Question: Tens of thousands of people in the world need saving from ecological catastrophes, from natural disasters, and many are engaged in the production of weapons of mass destruction, yet they do not feel that they bring grief, troubles, etc. to anyone.

At the same time, when we see a person suffering—for example, a boy being pulled out of the ruins after an earthquake or someone being rescued from a raging river—everyone grieves, everyone watches and worries about that person and what will happen to him.

What is this property in a person that he can worry so much about one person, but he is not touched by the suffering of many?

Answer: One does not imagine oneself in the form of people, in the form of a huge mass. But he immediately imagines himself in the form of a single person and empathizes purely selfishly.

Question: And how can we guide a person to empathize with the global situation, the world?

Answer: We do not have this feeling at all! Let’s say, animals die: there is flooding and forests burning, they run away across the river and drown. We look at it as a catastrophe, that is, purely through reason, philosophically, but we cannot empathize.

And when something happens to a small dog or a cat, then it is another matter, we are ready to kill for it because you put yourself in its place; you can imagine yourself in the place of the victim.

Question: How can we escape this version of events?

Answer: We cannot. Our egoism is set up that way.

Comment: Well, then the future is clear, this is how nations will be destroyed.

My Response: Such is the course of history.

Question: But there must be some way out of this. Has some sensory organ been cut off from us?

Answer: The collective one: the organ of collective perception. We cannot feel the integrality of a huge group or a nation. We sometimes conform to it but only if we feel included in them.

Question: And what about compassion for the world you keep talking about?

Answer: It depends on upbringing. And not only on upbringing but on the fact that with the help of upbringing, we induce the development of this sensation in us. After all, we were once in it. We all came from a group, a tribe, around a campfire, from a cave, and so on.

Question: Do we have a genetic record that we were once as one?

Answer: Our ego suppresses it.

Question: But can this memory be restored, that we were connected and are now connected?

Answer: Only by special influences on these elements of memory that are in us. But they are very deep, and they must be literally pulled out into light by force.

Question: As a Kabbalist, speaking about the unity of the world, the unity of mankind, are you trying to penetrate into this depth where we are connected?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: And at the same time you say that it is very difficult, almost impossible.

My Response: Of course.

Question: But you keep doing it all the same?

Answer: What else can we do? In practice, the good outcome of our story depends on this.

Question: Is such a point in a person, barely noticeable, called the unity of the world: “I am one with the world,” and this is where we need to break through?

Answer: Yes. Otherwise, there is simply darkness ahead.

Question: Do you have a feeling that this task is almost impossible?

Answer: It is absolutely impossible. But we must do it anyway.

Question: How can we convey this to an ordinary person today?

Answer: When there is absolutely no way out of a situation, a person does incredible things. And this shows us what should be done. Kabbalists speak about this. So, you move from your logic to someone else’s. You accept their methodology, their ideology, their advice. You just put their head in place of yours and work that way.

Question: When there is no other way out?

Answer: Yes. Otherwise your ego will not allow you to do it. Otherwise it will always look for a way out in the same plane. It will be over soon, I hope.

Comment: It seems as if there is no specific way out.

My Response: Yes, it has already been discussed calmly.

Comment: And calmly accepted, which is very interesting. And here again the same thing happens: “Perhaps this will not affect me, it will affect others.”

My Response: No, what does it mean “will not affect”? It is as if you are saying that after it rains on Thursday, a meteorite will fall on the Earth and turn the Earth into a pancake, and at the same time you say: “And we can prevent it with our reasonable, correct, general intervention, mental intervention.”

Question: It is getting nearer and there is only one way to stop it?

Answer: Yes. Like this: “Brothers, earthlings! A great trouble is approaching and our only opportunity is to mentally unite.”

If we mentally unite and with our common thought wish to change its trajectory and remain in our good position, united together in order to drive it away, we will begin to understand that this trouble is not a problem. It is in order to bring us to a better state, to unification. And in this state of unification, we must continue to exist. Let’s not just do it for a moment, but make it so that it does not go away.

Question: Is this a Kabbalistic idea?

Answer: It is the Creator’s idea. The war against egoism must be to the end, to its complete correction into bestowal and love.

On one hand, it will not give up. On the other hand, everything depends on us. We need to take the responsibility of our correction above our logic.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/8/20

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Question: Does a single person or the entire nation go through the state of ruin on the spiritual path?

Answer: It can be one person or it can be a nation. As a rule, a group of people goes through the feeling of ruin, and then they reach the state of the land of Israel. These are all spiritual states that are built only on the above-egoistic connection with each other.

The state of the land of Israel is the desire to connect with each other according to serious parameters above egoism of integration with each other. If people are capable of this, then the connection they achieve by integrating with each other as one single whole is called a Temple.

Having formed such a group, or you can say, a nationwide connection with each other, the followers of Abraham, as if, created a Temple, and for some time they existed in this state. However, in order to advance, they had to reveal even greater problems within themselves: where else they can connect, where else they can come closer to each other.

When the state of “here it is – the Temple!” is reached, then at first in the group that has connected everything seems to be good. But it is not, not good enough; there should be connection at the next level. In order to reach it, they must reveal in their current state all sorts of separations, disconnections, hatred, and mutual rejection that exist in them, but are not visible to them.

At the same time, the clarification of their next state takes place in them. It is manifested as a shattering, that is, they see their attempt to connect as an unsuccessful one.

Although it was very successful, now when they are advancing, which means even more light, even more connection, even more desire to be mutually integrated with each other, they begin to see how great their egoistic desires really are, which do not allow them to connect even more.

On the contrary, they feel themselves in the great shattering. This is the ruin, the destruction of the Temple. They again find themselves in a great desire to enjoy, in mutual rejection from each other, in the so-called Babylonian exile.

Then, from the state of the revelation of hatred, they again begin to aspire for connection and love, which is called the construction of the Second Temple. They build it, that is, they connect in a group so that it acquires a strong, monolithic state of mutuality and unity.

When they reach this state, they again discover that it is insufficient, that there are many different faults, defects, and mutual separations in it. It turns out that there, inside it, is egoism, which pushes them away from each other.

However, they see it because they have risen to the next level of mutuality and love. That is, every time they reach a higher spiritual quality, precisely thanks to it they find themselves even more disconnected and distanced from each other.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States”

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Question: In any science, scientists first propose some hypothesis and after that they perform actions and discover something. How does this happen in Kabbalah? How can I reveal that the Creator influences me?

Answer: I am in some kind of a field, under some external influence, this is clear to me. But how I can come into mutual contact with this influence is not clear to me; this is what I would like to know.

The fact is that we are trying to determine in our corporeal qualities and capabilities what forces influence us and what reactions they cause in us. However, we perform all this by ordinary corporeal means.

If we develop ourselves according to the Kabbalistic methodology, we try to influence the force field we exist in to understand it, get in contact with it, and determine which of my influences on it cause certain, adequate reactions from it to me. The reciprocity that I create by my influence on the external field that causes change in its influence on me is the subject of the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Kabbalah calls this external field that exists around us the Creator because it reveals that this is the highest, the only force, that creates and holds everything in itself. It calls us, humans (except for inanimate, vegetative and animate nature) created beings, and invites us to develop a sense for perceiving the Creator, to exit ourselves, to begin to feel and explore Him. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is engaged in, and this is what we can attain.

Question: By what principle of the actions of the Creator, from the influence of the upper field, on me I will be able to recognize Him?

Answer: According to the law of equivalence of form. If I can change myself, my reactions, my influences on the Creator, then I will feel how He influences me at the same time. Kabbalah in this respect is just a science, there is nothing else here.

Therefore, by changing myself, my influences on the external field, I accumulate enough reactions from it to me; over the course of history I already have some data, I collect it, process it, and I can make some kind of conclusions about the nature of this field, about its behavior, about the way it influences me, and the way I can influence it. This is the entire wisdom.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/2/21

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should we have the right to choose where we want to live?“

According to the way in which nature develops us, we need to reach a state where we realize ourselves for human society’s maximal benefit, and with maximal effectiveness. As such, if we thoroughly research our options and find that we can realize ourselves more beneficially for humanity in a specific location, then of course we should have the right to move to that place where we can be of more benefit to humanity.

However, I emphasize that such a move should take place only after we find that we can truly be of more benefit to humanity in the target location. It means that we refrain from moving simply because we feel like it or that it “seems right” at a certain moment. Instead, we make our decision to move according to our awareness of the general law of nature, and how nature develops us. Also, as explained by Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), we might need to receive special permission from the people who understand where we can best realize ourselves. We can then be certain that where we wish to move is where we need to be and act.

If we move simply because we are bored in one place, and think that we can reap more egoistic fulfillment somewhere else, i.e. aim to move is simply in order to egoistically absorb what others have prepared in the other location, then by doing so, of course we do not become useful to society and I do not think that such a move is justified.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Only good forces come to us from above, but if we are not ready to receive them, we feel them as blows. This is the case with the coronavirus. If we were ready to accept this force, which eventually came to us in the form of a pandemic, if we united to become internally closer to each other in the face of danger, it would not have manifested itself.

Look how animals unite against a common disaster. When they run together, fleeing from a flood or a forest fire, they no longer attack each other. They feel that they must save their lives, and their predatory instinct is suppressed by the instinct of self-preservation.

We are now in the same situation. The blows that we feel from nature or the Creator, the upper force, should push us to correct conclusions about how to get rid of them.

We need to see how animals behave, when fleeing from danger, they do not attack each other. The predator’s instinct disappears and only the instinct for the struggle for life remains. If we took an example from the animate level, we would have defeated the pandemic and correctly and successfully gotten out of this state.

But the problem is that we are not at the animal level. We are spoiled animals because we have human egoism, which poisons everything.

Therefore, we cannot even think in the direction of connection, unity, and closeness in order to escape from the pandemic. Even in the context of a global pandemic, governments and individuals are trying to make profits and cash-in on each other because they believe this will bring them wealth and success.

Thus, they make the trouble twice as bad, incur double the problems. Instead of being together with others and thus softening the force of Gevura, they multiply the power of evil. Therefore, we will have to learn through suffering.

The pandemic does not come to make people sick or kill them, but to teach us how to behave toward each other. But for now, we see that we are not learning, but we are going the opposite direction, that is, the path of suffering. Every country thinks that it can succeed and win at the expense of other countries and nations. And this is the mistake.

However, gradually, under these blows, we will descend to simple survival like on the animal level, and then we will begin to see that it is worth helping each other and not hurting others when you are running from a common disaster together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/21, “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

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Prophets, Joshua – Chapter 4:20: And these twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal.

Question: Why should we take our stony hearts and put them together as a monument?

Answer: In order to mark the place of transition from an egoistic state to an altruistic one.

Question: But being not yet corrected, do we, one way or another, enter the land of Israel with stony hearts?

Answer: No, we are breaking away from our stony hearts. They will continue to accompany us here and there, but not so that we are in them, but so we will work on them and rise. This is the so-called redemption, the capture of the land of Israel. With these terms, we pass into it.

In other words, our egoistic desires remain and turn from egoistic to altruistic. Therefore, we must constantly develop them, reveal their selfishness, which manifests both in wars and in what awaits the people in the land of Israel. We need to work on this all the time, but this work already consists in raising Malchut to Bina.

Question: It turns out that the children of Israel came out of Egypt with hearts of stone, carried them through the desert, and here they laid them down and the work began?

Answer: Yes. Lay down your heart of stone with the others. And later it will still wake up in you, but in order for you to gradually turn it into a living heart.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/5/21

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All religions have emerged from the concealment of Kabbalah.

Once, from the time of Abraham until the destruction of the Second Temple, the people of Israel, i.e., a small group from all mankind, lived according to Kabbalistic principles in order to master the method of assimilation to the highest law, and then to demonstrate it on themselves and transmit it to all mankind.

This is the mission of the nation of Israel, which, in principle, is not a nation, but a small group of people who came out of Babylon to master the Kabbalistic methodology for themselves and pass it on to others.

At first, this group existed in spiritual states: in mutual bestowal and love, in comprehension of the upper world, the highest power of a single law—the Creator. Then, when it fell from this level 2,000 years ago, egoism took possession of the people of Israel, then instead of the science of Kabbalah, religion arose; Judaism, Christianity, and then Islam originated from it.

That is, all three religions are the result of the concealment of the upper world, not of its comprehension. They will exist until the law of globalization, the integration of all people, is fully manifested in humanity.

Now, when it begins to manifest itself, religions will gradually have to leave the world’s stage, and instead of them, Kabbalah will rise again as a method of correcting a person and not his general moral support, which he needed during the 2,000 years of concealment of the true universe.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Universal Law” 9/30/09

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Question: Your work Basic Concepts of Kabbalah describes in great detail the methodology that brings one closer to the Creator.

But, many modern managers and supervisors are quite far from the concept of the Creator and His influence over our reality. Could there be a fundamentally different approach here?

Answer: Let’s not call all this the Creator but nature. It’s the same thing. The Creator is what we call the upper governance because it is not devoid of consciousness in the sense that it has its own purpose or its own plan. So we say, “This is the upper force, the Creator.” After all, He has a plan, a program that is clearly executed. In every other regard you can simply call it “nature,” a vast, perfect nature that controls each of its parts and propels them to attain its perfection.

Therefore, we can remove the terms “Creator” and “Kabbalah,” and write it in absolutely clear, technical, scientific terms.

I would be very happy about this because I do not consider myself a religious person because Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion or Judaism, it talks about nature. A lot of Kabbalists were from various nations of the world.

In contrast to the attitude to nature that exists in science, here the attitude to nature is that is has a plan, a goal, and the forces of the implementation of this plan. That is why we call nature the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference About the Science Of Management”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Growing Further in Order to Grow Closer”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Item 33″

Selected Highlights

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