From a Viewer: Igor writes:

Dear Michael Laitman, I am asking you for advice. My boss is a dictator. For five years now, I am trying really hard not to tell him to go to hell.

I love my job, but I hate him. He watches my every move. All his requests are not requests but orders, all conversations are only his preaching. There is nothing human or warm about him. I tolerate it only because I know I will not find such a job anywhere else. I do not know how to endure it. Dear Michael, what would you do if you were me?

My Response: I would try to change myself so as to love this person. Then everything will work out for him a thousand times better.

Question: Is it possible in such a state? As you see, the letter is really “burning” with “I just hate him.”

Answer: I think that on the contrary, it is in such a state that it is possible. After all, he may suddenly see that there is nothing terrible here, he just convinced himself about this, he sees this in such a way. He prepares himself in advance to hate his boss.

Question: Are you saying that if Igor makes an effort, a terrible, difficult, real effort to love his boss, then it will turn out that he is not a dictator at all?

Answer: Not a dictator at all. It all depends on Igor.

Question: How will the boss see this love? Will it look like adulation or like a game?

Answer: No. Igor does not have to show it at all. He should work within himself.

Question: Internally? Does it mean that he can repeat to himself: “I want to change, I want to love him, no matter what”?

Answer: Yes. I want to actually love him. Then everything will change. How else can we reach love for our neighbor? Do not think that later someday it may happen. Try to do it now, in this particular case. If there is a person I hate, this is the biggest opportunity to change myself.

Question: Is this your main advice?

Answer: Of course. There is nothing else. The Creator gives this to him specifically so that he can change himself and thus reach some spiritual degree.

Question: Can he also reach a comfortable state?

Answer: Of course!

Question: At work and everywhere else?

Answer: Undoubtedly! This will have the best consequences.
[289921]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/4/21

Related Material:
Money And A Gun—I’m The Boss
Boss And Leader
Global Bosses Are Gloomy About The Economic Future

Filed under: Children, Education, News, Q&A | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Comment: The egoism of each individual person is built on the basis of “one, unique, the only one” because a person identifies himself with the Creator and considers himself as the center of the world.

My Response: This is our nature. Each of us perceives reality as if he is in the center of the world and the whole world revolves around him.

And a person comes into a kind of contradiction with the world. How is it that the world that revolves around him does not automatically perceive his desires and thoughts? Why does this world have some movements of its own that do not quite coincide with his thoughts and desires? And so he is angry with the world. How does this happen?

Therefore the more our egoism grows in us—and it grows every day—the more uncomfortable we feel, we do not know what to do with our life, and we feel bad. But all this is only because we want, according to our growing egoism, to control the world more and more, and it does not want to bend under us.

Question: Suppose a certain group of people has gathered, united by some common ideas. What about their group egoism?

Answer: This is even more difficult. If a group of people gathers, then they have some common goal that they want to achieve. This is why they created that group. Moreover, each of them sacrifices his personal egoism in order to be in harmony with others and achieve a common goal.

And suddenly, what was good for them today is not so good tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow is even worse. After all, everyone’s egoism grows in its own direction. They do not make corrections to it, they do not work to constantly get together and adjust their connection all the time. And it turns out that after a while they do not see at all where they are, why they are in connection with these people, and what is happening here.

That is, we do not understand the nature of our egoism, how it can be corrected, and how to connect above it in order to maintain our relationship.
[289879]
From Kab TV’s “Conversations” 11/1/21

Related Material:
Destructive Force Of Our World
Egoism Poisons Our Lives
How To Cure Egoism?

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Globalization | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Some researchers consider the ages between 30 to 34 to be the best years of a person’s life. From about 45 to 55 people experience the greatest stress, which weighs heavily on them. People feel satisfied before the age of 45 and after 55. At 75 the satisfaction curve has a sharp drop. Surprisingly, almost none of the respondents called childhood the best years of their lives.

What period of life would you call the best?

Answer: I have a different measuring scale, different values, so I can’t say. It is not childhood, youth, adolescence, nor growing up. The best years were when I met my teacher, when I was completely financially independent and could work only on my spiritual growth.

Comment: This determines the best years, although it was a time of ascents and descents.

My Response: But they were spiritual, not any other kind. They were not physical or material.

Question: So when a person determines the purpose of his life, the best period of his life starts with and continues from that moment on?

Answer: Yes, and age doesn’t matter.

Question: Does it go on and on?

Answer: I believe so, yes. This period has not passed for me yet. I hope it doesn’t end before the end of my life. I’m still planning something, awaiting things, etc. In this sense I am at a certain advantage compared to most people who determine what was good and what was bad.

I believe that a person should achieve such an attitude to life, even taking into account the whole situation that exists around him, and where he is generally happy. If he holds on to some enduring values, then we can say that he is happy.

Question: And it doesn’t matter whether diseases befall him, or God knows what else happens?

Answer: Yes. He relates to the upper management, therefore it does not bruise or destroy him, he doesn’t fall. He perceives it as a necessary condition for his further inner growth.

Question: In other words this is good advice to a person: find something eternal and indelible, hold on to it, and then there will be no such thing as a good or bad period in life?

Answer: No. It’s not up to us, it depends upon the root of our soul. We have nothing to complain about. We should simply try, under any circumstances that manifest themselves, to keep a certain course of realization of our inner program.

Question: Can we say that each person has his own purpose in life? How can we determine it?

Answer: By realizing the root of your soul. Because the body and the whole environment that is around us is only there to supposedly interfere with us, but in fact it is so that we realize ourselves, our spiritual root. This is given to everyone. But only if a person wants it.
[289625]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/7/21

Related Material:
Everyone Has Their Own Happiness
When The Happiest Period In Your Life Comes
Patent For A Happy Life

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, News | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Who are the “spies” that Joshua sends to the /and of Israel and whom Moses also sent at his time?

Answer: Spies are not a good idea. If the Creator said that this land is yours, you should go there without asking anyone and without sending anyone ahead.

However, since it was necessary to somehow show the people where they were going, they sent scouts to bring some news from the side where the people had to move.

But if the Creator has commanded that it is necessary to conquer this land, then it is useless to send spies. You have to go and act. Therefore, the transgression for sending spies will be manifested for a long time in the people of Israel as a misconduct.

Question: Is this some kind of weakness within us?

Answer: Yes. Why do you want to check what is commanded of you? Is it in order to make sure that this is really good for you?

Comment: Still it is surprising that this was done by such leaders as Moses and Joshua Bin Nun.

My Response: Even more so.
[289723]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/13/21

Related Material:
Work Not For The Sake Of Reward
True Love Is The Fulfillment Of Another’s Desire
To See And Hear The Upper System

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: What topic can immediately capture people at the first lesson on integrated education?

Answer: If people want to discuss something in accordance with the integrality of nature, then first they need to learn the rules of the workshop, compliance with the rules of behavior in the circle. After becoming somewhat similar to this nature, they will only gain from proper interaction with each other.

At the first workshop, they are usually given questions for discussion to reveal the nature of man. “What is the basic essence of a person?” “Why do I love someone and not someone else?” “Does it come from your inner qualities or because I am so bad and he is so good?” And so on.

Through discussion people themselves come to the conclusion that each of us is an egoist. This is a statement of the fact of our nature. Although physiologically we are all animals, there is an additional component in us, our egoism, which is evil in everything. So, this is already a diagnosis. But is there a cure for it? What do we get if we get cured?

Maybe, thanks to egoism, I’m rushing forward, ascending, rising, exploring, my eyes are burning, I want this dish, this partner, this vacation, etc. And without it, what is the taste in life? Which means, the ego has positive and negative sides, and they need to be balanced somehow.

At the same time, we do not destroy egoism in any way, but only use it correctly in order not to lose. Where it harms me, I will make an inversion in using it and rise to a better outcome. And where it helps me, why not? If, looking at you, I envy that you are so athletic, then I also start running in the morning. Or, looking at someone smart, I start learning. In these cases, egoism is our helper.

Our attitude is neither yogic nor anything similar to that, where everything is put on the suppression of the ego. We do not suppress or annul it, but only use it correctly. And then it turns out that there is a medicine inside egoism, like in a snake: both medicine and poison.
[290036]
From KabTV’s “Through Time”

Related Material:
Integral Education In American Colleges
The Role Of The Moderator In The Workshop
The Rules Are The Same For Everyone

Filed under: Children, Dissemination, Education | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #67 “Depart from Evil”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” 

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog | Add Comment / Ask Question →

In the News (The New York Times): “Sigmund Freud gave us a psychology of selfishness. Children, he wrote, ‘are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.’”

Question: How would you define selfishness in terms of Kabbalah?

Answer: Freud’s definition concerns only the framework of our world, the framework of earthly egoism. And if a person tries to rise above himself, then he reveals against this a completely different type of egoism, a higher one.

He begins to understand that this is his inner nature, over which he can rise only if he touches the force that controls all of nature, so that it changes him.
[289283]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/15/21

Related Material:
Guarantee—Nullification Of Selfishness
“Does Happiness Make Us Selfish?”
The New World Beyond Selfish Interests

Filed under: Egoism, Kabbalah Study, Science | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Group egoism within the state can first develop into national egoism, which leads to conflicts on ethnic grounds. Then it develops into external state egoism, when a separately taken state begins to consider itself special. How correct is the position in which one country can take responsibility for the world following its own egoism? It’s hard to believe that it really cares about the world.

Answer: Naturally. If we do not correct a person, a mass of people, a people, a state, according to some parameters of ideals, then we will never be able to take care of the world. We will always have a problem with the fact that we have to put pressure on each other, suppress each other in a small group of people, and in a country, and between countries.

Question: Elites are also a group. Today’s elites in every country exist on the basis of some kind of tacit social contract where the bulk of people take a position in which the advantages and preferences of this narrow group are taken for granted. What do you think about this?

Answer: There is nothing to think about. Indeed, there is such and nothing can be done about it.

Comment: But ultimately the bulk of the world’s population may violate this agreement, they may not agree.

My Response: How? It is absolutely unorganized, it  does not have the strength, capabilities, nor the means, so it will have to submit to this.

Question: But this mass accepts the rule according to which a narrow group of people in each country uses the main benefits, economic opportunities, and everyone else is forced to live in accordance with what they get. And do you think that this kind of state of affairs can persist for a long time?

Answer: It has remained this way for thousands of years. There is no way out. There is no solution to this! Those who have money and the army in their hands will never agree to give up their privileges to the masses, while the masses generally have no opportunity to take them and command this since those in power surround themselves with the right people, and the world spins forward so calmly. Why should it change?

Question: That is, you do not believe in the existence of some kind of higher justice that should lead people to some kind of uniformity and availability of material wealth. So how can we talk about love for each other here? How can you love your neighbor, who for some reason has more opportunities than you?

Answer: This does not depend on wealth and on who manages the enterprises and divides the dollars among themselves. It all depends on how the masses will understand that changing the world consists of changing a person; it does not depend on religion, money, or strength, but only from the people themselves. And therefore, if people want to, they will be able to change the world precisely according to their new attitudes.
[289906]
From KabTV’s “Conversations” 11/1/2021

Related Material:
The Collapse Of The Role Of The Elites
The Global Elite Is Against People
How Should We Arrange The Planet?

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Globalization | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: What does “the king of the city” mean?

Answer: It is written, “There is no capital without a leader.” Therefore, the king of the city is the upper leader, the master of the city, that is, of some part of the population of the country, which is in his full control.

Question: If we are talking about the kings of the cities of the seven nations, then they must be the most egoistic ones, right?

Answer: Every king should represent the nation that is under his control.
[289764]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/13/21

Related Material:
Miniature Copy Of The Land Of Israel
Resisting Egoism
Correcting The Land Of Canaan

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah | Add Comment / Ask Question →