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Dr. Michael Laitman

A New Life

Talk #30 Relationships – Interpersonal Communication

July 2, 2012

Oren: Hello and thank you for joining us in our series A New Life. We have Dr. Michael Laitman in our studio.

Dr. Laitman: Hello everyone.

Oren: We have Orit Dolev, a couple therapist and a personal trainer. We are here to speak about our lives, the connections we have with the people around us, and how we can make this life better. Nitzah, please lead us into our subject today.

Nitzah: So, before we get into the subject today, maybe a brief explanation about this slight variation we want to do in the format of the show so things will be clear.

First of all, one of the principles that we want to emphasize is that we are talking to an audience that wants to make a change. An audience that is here because they have a desire. They are having a tough time and want to improve the quality of their lives. And they come to training, therapy or something. We are not dealing with a lack of desire here, rather a place where there is a very clear desire and need for change. That is the first principle.

The second principle that we understood, is to bring attitudes and professionals from different sectors so we can build a process that will make it more sophisticated. And bring a technique from the roundtable that will help a person enhance their communication with others.

We understand that this is the most significant subject. If we manage to have good communication between us, if we have a good connection, then actually, we will understand that all the things we are dealing with and all our problems, we will learn to get along with them in a different way. If we had the correct communication, maybe we would even prevent some ahead of time. So, I think this is a different perspective. Even if we bring cases, it is just to show the phenomena and not for the case itself.

I want to go back to the question of individual communication. We understand it is very significant. There are many, many subjects here. One of the most significant subjects is paying attention. Listening. It is the basis for the beginning of communication. And in listening, at the level that we understand, we can see three different situations of paying attention.

First, there is paying attention to yourself, your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own urges. And attempting to understand what is going on there. The other, is listening to others. I try to understand the needs, desires, and thoughts of others. I try to listen to him not just in words, but also to feelings and to the interaction, the spirit, between us.

And there is wider listening. And then we call it global. It has many other elements inside. Energies. But I think that is a bit far off and we haven’t reached there yet.

We want to focus on paying attention and learn a bit about that place of listening to people. In order to listen to people, we have to acquire a certain attribute that we call, ‘empathy’. Empathy is identifying emotionally. I have to actually feel the other side. It is not enough to just listen to his words because research shows that only ten percent of communication is verbal. Thirty percent is in intonation; the sounds. And sixty percent is in the energy; everything around it.

So, to really pay attention to the other, a person has to develop himself. That is a very significant point. Now, why are we talking about all these things? Because we already understand from the roundtable that it is based on the subject of communication. We put down two sides or more, and we want to develop the subject of paying attention and communication.

So now from your perspective, in addition to the tools we already have, how do we listen in the relationship between couples?

Dr. Laitman: The inner significance is simple: That each one understands that he sees not the world himself, rather he sees himself in a true way and then the world appears ruined. And out of this view, he understands that he has to rise above everything that he sees and try to build a connection with no regard for how a certain person or phenomena appears. He must try to go into this connection in the most objective, non-dependent manner, with his own nature and without any previous opinion.

That is what we need to show people. How much they can profit from that. Even though my first urges are how to bend the whole world. And in that way, I see that I am not actually capable of doing anything; it won’t help me. It is the weakness of my ego. But, I can’t deal with my ego and I need to neutralize myself and really be a judge in a neutral way. And then in this way, to connect with the public.

If I want to build a good connection with the public that will last for a long time, then It is desirable if the public will also rise above itself and connect with me in an objective manner. And to the extent that each of us will not be able to hold on to this level above our nature, each of us will somehow forgive the other for sometimes falling, sometimes going up.

In other words, we have to bring people to a stage where they each come to a level where they are riding above their natural urges. In other words, above their ego. These are very difficult things because this is our nature. Here we see the first question. We have to open proof that if he acts through his ego it harms him. We have to provide him with support that if he works above his ego he will profit. We have to teach him how he is relating to people in a new way and he is inviting a response from them in accordance to the same level where they are both riding above their ego. Like we said previously, we go into compromising, rising above their ego, etc. They sacrifice. These things have to come with very strong proof because we are changing all the time. And that is why, every moment we have to think how we renew. Not every moment, but every day.

Psychologists know all these things. That all the time we have to give another bit and another bit to each patient. We have to think how we hold people on a small fire where they are always receiving support to be above their ego. To compromise. To sacrifice himself. To see others in this way and build himself an environment where everyone agrees with his attitude and everyone is trying. And then he has support from the environment. And then he checks himself against the environment and he sees, ‘I went into my tummy a bit. I have to come up a bit.’ He will receive new values from the environment that will maintain him. He will receive new examples of behaviour from the environment.

We have to give him all of these things in a constant influence of the new education.

Nitzah: Let us say we organized a roundtable for a couple. We would look at how a person in their relationship of two people start creating this discussion. How they start creating this better communication. Meaning, they really practice it as you said. ’I am out of myself. I move my thoughts. I move my feelings. I put all my criticism and judgemental things aside and I listen to the other side with my heart.’

Dr. Laitman: Throughout many years in our childhood and teens we learned how to behave from other people. We see this on kids very clearly. They are watching us and they do exactly what we do. They do the exact same. There is no way around it. That is how the child glues his entire environment to himself.

Here, let us say, we have to give an example to a couple. Very clear examples. Very effective for their change. Examples from people who are important to them. It can be huge media personas, movie stars, important people in the community or at work. It does not matter from where. For a woman, it is what is happening with her friends, the behaviour of the kids next door, or of the family next door. If we organize an environment like that, where they will maintain each other, or we bring a failing family to this environment where they talk about it, there is no question that there will be a change. But we will need to renew each time. Renew things. Because working against the ego is constant work.

Nitzah: You mean each time the subject of the table has to change?

Dr. Laitman: We may choose the subject according to the case that we are dealing with. But people will always need to be in an environment that provides them with a good example. And also explain to them what is good and what is bad.

Orit: Is this some mutual influence? Say, a family already arrived at the understanding that they have a problem. A communication problem. And they come to a group. They can influence it positively? Does only the group influence them or is there also influence from what they are bringing to the group?

Dr. Laitman: No. Because the group is at a different level. It has protection. It is protected from all those influences. I am talking about a group of a few corrected couples.

Oren: It can be couples that start from the age of zero?

Dr. Laitman: It could be. But let us say that we already have a facility where we correct. It will be a group of couples. We will need three or four couples that will come with all kinds of problems. They sit down in a circle and along with them there are, let us say, three psychologists or experts. Then we begin to open things up. We ask them, each time after we take an example from one of their behaviours or problems, we develop it, we open it to see what is happening. We see the motivations.

Afterwards we say, “Let us play in a different way, in a new way, the corrected way.” Let us see from the side how they play, what they need to do to arrive at it being the truth, and what others feel that see this behaviour from the side. What did those that played among us, ahead of us, feel? That played the happy family? How did they make this theatre for us? How they saw they had to sacrifice and cancel and bend down. And let them talk. Let them speak about what do we have to do so it will happen in our lives? And here, in a mutual manner, where we open things up to discussion. But It is mainly through the exercises we do in the group.

We watch from the side and these examples influence me. A person is influenced by others. Look what is happening. I do not know what percent we produce and sell. It is because they forced us. We live to be like others. So, let us learn to live the good life.

Orit: There are many courses in the market about some of the things you spoke about now. Play Back. Theatre Groups. How are we different?

Dr. Laitman: We are different in the fact that we teach people how to rise above their ego and to try to be separated from their ego. And instead of connecting with their own desire, to connect with the desire of others in a partial, certain manner. And in that, I will certainly, if I am capable of doing that, in an easy way. Let us say at work, the manager says to me, do this, this and that. if I give up my ego and rise above it, I take everything he said to me easily. And even with love.

I have to do the same things as for my child, for my baby, let us say. It wouldn’t be so hard for me to perform for my baby. But, because It is a stranger, it is suddenly difficult and impossible. It is the same thing here. There is a psychological problem. It is possible that I will work for the public. It could be my wife or my kids, that I am not devoted to, or kids in general, or at work, or at maintaining the laws that society demands of me, or the police. If I could rise above my ego and feel their desire, if I would provide for them like kids, then I wouldn’t get divorced, I wouldn’t be in fights at work and I wouldn’t be on a road where I want to run everyone over, etc. etc.

I need to learn simple things: How to hold myself above my nature. Humanity has been thinking of this for many years. This is nothing special. But there is a special method. This special method is creating an environment that is always obligating me to be that way. And the environment can be completely fake. It can be a theatre. And now, we are taking couples and building a new society from them. None of them are corrected, but we are pretending. This game of pretending, where we have a few couples against one couple each time, influences that couple.The influence of environment is clear to us. That is what we need.

Orit: So actually, I see in one of the previous shows you spoke about, us being like two balls that each of us has to make room for the other.

Dr. Laitman: That is the example these couples give me.

Orit: I understand on an intellectual level what you are saying. And we can perform it. But how does it deal with the emotion?

Dr. Laitman: I can understand it intellectually and not agree. But if they give me all kinds of examples in which I will participate emotionally, we play along with them. Let us say we are talking. We are talking according to the discussion that they ordered. But suddenly in the discussion, I have to rise above my ego. I have to get into unpleasant situations. They are purposely giving me exercises in which I have no choice. This means heaviness of the heart.

So, especially here, I have to receive support from them for love of the public and for the correct relations. And then each time that I receive examples from them, if they are people that I want to be connected to, if they are people I want to be in a connection with, I get strength from them. Strength for changing. And it works. And I really change. Habit becomes second habit. I begin to get used to relating to everything like that everywhere. And I see It is worth it for me; my ego is profiting from it. My ego is profiting. It is called bestowing in order to receive. It is worth it for me to do certain anti-egoistic acts in order to receive pleasure.

Is there anything that we do not do? We do not go to work? We do not do difficult things? We do not run around all day at home and everywhere? It is not against our ego? It is. Yes. Why? Because through this, we profit. It is the same thing here. We need to sacrifice because we earn something from it. We have to show them that they earn something from it. That is what we didn’t receive in our childhood. They said be a good kid. Lots of words. I didn’t receive an example. I saw that everyone treated everyone like crap. Give me an example of how I profit from good relations. They say, ‘you are sucker.’ And everything I wanted to be good, is a waste.

Orit: Let us say that a person wants to come to a course like this that you suggested. He wants to come, but he does not want us to talk to him about the nature of man. He just wants to do exercises. He just wants to play, to act.

Dr. Laitman: He has to act but along with that he has to understand what is happening here. He has to talk about it. Acting out of talking. We do not need to bring him a lecture with graphs and charts and everything. No. We are acting and we are pretending and through that we are conveying a psychological conversation. Self-clarification. It is called verifying. And after verifying, correction comes above it. From the bad will come good.

Nitzah: We are building all kind of processes like that: workshops for couples. Say, I am imagining there is an event of roundtables for couples. Each couple comes with a subject. Each can be a different subject. And actually, we want to organize an event like this for couples, where everyone goes through a personal process and there is also an environment. How do you see an event like this happening? It is the first time I am seeing it in front of me. Help us organize it properly.

Dr. Laitman: There is a problem. Around the roundtable there are 10 different people. Each has a problem with the others. They have to say their own problem with themselves. And they are sitting, couple, couple, couple. It is five couples. Each has a personal problem between them. And a problem with the others, accepting their opinion, etc. And the problem is even more complicated to accept their opinion toward the women and toward the men in the same couple. So, there are many, many connections in this complicated system.

Therefore, in advance, I would say, we have to make a program that is very managed. Because otherwise, they will lose themselves. Because no one is the same as the other. If toward the person, we are talking about his ego, (In every couple, because there is already a couple. There is already a system of two.) it is impossible to compare each to the other or a couple to another couple. There are additional problems here. Many additional problems.

But what do we start from? Like with the roundtable, we say, ‘now we are not talking about the gaps between us, we are taking about what we have in common.’ Here it is the same thing. Inside the couples and between the couples, what can be in common between us? That is what we are talking about.

We are not talking about how we connect between the couples, all together. We are not coming to a society where all the couples start mixing between them. What we want from them, what they will learn, is how each couple in itself rises above their ego and connects.

Let us say you are a couple. You are connecting above yourselves. Not in your ego, but above the ego. You and him. That is what we want. We do not want this couple to connect with that couple. There is no such thing. Only as an example, can you see these other things. There is a roundtable (if it is even possible to say) that is actually built from couples. That each couple is rising above itself and becoming united. And when they reach a connection, then you can talk about a system where they connect between them. Where each couple is one. It is no longer a couple; they became one. And then we do not have five couples, we have five units.

Oren: Let us throw out four couples and make a roundtable for one couple. Because you say you have to neutralize things. So, let us get rid of them. Maybe we will just learn the process of rising each one. You said inside the five, each has to rise above and they have to meet. So that we do not get mixed up, maybe we leave the four couples out of it and just leave one couple. How do they reach this state?

Dr. Laitman: Even if they understood it from a psychologist, they won’t change. They need to get input from the environment in order to change. That is the problem. I can come to therapy for my whole life. Do you agree? It is the way you make a living.

I agree because I do not understand that there is no point from the beginning. Why? Because for me, she is not an environment. She does not obligate me. She can talk to me and I will be relaxed and get all kinds of tips, but at the end of the day it won’t change my life. Life changes if I go into an environment that influences me. In nature, we are built in this way, that the environment changes us. There is no way around it.

Oren: So, let us go back to the table with five couples.

Dr. Laitman: Okay. So, let us leave the five couples. I need from the five couples, for them, to influence on that one couple and everyone on everyone by giving an example of rising above themselves. Then they rise above themselves, because her mother lives with them at home. She is old. She can’t be without her mother. She is, all the years with her mother. The other couple, they watch football every night. The other couple, like my daughter, she is always with her doctorate or biology; she is at home or at work, she is always into what is her profession. It is a problem for a woman. Another couple, the kids are always fighting and the father is on the boy’s side and the mother is on the girl’s side. And more and more examples. It does not matter.

Nobody cares who is right and who is wrong. We are not going in like psychologists into all these things. It is not important to us. We are not going to connect between them. We are not going to connect at the egoistic level or open these things. There is no need. It does not bring any good results. We need to teach them how to rise above the ego; know that inside the ego you are buried. How do we do it? Here is an example. Through example.

Oren: I do not understand. We are at the table. Who gives to who?

Dr. Laitman: We talk about mutual sacrifice that we have to raise an animal. What is love? An animal that grows from sacrifice. That is it. A connection. Love is a connection.

Oren: So, who is giving the example?

Dr. Laitman: Couples to couples.

Oren: Of how we sacrifice in our homes?

Dr. Laitman: Yes. It does not matter what the argument is about. The problems are not the issue. It is not important. I do not care about their life. What could there possibly be there? Maybe it is a little bit different, but it is the same thing. It is one egoist in conflict with the other egoist. This is altogether the problem. Bring me millions of problems; it is the same issue.

Oren: So say, my spouse and I, we managed to find one percent of sacrifice between us and we told that to the other couples at the table. We are not corrected couples. We are not really sacrificing. We are regular people. So, when I come to the table, I have to find that one gram of sacrifice, that each of us will bring, for example? Where do we provide the example from? That is what I am trying to understand.

Dr. Laitman: We supply the example from learning how to sacrifice. How I rise above my ego. How I begin to feel the other, that his desire is more important to me than my desire.

Oren: How? How do I develop an ability for this?

Dr. Laitman: By talking about it. By the importance of sacrifice. How do we do it here? See the other one as bigger than me and see myself as small. See the other as small so that I can influence a good example on him. Then I am big.

A good example; not in my ego that I am bigger than him. If I rise above my ego, I am bigger than him. And if I am bigger than him then I take precisely his lacking instead of my lacking. I want to fill his lacking and he, in a mutual way, does it toward me. Each can connect to the other under the condition that they take the other person’s lacking and fill the other’s lacking with all his abilities. And he does the same with me. And then we connect and are called a couple. Until then it is not a couple.

According to what are we a couple? That we sleep together? Excuse me. According to what? That is the animal level. Where are we, in the relationship, at the human level? How do we learn this from systems? That I need to connect between system and system. The connotation law. This bonding. This connection that I go to connect with someone and I have to be sensitive to what is in him and to be prepared to provide what he needs from me. Otherwise, he won’t accept it. And the other way around; he has to do the same to me. And then we merge with one another. As we said, two balls merge in each other and each makes up room in himself for the other. We spoke of this.

Nitzah: Can you explain the dynamic when the process is between the couples, inside the couple? When it is inside? Outside? So, we can try to get a picture.

Dr. Laitman: We have a person who is an expert in scripts. I think you should do it with him.

Orit: Could it be like a psychodrama? Where people play roles?

Dr. Laitman: Yes. It is possible.

Orit: If I am in the concept of mutual sacrifice and I come to it from a very vulnerable place where I was insulated and hurt, how do I rise above? And do I leave the insult outside of the place I have to rise to? Or can I talk about it in order to relax this painful place?

Dr. Laitman: If you are very, very stubborn and have contempt for everything and do not want to hear about any sacrifice and you do not care about all this rubbish that people are doing here at the roundtable, and you are completely blocked as if somebody tied you up with rope and you do not hear anything, you will still be impressed by an example. Examples will still impress you. The question is to what extent will you see the examples as belonging to you?

There are many people that listen and do not hear. They hear theoretically. They hear wisdom and they can talk about it to thousands of people. But they hear it in the ear, it goes in their mouth and goes out and that is it. And they remain the way they are. Here precisely, there has to be the influence of this environment. Precisely here. That it works on us in such a way that we change despite our not wanting to. That is the influence of the environment.

This is impossible to do if we are just watching a movie. If I am just watching a movie, I can cry from the things that are happening on screen. And if I do it at home I am not aware. I am not aware of it. Only on the condition that we are in a society and I submit myself to these examples and through them I get such a special influence from the connection, through this environment.

Orit: So, the group has to be very strong so I can depend on it.

Dr. Laitman: No, it does not have to be strong. It just has to be a group that truly desires connection. Truly desires sacrifice. From the actors in the theatre, as much as we see pretty things there, we never receive an example to rise above the ego. From all these actors and all these examples in the world, we can learn how I take advantage of myself, take advantage of the world and how to work with the ego. Because there, there is no sacrifice. There, there are actors who they get paid salaries and they tell us nice things. And in the next movie they tell us bad things.

Here we get inspiration from the group, from examples from other couples who are trying to rise above and come to unity. And therefore, they reflect the force of unity on me. In unity, there is a special force, this integral force, that influences me. Only from the group. It can be two people. Only from that will I receive the force of change.

You need to understand that nothing will help. Bringing people from the outside - psychologists, the actors and everything - it has to be very serious. If you bring couples that just give examples, it has to be real, genuine. You feel that everyone will understand and goes home and nothing will change. Nothing. A thousand times they will show a fake example. Nothing will change.

They will show an example. Not fake, not pretty, not theatre. Nothing except something that will have some sacrifice, an inclination to connect. There, there will be special power that will influence them.

Oren: You said a group can be two.

Dr. Laitman: Another couple.

Oren: You mean two couples?

Dr. Laitman: Yes. One couple against the other.

Oren: The couple itself can build a group among them? A man and a woman?

Dr. Laitman: Yes. Yes, of course. But only if they each agree to give the other an example. But where will they bring strength to give the other an example? If the first is like a group to me it is hard. Where will he have the strength to unite? With what will he unite? There is a technique, that he is uniting with me. But, it is not enough. I still need an example. A wide example. Society. Group. Group is the environment.

Oren: Let us say it is two couples.

Dr. Laitman: Two couples is enough.

Oren: So, where do they take the strength from? You said between.

Dr. Laitman: One couple gives an example to the other couple. And apart from a visual example, they give them strength. They connect. A visual example also has inner strength of unity.

Oren: It has to be a couple that is in something good.

Dr. Laitman: Yes, they have to be inclined that way. Like in our group.

Oren: So, it is not possible that one person in the couple will give an example of good inclination to another?

Dr. Laitman: Yes. But It is still not in a group. It is a problem. It is possible but much more difficult.

Nitzah: Let us say that a couple like this went through a process with a few other couples. Does he come to a stage where he has to be surrounded all the time?

Dr. Laitman: Yes. His ego is developing all the time and showing new forms. This inner work never ends. But, does he have to always be in a constant connection with a group, with an external element? Maybe the connection can be renewed through some TV show. I do not know. It is possible.

Orit: From my experience, when we take a course that is focused on a goal and then you do not come back to meet with the same host and everything, there is an inclination for things to disintegrate. And then you have to go back to maintain things every once in a while. It is very significant.

Nitzah: What do we need to have in a workshop like this? We are talking about a workshop. The minute there are two couples, it is a workshop.

Dr. Laitman: Even one couple is a workshop. A workshop is a physical act with an inner motivation. It cannot be without the participation. Talking. As far as I am concerned, they can dance.

Orit: You are going back to the place where they have to really experience. There has to be real acts. Not just thinking.

Dr. Laitman: It has to be a real act in an environment. A physical environment that makes the act is desirable. Not virtual. And in that way, it envelopes the couple and changes them in that way.

Nitzah: We talked about tightening the rope. Let us say a couple is interested. At the moment, they want to go through a process and want to get details about how quickly they feel the power of unity. Does it happen quickly?

Dr. Laitman: I think immediately. I think it can be from the first moment they sit down. From the first meeting. But afterward, we need to develop it because each time it becomes habit. A person lives from newness. He needs to feel renewal. Otherwise, only his ego will renew.

Nitzah: So, you mean you have to raise the level of connection?

Dr. Laitman: They need to know how to act. Not each against the other, but each against their ego. A person has to be an actor. That is the true game of life.

Oren: Is there something else? Or shall we conclude this conversation?

Nitzah: I think it is a beginning. I’d like to see how to build this game, this game of life. How do we create something, a process, that takes a person through stages?

Dr. Laitman: It is desirable to do this in a wider framework. Maybe with more people that are actually experts in building these kinds of events. Think about how to do it. But for sure, to try it is very easy. There is no shortage of couples close to us. And to organize such a thing could be interesting. Of course, if we are able to provide a good result, you won’t be short of work.

Orit: That is not what we are looking for.

Dr. Laitman: If the results are really special.

Oren: Okay. So with that, we will conclude today. Thank you, Dr. Laitman. Thank you, Orit Dolev and Nitzah Mazoz. Thank you, for being with us. Until next time. All the best and goodbye.

End of Conversation