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The Joyful Guests, Grateful To The Host

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, “The Matter of Yenika and Ibur:” … Meaning he does not have to see that he will have happiness from the work, rather what he has to see is that he has to prepare himself to know whom he is working for and what its importance is, and joy is the result of it, meaning to say that if he has no joy in the work, he has no idea of the importance of the Creator, and then he has to correct himself in the matter of faith.

The forces are taken from the recognition of the importance and greatness of the Creator, the goal, the understanding of for whom we work, whom we approach and become similar to. Becoming closer is possible only due to the equivalence of form, but from where can we take forces that enable us to work against our nature? It is only from the environment. That is why the greatness of the upper depends only on the environment, and we need to work on it.

If this is a usual, egoistic desire, then we create religion. Religion is built on the greatness and importance of some object revered among the masses despite the fact that it is not familiar to them, has not been revealed or understood. On the contrary, just because it is not understood and not revealed and this is not even a goal, it is called faith, which is blind and not leading to attainment. That is why the simpler a person is, the higher and more righteous he is considered in faith because he is ready to be loyal without any knowledge.

However, Kabbalah sets another goal for us: “Get to know your Creator and work for Him!” That is, we need to know, to reveal Him. This is precisely the purpose of creation: so that we are happy and enjoy the feeling of closeness to our King to the point of full adhesion. Adhesion means complete attainment of the entire height of the Creation that has reached a similarity to the Creator. They become equal to each other.

So here we need a completely different work. Attaining the greatness of the upper one occurs in two stages. In the first stage, we talk about the greatness of the goal, the Creator, whom we want to reveal, about the upper force besides which there is nothing else, and impress each other. We become inspired by getting closer to the revelation of this highest quality that exists between us, hidden for the time being, but will be revealed soon.

This is not mere inspiration like in religious ecstasy, but it attracts the Surrounding Light to us. This is a huge difference. We are impressed with the greatness of the Creator and come closer to Him according to our desire to become similar to Him, that is, to get rid of the power of the evil inclination in us and go under the power of the good nature of bestowal. As it is written, “Would that they had forsaken Me but kept my Torah, since by occupying themselves therewith, the light which it contains would have led them back to the right path.”

We do not want to just reveal the Creator, the force of bestowal and love in us, but we really desire to be changed due to His Light and force. That is why we artificially create in ourselves the opinion of His greatness, which in essence is a sham because we do not feel so. However, we know that we are immersed in our egoism, the desire to enjoy, and that is why we have no other way to grow but to work against the current state. We do all this quite deliberately and under our control.

That is why in the usual understanding, faith means to close the eyes and not seek to know and attain anything. A person gets strength from his egoism, from the egoistic environment that allows him to act with the hope of great reward. The environment promises him the Garden of Eden, and all sorts of rewards in this life and future lives.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches the opposite because, as it is written, “The opinion of the Torah is opposite to the opinion of the egoistic masses.” We do not seek commonplace values, but want the force of bestowal and love for the other to rule in us. That is why faith for us is called the force of bestowal. “Believing in the Creator” means to bestow upon Him as the grateful guest upon the host. Thus, we become equal to Him.

Also, every time when we rise, we again need the environment to support the opinion that the Creator is great. However, it is not clear to us at all. This is necessary only in order to draw the Surrounding Light to ourselves that will give us the property of bestowal and allow us to rise above our egoism, to feel the other. The property of bestowal, the property of Bina, is called faith.

You can check your joy from this point of view: Is it the result of good deeds as it should be, that is, the action of bestowal, faith above reason? This means that bestowal should be above reception, above our egoistic desire, or do we feel joy because we enjoy our egoism? Then, it is egoistic joy, the joy of ruling egoism. Everything depends on what reigns within us. This is what should be checked.
[110458]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/13

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If You Are Eating Your Own Flesh…

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf you suffer it means that you are in a state called: “a fool sitting idly eating his own flesh.” If you have a strong environment that wants to help you and you are not ashamed to nullify yourself and to be totally incorporated in it, you are very lucky. Then you don’t suffer, but will immediately discover the means to turn this whole state of suffering for the best.

If you are eating your own flesh, it means that you cannot determine for sure where the pain comes from, for what reason, from whom, and for what purpose. You have forgotten that “He is the first and He is the last!” and it is as if you attribute the pain to yourself, as if you have caused it by yourself and you are responsible for it. Thus you torture yourself and eat yourself.

If, however, you attribute everything to the Creator and not to the caprice of blind fate, you will stop eating yourself and will immediately turn the bad feeling into a means of ascent, of connection with the Creator who has sent you this state so that you will connect to Him.
[110430]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/06/13, Writings of Rabash

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Two Prohibitions In Relations With Friends

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I share my joy and impressions with a friend, how do I know that it does not harm him?

Answer: There are two prohibitions in relations with friends.

The first prohibition is to tell no one about your relationships with the Creator. The only person with whom you can talk about this is your wife if she is constantly with you on the path. With the friends you can talk about anything related to your relationship with the group, studies, and anything else, except your relationship with the Creator.

The second prohibition is in no way, not by word, not by gesture, not by facial expressions,to express any disdain for spiritual work. Do not decrease friends’ desires, but all the time try to awaken and develop their desire towards the goal. Do not provoke any momentary, insignificant descent in them. Be careful not to trigger it even by some gesture: watch constantly for this. In the end you will have to feel yourself in ascent all the time. Otherwise, they will take this degradation from you.
[110413]
From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Labor Pains

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says that the “Creator is good and benevolent.” So what do the words “in pain you will bring forth children” mean? What is the meaning of this pain and sorrow?

Answer: Childbirth involves sorrow and pain, and while reading the Torah we are under the impression that the Creator is cruel especially towards women. He says to the woman: “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” As if these are two opposing forces but are both aimed at the same cause.

Malchut, our desire, yearns for the source of the filling, for Zeir Anpin, for the male part. What is more, it exists in each of us, both in man and in woman. We yearn for the source of the filling and this egoistic filling rules over us and we cannot do anything about it. This is the attitude of the female part towards the male part.

“In pain you will bring forth children,” means that the birth of every new level, of every new feeling, of every attainment, is through the path of sufferings.

Each time a greater ego is revealed in us, so when we go through many states for a long time we begin to see that it is evil and that we must exit it like from Egypt, to pop out like a pit out of a cherry, under the same pressure that a baby successfully comes out of his mother’s womb during childbirth.

But every birth involves pain, since birth is every new level in which two opposing forces are involved, one of them is the inhibiting force of the embryo, since the ego holds on to him and doesn’t let him come out, at the same time the altruistic pushing force, that pushes the fruit out and doesn’t want to keep it inside is also revealed.

The struggle between these two opposing forces creates a transition process called “pain,” “in pain you will bring forth children.” On the whole, all the corporeal phenomena stem from spirituality. Thus we are born on every level.

So we have to approach the spiritual states by understanding that the group is our “womb,” and in it we have to create the two opposing forces. One of them is the egoistic force that sustains us and the other is the altruistic force of rejection that raises us all. By leaving the force that sustains us on the outside we are born only by the force that pushes us and that leads us onwards.

This spiritual process is typical of men, who go through it in every spiritual birth, on every spiritual level, exactly like women.
[110297]
From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk Day One 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Moving To A New Home: For And Against

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why were we given such conditions of being thousands of kilometers apart from one another?

Answer: Because you are strong, you are heroes, you are the concealed righteous.

Actually you don’t have to stay in the same place if you can unite with others and there is no way to organize a group where you live. You don’t have to remain in the place where you live at all costs.

I also moved to live near my teacher. Of course in Israeli standards it wasn’t far but qualitatively it was very meaningful since I had to give up my business, my home, everything, since I couldn’t go on differently.

But it happened two years after I had started studying with him. I wanted to move near him immediately but he didn’t let me do so for two years.

Question: How can we choose the group and the conditions correctly?

Answer: You have to move to a place where there is a good group with good reliable guys so you will really be able to dedicate yourself seriously to the spiritual work.

Besides, there should be reasonable conditions for the family there and a place of work. You have to check all this.

I believe that there is no need to take any chances. But if there is no hope of organizing a group in the place where you live, you should move.
[110294]
From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Fighting Drugs: New Challenges

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Malta Today): “Europe’s drugs problem is in a ‘state of flux’, with new threats emerging that challenge current models of policy and practice, the European Drug Report 2013, published [May 28, 2013] by the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA), says. …

“An estimated 77 million European adults (15-64 years) have tried cannabis in their lifetime; around 20 million reporting to have used it in the last year. Despite national differences, recent survey data suggest overall stable or decreasing trends in use. …

“Driven by globalisation, technological advancement and the Internet, an open market for new drugs has now developed which presents significant challenges to public health, law enforcement and policymaking.

“Until around 10 years ago, most new psychoactive substances appearing on the European drug scene were produced in underground laboratories or sourced from diverted medicines and sold directly on the illicit drug market. While this still occurs, the emergence of a thriving ‘legal highs’ business on the Internet and in specialised shops in urban areas has marked a fundamental shift in the drug market.

“Today, these substances, often produced in China and India, are now imported into Europe in bulk where they are processed, packaged and sold as ‘legal highs’. They may also end up on the street where they are sold as substitutes for amphetamine, ecstasy, heroin or cocaine.”

My Comment: An organized war against smoking and encouraging organized drug trafficking is one of the plans of “calming and debilitating” the population, putting millions of people in a completely unnecessary drugged condition. Restrictions on the use of drugs will be gradually removed ostensibly to calm the population. “In the narcotic cloud, we float into another world.” But the plan of nature to bring the human being to the likeness to itself will destroy their plans, and we will have to bring up a new human being in the system of Integral Education.
[110316]

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Why Doesn’t The Creator Hear Me?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I understand that “there is none else besides Him,” I feel His presence, and understand that it is a game. But why do I feel pain and sufferings, why am I ill?

Answer: A person has to act in the state he is in. Why are you given such states? If you were healthy, beautiful, and everything was fine, you wouldn’t be here yet.

Question: Where is the manual? I want to discover it! I don’t understand the Creator’s language!

Answer: The Creator’s language is nature; it is everything that surrounds you. Start seeing only the Creator in everything that happens.

When your children were small you arranged different games for them; you arranged the toys and tried to keep them busy somehow in different situations, so they would be doing something and keeping busy.

This is exactly what the Creator does with us, just as you thought of what to give your children and what you wanted to bring them to, so does He relate to each of us.

Solve His riddles like a wise child solves what his parents devise: Why did mother arrange the toys this way; why did she give me these pictures, why is she playing this music, why did she turn on the TV on this particular channel, etc.? There is a subtle clue in all this about the response she expects from her child.

So look for the answer to the question: “What is the response that the Creator is expecting of me to each of the states that constantly emerge?” In the question itself, look for the answers in the actual questions. Demand that He give you the answers: “What do You want from me?”

Question: I demand, but He doesn’t listen.

Answer: He doesn’t listen?! You don’t listen, since your ear is actually egoistic, your heart is egoistic; otherwise, you would hear Him.

When you want to hear not for yourself but in order to bring Him joy, you will immediately begin to hear, all your senses will open up. Instead of the five corporeal senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) the inner senses will open: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut.

But in order to do that I have to constantly worry about: “How does He feel my response? How should I respond so He will be glad? How can I do that? Does it make Him happy? Perhaps I should try it on my friends.”

You will reach the understanding that the Creator has shattered you into a billion parts on purpose, so you will be able to sharpen your senses by hate, anger, love, envy, fear, etc. towards others, and they were all created to sharpen your senses towards Him.

Start focusing yourself on working with the environment this way, in order to later turn to the Creator. But in order to do that you must first love the other: “From the love of others to the love of the Creator.” You can start working with the other, try it and see whether they hear you or not.

Thus, you will gradually attain the recognition of the importance of the group. Otherwise, you will not tune yourself like a musical instrument in order to feel the Creator.
[110290]
From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk Day One 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Don’t Hope, Act!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I correct my ego? What should I do with the pain it causes me?

Answer: Simple, think only about how to do good unto others and rejoice at their joy. This is the only way we can transcend ourselves.

Question: But I am a human being! If I am cut it hurts. How can I think about others if I feel pain now?

Answer: Try to be in him instead of in you despite the pain. Is there any other way?

When you reach the state that you want to be in someone else instead of yourself and to feel only him and even the group, since there everything is “spread out,” and everything is selfless, and you cannot do that, the Creator will help you.

He will come to your aid, since here you are already asking for a change that you cannot perform by yourself. Then He will come and take you to the next level.

It is an anti-egoistic action. In the meantime you are not asking for it yet. When you cry out not because you feel bad in the exile on Egypt, but because you cannot bestow since you are in your ego, you will be awarded with the exit to the upper world!

However, you shouldn’t just hope for this, but act! You should clearly understand what it means to exit the ego, what the revelation of the Creator means, and what spiritual birth means.

If you want to perform anti-egoistic actions, it means that your suffering shouldn’t interest you anymore! You should only be interested in bestowal: “No matter what I feel, I cannot bestow, and that hurts. It hurts!” Then you are allowed to enter the upper world.
[110287]
From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk Day One 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Co-dependence

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The time of transition from one level to another depends upon what?

Answer: The time of transition from one level to another depends only on you. Each one of us must have free choice. If I depend on others, I have no free choice.

That is, on the one hand we depend upon each other absolutely, but on the other hand, we don’t depend on anyone at all. I must tell myself that the entire group is found in an ideal state and that everything depends on me alone.

I need to consider this and clarify it in the following manner: “Everyone depends on me. But I also depend upon them. Will I be able to advance if I look at their faces? If they are friendly and inclined to be kind, then yes, and if they are not friendly, then no, so how should I behave?” Which is to say, their states and their influence on me also depends on me; I need to work on them. This is to say, I already depend on them but this depends on the degree that I can influence them myself. And here the opposite connection takes place, which also depends on you.

We can see and be convinced, that on one hand we are completely independent and free people, and on the other hand, are absolutely, mutually connected between us, and on the third hand, we can take from the others any form that we want. This means in fact, that we are always working in the presence of a group that is found in the infinite world, it’s only our ego that portrays them as we are describing them to ourselves now. Solely and only! And therefore, in order to advance, we need to “work” on them, to elevate them in our eyes. And in order to elevate them in our eyes, we must actually work.

During the process of spiritual work all questions will gradually become clearer because in order to clarify every one of them we need to create within us newer and newer sensations all the time, which we didn’t previously experience. Therefore think, clarify these questions, and in the end, they will mix together into one single whole, but this will already be a spiritual state. Then we will feel how much it is closed, complete.
[109993]
From the 2nd Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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