Good Environment – 07.26.11

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

Wake Up The Friends Inside Of You

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should my need for mutual guarantee be expressed?

Answer: By you shaking others up, waking them up, and doing it inside of you rather than with words. Words actually emasculate the meaning. Our entire work is done on the inside rather than the outside. What’s important is the extent to which I try to shake up the friends inside of me so that together we will go towards mutual guarantee.

We do not attain it with our own forces, but demand the revelation of the Creator. After all, mutual guarantee is the force of the Creator that connects us with one another. Alone we cannot extend the threads of connection and perform bestowal to one another. Nothing will work unless the Light becomes revealed between us.

Today we are connected only through hatred. But if the Light will set in between us, we will unite in love and bestowal. Mutual bestowal, where the Creator fills the space of our relationships, is mutual guarantee.

We have to aspire to it even though we cannot attain this on our own. Everything will come through from the darkness if we really desire to reveal mutual guarantee for the sake of the Creator. And “for the Creator” means for the sake of the quality of absolute bestowal.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut

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Without Possibilities, But With A Choice

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Arvut”: “A holy nation” is the reward in its final form of Dvekut [adhesion] with Him, which includes all the rewards that can even be conceived.

There is a part of humanity that receives spiritual awakening—the group (Bnei Baruch). These people are obligated to carry out the correction inside of them, to acquire the force of the mutual guarantee, and by virtue of that force, to begin bestowing to everyone else.

Besides, they have to observe the law that is described by the verse, “You will be a kingdom of priests unto Me.” Stated differently, this is talking about the state of Hafetz Hesed: Priests do not have their own property. Like Bina, they aspire only to bestowal. This is the quality we must acquire as well.

As for the quality of “the holy nation,” this is already a receiving desire that we use and raise to the level of holiness. Thus, it acquires an intention for the sake of bestowal and reaches adhesion.

This unity, this force, or this state has to reign in the group. There are no other possibilities here. We are talking about the laws of nature. If we don’t want to carry them out the good way, we will be forced to do it the bad way—through suffering. There are no compromises here, but a program that becomes realized with just one parameter of free choice: You can accelerate your development before you are obligated to this by the special, systematic force.

At every phase, this obligatory force descends to us and begins advancing us forward. However, we can move faster than it, and in that case we will reach the goal by the good and fast path, without blows from behind.

Thus, we have two possibilities to choose the means of advancement. But the advancement itself is immutable because in the final state, the program of development is already realized in full. The two phases of this realization are “the kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation.” They demand for us to attain mutual bestowal, love for the neighbor as oneself, and thereby, adhesion with the upper Light, the Creator.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut

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Who Has A Bigger Desire To Unite?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is our work on mutual guarantee connected with the rest of the world?

Answer: The people of the world have a need for mutual guarantee which comes from the breaking, from being in a bad state, from sensing the crisis.

But we don’t have that need. We feel good because we sweeten our egoism with the study materials, thereby “clogging” it. Even the desires of the outside world pass us by and we don’t feel them. People lack food, sex, familial relationships, money, honor, power, and knowledge, but we are fine because something much greater is promised to us. True, we haven’t attained it yet, but we are already “floating” above the material desires.

Thus, it turns out that the external world’s need for mutual guarantee, for unification, is much greater than ours. People roam about from morning till night, not knowing what to do and not having a solution, but we are fine. Everything’s clear to us and we are almost righteous.

So who’s worse? Who’s farther from the goal of creation by their desires: them or us? We are worse. Therefore, in order to force you to help them, to correct them, they are turning their hatred toward you. They are driven to this by forces operating in the common system. The Light influences people so they will, in turn, influence you. After all, their desire is greater than yours. And thus, they come up to you with hatred, whose consequences will turn out very grave if you keep dragging things on.

Question: Can I do anything besides working on mutual guarantee in the group?

Answer: What’s necessary is precisely your work in the group on mutual guarantee, in order to splash it out into the world.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut

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Why Don’t We Pass A Law About Mutual Guarantee?

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe new era demands a new upbringing and we have to inculcate it in the nation. This is the reason why we are first turning to scientists, and next, together with them, to the government in order to demonstrate the need for global upbringing to the power structures. Only this will enable us to smoothly join the interconnected world.

However, even if we achieve a general agreement with this condition, we will still be far from realizing it. How can the government be convinced? How should society be built in practice? In our opinion, the changes must first happen inside of man. The people of the country have to change, become different, integral. They have to desire unity and feel how to achieve it from the inside. Then this general atmosphere will start changing every person’s environment and will even penetrate the corridors of the government.

If the parliament affirms laws of mutual guarantee in order to impose them from above, this will take on coercive forms, but there is no coercion in spirituality. Man has to undergo inner changes that lead to the spiritual phase of development. Therefore, without suppressing anyone, we have to provide the right influence and education to people, but instead of doing this in the name of the government, it should happen through integration into the education system.

We cannot force anyone to build a new system of interconnection. That would be equivalent to placing a person in a dungeon, isolating him from everything he is used to. Connections have to be formed gradually, thanks to the inner changes inside a person. By changing, he will start interacting with others differently as well.

Until now we changed under pressure from egoism, which rages inside of us. It grew from one generation to the next, and as a result, we changed the world. But now the situation is different: The world is not changing any longer. It is being expressed as “round” and integral, and it is us, the people, who have to change.

In this case, how can the government and parliament help us? The authorities still don’t understand it, but their only way to help is to create a system of upbringing that will give people a new form. Only then will it be possible to change anything in the country. However, this process takes time. It cannot be accelerated by parliamentary creativity in lawmaking. There are many laws, but who actually observes them?
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut

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Introductory Lecture “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” – 07.26.11

Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

An Ambulance For The Wounded On The Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to “increase one’s effort in the work” when you have doubts about the teacher and the Creator?

Answer: If you’re having such doubts, you cannot lean on the teacher or the Creator, but must seek help from the group! You must receive from them this support, meaning the importance of the goal, the teacher, and the Creator.

When you find yourself having doubts, meaning that you cannot tip the scale either way, you need an effort to tilt the scale to the right direction. But where can you get it? By delving into your doubts? That won’t help you resolve them anyway. You must understand that in this state, you personally have nothing to lean on, but need an additional force.

Presently you cannot receive this additional force from the teacher or the Creator because you doubt them. The only thing that can help you is the environment, which imparts to you a sensation of the importance of spirituality, confidence, and mutual guarantee that the teacher and the Creator are important for achieving the goal. And if you don’t heed their advice and instructions, you don’t advance because you’re working with your egoistic reason which will not let you go forward.

Therefore, Rabash writes that in the group, its members should talk about the greatness of the teacher and the Creator so that everyone would be impressed by it. Only under this condition will you be able to continue the work.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/2011, Shamati #187

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The Language Of Kabbalists: Hard To Use, Impossible To Go Without

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Essentially, the wisdom of Kabbalah gives a very precise technical description of the degrees of spiritual development. Why do Kabbalists present this description using so many stories, allegories, and names in which it’s so easy to get lost? Why don’t they give a clear set of instructions, including the order in which the actions are to be performed?

Answer: Say, I will write: “Take desire No. 28 and desire No.35, mix them up with desires No.43 and No.62, then multiply them by the coefficient, and afterward, build an intention for the result, consisting of certain components. Now, coping with the resistance, overcome, and so on….” It’s the same as getting a chemical formula that consists of unknown words with numerical values. Now try to combine all the ingredients in such a way that final unification will result in adhesion.

What would you do with this? Moreover, the term “adhesion” itself is unclear to you. The word is familiar, but the meaning isn’t.

And that’s why Kabbalists clothe their message in different forms so you have a chance to understand it. They only have one option—to bring it to you in the language of analogy using words that correspond to the spiritual roots. This language is called the language of branches.

If you only received technical instructions, you would not find anything to hold onto. But this way, although you’re confused, you at least make efforts to find the right path leading to the Light from the confusion of our egoism. Egoism is what confuses you, picturing a seemingly external world. On the other hand, it is exactly this confusion from which you go towards the truth; it is from it that you can reveal the true picture. First, you ask yourself a lot of questions, and only then you start getting closer to the answers.

Indeed, by means of the language of Kabbalists it is hard to understand the truth, but without it, it is simply impossible to reach it. Only later will we understand the integrity of this approach.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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All Imperfection Roots In Me

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions for Topics”: Question 93: What is the root of every corruption? The Shinui Tzura (the difference of form) of the will to receive from the Maatzil (the Emanator).

We always check ourselves against the Creator since we have no other standard. After all, in the beginning, the creature created “from absence” has no frame of reference in this void. The creature born “from absence” can test itself only against “existence from existence,” relative to the Light.

We have no other way to determine what is good and what is bad. And all the qualities we find in ourselves are deceiving; for the time being, they exist by themselves and are defined only by our own imagination.

Real evaluation is possible only by comparing two opposites which have inverse nature. And so, until the creature reveals the Creator, stands opposite to, and measures itself against Him, it will have no way of knowing what and where it is, and in what state.

All measuring is done relative to the image of the Creator, the image of the Giver that we are able to create within ourselves. But we can build this image within ourselves only on the condition that we perform a restriction and remain in bestowal and concealment relative to the others.

This is why we are given the group as a reference system, where we can do it all. And then we will at least be able to know what state we are passing through moment to moment. The way I wish to appraise the group (whether I think that I am greater or lesser than they are, what kind of relationship I desire to have with them, and whether I am seeking the Creator between or outside of us) determines my own state of existence.

It is my attitude to the friends that I should assess my current state by!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Three Major Concepts Of Vernadsky

Three major concepts of Vladimir Vernadsky, one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology and a pioneer of the scientific bases for the environmental sciences:

1. Humanity is a potent geological force changing the image of the Earth. It is facing the question of transforming the biosphere to serve the interests of free-thinking humanity as a single whole. The new state of the biosphere we are approaching is the “noosphere.”

2. We are now experiencing the emergence of the reign of intellect in the biosphere, which radically changes its appearance and structure. Scientific thought of humanity works only in the biosphere and, in the course of its manifestation, turns the biosphere into the noosphere.

3. Creation of the noosphere, which began several thousand years ago, is an event of paramount importance in the history of our planet, related primarily to the development of sciences in the biosphere.

The noosphere is the sphere of human intellect and spirit, continuously expanding in space and time. The crown jewel of our creative work should be a new world outlook directed at the noospheric era.
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