A Talk with Dr. Michael Laitman
A New life
Program 116
An Integral Education Course for Companies and Organizations
December 23, 2012 - after editing
Oren: Hello and thank you for joining us on 'A new life,' a series of talks with Dr Michael Laitman and Nitza Mazoz. We invite you to join our discussion, where we are learning from Dr. Laitman about the integral perception, the integral approach to life that can take each of us and all of us together to a new life. In our previous session, we began a course which we will later be able to present to organizations and workplaces, to the places where we spend most of our day and all of our lives, and thus begin to develop as human beings, workers, managers, organizations, as people who are striving towards a new life.
Dr Laitman, we are in great anticipation of our second discussion.
We talked about the desire which has been evolving ever since the Big Bang onwards. It evolved in the inanimate form for billions of years, then in the form of the vegetative, the animate and the speaking, on Earth alone. That is what we have revealed so far, that in the entire universe there is nothing similar to the form of life existing on Earth. The more we reveal Nature, we see that the conditions on the face of the Earth are extremely unique ones; the solar radiation, Earth's magnetic field, the way the moon affects the Earth, the revolving around the sun and revolving of the moon around Earth, and so on.
We see how all of the information is precisely integrated, correlating to some unique program, which is extremely intelligent; truly Divine, one which accumulated all the conditions in such a way that led to the possibility for biological cells, living cells, protein cells and the form of protein to evolve and reach what is called, life. Everything was created from that same little spark of infinite energy, which actually gave power, support, pressure and progress to whatever has taken place up until now, in the entire universe, and continues to evolve and expand further.
That is just what we know about what is taking place in the universe, as we are not familiar with 90% of its matter, we do not feel it. It turns out from our calculations and various observations of the universe, that there is approximately 90% of matter in the universe which we do not sense at all, the dark matter. What is even more unique is that specific desire which started to evolve, the desire to live, evolve and control. When this desire attains the human degree, it starts acquiring a very unique negative form.
In all forms of Nature: the inanimate, vegetative and animate, we sense a certain order, that everything is activated from within Nature by internal laws, internal forces activating each and every detail, from the inanimate, vegetative and animate. They all seem to maintain internal commands they have, and no one breaches the existence of these internal commands. Evolution at the speaking degree takes place entirely and instantly as an outburst beyond the existence of Nature's forces.
We will not discuss the vegetative, but rather the animate, from which human beings emerged. The vegetative world maintains internal laws, internal attributes instinctively. When they live, when they die, when to breed, where to live, everything is connected to Nature, connected to Nature precisely, and there is neither good nor bad in that. Some eat others, some exist for others and so forth, all is connected in a certain closed mechanism and without human intervention, everything would be maintained in an extremely mutual, wise and complete fashion.
We see that when we intervene and begin to actually destroy any type of plant or animal species, afterwards, we see that it functions in a chain response upon the vegetative and the animate negatively. If we touch any form in Nature irresponsibly, we destruct, hence, causing imbalance in the overall picture of Nature.
In human beings, the same desire exists above the animate degree. This desire is not governed by Nature. Man uses it to the extent of his development and in an increasingly worse way for the environment and ultimately for himself. For we see that as much as we use the desire and emerge above the animate degree, we want to realize our desires by coercing the environment, as well as the inanimate, the vegetative, the animate and the speaking environment. All our desires, those of the human in us, we call egoistic desires, as we supposedly benefit ourselves at the expense of others. "Others" are either the inanimate, vegetative, animate, speaking or all of them combined.
I am emptying Earth of all its natural resources. I am truly destroying the vegetation - trees, forests, I am destroying the animate, I do not care whether any fish will remain for my grandchildren, whether it will be possible to live off the sea or the animate. I am actually demolishing everything in totality. I do whatever I feel like and do not have any consideration for the extent to which I am thus causing imbalance to the picture of Nature, to the general form of Nature, in its integral, global mechanism. Furthermore, as I advance, I develop destructive tools in my desire, with which I actually succeed in further demolishing nature, and ultimately I, myself, am paying dearly for it.
As we discussed in the previous conversation, our desires are evolving extremely rapidly, on a curve. Our desires evolve from the moment we are up, from the moment we are born. In the animate, the desires evolve for a short period, in the first few weeks after the animal is born, exists in our life, our world and then, no longer. It is written 1"A newborn calf is a bull," for after a few days, it knows everything the grown bull does, which grass to eat and which not, it has an inner program protecting it, it knows where to stand, it will not drop itself off a cliff, it is actually already fit for life. Whereas, human beings are not so, they develop slowly; even twenty years do not suffice for him to develop. His development is slow. Once we identify him as human, his development is egoistic and the more he is developed, the more he is developed for the worse.
Man is unique in that only some of his attributes are acquired from his bearers and most of his attributes and the form he acquires afterwards - his character, his approach to life, the wisdom in him, the science in him, his spirit, morality and so on, everything building the human form in him, he constructs all of these artificially, through the environment. The environment is also the home of his birth, then kindergarten, school and so on, and surely the media nowadays takes a major part in it.
That is to say, man does not receive the human form from Nature, rather from the environment. And since our environment is egoistic, in which everyone uses it and builds it only for one's own benefit, and it always ends up at the expense of others, it turns out that each of us developing through the environment actually absorbs negative forms who want to take advantage of him. Therefore, all the education, all the knowledge, everything we do, is ultimately detrimental to that developing person. Science, in particular has thus developed, as we have already discussed.
If we were to study Nature in order to understand it and use all those laws correctly, that great wisdom, those huge systems being revealed, if we were to develop them solely for the benefit of humanity, we would attain a different form of life than we see today. However, people who study Nature, later sell their knowledge to people who want money, honor, control and then they use science to kill, destroy others, control others and so forth. It turns out that with all the power we have from science and which man also has over the animate world, we use it to our detriment.
We see that everything we develop in science is primarily used for the development of weapons, to kill, control and oppress human beings, my equal. Our ego, that desire which is called the human desire, above the desire of the animate, when it develops, it does so in a negative way, since man never fulfills it and is incapable of fulfilling it. If an animal gets what it needs, if it eats, it does not need any more, it does not harm anyone, it is complete. Whereas with man, no matter how much he gets, he is emptied.
That is, the same desire within the individual, which is also called the desire for pleasure, as in the degrees of inanimate, vegetative and animate does not receive fulfilment from what it receives, rather is constantly lacking. Moreover, if it is not lacking, it does not feel alive. It constantly needs to stimulate itself, what else to desire in order to feel the movement, the flavor, to feel that I exist. Then, it pushes us to create all sorts of adventures for ourselves, all kinds of dealings and the thing is not the dealing itself, rather to feel that I am alive. Meaning, our ego, this additional desire in the human species is truly destructive.
This desire is not in my possession, it is one hundred percent in the hands of society. They dictate to me what to want, how to live, who to love, how to educate my children and in general what to do with my life, how to live and how to die, everything. If I want to feel less misery, I will have to decrease my desire, for if I increase it, I am actually increasing the chance of misery.
Meaning, I see in my development, that everything arriving at the human degree, does so to seemingly have me fail in life, it comes to set me in a vise and I, out of no choice, still use this desire which continuously develops in me, and run to fulfill it, because I do not know what to do.
In addition, when I gain or lose, then the loss from the fund is always more noticeable than the gain. Let's say I earned $200, I am happy about it for a short time. Whereas, when I lose, I feel much greater and deeper sorrow, since the loss is from the fund, from what I had and the profit is from what I never had, from the outside. It is also because I feel I do not deserve to lose, my ego does not agree, which is not so, concerning the gain; this I do deserve, my ego wants to gain and seems to always be prepared for that. Meaning, from the aspect of Nature, we are built in such a way that actually, we should have been very cautious with the use of our desire at the human degree. As if ideally we should have stopped ourselves at the degree of ordinary life supply and think: what should we do next? Should we do anything at all? Meaning, we would have foreseen our development which we already underwent in previous generations.
All of Man’s desires are desires to better himself, and it always comes at the expense of others, one cannot exist without the other. In each and every one of my desires, at the human degree, the speaking degree, there is an overt or covert exploitation of others. We call our desire an egoistic desire, so we may emphasize that we are truly able to think only of ourselves and not of anyone else. Even when we love our relatives or our children, we love them because they belong to us, and surely if they did not belong to us, we would not even notice them altogether and would exploit them just like anyone else.
The desire burning within us from the star pushes the individual to be more than others in wealth, honor, control and knowledge. This whole attitude toward others, that I always want to be higher than them, to supress them, this attitude is called hatred, hatred of others; I am not even aware of it, yet this is how I treat them.
Human inclination is evil from youth; we can see that with small children, sweet and good, how already at the age of four or five when they begin to acquire social desires, the extent to which they do not consider anyone, in the most brutal manner. With them, it is done openly; we see how each and every one of them thus behaves, "I want it, it is mine and that's it.” Even if you explain to him that it is not his, but another's, from his perspective there is no such thing, children do not understand that. We do not understand it either, but somehow we conceal these things, even though we do not agree that it belongs to someone else, rather fear alone restrains us. According to research, in our society there are 10% of people who are benevolent to others and feel good about it. It is only because Nature thus directs them and not because they do it out of their own free will.
The more we advance over the generations, we become closer to each other in exploiting each other, since our society is advancing towards being even tighter, we will suffer even further. Meaning, the human inclination is evil from youth, that truly is our Nature, and it is the human within us. It is not so at the animate degree within us, which would have been able to suffice like all animals.
That is a brief explanation of our desire, although we did not talk about how we can still influence it. It seems to us that we are free in the use of our desire; however, it just seems that way to us, since I cannot picture myself free. I was born with genes, attributes, tendencies, none of which I chose. Indeed, I cannot choose my parents, from whom I inherited a great deal; I was educated at home, the initial formation; then, in kindergarten, next in school, by the media, when I found them near me. Hence, I find at 18 or 20 that I am allegedly prepared for life. However, it is not I, who is prepared for life, rather so I was made and I am being pushed to emerge into life. That way, I realize all the attributes and principles of my bearers, of those around me and it is not me at all.
How can I decide anything anew at this time? I suddenly realize that I, all of me, is not me. How can I rid myself of what has already been constructed within me in such a way? I cannot. It is already in me, they have already burned it into me as memory, as programming. They have actually filled my permanent attributes, permanent memory and it is all within me. I will never be able to rid myself of these givens; they will remain with me for generations, with my children and grandchildren. Meaning, we need to accept these things from Nature, for it comes to us as a given which cannot be altered.
Nonetheless, could it be that a method exists, with which we could somehow at least neutralize the influences we received from 20 years of education in our mom's home, at school? That is the question. Meaning, can we now set a new surrounding environment near us, which will influence us in such a way that everything we received beforehand will not interfere with my new life, as if I am about to be reborn?
Now, I am revealing that I am in critical condition: I do not want to proceed living with what they have inflated and filled me with, I want to give birth to myself, is there such a thing or not? By that I might change myself, by that, more people will be like me; we will each change ourselves. We will choose new values, new attributes and we will give birth to ourselves as new human beings, truly from scratch, and begin to develop towards a new direction. Suppose I am around 20 years old, I do not want to continue life like this, is it possible? The young generation realizes how miserable it is, that they have lost their way, escaping to drugs, despair and so on. We will talk more about all the phenomena we are revealing in the world.
We have evolved in our ego, in an egoistic, personal and individual way for thousands of years of evolution. We have never acknowledged the importance in considering others, considering society, rather, only out of no choice when we were forced to. Now, suddenly, in recent times, we are revealing that we exist in a global world and that I cannot develop and consider myself alone, rather my future depends on all of them. Meaning, we have evolved, seven billion people, each in his own desire, in whatever direction he wishes, without considering others. Except, only if that consideration is about how I can exploit it, like in the market where everyone wants to benefit at the expense of the other. Now we are revealing that we are in a market with a new law, that we are all interconnected. Imagine a huge market, we are all in a closed square and whatever each one does comes back to him through the others. As much as you do good and the extent to which you do evil, it comes back to you. This is what we are revealing in the modern world.
Our linear ego is simply used to gaining, exploiting all, "ripping" the roads, manipulating everyone, without working. The systems of Nature at the human degree include the animate, vegetative and inanimate degrees within. All of these systems connected among themselves into one circle, one system; one mechanism of mutual dependence. It turns out that all the people in the world, all countries and civilizations are interconnected. It follows that as a result, I cannot use my ego any longer.
Meaning, I am not revealing the world as evil, that it is advisable not to use my ego, or perhaps I will choose new attributes for myself, educate myself in a new way, be reborn, and since I am choosing, I choose not to remain my entire life with what I got from my mother's home, since it is not worthwhile. Rather, it is not I who is choosing, my current life is essentially obligating me to change the paradigm, my attitude, my view of the world, life, reality and myself. Otherwise, there is the danger that even regarding basic desires, the desires of the inanimate, vegetative and animate within me: food, sex and family, will not be able to be maintained. Even the desires at the human degree, where I am already taking drugs, medication for despair, I already do not care what happens with them, if I do not connect correctly with others. That means, when the human degree evolved within me, my lower degrees such as food, sex, family which belong to the animate level, have also already become dependent on the human degree. I cannot be as an animal, there is no choice, I already have to correct the human degree within me, for it to be connected correctly with all the other degrees.
That is why I suddenly see that the whole world has become round: in education, culture, science, finances, industry, trade, all my dealings, wherever I am. Everything is done interdependently with each other and with others as one system requiring a new attitude from us. On one hand, the system requires an attitude in accordance with the integral system, and on the other hand, I personally, as a human prototype, have evolved in such a way that I cannot stand anyone next to me. I need my own car, my own apartment, all alone, I am disconnected from everyone. I go to the supermarket, I am alone; I come home, I am alone, I put everything in the microwave, eat my meal, do not owe anyone anything, everything is by myself.
Thus, on one hand I feel myself in the most convenient way, in the modern world with myself. On the other hand, a system is being revealed which is entirely the opposite and is saying that you are connected to everyone. If are not connected together nicely and well, as are all parts of Nature, everything will go in the direction of a general crisis, bankruptcy.
Meaning, what are we seeing? Nature gave man free choice in what to do with the desires characteristic to the speaking degree: wealth, control, honor and science; whatever it needs beyond the body. It gave man free will to evolve and intentionally gave man the form of evil development, at the expense of others. We need to find a certain solution here, how we can cope with this situation. Even with the way Nature created us, as an evil inclination, and also with what each and every one receives against his will, as a bad influence from his education, his first 20 years of life, in a way that we may correct both the inherited characteristics and the qualities we acquired, which we received as values, as habits in our lives from our parents' home.
When we look at these things, we see that essentially, we do not need to dissect ourselves, or take any outstanding action. Rather, we just need to use those same tendencies, those same qualities we would like to use to the detriment of others, to the benefit of others. If we did that, we would attain complete correlation with Nature.
Meaning, by Nature arranging for us to receive hereditary attributes and later to be educated at our parents’ home without asking us, it does not influence or take my free choice away from me. Rather, after I have already placed myself in my twenties, from then on, this period of free choice in my life begins. Just as I developed by the environment, which is actually by my mother, kindergarten, school and so on, now I have to develop myself through the environment, as well. I have no choice. That is in order for it to radiate those same laws upon me, which will place me correctly with all of human society and with the inanimate, the vegetative and the animate. This is essentially what is being required.
These phenomena we have been seeing for decades, approximately from the mid-twentieth century, when the egoistic desire within us already began feeling the extent to which it is not being fulfilled, the extent to which it is always empty, the extent to which our development is not in our favour. The new generation has begun to disrespect science, wisdom, our forefathers and everything all together. When we reached the last evolution, the final stage, the development of science, and people already feel they are not heading in the correct direction. We see that we have reached a general shattering, a general crisis in all of man's pursuits in our world, the human degree has essentially reached a dead end. The inanimate, vegetative and animate have not; we only ruin them at the human degree, only the human degree is problematic.
Accordingly, we cannot proceed improving our lives any longer by creating all kinds of artificial devices, adding various robots into our lives, improving the mechanical communication we have constructed through the media. Rather the usage of the desire within the human being, the desire at the human degree is what is actually in crisis.
We can explain the extent of the world's crisis: first we reached a crisis in education, already from the mid-fifties of the last century, crisis in the family, people do not want to get married, everyone gets divorced, do not want to have children and so on. There is a crisis in the individual's attitude toward his job, relatives, country, homeland and nation. We see that the world is full of lonely people who feel no connection among them, although all of us are connected in the system of Nature.
In addition, we have built an artificial system which operates against the connection we have with Nature. We have succeeded in building it and we feel ourselves somewhat detached, not belonging to one another. This is essentially the system we have built and that system is actually responsible for all our problems and our entire crisis, because in what have we succeeded in doing and what have we wanted in the past century? We would have liked to build a secluded, comfortable place for everyone. Private. No one knows his neighbour, no one needs anyone. The extent to which the individual feels himself disconnected from others, independent of others, is referred to as "free," which is not clear why, yet it is called "free," "democracy," such an ability to give everyone the ability to exist, and in that, we have actually acted against the system of Nature.
Meaning, we have built such a communication system among us, which practically disconnects us, by that we have neutralized the system of Nature which connects us to each other, and in fact we have reached a state of almost succeeding in that. Only the moment we began to actually succeed in Europe and America, where each one is on his own, private, not being allowed to touch anyone, enter one's private life; by reaching such a state, we have thus basically started to reveal the general crisis in this entire system. That is because it is already being revealed that it is incompatible with Nature, hence, has no right to exist.
The system needs to be connected in all its parts and we have disconnected all the parts from each other, so to speak. It turns out that in education there is no connection between the teacher and the student, there is no connection between parents and their child, there is no connection between people. I treat everyone in a formal fashion; what do you want from me? Do you want anything from me? Who are you? Why me? And so on. Meaning, that is how we have cut off our connections and without these connections we cannot exist, from the aspect of Nature, and that is what leads us to crisis.
How long will it spread? Until we have nothing to eat, very simple. Why do we have to deteriorate to such extreme conditions? Because we are egoists, we would not like to work against our ego, which repels us from each other. Hence, as long as we don't feel it is death, we will not be able to do anything against the ego, as it is our nature.
Meaning, even when I am told to work, to do something for the benefit of others, to be connected with others, the question is what blows do I need to feel along my destiny in order for it to obligate me, for these blows to force me to change my attitude towards others, so from now on I will also care about them, be in contact with them. Let's measure. It is certainly a different level of suffering for each and every one, but what afflictions need to occur and how frequently, with what intensity, and in which ways? I have to feel fire in everything and in every step I take. If I do something for myself, for my own benefit, without considering all the others, I should feel that I am actually causing instant death to myself. And the opposite, if one does good.
This is the life awaiting us and it is not far ahead. There is no more from the aspect of Nature; no option remains from the aspect of Nature to exist otherwise; that is how it will be. Now we are facing 2013; we will see how within the upcoming year the situation will deteriorate dramatically and we will truly reach difficult situations. There are already many people in the world who are storing food, preparing themselves for war, for difficult situations, and it definitely has a basis.
Meaning, what we have learned today is that according to the direction of Nature, the laws of Nature, Nature's plan, we are evolving at the human degree by our desires, which are all beyond the animate degree. The animate degree cares for itself only at the degree of the animate; therefore it does not harm the environment. It wants to eat as much as necessary to fill its stomach. Human beings want to devour the entire world, not in order to fill his stomach, his lack; it is as if his stomach wants to eat the whole world. He is suffering since he is not receiving, and his suffering is multiplied by what the others have. That is why he must correct his attitude towards the world, meaning, all that additional desire existing at the speaking degree. As long as he does not correct it, he will suffer increasingly from day to day. We have been given this situation directly from the aspect of Nature.
Is there a solution? We said there could be, but we do not see it on the horizon. According to our nature, there is no solution. We are all situated in Nature with the qualities we received, with the attributes we developed, with these attributes we want to exploit everyone; that is all. We proceed to further exploit others as much as possible; there is no choice, without it I will not survive. I have only two choices, either to take advantage of my ego or die. That is all, there is no more. There are only two options before me: to use my ego for my own benefit, at the expense of others, I don't care, or die and not use it; that is all.
On that note, we have to end our talk today, but we need to understand that Nature itself is not leaving us, as human beings, any solution. It is not found in science, wisdom, philosophy, psychology, not in anything man possesses. Man exists as sheep to the slaughter; that is all. This is our situation. We need to see this situation in a rational, healthy way, for it is certain that if a person looks at it, there is no point in existing, having children; "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
That is essentially what the world is revealing these days. So it is. "The trouble of many is half a consolation," we will live what we shall live, what will be will be. Without any direction, all paradigms are over, all the philosophies, all the socialism, democracies, all kinds of struggles, everything, today nothing matters. That is all. Even money is about to lose its value, and everything is being drawn into chaos. This is essentially what we see on the horizon, according to the laws of Nature which have been revealed to us so far.
A workshop should be held on this. For them to know in a healthy and correct way, about the human evolution as the pinnacle of development of that same desire which came from somewhere, we do not know from where; it exploded and created our universe, Earth, and the form of life upon it. And then this form of life is the final one, our form of life is the form of a dead end.
(End of talk)
R. Zera demurred saying: Why should he not indeed acquire title to it through the change in name? Raba, however, said to him: An ox one day old is already called 'ox', and a ram one day old is already called 'ram' . 'An ox one day old is called "ox",' as written(Leviticus 22): When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born. A ram one day old is called "ram",' as written (Genesis 31) (Talmud Bavli, Seder Nezekin, Baba Kama, p. 65, Gmara B)↩