Audio Version Of The Blog – 09.17.13

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Everyone’s Salary Is Transferred To The Group’s Account

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we help friends during a descent?

Answer: There is no need to specifically identify someone who is in a descent. Instead, within a group, you always should maintain high spirits, an elevated mood, the importance of the goal, and shared commitments to remain in connection and mutual guarantee. We still lack mutual responsibility.

If all this is in the group, then we will be able immediately to turn these descents into ascents and achieve revelation. The only thing we lack is a stronger connection. People do not feel their commitment to each other. Everyone still thinks that he acts on his own, and he just has colleagues at work, as in a factory: He came, worked, got paid according to his work, and went home.

We transfer our attitude toward usual external work to spiritual work. We do not yet realize that spiritual work is only in connection, in contracting oneself in order to turn into one whole, in mutual guarantee, and become one man with one heart, and only then can we get paid! Indeed, the reward is to create a place where the Creator could be revealed. By that, we will please Him and reach adhesion with Him according to His will.

We do not pay enough attention to this point of unity and do not realize that this is where all the work is realized and rewarded. We still lack this feeling because it is necessary to feel this, not to remember the words, so that the heart would pull me there all the time and wish to be there.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/13, Shamati #33

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Discovery Of Evil – No Reason To Lament

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is written that prayer is said to begin with gratitude. Is there any gratitude in the prayers of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement)?

Answer: First of all, the prayers on Yom Kippur are linked to the prayers of Rosh Hashanah that are designed to exalt “crown” of the Creator as king of the world. With this we elevate the goal, bestowal, love, it is a great attribute that we must attain. It manages the entire world, dwells everywhere, and controls everything.

The Creator means the characteristic of bestowal and love. He has no other image so He is clothed in the Kelim, and so we get to know Him, get to know the force that acts in creation. We respect, appreciate, and exalt this property above all.

This is the meaning of Rosh Hashanah; we celebrate the “head” (Rosh in Hebrew), which is the characteristic of bestowal. It is the most important, runs everything, attracts us, and we want to reach it, to be like it, and to be integrated within it.

Whereas Yom Kippur shows us how we are still far from this. We examine, discover, the defects and see that in the meantime we lack corrections so that we will acquire the characteristic of complete and full bestowal. We regret this when we uncover and prepare our flaws for work.

After that come the days of correction and on Purim we finish it.

Question: This is saying that on Yom Kippur there is only regret that we are not yet corrected?

Answer: And this is a great joy. In fact, I am not sorry but joyful. The shattered Kelim are revealed to me and now I can fix them. That’s right: My regret, the repentance, and the “forgiveness” are linked to joy, since I have finally discovered the evil in me and now am totally trembling with desire to correct it. I am happy that I have discovered this and I am grateful for this.

Try to read the prayers on Yom Kippur with happiness instead of crying and you will discover something completely different in this.

How is it possible to cry when we are found next to the Creator? You see that now if you are sorry, you are attesting that the Creator is the one who caused the sorrow, and this means even that the Creator is not the Good Who does good? In fact, there is no such thing. The Creator reveals the shattering to you so that you will be happy and will correct the flaw. With this you will be able to resemble Him yourself. And on the contrary, if He had created you like Him without your independent participation you would simply be “stuck” to Him like duct tape.

But no, He now gives you the opportunity to identify the differences, prepares the state for you that seemingly says, “In these characteristics you are different from Me. Carry out the work and you will be like Me.” How could it be that you would cry; for He has related to you this way and has given you the opportunity to be like Him?

On the contrary, you are happy: “Indeed, we have erred and betrayed. Indeed, I am guilty, I am a thief, I am a liar…”, and you have pleasure from what you have discovered. You are happy that He created you opposite Him and that this opposition shows you how it is possible to be like Him and to merit adhesion.

This says: “To serve the Creator” is the work of the Creator. So how is this linked to crying? You see with this you bring Him contentment. You are thankful that He is the one who has placed everything in front of you and you are grateful that He created you the opposite.

Essentially, it is as if you are “kissing the stick”, the whip that strikes you; and in this way you neutralize the evil inclination. Now it is no longer bad, since thanks to your change in attitude, it becomes good.

Question: This is to say, we are happy that we discover that we are opposite the Creator?

Answer: No, we are happy because by means of this He gives us the opportunity to be equivalent to Him. I thank Him for the preparation that I have done, for His mercy towards me both in the past and in the future. All that He does, including the shattering and the terrible disasters through which we have passed, the essence of all this is complete kindness. This is exactly what we discover. Everything depends on my outlook on life; that is precisely what we must change.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/13, Writings of Rabash

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The Channel That Conveys The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: With us in the World Kli, the entire group is united with its own uniqueness. On what internal and external level must the group be in order to go out to disseminate with the right intention and action? For if the group is not prepared and not connected enough, then it’s liable to cause harm to the action. As it is said, “It is preferable to sit and do nothing.” How is it possible to examine the amount of readiness of the group to go out to the wider public?

Answer: If the group is connected, then you will feel that you can do everything. The Creator doesn’t put any difficult problems before you. None whatsoever!

If I am connected with the group into a single whole body, then together, I and the group are filled with the upper force and in this case the Creator is found within us. And then I can be sure that I am conveying the higher power to the 99% of humanity and there is no problem with them. They will really begin to “unfold” in front of me; they will smile at me in response. I will not see anything else besides smiles. I assure you! They will listen to you very willingly.

The Channel That Conveys The Light
The Light does everything. It builds, realizes, and molds. And you only need to open a passage for it through you. Nothing more than this is needed!

Therefore, all the claims that you don’t understand, don’t know enough, and are not organized enough, all these are nonsense! It’s up to you to make yourselves into a “pipe,” so that the Upper Light will pass through you to all the rest. And then you will immediately feel a good relationship and good will from their side.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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What Do Women Need Connection For?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: For spirituality, the men are responsible for connection and I can simply work with dissemination without wasting time on corresponding with the groups of ten. I have not succeeded in finding a reason why women need to be connected between them apart from the men. And in addition to that, it’s very difficult to find the time for it.

Answer: This is right, but from where will a woman find words and power to convince others if she doesn’t participate in connection? The vast majority of women listen to all our classes, the program “A New Life,” participate in workshops, and read the blog regularly. I cannot imagine what would happen if a woman didn’t participate in all of these things.

If there wouldn’t be all of this, how would she go out to the public, how would she tell people what to do, and with what would she go out to them? All this needs to live in her and she needs to enter into all of it. After all, when women act, they truly do it from the heart.

Besides this, they have greater ability to convince others than men do. If the woman goes out to disseminate together with a man, then she does the main part of the work of disclosing and the explaining to the masses. Before women all the doors are opened, they are accepted better because they are softer. All this must be taken into account. After all, this is based on the works of nature.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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To Mobilize As A “Special Unit”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I am responsible for a “special unit” for dissemination in Russian. From the start, we chose a number of people for this with the ability to express themselves nicely and with characteristics required for dissemination.

Ultimately the unit reorganized. It turned out that the greatest success rates were by people who never opened their mouths. Some kind of miracle happened.

Answer: Quite right. The ability to express the material nicely doesn’t indicate anything. Sometimes it happens that quiet and humble people, who don’t even know how to enter into connection with others, go out to disseminate and are very successful. It’s really amazing that it’s specifically through them that the Upper Light passes and not through someone who knows how to speak well.

Therefore, all members of the group need to engage in dissemination, otherwise this will not be a group, because only through dissemination is it possible to reach connection between us. This is a completely new method of connection that appears as a result of the need for connection so we will have the power to persuade and correct the external world. The group is called only when an external danger forces everyone to mobilize in order to convince the public.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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The Anniversary Of The Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Washington Post): “The five-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy is this weekend, and the Treasury Department—where the response to the crisis that failure spurred unfolded—has issued a document that amounts to its take on what has happened since then. It includes some terrific graphs that add up to a visual history of the world’s financial palpitations over the last several years.

“On a number of measures of how the economy has done since then, there is considerable progress—but many key measures, like unemployment, commercial lending, and household wealth, are not back to where they were pre-crisis.

“Now, for a little economic perspective, we’ll add a couple of graphs of our own. First, here’s the employment-to-population ratio. As the graph in the upper right quadrant above shows, the unemployment rate has been coming down steadily since roughly the start of 2010. But a large portion of that is due to people dropping out of the labor force. If you look at the actual number of people with jobs, relative to the whole population, a different pattern emerges: It plummeted during the recession, and has rebounded hardly at all since then.”

My Comment: We have been evolving egoistically over thousands of years and have reached a matured society; social relations are in confrontation with the unified nature. Our egoism has reached the limit and has begun to degenerate. We treat the planet on which we exist thoughtlessly. And we believe this situation can continue and evolve, that is, society, the environment, etc. to worsen.

But our opposition to nature is like the private attitude of nature toward the person. When a person reaches the limit of his egoistic growth, he experiences emptiness, causing feelings of depression, even despair. A large part of humanity is already in this state, although we do not want to admit this.

Many people are in a subconscious sense of the meaninglessness of existence. Very few have a desire to find the meaning of life, caused by the “point in the heart.” We who have found the cause of the crisis and the path that nature shows us are required to disclose it to everyone.
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Questions About Integral Education

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhat is, in your opinion, the goal of education?

 The goal of education is to give a person an understanding of his mission in the world and the real means for its implementation. Such education today is called integral (IE) because it allows a person to become one with nature and thereby bring himself in the optimal condition. It’s much more important than getting an education in the form of profession or trade. The purpose of IE is to make people happy in their personal life and useful in public life.

What is an educated society?

An educated society is a society that is constantly improving itself towards a greater likeness to a unified integral nature, revealing in its unity the single force of nature—the Creator.

How has the institution of higher education been changing over time?

Historically, education was generated by the social system of society based on the opinions of scholars and religious leaders. Since both authorities are losing their importance today, due to the internal changes within a person as well as the external pressure of integrated nature manifested now, there is a need for a new form of education aimed at the revelation of the plan and purpose of our natural (evolutionary) development. I call this education integral education, IE.

Do you think that wisdom has no place in today’s education that involves memorizing?

Wisdom was once in the past, and it was earthly wisdom, that is, within the limits of human speculation of the ancient philosophers. Lacking the possibility of revealing the true purpose and plan of nature, feeling the Creator, the scientists of all times tried to create the world’s view within the framework of the human mind. Their efforts deserve much respect.

Nonetheless, they can help us in nothing, except in craft, i.e.; the practical use of the results of their research because they can neither feel nor study the forces that govern our world.

Only one who reveals the Creator practically, whose qualities become similar to the Creator, has wisdom in an unlimited sense of the word. To him is included the definition of “understanding.”

Plato wrote that a book gives people a “semblance of knowledge” rather than a real understanding.

He meant that after reading a book, you can convince yourself and others that you know the subject. In Kabbalah, you discover the book to the extent that you comprehend what it describes, meaning, attain this level through your inner contemplation. Moreover, your attainment is individual, in the instruments, the properties of your soul.

What is knowledge?

It is a connection to the higher source, the Light, from where, to the extent of necessity and possibility, a person can draw any necessary information, like money from a bank. But the ability to get knowledge depends entirely on a person’s spiritual level, his screen, not on a successful Internet search.

How can we solve the problem of information?

Everything from search engines to social networks is aimed at ensuring that information is available instantly and for everyone. This leads to its depreciation because the importance of the carrier of knowledge is lost. This is good because what is important is not knowledge, but wisdom, the depth of understanding—insight into the hidden layers of nature. They are attained only by the law of equivalence of form between the researcher and material. Practical Kabbalah prepares a person for this equivalence of form.

But since only few people have a predisposition to Kabbalah, I would suggest the practice of workshops where under the leadership of Kabbalists, any person could be included into the discussion of the hidden knowledge of nature and thus gradually develop his latent ability to realize this, i.e., become a Kabbalist.

These workshops are not like ordinary widely practiced discussions, debates, or brainstorming. They are built on the principles of not opposition but additions; not division, but unity; not dispute, but agreement; as a result, there is a common and new feeling and the resulting knowledge.

How do you see the near future, what features of its development do you foresee?

 The Internet will turn us into inhabitants of non-geographic space. The problem of distance will not be felt by us both in connection between people and in connection with between state and social services, shopping, and so on. We can be constantly connected with everyone. Thus we erase the problem of time. The network becomes a field, free from any state, political, religious, and any other control. This blurs the boundaries of power.

Only the elite remains, which controls the network and manages the world through it: the media, the educational system, and so forth. But the upper governance controls the elite itself, as it is said: “The hearts of ministers and kings are in the hand of the Lord.” The result of the availability of all types of information will be in recognizing the “emptiness” and “Why do I exist?” In the end, everything leads us to the need for personal and public awareness of the need to reveal the upper governance, its cause, law, and purpose. And the method of integral education will be able to answer this.

What does it all mean in the context of the nature of work?

People will stop thinking about reducing the population of the planet. They will come to the need to consume what is necessary for bodily existence and receive other fulfillment from integral communication, through which higher fulfillment will come to them. They will work only if necessary for the acceptable existence of humankind. Work will be entrusted and considered socially necessary, unpaid.

Everyone, without exception from a young age and until his last day, will be in the system of integral education within which the entire personal and social life of humankind will take place. The state would wither away; we observe the disappearance of borders today; the influence of government disappears with increasing networking between people.
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The University That Only A Group Can Enter

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After growing up, a son can understand why his father was strict with him. However, how can we understand the Creator at the moment when He sends us suffering and not wait for some time to pass?

Answer: I, myself, am not able to justify my father being strict with me. Initially, I am immersed in my “animal” life and if I feel bad, the source of this evil is automatically bad in my eyes. I don’t like it to the point of hatred.

Hence, the question is, how can I evaluate it differently? In principle, it is impossible. I am created this way. The egoistic desire forces me to run from suffering and seek pleasure. So, what do they want from me? How can I show a goal-oriented attitude toward troubles and, in essence, objectively assess the one who sends them? How can I realize that He works on my nature, desiring to grow something greater within me so that instead of an “animal,” a human being would come out of me?

To do this, I need a new mind and a new sense in addition to the old ones that measure only pleasure and suffering. Up to now, like all the egoists of this world, I have been learning only how to achieve pleasure and extract profit from it, and conversely, to run away from suffering as far as possible and to protect myself maximally. These are the egoistic norms of our world. Here, success is achieved by those who are stronger, richer, and more cunning, and those people are proud that they have succeeded in life just because they know how to avoid the bad and reach the good.

So, I have no strength to grow something greater within myself. For this, I need a spark from the degree that is called the man (Adam) so that I can develop toward a new level in the relationship with the Father. He sends me troubles and I must be aware of their focus.

In our world, my father is strict in relation to me so that on the material level I learn to get pleasure and avoid suffering. This is nothing more than “animal” coaching.

On the other hand, for spiritual progress, I need a spark from the next higher degree. This spark is called the “point in the heart.”

In addition, I need people who will convey this message to me: The environment that will help me on the path, support, and reinforce my understanding that my troubles are goal-oriented. Then, I will not fall into blind rebellion under the burden of suffering, I will not blame the Father Who sends them, and at every step, will interpret our relationship correctly. I will understand that He does this to constantly direct me at the goal and it does not matter what He sends, troubles or pleasure.

Thus, the relationship between the Creator and the created being is built at the level of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and then, higher on the human level. For this crucial stage of development, we need:

  • The initial spark – the point in the heart.
  • A teacher who can explain why the Creator treats me so badly on the material level and toward what goal He directs me, like a father who takes stringent measures to prepare his son for the university.
  • The environment that will constantly raise the goal in my eyes telling me how important it is to enter this university and how much my father loves me, sending troubles out of his love. In this environment, I see examples of my friends and can follow the path together with them. We are moving forward, making up a group of students of the same Father and the same teacher, one for all of us.

If all these conditions are met, a person really can understand what is happening. With the help of the group, he tries to relate correctly to everything that he gets in life, and he sees that everything is for his good. Although, with the advent of troubles, he feels disagreement at the animal level but, if he immediately rises to the level of human being (Adam) within himself, he feels gratitude, and so continues on his way.
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From a Talk on the Importance of the Gathering 5/10/13

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.17.13

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 15

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The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “The Third Commandment,” Item 207, Lesson 74

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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