Is There Anything We Can Do About The Crisis?

A Crisis Is a Crisis News Report (translated from gazeta.ru): Economic and political calamities on the global scale have a way of making people talk about the fact that the current era is ending and the future will be radically different. The current financial crisis is no exception. However, this time around we won’t be able to think of any clear plan for “lasting universal happiness.” If anyone hopes to make such a plan, it will only demonstrate their arrogance.

Moreover, one of the most wonderful things in life is the impossibility of predicting the future, because it gives individuals and mankind the chance to develop.

The predictions people make about life after the crisis can be grouped into three categories:

1. Some people assume that we are dealing with a case of history repeating itself, that crises like this one have happened before, and therefore the global economy will be restored. At some point in time, mankind will resume life just like before the crisis and the world will be the same as before.

2. Others think that the crisis is not really a crisis of the economy, but a crisis of our value system, and that the human civilization has reached some kind of a threshold. We can’t keep living the old way and we urgently need to create a new plan for how to exist. We will never be able to go back to the “golden era” as before the crisis (whether or not it really was a “golden era” is a separate question).

3. Scientists warn us that if people won’t change their lifestyle, they will soon need another planet in order to survive.

…We must be honest to ourselves and admit that we don’t know how and when the current crisis will end. No one can take away our right to construct our personal and universal future. However, it’s important to realize that such constructions will always be founded on mistakes.

My Comment: Here are are my comments on points 1, 2, and 3 above:

1. With crises that happened in the past, it was fair to say that history was repeating itself because they all took place in the same egoistic, individual plane. However, the current crisis arose due to a transition from an individualized world to a globalized world. Hence, none of our attempts to return to the past, to the old laws and rules, will succeed. Moreover, we will not be able to envision a new world structure based on past experience, because the world will now be based on different laws – the laws of globalization. They are opposite to the laws of individualized behavior, regardless of whether it’s a person, an organization or a country.

2. This thought is correct. However, the future is known. We can and must study it. Then we won’t have to go through so much suffering! Kabbalah is open to everyone!

3. Scientists are correct in their understanding that our planet’s resources will eventually be depleted. According to their calculations, this threatens us with complete extinction in the next few decades. However, if we begin to correct ourselves, to become more balanced with Nature (the Creator), we will elicit Nature’s positive influence upon us, thereby restoring harmony. In addition, it will happen very quickly and take on forms that we have never experienced in the past!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Reason for Our Suffering, and the Alternative Path
Laitman.com Post: Unity for the Right Purpose Can Stabilize the Banking System
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Cause of Suffering and Crises in the World

Our Desires Come From The Society

desiresThree questions I received on balancing spirituality with this world:

Question: I heard you say at the children’s lesson that we should envy people who contribute to the group and love others. Should I lie to myself, telling myself that I envy those who contribute even though in reality I envy someone who has a new car, for example? Please give me advice on what to do according to Kabbalah.

My Answer: Continue studying; the group and the lessons will give you the feeling that other values are more important. This is better than surrendering yourself to accumulating things and later finding yourself disillusioned. The Upper World that will start being revealed to you will make you feel vastly more fulfilled than a new car. The car is important to you because society values it. But if your society will value other things, your preferences will change as well.

Question: Sometimes I get angry at the Creator, but in truth I get angry at myself because I ask myself, “Why is the process of correction so lengthy!?” And then I answer myself: “Because I don’t make enough efforts!”

My Answer: You lack the pressure of the correct environment.

Question: I’m having an inner debate: on one hand, I have a new job that’s interesting to me and gives me free time to improving my professional level in order to have a good permanent occupation in the future. On the other hand, I don’t have much energy left after the morning lessons, so I’m thinking of cutting them down, yet this bothers me. What’s the right attitude to have to this situation?

My Answer: You have to finish your professional education so you’ll be able to support yourself and your family, while keeping the study of Kabbalah “on a low burner.” However, in all other respects, devote yourself to the study of Kabbalah. If you keep this balance of time and energy, you’ll succeed in both.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Influence of the Environment
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah and Choosing a Profession
Laitman.com Post: Family, Children, Work and Kabbalah
Chapter from Book Kabbalah for Beginners: “Changing Society to Change Myself”
Rabash Article: “Purpose of Society”

Baal HaSulam Describes The Law Of Singularity

Baal HaSulamBaal HaSulam, article “Peace in the World”:

Man feels that all the creatures in the world should be under his own government and were created for his own private use. And this is a law of Nature that cannot be breached. The only difference between people is their choices of how to use the creatures: One chooses to exploit people by attaining the lowest desires, one chooses to attain power, while the third – to attain respect. Furthermore, if it could be done without much effort, every person would agree to exploit the whole world for attaining all three together: wealth, power and respect. This law is called the “Law of Singularity,” and is felt in the heart of every person. And there is not a person who can escape it, although each and every one takes his own share in that law: the great person according to his greatness, and the small person according to his smallness.

And although the attribute of singularity contains a sublime, beautiful and gracious meaning, since this attribute extends to us directly from the Creator, who is single in the world and the root of all creations, still when the sensation of singularity sits within our narrow egoism, its action becomes ruin and destruction and the source of all the suffering that was and will be in the world. And indeed there is not a single person in the world who is free from this attribute, and all the differences between people are only in the way it is used: whether for satisfying the passions of the heart, or for power, or for honor. This is what makes people different from one another.

Invitation To The 2009 International Kabbalah Congress!

The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute is pleased to invite you to the International Kabbalah Congress taking place in Israel on February 2 – 4, 2009!

The 2009 International Kabbalah Congress will open its gates to more than 6000 Kabbalah students from over 52 countries across the world. The theme of the Congress is: “Connecting to Goodness.” Its goal is to connect our hearts, rise above the global crisis toward spirituality,obtain adhesion with nature (the Upper Force), and to reveal a new, spiritual world.

Why? Today the world needs a lifeline that will raise it above the crisis and suffering to a good existence and the revelation of the higher purpose of our lives. Our world doesn’t have such a lifeline. Only the Upper Light, which created us, can correct our nature. By uniting, we will realize the Kabbalistic method of correcting the world through the Upper Light.

The Congress will include my lessons, shared meals, workshops, friends’ gatherings, singing and cultural evenings

Everything is dedicated to the topic of unity and every person in attendance will have the opportunity to apply the principle of “Love thy friend as thyself.”

This year children and youth are also invited to the Congress and we have special activities planned for them.

We will be happy to see all those who understand that only by uniting can we set an example for the entire world.

Register for the Congress

Virtual Lesson On 11.30.08

roots1On Sunday, November 30, between 4:00pm and 5:15pm, I continued with our virtual lesson series by giving the second lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.” You are invited to join us for these lessons, or you can watch and listen to the them using the links that are posted here each week.

The Spiritual Roots Of The Three Religions

Is There a Supreme Judge?A question I received: I don’t understand why there is a division into three religions. If God is one, why do we have these differences?

My Answer: The religions were given to us so we would develop during the period of the Creator’s concealment. However, when the Creator is revealed, they will naturally turn into the national traditions, a nation’s culture.

In spirituality, we advance along three lines. These three lines are reflected in our world during the period of concealment as the three religions: Islam corresponds to the right line, Christianity – to the left line, and Judaism – to the middle line.

This also has an affect on how their calendars are structured: The Islamic calendar is lunar (based on the moon), the Christian calendar is solar (based on the sun), and the Jewish calendar is luni-solar (based on both). How did people know what kind of calendar to create? They did it because everything in our world comes from the spiritual roots, and people’s acts are determined by the expression of these roots in our world. (However, a Kabbalist acts consciously in accordance with this, whereas others do it unconsciously.)

As for all the other teachings, they are not considered religions, but faiths or beliefs. There are about 3800 of them in the world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Solution to the Clash of Civilizations
Laitman.com Post: The Writings of the Last Generation
Chapter from Book From Chaos to Harmony: “The Rise of the Islam”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”
Shamati 179: “Three Lines”

People Are Trying To Close Their Eyes To The Crisis

crisisNews Report (translated from prime-tass.ru): “Covering up the word ‘Crisis” Businessmen and mass media are avoiding the use of expressions such as “the global financial crisis,” “recession,” “financial instability” and “dead end.” They’re inventing terms that are more positive and vague in order to circumvent the crisis rhetoric. For example, instead of “a global recession,” they say, “a temporary instability,” instead of “crisis” – “a period of opportunity.”

My Comment: I understand them: the reliable world of money and power has suddenly became volatile and elusive. The future is uncertain, and for an economist, this is worse than death itself. As the financial experts are battling the crisis, they are still trying to:

1. Conceal the panic that engulfs the financial markets,
2. Support the economy in a time when there’s no credit available.

In support, the governments are extending credit to banks and large firms, buying out their debt securities – anything to revitalize the crediting process. However, it’s impossible to bring back the old relationships. Perhaps they can be brought back temporarily, but this will entail great expenditures and will be artificial, like resuscitating a patient who’s in a hopeless condition.

The solution to the problem lies in studying the integral, global world that we have suddenly found ourselves in. It operates by completely different social laws, interconnections, and contractual terms than our old world, which wasn’t globally connected.

How do we enter into agreements or create new financial programs while taking the universal interdependency into account? The system is starting to work in new, unfamiliar ways, and the interconnections between the financial structures are the “unknowns” in the equation. No one yet knows what they are and how to work with them.

This is exactly what Kabbalah explains – the world’s globality, because Kabbalah studies the Creator, the One Global Governor. Everything that’s happening is His way of leading us to realize that it’s necessary to get to know Him!

However, if we’ll keep trying to create a new, “positive and vague” vocabulary, it will cost us dearly and only drive the illness deeper inside us.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What’s the Right Way to Create Contracts in the Age of Globalization?
Laitman.com Post: What Will It Take Now for a Business Venture to Be Successful?
Laitman.com Post: Unity for the Right Purpose Can Stabilize the Banking System

Start With A Blank Page In The Book Of Life

We Are In the Center of All the WorldsThree questions I received on how to relate to the past and future:

Question: I’ve been studying Kabbalah for six years already. In the last year I’ve started feeling haunted by memories of bad things I did to others in the past. Can you give me advice on how to get rid of this?

My Answer: Everything that happened to you in the past was “set up” for you by the Creator. But from this moment on, you are like a newborn baby. So start with a blank page in “the book of life,” where you will write your desires, thoughts and actions.

Question: If I don’t open Kabbalah books or listen to your lectures for a few days, why do I feel that I’m regressing? Where does everything I “earned” in the past go?

My Answer: Your egoism always keeps growing. This is why you must constantly keep recharging it with the method of correction. Otherwise you’ll regress for sure.

Question: How can we predict our next spiritual state and physical action?

My Answer: The next spiritual level is unpredictable because it will be felt in your new desires and qualities.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Past Was Up to the Creator, But the Future Is Up to You
Laitman.com Post: The Consequences of Egoism’s Growth
Laitman.com Post: Babies – Physical and Spiritual
Chapter from Book Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Grasping Higher Spiritual Levels”
Chapter from Book Kabbalah Revealed: “Up the Ladder”
Talk on Baal HaSulam Article: “Finding the Creator Within”

The Creator Will Force Us To Unite

uniteA question I received: I feel repelled by spirituality. I feel that I want to go through my life as a separate person, not as part of a group. I get this picture that the purpose of spirituality is to reject all pleasures. I mean, what is there to enjoy in the spiritual world? I’m not ready to reject my regular life for spirituality. How can I pray for another desire when, in fact, it isn’t my desire at all?

My Answer: The Creator (Kabbalah) won’t make you do anything forcefully. Instead, He forces us by giving us suffering in this life, and it pushes a person forward. However, it’s possible to accelerate our path of development and make it easier by using Kabbalah.

Either way, everyone will attain the goal they were created for: they will become equivalent to the Creator by uniting within one integral desire. This will happen either through The Path of Suffering or The Path of the Light that returns one to the source – to equivalence with the Creator (the quality of love and bestowal).

Right now everyone in the world is revealing a common suffering, which has just one cause – a lack of connection between all people within one desire. But the Creator will force us to unite!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Humanity Is One Integral, Interconnected Organism
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Cause of Suffering and Crises in the World
Laitman.com Post: On Pleasure and Suffering
Shamati #4 “What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels when Annulling before the Creator in the Work”

On Life, Death And Free Choice

lifeThree questions I received on souls, death and life after death:

Question: How can I tell whether I’ll end up in hell or heaven?

My Answer: Hell is the feeling of being ashamed for your thoughts and actions. Heaven is a state of being in the qualities of bestowal and love.

After one’s body dies, one doesn’t “go” anywhere. Heaven and hell are felt right here, in this life, with respect to the Creator. They are your attitude to Him, what you feel within your soul.

However, you must first develop your soul through the study of Kabbalah. It starts as a point in the heart and then develops into the five spiritual senses, the five Sefirot of your soul or your spiritual body.

Question: If a person wants to commit suicide, is there free will in this, or does the Creator give the person such thoughts?

My Answer: All aspirations (including thoughts and desires) descend to us from the Creator; He is primary. However, everything depends on our attitude or reaction to what emerges within us. In spite of everything, we should proceed toward adhesion with Him through the path of equivalence of form.

Question: Recently someone close to me passed away. Is there a difference between the reincarnation of a person who passed away naturally and someone who was killed?

My Answer: You have no influence on the souls whatsoever, so relax and forget about them. Worry only about your own correction.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Heaven and Hell in Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: Shame Brings Us Closer to the Creator
Laitman.com Post: Can We Control Our Thoughts?
Laitman.com Post: Why Is Studying Kabbalah Good for You?
Chapter from Book Wondrous Wisdom: “A Point in the Heart – the Soul”
Interview: Only the Heart Needs Correction