A question I received: What is the unification of the points in the heart that we are trying to achieve?

My Answer: When a desire for bestowal, called a point in the heart, emerges in a person, at first it is controlled by the desire to receive pleasure. So for now, the desire to bestow is situated within our egoistic desire to receive, and this is why it is called a “point in the heart.”

The unification of the points in the heart that we are trying to achieve is the unification of our desires to bestow. You have to unite your point with other points in order for all of you to influence each other. Thus your desire to bestow will rise above the desire to receive.

If we come out of our desire to receive and create a net among us above it, then precisely this net will be called the soul. All the points that I have joined, will turn into my soul. In addition, the might of the soul is determined by how connected I am to others and how much I desire to bestow to them.

If we influence the desire to receive pleasure with the force of the Light, then this desire will not be able to interfere with our progress, since it has no contact with the Light. And then we can raise our point in the heart higher. This is called “the exodus from exile.”

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I am the desire to enjoy. This is the only quality I was created having, and so I exist in it. However, I also have the ability to attain bestowal by uniting with this quality.

My essence will always remain the desire to enjoy. I cannot change it; I can only control it through the force of bestowal that I receive from outside. If the Creator will become important enough for me, then I will then start using my nature for His sake.

The way to receive the quality of bestowal is from outside, with the help of the Light. We can do this because we have a memory of this quality, which we used to have before we fell into egoism. This is why the quality of bestowal can reawaken in us under the influence of the Light.

This is exactly why I am referred to as man (Adam), because eventually I can and must become like the Creator. (In Hebrew, Adam comes from the word “Dommeh” – similar.)

So, what I have to do is to consciously use the Light so it will bring the quality of bestowal back to me. At the same time, my desire to receive pleasure will remain the same. Yet, the quality of bestowal can grow inside me so much that it will become more important and will control the quality of receiving pleasure.

The two qualities – reception and bestowal – never change. The only thing that changes is their balance inside a person. The stronger of the two qualities controls him.

It’s like a magnet that holds up a piece of metal: While the magnet is working, it holds the piece of metal suspended in the air, as if it were “spiritual.” But as soon as the magnet lets go of the piece of metal, the latter immediately falls back into quality of absolute egoism.
(From Part 2 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”)

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A question I received: Despite the numbers and facts you believe that the world economy is not getting out of the crisis, and this is the opinion of Kabbalah?

My Answer: I am not an economist and Kabbalah doesn’t do market forecasts. But here is my personal opinion:

We observe rising oil prices, rising market indices and rising stock prices. That’s why people talk about the end of the recession and the beginning of world economic growth.

However, it is not a reflection of real economic growth,  but an artificial stimulus of demand and new market speculations as a result of the infusion of government funds into the economy. Speculation in the oil market has caused a rise in oil prices, triggering a rise in prices on other goods. So new bubbles are being created, which will eventually burst and thus bring a new economic collapse.

The governments have provided funds to stimulate consumer demand and thus trigger economic growth. However, these funds have landed in the banks and instead of generating economic growth, layoffs continue, which in turn causes further decline in demand.

Governmental debts of the world’s leading economies are higher than their annual GDP, military expenses are on the rise, and the printing of money doesn’t stop.

Conclusion: We are in the next stage of the same crisis and we are heading towards the bursting of an even bigger bubble.

1. The cause of the crisis lies in the fact that we have reached the limit of our egoistic development through many centuries and we have now formed  a global, integral system.

2. The law of behavior of such a system is based on the common inter-connectedness of its elements. It is like the organs of the body, where each organ is working to support the whole system, and by this, insuring its own existence.

3. But in order to form such a connection (to love your neighbor as yourself), there must be a very evident revelation of our interconnectedness. Only in this scenario, will our personal egoism allow the possibility of taking the concept of caring for the whole system into account, .

4. Out of all doctrines, philosophies and religions, only Kabbalah talks about the revelation of the global connection between people – the Upper World, and not about suppressing the ego. Only the revelation of the concealed connection between us (which is the same as revelation of the Creator) will bring us to prosperity, according to His thought and our desire!

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Frankly, I couldn’t imagine that this would ever be possible. I didn’t think that the day would come when someone would undertake such tremendous work. But suddenly, Arkadi Duchin came along: an amazing musician and singer, and a person very close to me. He started collecting what he considers the most vivid moments from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson and writing a song based on them. And not just one song.

Every day, we hold the Daily Kabbalah Lesson. And every day, he writes a new song. But they are not just regular songs! They preserve the entire meaning of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, all its energy, its whole spiritual charge.

Thanks to Arkadi, a whole new style of spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah has suddenly emerged – one that is sensual, emotional and accurate.

Although the songs are in Hebrew, I am gladly posting them on my English blog, because I’m sure that everyone will understand them.

Here is a song called “This Is Egoism” based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of 08.04.09:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djy3UOR0F4k]

Transcript of the video:
This is the Ego
By Arkadi Duchin, Sima Duchin and Jack Duyev
Music: Arkadi Duchin
Lyrics: Arkadi Duchin

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of 08/04/09

Arkadi: For me, the goal is to stay as close as possible to what Rav Laitman is saying and to convey it through song, in a way that will be easier for people to digest. The challenge isn’t simple. I’m constantly faced with the question: “Do I understand it?” Because I have to convey the message, I have to check whether I have understood it myself and if I can even implement such a thing at all…

Lyrics:
“This Is Egoism”
Catch the fugitive – egoism – till the end,
So it won’t have anywhere to run.
So we’ll want only one thing:
To get rid of it forever.
When we attain the root of evil,
And, ashamed, will reveal the Light,
When the culprit will leave the stage,
Never bringing the wanted change,
We will discover the formula for goodness:
Only together.

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A question I received: The science of Kabbalah explains the law of roots and branches. Knowing the laws of this world helps us in our everyday lives. But how can knowledge of spiritual laws help us? I am referring specifically to the law of roots and branches.

My Answer: The law of roots and branches is the main and most important law in the entire science of Kabbalah. According to this law, everything that happens in our world comes down from above in a unilateral, absolute order.

It is written: “There is not a blade of grass that has not an angel above it that strikes it and tells it to grow.” Angels are forces, and any action, thought, desire, event or occurrence, from the most elemental particle to the biggest stars and entire galaxies, is managed by an Upper Force.

This force divides and within it, is included a number of forces on the various levels of the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human. These are physical and biological forces that influence all levels, with all of them coming from Above.

This is why the law of roots and branches is very important. With the science of Kabbalah, and learning the law of roots and branches, we can rise from the branches of our world toward the roots. We will begin to see our world as transparent and behind every object, we will see the force which manages it and brings it to action.

A person will begin to sense where his thoughts and desires come from and why things happen to him and to others. He will begin to see how a net of forces acts on this world and how it playfully and through various wavelike movements, organizes everything that occurs here for us. In this way, a person begins a dialogue with this Upper Force, with the root through which its own force operates everything in our world.

A person begins to understand where he can step in and have a dialogue with the Creator who is behind these forces, in order to respond, participate, change and consciously intervene. This is the only place in this entire net of forces that acts on him from the inside and out and where he can actively participate.

Although we are not conscious of it, we are inside of a picture prepared and formed for us by these forces. I have to come to understand how I can actively take part in this picture. In other words, how I can control my fate.

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It is impossible to divide the worlds. Our world, in which we exist, is the last level of all the worlds, and we have to remain at this level until the very end of correction. We must only correct our attitude to it, and then our proper attitude on the level of this world, together with our proper attitude on the level of the spiritual world, will turn us into human beings.

Therefore, we cannot just leave this world and “go away” to a monastery. We cannot just pray from dawn ‘till dusk and shut ourselves off from society. Rather, we have to work and study, have a family, get married and take care of our children. A person has to be part of all the systems that are customary for his age group and time period.

Without this, it would be impossible to advance. The Kabbalists of the past did not even accept students until they were married. My teacher Rabash did not let anyone who was unemployed study with him. And it doesn’t matter how much money a person has; he still has to work and stay busy. He has to have all the regular family problems, just like the average person, and be able to put food on the table for his family.

If a person refuses to take part in this entire “theater of life,” then he does not advance in the spiritual world. After all, this is all a single system. We must live in both worlds simultaneously.

Nothing was created in vain. It seems to us that this world develops independently of us, starting from the Big Bang and going through the entire evolutionary process, while our spiritual development happens separately. But in fact, this is all a single system, which is only divided in our perception. Our perception of reality depicts things in the material world as divided into the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, and it also divides the spiritual world into the same levels.

However, this division exists only inside us, while the only thing that exists outside is the Upper Light and our desires. Meanwhile, we perceive the connection between the Light and the desire on two levels. Therefore, it is impossible to separate and discard half of my Kli, since it is the foundation on which I stand. For this reason, every person must take care of his regular life.

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Every person receives precisely the capabilities he needs in order to correct his soul. We are not created by the whim of chance. All of your desires and qualities, all the situations you have gone through, the place you were born, the upbringing you received – everything has been set up for you in the optimal way for the express purpose of developing your soul.

Therefore, there’s no use complaining that you need different conditions in this material world in order to develop spiritually, or that you lack sufficient health, money, education, intelligence, talents, abilities, or sensitivity. All your qualities and all the conditions that are provided for you come from the particular qualities of your soul, which has to go through correction. Your only job is to ask for this correction to take place.

Therefore, there is no need to correct the external world. We have to live in the world just like everyone else. This world is a level that does not become corrected until the very end of correction. You may ascend as high as the level of Rashbi, who wrote The Book of Zohar, but you will still have to take care of your physical body, your family, your job, pension, and medical service – everything a person needs.

Like all people, when you’re sick, you will still have to go to a doctor, receive medicine from him, pay him money, and take the medicine according to the doctor’s instructions. You will have to do everything the doctor told you to, but when you are healed, you will thank the Creator for it. Why?

It’s because you did everything needed of you in the conditions that the Creator has organized for you in this theater of life. You treated this theater correctly and carried out all the necessary actions – and then you felt better. You thus corrected yourself on the level of this theater, and now you thank the Producer for everything that has happened. He set up this entire world and your illness for you, and you dealt with it on the same level

However, if He gives you a point in the heart and waits for you to come closer to Him, then you have to relate to Him on the level of the point in the heart. You do not throw your qualities out the window, be it envy, passion or pride, but you use them all in order to connect with others above these qualities, for example, by envying how they are advancing in the spiritual world.

Your pride pushes you to advance at least as much as they are advancing. You thus use all your natural qualities in order to awaken the true prayer inside you. And if you properly use all the means that are given to you, then you will end up attaining all your goals.

You have to clearly differentiate between the material level, which you cannot correct, and the spiritual level. You thereby connect the two levels.

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People think that the Creator punishes us similar to how people are punished in this world: you do something bad and you get punished for it. But there is no such thing in spirituality. We create our own punishment whenever we don’t correct our will to enjoy in some respect. The lack of correction, or one’s desire that was not corrected at the level it should have been, turns into one’s punishment on the next level.

For example, say a student in the third grade didn’t study the way he should have, but he was still accepted into the fourth grade. Now, in the fourth grade, he needs all the material that he did not learn in the third grade in order to advance further. Therefore, he experiences difficulties and all kinds of problems in his study, which seems like a punishment to him.

But who set up this punishment for him? It was no one but himself: he brought this punishment along with him. And it keeps accumulating from one level to the next, like a snowball, eventually turning into such a heavy load that it becomes simply impossible to keep advancing with it. But there is no one to blame; all he should do is correct the past.

This is how all of humanity is feeling today. People are carrying the load of neglected corrections, which were not performed in time, and this is why the world is reaching a global crisis. Moreover, this situation has been programmed from Above.

Today, we must begin the correction. It no longer matters what situation we have gotten ourselves into, what we have gone through, and at which point we had been too lazy and neglected the corrections we had to make. Now, despite all the difficulties and heaviness, which only keep mounting, we have to start ascending and correcting the past. Indeed, the only way to correct the past is in the present.
(From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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Preparation to the Lesson
Changes will happen if we will unite through the desire to bestow above our desire to receive.
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Part 1, on Article 882 in ‘Writings of the Rabash”
The Upper Level always creates the right conditions for the lower level to ascend. We must only be sensitive and welcoming to this.
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Part 2, on Item 14 of “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”
The science of Kabbalah researches the reality that a person attains above the level of this world.
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Part 3, on Item 156 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”
My current advancement is determined by how much I have bonded with the desires of my friends, who aspire to the Creator. The spiritual Kli is a desire.
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