Entries in the 'nature' Category

Darwin’s Theory No Longer Works In Our Times


A question I received: You are a scientist, Kabbalist, philosopher, and practice religious observances, but your explanations of evolution are unclear. Do you agree with Darwin’s theory?

My Answer: According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, one of nature’s principles is, “the fittest survives.” However, this theory worked only during the initial stage of life’s development, when the simplest organisms were developing and before they began to unite into complex bodies and distribute the functions between separate organs in a body.

Darwin’s theory can justify any method of enslavement, exploitation, and extermination, which are all done to provide maximal enrichment and safety for specific individuals. This principle justifies our actions when we wage a battle against everyone else, and when we wage a battle against Nature, taking away everything we possibly can from It, draining It of all the natural resources.

Today we find ourselves globally and integrally connected and interdependent, and we cannot continue to behave “according to Darwin,” in a battle for survival. Just like the biological forms of life, humanity has already gone through the stage of the egoistic battle for survival, and now – when it has revealed its interdependence, it must recognize the need for everyone to unite into one whole. And this no longer happens according to Darwin!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There’s No Going Backwards In Evolution
Laitman.com Post: The Classical Wisdom of Kabbalah and the Evolution of the Urgently Needed Planetary Consciousness
The Open Book: View on Evolution from the Perspective of Kabbalah
Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Chapter 4. Perfection and the World

Man Was Created To Exist In Balance With Nature

How Can We Stop Being Slaves of the Advertisement Industry?In the News (from Impactlab):City Life Is Bad For Your Brain” The urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. “The mind is a limited machine,” says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, “And we’re beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.”

My Comment: Man was created to exist in balance with nature, to be a harmonious part of the correct eco-sphere. This can be achieved when everyone comes to an agreement, in two stages: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you,” and then, “Love your neighbor as yourself. If we build the world and the environment based on these attitudes to everything outside us, then the environment will be optimal for man. Someday, we will get there; Nature will force us to.

News Report (from CNN): “Behavioral screening – the future of airport security?” Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers’ intentions and emotions… Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person’s reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration, signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.

My Comment (a joke): One day they’ll invent a device that will be able to tell whether a person “loves his neighbor” or not. (They’ll also do this using the external signs, or maybe by one’s immediate reaction to something.) Whoever loves his neighbor is good for society, and whoever does not (whoever hasn’t attained it yet) is an anti-social element.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Influence of the Environment
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Freedom”
Kabbalah for the Student: “What Does Love Thy Friend As Thyself Give Us?”

What The Global Education System Should Teach People

The Soul Is the Property of Bestowal, and Until We Develop It, We Remain AnimalsThe global education system should include the theory and practice of attaining the concealed world. It should teach humanity “the attainment or perception of reality.” Scientists already admit this, but are yet to fully comprehend the fact that we cognize the surrounding reality only in our consciousness, and we cannot perceive the “objective” reality, or what lies beyond the limits of our consciousness.

We must cast aside theories that view the universe as existing outside the limits of our consciousness. Reality is composed of our general experience, including scientific experiments, as well as our thoughts, feelings, and intuition. In addition, to the extent we correct our egoism, we reveal a new world inside our corrected consciousness. However, this new world does not exist until we reveal it within.

Actually, our consciousness is a fundamental concept, and modern science already acknowledges this. We never attain anything outside of our consciousness. This is what the principle of “perception’s self-sufficiency” (autopoiesis) says: everything we perceive as our surroundings, the whole universe as it is perceived by man, exists only in the form that we reveal it.

Self-sufficiency does not come from the nature of the universe, but rather from the nature of our attainment, perception. We cannot suffer from lacking a sixth finger, because the sensation of a desire is the preliminary state, preceding the revelation. The Upper Level is first expressed in us in the form of a desire for it, and then It’s revealed in this desire.

Astrophysicists create new models of a “self-sufficient” universe and describe its structure and functionality as being similar to a living system. They are finding more and more evidence for the fact that the universe is alive and connected into one whole on all its levels. Scientists who study evolution agree that the Earth is similar to a huge living cell because of its global, interconnected system on all its levels of life and development.

However, we are still left with the problem of correction: simply studying and accepting the facts does not mean that you are being corrected and becoming similar to Nature. For this, it is necessary to study the next level of our existence, which is explained only in Kabbalah. It turns out that we are left with the same problem of disseminating Kabbalah in the world. At first this should be done without specifying “Kabbalah,” and only gradually, as Rambam suggests, we should reveal the Source of true wisdom.

Ecologists Should Take A Kabbalah Course To Learn About Nature

The Machsom Can Be Crossed Individually and as a GroupIn the News (from Associated Press): Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island” It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds. But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie Island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover… Removing the cats from Macquarie “caused environmental devastation” that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy… They have targeted dozens of islands over the past few decades with mixed success.

My Comment: Ecologists need to take a Kabbalah course in order to learn how to implement correct projects within a closed, harmonious ecosystem.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Financial Crisis Pales In Comparison to the Looming Ecological Crisis
From Chaos to Harmony: Chapter 10 “Balance With Nature”

The Spread Of The Crisis Is Like An Epidemic

Reaching Personal Gmar Tikkun Depends Only on One's EffortsIn the News (from finance.blogspot): Reginald Smith of the Mathematics Institute of the Bouchet-Franklin in Rochester has mapped the spread of the financial crisis, showing that “The losses in certain markets follow a cascade or epidemic flow like model.”

My Comment: It could not be otherwise, because all phenomena, including our own actions, are part of Nature. And we are a part of it, even through we try to detach from it. Therefore, all phenomena are similar, but they occur at different egoistic levels, whether the still, vegetative, animate or human. This is further evidence that Nature is one and integral, and everything in it is interconnected and similar. Furthermore, it shows that there is just one reason for all the evil in the world: our breach of balance with Nature, which is a breach of the cooperation between all of Nature’s parts.

Related Material:

Laitman.com Post: Is There Anything We Can Do About the Crisis?

Can China And America Decide The World’s Fate?

The Machsom Is the Same Everywhere - Even In JapanIn the News (from Financial Times):The Group of Two that could change the world” American political analyst Zbigniew Brzezinski, advisor to Barack Obama during the presidential campaign and former national security adviser to President Carter, proposed that China and the US collectively work out all of the world’s problems.

My Comment: Unless it’s forced by external circumstances, any form of isolationism is opposite to the integral, global laws of nature that are being revealed in our time. Therefore, doing this will only bring about an even greater crisis.

Related Material:

Laitman.com Post: The Food Crisis Reminds Us of the Condition Set In the Torah: Unite or Perish
Laitman.com Post: What Will Happen If Countries Draw National Boundaries on the Internet?

Two Scenarios Of Life After The Crisis


In the News (translated from utro.ru): Sooner or later the economic crisis will be over, and then life on our planet will be completely different. The experts of the World Economic Forum concluded that the era of swift development has come to an end, economic growth will slow down, the influence of the government will increase, and the global economy will change completely. The experts put forth four scenarios for the future of the global financial system: Either the worst will happen in the East, or in the West, or everywhere at once, or the world will somehow recuperate.

My Comment: Nobody knows the future, because it is for us to decide. However, there aren’t four, but two possible scenarios: either things will be good for everyone, or bad for everyone. It can’t be divided up into parts, because the world is integral and absolutely interconnected, and this is being revealed more and more each day.

There are two possible paths: the path of suffering, or the path of conscious development and a favorable connection between everyone. However, one way or another, we will have to reach one goal – to become an integral part of Nature.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Forthcoming Stages Until the End of the Crisis, Explained by Economists and by Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: Our Future Security Depends on the Dissemination of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

The Global Crisis Brings The End Of Glamour


In the News (translated from Javno): This year’s traditional Vanity Fair will have no hint of glamour because of the global crisis. The traditional glamorous party Vanity Fair fashion magazine organizes every year after the Oscar awards will this year be far from the glamour attendees of the event are used to. As the global economic crisis is affecting all areas, the leaders of the renowned magazine decided to organize a rather humble party and reduce the list of invitees as much as possible. “We will curb expenses this year,” the magazine’s editor said, adding that the party would resemble the magazine’s first party 15 years ago which was pretty humble.

My Comment: Naturally, everything that was artificially created by humans will eventually come to an end. Only the natural existence will stay, along with spiritual development.

Glamour is often so tasteless, because people just want to “sparkle.” But this is already disappearing. Glamour has outlived itself.

The crisis does not mean that the world is falling apart, but that its false, shiny shell is. And just like a chick is born from an egg, this shell will break to reveal the birth of a new life – a new world that exists by the eternal laws of Nature, the laws of bestowal and love.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Purpose of the Crisis Is to Bring Us to Perfection
Laitman.com Post: Don’t Envy the Billionaires
Laitman.com Post: The Conditions for Correcting the Soul

The Need For One Global Educational Program

Changing the World Starts With Changing Our IntentionsIn the News (from Environment News Science):Global Warming Forecast to Leave Half the World Hungry by 2100” Climate change will desiccate crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century, leaving half the world’s population facing a food crisis. The area at risk stretches from the southern United States to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, from northern India and southern China to southern Australia and all of Africa.

My Comment: These people will be forced to leave their lands and move north. But will the developed countries withstand such an influx? And if yes, how? Perhaps by using nuclear weapons, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation”?

The source of all our problems is that we disconnect ourselves from nature, thinking that all existence is split into “man” and “the environment.” This view of nature makes us think of everything around us as a supplement to man.

Even when we do care for the environment, it is only for our own narrow gain, with no regard for the holistic system of nature. Violating this closed system of nature evokes its negative reaction to us. And since we are a product of nature, we end up suffering on all levels of our existence.

Therefore, we must replace all of our educational programs, such as “Saving the environment,” with educational programs such as, “Man is an integral part of nature.” After all, the solution lies not in cleaning water from pollution or restoring the ecosystem, but in creating a single system, where everything is “One Nature,” instead of “man and nature.” Hence, there must be only one educational program, just as Nature is one. We must imitate living organisms and use them as models for how to organize our lives as a single whole.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Need to Nurture the Proper Perception In Children
Laitman.com Post: The Media Must Help Turn Our World Into a Giant Classroom
Kabbalah Today Article: The Tip of the Iceberg
Kabbalah Today Article: The Divine Conspiracy
From Chaos to Harmony: “Nature’s Plan”
Kabbalah on Education

We Can Only Come Out Of The Crisis Together

The Condition of Entering the Upper World Is Mutual GuaranteeQuestion: In one of the lessons you said that America is built egoistically to unite more than other nations because it is comprised of different nations (is ethnically and culturally diverse), and that it is going to be okay in this crisis if the people unite. My question is: doesn’t this speak to some space in me? Some space inside me that egoistically would like to get along with the other people in my life?

My Comment: Of course, this is how we start correcting our nature: by searching for a better egoistic life. However, while studying Kabbalah we begin to feel the value of having a direct altruistic attitude to others; its independence, greatness, and the infinite, eternal sensations that become revealed in it. And then we discover how to attain this, and consciously aspire to come out of egoism.

In the News (translated from SvobodaNews): The Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Science (IERAS) reports that Russians are faced with a decline in income. They will have to take any job, save money, raise their professional qualifications, and support each other. At this time it is important to stay connected with family and friends, because people will have to come out of this difficult situation together.

My Comment: Indeed, this prolonged suffering will force people to unite – and not just within each nation, but all the nations together. Kabbalah enables us to understand what is happening, and then people will also be able to quickly understand what to do in order to attain equivalence with Nature, with the quality of bestowal and love. This quality is the basis for survival in the unified system of humanity.

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Laitman.com Post: The World Is Waking Up
Laitman.com Post: What Is Pain, and How Can We Stop Feeling It All the Time?
Kabbalah Today Article: Kabbalah, the Creator and the Unity of Mankind
Humankind vs. Human Kindness
Lesson: “Attaining the Unity of the Universe”