Comment: Living conditions in some Chinese villages are very harsh. In some they do not even know what a toilet is. Like in old times it is just a hole, and that is it.

A young man who grew up in a village became a millionaire and decided to help his fellow villagers. He built houses with warm toilets and bathrooms for them. Something unexpected occurred. People began quarreling over who was entitled to real estate and who was not. Moreover, they started demanding bigger houses from the businessman, since their families had grown. The millionaire did not expect this and almost fell into depression.

My Response: He simply did not understand that human egoism is structured a little differently. It is such a disappointment.

Question: Can people really not suddenly calm down at some point, get a house, a warm toilet, and live like that?

Answer: No, because existence determines consciousness. You corrected their living and thereby changed their consciousness. Their consciousness became a thousand egoistic levels greater, and that is it—people can no longer cope with it, and now they will gnaw at each other, and kill each other.

Question: So the millionaire let the devil out of the box?

Answer: Yes. People will now go to court: this one’s toilet is warmer, that one’s bathtub is bigger, and so on.

Question: So they lived calmly in harsh conditions and they lived their lives that way?

Answer: You cannot even imagine how harsh those conditions are! Even in Beijing itself I saw horrible little rooms! A person sleeps on a bed that is directly on the ground. And it is cold there in winter. In continental China, the cold is like in Siberia. In the room there is a small TV set, a bed on the floor, and a little bag with something, maybe vegetables. And that is everything he has.

Question: So the conclusion is that one should not change the conditions that are familiar to a person?

Answer: Under no circumstances! Conditions must be changed very carefully, only to the extent of the population’s development and only to the extent of a correct ideology.

Question: So such a leap should not be made?

Answer: It must not. According to Kabbalah, progress must go hand in hand with education, with inner consciousness. Otherwise, nothing good will come of it. In the end, they will invent atomic bombs. So what if everyone has bread? They will feel even more unhappy.

Question: How can a person be prepared for this transition so that he receives a bathroom, a warm toilet, and good conditions?

Answer: Why does he need this? In order to start looking askance at his neighbor? If he felt his existence as normal and accepted life as it was, why would he need more? And now his wife demands a wardrobe! The closet is bursting with clothes, but she needs more; so now you need to buy a second closet.

Question: So the story of the goldfish is always relevant?

Answer: Absolutely. Only the development of a person’s should determine one’s material status.

Question: Get us out of this impasse. How can a person live well and happily? What is needed for this? You said that progress is not needed for a person to be happy.

Answer: Not at all. Humanity has been given more or less normal conditions, and in 100 years the world’s population has increased from two billion at the beginning of the 20^th century to eight billion at the beginning of the 21^st century. And what will happen next? Although they say that now this is already beginning to decline. But why is it decreasing? Because people do not want to reproduce further; they think only about themselves: “I would rather create such conditions that I will be cared for, I will be buried, and everything will end with me; ‘Let there be a flood, I don’t need children.’”

Comment: People also justify this by saying that they do not want to give birth to children in this terrible world full of suffering.

My Response: They are not thinking about children! They are thinking about themselves. Why should I invest in children? In the past I had to do this because later the children would support me, take care of me, and I would be happy to see my grandchildren. And now this is gone. Egoism has grown. It does not need these grandchildren, it needs nothing. Until the last day of my life, I will be fine, and then they will bury me. I will pay now so that later I will be buried, and everything will be fine—that is it. Hospitals and funeral houses, that is all.

Question: Still progress exists. How can a person be happy today?

Answer: This progress is not good. It confuses a person, pushes him into some, forgive me, warm toilet, and the person exists in this warm toilet his entire life. He thinks this is a blessing. And besides this, he has nothing more. Nothing!

Question: Let us get back to the Chinese millionaire. How can things be done so that people feel good? Suppose he had such an intention. What should he have done? And in general, what should be done so that people feel good?

Answer: I would advise him to open schools. It is a village of, probably, twenty to thirty thousand people, no less. Give children the opportunity to study. “They have finished their school education? Yes. And now, I will build a university next to the school.”

Question: What should a child understand and feel in school?

Answer: He should learn to be an integral element in the world. That is, he should know nature, the world, how it turns, and how he should turn together with it in order to be an integral element connected with nature, without violating its harmony. This is what he should be taught in school, and then at the university as well. This is a long process.

Question: Is this the main thing, in your opinion?

Answer: Yes, because it is necessary to change a man.

Comment: So I change not the world, but, on the contrary, myself.

My Response: It is precisely education in the right environment that changes a person. And then we will see a completely different generation of, for example, of Chinese people.

Question: And what about the world? How can good be brought to the world?

Answer: In the same way, there is nothing else. Only education, and only to the extent that they are willing to accept it.

Question: Education toward the same integral person?

Answer: Of course. Absolutely!

Question: So that a person feels his or her connection with nature?

Answer: Yes, a person should feel it consciously, and understand that he must consciously move toward this. And this must be obligatorily instilled from early childhood.

Question: If, for example, we direct humanity onto such a path—integrality, mutual connection, understanding that it exists within nature—can progress then be built on this basis?

Answer: What is this progress?! When spaceships plow the expanses of the universe? What for?! All progress will be in relationships between people and in penetrating into the depths of integral nature. There a person will find everything. He does not need to leave his village. He soars in the universe! He understands and feels what is happening around him. Why should he leave the village to go somewhere to a neighboring city?

Question: Does a person feel that he is truly happy then?

Answer: Of course! He understands where he exists, what he lives for, who created him, for what purpose, and how he fulfilled this purpose, how with its help he revealed the universe for himself. He feels it in a complete way. He has no problems at all, not even the transition from life to death. He feels himself eternal, perfect—like that what he attains. What could be better? And this is instead of becoming a modern city-dwelling Chinese person! You must provide a person with inner comfort! You will not be able to provide him with external comfort anyway!

Question: Is this the main progress—to provide inner comfort to a person?

Answer: Yes. Because in external comfort everyone will only look at one another.

Inner comfort is when everyone achieves balance with himself, with nature, and with the Creator. Then nothing is frightening to him. This is what every person wants. And by providing someone with corporeal things more or less, you will only generate revolutions, squabbles, and so on.

In short, the millionaire has made a mistake.
[259715]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/29/20

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Question: How is it possible to hold on so firmly to the goal during a descent that the descent can be used for ascent so that I am the one descending and it is not the Creator casting me down?

Answer: I must govern this descent and decide for myself that I need to descend. I prepare myself in advance for the descent, the way one prepares for a surgical operation.

What will help me not “lose my head” during the descent, not to fall under the power of desires? It is connection with the goal so that I feel the descent without losing myself, but instead rise. By myself, I cannot guarantee this.

Therefore, I need the right environment that will support me when I lose control over myself as a result of excessively strong desires.

When the spiritual embryo reaches the time to be born, that is, to move to the level of nurturing, how can it connect these two states, if at birth it loses its previous level, turning “head downward”?

And how does it manage from this state of complete loss, “head downward,” not to become a miscarriage, but to be born into a new world and adhere to the Creator at a higher level?

For this purpose, different Reshimot of Aviut and Hitlabshut (from desire and from light) (1, 0) are given. As a result, I can always connect to two levels at the same time. This is what helps me to be born.
[16735]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/10, Baal HaSulam, Preface “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot“

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Question: What is the logic in faith above reason?

Answer: In faith above reason, there is the logic of the upper. The logic of the lower is when I look at the world through my own mind and feelings, and thus exist. But in this way, I move along a plane only on my own level, and I can never rise above it.

This is called faith below reason or faith within reason, and faith, the quality of bestowal, is not above reason and does not determine my actions.

In faith above reason, it is as if I remove my glasses from my eyes and see nothing but the upper. I am ready to join the upper in everything He wishes.

I want to acquire His feeling and His knowledge through the force of adhesion with Him. In this action, I am ready to completely annul myself, to part with my own “settings.”

When I attain His degree, I already have His faith (His quality of bestowal) and knowledge that are higher than what I had before.

By the force of greater bestowal, I also acquire upper reason. This is called faith above the previous reason. In this way, I attain a higher degree.

Therefore, those who walk by faith above reason actually add reason, because they acquire new vessels of perception, since reason, attainment, the light of Hochma spreads only within the light of Hassadim (bestowal, faith).

And those who cannot rise above their reason within an animalistic mind cling to the same state in which they are, want nothing more, and are unable to annul their opinion before a higher degree, before the teacher; they attain nothing and remain animals.

They may be clever and intelligent within the limits of their own reason, but they will not even understand that the upper wisdom exists. After all, the upper wisdom always seems as though it has no foundation beneath it.
[12710]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/10, Rashbi, Zohar for All, Vol. 4, Shmot, “And a New King Arose – 1,” p.82

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Question: How does a Kabbalist educate himself? How did you do this when you began the spiritual path with your teacher RABASH? What was the biggest problem in self-education?

Answer: The biggest problem is to determine that it is the Creator who is educating you and that you must be in constant contact with Him.

It is very difficult to remain in this thought all the time, to not detach from it. If you grasp it, do not let go of it, and constantly subconsciously feel the connection with the Creator, then this is where the proper education begins from.

Question: Why does the Creator not educate us by example, as is customary in our world?

Answer: Your entire life consists of examples of the Creator’s education. If you are in any state, at every moment in time, begin to tell yourself: “This I receive from the Creator. What does He want from me? How should I react, how should I act?” That will be a great achievement.

Question: But a person cannot understand what the Creator wants from him. I can say that everything is from the Creator, but it is impossible to say for what purpose He did this.

Answer: This is not important. First, say that everything comes from the Creator, constantly ask what He wants from this, until the Creator reveals Himself and shows you what He truly wants. This is precisely the raising of MAN.

You do not have to detach from the Creator; He constantly holds you by the “scruff of the neck.” And you develop your sensitivity. If suddenly He stops holding you, you immediately turn around: “Where did He go, where is He?” This is a pleasant state. Why run away from it?
[234763]
From Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/3/18

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