Good Environment – 07.17.11

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

Quarreling For The Sake Of Making Up

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if I am able to cancel myself in my thoughts, but it’s very difficult for me to do this in practice?

Answer: That’s impossible! If I really cancel myself in my thoughts, then I also do it in the actions. The action reflects the intention.

But if I still haven’t reached the final decision to cancel myself, then I am unable to carry out this action and am only lying to myself by thinking that I am cancelling myself in the thoughts.

If we see that after an argument a group does not come to unity, until the next quarrel, this is a sign that its members do not cancel each other before one another and don’t have any chance of attaining spirituality.

By conducting an inner self-analysis and trying to cancel our egoism before the friends, internally and externally, we already carry out the spiritual work. The spiritual world can become revealed to us practically only on the condition that we entirely cancel our egoism according to the level of our current degree.

If you now attain the true self-annulment in relation to any person, you will be convinced that you feel yourself in the spiritual reality, in the quality of bestowal, united with the Creator to a certain extent!
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/11, Writings of Rabash

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Money Cannot Buy Happiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, english.aljazeera.net): Western civilization is increasingly unsatisfying, saddled with a system of incentives that are essential for accumulating wealth, but that undermine our capacity to enjoy it. Capitalism may be close to exhausting its potential to create a better life – at least in the world’s rich countries….

“Material gains may continue, though evidence shows that they no longer make people happier….

“This is not to denigrate capitalism. It was, and is, a superb system for overcoming scarcity. By organizing production efficiently, and directing it to the pursuit of welfare rather than power, it has lifted a large part of the world out of poverty.

Yet what happens to such a system when scarcity has been turned to plenty? Does it just go on producing more of the same, stimulating jaded appetites with new gadgets, thrills, and excitements? How much longer can this continue?…

“This inspired the American way of life, where money always talks. The end of capitalism means simply the end of the urge to listen to it. People would start to enjoy what they have, instead of always wanting more….

“Financial services would shrink, because the rich would not always want to become richer….

“The dishonoring of greed is likely only in those countries whose citizens already have more than they need. And even there, many people still have less than they need. The evidence suggests that economies would be more stable and citizens happier if wealth and income were more evenly distributed.”

My comment: No one predicted that our nature, egoism, would not develop forever, and suddenly, for the first time in history, it would begin to change and turn from individual egoism into egoism that is general, integral, and globally dependent, and people would feel emptiness in past individual egoistic fulfillment. Those who still rush for “money = happiness” quickly realize that the previous methods of achieving this “happiness” do not work because the world has become integral and global.
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Fundamentals Of Kabbalah – 07.17.11

A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Take Pride In The Light, Not Yourself

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I avoid taking pride in my bestowal to the Creator?

Answer: The only thing you can take pride in is that you’ve received support from Above, which enabled you to overcome the hardships, meaning your ego. In other words, you need to take pride in the Creator, the Light, His help, but not yourself!

What do we have? Nothing! Our desires and actions are not our own, and neither is the Light. Even the prayer is not our own, but we receive it from the environment. Therefore, the further we advance, the less we receive, and the more we are grateful.

And when we return back to Malchut of the world Infinity, we receive the same Light of Nefesh de Nefesh which was in Malchut in its very first state. However, we intensify its illumination by “613” times with our gratitude, attainment of the good, and sensation of the Giver’s greatness.

But the Light itself does not change since it has no measure. The Light itself remains Nefesh de Nefesh, merely a small illumination. It is we who turn it into a great flame.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/2011Writings of Rabash

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Zero Can Be Infinite Too

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it that after so many years of study we still ask about its purpose? It follows that we always start from the beginning, from zero?

Answer: No, each time we start from an even greater “zero”! Indeed, the egoistic desire is constantly growing, as does understanding. Our desires become sharper and more precise, and thus our “zero” becomes deeper and more defined.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Tents On The Streets

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Over the last few days couples in Israel began a protest against the housing crisis. They are starting up tent cities in public places to protest against the skyrocketing housing prices. Will this lead to correction?

Answer: This is a good thing. However, what can our poor government do for them? We ascribe great capabilities to it, thinking, “They’ll decide something today and will carry it out tomorrow.” But that’s not so. Didn’t the government know about these problems? Don’t the ministers just want to get together for a conference and make a decision so that starting tomorrow, new, cheap houses will start being built?

This can’t happen because we are dealing with a great complex of interconnected social problems, and this is just one of them. We cannot correct any one of them unless we correct the connection between the people in the country. No one will be able to help: not the prime minister or the government, not the parliamentarians, and not the people who are sitting in tents on city streets.

It’s good that they are sitting there, and it’s good that the Prime Minster is concerned. It’s good that he’s afraid and they are making demands of him. Maybe this will finally push them to reach the right conclusion: that correction will not come from the Prime Minister. And even money won’t solve anything. There is a bigger problem concealed here. Even if there will be enough money in the country, the authorities won’t be able to make any useful decision.

We have to understand that in our times there are no separate, problematic situations. Now, when nature has closed us inside of an integral net, everything depends only on the connection between people. There is not one social problem, not even the smallest one, that could be solved without a social interconnection, without a connection within the nation and within the world. Without resorting to this means, you won’t be able to do anything.

The task might seem secondary or purely technical, “What’s so hard about it, really? Just give out an order, free up some land for construction, and let them start building.” But they cannot do that because they will come up against insurmountable barriers on the inside. That would be the same as demanding pure bestowal from a person when he is simply incapable of it. He just can’t do it.

So know this: Today there is just one solution to any problem: mutual guarantee. If there is no mutual guarantee, there is no solution. This is exactly what we have to bring to the people’s understanding. We can be sure that we will attain success and will overcome all the problems only by means of the force of the mutual guarantee.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/11, “Arvut

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ARI Representatives At The 8th Forum Of Ministers Of Social Development Of Latin America

The ARI Institute successfully participated at the the 8th Forum of Ministers of Social Development of Latin America organized by UNESCO.

The international forum that took place in El Salvador on July 11-12, focused on social policies for youth within the framework of the UNESCO Management Social Transformations (MOST) Programme.  Ministers of Labor and Social Development from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered to analyze the challenges facing the region in terms of unemployment and educational problems, subjects that concern today’s societies in general.

As ARI Institute we had the opportunity to present our views on global and integral education as a solution to the crisis, as well as the use of the new technologies for the sake of an educational system that truly responds to the needs of an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world.

These innovative ideas generated enthusiasm within the audience. New opportunities for mutual collaborations were discussed with UNESCO officials and with other educational institutions, in order to create pilot programs for virtual education to youth.

The President of the Government of El Salvador, H.E. Mauricio Funes Cartagena, participated in the opening session, as well as Ms. Pilar Álvarez Laso, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, and Dr. Julio Carranza, Head of UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Program for Latin America and the Caribbean. The event was also attended by representatives from several United Nations agencies such as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
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Everything Depends Upon You

Dr. Michael LaitmanSince initially we lack the aspiration to bestow and we need to gather, form, and organize it ourselves, we are given work in the group to help us achieve it. In the group, we work with other people whom we, as it were, see before us as “help from the opposite side.” And essentially, instead of working with people and desires which appear to be foreign to me, I work with my attitude towards them. I need to learn to treat them like myself.

In working with them, I see opposite relationships: rejection, hatred, and alienation. However, at the same time, I must reach attraction, love, and closeness instead, and this helps me to rise above the animate degree, to the degree of the Creator.

This is because there are only two kinds of relation to others: reception and bestowal, which are opposite to one another. Hence, I can test myself only by my relation towards my neighbor and try to build, form, within myself a need to come closer to another, a need for love—above all the hatred and rejection that are being revealed to me towards the others.

The revelation of evil can only be discovered in one’s relation to one’s neighbor. This also involves a lot of learning which can happen under the condition that I want to become closer to him, and I use all my strength for this. And then I discover that I am moving in a completely opposite direction; I get further away, reject, and hate. These are the qualities I refer to as the “evil inclination” since I understand that union, proximity, connection, and love are the “good inclination,” the quality of the Creator (if it becomes revealed to me).

Everything is attained through one’s relation to his neighbor. And this is why this world has many people. If I were to regard the entire world and everything in it, meaning humanity, the still, vegetative, animate nature, my life, my relationships with other people, commerce, family, relatives, and other people, either near or distant, as a means for attaining the quality of bestowal, I would be using this world correctly. Then I could say that everything is there to serve and help me, and I am there to serve the Creator. The entire world is created for me.

If a person agrees that the entire world is created correctly from Above, and everything is arranged to properly suit and help him arm himself with an aspiration, to allow him to make an effort and use it to acquire the desire to bestow above the common desire to receive pleasure (which was given by the Creator), he will succeed. The law of “I labored and I found” or “I labored and did not find, do not believe” states that everything is already in front of you, everything is there, and the rest only depends upon you.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011, Shamati #117

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In Search Of Spiritual Hunger

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf the Creator has created the desire to receive and wishes to please it, then it is unclear as to what else is expected of us? Why does He not just reveal our desire and fulfill it?

But the point is that we must add our own aspiration, hunger, appetite, to the desire created by Him and instilled in us by nature. The common desire for fulfillment does not give us a sense of existence. This is similar to the way the still, vegetative, and animate levels, including humans who lead an unconscious animate existence, do not feel that they exist.

But the aspiration to perceive the Creator, revealing the quality of bestowal within, is a vessel which is the opposite side of the Light in which this quality becomes revealed. And then this vessel becomes filled with the Light. This is why you should not believe that it is possible to “make an effort and fail to find!” Everything is in front of you: Go ahead, you can reveal anything; nothing is hidden from you. Only the lack of your own aspiration conceals the Light from you.

We only lack the vessel, our own desire, the sensation of hunger, thirst, lack of fulfillment, and suffering. But this must be suffering for the absence of that specific quality, phenomenon, which must be revealed. In other words, we only lack one thing: aspiration towards bestowal!

This is why desire created by the Creator is not enough. This is nature, a common quality. And it’s not enough to simply develop this desire. We see that the desire develops beginning with the still level and begets the vegetative and animate nature, but this doesn’t let them experience the essence of life because each one of them exists within themselves.

This is how humanity keeps living throughout thousands of years of development as well since this development is only of the simple desire to receive pleasure, and nothing else. In this manner one cannot go beyond the interests of one’s existence, the animal life. In this way we only maintain our life, but we don’t attain its source, cause, and purpose, which exist above the simple desire to receive fulfillment.

All of this is contained in Him who gives us the desire, the One who begets it, the Creator. And this is why we need to find in our animalistic state a way to arm ourselves with an aspiration towards Him, a vessel for the revelation of the Creator: the source of life, the most authentic life on the human level, and its purpose.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011The Zohar

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