Entries in the 'World' Category

Predictions For 2012

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion: (Gerald Celente, Trends Research International):

“1. Economic Martial Law: Given the current economic and geopolitical conditions, the central banks and world governments already have plans in place to declare economic martial law … with the possibility of military martial law to follow.

2. Battlefield America: With a stroke of the Presidential pen, language was removed from an earlier version of the National Defense Authorization Act, granting the President authority to act as judge, jury and executioner.

3. Invasion of the Occupy: … protests will hit Wall Street in the early years of the new millennium and will spread nationwide.

4. Climax Time: The financial house of cards is collapsing…

5. Technocrat Takeover: “Democracy is Dead; Long Live the Technocrat!”

6. Repatriate! Repatriate!: It took a small, but financially and politically powerful group to sell the world on globalization, and it will take a large, committed and coordinated citizens’ movement to “un-sell” it.

7. Secession Obsession: Winds of political change are blowing from Tunisia to Russia and everywhere in between…

8. Safe Havens: As the signs of imminent economic and social collapse become more pronounced, legions of New Millennium survivalists are, or will be, thinking about looking for methods and ways to escape the resulting turmoil. Those ‘on-trend’ have already taken measure to implement … 3 G’s: Gold, Guns and a Getaway plan. Where to go? What to do?..

9. Big Brother Internet: The coming year will be the beginning of the end of Internet Freedom: A battle between the governments and the people.

10. Direct vs. Faux Democracy: The only viable solution is to take the vote out of the hands of party politicians and institute Direct Democracy.

11. Alternative Energy 2012: Even under the cloud of Fukushima, the harnessing of nuclear power is being reinvigorated by a fuel that is significantly safer than uranium and by the introduction of small, modular, portable reactors that reduce costs and construction time. In addition, there are dozens of projects underway that explore the possibility of creating cleaner, competitively priced liquid fuels distilled from natural sources. Plan to start saying goodbye to conventional liquid fuels!”

My Comment: May all this happen, but only peacefully and in a good way.
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America’s Waning Influence

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Rosa Brooks, professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center):  “American influence is waning for two reasons, the first of which should potentially be a source of comfort, not despair. While we continue to have the world’s most formidable military, America’s power in the world is declining simply because once-weak states are growing stronger. Europe, despite its current woes, is an economic and diplomatic force to be reckoned with. China, India and Brazil are emerging as regional powerhouses with increasingly global reach.

“By many measures, we’ve hollowed out the American dream: American life expectancy ranks well below that of other industrialized democracies, and the same is true for infant mortality rates and elementary school enrollment rates. We have the highest documented per capita incarceration rate in the world. And as the Occupy Wall Street movement has helped point out, we have greater income inequality in this country than in any other state in the developed world — and most states in the developing world.

“If we don’t stop lying to ourselves, the decline will be both irreversible and steep.”

My Comment: The one who will implement the method of integral education of his population first will influence the world because he will gain the freedom to act, the power to realize, and success and good luck will accompany him. As Baal HaSulam writes in his article “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator,” he who is in similarity (in equilibrium) to the force of Nature (the Creator) is bound to be constantly successful in everything.
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Balance In Everything

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we want to correctly apply the scientific approach, then we need smart people, who know about nature and understand that a particular process flows in it according to a particular program. The theory of evolution, itself, indicates that our development follows a pattern and not accidental chances. And even though we may not have studied these laws yet, we can already discern the general flow of events. It is not clear to us yet where it is leading, but by the method of approximation we deduct that it is aimed at balance. Similar to how nature is balanced on all levels, we must also arrive at balance on a human level in the end.

Nature balances out a lot of parameters: heat and cold, differences in pressure, with winds, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions…. In the end, nature balances out itself, including the human level as well.

What is interesting is that a human must balance himself out by himself. There are good and bad forces inside of us, and in order for it all not to come to an explosion, we have science and knowledge, which allows us to establish a balance between these forces within ourselves. Using the bad force and the force of reason, we can adjust them and move forward in harmony.

  • On the human level this means that we have to arrive at balanced consumption and take care that the whole world arrives at the same.
  • On the human level, we must all be equal in the society, like brothers in one family.
  • On the level of scientific knowledge we must aspire towards the knowledge of the general law of reality.

This way, maintaining balance on the material, bodily level, on the human level and on the level of knowledge, we will arrive at the perfect state, similar to an apple, which has ripened.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 10, 1/8/12

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The Desert Guides

Dr. Michael LaitmanOnce, humanity was touched by spiritual unity. We are talking about the people of Israel who were connected by brotherly ties and were all friends in the days preceding the exile when the Temple still existed. Then, we were all brothers living perfectly in mutual connection and mutual participation.

But, then the Temple was destroyed because of unfounded hatred. As usual, in the course of development, the egoistic desire suddenly grew in this nation, and it fell from the degree of brotherly love to the degree of unfounded hatred, becoming even worse than other nations who were not bound by brotherly love and did not experience this fall. Since then, this nation became rejected and peculiar. So far, it cannot find a place and rest.

Hence we can see that human hate towards this nation obviously is a reflection of the law of nature. This hate towards the representatives of Israel and Israel as a whole can be found everywhere. The reason is that these people should be the first ones to return to the corrected state, to brotherly love, to rise from the unfounded hatred stretching for two thousand years of exile, to unity and by this set an example for all the rest. They must realize what they had before because this perhaps makes them unique and different in the eyes of others.

The world needs this good example because it does not know how to get out of the crisis. And we, the sons of Israel, are in a specific state: We reveal the method of correction for all of humanity and we need to demonstrate brotherly love, the realization of the principle of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” We need to show humanity that precisely in this way all the people will come out of the desert they are lost in to a beautiful and wonderful life.

We have been entrusted with an enormous, unique, and very important task. There is no challenge greater and better than the one that we face now.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 10, 1/8/12

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Alarming Rise In Bacteria Resistant To Antibiotics

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Independent):Britain is facing a ‘massive’ rise in antibiotic-resistant blood poisoning caused by the bacterium E.coli – bringing closer the spectre of diseases that are impossible to treat.

“Experts say the growth of antibiotic resistance now poses as great a threat to global health as the emergence of new diseases such as Aids and pandemic flu. …

“The ‘slow but insidious growth’ of resistant organisms was threatening to turn common infections into untreatable diseases… ‘It is a worldwide issue – there are no boundaries’…”

My Comment: If we continue not taking any actions for our balance with nature (connection with each other into one whole, balanced receiving and giving between us and nature, reasonable economic consumption, uniform distribution, and integral education), disturbances in natural balance will lead us to the state in which we will not be able to exist because our bodies also exist due to the same balance like within themselves and the environment.
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Growth Problems: From The Group To All Of Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the problem with learning Kabbalah in our time?

Answer: When a person comes to Kabbalah, becomes interested in it, it seems to him that it speaks about things that are outside of him; he feels like the material that he studies is somewhere above, far from him, outside of him, disconnected from this world, outside of this world. Even though he learns about the need for the group, he does not seem to hear that attainment happens in the unity of students.

But then, it is explained with more perseverance how to use his knowledge to practically attain the spiritual world, perceive it, enter it – and to do this, he needs to work on the connection between himself and his fellow students. But if a person stays in the group, sooner or later he experiences a breakthrough in his realization of the need for connection with his friends on the journey, to reveal the upper World in this connection.

And then, as he unites with his friends, he needs to start uniting with all of humanity. And he is not able to accept this. All of his egoism pushes him away from connecting with people who do not study Kabbalah. He does not understand how the upper World might be connected with these folks.

At this stage many leave or become delayed in their spiritual development even though they continue studying; they do not advance because they do not realize their connection with others; they only gather theoretical knowledge.

So, the first complication is switching from yourself to the connection with the group, the 1%. We gradually begin to comprehend that spirituality is revealed between us, in the correction of our breaking.

But the second complication is switching from us, the 1%, the group, from being on the inside, to others, the masses, the 99%, to being outside of us—and to start enlightening them without Kabbalah, but only directing them towards integral unity without the attainment of the upper One. It is difficult to understand the importance of this; it is very far from the “personal interest.”

Today I see the difficulty in switching from working in the group to working with humanity in many groups of ours. But these are growing pains, and they are necessary for the realization of the structure of the upper world.
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The Largest Group Is The Integral World

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe more the goal of attaining bestowal unto the Creator is important to us, so should the work of creating the collective vessel and attaining bestowal unto friends be important. Thus, we will have to turn to the Creator in prayer (MAN), in order for Him to give us the force of bestowal, the will to bestow, the ability to connect amongst us and attain bestowal.

In a group, a person learns how friends should be treated, how to bond with them. When he “buys” friends for himself, he raises a prayer for them, receives strength from them, assistance. We need to attain cohesion with the Creator, as His partners, in equality and mutual love; one needs to attain that state with the friends in order to reveal what it is.

Surely, the will to receive and our initial nature despise this business. Yet, we will have to engage in it because other than that, there is no meaning to our reality, our life. For that purpose, we are born and exist on the beastly level, in the meantime, in order to reach correction.

Hence, it turns out that the friends are no less important than the Creator. And creating the collective vessel is equal to attaining the goal of Creation, attaining the love and cohesion.

We need to realize the immense power found within the group, and that is the only means to attain the goal of Creation, meaning, the attribute of bestowal. That is what our inner, personal work in the group is devoted to, and similarly, the external work relating to the entire world.

The whole world is also suffering. The question of “What is the purpose of my life?” leads each one of us to a group at some stage to study Kabbalah, and to a teacher, obligating us to study. Likewise, the entire world is seeking the meaning to its lost life, and nature is uniting us coercively into a group, an integral, global world. Whether people want it or not, they are beginning to feel they are interdependent.

Therefore, there’s not a big difference between what our groups are going through and what the whole world is enduring. Certainly, there is a difference in the pace, conditions and exposing the material; yet, the more we advance forward, we’ll be more similar, simply like twins. Our small group (those hundreds of thousands of friends belonging to it) will grow closer and closer to that large group comprised of seven billion people alive in the world, thus, we’ll reach a closer understanding of the goal.

Of course, every person does that in accordance with his degree and perception, but everyone, with no exception, must attain the importance of the “friends,” meaning, from the state in which one sees the other people as strangers to attaining the love of brothers toward all and loving each one “as himself.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, Writings of Rabash

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The Ice Megalopolis And Its Consequences

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Examiner): “According to NASA, as reported by National Geographic, an iceberg the size of New York City is about to break off of Antarctica’s fastest melting glacier. The ice crack measures 350 square miles, which is more than the 303 square miles that covers all five boroughs in the city. … It isn’t known when the iceberg is going to break off, but the educated guess is sometime within the next few months.

“Normally icebergs breaking off isn’t such an issue as it is in this case, but in this case, scientists are seeing a difference in how the ice breaks off, suggesting that the ice itself is changing. The ice breaking off in this way will contribute all the more toward the sea level rising in the area. Another factor which is raising the eyebrows of experts is where the iceberg is in comparison with the rest of the continent. The shifts in the ice in these particular glaciers (in West Antarctica, specifically the Pine Island Glacier, where the crack is specifically) will contribute to the broken off icebergs raising the sea level that much faster.”

(From IBTIMES TV): “Scientists have long suspected icebergs to have a link with earthquakes. When the huge March 11 earthquake triggered the Tohoku Tsunami in Japan that flattened entire coastal towns and killed nearly 16,000, scientists knew that tracking the wave could provide visual proof of the connection. The undersea megathrust earthquake had a staggering magnitude of 9.0 (Mw), and triggered waves of up to 133 feet high. Scientists were able to track the wave over 8,000 miles as it sprawled through the Pacific and Southern oceans. Just 18 hours after the tsunami, a wave of 1-foot height struck the ice shelf in Antarctica. The Sulzberger ice shelf is a sheet of ice 260 feet thick that extends towards New Zealand. It hasn’t budged in nearly 50 years, but the pressure from the wave was strong enough to snap off massive pieces of ice. One of them measured four by six miles in surface area, nearly the size of Manhattan.”

My Comment: Climatic problems, which are the result of our imbalance with nature, are the most tragic. So far, we underestimate our impact on nature: We believe that we inflict harm by exhaust and garbage, but in fact, our spiritual non-compliance with nature causes the most devastating and direct impact on it. Our egoistic relationships are responsible for major imbalances in nature and are the cause of all crises and climate challenges.
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Preparing Experts In Human Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The notion of upbringing is usually associated with children. But if I understand you correctly, you are saying that I need upbringing? I came here to learn, to acquire knowledge, and if you plan on “bringing me up,” you automatically are classifying me as “immature.”

Answer: I will give you the following definition.

An egoist:

–  Has lost his or her path and life’s direction and does not know how to make a good and wonderful life for him or herself;

–  Is full of demands and does not know how to realize them;

–   Is unhappy he does not know how to provide for his family;

–   Worries about his or her children who are getting worse every day and are escaping from his control;

–   Fails to see future perspectives, has lost hope, and doesn’t trust himself, his relatives, his family, or the entire world;

–   Tunes these thoughts out so as not to think about them, and this is why he is still able to tolerate this life, which is worse than death;

–   Finds himself in the center of a multifaceted and essentially, a total, common crisis encompassing all areas of life: the environment, society, nature, and ecology, including the ability to build oneself and the environment;

–   Is broken, destroyed, and facing a dead end!

And recently, even the frameworks that existed have broken. He was a workaholic, a slave to his master, brainwashed by pop culture imposed upon him by television and corrupt mass media. And lately he discovers that he has lost any direction since he does not have a job; now he really sees that everything is over and he doesn’t know what to do next. He has lost everything! And then he is ready to listen a bit.

I do not go this person to list all the abovementioned bitter definitions. I tell him: “You are a person! You can now change your life. Let us see what we have today.” And I gradually tell him about all the flaws and the way we can correct them by building a society, an environment, that will change us, and we will want a new life.

Let’s see how we can achieve security, health, a happy family life, good children and a proper upbringing and education for them. Let’s see how we can find work and also give people fulfillment in life, an atmosphere of hope and confidence. How can this be attained?

We need to change ourselves for this. Society is everyone of us and the relationships between us. Let us start changing it: How is that possible? A person’s only free choice, his only way to change himself and human society, is through the influence of the environment.

What is the influence of the environment? Where is the environment that influences me? I would tell them, “You are intelligent; you are not stupid. Your state is really bad, it is of absolute helplessness, but you are not helpless. You can educate yourself. Of course you lack proper upbringing, no doubt about that! But you can do it independently. Let’s see how we can build an environment to educate ourselves.”

No one will come and tell you what to do; no one will blame you saying, “Stop fighting and be good children.” We need to be adults, wise, and to independently build our environment. Nature did this on purpose so we people would use it to change. We lift ourselves through the society.”

If the environment is the only thing that can influence a person, then we need to build an environment to influence us. You are in the process of educating yourself; no one will come to educate you. Even though I am the teacher and I am explaining what needs to be done, it is together that we discover the problem, discuss it, and wish to find the form of bestowal that will change us and form the new environment.

I do not treat you like a small child; I rely on your realization of evil and your analytical ability. I believe in your ability to attain a level of development when you will understand the entire creation, the entire world, and together we will also change all of humanity, which will begin to improve itself.

No one will descend from the heavens, appear on the horizon, and begin to educate this enormous kindergarten, which represents humanity. For the first time in history, we are developing in a way where a person creates himself. This is why this crisis does not give us any chance to develop unless every one of us begins to elevate the human in him. Every person must rise to the level of cooperation, compassion, mutual work, participation, mutual guarantee and love for his neighbor. This is referred to as bringing yourself up to the human level. We must do this consciously, thoughtfully, with understanding and knowledge of what we are doing.

Of course at first we do not know or understand anything. We begin with a series of lessons, conversations, and seminars so that together we achieve certain conclusions and continue to develop little by little. All these conclusions gradually accumulate and collect into a certain image, a single conclusion: We need an environment. And we build our own environment in our class while we study.

We are not just students or a group of children, playing as if in kindergarten; we know what we are doing, why we are doing it, and the changes these actions are supposed to make in us. Every person must become a psychologist and a sociologist for himself and other people. Every person must grow to the level of a specialist in the matters of humanity and human nature!

Of course there are two opposite states present here. Of course, when you just come to study in the beginning, you might be upset that I am planning to educate you, as if you were deficient. You are not to blame for anything: You were brought up this way; you were made this way, and this is why you are in a state of a crisis. But I respect your ability and your potential to completely correct the face of the world!

Today I started the conversation with saying that we are all like the people lost in the desert! That is right, this is our state! And now we must chose a direction, find the way to a good life, and together we will figure this out. And once we figure it out and lay out this path on our own, we will build an abundant world in the middle of our desert!
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 8, 1/5/12

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Today Them And Tomorrow Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Ekonom:east Media Group): “A day with a Greek overtone [Saturday, February 18] throughout Europe as thousands of citizens of the continent, armed with the slogan ‘We are all Greeks,’ mobilize hugely in support and solidarity to the Greeks.

“The pan-European call is addressed to all Western Europe citizens in response to the economic crisis and acute problems facing the Greek community.

“The protest is scheduled to take place at 14:00 outside the Greek embassies and consulates in various cities from Paris to Rome and Dusseldorf to Madrid.

“A similar mobilization has been planned in New York in Zuccotti park in which members of the Occupy New York movement have been camped for months.

“Social networks with the slogan ‘We are all Greeks’ indicate that the measures passed on Sunday February 12th are imposing major reductions in salaries and pensions while dismissals of civil servants are also planned.

“‘The Greek people need international solidarity and call for our support. Let’s answer their call. ‘We are all Greeks!’ states the announcement.”

Comment: As we see, a shared concern brings people together, and governments must take this into account; otherwise, they will lose the ability to manipulate the population. The unity of the unemployed and disadvantaged is dangerous, but the authorities in all ages underrate it, much like the government of Syria now. The authorities need to provide a clear answer to the question: “How are we going to fulfill the desires of the nation?” realizing that otherwise, the people will eat them alive. The only correct answer will be integral upbringing and reasonable distribution!
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