A Very Simple Formula

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we read The Zohar with the right intention and demand for twice as long—for an hour and a half a day instead of 45 minutes, will we attain the full correction twice as fast? Or is there a different formula at work here?

Answer: The formula is very simple. The custom at my teacher Rabash’s was that we read The Zohar for half an hour a day. Rabash did not explain anything and did not add a single word. We simply read the text, everything in a row without asking him any questions for half an hour before sleep. That is why I follow the same order.

Do you want to study for twice as long? That is why I added another quarter of an hour to the lesson.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/17/11, The Zohar

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The Contours Of Inner Beauty

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Michelangelo said that he didn’t sculpt, but rather chiseled away all that concealed the true image in the stone. What image must I reveal in the boulder of the “environment” so that I may chisel the spiritual bond out of it?

Answer: Pure bestowal. Ask the upper force to come and draw the contours of pure bestowal for you since it is only the upper force that sets boundaries to you. Like Michelangelo, who could sense the contours of beauty within a stone, I must know where my contours, my boundaries are: to what extent I can use the matter of desire in order to bestow and what the limit is beyond which I am unable to do so.

All that is suitable for bestowal becomes a masterpiece of creation, and what is not, I discard for now. Thereby, I beget the image of the authentic world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/2011 on An Integral World

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Egoism On The Global Scale

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are many nongovernmental charitable organizations in the world which honestly yearn to help people. What is wrong with them? After all, these philanthropists seem to feel that their well-being depends on the welfare of the world.

Answer: That’s the root of the problem: They are helping so that they may feel at peace. A small part of the world population feels that it has to help others. A person feels more at ease, and this is what gives him or her personal satisfaction.

In charitable organizations, there are many people who have a natural need to tend to others. They are programmed with an instinct. They have to assist in order to appease themselves. Baal HaSulam writes that in the world, there are 10% of such individuals, and according to the statistics, it is 7% or 8%.

However, all of this derives from egoism and is one of its manifestations. I love the world as my own child, and I feel bad if the world feels bad. I must help Africa in order to get rid of bad feelings. That’s all.

Such assistance won’t help anybody. On the contrary, it only brings harm since the more altruists give, the more their beneficiaries get used to doing nothing and do not evolve.

A similar problem surfaced in Russia today. It turns out that high oil prices are undesirable. On the surface, it fills the treasury daily, but it’s not worth it. After all, we won’t develop like this. We will just sit on our oil pipe, make a feast, and build golden palaces, but at the same time, as a country, as a nation, we will keep degrading. It is impossible to evolve without a need. Hence, despite basic logic, they don’t wish to collect “oil money” any more and are becoming aware of such things.

All present development of the world, along with charities and the commonwealth market, is nothing but egoism’s domain. Nothing good will come out of it, no matter where it is. On the contrary, all parties are only pressuring each other. We have found the law of integral interconnection, but everyone wants to use it egoistically. “Ah, that’s what it is! Global interdependence? Let’s take over the world then. We’ll put everybody in his place, and if anybody rebels, we’ll threaten to cut off their oxygen.” This is how they wish to utilize the integral network that nature reveals to us.

We are now in a very dangerous predicament since if our egoism is tied to global interconnection, it allows it to control the entire world globally, over everyone at once. This is what is threatening us if people lack wisdom and the perception and understanding of what the future holds in store for us.

They quietly decide the fate of the world to fit their petty objectives, having no clue what it will lead to in the near future and even tomorrow. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran are vivid examples of that. In the end, everything will produce the opposite result.

The games are over. We can’t give power to our egoism any longer. When the world locks into a global system, you can’t act as you did before, ruling by gold or force. It won’t work. Iraq is a vivid demonstration of it. America’s shame is before the entire world, and they are still at it. It’s all about lacking the understanding of the integral laws. No might and no brain will solve this problem. Russia has fallen, despite all its riches, and the United States will fall even lower.

Today, the approach must be adequate to a world-wide tendency toward global integration. Otherwise, you will lose.

A little time will pass, and we will witness how even terrorist organizations will start to understand it. It will be impossible to control the world by force any longer. The arising problems will make everybody think about what to do next.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2011 on An Integral World

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Education For The New World

Dr. Michael LaitmanHumanity must come to an understanding that unity is the next stage in its development. Since we have already become one family, one nation, one system, where everyone is interdependent, there is no other choice but to accept this fact and treat it very seriously. The general system should be studied through the principal of systems engineering in order to work out and introduce laws that regulate interrelationships between people, nations, and all of humanity.

Just ask the scientists what an integral system means, and they will tell you that we are all interdependent and that no one can make a move without moving all the rest. Thus, it’s necessary to consider everyone’s interests without any exceptions. The first step is to not do to others what you wouldn’t want done to you, and the second step is to correctly and effectively implement a system that’s based on the principal of love thy neighbor as thyself.

Until we establish such an interconnection in our system, we will not see a good life. With each day, the damaged mechanism of our interconnection becomes more and more apparent. On the still level of nature, the imbalance among us will be evident through various natural disasters such as eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, global warming, explosions on the Sun, and so on. The Moon could also become a source of various problems. This is how the imbalance caused by us becomes apparent on the still level.

Problems on the vegetative level can affect the crops. The Egyptian plagues described in the Bible tell us in the language of allegory about the possible disasters on the vegetative and animate levels. Then, it will come to the human level.

This is why, on one hand, we must accept this integral law as a law, and on the other, we must implement the educational system as soon as possible and to explain to people why the law is as such, and why and how we must follow it.

Millions of people are unemployed in today’s’ modern world. There also exists a concealed unemployment. A lot of people will stop what they are doing because it is destructive to nature. The military-industrial workers will also become unemployed, and so on. All these people will work in a sphere of agitation and education. As a result, each person will provide what’s necessary for others.

This is exactly what we need: to produce what is necessary for each person and divide it between everyone. In addition, we must provide education. Each person has to receive his “educational portion” and his share of vital necessities. This will be the duty of worldwide governments and of the entire universal system of humanity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2011 on An Integral World

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The Influence Of The Environment With A Spiritual Illumination

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to explain to people that real evil lies in our opposition to the nature of the universe?

Answer: We can give a person this knowledge and sensation by presenting this fact to him by means of the right upbringing from society’s end. We will have to organize this upbringing in a way where it will contain a connection with the Light that reforms.

An additional problem emerges here. People without a point in the heart have to receive this illumination through us. If we take care of them, if we give them the method of correction, if we hold various events, broadcast TV and radio shows, work on the Internet, and if we formulate all the necessary principles for people, then they become attached to us and are nourished by the force that operates in our system, which lies deeper than their system.

It is enough to attach them to this extent in order for them to understand that their future depends on unity. But how can we bring them to this sensation? It can happen with the help of upbringing, social opinion, and the influence of those around you. The environment is able to instill the most removed and unnatural notions in a person. How so?

The society simply starts demonstrating condemnation or respect for certain qualities that a person has, and that’s all it takes. The people around a person can treat him dually: positively or negatively, and this is entirely sufficient.

We have to understand that there is no other way to go, that we have to attain balance with nature, and that we have to involve the mass media and other means, paying special attention to the young generation in order to already start teaching children about life in the new world. Without this, there is no other way to achieve anything.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11

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Corrected Means United

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe first principle of upbringing: Nature is united and we are opposite to it.

Part one: Research of nature and society shows that we are all interconnected. People are a single organism or a single system inside of nature’s system.

Just as it befits the parts of a living body, so we should unite with one another above all the differences for the good of the whole body.

Today we are gradually discovering this and therefore we are calling humanity’s present state global and integral. It is global because in our days the interconnection among the world’s entire population is forcefully being revealed. Among all of its parts and in all of its differences, no matter what it is, the connection is being revealed as a necessary factor.

This is coming from the side of nature rather than our desire to be interconnected or not. It is simply a fact that from one day to the next we discover more and more ties among us.

A question arises: Did this connection exist before? Or were we disconnected before and now our interconnection has formed and is being expressed?

This question needs to be divided into two parts. On one hand, we are and always have been interconnected and are in total, perfect unity. This is our state relative to the Creator and it is not a criterion for measuring anything. This unity is called Infinity (Ein Sof): the state of Infinity, the world of Infinity, Malchut of Infinity. However, we are yet to reach it in our sensations.

Right now, we, all of humanity, are going through the levels of development. We have to modernize our interconnection at every moment. Throughout history we developed on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, until we attained the human level, and after that on the human level, we again went through the same sub-levels: still, vegetative, and animate, until reaching the modern era of the human degree on the human degree—the “human in man.”

That is how we have gone through the entire process of human preparation and have begun to develop the human in us. “The human in man” is the likeness of the Creator which we must acquire today. The likeness of the Creator is the same thing as the global, integral interconnection among all of us. Today we stand at the beginning of the phases of unification—unity that happens out of realization, awareness, and desire. That is how it has to be from our end.

That is why now we are not being assessed in relation to the world of Infinity, but in relation to how much we understand, realize, and are ready to take on the form of unity that nature or the Creator places before us. Don’t try to be a righteous man, regardless of how you envision this concept. You have to be corrected according to the conditions you are in. “Corrected” means united. There is just one thing we have to do—unite with one another.

On the path to unity we go through the phase of bestowal for the sake of bestowal (“Don’t do unto others what you yourself hate”) and then reception for the sake of bestowal (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). Yet the principle is unchanging: All of man’s upbringing lies in unifying with his neighbor.

Nature is becoming expressed as more and more global and therefore we must also be global and unite with it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.17.11

Lesson on Topic “I Created the Evil Inclination, and I Created the Torah as a Spice”
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” “You Will Behold the Secret of Secrets,” Item 213, Lesson 3
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 9, Item 10, Lesson 8
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Topic: The Principles of Global Education, Lesson 2
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