The first part of this book will focus on humanity’s state in the 21st century, describing what change is required in our awareness, and why it is needed. But before we do that, let’s review some facts about humankind’s present state, focusing on the situation in Israel. Knowing these facts is important to help us understand the proposed solution to our problems...
As we have written in the foreword, many of us already feel there is an unfolding crisis on the global and on the personal levels. As a matter of fact, it encompasses the whole of Nature: still, vegetative, animate, and the human society. Hence, it is not enough to tend to specific areas; we are required to locate the root of the problems and attend to correcting them...
If we examine the pleasure we derive from having knowledge, domination, honor, wealth, or pleasure from food or sex, it seems that in all these cases, the greatest pleasure is experienced in the brief encounter between the desire and its satisfaction. From the moment we begin to fulfill our desires, the pleasure diminishes...
As time went by, humanity developed various methods to cope with its inability to satisfy the desire to enjoy. For the most part, these methods were based upon two principles, which actually “fool” the desire to enjoy: 1) acquiring satisfying habits, and 2) diminishing the desire to enjoy...
When we research Nature, we discover the phenomenon of altruism. The word, “altruism,” comes from the Latin word, alter, which means “other.” The 19th century French philosopher, Auguste Comte, defined altruism as “the opposite of egoism.” Other common definitions of altruism are “love of others,” “devotion of self to love of others,” “excessive generosity,” “a predilection to work for the good of others,” and “non-egoistic care for others”...
Except for the human ego, all of Nature’s elements operate according to the law of altruism. They are in balance with their environments and create harmonious systems. When the balance is breached, the organism begins to disintegrate. Thus, the ability to reconstruct the balance is a necessary condition for the existence of life...
Nature aspires to balance. All its actions are aimed at bringing each part into balance. With volcanoes, for example, the pressures deep within Earth increase until Earth’s crust cannot balance them. The resolution of this imbalance is a volcanic eruption, which balances the underground pressure with surface pressure. This is Nature’s way of balancing an unbalanced state...
The general force that operates and sustains Nature is an altruistic force. This force impels all parts of Nature to exist as organs in a single body, in balance, and in harmony. When these parts achieve this condition, they achieve the bonding called “life.” This bonding exists at all degrees besides man; hence, it is the purpose of man’s life to independently create this bonding. And this is exactly what Nature is goading us to achieve...
We can easily see that changing our attitude toward others will lead us to the resolution of the problems on the social-human degree. This will mean the end of war, the end of violence and terrorism, and the end of general animosity among people. However, the same crisis is occurring on Nature’s other levels, too, in the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animate. What shall become of them? How will their situations improve? It would seem that to tend to the state of the Earth, water, air, flora, and animals, we must act directly on them. It is, therefore, surprising to see that Kabbalah’s method of correction focuses on human relations and considers those relations the key to the state of all of Nature...
Each of us perceives him or herself as an individual being, a unique, independently acting entity. It is no coincidence that for many centuries, humanity has been fighting to obtain a certain measure of personal freedom. The concept of freedom concerns all creatures. We can see how animals suffer when they are taken captive, when their freedom is denied. This is stark testimony to Nature’s disagreement when any creature is enslaved...
If we summarize the four factors that design us, we will see that in the end, we are ruled by two sources: our inborn elements, and the information we absorb from our environment during the course of our lives...
At the moment one begins to balance oneself with Nature’s force, the pressure for self-change lessens. This, in turn, reduces the negative phenomena in one’s life. In fact, from Nature’s perspective, nothing changes in this scheme; it is the individual who changes. Thus, the change itself creates in that person a sensation that the impact of Nature’s force has changed...
Society today is an egoistic society. However, it also contains sufficient preparations that can help it become an altruistic society. As a matter of fact, the evolution of humanity throughout the generations was only made to prepare it to realize the purpose of life in this generation...
Building an altruistic society will be widely supported by the public, since we all like to think of ourselves as good people who share other people’s misfortunes and are helpful to others. This is how we are built. Theoretically, there is nothing to stop us from declaring that we are egoists and do not want to be considerate of anyone. But none of us is proud of his or her egoism...
Some individuals possess a natural inclination to help others. This is an additional preparation that exists in humanity for the correction process. Usually, the ability to empathize with others enables us to derive greater pleasure from contact with others...
One who begins to realize everything described thus far, who contemplates being a part of a single system that incorporates all people, who transfers this knowledge to others and builds a supportive environment, gradually develops a powerful, genuine desire to acquire Nature’s quality of altruism. The road to acquiring a complete desire for altruism is an adventurous one, and fills the lives of those who choose this path with deep meaning and unparalleled satisfaction. When the complete desire for altruism is built in a person, one discovers a whole new reality. Before we describe this reality and what a person who experiences it feels, we must understand what “reality” is, and how we perceive it...
Our observations of Nature have shown that in order for life to form and continue, each cell in the organism and each part of the system must dedicate itself entirely to benefiting the body or the system it is in. At present, human society is not like that, which brings up the question, “How can we exist at all?” An egoistic cell in an organism becomes cancerous and its host body dies. We are egoistic parts in a single system, and yet we are alive!..
Before we end this chapter, let’s try a little exercise. Picture yourself in a completely dark room. It is so dark that you cannot see a thing. It is completely silent; there’s not a sound, not a smell, not even something to touch. It’s an empty, dark space. And you remain in that space for so long that you forget you ever had any senses at all; you even forget that such sensations exist...
This chapter concerns a topic that is a little “off track” from the topic of this book, but addressing it may help us clarify many of the topics discussed in this part of the book...