that requires an environment all the time. Since in the present stage he is weaker than the animals, because he cannot get along without clothing, housing, a system of food supply, warmth and cooling, and many other things that specifically the environment provides for him. Therefore isolation and alienation are the flaws which are revealed today. What is required is an institutional marriage course and together with it the old mechanisms. Although the parents live in agreement, the children have their own lives behind closed doors, next to the computer, and their parents are not interested in them, they just leave them alone.

Therefore in our day there are no examples of correct family life and its role in human development. We should not expect anything good if we don’t work with people and explain to them what the right connection is. Only for a family like this will there be the right form and the children will receive examples that will bring them back from virtual Internet relationships to human relationships.
[110752]
From a Talk About Integral Upbringing 8/1/13

Related Material:
A Game That Is Closer And Closer To The Truth
Learn To Make Each Other Happy
Rescuing Love From Oblivion

The Greatest Pleasure

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the last few years, we have seen a very interesting phenomenon in some European countries: 60% of the women set a physiological orgasm as a goal in sexual intercourse, which means that by and large they don’t actually don’t care who they are with, as long as they learn to experience this pleasure. This leads to the fact that men are afraid of behaving naturally and of cooperating with women, and the rate of divorce has increased sharply. Can integral education solve this problem?

Answer: The need for sex is one of the basic human necessities. And so in daily life, people are constantly drawn to it. This need is evoked in them, it motivates them, and people assess things and they form the basis of this need.

In principle, the need for sex is basic, not because it is “beastly” and allows us to give birth and ensures the existence of our species, but because it enables us to come in contact with one another, which brings us to a very unique state because this state is both our starting point and our ending point; we look at its final form, we see it as the moment of highest pleasure. I will call it sexual pleasure, but actually it is the fusion of all the people together into one unique desire and its fulfillment.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is called the upper coupling, intercourse. Different religions also speak about that, and many things are based in this. This refers to the maximum connection of all the parts of creation that complement one another, of all the parts that bestow and receive that are called masculine and feminine.

Now, the phase in which our previous, relatively small, mechanical and beastly connections and sexual desires that have provided us with certain attitudes to communication, connection, family, and in which people have played with one another or used one another reasonably well, is now coming to an end. It doesn’t exist today since we are moving on to a totally different level of need.

On one hand, people are losing the natural need for sex the way it used to be. On the other hand, the desires of the next level are revealed, and it doesn’t matter if they are sexual needs or other needs such as food, everyday needs, and so on. New needs from the new level appear, and people don’t understand them and cannot fulfill them. They think that they will manage to fill themselves by using the old methods.

This will continue to grow. These desires will always manifest in a more and more exaggerated form.

We must explain to people that it is the connection with others that will help them understand that they can be filled by everything, including the desires we call “sexual.” It very well may be that they will not take the form of sexual acts anymore and will have nothing to do with that. The greatest pleasure for a person will be his integral connection with others, and it won’t matter that it isn’t a sexual act. The emphasis will be on adhesion, while our sexual relations will gradually descend to the ordinary, beastly level since we actually are not worthy of anything else. However, the pleasure, the filling, will be felt clearly in the connection among us, and it will be called the coupling of opposites.

Question: So, this means that different deviations, not necessarily sexual deviations, but also overeating and overuse of other luxuries, are the result of a person’s inability to move on to the next level of fulfillment?

Answer: Yes, he tries to fill the new desire by using the old means. It is actually impossible to fill these desires with the same old methods, but only by using new, round means. This is the crisis.
[81238]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/23/12

Related Material:
Raise Your Desires To A New Level
Why Are People So Preoccupied With Sex?
Spiritual Sex

Removing Spicy Distractions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do men and women take part in the process of integrality?

Answer: In principle, there are no special differences between men and women. In the classroom, it is preferable, of course, to protect the men from sexual interferences and to make sure that even if they are sitting together in a mixed group, it won’t distract them from their awareness. Especially if they are sitting in a circle looking at each other and communicating, they have to learn to rise above the sexual attractions and rejections of their “animal” so that they will look at each person in the circle as the source of desire, and that each one can become integrated with the others, above their body. This is what we need to bring them to.

If we see this kind of disturbance still exists, then beforehand we will have to build a group in which this kind of disturbance won’t appear.

Question: In the second phase of the studies, we prepare experts, both men and women. The task of the man is more or less understood. But which tasks should be prepared for the women?

Answer: I think that more educational tasks for the children, for pensioners, and less for grownups aged 17-50 where male instructors will be more demanded and more suitable.

Of course, this needs to be according to the society you are involved with: Europeans, Asians, or South Americans. It could be that the teaching will be done by couples who will show how they cooperate successfully with each other. In this way, a good atmosphere will be created in the group, and there won’t be any sexual problems.

They can display their equal and absolute cooperation, like two teachers, two human beings, that are approaching the integral world, and want to be included into humanity above their bodies, above the hormones, and other kinds of considerations, and then this will influence the group and they will be able to work quietly and peacefully.
[80870]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/22/12

Related Material:
Preparing High Level Experts
The Return To Nature
Co-Ed Or Single Sex Education

Questions About Pornography And Health Concerns

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can a Kabbalist like to watch pornography (gay and straight) if he finds it beautiful to watch people having pleasure, or is it something I should stop doing in order to live a spiritual life and be connected to the Light?

Answer: This will pass by itself, to the degree of feeling the importance of the goal.

Question: I have had health challenges for the last four years, and I’m only 28 years old. Physically I do everything as best as possible in terms of diet and exercise, and I still find myself worse off than people who mistreat their bodies with bad diet and drugs.

Why does this happen to a person who physically looks after themselves when other people who mistreat their bodies don’t go through the same health challenges? What should a person, who does everything to stay healthy and still suffers, do?

Answer: Possibly, you have to change your place of residence, job, and environment.
[61984]

Related Material:
Gentlemen, Let’s Be Well!
Health and Kabbalah
Light Instead Of Medicine

In The Zone Of Choice

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the past egoism spurred us on from behind and from the sides, always leaving the path forward free. However, today the barriers are not arising along the sides, but in front of us. It’s as if a wall rises up before us, leaving us no place to run, nothing we can do.

This state is becoming more and more apparent: I don’t really want anything, I don’t feel that I can keep growing in my egoism. It is incapable of giving me answers to the questions that arise in me today. I have outgrown the previous phases and have entered the next level of questions, the level of adulthood and new necessities.

Food, sex, family—all of these are falling apart, taking on strange, “mutated” forms. Wealth, fame, and knowledge don’t seem to promise me a lot either.

Science is in a crisis and does not answer my questions, even though a mere 50-60 years ago it still seemed like it would give us answers to everything.

Power has become petty in our eyes: We see that its only objective is money. And money…. Is it really worth wasting your entire life on!? My questions have already outgrown any number of zeros that a bank account can display.

When a person loses the necessary “fuel,” emptiness emerges inside of him and he finds himself asking, “What is worth living for? For myself? But I lack fulfillment. For my children? But when they get older, they will leave the nest. And besides, why raise them at all? What bright future do they have ahead? Disintegrating families and a decomposing society?” A person does not feel attached to anything and does not have hopes for anything. That is the kind of impasse that our questions have led us to.

But there is also a completely different reason for the dead-end state: We are exhausting the natural resources. Today it is already clear that human progress won’t be infinite, both from the point of view of our demands and from the point of view of our existence as a whole. If we continue squandering the natural resources at the current rate, then very soon we won’t have any raw materials left even for the vitally necessary products.

90% of what we produce today consists of oil, be it energy, plastic materials, and so on. When the oil reserves end, we will be left with nothing. But nevertheless, we still keep on squandering it.

Thus, on one hand nature places a barrier before us in the form of ecology, climate, and resources, and on the other hand, egoism no longer pushes us forward. It asks questions that we cannot find answers to here, in our world, in this small children’s room where we had so much fun playing until now.

Today the situation already resembles suicide: We are irrationally using up the last remaining resources.

We have to understand that because of this, we find ourselves in the zone of choice. This is where freedom of will emerges, the freedom for us to start understanding the program of our development: “Who are we? Why are we here? What for?”, and together with us, the rest of the world. Now is exactly the time for us to solve this challenge. Otherwise humanity will find itself in a truly hopeless impasse.

In reality the gist of the problem is not the financial crisis, the technology crisis, or the crisis of families. We are in a crisis with ourselves. We have to understand who we are and what we are here for, both from the point of view of nature, which obligates us to this, and from our own point of view. Only then will we be able to set things right inside of us and in the world.
[50172]
From the Talk about a New Book 7/11/2011

Related Material:
Is Your Vote For The Plan Of Creation Or Against?
You Get What You Order
At The Neutral Zone Between Good And Evil