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Addictions are usually associated with drugs, alcohol, and gambling, and we also often hear about addictions to shopping, the Internet, and social media. Of course, there are several other kinds of addictions, but a deeper look shows us that certain habits have been implanted in us since our infancy, which have become our primary addictions. The home we grew up in, the education we absorbed, the patterns of behavior and attitudes we saw toward everything shaped a particular perception of reality.
We later stepped into wider circles, changed environments and social groups, and absorbed new habits and addictions at every step of the way. Kabbalists have a saying that emphasizes the extent to which we are shaped by our surrounding society: “Change your place and you change your luck.”
We are outcomes of the environment we live in. This is a well-known concept in various rehabilitation methods, i.e., that strong environments can completely change people.
Broadly speaking, the 21st century plays host to a world full of people suffering from addictions. It is a problem that stems from the evolution of the fundamental matter we are made of: the desire to enjoy.
By nature, we wish to feel good, satisfied, and fulfilled. This desire drives us at every moment to seek our most enjoyable and comfortable state. What changes throughout our development is the definition of what makes us feel good. The desire to enjoy grows unstoppably, becoming ever more sophisticated. It began with basic desires for food, sex, and family, continued with social desires for wealth, honor, control, and then the desire for knowledge developed.
If we compare ourselves to people who lived 200 or 300 years ago, we will see that we have come a long way. While they lived and worked to have a roof over their heads and food for their family, today we mostly take such feats for granted. Instead, we find ourselves in a world of materialistic abundance and spiritual emptiness. More and more people find themselves hard pressed to find fulfillment, joy, or anything attractive that is worth getting up for in the morning.
When neither career, money, or relationships illuminate as worthy goals, we find ourselves living burdensome lives. It feels like we have a hole in our heart, an immense emptiness, that whatever we do will end in grayness and disappointment.
Drugs and alcohol enter this void, somewhat adding color among desolation. Chemicals also help to temporarily detach us from the tensions and stresses of a harsh and aggressive environment with its ego games and conflicts.
We are gradually evolving to the realization that the emptiness we increasingly feel in our lives will not be filled, no matter what. However hard we try, it will only intensify and turn back against us. Why? It is because it comes to raise us to a new level of existence.
Throughout history, we each lived as isolated units trying to enjoy and supply for ourselves. Now, however, nature binds us all into one closed system. It is as if nature is telling us that from now on, we will only be able to enjoy life if we positively connect, in complementarity, mutuality, and integration, like cells and organs in a body, the way in which nature is unified. Such a connection will open channels that are now blocked, through which we will feel the flow of a new life, one of light, love, and higher worlds.
Therefore, building integral connection between people is our next task as intelligent beings. That is why the world has become so incredibly interconnected and interdependent. Today’s ego is overblown and it blinds humanity from the goodness it could experience if it were to build complementary bonds, above all contradictions. If we fail to undergo this upgrade in human relations, the boat we all share will sink in stormy waters.
The integral approach to education teaches how we can develop mutual complementarity in an age where we desperately need it through the use of the most powerful tool of all: the power of society. Just as society maneuvered us into various addictions, so too it can lift us to new heights.
We are headed to a state of connection in absolute love. Nature’s plan and program has defined this future state for us, and it is where evolution leads us. The whole question is: What will we go through on the way?
Based on “New Life 92 – Addictions” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Posted in Quora