Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.04.13

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Nothing for Yourself – Everything For Others

Dr. Michael Laitman

Question: Does Kabbalah have any proof for beginners? How can I be sure that I am on the right track?

Answer: You have no proof and no certainty. You can go if you want to.

This is the condition for entering the spiritual dimension. The alternative is suffering, which eventually will make you accept this condition.

If you are not able to nullify yourself and refuse payment, you will not enter spirituality. Haven’t you heard about this? You are looking for proof, incentives, this is understandable; things cannot be any other way. These objections are just, but there is no place for them. They only awaken in you so you would rise above them.

Even the support of your friends cannot be rewarding to you. It is because deep down in your soul you cannot stand them and would never unite with these people. So this is not about friendship and its benefits.

Simply today, you do not yet know what the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), the screen, and the Reflecting Light are. In reality you will never receive anything. Once you enter it, you will discover that you have always been there, but you only were able to perceive it the moment you became willing to reject everything. And you perceive it in the vessels of bestowal, rejecting for yourself, never for yourself, but only for others.

Question: Isn’t there anything to cheer us up?

Answer: I do not want to put glitter before your eyes. The group and our friends from all over the world that are connected to us must know the truth: Spirituality lies beyond human strength. When a person has a point in the heart, he understands that this is right. And even though sometimes it seems that an obstacle cannot be overcome, only this can be true and nothing else.

Thus you discover all the truth. Conversely, any appeal to the egoistic desire, any attachment to it, is not the spiritual path.

– But will I at least get something?

– Nothing!

– What do I get?

– You don’t!

– What about receiving spiritual attainment?

– Spiritual attainment is the antithesis to reception. You only reject, you do not want anything for yourself. Your entire enormous desire to receive, which you are not yet aware of, your entire egoism, you raise it from the “stomach” to the “head” and fully reject it. And thus you form the real “head,” the screen and the Reflecting Light. You do not take anything for yourself no matter what comes to you, you give everything to others. It is best when no one even knows what you did because this could also serve as a “bribe.”

And then you begin to feel what it is like to be on the degree of the Creator

Your point in the heart must agree with this. It is the truth and it has the same qualities. And whoever does not agree is free to go. These people are supporters, but they are not Kabbalists.

Question: This means that we are striving to attain something that is not real?

Answer: Exactly. For you, for your vessels, this is unrealistic; it is opposite for you. This is why it is written: “I saw an upside-down world.”

Question: And yet, what will we achieve? What will we attain in spirituality?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes in Letter #8 about it: “Everything that happens in the world has a worthy goal called ‘a drop of unity.’ When the dwellers of ‘corporeal homes’ experience all the horrors, through their absolute pride removed from them, a certain opening appears in the walls of their heart, which is not receptive at all according to the actual nature of creation. And they become worthy of the installation of this drop of unity in their heart.

And they will become like an impression from a seal, and they will see for themselves that, on the contrary, it is through these horrors that they come to attain the absolute, removed from alien pride. Unification with the Creator happens only there, and it is there where a drop of unity can reign over them.”
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/13, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Leaping Over The Concealment

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does a person’s ability to win the war against his inner enemies depend on?

Answer: First, we may be speaking about people who have already awoken to search for the truth and who feel the need to find the King and return to Him. The point that awakens in a person’s heart is the same point of sorrow over losing the “shield and the sword” that at a certain point were given to us as a gift by the Creator. This means that a person once had a Masach (screen) over the vessels of bestowal and the vessels of receiving on the thickness of the root, first, and second phases, and now this Masach is gone.

Only a spark of this Masach is left in a person, a feeling that once he had this power and that he may have the power, may be able to bestow and that he wants to bestow. This is the “posterior,” Nefesh of Kedusha; I don’t attain spirituality but feel that I can attain it; I have a kind of unconscious yearning for it, strong longings.

A spark is the smallest, most shattered and corrupt part of the “shield and sword” that were once given to a person by the Creator. The spark includes both the Light of Hassadim and the Light of Hochma and Masachim (screens) over them. It is like the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that include all of reality.

So if such a spark exists in a person, he can attain spirituality. He only lacks the means that helps tie his spark to the Light. This is done by the group: The group makes us feel the importance of the goal, and nothing but that is required of a person. The main thing is that a person should constantly feel the need to demand the Light that Reforms in order to identify with the Creator.

We have to get the feeling of the importance of spirituality from the group since we are in a state of concealment. The group adds the necessary conditions to our state that seem to enable us to leap above the concealment as if we feel the Creator’s greatness. It is clearly only imaginary, not real, greatness, but you approach this lie consciously, understanding very well that this is a game and that you have no other choice,

These are the conditions that we were given during the time of preparation and it is about this that it is said, “You have labored and you found!”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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We Must Wake Up!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Isn’t our game in the group regarding the greatness of spirituality like a toy sword about which Baal HaSulam writes in Letter #6 that we use instead of the real sword that was given to us at a certain point as gift by the Creator?

Answer: No, it isn’t a toy sword since you are connected to the truth, only the means that you have for attaining the truth is artificial. The group artificially creates an atmosphere around you of the Creator’s importance, as if it really knows that. In fact, they don’t know anything, just like Rabbi Yosi Ben Kisma who was much greater than his students and knew everything much better than they did, but they added their impression to him. Through his students, he discovered the importance of spirituality.

It depends on a person’s attitude, and we need to work on this. There are no concessions here since these are the laws of the world. We see on the screens how there is sometimes an awakening in the groups around the word and the classes are full during the lesson, and then how suddenly there are only several half-asleep students left.

We must wake up! There must be electricity in the air because of the greatness of the goal! If this doesn’t happen, then we will not have enough power to attain it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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No Effort Is Lost Without A Trace

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are required to exert ourselves in quantity and in quality until “many pennies add up to a big account.” It is only bit by bit that we can collect our efforts since efforts are the inner resistance, the overcoming and the clarification that are opposite to our desire.

Here both the quantity and the quality are taken into account since there may be a desire but it may not be clarified enough. It isn’t the outcome that is important, but rather the efforts a person makes, which are absorbed by the general system, and it is a cumulative process. This continues until it becomes possible to return them to a person and to fully present them.

A person cannot accumulate these efforts since if he accumulated and collected them, it would weaken his search. If he knew exactly in his mind and heart, if he knew and felt what efforts he has already made, he would lose his powers to advance and would become numb.

So there is this kind of forgetfulness, and the efforts accumulate unconsciously, disappearing within. But at some point we will get them back according to the law of, “He shall vomit what he has swallowed.” At the beginning all our efforts are swallowed, as if trickling though sand without a trace. But when their sum reaches a level that matches the next level of the upper Light, there is an equivalence between the deficiency that has accumulated to a certain quantitative and a qualitative measure and the Light, then the Light and the desire are revealed in each other in a person.

Every revelation is always sudden and comes as a surprise. This whole process is called a “unique quality“.It is because it is almost totally concealed from a person. The Creator’s thought operates in its depth on the created being in order to prepare him and to help him attain the form that matches the Light.

So, as much as a person remembers and feels and as much as he forgets, as many efforts as he has already made and as many as he still has to make—all is calculated according to quantity and quality and incorporated in the general system, in the system of connection among all the souls. A person has to become an active, efficient, and useful part with regard to the system.

Of course, this is only about his feelings and revelation here, because everything is concealed and revealed only with regard to a person, not that the system itself has any deficiencies. If a person reaches the level in which he can be an active efficient component consciously, then he is rewarded with revelation.

So we should understand that we mustn’t delve into and try to calculate what seems to us as obstacles, forgetfulness, weakness, and efforts that are lost and that leave no traces, forcing us to start anew each time. We must not make any calculations here since we don’t understand to what extent everything is measured and arranged accurately every step of the way. We only have to work on hastening time by constantly evoking ourselves as much as we can.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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The Potential Of Collective Consciousness

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Nextgov): “The Defense Department wants new computer tools to analyze mounds of unstructured text, blogs and tweets as part of a coordinated push to help military analysts predict the future and make decisions faster.

“The goal is to build an open source system that can unite various tools that collect, manage and draw relationships between data sets.

Defense is seeking ways to predict the future by monitoring Twitter, blogs and news, and determining the ‘frequency of contacts between nodes or clusters.’ As networks grow larger and more complex, researchers have found it harder to monitor group behavior. ONR (the Office of Naval Research) also wants researchers to discover networks that could be hidden within networks, and how information and money flows through a community.”

My Comment: As a result of the study of universal intelligence, the world will recognize the need for full cooperation of all people in a single system and will reveal this system of our connection; then, to understand this system of connection, they will need Kabbalah, the science of the general network of the management of nature. This management network is the system of upper worlds, that is, the forces of connection that we study in the science of Kabbalah.
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Crisis: The Breakdown Of Capitalism

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Vasiliy Koltashov, head of the Center of Economic Research of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movement): “The characteristic of our time is that the meaning of crisis seems lost and we are not trying to look for it.

“If from the point of view of the layman, the economic crisis is a disaster, and from the point of view of economic theory, the crisis is a strange fall because of some errors, although the economic crises are objective factors and created by real economic conditions. They are useful precisely because they do not lead to the end of the world, but only appear to be the end of the world, and at one point seem like a terrible crash. The old economic model is collapsing, and a new one is emerging.

“We are in such economic crisis, but what is interesting is that it does not end there. It is not an ordinary crisis of production, of trade-related character (when there is an overproduction of goods, overproduction is liquidated, industry is updated, development continues); no, it is a crisis of a big breakdown. …

“We see that the crisis is not yet over, and, moreover to end it, there must be a qualitative change. What is this qualitative change?”

My Comment: We are in this crisis; no innovations, discoveries, technological breakthroughs, or changes around us will help get out of it, but only changes in us! We have entered the zone of integral nature, or in other words, nature has begun to influence us integrally, to treat us as one whole. Until we become like this, we will remain in increasing imbalance with nature, which we will feel as pressure: environmental, natural, social, in health, family, etc.
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Looking For A Human Being

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can it be that a person becomes an active part in the system if it says that the Light does everything?

Answer: The system already exists in perfection and splendor in a state called the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). All the shattering and the concealments, and all the restrictions and the conditions, are relevant only with regard to the created being in order to allow him to gradually attain the whole system.

So we have to start from the state that is most distant from this wholeness. A person actually goes through part of the process unconsciously, in many previous incarnations. We did not begin our correction consciously straight from the “Big Bang“, from the first particle of matter that was created by the spark of the Light billions of years ago.

And it wasn’t yesterday that we climbed down from the trees and turned from apes into human beings. It is a very long process that goes through many changes from one generation to another. Eventually, we have arrived at the life we are living now in which we have to complete this work and clarify things! The most important thing now is the recognition both in our mind and in our feelings.

So everything that happens in this world on the physical, corporeal level has to receive only what is necessary for its existence in order to provide the animal body with what it needs, but all our development has to be on the human level. This is how we should arrange our life and this is how we should focus our attention so as not to deal with the animal level more than it is necessary for its existence.

We should focus all our attention on the speaking level by looking for the human being in it. How can I separate it from the animal to take it out of this confusion and to deal specifically with it?

Here, everything depends on the society, of course. If a person is cut off from the environment, then there is no way that he can advance. It is because he has to create his human image, by cooperating with all of humanity or at least with the group he was brought to. If he perceives the group and the connection with it as absolutely essential, then by this connection he builds his human image.

The main thing is to hasten time. If the Creator has already brought a person to the good fate and told him, “Take it,” then from now on everything depends on you, and all you have to do is to find out exactly what you have to take and how to arrange everything.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Lessons From The Common Meals

Dr. Michael LaitmanProtracted crises are beginning right now; it is very difficult for people to sustain life today from an economic perspective; people need to make their income last an entire month to feed themselves, provide for themselves, create all the necessary conditions for their children, their family, and elderly family members. In such a case it would be wonderful to organize great communal meals.

Right now, our community is buying a new building, and we are planning to move there. I really want for the kitchen there to be operating from morning till night. And all the members of our community could bring their families there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This would be very convenient and would be five to ten times cheaper than at home. And most importantly, this unites and connects people and leads toward understanding that unity is beneficial in all instances of life.

I think that the current crisis will unwillingly “push” us towards these circumstances. And this is a good thing because man, a small egoistic being, will begin to understand that nature, from every angle, is showing him the way to act, just like animals who constantly adjust to nature, wishing to maintain themselves in their best condition.

This notion can be close to a person or not, depending on one’s personality. But the fact is that integral upbringing must naturally bring a person to this state.

By nature I am a lone wolf. I have my own office, which I would never want to leave and could live there my entire life. But once I have realized how important the meals are, I have felt what it is that they give me spiritually, how I grow at the same time, how I learn from communicating with others.

When I dine with my students, I learn integration from them. I have never experienced it before since I attained the spiritual space in a different way. But I see it here and feel it through them. This is a very interesting discovery for me.

This is the practice of a new state, the next dimension, when through this direct interaction, a person begins to create within himself absolutely new foundations of perception and regards the world in a completely different common, global way. He becomes accustomed to identifying with a community, and then automatically begins to identify himself with mankind, the world, and all of nature.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/28/12

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A Personality That Has Never Existed In Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do you think that as a result of going through the integral education process a person could rise to the next level and remain a traitor, for example?

Answer: He will not remain a traitor! He will acquire new values, a new perception of reality, and it is the same thing, since reality is perceived by the sum of a person’s values. Why do I see one thing but I don’t see another? Why do I pay more attention to one thing and less attention to another? It happens according to the set of values that I have.

In fact, those I see as good are prisoners of their own sweet imaginings. These are in fact the most harmful and the toughest people, and they will be the last to reach correction.

In what way are they better than the thief you mentioned? They also steal, but differently. It is normal to take a few billions from the people for themselves; it means that they are successful. But if you steal are caught and put in prison, it means that you were not successful. Who is better, who is worse? Who causes others more harm and who causes less harm? We arrange everything in its place according to our set of values.

By acquiring a new sense, a new tool for understanding, a person will not behave like he did before. This is in fact what will take him out of his previous state.

A new system for feeling the world is created in him, and he already operates according to it. It is as if he has put on new glasses, has acquired new eyes, new ears, a new collective mind. He takes everyone into account, he cannot think about himself, but rather thinks about “us.” It is a new personality from a qualitative perspective, which up until now has never existed in nature. It is called Adam (human), a unified image.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12

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