The Beckoning Light Of The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Throughout our lives we often suffer. How can we work with it? Why do we feel suffering? What should we do with it?

Answer: It’s impossible to advance without suffering. Until we reach our final goal, we keep advancing by the force of suffering.

Suffering is when I feel that something is lacking. Actual suffering isn’t necessary; I can derive pleasure from suffering. If I know that a special meal is awaiting me and I’m getting closer to it, if I know that I’m about to meet someone I love, a friend, and something good is about to happen, then it isn’t suffering any more. The feeling of hunger and emptiness stirs in me the anticipation of future enjoyment and fulfillment.

Therefore, our entire problem is not in sensing a lack at the present moment, but whether that lack has fulfillment, an answer in the future. If it does, then for me it’s as sweet as a feeling of hunger before a good meal. I can feel that satisfaction is coming. Suppose, you have a date with a loved one tonight, and you look forward to the meeting. Is there a chance that you will be miserable?!

In other words, the problem is not in my condition, but rather in if there is a pleasure that beckons me ahead or not. The problem is that people can’t see a proper, good future ahead of them and, therefore, feel suffering. If we felt that all the problems we have today would be successfully resolved tomorrow, we wouldn’t feel the hardships as suffering. Rather, it will be like an overture, a necessary preparation that precedes fulfillment.

Hence, our entire problem is in revealing the future in our current state, the one where everything will be fine. But it has to “shine” to us like a pleasant date.

This will be the answer to all our afflictions. We will agree to pass through all the unpleasant states—ascents and descents, all sorts of confusions in feelings and in mind—as necessary for our spiritual correction.

If, however, through support from our environment, we know that a bright future lies ahead, then any of our current states would not appear as suffering. We would perceive them as a necessary sensation, a wholesome hunger before cherished satisfaction from the meal.
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From the 1st lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Uniting And Becoming One Spiritual Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Mentally, everyone believes that he is ready and willing to unite with all, but when the time comes to actualize this desire, we fail.

Answer: You fail in only one thing: Each of you separately is ready for it, but together, you are not. Egyptian exile is unlike all others. Why was it through Joseph that they entered Egypt? It was Joseph (from the Hebrew word “Osef,” “gathers”) because he is the sum of all forces and foundations.

Evil is impossible to expose, even if everyone is willing. In order to achieve this, one condition has to be met: There has to be willingness to unite. Joseph’s brothers were righteous, and each of them wanted to serve the Creator, but they were unwilling to unite. They didn’t agree to link together in Joseph who is the ground for it.

But when they were forced to enter Egypt with Joseph’s help, they started to see how much they hated and resented the idea of oneness. And the exile itself was the revelation of hatred toward unification. Only when this hate reaches its full force and one starts feeling its reign over himself (meaning that on one hand, he is subordinate to Pharaoh, but on the other, deeply suffers from it and is unable to accomplish anything), the breakthrough occurs.

But all of this takes place thanks to the effort to unite, having risen above one’s own desire to do so. Thereby, they overcome exile. As to us, we are standing at the Egyptian border, hanging about. The aspiration to be one manifests in mutual inner concern, when everyone is thinking and worrying about our internal unification.

As a result, we feel that there is something between us that connects us, and we all will become as one heart. At this point, we are a spiritual heart, a spiritual desire, where we are connected with the Creator and need the Light that will link us so that from our mutual desire we will be performing acts of bestowal to the Creator.
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From the Talk on Spiritual Work 12/17/2010

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Weakness Is Not A Vice

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Sometimes during the lesson we ask questions that demonstrate our weakness that we are not advancing and succeeding as expected. I see that you do not reject such questions, but rather keep trying to answer them over and over again.

Answer: We study that the more a person advances, the more he feels worthless, powerless, and small. Do not feel ashamed because we do not measure ourselves against roosters in the coop but against the Creator.

If I am in a chicken coop, then I definitely feel like a hero. But if the Creator reveals Himself to me, it is only natural to submit myself. There is no shame in it. Neither do I judge such things and ignore a person if he tells me that he is weak. I am well familiar with such states. Weakness isn’t a problem at this point. On the contrary, weakness is the attainment of self in its authentic form on the background of the Upper Light.

But a question arises: Is any desire to reach the goal still left in a person at the moment when he has lost faith in his strength, and does he still passionately wish to achieve it? That’s when he cries out for help correctly.

Obviously, everyone has to experience it individually as well as to explain to all our friends around the world that the attainment of personal lowliness and the awareness of the value of the goal, both of these conditions are mandatory in order to break through the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality).
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From the Talk on Spiritual Work 12/17/2010

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Kabbalah: From Abraham To Present Day

Dr. Michael LaitmanOne of the books written during the time of ancient Babylon describes that Abraham set his tent with treats and started inviting everyone who was interested. This is how he explained his teaching to others since back then people did not have all these modern ways of communication.

Many people stayed to continue their studies. He formed a group from them. RAMBAM (a great Kabbalist of the 12th century) wrote that Abraham took a few thousand people with him when he left ancient Babylon.

In the end, together with them, he revealed Kabbalah. He was the first one who outlined Kabbalah and gave us the understanding of it in his work The Book of Creation. He attained great heights, but he did not attain them in detail.

The whole problem in attaining the world is that the first Kabbalists were attaining the upper world in general, on a high level, while we attain it in detail. Back then egoism was underdeveloped, but today it has developed so much that it allows us to enter and research every fine part of myself and through myself, the entire spiritual space. That is, the difference in the generations’ attainment is that they were attaining in general while we attain in details. However, the Light of our attainment passes through their souls and becomes revealed in them through greater Light.

Thus, they have been always revealing Kabbalah based upon the same single principle: attracting the Light to the common desire through the group. This is the way it was during the time of Adam and through the 20 generations of Kabbalists from Adam to Abraham, which are all listed and known to us. And it has continued in the same way.

There was not a single Kabbalist who would have attained spirituality alone, suddenly realizing it and then jumping like Archimedes out of his bath tub, running and screaming about his attainment. This is impossible. This can only happen in external science, but not in Kabbalah.
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From Lesson 3 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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The Book Of Zohar – The Great Gate Of The Torah

RASHBI composed The Book of Zohar due to the illumination that came to him during the correction in the cave.… This is a great and awesome composition that reveals the depth of the secrets by scrutinizing the Torah itself. And this is called revelation of the Torah in its internality.
– The Ramchal, Adir BaMarom (Mighty on High), 24

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was revealing the secrets of the Torah, and friends were listening to his voice, connecting with him, and each contributed his part to this unity. Just as the Mishnah was created by the Tannaim: Rabbi Yehuda haNasi was expressing the common opinion and compiling the book.

This is what Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai wanted, that The Book of Zohar would include the articles of his disciples and would be composed on the Torah. For other books speak of private matters, but The Zohar that is written on the Torah is the greatest revelation of the entirety of the Torah. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai commanded Rabbi Abba to write down and arrange everything that the members of his group spoke about according to the order of the narrative of the Torah.
– The Ramchal, Adir BaMarom (Mighty on High), 24
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Study Kabbalah And It Will Explain Everything To You

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah is a system of knowledge and a method of revelation of the upper force in all of its manifestations, in all generations until the end of our existence in this world. It not only explains to us the purpose of creation, what is happening, and what will happen; it elevates us!

No other science changes us in any way, they only explain how we can benefit ourselves with their help, to somehow improve the world around us; whereas, the wisdom of Kabbalah is a method of raising a person from our world into the upper one.

By studying Kabbalah, you begin to ascend, to change your inner shape, and to alter your essence. You begin to open your eyes to yourself and the entire world, and truly ascend to your next level. It is no ordinary science where you stay on the “outside” detached from it; it is a method of self-transformation, ascension. This is perhaps the most fundamental part of it.

Let’s hope that, eventually, through our circulation, we will reach a state when people will know what kind of a method it is, and all of science will once again re-unite. How clearly and concisely Paracelsus expressed this in his treatise “Paragranum” [Das Buch Paragranum]: “Study Kabbalah (artem cabbalisticam), it will explain everything to you!”

Today each science exists in its narrow scope, and in each there are thousands of different niches occupied by scientists who don’t how to talk to each other. Kabbalah, however, is intended to re-unite all of these sciences together, to serve as a common basis for them, and to elevate everything to the single purpose and one common knowledge. That’s what makes it so special.

Ultimately, a person understands that the world he or she is living in is unified, whole, global, and integral, which is what all of us should be aspiring for today.
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From Lesson 3 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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