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Film In The Global Era

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[audio:http://flash1.na.kab.tv:8080/eng/shows/crossroads/mp3/eng_mayevent_crossrd_joshua-zeman_10min_2009-05-20.mp3]

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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Finding Meaning In Life – If It’s Not Found Positively, It’ll Be Found Negatively

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[audio:http://flash1.na.kab.tv:8080/eng/shows/crossroads/mp3/eng_mayevent_crossrd_harmon-kaplan_26min_2009-05-20.mp3]

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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Fear – Types Of Fear

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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Fears And Anxiety – The Source Of Fear

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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Sports And Competition

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[audio:http://flash1.na.kab.tv:8080/eng/shows/crossroads/mp3/eng_mayevent_crossrd_michelle-lafontaine_10min_2009-05-20.mp3]

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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