Audio Version Of The Blog – 06.01.12

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Raise Your Desires To A New Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee):” With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person.

This means that we will receive such a great pleasure in our feeling that in our corporeal life we will not need anything but what is necessary for our existence, just as animals have no need for cookies, but only for the natural food that is enough for them. If our desires, which are not on the animal level, will stop confusing us and will rise to the “Human” level, we will get rid of all the surpluses that only pollute the earth and will leave only what we need for our basic necessities in the corporeal life.

By the connection with others we reach the fulfillment on the “human” level, similar to the Creator. Then, of course you don’t think about self-enjoyment except for what is necessary. We discover the Creator in the connection with others and so of course we give all our powers for the needs of others. This is why it says: “I reside within my people.”

Since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

It is the supportive society that raises the importance of the connection in my eyes and provides a sense of security that I will not lack any of the basic necessities, which allows a person to care for everyone.

Later, this will also disappear and I will receive everything thanks to the unity with the society; I won’t have to see the system that provides proof for the love and concern of those around me. The love I feel for them will fill all my vessels.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“

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The Creator Governs With Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: On the spiritual path my egoistic desire is faced with unpleasant sensations.

Answer: Until the point when you finally give up and feel how good it actually is. Right now you take pride in yourself like a pompous rooster, so of course it doesn’t feel pleasant. But afterward, you’ll begin to value the Creator’s attitude and you’ll see that He is actually displaying humility. It is said that where you reveal the greatness of the Creator, there you will reveal His modesty.

There is nothing higher than modesty, even though egoism doesn’t agree. Modesty is a result of a reaction to Surrounding Light of the Creator, that is, the upper degree. It doesn’t appear at once, it is preceded by the realization of the fact that the upper One governs with love. For us, power means tyranny and oppression, while in spirituality it is the opposite: The upper One shows you the extent to which He bows before you. And you begin to value Him for that.

Question: In that case, who works with whom: He with me, or I with Him?

Answer: It is mutual work. It is said “I am the first.” In other words, the upper brings about all of your states; you always exist within the circumstances created by Him. So first of all, you need to remember that you live in a world that He formed. And afterward, you need to look at yourself from the side: “How am I reacting to this? Am I capable of doing something or am I completely weakened? Am I angry? Do I yield? How do I respond to my current state? Can I transition to a desired state? And what is it exactly?”

In the search for the means to make this transition, you discover that it’s only possible to change your state through the upper. This means that you’ll have to ask Him to do that.

As for the upper One, He has built a strict order, a chain of states through which He needs to lead you. If you agree with His plan, if you ask to go to the next state, then you reveal it as good and favorable. After all, you desire it and it fulfills you. However, if you do not ask for the next state, then it will manifest through bad qualities and foul sensations.

So the chain has been set, and everything depends on your preparation. By forcing the next state, you receive it as a gift, and conversely, by rejecting the new degree you sense it in the form of suffering, which nevertheless still teaches you something.

Question: That means that my request determines the sensations along the path?

Answer: Yes. You need to raise MAN, a request for correction.

Question: However, humility deprives me of the strength. It’s impossible to advance like this since development is built on a strong egoistic desire. What will be left of me after self-renunciation? Perhaps I’ll obtain a new mind, but essentially I, myself, will no longer exist.

Answer: Self-renunciation is realized through the power of the mind, by means of close acquaintance with the Creator, when I bow my head, that is, when I thoroughly work on my desire. Self-renunciation is a transition towards an action of bestowal. I begin precisely with self-renunciation, I accept a new order of work according to which I need to unite with those around me more, penetrate their desires, and form a new vessel. This requires a lot of diverse and interdependent actions since I am putting together mutually dependent parts.

So there’s no dead end here. The Creator simply wants you to be “a good, clever boy.” When you bow before the Creator, you are really bowing before the property of bestowal, elevating it above your egoism, and continuing to work with this property. So start attaching your ego to bestowal.
[79332]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2012, Baal HaSulam “600,000 Souls”

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Mutual Understanding Beyond The Language Barrier

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In one of the towns we encountered a situation where half of the population speaks Russian and the other half only knows the local language. What language should be used for teaching the integral method? Should we separate people on the basis of language or bring them together?

Answer: Perhaps this is a typical situation indeed. Separating people is definitely bad, but it’s necessary in terms of learning the material. If the integral method is presented in video format, then we can offer subtitles. The main, basic language is Russian, with subtitles underneath.

But by no means should we separate people; we should continue the studies together in two languages. Everyone should speak in whatever language they are comfortable with, while at the same time trying to neutralize the language barrier. In other words, ignore it, try to understand each other, and make the most contact as possible with each other. The atmosphere should be benevolent and absolutely equal.

Response: Considering that knowledge is secondary to the integral processes, it doesn’t matter how well a person can speak. What’s more important is the feeling of unity.

Answer: The fact of the matter is that a person needs to realize that the process being offered is a necessary process because otherwise it’s impossible to overcome the crisis. Therefore, we need to constantly convince him that another method for solving the crisis doesn’t exist. For that, he needs to assimilate and absorb certain knowledge into himself. So we still need to fill him with certain basic facts.
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From KabTV’s “Experimental City: Upbringing” 3/3/12

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“The Age Of Nationalism Is Back With A Vengeance”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Independent): “The crises in Europe and the Middle East are very different but they are beginning to cross-infect each other, creating a general mood of uncertainty and fear. In the Middle East, the Arab Spring was at first seen as wholly positive, as dictatorships and police states tumbled or came under democratic assault from Tunis to Bahrain. A bright dawn was breaking across the region. …

“In the past decade, the Muslim world had its grim reminders of the national egotism of great powers, notably that of the US. In Europe, people in states belonging to the European Union have had a different, less blood-soaked but no less compelling, demonstration of how little we have moved on from the Europe of contending nationalities. …

“The European and Middle East crises are in their different ways exposing as claptrap optimistic talk of European solidarity, globalisation being beneficial to all, and ‘humanitarian’ intervention. As mutinies against the powers-that-be spread across Europe, the natural conduit for political activism is strongly nationalist parties on the right and the left. Many voters may feel that angry nationalists may be able to cut a better deal with Brussels than their over-complaisant predecessors. The age of competing nationalities, which never really ended, is back with a vengeance.”

My Comment: Egoism has not been corrected, so what can we hope for? It will be manifested more and more, until it forces us to correct it by means of the method of integral upbringing.
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Are We United By A System Of Connections?

In the News (from The Guardian): “As our meeting places fall silent, save for tapping on screens, it seems we have mistaken ubiquitous connection for the real thing

“I first noticed it in a restaurant. The place was strangely quiet, and at one table a group seemed deep in prayer. Their heads were bowed, their eyes hooded and their hands in their laps. I then realised that every one, young and old, was gazing at a handheld phone. People strolled the street outside likewise, with arms crooked at right angles, necks bent and heads in potentially crippling postures. Mothers with babies were doing it. Students in groups were doing it. They were like zombies on call. There was no conversation.

“The MIT professor and psychologist Sherry Turkle claims that her students are close to mastering the art of sustaining eye contact with a person while texting someone else. It is like an organist playing different tunes with hands and feet. To Turkle, these people are “alone together … a tribe of one”. Anyone with 3,000 Facebook friends has none. …

“Psychologists have identified this as “fear of conversation”. People wear headphones as “conversational avoidance devices”. The internet connects us to the entire world, but it is a world bespoke, edited, deleted, sanitised. …

“There is now apparently a booming demand for online “conversation” with robots and artificial voices. Mobiles come loaded with customised “girlfriends”. People turn to computerised dating advisers, even claim to fall in love with their on-board GPS guides. A robot seal can be bought to sit and listen to elderly people talk, tilting its head and blinking in sympathy.

“We have, says Turkle, confused connection with conversation – “the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship”. Human friendship is rich, messy and complicated. It requires patience and tolerance, even compromise. As we push other people off into a world of question and answer, connection and information, friendship becomes ersatz virtuality.

“All that said, the death of conversation has been announced as often as that of the book. …

“A hundred online universities are no substitute for a live campus any more than Facebook is a substitute for sex or Twitter for debate. …

“Those obsessed with faddish connectivity and personal avoidance are not escaping reality. … Deep down they still crave friendship. They just want a better class of talk.!”
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Exchanging Despair With Anticipation

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee): With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

There are two discernments here.

First, mutual guarantee and mutual concern free a person from worries about himself. Each one leans on others and everyone feels good. This is the “psychological therapy” to get rid of fear.

Second, we actually connect in order to be connected with the upper for ourselves. We want unity because we see it as a way to reach this connection. We always yearn upward and every action we take below should be aimed at the final goal and not for self-sedation. Different from a football team that connects in order to succeed, our connection is in order to raise us upward. Even if by that we get rid of all our problems, it isn’t the tranquility we are looking for. We are simply changing the previous troubles and the problems that push us to unite, to troubles and problems of a different quality that are created when we unite with the Creator.

This is called “upper fear,” and this is where love resides. Fear is a vessel, and love is its filling. Now I feel fear in facing the Creator, not in facing the threat of troubles, shame, despair, etc. I exchange all that to fear of being close to the Creator, to the desire to go to Him, to be close to Him in bestowal. This is my goal.

When will I yearn for it? When it doesn’t matter what is behind me, as long as it increases my attraction forward.

Thus we exchange the corporeal problems with spiritual problems called “love pangs.”

Question: But if the friends absolutely support me, don’t they extinguish my main problem, don’t they blur my desire to approach the Creator?

Answer: If I enter the group correctly, I acquire new fears instead of the old fears. No one is promising me a tranquil life; there is a restless adventure that I anticipate, which mountain climbers, pioneers, and world travelers experience. Their concern is the anticipation, they are constantly advancing toward something better; so I also feel a deficiency on the spiritual path, but I anticipate the joy, and this anticipation is better than the joy itself.

We know from experience that the pleasure disappears immediately, but the anticipation can make a person feel alive for many years. In spirituality this is really a filling, which we summon with the help of the Returning Light, above the desire to receive, clothed in bestowal.
[79343]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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For The Sake Of Entering The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There is such a notion “long range.” Where eventually should our actions to organize the workshops lead?

Answer: We do this just to go into the world. We need to work out this system, firmly grasp our unity, the center of the group. We have to feel how we begin to see in it the manifestation of the higher state, the upper Force, how it affects us, how we cling to it, and it holds us, not letting us go. Each of us should understand clearly how he works on all his egoistic manifestations, rejections, etc.

When this method is correctly established in us, we will look at the world differently. We will see everything that is against us like help “against us,” not just “against.” And then we will be able to bring this into the world.

After all, everything started from resistance movements in all the countries. That is why, we began to go out and make circles.

And now, we make these circles, these “round tables” within ourselves. We need to work them out spiritually on a different degree, to go into the world, and to start to disseminate them there, not as we did this before, but in a more intensive bright form, connected with the upper root, so that the world feels that it’s not just an agreement between us but there is a force with which to solve problems. That is important.
[79130]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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A Burst Of Energy Or Elevation Of Mood?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why after actively participating in the workshop is there the feeling of extreme tiredness?

Answer: Working in the seminar consumes a great amount of energy and nerves, both mental and emotional. A person expends a lot of effort.

After the workshop it is good to eat together, to have a small amount of alcohol, about 50-100 grams, just in order to get energy. Not for a good mood!

The good mood and the other things need to come from the unity between us. We drink a little not in order to be happy or become relaxed and calm and not to make it easier to become integrated into each other. It is just the opposite. It is preferred that it would be difficult for you to become integrated with others. You need to overcome all of that. This is that same mountain that we need to climb in order to reach the palace of the Creator. Thus we are talking here only about obtaining energy.

After the workshop, the best thing is not to talk to anyone about anything, but to immediately go to sleep. You are taking with you the most precious thing that you acquired in the workshop. Then, for you, sleep will be a continuation of the attainment, and the morning lesson will be a continuation of the sleep.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 06.01.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “Make For Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpts “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Aza and Azael,” Item 464, Lesson 110

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Preface to the Book of Zohar, Item 34, Lesson 20

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The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Topic: “What Does the Wisdom Revolve Around?” Lesson 2

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