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In Unison With The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Thus, peace of the world and peace of the state are interdependent. Hence, we necessarily find that even that part of the state which is currently satisfied with its life, which are the nimble and the clever, still have a lot to be concerned about for the safety of their lives, due to the tensions with those who strive to overthrow them. And if they understood the value of peace, they would be happy to adopt the conduct of living of the last generation, for “all that a man has will he give for his life.”

There is a simple condition for the good life of the last generation, and that is to know that all over the earth, in all of humanity everything is connected integrally and globally and no one is free of this general account. Everyone is connected to everyone in full connections that we know of and that we don’t know of, the revealed and the concealed. There are millions of strings stretched among us through my thoughts and my desires and through all of me. If I haven’t revealed them yet, it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Of course they exist and they are more clearly revealed each day.

The only thing I can do is to understand that that’s the way it is, but the understanding isn’t enough—I need to come to the feeling that I was able to correctly use the situation. Let it limit me when I do something wrong and push me forward in the right initiatives, according to the general system in which we are all connected to one another.

If I don’t feel, I will miss this opportunity: I will start saying one thing and doing another thing, which is what is actually happening today.

Well, first I have to understand it myself and explain to those around me. But eventually, this system has to be revealed to us so that we will really see it in our eyes and in our insight, so that we will feel its signals coming from heart to heart, from mind to mind.

No one will be able to think and contemplate by himself. Everyone will have to connect to the whole world in his thoughts. In other words, we need one heart and one mind for everyone.

Life itself demands the unity. We are moving in this direction and will reach it anyway if not now, then later. So how can we execute this? Will some global government or some global police help us? What can we do?

We need a special means that will show us the connection among everyone in an emotional and cognitive manner, so that we will not just look at in from the side, but will actually find ourselves in it.

Then I will automatically worry about others: If I think, I think about everyone; if I make a decision, I take everyone into account. I will be strongly and tightly connected to the general. Without this there is no chance we will succeed.

Question: You have described the final state, but not how to get there.

Answer: That’s right. Even now I can use my common sense and my right mind in order to depict for myself how things should be. If I already see the general system, how does it obligate me at the moment? Then other conditions will be revealed, even tougher and stranger ones.

Still I have to think objectively regarding the present: There are certain components that are connected in a certain way.

How do I connect them so that everyone feels all the others and everyone can take everyone else into account?

Everyone knows the other’s nature thoroughly and is unlimitedly connected to everyone in a variety of connections and has such a large mind that he can take everyone into account, to immediately plan projects on everyone’s behalf and carry out actual operations, assured that these operations are optimal and that in the current circumstances are the best possible.

Otherwise, if everyone continues carrying on his personal accounts under the conditions of the growing mutual connection, everything will fall apart like a car whose parts go in every direction when an accident occurs.

So we have to see the picture of our unity as compulsory: Everyone has the mind of everyone and everyone has the feelings of everyone else. How is that possible? That’s a question in itself. But even now we already see that nature is presenting us with this problem.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/12, “Peace in the World”

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Envy Is Not A Flaw

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Kabbalists attribute envy to the qualities that help a person exit this world and enter the spiritual world. Indeed, why should I envy others? After all, everyone is special and everyone is following his own path. Why should the uniqueness of another make me jealous and empower me on my way?

Answer: I evoke the envy, lust, and desire for respect in me on purpose. It isn’t about just any ordinary person who envies the success of others or who is after respect. In this world we envy all kinds of nonsense and really want frivolous things. I, on the contrary, take only what is necessary for living and disregard all the rest. When I have all the basic necessities, I build myself for the spiritual work and in this framework I use tools like envy.

Otherwise, I will have nothing with which to advance. Envy, lust, and respect are the three egoistic approaches, and what can I work on without them inside of me? It’s these three qualities that take me out of this world; it’s like exiting the worlds of BYA into the world of Atzilut.

So if I want to work spiritually, I look at the work of others and annul myself before them. Then I see them as the greatest in our generation: They have advanced far ahead, they have attained the end of correction, and I envy them. If I don’t envy, I am powerless and can’t move. I receive all the powers to advance from my ego. The right advancement with the right intention, which means the form that is dressed in matter is brought to me by the Light while the matter itself by which I ascend is my own ego.

Question: But how can I guard the right intention from the envy?

Answer: It’s according to the envy, the lust, and the desire for respect that the intention is built. You turn the envy to envy for the Creator, the desire for respect to respect for the Creator, the lust for an urge to adhere to Him. Otherwise, what do you correct? What do you build, an airy castle in the clouds?

Question: But still, when I envy, its fire consumes me.

Answer: No, you allow yourself to evoke the envy, the lust, and the desire for respect only after the restriction, when it isn’t for you anymore, but in order to understand, to determine the “work space.” Everything must be under control; otherwise, you mustn’t even start.

In short, try it. Don’t be afraid to fall into envy. Start working on it. You’re lucky if you envy the friends; it’s good. After all, we have no other force to advance. If I lived alone without an environment, I would be like an animal. On the other hand, if the society spurs me and stimulates me by constantly showing me that the friends have what I lack, it helps me advance in life. I just need a special environment that provides me with good examples, which I envy.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/12, “Peace in the World”

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Revelation Always Happens Unexpectedly

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does the Light affect a person more when he understands what he reads or when he is totally confused and applies efforts to hold the intention?

Answer: It’s impossible to know. The Light influences all the time, but a person can feel this effect not immediately but over time. Perhaps in two weeks, or even in an unsuitable moment, suddenly a revelation happens. You can’t know how it will happen because there are so many internal and external conditions that consequently lead to such disclosure.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/12, The Zohar

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How To Keep Your Uniqueness

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe current egoistic education erases a person’s uniqueness. Movies newspapers, the media, and the Internet all aim at that.

You assume that the Internet helps you keep in touch with others, but the truth is that it helps you be like everyone else. It locks our whole egoistic integral world in itself in the worst way possible, and as a result we are all connected to one another and are all identical.

We must admit that the Internet assists our development and brings us close to the end of correction since it reveals the evil—but in an evil way. We see standard examples through the net and consume a standard meaning. The “virtual machine” duplicates us like parts on the assembly line.

In spirituality it is the opposite; you don’t resemble others in any way. You are absolutely special and no one can intervene. After all we all have different directions; we work on different frequencies, and we don’t meet, don’t touch each other’s qualities. Everyone has ten Sefirot, but they are divided into another ten and then more and more. Eventually everyone makes a huge tangle of interwoven connections, each according to his measure and to his quality. You can resemble another, but you are not equal to him in any way.

Question: But does the environment influence a person in spirituality too?

Answer: There the environment only inspires you to use your uniqueness and nothing more than that. In our world advertising constantly imposes something upon you, while in spirituality the friends only spur you by envy, lust, and the desire for respect and you operate on your own, internally. It is as if they give you a battery, but the engine, the means for perception, is yours.

Question: In our world I also use the desires that are awakened in me by myself, isn’t that so?

Answer: No. Here you are attracted to duplicating an example that is shown to everyone; you are presented with a certain standard and whether you like it or not, you fulfill it by the way you dress, in your behavior, and mainly in your inner perceptions. The example influences you whether you like it or not.

Therefore, we develop the integral education, according to which the example is a “round” system, in which we are all connected to one another. Thus we have to expel all the other examples. Otherwise, we will simply not survive.

Question: But according to the integral education I will also want to be like someone else.

Answer: Everyone needs to be like someone who is more successful. For example, when you engage in bodybuilding in our world, Schwarzenegger is the example you follow and the incentive is the environment that respects him.

You put your desires under the external pressure and fulfill them. In other words, the ego pushes you forward and you sculpt yourself according to the generally accepted model—according to the example of Schwarzenegger. You have been told that you should be like him and you work on yourself in order to equalize your form to his.

On the other hand, in the internal work you fulfill your attributes when you focus them anew from egocentrism outwards. This allows you to use them differently, and to be in contact with those around you. You get an opportunity that you didn’t have before and build something new.

Although the group is homogeneous, you connect to every member by your attributes and these connections are different for everyone. After all, everyone has his own internal structure.

You are told that you have to reach an equivalence of form with the One who bestows. But where is He? You are called to connect with the friends as one man in one heart, but where is the example? What is the standard?

You hear from the environment very clearly: “If you don’t do that, you are worthless.” So what should I do? After all, there are no examples I can follow. You have read each article a thousand times and you still don’t understand anything.

It is all so that you will look for yourself. The environment only challenges you and that’s all. The friends don’t stick posters like those of Schwarzenegger on the wall. There is no actual example and you don’t know what to do. It is a real problem.

So you are constantly searching: “Perhaps this way? Perhaps that way? What does the Creator look like? What is the attribute of bestowal? How can I transcend the mind? I don’t know anything! So let me see and hear something at least!” But no. It is impossible to perceive spirituality in our sensory organs.

This is exactly what “self-fulfillment” is: No one is pressuring you, not even the teacher. During the lesson he can speak openly, but never personally to you—never. It is forbidden to invade a person’s inner world.

Question: Does this means that I have to despair that I don’t find examples?

Answer: Search; don’t give up. The example is in the group, and you will find it if you dedicate yourself to this search. “I have to find it. The Creator’s image is concealed there, among the friends, in the connection among them.” You don’t see it, but if you focus, it will appear like in a three-dimensional picture.

This is your internal work and no one has access to it. Only you build the attitude to what we call a “group.” You enter it and operate there until you find an image, a form, the attribute of bestowal, its limits, its imprint, the impression it leaves.

Question: But is this example concealed from me?

Answer: And how will you see it without an equivalence of form? The Creator is before you. The attribute of bestowal, the upper Light fills everything. If you want an example, bring yourself to the minimal level of compatibility with it, make efforts (this is called a prayer), and He will help you.

Then you will see Him, but through your inner sight, much clearer and “juicier,” than you temporarily feel in all your senses, that penetrates far and deep and is a thousand times clearer than our ordinary sight by which we only see the externality, without learning even the least bit about the internality…
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/12, “Peace in the World”

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Dalai Lama

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Dalai Lama, The 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso): “All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”

My Comment: It is time to break away from faith in the unprovable and to follow only real knowledge drawn from the comprehension of Nature as the upper management system, while being limited to the understanding of matter and the form of matter, as stated in The Introduction to The Book of Zohar and nothing more, because anything beyond is part of what cannot be felt, and that is why it is unprovable.

Only by comprehending nature, its laws and trends of development, and only to the extent that it is revealed to man, as indicated by Kabbalah: “The judge has only what his eyes can see,” can we find the right solution to all our problems.
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The Joyful Tears Of Prayer

Dr. Michael LaitmanA prayer is mingled with the feeling of sadness, suffering, lack, different requirements, and the inability to justify the Creator. But the prayer itself should be gratitude. I thank the Creator for this opportunity to communicate, for the fact that He created me in such a way that I have a need to turn to Him.

That is, a prayer must come from love and not from claims. We are both happy that I have a request through which I can develop our love. A prayer must begin with our understanding of how happy we are to connect through this prayer.

A prayer combines two totally opposite poles, but the first thing in it is the point of adhesion due to the feeling that we both participate in one common action. I have to discover the empty desire that the Creator can fulfill. And I am glad that I have revealed this need in myself; otherwise, I would never have been able to express myself. Here, the two opposite parts are combined. A prayer is joy, not tears as it is accustomed to think in our world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/12, The Zohar

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About The Creator In The Simplest Words

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe way all created beings relate to me is called the Creator? Where do I reveal Him? In my attitude towards them!

When shall I reveal Him? When I relate to them with love and bestowal.

What shall I find out about them?—that they are my inseparable parts that are useful to me and that I need. There is none in the world who would do harm to me and would be my enemy.

This means that I reveal that all creatures relate to me either with bestowal for the sake of bestowal, which is called “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor,” or with receiving for the sake of bestowal, meaning with love to the other as to oneself. In essence, this is the manifestation of the Creator’s attitude towards me as though He just generalizes all these attitudes as their highest degree.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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To Correct The World Means To Correct Ourselves

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What effort and awakening do we lack in order to help people break the barriers?

Answer: They must know that the goal is not achieved by shouts and riots in the streets. Instead, we must learn what connection is.

Connection is not a simple thing. Enthusiastic calls will not help here. A person must examine himself, reveal, and bring out within him the forces that repel the connection and that help it.

The method of connection is actually the method for a person’s inner correction. I don’t want to connect with others because this is how I am built from within. I can talk about this, praise the unity in the world, and organize general love days, but actually, we are all egoists, and no one has the power to truly connect with others. It is not that he does not want to, but is simply incapable.

Therefore, we need to become familiar with this and begin to change ourselves. The correction of the world is correction of each one. We need to change the person. Moreover, each one needs to change himself and not the others, and to help another person means to pass on the method and support in his first steps that he is capable of actualizing. I can give him an example of the extent to which it is important for me so that he also will be imbued with this importance.

We need to act solely according to the principles of mutuality. We are different from all the rest in that we say that it is possible to reach connection and unity, that it is possible to rise above the crisis.

We are capable of this. We have the method of connection that is based on a person’s correction. The entire Torah is intended for this, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice for it because the Light in it reforms”.

This is how a person becomes better. We use this method that enables us to attract the Light through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah and work in the group.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12, “Body and Soul”

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The Question That Everyone Is Concerned About

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn his article “Body and Soul,” Baal HaSulam explains a very common confusion about body and soul. The topic concerns everyone. What am “I” in this realm? What will happen to me after I die?

Animals do not worry about such things. They never have thoughts like that since they do not sense time outside their nature, nor do they ever rise above their nature, whereas on top of human sensations of life, there is an additional feeling of detachment that causes questions. What happens outside of this life?

In fact, we belong to eternity, and to the degree of our personal connectedness with eternality, we raise different kinds of questions. Our quest varies in intensity and strength, but everyone deals with these questions one way or another.

As a result of this quest, people have come up with multiple theories and concepts. There are several thousand religions, beliefs, customs, and so on that Baal HaSulam divides into the following categories:

  • Some think that there is no soul whatsoever and that a body is a machine, a sack of chemical combinations, and that it is driven by electric impulses.
  • Others think of a body as something that possesses a soul that enters a body at the time of birth and exits it at death.
  • Some think that, even though a soul does exist, still a body can live without it. We know how to attach bodily parts that were torn apart and learned to implant new organs, sometimes even artificial ones. In the future, we possibly will create our own bodies from a set of body parts.

To make a long story short, people are very confused about this issue. Is there a soul or not? Is it inside or outside a body? No one knows the precise answer, nor does anyone have any scientific explanation of this matter.

Therefore, people chose theories according to their tastes. Numerous hypotheses were created during the last century that brought a lot of money to their authors. However, so far, none of those theories provide a true answer to the question since they do not disclose the topic in full.

Here, the wisdom of Kabbalah steps in. It divulges reality to its full capacity: the Creator, the soul, and so on—in other words, everything! Nothing is hidden from us here.

That’s why Kabbalah is called a “secret wisdom.” It studies things that are concealed from us and makes them obvious to those who study this science. Of course, one must invest lots of effort, but he will be rewarded according to his exertion. It’s a place where veracity can be discovered, although we should remember that revelation in Kabbalah is conditioned by internal changes of a student.

The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t deal with external activities such as rituals, amulets, or secret ceremonies. In a very accurate and clear way, it demands a person to change internally.

The demand is very rigid. Being controlled by our desires to receive, we always think to take care of ourselves. This makes us “egoistic animals.” Think about it, check it out, realize your evil inclination, and transform it into its opposite: the intention for the sake of bestowal. There is a special power that implements the correction when we work in the group.

One way or the other, the implementation of Kabbalah principles should be very clear and easy for everyone who wants to know them. The problem is, let’s say, in being lazy. Hence, there are not too many people who have managed to reveal the truth so far.

The wisdom of Kabbalah states that there is no soul that dwells in the body. There is a vessel of the soul that also is called the “body of the soul,” a desire to receive that is totally oriented toward bestowal. It is a corrected vessel for the soul, that is, for the Light that fills it according to the law of similarity of properties and which is called the “Light of the soul.”

Thus, if a person transforms himself into a vessel that receives the Light, then the Light enters him. Afterward, one obtains a soul that belongs to him and that reflects the level of the desires with which he has worked.

There are five levels of the Light of the soul: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. In general, a person must attain a big, common soul and recognize his spiritual attainment in everything around him.

As for material values, they disappear, cease to exist, since material sensors are imaginary. They were given to us temporarily so that we escape this reality and exit to spirituality.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12, “Body and Soul”

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