Leaders Are Realizing What Can Help Us Out Of The Financial Collapse

the-present-crisis-is-a-crisis-of-peoples-trust-in-the-egoistic-system-of-relationshipsIn the News (from The Bundespraesident):“Berlin Address by Federal President Horst Köhler 24 March 2009” The crisis is now teaching us that destruction lies at the core of freedom that knows no constraints. But the market must have rules and a sense of ethics. That is why it is precisely the crisis that confirms the value of the social market economy. It is more than an economic system. It is a system of values.

My Comment: All the leaders and economists are speaking about a new social regulator – the connection between people, even though they still don’t quite realize what the necessary changes are. Still, what’s important is that the trend has begun; everything else is a matter of time.

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We Must Rise To A Higher Level Of Consciousness To Solve Our Problems

psychiatry-and-kabbalah1We have revealed an illness, but it still isn’t quite clear what the treatment for it is, so we keep searching. Until we find the treatment, we will continue to feel ill – to experience a crisis. Yet the treatment is gradually being revealed. We know that if humanity reveals a problem or illness, then people will spend decades or even centuries looking for the remedy. In the Middle Ages, the epidemics that broke out in Europe were so great that they killed half the population. But eventually, people found the remedies.

Suffering pushes humanity to look for and find the remedy. It makes people more refined, sensitive, searching, and understanding. One’s desire opens the doors to Nature, and then one finds what he is looking for. There is an answer to everything.

It is the same in our case. As a result of suffering, we will find the remedy to the crisis. This is difficult because the problem is happening in one’s inner world, one’s desire and psyche, and this is something we don’t know how to treat. Lately we see that all the misfortunes happening to humanity are taking place on the psychological level – whether  it is divorce, drugs, depression, the relationships between parents and children, the crisis in upbringing, the crisis in science, the crisis in a person’s attitude to the world, or our neglect toward nature. All of this occurs on the level of psychology.

We are quite weak when it comes to overcoming our psychological problems, since a problem can only be solved when one is situated above it. One can then examine it from above and understand it. One’s mind is then able to grasp the problem from all possible angles, and the problem is “grasped” by the consciousness, so to speak.  A person studies it, performs an analysis and a synthesis.

However, psychological problems occur on the same level that we are on – the human level. This is why we have a difficult time solving them. If we wish to solve these problems, we will have to rise to a higher level. And we can find out how to do this instinctively as well as consciously, if only we will desire to rise above ourselves. Otherwise, as it says in “The Scroll of Esther,” “That generation will be convicted to death.” Certainly, we won’t agree to this, and therefore we will be forced to solve this problem.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “One Precept,” on 03.05.2009)

Gordon Brown Is Like A Doctor With No Means To Treat The Illness

outlawsA question I received: Gordon Brown recently gave a speech before the United States Congress where he spoke for forty minutes about the need for a global world and a global economy. He said the new economy should be built by the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.” What else should he have said from the tribune?

My Answer: He should have said that he has teachers: the Bnei Baruch group, which can teach all of humanity how to implement this. What does he have besides beautiful words? He has the money and the influence to carry out practical actions, but he lacks content. He only senses the problem, but has no way of dealing with it.

Does he have anything practical to recommend? No. He is like a doctor who’s good at diagnosing the disease. He does an x-ray, blood and urine tests, examines you, and gives you a long list of illnesses that you have. You ask, “Doctor, so what should I do now?” And the doctor replies, “God will help.”

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Should We Be Afraid Of What The Financial Crisis May Bring?

memories-of-past-lives-are-just-fantasies-of-this-lifeA question I received: Many people are fearful of the crisis. Could we soon be facing wars, conflicts, and violence?

My Answer: This is a possibility in every country. We see different manifestations of this, various disturbances and troubles in different places. People who don’t have a place to live or food on their table are unable to control themselves – after all, they have nothing to lose. They are capable of doing anything, and when these people unite and fuel one another, they cause a national outbreak.

What can we do about it? This isn’t an enemy  we can fight with weapons. Just imagine: you may have thousands of women and children marching down the street, and there is no police force that will be able to stop them.

The situation in America probably isn’t this bad yet. Americans have always been guarded individuals: when individuals have things – everything is good, when they don’t – things aren’t good. But no one complains. They still have money, goods, and food to hand out to the poor and the unemployed.

But soon they will run out of these reserves. People are already asking: where have Obama’s thousands of billions of dollars gone? People don’t feel like the money was well spent.

In Japan the government gave every citizen around $100 so people would revive the market by spending the money. But people immediately hid the money, thinking that they’ll need it later. Nobody went out to shop, as people were afraid to spend money on anything but food.

You see, we don’t have the levers to control the world. Today the government is no longer in control of anything. In the past it was able to regulate these processes through the economy, but today this mechanism no longer works.

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It Is Not The Torah Scroll That Matters, But Our Correction

there-is-no-time-in-the-torah1A question I received: What is your opinion on preparing the Torah scroll in order to bring it into the Temple?

My Answer: It is necessary to prepare the people to serve at the Temple so they will attain the quality of the Creator. Hence, the Torah scroll isn’t the most important thing. It’s because the Torah has been given to us for our correction, as written, “I created egoism and the Torah for its correction.”

The Torah scroll will not be beneficial if man isn’t corrected. So it’s best if you put your effort into the correction of people.

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The Creator And Nature Are The Same

laitman_2008-11-14_7050Two questions I received on what the Creator actually created:

Question: I have heard you say, “The Creator and Nature are the same.” How can this be?  What did the Creator create, if not Nature, meaning, the world, the universe, and everything that’s in it?

My Answer: All of this is the Creator. The only thing that was created is your own self.

Question: Did the Creator create us with the intention to receive rather than to bestow so that we would have our own desire and then ask Him to change it to the intention to bestow, so we would reach equivalence of form with Him? But won’t the development of this new desire, which will emerge from nothing, out of the creation itself, lead to a recognition of being separate from the Creator?

My Answer: The correction is brought about precisely by the recognition of evil and of one’s separation from the Creator by virtue of egoism.

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The Moment Of Truth For The American People

truth1A question I received: Last week Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that as far as he can see, capitalism has gone bankrupt. According to Kabbalah, is his “prophecy” true?

My Answer: He is correct in this regard. Even though Americans find it very difficult to leave the capitalistic economy behind, whether they like it or not they will have to start living by a different type of economics. I can’t say that it will be socialist, because this word was discredited by what happened in Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe. But the word “socialism” is the right word, because in Greek it means, “for the good of the society.”

No matter what, the world’s solution is for all the nations to unite. If Americans were to start acting this way now, their lives would greatly improve. Contracts have to be made on the state level, decreeing that people can keep living in their homes and that debts are put on hold (though not forgiven). It is necessary to provide people with a normal lifestyle, as otherwise the country will fall apart and greater problems will arise.

The American people have a psychological problem because the spirit of capitalism, concern for oneself, and competition with one another are so ingrained in them that they can’t accept these ideas yet. In this way, they are different from the rest of the world, where socialistic tendencies already exist in one form or another. These other societies care for their individuals to a great extent.

Nevertheless, I think the American people will soon realize that their way of life is evil and opposite to nature. I also see that they are starting to recognize the need for a universal, global education, upbringing, and nurturing.

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The Difference Between The Ego And The Klipa (Advanced)

egoTwo questions I received on the ego and the Klipa:

Question: I am confused. Is the ego and the Klipa separate forces, or are they one?

My Answer: The ego is the desire to feel pleasure or fulfillment. If one does something for the sake of fulfillment, then this desire is called egoistic. But if one does something in order to fulfill another person, then the desire is called altruistic. The Klipa is the desire to be fulfilled with the Creator, to receive from Him instead of giving to Him.

Question: Can the Klipot deceive us by imitating the governance of the Upper Force? Can the Klipot interact with or affect my reality the same way the Upper Force does when It makes the governance obvious?

My Answer: This is exactly what the Klipot do, as they are opposite to the Creator in every way.

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The Revelation Of the Creator Is Happening Here And Now

soulPeople are starting to feel that everything is changing day by day, and this leaves them confused. They don’t understand what is happening and aren’t able to manage it. In reality what’s happening is the authentic revelation of the Upper Force to the creatures. We don’t yet recognize that this is the Upper Force. However, we already understand that there is some force now at work in the world and there is nothing we can do about it. We feel that something is happening in the world, but we are unable to explain it or establish contact with it. Yet, we see that something unusual is taking place, and Kabbalah explains that this is the beginning of the revelation of the Creator.

People must now realize that they have no way of attaining control over this state or opposing it. Therefore, we must ascend and discern this force by attaining it through the same principle we have used to discover and learn  the use of other forces of Nature. Why? How is this force different from anything we have previously encountered?

The forces of Nature were previously revealed to individuals, rather than in a mutual, global form. Therefore, the forces revealed were not related to the Mutual Upper Governance. The Upper Force that becomes revealed when all the creatures unite together, had not yet been revealed. Today however, it is being revealed as the global force – the Upper Force that’s being expressed inside all of us. Very soon it will force us to unite so we’ll be able to reveal it in a good way. Otherwise, we’ll sentence ourselves to destruction.

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How Did the Stimulus Money Disappear Again?

analysis-of-the-crisis21In the News (from Time Online):Barack Obama attacks ‘outrage’ of AIG executive bonuses”AIG received some $173 billion in government bailout money and is now paying $165 million in employee bonuses. … Mr Obama said he had asked Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, to use the leverage the government had to pursue “every legal avenue” to push back against the bonus payments. The President said the bonus situation underscored the need for overall financial regulator reform and said the government needed “some form of resolution mechanism in dealing with troubled financial institutions, so we have greater authority to protect the American taxpayer and our financial system in cases such as this.”

My Comment: In the past, we couldn’t even image something like this happening. But actually, it is a step toward fairer distribution and a lesson for many of us about the new conditions that now exist in the world.

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