Entries in the 'World' Category

At The Threshold Of Eternity

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have to create a society that will let all the people in the world move correctly into tomorrow. Otherwise, we will not survive. We see what is happening today, especially in developed countries. And the rest are rapidly approaching them. People are starting to feeling that “there is no tomorrow.” But in fact, this is a wonderful state where we are egoistically breaking away from the past and are entering a neutral state, like being “in limbo.”

Now is exactly the time to show people the following system of relationships that will lead us into the feeling of a completely different state. We are entering the next stage of our development. Just as we evolved from monkeys and gradually developed within our animate state, similarly, today we are beginning to develop within our inner, human state.

Today we are rising to the level called “Adam”—a human being, who is similar to the Upper Force of nature. This force wants to teach us to become integral with it, and that is why this crisis is global and integral.

We have to become similar to nature. By accomplishing this, we begin to understand the internal mechanism that drives us. The inner program of nature is taking us toward a specific goal, while we are not even aware of it. We die without knowing what we lived for. We are born and do not know where and why. We do things instinctively because nature forces us to do them, and nothing more.

In reality, there is a whole program of actions, a causal relationship! Every part of nature has a cause, consequence, and goal. Nothing exists without a purpose. And likewise, we do not exist pointlessly either. We can see this because nature is now raising us to this level now—to the next level of development.

At the current level, we are still just realizing our animate egoism in which we were created and which develops in us. By ascending to the next level, which is global and integral, and becoming globally connected with nature, by changing ourselves in accordance with it, we gradually start perceiving the inner mechanism, the internal thought of the Upper Force of nature. As astrophysics say, the entire universe is a thought. When a person becomes conscious of it, he begins to feel eternity.
[51606]

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Mass Protests In China

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News: “In recent months, there were mass riots in China, details of which are carefully hidden.

“China saw almost 90,000 such ‘mass incidents’ of riots, protests, mass petitions and other acts of unrest in 2009…. Like many other recent protests and riots, news of this one spread on China’s Internet, especially on Sina’s popular Weibo microblogging site, reported Radio Free Asia….

“‘In fact, China has riots more serious than England’s every week,’ said one Weibo comment.”

Comment: The whole world has become integral and therefore there are no regions that are separate and that can avoid experiencing the crisis, each in its own way. There are no societies that can avoid feeling how they are being pushed toward change.

However, people do not understand the nature of these changes, they do not see that they are driven by the desire for unity. This is happening because the integral, general network has connected us and compels us to realize our oneness and the oneness of all of nature.

If we begin to move toward this understanding, then even a slight awareness of this appeal from nature will immediately create changes for the better in us and in society! Otherwise, the world will be seized by general, global unrest. People will feel pressured and will go out to the streets and rebel without even  being aware of the reason. And that’s because globality can only be realized within altruistic qualities.
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Are Mass Protests An Effective Means Of Reform?

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe problem is that the people who are protesting do not yet understand that the reason for all of the dissatisfaction is the loss of hope for the future. This bothers people even more than the fact that there is nothing to live on. A person does not feel that there is something good waiting for him tomorrow. And it is necessary to give people an explanation that there will be no tomorrow if we will continue the way we are! After all, this way we are only speeding up the destruction of the world.

We have to balance out the evil of our egoism with the mind and understand where all of these problems are coming from and why. The people who are protesting are quite capable of this. They are smart and developed. They just need to hear an explanation of the fact that this protest is not the solution.

It’s not because I study Kabbalah and I want to impose its principles onto everyone. See this for yourself and realize that there is no way out! I say this as a scientist.

What benefit would it give to overturn everything and to change one thing for something similar? There used to be one head of government and now there will be another one. So what will change, really? Things will only get worse.

Look at the huge economic downturn that occurred as a result of the recent unrest that took place in Egypt, Libya, and other places. This is being done deliberately by foreign outside forces, which are destroying one country after another in order to keep themselves in some kind of balance. They do not understand that this boomerang will eventually return back to them.

There is no place anything could be achieved by means of destruction and rioting. If you want to build something, then how can the destruction of shops and other forms of disorder help? This will not give you anything, especially since the people protesting are not offering any solution.

In order to find the solution, you need to gather together people who work in politics, economics, and education, sit them together at one table, and have them build the program of changes. Or bring your own program to the table, but one that’s specific and laid out in detail!

However, today when we evaluate various programs that are proposed, we see that they cannot be realized in any part of the world. There is simply no such possibility! And the reason is because the world today has started to function in an integral form, as an integrated system, while we are still trying to operate by the old programs, which were in place before the world had locked itself into an integral system.

That is why no country today is capable of controlling its domestic affairs, and all of them together cannot deal with anything as well. No one can do anything, and that includes all of the countries and governments. And there is no solution to the situation besides drawing closer to nature. We have to start behaving like it does, which means becoming integral and connected with everyone and with the environment into one system.

Until we do this, we will not have any feeling or thought that will enable us to build tomorrow. Now, the only question is: How much longer will we have to suffer in order to understand this? How many more blows will we have to endure in order to want to hear it!?
[51098]
From the lesson on 8/12/11, The Zohar

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Mutual Guarantee Is For The Whole World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I am reading reviews of some of the articles published by the “Mutual Guarantee” movement and many say that you simply want to expand your circle of adherents, as if “Kabbalah isn’t that interesting anymore, so now Laitman has started a new movement.”

Answer: I enjoy these intense questions and objections because I would like people to understand my opinion. Kabbalah is a technique of correcting the world, which works at every social level:

  • There are people who are interested in progressing spiritually.
  • There are people who are interested in moving forward spiritually because they feel it is important for them and for their children to live in a peaceful, secure, and serene world.
  • There are people who have very little concern for any of this. They are only interested in living a good, normal life, “I feel comfortable right now, and this is my task—to maintain the comfort and if possible, to increase it.”

Depending on people’s desires, some are engaged only in their personal matters, whereas others are engaged in society. Some people are attracted to power, fame, knowledge, and wealth, which means they have higher demands compared to those of a common man. Every person has certain properties and desires as a given essence that are present in him from birth.

Therefore, being a person who studies human nature and society, I make no claims to anyone because I understand perfectly well that the people who are engaged or interested in Kabbalah will, in fact, come to Kabbalah. As for the people who don’t have these aspirations, then no matter how much time I would spend telling them about Kabbalah, they will not come to it. However, they will see that mutual guarantee is the instrument that we can use to fix the crisis today, but in the internal personal realm, within our families, and on the scale of the country and the world.

That’s what I want people to know. And accordance to every person’s inner question or need, each will take his proper place in this hierarchy of correcting himself and humanity. Therefore, there is no attempt here to draw people to what they will not respond to. This is impossible.

This is not the usual political movement where people can be enticed by some goals, by telling them, “Let us go and conquer, let’s take abundance from someone else and divide it among ourselves,” and so on. On the contrary, this is a movement that is based only on the joint agreement of all members of society, and therefore, it involves everyone. In other words, it is there in order for everyone to come under the mutual guarantee in the world, to the degree of one’s innate properties, predispositions, and inclinations to this.
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Seven Billion Household Members

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe approach of Kabbalah is highly scientific. However, we do not impose it; we just want to point out the obvious facts of the interconnected world that are impossible to ignore.

We will move on from these facts to the changes in human nature because now, by getting an integral education, people are beginning to think in terms of an integral system. Earlier, they saw it and perceived it through the prism of their egoism, “me and others,” whereas now, a person is gradually beginning to feel the world through a prism that absorbs all visible light. He does not focus on personal gain, but on the good of all humankind. His view is becoming general and his mind is acquiring a different way of thinking. His perception passes through everyone else.

An example could be the mistress of the house, a mother who takes care of her children, her husband, and the home, arranging everything. She looks at life and tomorrow not in connection with her personally, but in connection with her household. She sees the reality of today and tomorrow not out of herself, but out of them.

If a person gradually begins to look at the world in this manner, he rises to a new degree. A new system of perception of reality develops in him. He does not feel a reality within himself personally, egoistically, and individually, but he sees the way everyone else feels it.

In essence, this is the rule, “Love the other as yourself.” A person gradually approaches this state where he is not only in confrontation with humanity and in closeness with some individual people, but he begins feeling himself inside this “pot,” within humanity, within the general system.

Then his perception, view, and way of thinking and feeling change; his entire reality changes. He comes out of himself and reveals a new reality that he did not feel before, a new dimension in his new perception.

If humanity advances toward this intention, it will reach what we call the upper spiritual world. This is not just a name, but it has everything to do with perception and bestowal instead of self-reception.

Moreover, the word “bestowal” is not used in the regular sense. It is when I feel the commonality of all of us, and if I do not care about everyone, I do not get anything myself. Today we are beginning to understand this, albeit slowly.

It will cost us a lot of pain and effort, but if we introduce global education, people will start paying attention to various examples from movies, plays, novels, television programs, and stories that demonstrate that good and evil are considered only with respect to society. We are in a global system where we are experiencing a global process that is accompanied by changes which we can implement ourselves only on condition that we start developing a new kind of education.

I spoke about this at the World Spirit Forum in Arosa back in 2005. However, we still see that people are not ready for this, despite being incapable of escaping it, and even though they are already on the verge of disaster.

For example, a few months ago the USA national debt exceeded the country’s total resources. In other words, even if they sold everything they have, they still would not be able to meet their obligations. If they recognize collapse and declare bankruptcy, the world will fall after them. Therefore, the world is demanding, “Keep on playing. Continue printing money as if you have something to cover it with.”

These are the games we are playing. This is not the economy in the former, classical sense. We just keep moving further with our eyes closed, relying on chance, rather than udnertaking correction. We have no other alternative than an integral education, and we are already aware of this.

The economy is the language of our egoism. Our relationships are built on the principle of “you give to me, and I give to you,” on the system of maximum gain at the expense of others. It’s precisely in the language of economy that we communicate in our egoistic interactions because the economy is the essence of our egoistic unity.

We built it according to certain rules and because of it, we can exist. We are experiencing the crisis in this system first because the egoistic connections between us have reached the ultimate state, and it is no longer possible to live this way.

Therefore, under the circumstances, I appeal to people not even as a Kabbalist, but as an ordinary person who worries about the future of humanity. I do not need anything myself. I just urge people to look at what is in front of every one of us in equal measure.

I do not give home-grown advice. I do not suggest self-made theories, nor do I propose any new, special science. First of all, I say: Let us be guided only by science because it is equally recognized by everyone.
[51136]
From a conversation about a new book on 7/11/11

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US-European Banks Bring World To Brink Of War

Dr. Michael LaitmanEditorial in the news: “For the Western peoples, who have failed to heed our civilization’s greatest warning that ‘those who fail to heed history and its lessons are doomed to repeat it,’ lie the greatest dangers as the only way capitalistic systems are able to survive is through war, and according to the experts now it is coming much sooner than later.

“The first stirrings of Total Global War to protect the American and Western economies were first sounded this past spring by top Obama advisor, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman who said: ‘From an economic point of view World War II was, above all, a burst of deficit-financed government spending, on a scale that would never have been approved otherwise. Over the course of the war the federal government borrowed an amount equal to roughly twice the value of G.D.P. in 1940, the equivalent of roughly $30 trillion today.…this slump can be cured. All it will take is a little bit of intellectual clarity, and a lot of political will.’

“Krugman was joined in his ‘war thinking’ by his fellow economic ‘intellectual’ and CNBC analyst Marc Faber, who warned to ‘Brace for a Global “Reboot” and a War.’

“And to how close this war is we can ascertain from Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin who warned that the United States and its Western allies are planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with the long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran, and which, of course, would start World War III as neither Moscow or Beijing will allow this to happen.”

Comment: Kabbalah also states that the world will reach war out of despair. But if we show people the possibility of another way out, which nature has to offer us—namely, the unity between ourselves and nature, then humanity will be able to achieve its final, perfect form and will do without war.

Kabbalah points out that the second path is realistic and we can realize it. Everything depends only on the explanation of how we should act to accomplish this ascent onto the next stage of our evolution where we reach similarity to the integral, global nature.
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The ECB Leadership Panic

Dr. Michael LaitmanEditorial in the news (by Michael Hazin, economist):The European Central Bank began to buy Italian and Spanish debt to halt the collapse of the market of their government bonds. They understood that they cannot hold the situation without the emission. Indeed, it is impossible to hold it with the emission, but it is possible to delay.

“We do not know what caused such a panic among the ECB leadership, that they abandoned their core principles. Since the rejection of the core principles has begun, it will soon be followed by the abolition of proverbial European democracy.

“It should be noted that at the end of the 1930s, most of the EU countries were openly fascist regimes, and apparently, they met the proverbial ‘European values,’ as democracy in the 20th century was imposed by the narrow elite stratum as an ideological response to the USSR.

“Today, we have an amazing opportunity to see which real values correspond to the ‘European choice.’ So far, it is clear that ‘financial stability’ has ceased to correspond to this choice!”

Comment: Michael, you have heard me say on numerous occasions that if the Kabbalistic method and correction fails in the world, Nazism will reign over the world, which will bring the world to the third world war. The preconditions for this already exist in all European countries.
[51409]

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Financial “Monsters” Threaten Democracy

Dr. Michael LaitmanInterview with Mário Soares, former President of Portugal: “The EU is in crisis today. The markets are disoriented, as are those that govern them. I call them monsters and it’s true, they are monsters. Nobody knows where they came from or what they want. Well, we know they want money so they launch attacks on the euro and consequently countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal and others….

“This is extremely serious. We lack a united response, which was necessary for Europe. For rich countries like Germany and Mrs. Merkel, who may be thinking that she can give orders to Europe, to Germanise Europe. If she thinks that, she is mistaken…

“If things carry on the way they are, it will be the end of the European project, there is no doubt. But I think there will be a big reaction. The reaction will come from the people. It is not just in the Arab world that people revolt. The danger is revolution in Europe. Individuals can reject this Europe and say this is not Europe, we want another. We want dialogue, social welfare and respect for each other.”

Comment: The only thing that can save us is the realization that we are living in the new, integral world in which we are fully interrelated and must therefore consider everyone as a whole, as one family. Back in the 1920s, Baal HaSulam wrote that the whole world is one family and if we do not view it that way, then we will bring ourselves to a world war in 10-15 years. And that’s what happened.

Today, the situation is repeating itself with the difference being that time is moving faster, and therefore, a world war could break out within a few months. And it can only be prevented by shifting the world’s tendency toward mutual connection, by realizing the need to rise above protectionism and individual egoism, and by thinking the way people think within a family about everybody while addressing issues from the most pressing to the simplest. Like in a family, first we think about the children and the sick, and then about those who can wait with the solution to their problems.

As soon as we change our approach, we will immediately feel a different attitude from nature towards us because we will reach similarity (homeostasis, balance, harmony) with it, and all our actions in this direction will bring us goodness! Let’s learn from nature!
[51541]

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The Prospects Of The Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you see the prospects of the world’s stock markets?

Answer: I am in no way an economist, so this question should not be addressed to me. I will only say that the world is starting to get tired of whatever is happening, and the fact that people have a bad feeling is not a good sign. The mood is getting worse. Optimists are disappearing; people no longer believe in the abilities of politicians, trust in them is exhausted; no one expects normalization; there is a constant threat of new bankruptcies; everyone is depressed.

As Ezra Klein writes in The Washington Post, no one knows where the economic recovery will come from, but one can tell for sure where it will not: neither from the US, Europe, Japan, nor China, the economy of which “has overheated” and where the authorities only dream of a “soft landing,” in other words, they are afraid of bankruptcy and public unrest.

For now the feeling is that we have gotten accustomed to the crisis, but this is temporarynature will compel us to wise up and become similar to it. We must become one whole with the environment. And this is attained between people by observing the condition of the mutual guarantee: a good-hearted connection and relating of nature like to oneself.  In this case the world will attain harmony, balance, and it will reign between us.
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The Odd One Out

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible that the strikes in your country are starting to disperse?

Answer: I understand your surprise. I already wrote about this in previous posts: Violence won’t happen in this country. This is an ancient nation that was founded on the principle of brotherhood. Even though this has been forgotten and is not being expressed in practice, there won’t be violence and a war where brother kills brother. And if the agitators that are funded from abroad start stirring things up, I am sure they won’t be welcome by the people.

But I do understand your perplexity: Instead of breaking the store windows, looting, and cutting each other “like regular people,” what’s happening in Israel, as if to spite the manipulators, is that scientists and social representatives are sitting down to solve their problems together around a round table.

Question: And what are Kabbalists doing in the meantime?

Answer: They are disseminating materials about the true cause of the crisis: the egoistic connection between people instead of the altruistic, global, integral interconnection that is required today, called mutual guarantee. And they observe how the protestors have started working on unity, how they study their own qualities and try to ascend above them. The best thing from everything that is happening are people’s attempts to find interconnection and mutual understanding.

This is a wonderful example for the whole world of how it is possible to try to solve the issues of the crisis (including economy and society) precisely through an open, non-governmental discussion around a round table, together with all of the representatives of society.
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