Raising The Contrast Of The Picture Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanNature is absolute good and therefore everything must be evaluated by the final state to which it is leading us. In general, “nature” and “the Creator” is the same thing. So why did nature arrange things so that in the process of our development we have to go through so many unpleasant, problematic, and atrocious states on the path to the good finish line?

The answer is simple: Goodness as such does not exist. We reveal it only in comparison to evil. There is no good without evil, and therefore we must reveal flaws along with their compensation over and over again. That is the only way we can acquire depth of sensation. The contrast between good and evil brings us understanding, and on the path leading through a procession of states, we gain experience in transitioning from evil to good.

In this constant movement we accumulate all the evil inside of us, and above it all of the good, and then we become aware of the gap between them, the abyss between infinity with a minus sign and infinity with a plus sign. All of this fits inside us, is absorbed in us, and becomes our vessel or volume.

Good and evil, plus and minus cannot exist in us separately. There is no Creator without creation. We talk about the Light only in the context of a vessel that is already present inside. We do not view the Creator separately from creation, which He created. It is impossible to say whether anything existed previously because the very notion of time, the very basis of perception disappears. There is no one to say anything and no one to say it about. Everything is only attained by creation. Even though it is secondary in relation to the Light, it is so only in terms of cause and effect.

The Ari writes, “Behold that before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, the Upper Simple Light had filled the whole existence.” In other words, the Light already fills reality, exists in it, and is subject to perception or sensation. Having attained that reality, a Kabbalist tells us about it. We will never be able to discuss anything we did not attain inside our vessels.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/11 on Global Education

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Above The Waves

Dr. Michael LaitmanOn the spiritual path the alternation of emptiness and fulfillment is inevitable. Otherwise creation would remain without any sensation.

However, I go through these cycles purposefully. They all bring me closer to the final state where I am included in absolute goodness.

At the end of the path I will attain that goodness, but until then in my sensations I have to go through completely opposite states. Sometimes I feel good and sometimes bad. So what should I do? Could the Creator really be rocking this pendulum, wishing to constantly throw me into heat and then cold?

No. He wants me to rise above my sensations, both the bad and the good, so I won’t depend on them. The states of my earthly, material life, the suffering or joy of my “flesh,” meaning my desires, have to be goal oriented. If I hold on to the goal, then it doesn’t matter whether I feel good or bad. The aim at the goal is always good.

This is absolute goodness. I don’t wait for the finish line to come, but continuously ascend to it, holding myself up with faith above knowledge. Then good and evil are beneficial and I am completely independent of the states that roll over me.

We don’t have to come to this at the end of the path, but initially. It’s the same as how a child goes to school every day. However, unlike the child, we ascend to the place where we can see the goal and understand that this is beneficial to us. Nothing is accidental, nature is absolute and everything in it is intended to lead the parts of creation to the final goal.

If we connect ourselves to the goal, then even when the worst possible things come our way, we won’t perceive them as evil. There is nothing bad. The next moment this sensation gets replaced with a good sensation, but then we also don’t want to be immersed in the good sensation over our heads. We want to enjoy and be happy because we keep going toward the goal – above all the bad and good things in equal measure. This is the right upbringing.

Humanity will not be able to move forward unless it receives an explanation of the common picture: We go through a specific process, and no matter what happens we have to hold on to the goal. In that case, all the waves will come at us in peace and everything will be there to help us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/11 on Global Education

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Why Do I Grow?

Dr. Michael LaitmanI am in a net of forces that influence me. Their sum total is nature. So what is its goal? What does it want from me? Where is it leading me?

It’s clear to me that my development unfolds purposefully. I am convinced of this by the example of the other parts of nature. For example, a small, sour fruit grows into a large, juicy, sweet apple.

Just as the vegetative and animate levels of nature develop, so I develop, going through opposite states that are good and bad. It is impossible to advance only on one side. I alternate them, taking a step with the left and then a step with the right, again and again. I continuously reveal a lack that corresponds to the future fulfillment.

That is when I make a calculation: Where is this process leading? Where does nature direct me? Then I see that it obligates me to undergo social development. Over the course of the last several millennia humanity needed to develop society more and more, and within the society, to develop the interconnections among us.

We revealed evil, our egoism, our hatred to one another, and as a result we are starting to understand the need to unite. In the modern, global world, this is becoming clear.

What is the use of this? The use is that I will enter the next level of my development, the level of the common nature of the universe. I will attain absolute goodness and will acquire similarity to the perfect nature.

Therefore, I do not take into account the intermediate states which I go through on the path. If I hold the goal in front of my mind’s eye and constantly think about it, then I feel good now as well. The most important thing is to “float up” above all the present sensations, both the good and the bad.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/11 on Global Education

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Why Did The Big Bang Happen?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: On the Internet, two approaches to the evolution of the vegetative and animate world are constantly clashing with each other: Darwinism and creationism. What does the science of Kabbalah say about this?

Answer: Frankly, Darwin is right in almost everything. Perhaps, even this reservation is unnecessary since he was simply misunderstood. After all, he was a deeply religious man.

Evolution really does progress in a consistent way where one thing follows as the result of another. Successive development is instilled in nature, and we cannot deny this. However, it does not happen in a random fashion at all since the egoistic desire is constantly searching for possibilities to realize itself to the maximum.

The desire to receive lives in each passing moment and cannot peek into the future. It does not know what it will give rise to in a few more stages. The desire to receive has an exclusively egoistic approach: “How do I get what I want? How do I fulfill myself?”

If this desire is working and the mind serves it, then any kind of progress, any successive development, is absolutely impossible. After all, you are constantly threatening your egoism. Under such conditions, evolution would not have moved beyond the very first particle of the universe.

However, the science of Kabbalah talks about the Reshimot, informational data instilled into the initial spark from which the entirety of matter emerged. These Reshimot are activated one by one in a chain, and the common desire realizes them, building up the matter.

This is precisely the factor of successive development. In Darwin’s theory, we see its external manifestation, but the essence is in the inner engine, the origin of the forces of evolution. They come as a result of the Reshimot.

What was in the primary point from which the Big Bang thundered? Was there really the entirety of the Universe’s matter instilled in it? Logically, such an assertion makes absolutely no sense. There were only two things in this spark: energy and information. They included in themselves the entirety of creation, and development started from them. Energy (Light) impacted the information (Reshimot), and the process took off.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/2011, The Principles of Global Education

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One Soul For All

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe spiritual world is a unified soul, one for all. By unifying with the others, everyone attains the same integral soul. In the article “600,000 Souls,” Baal HaSulam writes that there is nothing else in the world but one soul.

Every person attains this collective soul in an individual manner, according to his or her program or Reshimot (spiritual genes), just as at present, we observe the surrounding world and see it in our own way. I cannot compare the taste that I obtain from a certain food with how others taste it, or my impression of a painting that we both view. Everyone has impressions that match their Reshimot.

Even if we are standing in front of the same picture in spirituality, the same worlds and Partzufim, everyone receives an individual impression of it anyway. This uniqueness doesn’t vanish.

How do I unify with the integral soul? You do it by way of desires. Suppose I am in the center of the spiritual worlds: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon (AK), or the world of Infinity. By exiting myself, my ego, and unifying with the others, I attain the dimension of the integral soul. In it, I perceive the spiritual world. The more I step out of my ego, acquiring the others’ Kelim (vessels), the more exalted world I perceive thereby.

How do I do that? I “purchase” new desires since I have only a point, an embryo, of the soul. The new desires that I gain while unifying with the others are, in fact, the Kli (vessel) of my soul.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Just One Step

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: All of humanity must reach the ultimate goal. Therefore, any deviation from the right path seems very frightening…

Answer: Essentially, we always correct our movement based on deviation. With every step we take we divert from the precise movement toward the goal—and examine this deviation.

One Step The key is to check the deviation before taking another step. Only one step can be made in the wrong direction, and then a person has to immediately come back, in order to avoid making two, and especially three steps on the false path. In the latter case, a person completely loses the opportunity to examine himself or herself and will stray from the path for sure. (We study this in Talmud Eser Sefirot in the section about the exit of the Light from Partzuf and the connection with the previous states before the 3rd step.)
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Wake Up

Dr. Michael LaitmanLet me tell you a secret, but it’s only between you and me. Listen: We live in a marvelous, fantastic world. Everything is wonderful; there is only goodness, peace, and conciliation anywhere you look. But you don’t feel any of this. You are turned off, lying unconscious without any feeling or sparkle.

Why? It’s because your reality is one-sided. Without connecting to its opposite, you don’t feel anything. That’s because you were created, and creation cannot discern light without darkness.

Motionless and impassible, you exist in the Creator. So how can He reveal this wonderful world to you – or in other words, reveal Himself? How can the Creator reveal Himself to you?

There is just one means: to disrupt your sleep with a drop of evil so that by tasting it, you would wake up and find yourself in infinite goodness. And that is what He is doing.

Otherwise you would remain without feeling forever. You would not be able to assess your state, measure it, or understand where you are and who you are. You wouldn’t have any ground beneath your feet.

Through the dream you hear and hope that it is possible to draw a connection to that eternal foundation in which you exist, to place yourself in constant dependence on it and no matter what happens, to measure and check your sensations only by it.

When you do this, everything sorts itself out for you and there is no evil in your world. That’s because everything that becomes revealed to you, all the opposite, dark contours are only meant to emphasize and highlight goodness and light in your eyes.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/11 on Global Education

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External Science Is Limited

Dr. Michael LaitmanScience is developing and gradually approaching Kabbalah. Let’s hope that given the crisis that science is currently experiencing, we finally will be able to explain the reason for it and where the boundary of external science lies.

We have to understand that science is based on what we discover in our desire to receive pleasure. Thus, the development of science mirrors the evolution of our egoistic desire.

Therefore, we are yet to discover new and advanced forms of science. We will find a multiplicity of new facts, but we will not know what to do with them. We will discover a multitude of fine details that will only confuse us.

Our ability to understand the consequences of scientific knowledge and to classify them will be extremely low and will drop sharply. Although we will have new discoveries, they will not be good for us. We will encounter new facts, but we will not know what to do with them.

This is what is happening now in education and in other areas that relate to people. Perhaps, Kabbalah will be capable of coming closer to the external sciences and at least explain the reason why this is happening.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/2010, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Stop Groping In The Dark

Dr. Michael LaitmanPhilosophy may be dangerous for humanity since it doesn’t stop at the boundary where our sensory organs and all other devices no longer work. It goes further to make conclusions about what lies in the area of spirituality based solely on insinuations and thereby misses the truth.

What is being implied here is not philosophy as a subject studied in universities, but any approach to life invented by man, which isn’t grounded in real facts. There is a great philosopher in each of us, and we should fight this approach.

It’s enough to look at the crisis that the world is experiencing in all kinds of forms. We don’t have what it takes to handle the evolving world and possess no evidence to support yet another new method that we attempt to apply to it, which is also regarded as “philosophy.” One person offers a formula to correct the world, while another suggests another way to do the same. However, how do they know it will work?

Usually, a decision is made out of desperation in order to give it a try in case it might work, while it has no true foundation. In a similar manner, some time ago, there was one such attempt to build a society of total justice in Russia from one unfounded theory that had no factual support.

On the other hand, if we are constantly progressing toward the unknown, how can we advance otherwise? We have no chance to examine what we haven’t achieved yet. However, it is impossible to actualize something without trying. So, how can humanity evolve on solid, scientific ground toward future states that it hasn’t yet reached and only wishes to come to?

Obviously, in this case, all our advancement will lean solely on philosophy, the hope that there will be some result in the end. That is exactly what we see when looking back at the entire course of human history up until today.

We progressed while following philosophy: form not clothed in matter. Time after time, we guessed how it could work and then tried to implement it in life, only to err yet again. That was the customary form of our advancement, by way of trial and error up to today. After all, the future form is never revealed beforehand.

Only now we have reached such a condition that we are able to unveil our future forms. They are revealed in our interconnection. If we manage to disclose them in advance, we will have no difficulty in succeeding.

After we learn to see the changes unfolding within us in the spiritual form, we will be able to actualize them in the material world, in our human society, as well. Then, we won’t have to advance by being struck and experiencing pain, by trial and error. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah offers man.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/2010, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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