Audio Version Of The Blog – 12.23.11

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Drawing Closer Through A Logarithmic Progression

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe power of our connection with each other must be such as to be called bestowal, connection for the sake of bestowal, mutual guarantee. And then our common vessel will be a hundred to a thousand times greater than our own cumulative abilities. If every person out a thousand wants one gram, then by connecting they create a desire hundreds of millions times greater, instead of one that just equals a thousand grams.

This is because when every person connects with everyone else, he acquires the power of the entire group by connecting to it. Then he takes this entire inclusion and once again connects with the group where everyone is already included in everyone else, and this is why he increases his power multi-fold. And everyone does the same and increases himself multi-fold by including everyone within him. This is how this progression grows: squared, the fourth, sixteenth degree, and so on.

This is the only way to achieve spiritual fulfillment and not through regular addition. When we connect under the conditions of mutual guarantee, we attain a vessel so powerful that it is able to reveal the Light before it. There will already be a similarity between the vessel and the Light.

Otherwise, the vessel is very weak and it’s unable to reveal the Light because they do not correspond to one another. It’s just as if you were to walk into a bank to ask for money, and they were to tell you: “Sure, we have a million dollars to give you, but provide us with a back up, a guarantee!”

And if I don’t have a back up or a guarantee, I will not receive anything. This is the entire essence of the spiritual vessel (Kli). Spirituality differs from corporeality in the power of the connection, mutual loyalty, which can be achieved through the upper Light (the force of connection between us) that makes us suitable to receive at least the first, smallest portion of the Light.

And then we increasingly need to continue growing the power of our connection. This is how a spiritual vessel is built, which is the only thing that we lack. The upper Light exists in the state of absolute rest—only the desire is lacking.
[63806]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Roaring Silence

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we prepare ourselves for the quiet internal convention that we decided to have so that thanks to this silence and inner concentration we will reach maximum spiritual advancement and rise to a new level?

Answer: After the great successful convention that we had, after three days of an incredible uplifting spiritual experience from this stirring and delightful festival, we should also understand that the main part of our work is done internally. Of course, there was also internal work in the convention, but actually this kind of work doesn’t require any external movement.

Our millions of friends who study with us and are tied to us in their heart and soul don’t have to travel anywhere either. We have to do our internal work that is aimed more internally, connects one heart to another, one brain to another, and ties us together most deeply. Therefore, we need to be silent at times, to withdraw into ourselves, and to try to connect there. This kind of work requires great efforts, more significant than those needed for jumping and dancing. It’s very hard work that requires the greatest inner effort.

We have to make an effort so that everyone together will feel this silent connection. Kabbalists say that in order to reach the state of “Hear Oh Israel” (which is a very high level, from GAR de Zeir Anpin and above), they prepared for two hours in the corporeal world, sitting quietly and preparing the desired intention.

The meals at my teacher’s were also in absolute silence. It was forbidden to speak with the person next to you. We ate the simple food that was there, drank, and kept quiet. After half an hour Rabash spoke for a few minutes, and it was all over.

Many actions took place in silence, in keeping quiet. Sometimes someone sang and the others were quiet. On Friday evening we had a meal for an hour and a half and didn’t even eat there because we were already full. Every person received a small apple, a glass of malt beer, and a tiny piece of black bread so that everyone could bless together. Thus two hours went by without any movement or words.

Sometimes, in the lesson or during a meal, Rabash would say “Let’s think!” and he would close his eyes and lower his head, as if he were asleep for about 40 minutes.

The point is that we have to do a lot of internal work. After a lesson we go out into the world and enter its turbulences, flying with its hurricanes that throw us from one state to another. A person has no chance to stop and think, to be with himself, to internalize what he has heard, to put things in the right places, and to do some soul searching. We come to such clarifications only rarely, at tragic moments.

So I think that we have to be silent. But in order to do that we must be prepared for the inner connection so that inside we’ll feel a powerful force, a cry, singing and dancing, all our studying. It shouldn’t be just silence, but a roaring silence!
[63815]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/2011, “Introduction to TES

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Impossible To “Wait It Out”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You are talking about good connections that a person should learn in the process of his upbringing. What does it mean?

Answer: Today nature is gradually showing us that we are connected with one another in a global and integral way. However, rather than forming a common, integral, and uniform system of mutual support, we stand against one another. That is, we are still connected through the egoistic system directed towards mutual destruction and mutual absorption.

Nature is manifested with regard to us from a totally different side. It treats us as an integral, interconnected, and analog system, while we only work only on severe clashes between them. It turns out that today we are unable to control not so much ourselves, but nature, and to come to some balanced state. This is why we can’t understand today’s crisis.

This global, integral, and horrible economic crisis is just starting; it hasn’t ended. Seven or eight years ago I warned that this is only just the beginning. Everyone keeps saying that we’ll overcome it as we did in America and Japan. We will not overcome it! We have to understand that nature is moving us towards a certain goal. We can’t “wait it out.” On the contrary, we’ll be worse off.

We have to understand that we are obliged to become as nature itself. Nature will compel us to do that. It has enough power and means.
[63835]
From a talk on Integral Upbringing, 11.12.2011

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The Universal Law Of Harmony

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do you mean when you are talking about harmony?

Answer: Harmony is easy. It comes from the fact that there are two forces in nature: the force of bestowal (the positive force) and the force of receiving (the negative one), which at different levels (biological, physical, moral, and so on) manifest themselves as balanced systems. If these forces are balanced in the human body, the body is absolutely healthy. If they are balanced in nature, this means it’s in a state of absolute rest. A lack of balance leads to all sorts of movements.

Naturally, imbalance is necessary because it produces life. It’s the constant interaction between two forces within certain limits, the variation of their relation to each other that create life. For example, the expansion and contraction of the chest, heart, and other organs are built on mutual movement of the opposing forces that support and complement each other. Life is what occurs between them, owing to their proper and harmonious interaction.

In our development, we will reach a point when the entire human community will achieve precisely this mode of operation whereby all its parts mutually oscillate. But these oscillations, like breathing, will be interdependent with each other, when the force of bestowal is equal to the force of reception. They will alternately interact with each other: However much we give to nature, so should we receive; however much we receive, so we’ll have to give.

Then, we will live in harmony, homeostasis, meaning a state of mutual support. Nature that brings us to a state of equilibrium between its two main forces, the force of giving and the force of receiving, intends that we come to this. It’s nature’s general trend.

We can do nothing with this general universal law. We can only understand where we go and how to fit voluntarily, knowingly into this external, absolutely binding law. Thus, we’ll feel comfortable not only in the final state to which we will come, but at all stages of development.
[63841]
From a talk on Integral Upbringing, 11.12.2011

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Expanding The Point Of Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it necessary to strive towards the maximum unification that one can possibly imagine at the given moment?

Answer: We have to strive towards maximum unification and ever-increasing feeling of unity starting with the point we reached at the convention, and try to rise above it in spite of all disturbances. This is how a spiritual life begins.

On one hand, this point of unity becomes ever more subtle and sensitive, while on the other, you have more and more access to it. You start to develop yourself within it, and various interactions with your first spiritual state begin to arise in you, even if without complete conscious awareness. But as you return to it time after time, a certain attitude arises in you, a certain approach, a revelation of this state.

In this manner you gradually bring yourself to greater and greater contact with this point. And it expands, acquires all kinds of inner properties, certain “organs,” like in a person whom you do not know and then suddenly begin to see his manifested qualities. You have to gradually expand this point to the first ten Sefirot, and then you will begin to feel your existence within it.

The acceleration of this process depends only on you: on how frequently you will attempt to enter this point again and again. You will be cast out, but you will try to reenter it again. In this manner, quantity turns into quality.

Every person who felt this point of unity, and even those who didn’t feel it, can catch up to us, experience it (because it already exists, it was already born, it exists outside of us), and develop independently at a pace that depends only on the person himself. To the extent he will be thrown away from this point and to the extent he will strive to return to it—that is how he will advance.
[63285]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 12/11/2011

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We Will Not Succeed Without Women’s Support

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should women’s work be now, after the convention?

Answer: In principle, a woman’s work is the same as a man’s: It is in caring for our unity, for the birth of our new state. In men, however, this state is more active, directed specifically towards unification.

By the way, I saw an impulse towards that in women as well: the way they suddenly embraced and held onto each other. It is very unnatural in our world, but on the other hand, it truly stemmed from their feeling of striving towards unity. It was quite wonderful to observe this. When people rise above themselves, they lose perception of gender, age, and all the differences of our world and unite in the internal awakening towards the upper one.

You sensed this aspiration from within your essence as a woman, and now you can describe and convey that to all the other women so they would have a good example. I was impressed by women’s behavior: to what extent they desire to support the men and are prepared to sacrifice everything for the sake of success. This is the women’s work—among themselves and in support of the men. The women comprise a single female part, and the men the single joint male image, and in this manner they work together.

I hope that you will feel this even deeper. We don’t yet have the ability to describe the sensations of our states. We lack the words; we don’t yet understand where we are. But try to do that anyway, at least with psychological impressions. Women know how to do that.

Write about yourselves, write about all your states, don’t be shy. Let it become an example for all the other women and enter our network so that through the women’s page on our website you could unite and prepare for the next convention. This is very important. Without women’s support no kind of success will be possible.
[63288]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 12/11/2011

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The Path To Goodness: Step By Step

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is not enough for us to know that we are distanced from each other, that we are pushing each other away not desiring connection between us, and that what is called the evil inclination is what does not let us unite with each other.

Only this is called evil; it is what prevents us from reaching the Goal of creation where we are connected together into one whole. Our evil inclination, pushing us away from each other and separating us, which we come across with when we want to unite, is called evil. We are the ones who define it as evil.

If I do not feel that it is preventing me from reaching the Goal, and uniting with others, then I do not consider it as evil. So it turns out that evil has gradations: The more I want to unite with others, the more evil I feel.

That is why in the beginning when a person begins to study the science of Kabbalah, he does not think that he has to get closer to others at all; he is similar to the brothers of Joseph. Later, he begins to understand that it is necessary to unite together, and then he begins to ponder how much good it will do him if he unites with others. He begins to unite with friends, this stage is called “the seven years of plenty”, when everyone is moving forward nicely together.

Then we begin to feel how much we are appalled by this unity, how much it is undesirable and worthless in our eyes. This is how we arrive at the stage called “the seven years of famine,” when we do not understand how we will be able to work with each other and how we will unite together since the Pharaoh is standing between us and separating us.

And instead of constantly exerting the correct effort towards unity, the Pharaoh throws various kinds of actions our way by which we are seemingly acting for unity, but it turns out that each one performs the action for his own sake. This is called that the Pharaoh bites the “back of the neck,” sucking all of our efforts for himself. This keeps repeating again and again.

However, there is a special force, opposed to all of our exerted efforts, called the Light that returns to the Source. If we are attracting it, then it is not important what states we are in. This force acts on us and moves us forward. It is impossible to move forward without this force.

So it turns out that in the field of our work we must become aware of the evil as much as possible. Evil is realized due to trying to do kind deeds, meaning that our work should be happening in unity, in happiness, in love, in studies, in all of the very best. Not for a moment do we mention the evil; we do not want to feel it in any kind of manifestations.

As a result of us trying to be connected to each other, to be kind, filled with Light, and similar to the Creator, that force of evil reveals to us, separating us. If we exert enough effort, we reveal it from concealment. To the extent that I exert effort in order to unite with others, to this extent, I become worthy of revealing evil. Meaning, the revelation of evil is a reward, a result of my efforts.

I gave “20 kilograms” of effort in order to unite with friends, and I got “20 kilograms” of revelation of the evil inclination: I realize that I do not want to unite with them. I did not know and see it earlier, but now I know. In spite of this, I continue to work, I apply “40 kilograms” more effort, and I get “40 kilograms” more of the evil inclination revealed to me. The Pharaoh keeps growing until he turns into such a monster with whom it is impossible to do anything.

Even if I come to him and I agree to all of the misfortunes and suffering, which will befall upon me like the 10 Egyptian plagues, he remains standing and separating us. Due to his stubbornness, I see that I have no choice: only to stop working with my ego. This is called to “run away from it.”

Then, under the condition that I am ready to part with my ego, to rise above it in faith above reason, an opportunity to achieve it is revealed to me, to use a special force, which will keep me above my desire to receive for myself, as if “in air”: My ego is located below and I am above it.

What does “I” mean? I can think, feel, make a calculation, and make actions without drowning in my desire to enjoy, but by being above it. This means that I am standing before receiving the Light that returns to the Source—the reception of the Torah.

Now we are located opposite to the Torah, we are sitting at the lesson, we want to unite together, to build a common desire (Kli), and reading The Book of Zohar in order for the Light, which comes from it, to act on its promise, to return us to the Source, if we have prepared the evil, which separates us, in order for the Light to correct it.

That is why it is said about Rabbi Shimon’s students that they sit before the lesson and are revealing the evil, the raging fire of hate. They do not arrive at such a state simply, but after numerous efforts desiring to unite, they reveal the evil, a new one every day. And then every day you have the need to receive the Torah, the Light that returns to the Source, if you are trying to unite and you realize that you are not able to do it, that you have once again revealed the Pharaoh even more than before.

Therefore, still try to reveal evil—but only due to our desire to come to goodness. And then if we really do want the good, the evil will be revealed. If the evil will be revealed, we will indeed ask for The Book of Zohar to act on it and turn it into good.
[63112]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/11, The Zohar

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The Spark Of Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can we say that besides egoism, the Creator has imprinted another element in the desire: the point in the heart, which He will evoke at the right moment?

Answer: This point begins from the shattering.

Physicists admit that the more they penetrate matter, they “lose” particles. Each particle becomes a kind of a “cloud,” and these clouds mix up and together become very thick fog.

With the point in the heart things aren’t that simple either. It is a concept that contains all of the Light of Infinity, but in the opposite form. Thus it seems to us like a spark. It appears in its minimal form so that we will be able to hold on to this initial thread of connection.
[63829]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/11, Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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Integral Upbringing With No Sudden Movements

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can integral upbringing, which explains the general mutual connection, help us come out of the economic crisis smoothly?

Answer: We don’t perform the correction on the economic level, the financial level, or in the mutual commercial connections among us, but in our awareness and our recognition. We have to recognize the mutual connection among us and the need to adapt to nature.

It is as if we all buy a pair of new integral glasses. When a person puts them on, he will see one “round” world. He will see that we are all connected and that we depend on one another. We are so interdependent that only I can feed you and you can feed me. By ourselves, we will all die of hunger.

This seems terrible to our egotistic nature, but from now on there is no other way. And we can see that it is really close.

So we have to raise people’s awareness and then with this new perspective, we will gradually change our life. Our life will change because of the changes in us, whether we like it or not. How will we see it in the banks and the stock markets? This is another question. First let’s start to change, and then everything will begin to take shape.

This process will undoubtedly flow in the right direction because when we understand the total mutual connection, we will not be able to harm one another.

Therefore, integral education is primary and it should be arranged above all else. There is no need to dig too deeply. The shortcomings of the current situation must be disclosed precisely to the extent that it will make us realize the need for education and that only integral education can save us. We should recognize the fallacy of the current system, but not touch the system itself. It is so rotten, that it may collapse as a result of one careless movement and leave us with nothing.

Question: But there are “fires” that must be put out now.

Answer: If you start with integral education, you will see how they immediately begin to subside. And besides, there is no other method. It isn’t the first time that the best experts are dealing with this problem. How many meetings took place and how many promises have been made—but no solution? No one has a fire extinguisher. Everyone says what he thinks: give money, save money, be careful of saving….

So I repeat: The solution is on a totally different level.

In the meantime we should stop making any unnecessary movements, keep things quiet, and publicly declare that we should be very careful. After all, we are up to our necks in the swamp and any wave we might make may drown us.

Instead we should rise to another level and activate the education system. Then, when we look at the world through these new glasses, we will know how to solve our problems. We will know it internally. Thanks to the new education, people will begin to change, and thus change the balance with nature’s forces. We will accumulate the power of mutual help and will improve the mutual relations among people and among nations, and gradually come out of the old, crisis-stricken world.

Above the old system, we build a new system: This is the same mutual guarantee, but it is now adapted to specific fields like education, the family, the state, society, industry and the economy. The principle of mutual guarantee will be determined in every field according to a person’s internal changes.

I don’t know any other solution. The problem is only in realizing this and here we are at a crossroad: Should we go on using the usual methods that will eventually bring us to the rise of Nazi regimes, wars, and mass destruction, or should we follow the path Kabbalists recommend?
[63823]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/11, Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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