Dr. Michael Laitman’s interview with Michael Khazin, owner of the Internet’s most popular discussion board on the world crisis, on the economic crisis and the need for a new kind of education.

Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

M. Laitman: Don’t you think that the solution to this [economic] problem lies not only in building a different kind of economic relationship, but in the sphere of education? Unless we establish our economic relationships on a moral basis (one must correctly interact with others regardless of loan interest or police), then all our efforts will fail.

M. Khazin: There is no doubt about it! In the absence of moral standards it will be impossible to build a new model. It must be invented.

M. Laitman: Why should we invent it?

M. Khazin: Because today’s model destroys moral standards.

M. Laitman: Yes, but why should we invent it!? We can take it from nature. Look how our biological body is built at the animate level (not at the human level). The human level is supposedly higher than the animate one. At the animate level, each cell of our body is egoistical, but all cells unite for the sake of the body, each of them neutralizing its egoism for the sake of the whole body’s life. Thus, different bodily organs exist in harmony with one another. None of them receives more than is necessary for its existence and the sustenance of the body. We see that nature can exist in no other way. Life exists based only on this principle. So if we want human society to exist normally, such relations between people must be established.

Education – The Means For Positive Global Change
Dr. Michael Laitman Interview Series With Michael Khazin

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Don Miguel Ruiz, guide, Shaman, master of the Toltec Tradition, and author of The Four Agreements talks about personal, social and global change with Dr. Michael Laitman.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Don Miguel Ruiz: When I say, “Please, help me change the world,” I am talking to the people of the world because it is time to let go of all those lies, to stop believing in all the superstition, and to stop being fanatics. It is time for us to become what we really are because we have the right to live our life with happiness, with joy. We are not here to suffer; we are here to enjoy life. Then, if we really want to change our world, we will do it for the best, according to ourselves, the best way we can do it.

Michael Laitman: We have to change our main quality, which is a desire to receive, our egos, that constantly forces us to absorb, to receive, and to use our environment and the world. The still, the animate, the vegetative, other people – we constantly want to receive from them, and to fulfill ourselves.

If some people come to sense the universe, the general force of the universe – which is the power of love and giving – then out of feeling it, they become like the general force that they feel. Then they extend themselves and start truly, from the bottom of their hearts, from what appears in them, they start to give and to give, and to love, and they start telling others about it.

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Director and documentary filmmaker Alex Jablonski discusses the responsibility of media creators in today’s world with Dr. Michael Laitman.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Alex Jablonski: I don’t understand this interconnectedness in my own life on a daily basis, yet. What I am saying is that for me, in my day-to-day existence, I understand the things that I’m viscerally, immediately, and in an immediate space connected to. Do you think it’s a spiritual practice? Do you think it’s a kind of broader understanding of the world? I’m saying what is it that an individual can do to make this understanding complete?

Michael Laitman: No, I’m speaking about it from the perspective of science. There is no spirituality here. I am an expert in cybernetics, which is a science of systems, systems of government, of management. And out of these systems, when we study a closed system where all the parts are like cogwheels all connected and tied to each other, a wheel can’t move however it wants. You can’t turn yourself only with respect to your kin. You have to move with the whole system, the global one. That’s the meaning of being in a global crisis, meaning we have a global plight. We are all connected, but we can’t get along. We’re stopping; all like wheels stopping the others. We are stopping each other from moving, and everyone is affecting, in this way, everyone else. So how do we move in harmony?

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Filmmaker Joshua Zeman and Dr. Michael Laitman discuss film and storytelling in the global era.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Joshua Zeman: I thought What the Bleep Do We Know!? was really an amazing, amazing film for me because here you have film doing something slightly different. It’s not talking about reaching the plane of, for example, the American Dream. There it’s about reaching some kind of both chemical and spiritual happiness, and that would be the dream. I thought that was really important because that’s just not something that you would see put out by mainstream society. Yet, it was completely embraced, and the public is smarter than the mainstream media thinks. It’s just that exchange: art verse commerce.

Michael Laitman: I think there’s a lot of introspection in society these days. People are still searching for a way to escape, but they want to avoid this introspection, and they’re afraid that, perhaps, the end result will not be in the favor of society. In other words, maybe society will discover that it’s not so good, not so successful, not so well-accepted worldwide. So, we have a problem here in terms of telling a story. So I think that films, such as Joshua is making or What the Bleep Do We Know!?… in other words, films from another direction. The public wants to acquire tools by which to approach life and examine it.

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Dr. Kalman Kaplan, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, and Co-Author of A Psychology of Hope: A Biblical Response to Tragedy and Suicide talks about the crisis of purposelessness with Dr. Michael Laitman.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Dr. Kalman Kaplan: If you’re disconnected from what you do, nothing gives you pleasure. When you’re involved in what you do, the smallest thing will give you pleasure. If you’re behind what you do, life has a purpose. You don’t have enough time to do everything you want to do.

Dr. Michael Laitman: But I think that in the end, the solution [ed. to the crisis of purposelessness] is in human relations. If the general atmosphere were positive, it would affect each of us and would give us a sensation of life, warmth, strength, and energy to live. It all depends on this black cloud that’s coming down on the world. And this is a problem. If we strengthen our good relations, we will certainly not see such incidents as suicide, depression, and all that.

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In “Types of Fear” Dr. Michael Laitman explains the source of a child’s fear of the dark, how to treat a child’s fear of the dark so that the child overcomes it, the ages children start feeling the fear of failure, the ages children start feeling the fear of not being accepted or not being the best among friends, recommendations for how to treat children’s social fears, and how to use reward and punishment in such situations.

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Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Adva Bar-Yehuda: This time I would like to start with a topic that interests many parents, a child’s fear of the dark. A child enters a room and says, “I am afraid” and wants his mommy. How did he learn to be afraid of the dark?

Michael Laitman: Aren’t you afraid?

Adva Bar-Yehuda: Not like my son.

Michael Laitman: There’s no such thing, everyone is afraid of the dark, it depends on the type of darkness. As we discussed on the previous program, fear is the actual foundation of our traits. It is a trait that we shouldn’t eliminate, but rise above it. Fear evolves from fear of this world to fear of the next world, fear that relates to Divinity, that we are not realizing ourselves. So fear of the dark is the most fundamental of all fears, the very first one.

Eli Vinokur: Why is it the most basic fear of all? What is it about the dark that makes it so?

Michael Laitman: Darkness is creation itself.

Eli Vinokur: Creation is darkness?

Michael Laitman: Creation is darkness, yes, “Forming Light and creating darkness.” What is creation? Beria (creation) comes from the word Bar (outside), meaning outside of the Creator, and this is what we are afraid of. Meaning, subconsciously, we are afraid of being outside, like a child is afraid of being far from his mother. So fear of the dark is actually fear of spiritual darkness, a lack of the Light, the absence of the Creator, my origin. And I can complement it only by developing the feeling, awareness, understanding, and His revelation from within the darkness.

We should understand that the fear of darkness is essential, necessary, and we should not wipe it out because if we did, we would not want to emerge from it and advance toward the Light.

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In “Fears & Anxiety – The Source of Fear,” Dr. Michael Laitman discusses the various types of fears people have, their source, the growing abundance of fears in our era and why they’re necessary, why children are afraid, the kinds of social influence and education required to alleviate children’s fears, and Kabbalah’s advice for how to use fear to draw the greatest benefit for oneself and others.

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Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Adva Bar-Yehuda: I heard you say that fear develops the person. I admit that I found that very surprising. I searched and did not find it in the literature…

Michael Laitman: The issue is not fear itself but how we relate to it. Envy, hatred, lust, honor, adultery, any type of trait we may have inside, the agreeable ones and the and the not so agreeable ones, and the terrible ones, we can manage them correctly and well, since nothing was created purposelessly or to harm us, but so we would manage it properly.

Therefore, if we can manage something as basic as fear, without destroying anything, but by connecting it to a person correctly, we will suddenly see that just as people are, without changing or diminishing anything, we elevate a person over his fear. He becomes as high as the fear. Then, if he rises above it, he begins to see his fear through the now healthy and confident eyes—why he used to be afraid, for what purpose, where it came from, what it gave him, what it is giving me now that I have risen above it, am I lying to myself or not. See what an expanse he opens for himself, what depth he sees in creation and in himself.

That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah says that there is nothing bad, we just need to know how to use it. Therefore, with all the phobias and all the great problems that surface in our generation, we only need to work correctly.

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Michelle LaFountaine, sports broadcaster and anchor on ESPN English News, talks with Dr. Michael Laitman about unfair competition in sports.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Michele LaFountaine: [There is] a sense of anger [among my colleagues], I think, at athletes [who use steroids and all other kinds of drugs] because competition should be fair and to have an unfair advantage is cheating, basically. And so, yes, I think all of us would love it that this stops.

Michael Laitman: I think that there is a problem in general. Say, you are stronger than me, another person is taller than me, and another person is quicker than me, we are naturally different. So what are those achievements? Of course, if you were born strong and I was born weak, from the very beginning, you will be more successful in sports and I will not. There is no competition between people here. We have to understand that we cannot compete physically because we are not born the same.

The competition between us has to be in what makes us human, that in each of us there is an ability to be equal to each other, and only there can we compete. And this is only the way we bond above our egos. There is where we can be equal because this is not given to us naturally. Naturally, we are completely selfish and if we rise above our nature, then we can say, “Okay, show us how much of a hero you are. Yes, how much you can be more than others.” But physically, of course, it is natural, I didn’t choose it. “I want to be Schwarzenegger, I want to be this and that.” It’s unfair to begin with. There are 50,000 kids looking at one hero who was born big and strong.

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Hank Sheinkopf, political public affairs & governmental affairs consultant for over 30 years, talks with Dr. Michael Laitman about the financial crisis, its causes and possible solutions.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Michael Laitman: Over the years it’s as if we’ve taken ourselves out of nature. It’s as if we control the plants, minerals, and animals, and we’re not controlled by them. We’re forgetting that we are inside nature; we are under these laws. We don’t know what these laws are, but we’re affected by them. And now we’re in a situation that we are in a bubble inside nature, not outside of it, and that bubble runs by a law, which is a law of reciprocity, of mutual consideration. Everything has to be in harmony, and by doing whatever we want, we’re creating disharmony.

Hank Sheinkopf: There is disharmony. Disharmony by definition is not just spiritual disharmony, but human beings make up the universe, and when they behave in inappropriate fashions that do not meet what they’re supposed to be doing, in fact, they create the disharmony. So you could say, of course, that there’s relevance to it. The question is how you take that and put it into practical terms: How you get the average person to understand?

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Steve Rubel, Senior Vice-President in Edelman Communications, the world’s largest PR firm, talks with Dr. Michael Laitman about technology, business and profit in an interconnected world.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Steve Rubel: There’s always going to be something new that comes around that’s different than what it was. I mean the stuff I’m talking about now is very different than I was talking about six months ago or a year ago. So I also think that people now growing up don’t know what the world was like before the Internet. I mean I do, you do, but they’re different now, and I think that we have to take…. And I think also the impact of mobile devices is just beginning.

Host: We’re going to talk about mobile devices. Dr. Laitman, where is all this taking us?

Michael Laitman: To throwing away all the phones, very simple. Because in the end, say after we have so many cars, where are we driving with our cars? – Into traffic jams. Where are we going to get with our phones or with computers? Into jams, too. It’s all going to jam because something more internal is missing. Technology is evolving only to bring us to a certain goal, a goal that exists in nature, and the goal is for us to rise above corporeality, to be connected in thoughts and desires to one mechanism, to one system. And if you get to that, then there’s no need for communicating through these devices.

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Caroline Adams Miller, life coach, speaker, and practitioner of positive psychology talks with Dr. Michael Laitman about goal-setting and fixing the connections among people.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Caroline Adams Miller: What has increasingly been found is that the happiest people have vibrant social networks; they work hard at cultivating relationships with other people. So it’s the togetherness, the bringing people together that brings people the most joy.

Michael Laitman: Do you teach them that if they want to be happy, they have to start connecting well to each other, or if you’re happy, then you will connect well to each other? Which comes first?

Caroline Adams Miller: It’s bidirectional; it’s bidirectional. People who have the goal of connecting with other people are happier, and happier people connect with other people. So it’s a circle; it’s on a continuum. And if you start somewhere in that process, you will gain all the benefits.

Michael Laitman: Do I need to connect to people? And what if I have a hard time doing that because of my nature?

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Dr. Gary Marcus, director of the NYU Infant Center, Professor of Psychology at NYU, editor of the Norton Psychology Reader, and author of 3 books on the development of the mind, talks with Dr. Michael Laitman about evolution, free choice, selfishness and education.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Michael Laitman: School should not only turn children into engineers, or physicians, or economists, or maybe lawyers. First of all, they have to come out with values toward their environment, and here is where we run up against a problem that is not really up to the teachers.

Gary Marcus: I totally agree with that. I think part of teaching children about the broader picture is really to understand the limits of their own minds. We don’t really teach them about what it is to be a human being, or the limits of the human mind, the ways in which we can be selfish…

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Moby, musician, singer-songwriter and DJ, talks with Dr. Michael Laitman about human interactions and music.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Moby: Music often times is the embodiment of spirit, because you can’t touch spirit. And it drives us, as humans, crazy because we like things we can touch. I like being able to say “chair” and “shoe” and “fake apple.” There’s comfort in identifying and labeling, but the universe cannot be identified; the universe cannot be labeled.

Michael Laitman: You’re right in that music, of all human engagements, of all that we build and create in our world, music is the most spiritual. It is the most sublime. It’s something really existing not even in sounds because there are no sounds. There’s a kind of special harmony to it that exists in nature beyond the sounds. When we perceive a little bit of that harmony and clothe it in notes and kind of drink a tiny sip of it, it’s truly beyond and above any corporeal expression, beyond frequencies.

Kabbalah explains where these forces come from, how I perceive them, why I understand them the way I do, why through all kinds of means and pretty limited means I create those sounds that I hear; not in my ear. But before we can visualize music within us, there is a kind of program, a harmony that is depicted in our brain regardless of our hearing, regardless of notes, of sounds. And we process it down to notes, down to certain sounds, in a certain order that is bounded by time and movement, and we turn it into music. But before that, it’s something that exists on a degree that is above us.

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John St. Augustine, host of Oprah Radio’s John St. Augustine Show and author of Living an Uncommon Life and Every Moment Matters, talks with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman about the growing dissatisfaction with life that a lot of people face, and how to bring a solution to this problem.

Here’s an extract from the conversation:

Host: How do you get people to really connect?

John St. Augustine: You listen to shows like this. I am serious. It’s like going to the gym and working out; you have to do it over and over again. I believe at some point in our lives, either you push yourself towards it, or the universe will push you towards it. You’ll have a break – an illness, a divorce, a loss in business, a death in your family – and all of sudden, the ego takes a hit and you say, “Wait a minute, maybe something else is out there that I didn’t realize”?

Host: Dr. Laitman, do you care to comment?

Michael Laitman: We find it very difficult today. As John said correctly, the new technologies that were so trendy and so appealing in the last decade, computers, now iPhones, and whatever else; today, we see in advance that it is not going to satisfy us. We become experienced that it is going to be over soon.

Host: What is the answer?

Michael Laitman: The answer: There is nothing drawing me forward and pulling me. We have to search for a new goal, but a goal that will not be like previous goals…

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A New Generation of Children Knows Much More
than Those Who Are 20 Now

Our generation is very special. Today, children aren’t just cleverer and more sophisticated than their parents, they possess inner wisdom about life. They don’t want to experience what we have already experienced. They know it all in advance, and have already rejected it. Thus, our generation is the generation of crisis. It’s just the beginning. Very significant changes are waiting for us in the future.

An absolutely different civilization is growing up, one of absolutely different people, in their attitude toward the world, life, themselves and others. Read the Full Talk>>>

Related Material:
* Video Clips of Talks and Interviews with Rav Michael Laitman, PhD

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L. Novozhenov: You have said that a person, who is in balance with the laws of nature, does not get sick. This person doesn’t die either? If one doesn’t get sick, means that one doesn’t die?

M. Laitman: Death is not the consequence of an illness. Death is a natural period of time that exists for the purpose of limiting the carrying out of man’s mission on a certain stage of his egoistic development. There are different periods and types of death. Someday we will be able to speak about these states in more detail. But these periods do not depend on illnesses. One can be healthy, but gradually animalistic egoism burns out. Why does a person die? He exhausts his egoism. Man no longer wishes to keep fulfilling it.

L. Novozhenov: If you want to live a long life—be an egoist!

M. Laitman: Let’s say so. Old age comes when egoism burns out, it wants less and less. But why? It is a mistake to think that in order to continue to live it is necessary to have a large egoism. Man’s disappointment and decay happen because he no longer can fulfill himself egoistically and naturally. Egoistic desires cannot be satisfied through natural means. A person buys a car, an apartment, it doesn’t matter what—at most one week later his pleasure from the things that he has acquired disappears, everything becomes plain. Or a person was hungry, he finally reaches food, he swallows several pieces, and that’s it, his pleasure disappears. In order to extend the pleasure, man must switch to something else.

When pleasure enters the desire egoistically, it nullifies it, and pleasure stops being perceived as pleasure. Egoism deadens itself. This is the secret and the cause of our death. If, when acting this way, we would not draw death near, then we would experience immortality.

What does “immortality” mean? We would not perceive the death of our biological body as the death of our own “I.” Man would have a sensation of the eternal flow of information, matter, his own “I.” Even before the death of the body we would stop relating ourselves to it. Because “I” is not a biological body. “I” is a different, spiritual one. One can replace all of the organs of the body, but my “I” will remain my “I.” A body is nothing but a jacket, a machine. Once we used to think that the “I” is a person’s heart. Now we think that maybe it’s the mind, the consciousness. Soon we will be able to replace people’s heads, and it will be the same, we will not discover anything new. The person’s “I” remains.

When the desire becomes altruistic it will not fade away under the influence of the pleasure that is being received, and man will be able to perceive immortality. One who studies Kabbalah attains this state, he ascends to the level of the eternal flow of information, relates his “I” to this eternal flow. And the death of the body is like a change of shirt. more…

Society’s Approval Is the Greatest Award – Rav Michael Laitman, PhD interviewed by writer, journalist, and popular Russian TV anchor, Lev Novozhenov, Sept. 5, 2006.

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Download the Interview: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (WMV)

BLOOMBERG TV (October 24, 2007): Mike Schneider, on Bloomberg’s “Night Talk,” interviewed Rav Michael Laitman, PhD investigating Kabbalah from a variety of angles. The interview was composed of 3 parts, each detailing a specific angle on Kabbalah:

Part 1: The Mystery Surrounding Kabbalah
• Kabbalah – What Is It?
• An Ancient Wisdom that Predates Judaism
• Kabbalah and Judaism – What Is their Connection (if any)?
• Is there One Individual Figure Who Occupies a Position of Leadership in Kabbalah?
• Prophecy – Is there such a thing in Kabbalah?

Part 2: The Buzz Surrounding Kabbalah
• Madonna in Kabbalah – What’s the Deal?
• Ethics – Why We Don’t Need Them
• Science and Kabbalah – Are they Competitive or Complementary?
• Kabbalah Involves No Rituals of Any Kind
• Kabbalah Is a Method. Is it a Philosophy as Well?
• You Don’t Need to be Trained in Traditional Judaism Before Studying Kabbalah

Part 3: The Modern World Surrounding Kabbalah
• World Problems. Their Causes. Their Solutions.
• Improve Personal Behavior, Relationships and Family Connections
• Terrorism – the Source of the Problem (Is the Same Source as Every Problem)
• Philosophers and Kabbalah
• What Is the Main Change that Happens to You When You Study Kabbalah?

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FOX NEWS RADIO (October 24, 2007): Todd Starnes, from the radio show “A Few Moments With,” interviewed Rav Michael Laitman, PhD on

* What is Kabbalah?
* Is Kabbalah is a religion?
* Is it possible to study Kabbalah if you are a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish?
* How connected are celebrities to Kabbalah?
* Why are people getting attracted to Kabbalah in our world today?
* What can the average American family living in the suburbs get from Kabbalah?
* What is fun about studying Kabbalah?

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COURIER POST (October 20, 2007): Spirituality columnist Kim Mulford interviewed Rav Michael Laitman, PhD for her Saturday column “Keeping the Faith.” As well as the usual ice-breaking questions about Kabbalah that Rav Laitman often gets asked by journalists, like whether it is a religion or mysticism, whether someone practising a religion can also study Kabbalah, and whether the Kabbalah Rav Laitman teaches is connected to the Kabbalah Madonna studies… Kim Mulford also asked unique questions about the experience of Kabbalah; what it’s like to connect to the Creator and how this is related to its dissemination.

Kim Mulford: What is it like to connect with the Creator?

Rav Laitman: It’s a personal connection. It’s as if you stop caring for yourself and you experience everybody else’s thoughts and cares. You become connected and related and you feel beyond. You don’t just feel it, you really are beyond time and place and motion. You become eternal in a way, because you have eternal perception. It gets you to a point where you just want to give and give.

Kim Mulford: Is that why you want to share this with other people, because you want to give them this same experience?

Rav Laitman: Yes, of course. You experience the harmony of nature and reality and you want to share it. Also, it’s not just a privilege. It’s really an obligation, because the whole of humanity must come to that point where all of us experience that harmony. Actually, the crisis we are experiencing today isn’t coming for no reason. It’s there to prompt us to think about life, to see how we can build our harmony with it. more…

Click Here to Read the Full Article in the Courier Post Online

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