Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.10.13

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.19.13

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Not Entitled To A Day Off

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a sin in the internal work that corrupts its outcome?

Answer: If a person is already incorporated in the internal work but is now too lazy to constantly support it and to add to it, it’s considered a sin. Since if he doesn’t advance, it means that he is going backward. It’s impossible to stop and stand in the middle.

We sometimes think that we can allow ourselves to take some time off and to rest from this work, but in spirituality there are no days off, the clock is constantly ticking and the counter constantly counts our efforts, so it isn’t like our world where we can stop and be idle, to go to sleep and not do anything until the next day.

This does not exist in spirituality. Perhaps I don’t perform any physical actions, but during this time many Reshimot (spiritual genes) go through me, and if I don’t fulfill them, then it means that I go backward. So I have to make sure that I constantly do something.

My advice is to place yourself, even passively, under the maximal influence of the environment: to listen to tunes and songs, to read our material, to see a lesson one more time or to listen to it, to be among friends. But we have to be very careful in using this means of communication, since along with the gain and the great benefit it can also bring about great loses and harm if we don’t use it correctly.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Annul Yourself Only Before The Friends Along The Spiritual Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why should a person be careful not to humble himself before strangers, but only before the friends along the spiritual path?

Answer: The friends want to act with the intention of in order to bestow and so you can humiliate yourself before them and thus adhere to them, connect to them, and get close to them spiritually. Therefore, you should humble yourself before them.

But if you try to humble yourself before other people, then with regard to what do you humble yourself? Do you do so with regard to their corporeal desires and egoistic goals? They don’t operate towards the direction of the spiritual goal. When you annul yourself before a friend, it helps the two of you since you are serving as an example for him. If he is your friend along the spiritual path, then he will understand you correctly. He will see that you are working on self-annulment, on bestowal, and that you are giving him an example. This means that your action of self-annulment is correct in every sense: both towards the one who performs it and the one who sees it.

But if you behave that way with regard to a stranger, he will think that he is greater if you lower yourself before him, and he will take pride in it and his ego will begin to grow. He may also not understand why you are suddenly ingratiating yourself before him and would think that you want to deceive and to use him. From all these examples, we see that it’s only before a friend along the spiritual path who will understand me that my annulment can be beneficial for both of us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A Tuning Fork For The Out-Of-Tune Strings Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanYou have to humble yourself not before certain people but before the means for attaining the spiritual goal—the study, the teacher, the friends, and the group. It’s because these are not just people, but a system, and if you annul yourself before it you will enter your first spiritual state: Ibur (embryo). Of course, there has to be a different kind of annulment with regard to every means; with regard to the study, you should examine its essence and why it’s needed and what it is that you study.

The system is revealed to you in the image of the teacher and the friends. It is one upper system, which by its revelation to you depicts in you the images of Kabbalists throughout the generations and of the friends. It’s you that builds these images, and they are in you. It says, “Thou shall not make statues or images,” in the sense that you are forbidden to perceive them externally, that they exist outside your feeling. You are in front of the Light that depicts all these discernments in you.

So the work is in imagining only the Creator’s bestowal upon you instead of all these images. But in this general behavior of the Creator, you are allowed to discern all the individual manners with regard to which you can focus yourself.

It’s as if you are playing a chord on a musical instrument and you need several strings that are perfectly tuned relative to one another. In order to do that, you have a teacher, friends, this world, and the study. If you tune all the “strings” correctly by perceiving everything as coming from the Creator, you will be able to come to Him.

If you regard the teacher, the friends, the group, the study, and the world as coming from one upper source, then everything that you do to tighten the connection with them allows you to tune yourself more accurately. It’s as if you are checking every one of your strings according to the sound of this tuning fork and thus advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Dissemination: Personal Gain

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does dissemination help in overcoming inner obstacles?

Answer: There are many different “objects of support” on the spiritual path, places where you can find help. I think that dissemination helps because we constantly descend – ascend, and again descend – again ascend.

Inner pressure gives us an opportunity to be in the process, which does not only happen within us, but also outside of us, and then we sort of dampen and compensate it. This really used to help me.

Moreover, when you are preparing for a lesson, a lecture, when you are working with materials, you are occupied with something external. You do not spend your entire time within yourself, and this helps.
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From a Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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An Optimal Calculation Of Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from ScienceBlog): “By simulating 25,000 generations of evolution within computers, Cornell University engineering and robotics researchers have discovered why biological networks tend to be organized as modules – a finding that will lead to a deeper understanding of the evolution of complexity. …

“The team discovered that evolution produces modules not because they produce more adaptable designs, but because modular designs have fewer and shorter network connections, which are costly to build and maintain. As it turned out, it was enough to include a ‘cost of wiring’ to make evolution favor modular architectures. …

“To test the theory, the researchers simulated the evolution of networks with and without a cost for network connections.

“’Once you add a cost for network connections, modules immediately appear. Without a cost, modules never form. The effect is quite dramatic,’ says Clune.

“The results may help explain the near-universal presence of modularity in biological networks as diverse as neural networks – such as animal brains – and vascular networks, gene regulatory networks, protein-protein interaction networks, metabolic networks and even human-constructed networks such as the Internet.

“’Being able to evolve modularity will let us create more complex, sophisticated computational brains,’ says Clune.

“Says Lipson: ‘We’ve had various attempts to try to crack the modularity question in lots of different ways. This one by far is the simplest and most elegant.’”

My Comment: Nature takes into account absolutely every known and still unknown condition and parameter and makes the solution optimal. We have to accept its solution as ideal and mandatory to follow. It is in imitation of nature and is the key to our proper development.
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Protectionism Against Globalization

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (from PR Newswire): “Business executives around the world believe that protectionism is on the rise in both developed and emerging markets, according to a new Economist Intelligence Unit survey and report commissioned by UK Trade & Investment. …

“Ian McCartney, UK Trade Minister responsible for UK Trade & Investment, commented: ‘World trade has been one of the principal engines of global economic growth over recent decades, and increased protectionism risks putting the brakes on that growth. Globalisation should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Protectionism leads to less trade, lower growth and therefore lower employment and more poverty.’”

My Comment: There is no solution to this without rebuilding the world, or rather the human! Only a view of the world as a single integrated whole in which humanity produces only rational necessities, equally shares everything necessary for existence, is content with integral fulfillment, and feels a single integral space will lead the world out of the crisis. We feel the labor pains of the birth of a new, not individual, but integral attitude to the world. In the end, economic protectionism will lead to world wars.
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The Future Of The World Is In Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today, when life seems tasteless and humanity encounters endless problems, what can the wisdom of Kabbalah tell us about the meaning of life?

Answer: Kabbalah says that we can find the meaning of life only if we are adapted to nature. Then we will receive fulfillment, which is in fact the meaning of life.

So I can receive fulfillment if I am adapted to nature. The adaptation generates a connection, and then whatever is in nature is also found in me. I become the inner system that is connected to nature.

How can we connect to nature, to something that is whole, eternal, and great? It is only possible through the similarity of properties. The similarity of properties refers to being in bestowal and connection, just like the rest of nature is connected. The still, the vegetative, and the animate levels in nature are all connected to one system. But it’s as if man is left outside the system in order to connect to it by himself consciously, willingly, by making his own efforts in order to find the way to fit into it and become an integral part that completes the whole system, just like the last part in a jigsaw puzzle.

This is what we have to reach. To the extent that we approach this state, we will feel better since there is a whole life in the general picture of the puzzle.

So the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about how to receive, to gain, to make the best out of our life in which everyone suffers, and to move on to a better life.

This is fulfilled by connection. The connection depends on a person’s ability: There are people who are brought to high levels of spiritual connection and unity by their deficiency, and there are people are brought to the simple “common” connection by their desire and deficiency, but one way or the other, the future of the world is in connection. So everyone will surely find his own form and intensity of connection according to his internal attributes. The main thing is to complete the picture.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us. So, it has nothing to do with religions and beliefs. If a person feels bad and connection seems the right solution for the world, if he feels internally that this it worth it, that it is good, beneficial, and desirable, then he will reach the wisdom of Kabbalah or the system of the integral education.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar

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As Long As The Drill Doesn’t Reach The Nerve

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe can find many excuses for ourselves, but if we face the laws of nature, then we must comply with it. The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about absolute laws. The Kabbalists explain to us how the system of reality is structured. And we think that they aren’t rigid laws, but are something that changes according to our desire: the relations between people, the connection between man and nature, destiny, luck, and various events of yesterday or tomorrow.

All of these illusions come from the lack of knowledge of the system, from the lack of understanding that it is defined in an exact system and it is not in our power to change it. There is nothing to do. It is that way and only that way! We even treat science as if we can somehow get around it. This comes from the lack of feeling that you are connected with the system by thousands of threads, billions of nerve fibers.

Imagine that coming from you are an endless amount of threads that connect you with all of reality, and all of them are especially sensitive, like exposed nerves. Everyone knows what an unbearable pain it is when you suddenly touch an exposed nerve from an aching tooth. All of us have felt this once. And from you are millions and billions of exposed nerves that connect you with others. All of us are wrapped in these thin white fibers, as if immersed in gel.

Imagine how sensitive you are to everything that happens in any place, anywhere. You depend on everyone and they, in turn, are dependent on you. We are tightly connected through these thin, nerve fibers, completely in everything. No matter what happens, your question is if this touches your nerve or not.

We are now detached from this understanding, but slowly we get closer to it through suffering. The drill between us doesn’t directly touch our nerve. It only drills a hole in the tooth and sometimes causes a certain pain, which we are able to bear. And sometimes we even manage to escape from the dentist, refusing treatment, what will be, will be.

And here it is not possible to give anesthesia and get rid of the pain, since the pain is the measure of the problem. The pain points to the place of the problem; you can fix it: go to the doctor and take medicine. In this case, if you are able to cure a physical disease, then it is allowed for you to use anesthesia. But it is not possible to give spiritual anesthesia since you have to correct its reason. And for this, you must discover the system of connections.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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