Opinion: (Steven Weber and Bruce W. Jentleson, The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas): “World politics has entered a new and distinctive age in which ideas and influence are linked in a vibrant and sometimes ferocious competition for ascendance.

“Core questions about how best to achieve world order and what constitutes just societies, seemingly settled at the end of the 20th century, have been re-opened in the 21st century.

“Governments are just one voice among many, and in some ways the least magnetic to many people simply because they are the least novel.

“The United States needs an actionable articulation of mutuality. Mutuality is not altruism or the abdication of national interest. No nation can be for others instead of for itself. But in a global age, it is more essential than ever to have a credible claim to using one’s power and position for seeking out actions and outcomes that serve shared interests.

“The United States will be tested by global audiences in the next decade and beyond as never before. But so will every other contender for leadership in the competition of ideas.

“That leaves us optimistic. Because if Americans understand the terms of this new international game, there really is no one who can lead more effectively.”

My Comment: In a new integral world, governments are the most obsolete forms of the old world, while the masses are much more sensitive to the form of unification humanity has to accept.

Therefore, namely the masses will bring a new form to the world, but the organization of the correct external environment needed for the correction of the masses is hardly feasible without the government since mass media is in its hands. Evidently, by pressuring governments, the masses will force them to create conditions for the correct environment needed to build the society of the next generation.
[54306]

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Opinion (M. Hazin, an economist, from km.ru): “The mask of ‘civility’ is slipping down from capitalism before our eyes. For the last 30 years, the amount of money in the economy grew quicker than the economy itself, and a ‘bubble’ of the financial economy was inflated over the real sector of economy.

“The crisis ‘blew off’ some of the financial ‘bubbles.’ However, the enormous emission by the Federal Reserve System (FRS) saved the situation. Yet, the basis of the financial ‘bubble,’ the real economy, began to slow down. And since the real profit in economy is based only on the final household and state demand, a question arose: What should be done next?

“The households are reducing their demand, and the states are temporally increased it. But they cannot continue doing it any longer. The alternative is a sharp drop in GDP.

“There is an enormous amount of money in the world, and it is being invested somewhere all the time by its owners, which creates an illusion of local growth. But the objective flow of the economic processes cannot be stopped.

“A large-scale fall of the speculative markets is simply inconceivable for the western countries. The alternative is the following: If there are no mutual liquidity sources, it is necessary to take them from someone.

“Conclusion: Therefore, this coming fall of 2011, the U.S. most likely will stimulate a financial crisis in Europe, with the objective of transferring liquidity to their markets, according to the principle of ‘you will die today so I could die tomorrow.’ Capitalism is starting to follow namely this prison camp principle, and its mask of ‘civility’ is slipping down before our eyes.”

My Comment: In our neck of the woods, they are instigating revolutions, anarchy, and wars. And all of it is done only to escape bankruptcy. In accordance with the globality of the world and universal interconnection, it will all backfire at them with a hard knockout blow. In the interconnected world, only reciprocity with others guarantees the future of the state. Is suffering really the only way for this world to learn new integrated relationships of mutual guarantee?
[53959]

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Question: Should the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah in America differ from its dissemination in other countries due to the influence of the “American dream,” which we are supposedly able to achieve here—the dream of lots of money, a good life,…? How can we fight this stereotype?

Answer: I think that other countries still have fantasies that it is possible to attain this “dream” in America. Yet, I think all of this is becoming a thing of the past. People have to wake up from the dream. I don’t think this “dream” will last much longer, both for those living in America and for those living abroad.

Look at how Americans are losing respect in the whole world, how people are no longer showing a good attitude to them and are in fact starting to look down upon them. And soon this will even turn into hatred. This is happening particularly because people do not wish to tolerate America’s attitude to them, the attitude of a country that allows itself the liberty to do anything it wishes.

Therefore, I don’t think this “American dream” has any power. As the crisis gets worse, more and more people in the world will reveal that the “American dream,” which has already melted, was built at their expense because America shrewdly exploited the whole world. And this will come back to it as a very powerful boomerang.

To the extent we disseminate the method of correction, which lies in unity, equality, and mutual guarantee, we will save ourselves from blame and blows, as it is written, “Love will cover all sins.” We won’t try to settle old scores, but will create new, kind relationships. Whatever happened happened. It’s not worth raking up the past.

If we start settling old scores, then the whole world will come to America with complaints because that is how its economic systems are built: at the expense of other nations. Only the method offered to us by the science of Kabbalah will cleanse all the old scores until today, and from here on we will begin building something new, without remembering any of what happened yesterday.
[54425]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

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In the News (From army.mi): “Department of Defense resources stand ready to provide defense support to civil authority in the case of any man-made or natural disaster, said Dr. Paul Stockton, the assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs.

“Stockton said the DOD [Department of Defense] is also honing its skills for the possibility of facing complex catastrophes, such as what was practiced in the recent National Level Exercise 11…

“The exercise scenario featured a 7.7 earthquake along the New Madrid fault, which falls along the Mississippi River. The 7.7 earthquake typifies what Stockton terms as the challenges of complex catastrophes.

“’First, the magnitude,’ he said, because ‘it’s so much bigger than anything we’ve faced — way beyond Hurricane Katrina — over 100,000 casualties in the scenario.’”

My Comment: Although these catastrophes manifest as natural disasters, their real cause is man, and therefore, it is in our power to prevent them. In any case, no country has any other choice but to implement a national program of adapting its citizens to the new conditions in the world—to life in a single integrated society.

Namely the resistance of our egoistic nature to the implementation of the method of correction is called the “evil inclination” (Yetzer Ha Ra). How much do we need to suffer like stubborn children in order to start acting sensibly?!
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In the News: “Commentators warned that although there had been agreement on the need for a joint response to the renewed global economic slowdown, there was little commitment to concrete action.

“Analysts said officials from the G7 nations (the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, France, Italy and Germany) are still divided over growth strategies.” (Source: Euronews.net)

“While Europe wants to keep its commitment to austerity, the United States is closer to the International Monetary Fund’s position that fiscal stimulus is needed.

“President Barack Obama is due to announce a big job-creating package on Thursday.

“A Canadian official said on Tuesday that loosening austerity measures could ease short-term recession risks but pruning sovereign debt was the top goal.

“Britain, meanwhile, is sticking fast to its tough austerity program.” (Source: huffingtonpost.com)

My Comment: “Happiness is so close,” but “you don’t understand me,” meaning, there is a solution to all problems, but it is anti-egoistic, and therefore, no one hears “a voice in the wilderness.” When demonstrations will be organized by scientists, economists, political analysts, and all those who understand the integral nature of the world crisis, which has to be counteracted by forming a “new human” ready for mutual guarantee, when they will demand of the government to create specifically such program of fighting the crisis, then we will see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Question: Without mentioning the science of Kabbalah in our dissemination, we are simply telling people that mutual guarantee will provide them with a good life. In that case, how are we different from other organizations that hand out similar promises?

Answer: It’s bad if you don’t feel the difference.

The modern person is experiencing a global, integral crisis. In this way, the Creator is showing him that he is connected with others the wrong way and that he has to reach mutual guarantee. There is a method that will help him unite with others correctly and to start living a good life. This method operates by creating the appropriate atmosphere, a “shell” out of the environment, which gives a person the explanation of how to live together and lead a good, healthy, safe life.

A person hears this and understands that there is no other solution. And others hear the same thing, so it’s easier to make this happen conjointly, together with them. A person learns to unite with others the right way, and in the process he attracts the Light that reforms to himself. This is the same thing that children do while playing, becoming older and smarter in the process.

Thus, when a person finds himself in a bad situation, he uses others to attract the Light, and gradually he starts valuing the force of bestowal. He holds it in high regard and it becomes the highest value for him. And suddenly he begins respecting it so much that even when everything in his life is going ok, he does not abandon bestowal, wishing to enact it regardless of his sensations. That’s because he attributes the primary importance to it.

That is how a person becomes spiritual, going from the egoistic intention, Lo Lishma to the altruistic one, Lishma. And there is no chance that 99% of the population will reach correction in any other way. Can you recommend anything else besides the Torah?

I think the problem is an elementary misunderstanding of how to advance AHP. We have known how to correct Galgalta Eynaim since the times of Babylon, but to correct AHP, this is the only means we have.
[54407]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

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Opinion (President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev): “Relations between different ethnic groups, between those who come to work in Europe and the local residents have deteriorated in almost every European country. These problems also exist in the Russian Federation.

“Most European politicians have started talking about the crisis of multiculturalism, saying that the values of multiculturalism have not withstood the test of time and should be revised. Of course, a great deal depends on how one understands the term multiculturalism, but ethnically Russia is an extremely complex country, a melting pot of numerous ethnic groups and religions. For us coexistence of different peoples is a matter that is not related to foreign immigrants, who one way or another appear in every country, including Russia. It is a question of internal harmony, which was created over the centuries and which, as we thought in a certain period, we were able to take to a completely new level.

“We really need to create a society built on internal harmony, where people are tolerant of each other and at the same time respectful of the traditions that make up the core of an ethnic group.”

My Comment: Russia more than any other country is in a dangerous explosive state, and it needs unification. And unification is achieved only by nation-wide education and by using mass media to create the environment that would transform every person in terms of his role in society. Previously, this used to be the goal of the ruling party, while now it is a challenge of nature, and hence, it is necessary for survival.
[54244]

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In the News (From Reuters.com): “Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

[These are the results of] “a three-year study covering 30 European countries — the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway — and a population of 514 million people.

“Wittchen’s [director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany’s Dresden University and the lead investigator on the European study] team looked at about 100 illnesses covering all major brain disorders from anxiety and depression to addiction to schizophrenia, as well as major neurological disorders including epilepsy, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

“Mental illnesses are a major cause of death, disability, and economic burden worldwide, and the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease across all ages.”

My Comment: In the harsh egoistic world, a person fights for his existence and spends all his energy, health, and life on this. Only the transition to an integral society will give people inner balance and peace, relieve them of the causes of all illnesses and disorders. When the whole society becomes like one family, every person is permeated with a common concern—the energy of a healthy space, Light—and the cause of all ailments disappears.
[54064]

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Opinion (Mark Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University): “This is hardly the first time that to understand Europe’s future, you need to turn away from the big powers at the center of the continent and look closely at what is happening in Athens. For the past 200 years, Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s evolution.

“In the 1820s, as it waged a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire, Greece became an early symbol of escape from the prison house of empire.

“Over the next century, the radically new combination of constitutional democracy and ethnic nationalism that Greece embodied spread across the continent, culminating in “the peace to end all peace” at the end of the First World War, when the Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Russian empires disintegrated and were replaced by nation-states.

“It is ironic, then, that Greece was in the vanguard of resistance to the Nazis, too. In the winter of 1940-41, it was the first country to fight back effectively against the Axis powers, humiliating Mussolini in the Greco-Italian war while the rest of Europe cheered.

“Only a few years after Hitler’s defeat, Greece found itself in the center of history again, as a front line in the cold war.

“Greece was an emblem of a new phase in its history. The fall of its military dictatorship in 1974 not only brought the country full membership in what would become the European Union; it also …prefigured the global democratization wave of the 1980s and ’90s…

“The European Union was supposed to shore up a fragmented Europe, to consolidate its democratic potential and to transform the continent into a force capable of competing on the global stage. It is perhaps fitting that one of Europe’s oldest and most democratic nation-states should be on the new front line, throwing all these achievements into question. For we are all small powers now, and once again Greece is in the forefront of the fight for the future.”

My Comment: This approach is more akin to the opinion of a foreteller, such as the Greek “Delphic oracle,” than to the scientific approach. But today it is clear to everyone that unless the EU overcomes the natural tendency of each member state to take care only of itself and does everything possible to preserve and consolidate the union by moving towards a single government, above all national and economic contradictions, Europe will cease to exist. Only the final decision that there is no other way will give the world an example of complete future unity and will bring the EU out of crisis.
[53925]

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Question: We have been discussing the fact that excessive consumption has brought humanity to a troubled state. However, some economists surmise that if we start consuming less, this will also have a negative effect….

Answer: Every phase of development has its own spiritual HaVaYaH sequence. It includes phases of bestowal and reception, idleness and a combination of different factors of interconnection. Therefore, we cannot draw a direct interconnection between the level of consumption and the solution to the problem.

Previously we might have been able to improve the situation by distributing goods among everyone because the egoistic desire was developed to a certain level where the gap between the layers of the population could really have been ameliorated in this way. However, today we have risen a level higher, and the methods that were suitable at the previous phase are no longer working. The accent is shifting from the receiving desire to the bestowing one, and you cannot attain real improvement through mere “hand-outs.” You have to understand that by giving out products, you are trying to block the path of the crisis and are thereby depriving yourself of the opportunity to get down to its causes, the bestowing force, the Creator. But in the meantime, our troubles are already acquiring a goal-oriented nature.

Analogously, at the second phase of the expansion of Direct Light, it is impossible to act the same way as at the first phase. That’s because the second phase derived from the first precisely because it was time to realize the primary cause of the Light. Even though it is entirely filled by the Light, this is no longer sufficient.

Likewise, today simple distribution does not solve the problems. The goal of creation is not to satiate our egoistic desires or for us to “stuff our bellies.” That is why we are discovering the second phase of development: by giving out goods to the poor, we will only accelerate the collapse.

So what should we do? After all, this is contrary to all logic. Previously egoism ruled the party: The more we received, the better we felt. But now consumption and restraint, selfishness and concessions in favor of the weak are equally destructive for the economy. Stated differently, we have no more effective methods left to work with the egoistic desire. It has depleted itself both in reception and bestowal.

This is the beginning of the two-sided realization of egoism’s evil—the total recognition of the fact that it cannot be used.

So how can man survive? Several million people in the world will manage to feed themselves with the fruits of the earth that they farm. And what will the others do? We will not be able to maintain the previous connections, and moreover, we will not be able to exchange goods and production the way we once did. The word is starting to reduce its circulation, to “freeze up.”

Under these conditions, the only thing that can really help humanity is a clear attitude to what is happening, the understanding of the need to change the nature of our connections. This is the only thing that will give us good results.

Therefore, first and foremost people need to study. Leave everything else. Provide everyone with the base minimum just above the poverty line, and use the rest of the efforts to improve our interpersonal relationships.

“Fair distribution” and “social justice” are pretty words, for the sake of which tens of millions of people were killed or killed others. Slogans such as these will only help on the condition that we change people’s consciousness. And for that we need upbringing. A person just needs the vital necessities and the willingness to listen, and that’s all.

However, he won’t be learning about “how to consume properly,” but about how to relate properly to others. Everything else will become a natural consequence. When people’s desire changes, they will understand how to manage life of their own accord. By virtue of upbringing, all the practical solutions will become obvious.

First of all, a person has to be educated and changed at least slightly. This is the only way we will avoid Nazi regimes of different kinds, by building an environment that changes people for the better.
[54057]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/11, “The Nation”

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