Audio Version Of The Blog – 07.12.12

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To Become Nothing And Stand Before The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person constantly cancels himself, constantly carries out the will of the Creator, constantly “sends himself into nothingness” on top of the desire, growing in him.

At the beginning, I nullify myself above the small desire of the still level, and then I am as if in the mother’s womb, in the “nine-month slumber.” Then, a group of desires, belonging to the vegetative level, awaken in me, and again, I have to nullify myself against them.

However, in order to nullify myself, to make myself nothing, I need to engage myself. Through the actions opposite to the Creator, I create what is called “help against Him” and cancel myself by bestowing to Him.

In the end, I discard nothing. All the desires are used, as it is said: “Everything is added to the general account.” I ask only to nullify myself, but this comes only through my understanding and feeling of myself and everyone, the whole world. Precisely this allows me to adhere to the Creator.

Question: Can I say that self-nullification is love?

Answer: Love is manifested not in self-nullification, but in greatness, when I use all my properties to give, to bestow. Love means that I bestow, establish connection, and in general am active.

And self-nullification is the quality of a fetus or baby, and not an expression of love.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Bestowal In Two Phases

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 32: And when one is rewarded with being entirely in the will to bestow and not at all for oneself, he will be rewarded with obtaining equivalence of form with his Upper NRNHY, which extend from one’s origin in Ein Sof in the first state, through the pure ABYA, and will immediately extend and clothe him in a gradual manner.

We have a very big desire to receive that grows as we climb the levels of correction. This process begins from the moment we yearn for connection.

The desire is revealed gradually. First we correct it on the level of “to bestow in order to bestow,” which in Kabbalistic terms is called Hafetz Hesed, the level of Bina, Hassadim. Then we correct the desire on the level of “to receive in order to bestow,” which is already the level of Hochma.

On the level of Bina, all our evil inclination seems to be corrected, at least since it doesn’t have the intention of “in order to receive.” Then the mistakes turn into merits and the evils turn into mistakes. We attain a kind of neutrality, now our desire to receive is no longer evil.

Then we continue our work until all the evil inclination becomes good, which means that it receives in order to bestow. This is the reason that Kabbalists sometimes divide the process into two, the correction of the desire and its final reformation to bestowal.

Bestowal In Two Phases

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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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The Enemy Inside

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a person has taken our courses, but is still against connection, can we call it the “evil inclination?”

Answer: No. If after taking a couple of courses I still don’t understand that the rejection I feel towards the group is evil, if I accept this rejection, I have not revealed the evil inclination inside me.

The whole point is seeing the evil inclination in this negative desire. I have to determine this by myself and not just hear about it from someone. I have to feel that this attribute harms me as it doesn’t allow me to enter spirituality and attain the goal. It is this attribute that stands in my way and if I don’t overcome it, if I don’t tie myself to the group, I have no chance.

I have to actually see that the evil inclination blocks my way. It seems to allow me to form a connection but the next moment it detaches me from my friends. Eventually, except for very short moments, I am constantly detached from the group.

Do I perceive that as evil the way I should? After all, it has to come to a level that I will not be able to stand my ego and will do everything in my power to get rid if it: “My death is better than my life. I have to kill it, since it is my enemy.” We must feel that it is the only enemy we have, hiding inside, like a cancerous tumor, like a snake that I must remove.

But if I don’t feel that, I haven’t revealed the evil inclination yet. So I don’t need the Torah as a “spice” yet, which means as a method of correction. It is only by revealing the tyranny of the evil that I look for a solution. I am totally contaminated, it is absorbed inside me and it is impossible to escape it. So what should I do?

By having no choice and feeling helpless, I begin to realize that there is a force that can help me, which is the Light. It is no longer an abstract concept. I feel that it exists and look for an opportunity to demand it; I look for the inner feeling that will enable me to draw it so that it will free me from the evil.

All this comes only when we begin the practical work of connection…
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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“13 Minutes To Doomsday”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Washington Post): “Throughout the Cold War, the United States kept land-based missiles with nuclear warheads on alert and ready to launch in three to four minutes after the president gave the order. Every president of the missile age was briefed about the procedure: In the event of an impending attack, the decision to launch would have to be made in 13 minutes or less. …

“Today, two decades after the end of the Cold War, one-third of U.S. strategic forces, including almost all land-based missiles and some sea-based, are still on launch-ready alert. … The United States and Russia have as many as 1,800 warheads on alert at any given time.”

My Comment: This is what led us to the unbridled development of our egoistic nature or to either death from egoism or its correction. The near future will show whether the effort of our unity will outweigh it in order to bring the force of correction of mass egoism to the world.
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The Global Recession Will Accelerate

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (from Comstock Partners): “The U.S economy has been slowing in the last two or three months. Either downside surprises or actual declines have been reported in key economic indicators relating to consumer spending, new orders, production and employment. …

“The Chinese economy is slowing, perhaps by more than the official numbers show. … China’s economic model is heavily dependent on capital investments and exports, while internal consumer spending remains a relatively small part of GDP. … All in all, it seems that it will be difficult to avoid a hard landing.

“The slowdown in Europe, the U.S. and China is also impacting the economies of the emerging nations, which are heavily dependent on exports. Declining growth is also driving down commodity prices. Despite all of the talk of decoupling, it seems apparent that the economies of all nations are linked and that there is little prospect of an oasis of prosperity in an increasingly dependent world. …

“Unfortunately, the monetary and fiscal authorities are out of ammunition. … We believe that the April 2nd peak in the S&P 500 marked the top of the uptrend from the March 2009 lows, and that a major market decline is ahead.”

My Comment: Not a single expert has a plan of getting out of the general crisis because it is total, multi-faceted, and interrelated. The world has become interconnected and requires a similar interconnected approach. It can be provided only by an integrally organized community that has a feeling and understanding of the interconnected world.

Of course, it is possible to continue the attempts to lead this world in an egoistic, protectionist manner, but this promises huge suffering that will bring us to the need to change ourselves to survive in the new interrelated world. We will not manage without implementing mandatory integral education and upbringing for the population, and the sooner we realize this, the less damage the exit of the crisis will cause us.
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The Climate Becomes Unpredictable

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is happening to the climate and weather lately?

Answer: Studies of sediments in New York and drought in Australia and the western United States using computer models lead to the conclusion that the weather in many areas that produce food will become hotter, drier, and more unpredictable. They can be fixed only by correcting human relationships.
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125 Degrees Toward Perfection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We talked about the fact that humanity ran out of steam. I played sports and remember a wonderful state, the so-called second breath, when you run and suddenly some kind of lightness appears. Can we talk about the second breath in relation to the method of integral upbringing, or just about the fact that a person who stops running literally starts to fly?

Answer: Of course the feeling of detachment, fatigue, lack of motivation in the egoism, and feeling, or at least understanding, that continuing to work is impossible, hopeless is necessary on one hand. But on the other hand, when a person starts working, based on this new integral methodology he encounters various inverse transitions; he rises and falls because he must constantly feel himself in and out of the circle and in and out of the circle again. These are start-stop, back-and-forth motions, like that of a piston when it is pushed out, it gets out, or pushed in is included. It is this way these two lines work. One line works by pushing the man egoistically, by adding even more egoism to him, and then he inevitably falls out of unity. However, he gradually comes back into it, so he goes forward and rises again.

As a result, he climbs the ladder of spiritual values that are in even stronger and stronger connection. He climbs 125 degrees and reaches his perfection when all of nature: the still, vegetative, animate, and human degrees, which doesn’t exist in our world as we mistakenly call ourselves human (separating ourselves from the animal world), exist for him in one perpetual volume. An eternal one! Because by ascending these degrees, he perceives nature in a form in which it actually exists. That is, we go beyond what is called the universe, beyond the space created by the Big Bang, and this space is no longer physical.

This is already a subject of disclosure and study for those people who will start rising. But this of course is practical attainment.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/25/12

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Tactile Sensations In Integral Upbringing

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the second half of the twentieth century, the so-called “body-oriented psychotherapy” became popular. This refers to people who mainly perceive the world through tactile sensations. According to the integral method, once we rise to the new level, we separate from our bodies. Then, what about the people who have become accustomed to touching one another throughout their lives? What about them?

Answer: Tactile sensations naturally serve as an auxiliary element of initial contact because every person perceives certain influences through them. It is necessary to sit people in a circle where they touch each other’s knees or elbows and sometimes even hold hands and hug.

We try to sit men and women separately in different circles to annul various disturbances and give them the ability to touch freely, and so on. In other words, physical contact is very significant in the initial stage of the integral method.

For beginners, it is still very important to directly feel the people they are with. I do not think that, in the beginning, people can go online and via virtual channels begin to contact each for a virtual roundtable. It is difficult, although possible.

Question: The so-called “caressing” of a child is considered to be the model state of upbringing. As a psychotherapist, I know that there are many people who have not received enough caressing and touching in their childhood. Will the integral connection allow people to receive this sensation?

Answer: I do not know. I have not felt my students express any other need than the need to feel the next inner influence, the inner unity though tactile sensations such as holding hands and hugging each other in a circle. Nothing is leading toward caressing because all aspirations are initially directed toward inner unity.

Question: Should children be caressed?

Answer: Yes. Regrettably, we do not educate people. We do not prepare them for being parents. They do not understand this.

Question: Once a person rises above the level of the body, unites and acquires integral perception, will he be able to compensate for a lack of upbringing?

Answer: He absolutely will be able to compensate for the lack of anything! In general, once we create an integral atmosphere in the society, all the people instinctively and internally will understand the correct kind of attitude toward children, adults, and the elderly. All this already will have come into balance.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 05/25/12

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Ahead of the Train

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Group psychotherapy has a notion of a group as a model of the world, an integral circle. When a person provides the circle with a certain model of behavior or an opinion and receives a reaction to it, he sort of completes the integrality of the picture, which he does not see without these people. Overall, this is the main work in group psychotherapy. Do we use this in the method of integral upbringing?

Answer: We also use this.

Today it is a custom to work collectively, because one person cannot do this. Only special people, geniuses, can work alone, but in general, we already see that the group initiates brainstorming.

But something different is happening here.

When we operate on the level of a soccer team, a research team, or a team of doctors, etc., we collect their common opinion at meetings where they gather and reach a certain common denominator. In a team of doctors, this averaged option is considered to be the most reliable for diagnosing a patient, and in a team of physicists it is used for research for scientific advancement. And these meetings, conferences, and consultations are repeated on the next stage.

In the method of integral upbringing, when we absorb information from one another in opposition to each other in conjunction with matching their opinions, we each develop one another and reach a certain common and already higher denominator. In other words, we do not simply add everything everyone has in the middle of a round table, but every one of us becomes enriched from everyone else by connecting randomly with one another.

At the end, let us say that I become like my nine partners, I become composed of all ten of us. The same happens with everyone else, but everyone keeps his foundation; in other words, I remain myself, but I acquire the knowledge, the sensations, and the attainment of another nine people. I already begin to look through them.

And here we really develop a very serious interaction between us. Every one of us increases his individual power, opinion, knowledge, sensations, etc. ten times.

All of this is regular group work in which there are several reciprocal methods of interaction when we share with a group, and then, when we divide into groups, strict interactions happen between us when we seem to strike sparks between us and force ourselves to reach certain acute states. We use all this.

But the integral method uses other methods, because we are not interested in attaining the maximum realization of desires and the mind on our animate, corporate, egoistic level. We are interested in ascending to the next state.

We gather, sit together, interact, and discuss problems with unity, connection, and different attitudes.

But the main thing is that there is an inner movement towards connection and unity in our discussions instead of mutual enrichment according to the principle of “I will take from everyone else.” Even though this also exists: I want to take from everyone else the strength to advance forward, the goal of unity, because each one of them has an individual movement towards this goal and I need all the strength.

And thus, everyone benefits from everyone else; in other words, instead of ten, we get 100 people since every person consists of ten. We increase our common aspiration towards unity by ten.

And besides, with all sorts of cross-conversations, phrases, and talks, inside them there is the most important thing: I open my mouth and listen, I open my ears and I hear, only with a single purpose of uniting with them on the inside into a single whole. Most important is when there is an enormous pressure to create something common outside of each one of us, inside our common information, for this unity to be above us, to create a community, which would keep us inside it like drops of water, which merge into a single common drop that can no longer be divided. This is the kind of state we want to reach.

When we try to do this and we conduct our desires through our conversations, we rouse the inner force of nature, which integrally holds together the entire universe. If we do this, it turns out that we form ourselves under the influence of this force of nature.

We begin to rouse the power that always developed us evolutionarily and pushed us forward. Now it no longer pushes us from behind with suffering, as it did before, but we direct ourselves towards it, and obligate it to pull us forward.

There are people, who do not wish to study, and they always get pushed “with a stick from behind.” There are people who follow the program. And there are people who go ahead of the program, they want more and more.

We want to advance fast, strive ahead on our own, and obligate nature to do this. This is practically the essence of the entire method.

In other words, we consciously use the same force of nature, and in this way we run ahead of the train. But this helps us rid ourselves of suffering that pushes us from behind and this accelerates our development. When we rouse this force of nature, and it influences us, we see how we pass these stages, we begin to learn this program, see the influence of this force, and become acquainted with it.

We suddenly enter the part of nature, where this entire enormous mechanism exists: forces, fields, systems of governance of our world, etc. We see what makes the atoms and the molecules spin, what makes everything connect, and how we operate throughout our entire journey, how I am now able to move my arms, since all this comes from there! Natural forces rouse us, and this is the way we operate.

In other words, we rise to the level of decision-making, the level, where the system of governance operates, and we begin to rouse it, begin acquainting ourselves with it, and become its active participants. Practically, we no longer pay attention to what happens with us on our level in this world. This world seems to fade in our sensations because we already exist on the level of forces, and not their consequences. And this is why this becomes most important to us; we already exist in it. It is like adapting to the next level, the next dimension.

This is where mankind needs to rise. This state is called “Adam,” “Man,” which practically does not exist in our world. In our world, we are merely rational animals because we service our corporeal, animal part.

In reality, the integral method is very simple and very practical. Today we really need to realize it.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #33, 5/25/12

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