Audio Version Of The Blog – 07.30.12

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A Light That Is Brought Closer By The Group’s Telescope

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is important to clarify exactly how we can change our desire to receive under the influence of the Light so that we will not waste our powers in vain. All we can do is to hasten the pace of our development by using the environment as a magnifying glass that brings the influence of the Light closer to us. This is actually the only thing we can do and the only thing we need.

By starting to work in a group, we learn to focus this telescope: We bring together all the rays of the Light that Reforms so that they will go exactly through the center of the group and will be focused exactly on our desire to receive. Then the desire to receive will be changed by the Light that Reforms.

We want to learn how this is done: how this ray of Light that goes through the magnifying glass grows, concentrates and is intensified, and then falls on the desire to receive and puts it through four phases. Then we will see how changes begin to take place in the desire to receive and how it becomes the opposite of what it was initially. A person begins to live not inside himself, but to rise above his desire, above the restriction and the Masach (screen) towards the Returning Light, towards bestowal, instead of receiving, and thus reaches correction.

This work in hastening the development of our desire by the Light that Reforms actually provides us with the power to understand and to attain the whole system. Although it is only the hastening of a process, it is in it that we discover all the means and all the details of creation and the process of its development. It is because in every stage that we go through, we have to orient the group differently.

So the focus through this magnifying glass constantly changes and becomes the opposite of what it was before, depending on the new external and internal conditions. We are constantly changing the influence of the group on us, and we change it with regard to the Light, with regard to the Creator. Eventually we build a new system inside us, above our desire to receive. The group becomes my world. Instead of a tiny point of desire, I receive a whole world, the enormous system of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

It is thanks to the desire we have that we begin to attain this system called the “group,” an infinite system in its finite form, and thus receive the means that raises us above our desire to receive.

The whole level of bestowal is called “self-sacrifice.” It means that a person has totally detached himself from his desire to receive, which means that he “sacrifices himself.” Of course, the whole correction is done by the Light, and we only have to adjust and to focus its influence on us through the environment, to connect these three components like a gun sight, so that they are all arranged in one straight line.

Then we will have no more doubts that we have to get close to the Light’s nature and so we imagine the society this way and want the Light to influence us through it. Eventually all these components become one whole.

The level of love is revealed after the level of self-sacrifice. Then a person understands what the goal of creation called “to do good to His created beings” means.

We gradually rise by keeping a certain condition and thanks to this we discover a little more understanding as to the Creator’s intention regarding the creation. Thus we advance: First there is the correction of the vessels by the Light that Reforms and then we attain the thought of creation.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/12, Shamati #219

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A Vicious Merry-Go-Round Of Success

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What condition is our group facing now in order to rise to the next level?

Answer: The main thing is to use the two forces correctly, the two ends. On the one hand it says: “And his heart shall rise in ways of the Lord.” Since if a person isn’t proud that he is following God’s way, he will not be able to resist the egoistic forces, the “shells” as he goes out against the world opinion.

But on the other hand, if he is not modest and humble, this pride will not be the right pride. This is why he has to be submissive before the Light that Reforms and understand that only the Light performs the changes and can give him the desire to bestow.

After every success a person has to say, it isn’t I and my own power that did this, but everything was done from Above and its success was predetermined. So instead of feeling proud in one’s achievements and accomplishments, he has to be proud that the Creator has chosen him and has raised him to this level, so that now he will be able to use it in order to bestow and thus get closer to the Creator.

He shouldn’t aim the success towards himself but rather from himself towards bestowal.

Thus we begin to learn and to use the success we have reached to advance correctly. After all, this state, like we are in now, when a person feels that he has attained something, can be a great obstacle for one’s advancement.

A person falls off track because of the imaginary failures or successes. These are two polar states. As a result of the failures he loses hope, despairs, escapes, and feels disappointed. But when he succeeds, it is even a greater problem, since it can draw him even further from the Creator, as it says: “He and I cannot dwell in the same abode.”

There are people who are more immune to that and there are those who are less immune. But if a person doesn’t forget the importance of the goal and he is clean with regards to it, it guards him. Otherwise he can be bribed by a good job, a respected name, a good reputation, or by being successful in the eyes of others. It will not be a clean calculation that is only aimed from him outward.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/12, Shamati #219

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The Convention: Preparation For Universal Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we combine the studies, the integral upbringing courses, and regular life in view of the pressing deadlines?

Answer: The pressure will be intensifying, time will be intensifying, states will become ever steeper, sharper. People will become more confused and lost. We must prepare for it by the fact that entrance into the integral level completely elevates a person above all of those problems. This means that our salvation is only in unity. In unity lies the salvation of the world. That’s why our congress, which I am hoping that we’ll be able to carry out successfully in Kharkov, will be very good preparation for that salvation.
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Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/12

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US Poverty Level Hits Record

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from USA Today): “The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net. …

“Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. …

“Demographers also say: Poverty will remain above the pre-recession level of 12.5 percent for many more years. Several predicted that peak poverty levels — 15 percent to 16 percent — will last at least until 2014, due to expiring unemployment benefits.”

My Comment: Unfortunately, in the world there is an excess of everything but the correct connection between people, and that is why we throw away more food than is needed to feed everyone. The same goes for other essentials. The reason is in human nature, and only by correcting it, will we be able to make our society human.
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“Children Learn What They Live”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D. American writer and family counselor):

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.

If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.

If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.

If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.

If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.

If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.

If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.

If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.

If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.

If children live with fairness, they learn justice.

If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.

If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.

If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

My Comment: All current research confirms the findings of thousands of years of Kabbalah, that the formation of a person is completely determined by the environment, the environment in which he grows.
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Mentality Is Irrelevant

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Should we aim towards the preparation of versatile experts on integral methodology, or should the preparation of people be according to the cultural characteristics of each country?

Answer: I think not. The general system is very simple: rejecting what we have now and training in order to rise above it to unity.

After we rise to unity, based on it, we continue to exist on its level. We don’t descend downwards. We have risen, connected together into something integral; we feel warmth in it, kindness, reciprocity, support, mutual guarantee, and now we swim on this level, on this warm wave. Based on that, we will solve all questions. We will understand that all of the questions arise only for us to unite more strongly on this wave and to rise higher thereby. Each connection is an ascent.

And then we’ll see that all of our past problems were not problems; rather, they were unsolved due to our lack of understanding—the unsolved urges towards unity. But now we have united and that’s why we don’t need to solve them. And everything that will emerge in us tomorrow, let’s solve it every time only based on our common integral force—how to rise above all problems ever more.

It will then be unimportant what mentality, people, or nations and cultures will be uniting into this. They may even tell each other about their distinctive qualities: how I look at the world, how you do, how he does, and how each one experiences these problems. After all, in the end, humanity must come together into one united image, into a single unified human! That’s why we do not need to prepare separate experts for each culture.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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Men And Women: Realizing The Potential

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It turns out that the majority of people who are seriously studying human psychology are women. However, we talked about the fact that the leaders in integral circles should preferably be men.

Answer: The human community, the whole of civilization, and all nature in general are built on the fact that man prevails everywhere. In all actions he appears to be the stimulant, although the internal urge, as we know, comes from women. But a man announces it and realizes it, so to speak, although everything is also realized mainly through a woman.

So, I don’t think that we’ll arrive at a state where a large amount of women will be the lecturers or supervisors of the integral unity technique. I don’t see that in any, even in the most advanced, civilizations. Still, in this respect, a woman does have her limited potential. She acts in the widening, while man acts in growth—and these differences can’t be crossed out and there is no need to level them. On the contrary, it simply needs to be used.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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Happy Sailing Family Ship!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There is a method of treatment in which two expert psychologists, a man and a woman, work with a married couple, and thus mutual cooperation is created between the two couples. How does this look to you? Would it be worthwhile to begin the work in integral education specifically in small groups like this?

Answer: No. I think that first of all, we need to separate them, but not in different groups. We need to attain a situation in which each one of us is a separate egoist and now we rise to a community, where there are no married couples, nothing. There is only our mutual “me” with 10-15 participants. It doesn’t matter how many.

And afterward, in the way that we connected together and understood that this is the reason we rise, and for this we exist, and now let’s see how is it possible to make a group like this in the family and to always be included in it?

This is to say, it seems that the family exists not in order to mutually support obtaining food, in reproduction, in supporting the family home, which is all at a basic level, but in order to support each other in spiritual ascent in spite of all our contradictions. We have enough of them, and we are thankful that they constantly appear, since thanks to them, we are able to realize the spiritual growth.

But this will happen when we are rid of all our present problems. When we are able to find our mutual integration, we will understand that in fact our family is in a wonderful state. This means that we were given opportunities for very fast and endless advancement. Let’s now just continue in each family what we did in the group.

Question: In order to perform this work, do we, in any case, group these people together or not?

Answer: When we collect a few married couples in a group, then first of all, we conduct a preliminary conversation with them, which should give them psychological guidance so that they will stop feeling that they are couples. One needs to “dismantle” their relationship, and raise them above themselves and create community, a group.

After a group has been created and all the material absorbed, everyone understands that only in this way is it possible to solve problems. Since a wife and husband, is also a group. So, try now to go down to your corporeal level and begin to raise your problem or simply not to awaken it. And try from this moment to solve each problem and even the smallest as a means of strengthening your bond, above you.

In this way, you send them on a liberating voyage, in that you give them the feeling of unity and a system of rising above all the problems.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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Should One Air One’s Dirty Linen In Public?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Talking to some women, I asked why they don’t communicate with each other, why do they lock themselves within four walls? It turned out that it’s not customary to take out existing problems to be up for discussion….

Answer: That’s correct. But the moment we begin to see them as the regular everyday problems that everyone has, the moment we treat them as a means of ascent, as problems given to us from Above to be solved together, no more personal “I” is left in a person. None left at all!

An “I” is a mechanism, which, by joining together with others into one integral whole, looks at its personal problems as problems that are same for everyone and has solve his own, yours, his problems, etc. with the help of everyone else.

It’s not that there’s nothing to hide, but a person has nothing left at all. Where is he then? “He” is what we build together. It’s the place of amalgamation of all of those personal, family, and joint egoisms; it’s the place where our own longing upwards towards the ascent amalgamates.

If people are attuned correctly, they will realize that there’s nothing to be ashamed about, there’s nothing to hide, mutual help must exist. If you don’t want to reveal anything, there’s no need to, but you have very strong support and thanks to that, everything is being solved.

I think that we are now going through that stage. And on the next level, women will seriously get involved into the group system and that will help them.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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