Good Environment – 02.20.11

My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice for the Week

Above The Logic Of This World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is spiritual work also called a “yoke” or “burden”?

Answer: It’s because a person has to accept it by faith above reason. Every time he is about to become corrected, he is inside an egoistic desire. Therefore, when taking this work upon himself, which is aimed at the intention for the sake of bestowal, he does not see any benefit in it and perceives it as a burden.

My correction cannot be based on profit. If something is profitable for me, then I am acting egoistically. And on the contrary, if I accept the quality of Bina into my desire for pleasure, with Bina being above Malchut, then Bina becomes a “yoke” for me—something that lies above reason, feeling, and all calculation.

How can I achieve this? I tune into the environment and it influences me, showing me that it’s worthwhile to do this. This way, there is a benefit, after all, but it is of a different sort: It is evoked by the environment instead of coming from my own considerations. Then, while being under the social influence, I receive the realization of the goal’s importance from it.

Without this importance I would not be able to work, but it is built on preferring bestowal over reception. I would not be able to do this by myself. Only the environment can obligate me and change my values so much that I will nevertheless desire this.

That’s what it means to accept “the yoke of heaven.” This is impossible to do without an environment that builds the appropriate value system inside of me. In addition, I work above reason, above the rational approach, above logic.

It would seem: Why should I bestow? What will this give me? I cannot explain to my egoistic desire that bestowal is worth a thing. How will I feel better? Fine, if I would see at least some kind of potential benefit, then I would agree to it, but here we are talking about a real “burden,” where I have no justification for this work in any way. However, the group helps me to realize its importance and then I nevertheless work.

Without this importance I would not be able to work. I would not be able to devote even a tiny bit of attention to bestowal. That is why the group as a means is as important to me as the goal.
[35822]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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The Formula Of Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Book of Zohar talks about the inner states of my soul. But I don’t understand: What state do I have to imagine?

Answer: You have to imagine the state of gradual unification among everyone, the unification of all of us together. This is your soul. It’s when you try to unite everyone into one whole. If I make efforts to this end, this is my soul. If someone else does it, then it’s his soul.

Each of us is like a cell in a body that is trying to attach the whole organism to it. By doing so you acquire the entire body or desire and it is called your soul.

If for now you are only taking a part of the body and connecting to it only to a specific measure, then you have a partial soul. This means that you are on the path, on the ladder of the degrees.

But when you come to the conclusion of the path and attain the end of the ladder, the highest degree, Malchut of Infinity, there everything merges into one without any boundaries and with no end. However, each of us imagines the same Malchut of Infinity from his personal point of view because every person has his own root of the soul. Therefore, not one person becomes nullified when this happens. No one cancels their independence.

The only thing we have to discern while reading The Book of Zohar are the forms of connection among us. Each separate cell has just a desire. This is the entire wisdom of Kabbalah—it is the connection between desires because that is how they create unification, the entire might of Malchut.

For example, a computer does not contain anything besides a plus and a minus. But billions of connections between them form all of its might and abilities. Likewise, the entire work of our brain is based on countless connections between a plus and a minus, the will to enjoy and the will to bestow. They can unite to a greater or lesser extent, to a different degree, or not unite at all. There is nothing besides this. Yet out of the enormous accumulation of all the possible parts, consisting of different variations of connection or its absence between a plus and a minus, you get tremendous wisdom and truly Divine might.

Therefore, this is exactly what we are discerning, the forms of connection between these tiny parts or souls.
[35838]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, The Zohar

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Starting From The Lowest Point On Earth

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn preparation for the Convention at the Dead Sea:
Question: In four days a special Convention will be held at the Dead Sea. How should we prepare for it in order to attain the greatest possible advancement there for our entire group, our one big family?

Answer: Soon we will get together at this Convention at the Dead Sea and let’s hope that from this place, the lowest point on earth, we will be able to rise to the greatest height.

I am happy that we are organizing many meetings like this and hope that we will give the whole world our inner concentration and the force of our unity. Let’s stay together!
[35847]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The Yoke Of Heaven

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does “the yoke of the heavenly kingdom” mean in the spiritual work?

Answer: It means that I take the “heavens,” Bina, the quality of bestowal upon myself so it will rule over Malchut, the quality of reception. Malchut is broken. It shattered into billions of parts, and my work lies in taking one part after another and attaching it to the others.

It can be stated differently: I am a part of Malchut and I have to attach all the other parts of it to myself. How do we do this? For now we connect these parts in our small group, which are the parts we have to correct according to the program of the spiritual work. For now I have to be with the friends as one man with one heart in this way in order to correct the breaking in a small segment of Malchut, in the group, in my environment.

Then I have to bestow to the world, meaning to all the other parts of Malchut, so they would also unite with the group. That is how I correct all of Malchut.

In essence, I have to correct the world, telling myself that all of it was created for me. That is how I incline myself and the whole world to justification. By correcting my part, I “inject” my ascent, my awakening, my Light into all the broken, disconnected souls. Then they also awaken and each of them in turn aspires to unity with others.

So it turns out that a person brings spiritual life to everyone, becoming “righteous’ or “the foundation of the world.” After all, he gives everyone the force of the Light.
[35825]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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The End of The Slave Generation

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday we have come up against the new generation, which can do anything only if it understands, feels, decides, and agrees with what has to be done. Otherwise it won’t do anything. We also see this by the events that are now happening all over the world. A new wave is rising, or in other words, a new level of the common soul is awakening in all of humanity.

The modern generation is contraindicative of a morally-righteous upbringing which threatens a person and forces moral teachings on him, telling him, “Look at us as an example and act the same way.” This is not enough for the young generation. They will not take this path. On the contrary, they will copy the worst examples and won’t be able to have a grip on themselves so as to abide by your wonderful models.

The new generation won’t accept anything just because that’s how it has to be. Even though a child absorbs many things automatically, still, if we raise the modern kids by reward and punishment, it won’t work. That’s because egoism grows from one day to the next and you won’t be able to withstand it. Therefore, habit will become second nature to them.

Right before our very eyes a new nature is maturing inside children, and it demands that you hand them a method. You want to give a child ready-made results that he will implement like a small machine that you operate where he looks at you and repeats everything. But that won’t work. Children see right through you. They are constantly studying and analyzing you. You are completely transparent to them.

We have to understand that this generation requires a very rational and logical method that it could understand and then use according to that understanding.

The slave generation has ended, or the generation of machines that were personified even by Charlie Chaplin. Today we have to think about how to give the youth an explanation of the process of development, reality and their place in it, the goal, the path of governance, and the opportunities standing before every person.

In short, it is necessary to show a person the limits within which he really is a free creature. The new generation is very different from us and therefore we shouldn’t develop methods to train them so they would obediently stay close by, but a method of passing on wisdom according to a person’s age. Then children will use and realize this wisdom through their behavior, and then all that will remain for us to do is to check whether we have given it to them correctly. We will see this by the results.

In the past education and upbringing were based on reward and punishment. Children were stuffed into different boundaries and held on a short leash. They were told, “This is how you have to act.” But today this won’t work because the Creator requires us to reach the realization of evil, the understanding of what happens in life. We have to learn to control ourselves according to the importance of the goal. This is a person’s independent work.

The soul has no age. It doesn’t matter in whom it awakens, an adult or a child. We have to understand that we are obligated to provide a method of correction for the young and the old so they would grow only by it.
[35843]
From the talk on education on 2/19/11

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What People Demand When They Come Out Into The Streets

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the past several weeks, we have seen how in several countries people came out to demonstrate against their governments as if they were protesting their inability to take part in the governing of their country. How can we hand Kabbalistic ideas about integral unity to them so that they feel that it can offer a solution?

Answer: It is a very important question that is gradually becoming more and more vital these days. It is a question of unity that people essentially demand. In other words, a person asks: “How can I, a regular man who lives on two dollars a day (as, for example, the masses in Egypt do), decide something in this life?

They can’t leave the streets and go home because otherwise, they will have to return to this life of extreme poverty, which is “valued at 2 dollars a day.” But for now, as they are protesting, they have a feeling of being able to control, to do something. They feel that power is in their hands, and not in the hands of the government.

This demand cannot be met by adding one extra dollar a day for their needs. It is necessary to think about what to give these millions of people so they may feel that they have received the power to govern and make changes. And today, it is a truly universal, global problem, which is beginning to involve greater and greater masses of people in the world.

The governments start to ponder: What should they do? Political leaders are willing to resign from their positions and yield to various changes, but it will never satisfy their people. We are yet to see numerous demonstrations and revolts, until the decision will finally come to the surface: We must ensure that the very last, simplest person gets to feel that he, too, is in charge, and that he has honor, power, and self-respect.

Humans grew up! They are coming out into the streets and feel they own the situation. When they feel this way, it is impossible to bribe them even with money because such status won’t be enough for them. And they will keep waking up, creating a very threatening predicament. I don’t see how the governments will be able to control them.

Even if one government replaces the other and accepts people’s representatives, then as soon as they have power, they will alienate themselves from the people. As soon as they get their hands on and start enjoying it there, at the top, a person who lives in his urban slum or remote village won’t find them as his or her representative any longer.

We are yet to see this tendency in political development in the nearest future. In the end, no other option will be available. Mankind will come to a state when it will be faced with a question: What can we do to be equal? In truth, only when everyone feels equal, a person can feel that he or she is the head of the government, makes decisions, and is important.

It doesn’t mean that one must have direct power over others, but one needs to feel like that inside. And it is possible to achieve but only through people’s unification that we are moving toward.

Sociologists are not familiar with such phenomenon yet, and they produce very careful, superficial forecasts. But I think that in those countries where this process has already started, it cannot be stopped. A government should fear a people that have already tasted their ability to change something and take charge. Until everyone feels equal with everybody else, they won’t find peace. And this is where the world is headed to.
[35613]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Envy The Creator!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is written that “envy, lust, and ambition” lead a person out of this world, which means that we have to use these qualities in order to exit into the spiritual world. But the problem is that a person scatters himself in every direction and reaches for all the desires in the corporeal world.

If one employed all his strength to become a human, rise to the spiritual level, the human degree, he would succeed. But instead, he is chasing after money, fame, and power, and he lacks envy for spiritual properties that would allow him to become a human.

We need to analyze ourselves and connect to the environment which will mold us so that we focus on the most important desire of all: to become a human and fulfill the desires for power, money, and fame only as much as it is vitally necessary. All these properties must only sustain our aspiration to the right kind of envy: to envy the Creator and wish to be like Him! And if I fall and start envying somebody’s wealth, power, or honor, I will clearly not be tuned upward, to the goal.

But how can I envy the Creator if I don’t see or feel Him? This is why we are given the group: to instill the importance of spiritual qualities in us. You will never know who the Creator is until you reach His degree. And besides, His properties are opposite to yours and reject you. Hence, at this point, only the right environment where you can work can help. Only it can change your system of values.

But the problem is that even after a person completes his or her preliminary development at the still, vegetative, and animate degrees and arrives to Kabbalah, to the beginning of the human degree and free will, he may suddenly sway off the path and wander about in other directions for a few, long years, in search of wealth, power, and honor. And by the time he returns, his life is practically over….
[35622]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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The Degree Of “Virginity”

Dr. Michael LaitmanWritings of Rabash, Article 29, “Marrying a Virgin”: Every time a person receives a wife, he will receive a virgin who has never had a husband. In other words, he has never used this Malchut and she must always be a new wife. In spiritual work Malchut is called “the kingdom of heaven” which a person must take upon himself every day anew. He has to imagine that he is now starting spiritual work and does not care about anything that came before.

The Creator created creation and exists in adhesion and unity with it. We call this the first state or the world of Infinity. However, creation does not perceive itself in this state. It was simply created this way, but it is not permeated by any details of perception besides one sensation. Therefore, it is like the still degree, a drop of semen which does not have any self-perception.

The Creator’s desire is to bring creation to the realization of who He is so it would become similar and equal to Him. Therefore the true state is concealed from creation and it instead begins to perceive itself in the opposite state. This phase, in turn, divides into several: creation perceives itself as existing at the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels.

You and I feel our existence on the human degree of this world. Yet we don’t feel that we developed from the still level. We do not feel our past life cycles on the human level, but simply experience ourselves as existing here and now.

The matter is that every analysis has to happen by itself. A person in this world discerns adhesion, connection with the Creator, and develops to a level where he begins to express his part in creation, his attitude to the Creator.

The Creator brings him to this, giving him the sensation of emptiness in life, but on the other hand motivating him to connect to Him and become similar to Him. Thereby the Creator awakens a person’s desire in the first spiritual point. If a person properly realizes this desire by means of the method of correction, meaning the science of Kabbalah, if he increases his small desire with the help of the group, raising the importance of becoming similar to the Creator and uniting with Him, if he eventually makes his desire similar to the Creator, then he acquires a new degree. The initial point in him grows to become Malchut.

In Hebrew Malchut means kingdom. It is also called “the kingdom of heaven” because a person makes it similar to Bina, the heavens. That is how the first connection between Malchut and Bina, between creation and the Creator, is made.

Then, in order to give a person the opportunity to develop further, everything he had before becomes erased and he receives the next part of the egoistic desire that has to be corrected and made similar to the Creator. This part has to be brought to adhesion so he would become a person on a higher degree. Then no trace of the previous state is left.

Thus, if a person works correctly, then he continuously receives “a virgin for a wife.” Then he once against corrects his desire for the sake of bestowal, making it similar to the Creator and acquiring greater equivalence and closeness with Him. When he completes this phase, the adhesion once again disappears in him and a person again receives a new, corrupted desire that he once again has to work with by means of the group, raising the importance of the goal, increasing his desire, and uniting it with other souls. That is how a person advances.

He continuously receives a new part of Malchut, a “new wife.” If he works for the sake of bestowal, wishing to become similar to the Creator, then in the new state everything that occurred before becomes erased completely and he does not have anything to rely on from past experience. This is indeed a new degree, “virginity.”
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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