October 22, 2024
October 26, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Daily Kabbalah Lesson
Question: Do we correct the world at the same time as we correct ourselves?
Dr. Laitman: Yes. We correct ourselves and of course, in the correction of each and every one of us we correct the whole world. This is because it is a closed system, and as such, you can only correct yourself through your participation in every single person. Moreover, through your correction, you already prepare corrections in all of the souls, because you are integrated with everyone.
Therefore, if you correct yourself, then that corrected part of yourself exists in all the other souls and, as a result, they already begin to feel something.
This is because there is no single “I.” “I” is integrated in everyone, and there is no “you”—“you” is integrated in everyone. So if, let’s say, a million people correct themselves, and you are integrated with everyone, you therefore start sensing that same part from those little million people who are incorporated in you. How do you sense it? You suddenly get thoughts and desires about things you’ve never ever dreamed of previously, things you’ve never been attracted to.
That is the interconnectedness. We are in the same system of Adam ha Rishon (The First Man), we can’t escape it, but it’s broken, and that’s why those who correct themselves sentence themselves and the entire world to a scale of merit.
Source: Dr. Michael Laitman, in the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee): WMV | MP3 (55 min)
Image: "new world-4" by rené van haeften.
June 25, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Events
Question: A student from the Education Center is saying: You talk about unity and the need to disseminate the wisdom, and that we also have to study it. But how can I connect with someone? I never did it, ever before. I always felt separate. I couldn’t connect with anyone.
Dr. Michael Laitman: I’m not saying you need to do it now. I’m just saying we have to start explaining that our world is going through a crisis in our attitude toward the world, meaning toward humanity. Our attitude toward humanity has to change.
Through recent studies and everything that is happening to us, we are beginning to see that we are all interconnected, whether we want to be or not. Look at what is happening in countries, between countries, in commerce and industry, in the economy, all over the world, with the climate, etc. Everything is becoming more and more connected, except for the connections between us, and that is the crisis. The crisis is in our perception of where we are.
We are all connected, but everyone is only out for themselves, which is protectionism. What is going to happen if you are connected, but each is pulling his own way? That is today’s world. If they want to have a good life, and that is what the world is thinking about, then they have no choice, but to change their attitudes. The only question is: How much suffering and problems will it take? Because Nature will run its course no matter what attitude we have towards it.
Imagine that you are tightly connected with others and you are acting against this connection, and the whole world is doing the same: What kind of situation can you bring yourself to? You will reach a state where you will not be able to feed yourselves, and provide yourselves with the most basic necessities. That is written in the Kabbalistic books.
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May 4, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The wisdom of Kabbalah views reality as a single entity, with humans representing the highest level of existence, in the sense that we possess the most intense and most narcissistic desire to receive. It is now time to outline what humanity can do to shift the negative trend, considering that we are irreversibly interdependent and interconnected as we can clearly observe through the daily events of the deepening global crisis. And while it is beyond the scope of this article to outline a detailed “bailout” plan for humanity’s present and future crises, it is worthwhile to point out some solutions that we believe could be implemented on a broad scale, and if done right, resolve most of our problems.
How Collectivism and Globality Relate to Becoming Like the Creator
Although humanity has little experience operating as a global system, since we are used to defining ourselves as individuals or members of factions of society, from family to nation-state, the current situation necessitates that we expand our view. Most of the political and financial leaders in the world already acknowledge this requirement.
Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, for example, addressed this issue in a message to the first Annual Interdependence day on September 12, 2004: “A new era is upon us. In the future…the world will be transformed…by the forces of globalization and the growing interdependence of the world’s peoples. …the more interdependent we become, the more decisions have to be taken not by one nation state alone, but by many, acting together. Unless it is properly managed, this process can entail a ‘democratic deficit,’ as decision makers are further removed from and less accountable to the people whose lives are affected. So the challenge for all of us is to manage our interdependence in ways that bring people in, rather than shutting them out. Citizens need to think and act globally, so as to influence global decisions” (The Interdependence Handbook: Looking Back, Living the Present, Choosing the Future, edited by Sondra Myers and Benjamin R. Barber).
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April 30, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Connection: Is Humanity Aware of Its Ties or Not?
Unlike all other elements in Nature, human beings have the power to change the environment. This gives us something that no other creature has: freedom of choice. Put differently, human beings can choose to be like the Creator—giving—and acquire the power and cognizance that come with it, by adopting the law of yielding self-interest before the interest of the environment. Or they can remain as they were born—self-centered, with limited understanding of Nature, and paying the price for their errant ways throughout history. But to choose to be like the Creator, which is synonymous with Nature, people must know what the term, “Creator,” means and how they can become like it.
The whole of reality consists of a single, broken entity, called “Adam’s broken soul” or “the broken soul,” and that the term, “soul,” refers to a desire to receive with an intention to bestow. When Kabbalists say that something is broken, they are not referring to any physical shattering, but to the tearing of the links between all parts of the soul, the collective desire that constitutes our reality. This tearing occurs when the pieces in the soul begin to operate in their own interest rather than in the interest of the system. It is as if cells in an organism begin to operate for themselves, causing the organism to die and disintegrate.
Yet, unlike organisms, the soul cannot disintegrate because it is a single desire. So while the links are there, we can enjoy the benefits of the connection. Healthy cells benefit from each other in an organism, supporting each other’s existence, but cancer cells compete with each other for blood and nourishment, thus constantly harming each other. In the case of humanity, we are not even aware that we are connected, which prevents us from trying to connect in the right manner.
How Good and Bad Behavior Spread Like Viruses
But regardless of our awareness, we are very much connected. On September 10, 2009, The New York Times published a story titled, “Are Your friends Making You Fat?” by Clive Thompson. In his story, Thompson describes a fascinating experiment performed in Framingham, Massachusetts. In the experiment, certain details of the lives of some 15,000 people were documented and registered periodically over more than fifty years. This allowed researchers Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a medical doctor and sociologist at Harvard, and James Fowler, at the time a Harvard political science graduate student, to create a map of interconnections and examine the long-term impact that people had on one another.
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April 29, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Development of Globalism Brings With It Global Interconnection
On the face of it, the 20th century seems like the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of desires. Every single realm of human engagement was revolutionized (and often re- or counter revolutionized) during this century. Indeed, the pace of change during this century has so increased, life has begun to change at an exponential pace.
But even more astonishing than the pace of progress was the pace of globalization. The process of becoming a single economic system that began with the Age of Discovery and colonialism culminated in the 20th century. At the century’s end, virtually no country remained completely self-sufficient.
In the year 1900, the world population was approximately 1.6 billion. By the end of the century, it was in excess of six billion. In 1900, the average top speed of a car was seven mph. A hundred years later, even typical family cars could reach 130 mph. Moreover, the primary means of transport had changed from carriages, bicycles, and walking to driving. By the turn of the 20th century, the majority of walking was done on treadmills at home, in parks, or in fitness gyms, and the same could be said for cycling.
For overseas journeys, jetliners have completely replaced passenger ships, and travel time between continents had dropped from several weeks to several hours (albeit for shipment of goods, the primary means of transport is still cargo ships rather than planes). And (quite literally) above all, to help ships and cars navigate, to alert them of bad weather, and to survey enemy territory, we have positioned satellites in space.
With respect to technology, life has changed not only in how fast and how comfortably we travel, but also in the instruments we use in our daily lives. Such devices as telephones (and later cellular phones), light bulbs, radios, televisions, and computers were either unheard oforwerejust making their debut inthe early 1900s. At home, life has never been easier. Washing machines, clothes dryers, refrigerators, freezers, vacuum cleaners, electric stoves, and (since the 1970s) microwave ovens, all have become household appliances.
Alas, the technological advances of the 20th century were (and still are) used detrimentally with devastating results: war, occupation, oppression, and tyranny became exponentially more effective and destructive, resulting in two world wars and several genocides within the time frame of a single century.
The two world wars changed the world map dramatically and ended the age of colonialism (with some exceptions such as India, which gained independence from England in 1947, or Algeria and other nations under french rule, which gained their own in the 1950s and 1960s). This allowed numerous new countries to experience independence for the first time, though the gap in wages, infrastructure, and standard of living between the powerful post-empires and the newly liberated countries not only remained, but even widened.
In the 20th century, science had drastically changed the way we view the world. Einstein’s Special and General Theory of Relativity, followed by the advent of quantum mechanics, have revolutionized the way scientists perceive the world, paving the way for numerous innovations from lasers to microprocessors and everything derived from them. Genetics was significantly developed, the structure of DNA was determined, and by the turn of the century, the first mammal, Dolly, the sheep, was cloned.
In astronomy, the Big Bang theory was proposed and the age of the universe was determined at roughly 14 billion years. Also, our observation capabilities have been dramatically improved with the 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
All these and many more 20th century innovations and shifts made the past century a landmark of unique position in history.
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