Audio Version Of The Blog – 11.05.13

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The Red Letter Day?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How far are we from the first spiritual degree? Can we measure this?

Answer: The fact is that our world group is not quite homogeneous. The concept of “we” is very vague, as a cloud.

I think that the central part of the world group that systematically, as far as the external circumstances allow, engages in the studies, internal work in the group, and dissemination, has now come to the state where within a year it will begin to reveal a clear interaction with the upper force.

In line with this, we will have ups and downs. The higher we rise, the stronger descents we will have, and to the extent we can overcome them, we will succeed.

You asked me a question, which is not in my power to answer. This is the freedom of will; moreover, the freedom of will of a great number of people. Precisely, your conscious collective decision in mutual support, in mutual responsibility, will decide when you are able to reveal the upper world. Everything depends only on you!

Indeed, it is not a date on the calendar. When you create the required tension between yourselves, then you will succeed. But I think that at the pace in which we are growing today, this should happen within six to twelve months, or maybe even sooner. However, the revelation relates only to those who are engaged in serious internal work, and the rest will join as they become included into it.

The group that will feel the upper world (and some people are already there), increasingly more strongly, entering into communication with the upper force, feeling a new dimension, rising above the level of their material existence, and will start seeing themselves and this world the way we see pets that live next to us. This is the way people will look at their animal component relative to their spiritual component that is being born in them. I think this will happen quickly.

But I repeat once again, it all depends on how much a person under the influence of the internal force, the so-called Upper Light, will develop spiritual sensory organs in himself.
[119613]
From the Convention in Bulgaria 01/11/2013, Lesson 1

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The Highest Degree

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we move from a person’s egoistic care for others to care, independent of egoism? How can one get rid of the egoistic desire that pushes him to take care of others?

Answer: It is a very high level when you already feel the Creator and are in the state of connection with this positive force of bestowal and love.

Then you begin to feel the need to give and love absolutely unconditionally, not as we imagine this today, but without any regard for oneself, without receiving any reward in any form; this is only from the state of feeling eternity, perfection, infinity.

It is impossible to put into words because it is a completely different feeling and understanding of the world, which comes to the extent of the realization and absorption of the altruistic quality of bestowal and love in oneself.
[119610]
From the Convention in Bulgaria 01/11/2013, Lesson 1

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An X-Ray Of The Integral World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I do not know if I receive a blow because of a certain lack of correction if I live in an integral world. Maybe I strayed along the path and in this way the Creator brings me back to it, or perhaps it is just the external problems of the entire generation. So, how can a person check himself to make sure that he works correctly along the way?

Answer: The integral world is a reflection of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). We are already in Ein Sof, but it is concealed from us. So, we to orient ourselves to Ein Sof since, as it is said, “The end of the action is in the initial thought.” This means that I must understand that I see a shattered reality before me since this is how I feel it in my senses. But, in fact, it is one reality since there is only one soul filled with one Light, and one force that sustains all this in perfect unity.

So, how can I feel this by my own efforts every moment of my life?

A person is given small problems to deal with since he can. There are greater global problems that he cannot solve at the moment.

It is as if I must be X-rayed. I stand in front of the machine, get x-rayed, and the picture is shown to me. I see stars and planets in it, and then the earth and different creatures on the surface of the earth: the still nature, vegetation, animals, and people. Somewhere in the distances, there are stars and galaxies that are exploding. The earth is burning from within, and we are living on its thin crust, thinly covered with vegetation like hair on a head. There are animals and tiny people walking on its surface, and I see all of that in the X-ray.

However, I am told not to worry about the whole big picture! I am told to leave all the stars and earth with its vegetation, and to begin focusing on what is in my power to correct now.

So, I narrow down my vision and stop worrying about the entire world since I don’t have the tools to correct it anyway. There is no point in just sitting and crying desperately about what is happening somewhere in Honolulu.

So, first, I am given a group of ten people because I cannot perceive more than ten people in my mind. I must focus on this group of ten and establish my attitude toward the entire world as I see it in the X-ray’s picture. However, through this group of ten, I can remain focused on them. I can relate to everything else correctly according to my connection with them, to what happens outside the boundaries of the group.

I must believe that, if I establish the right attitude inside the group, it will be enough for me to establish a correct attitude toward the entire world. If people suddenly come complaining to me that I didn’t take care of a distant Zulu tribe at the other end of the world, I will answer that I couldn’t since I looked at the entire world through the group. I suggest that they look through that lens in order to find that out! They should come, look, and see that I really couldn’t do anything, and then they would say that I am not guilty of anything.

Thus, I constantly look at reality through the group. If I problems come to me through a whole group, then perhaps they involve all of humanity or the entire planet, but I must know that they were revealed to me because I can keep them in focus because of my connection with the group. They already are incorporated in the picture that I see in the lens that focuses my sight. This means that such an event is already in my sight.

This is how I advance. In the meantime, I cannot encompass the entire world and worry about everything. I only know one thing: If I worry about what I have to do according to my level, it will be my positive effect on reality. This is all I can do, and I am not required to do more, just as a small child is asked to do only what he can, according to his age.
[119248]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/13, Shamati #70, “With A Mighty Hand and with Fury Poured Out

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I Don’t Want To Be A Weather Vane Spinning In The Wind

Dr. Michael LaitmanSometimes a person sits with an expression on his as if life is over and has lost all value for him; this entire world is not worth anything, and to live an empty life is worse than death. He wonders why he is still living in this world and regrets feeling this reality at all. He thinks, “I wish I had never been born and lived.”

Where does he suddenly get a mood like this? It is the Creator who sends him a feeling like this.

And sometimes it is the opposite, he suddenly feels unusual burst of energy, full of laughter and joy, full of excitement, ready to embrace everyone, to skip and dance. Where does this mood come from? Also from divine providence. And what do you do with these polar states? It is not good to be in one extreme or another. For then you are like a weather vane, constantly twisting in the direction the wind blows.

So you are spinning around obediently according to a higher guidance: Wherever it turns you, this is your life. And in fact it doesn’t matter what you do or what you don’t do because you are guided you from above, controlling your actions and feelings. You only spin around and around like a weather vane in the wind….

But if a person understands this and cannot endure this and does not agree to be a puppet of the Creator, who alone is in control, he says: “No! I have to decide for myself,” and he demands that Creator leave a place for him. And then he discovers that there really is an empty place! The Creator already concealed Himself from the start and gave him this field of activity called “this world.”

There is no other place where the Creator intentionally concealed Himself from the start and gave you the opportunity to do everything that you want. And now with the help of the environment, you can build a relationship to reality to neutralize the presence of the Creator and fill this empty place by yourself, exactly in the form that the Creator would have filled it if He were revealed.

Why isn’t the Creator revealed in this place called “this world”? Because He lacks “clothing” because He is concealed. A person constructs this “clothing” and to the degree that he does this, he discovers the Creator.
[118993]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/13, Writings of Rabash

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Liberalism Today Is Fascism

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Vardan Baghdasaryan, PhD Historical Sciences, professor, Head of the department of history and political science at the Russian State University of Tourism and Service): “Liberalism is a great utopia. As a system, it never existed anywhere, and in principle, it could not exist. A person cannot exist outside of society. Yet, social life always imposes certain constraints, taboos. …

“Liberalism proclaims exactly the opposite program – removing the taboo. Liberalism developed as an ideology of removing social shackles – of religion, the state, the nation, family. Liberalism always existed in a paradoxical combination: freedom of some implied a lack of freedom for others. …

“The ancient Greeks put forward the idea of freedom while slavery prospered. Freedom did not extend to slaves.

“In the Middle Ages, slavery persisted. The most prosperous, free trading posts Genoa and Venice were the leading centers of slavery and the slave trade. Venetian slave trade was carried out throughout the Mediterranean. Not being a Venetian citizen, a slave was not a human being.

“The new time is characterized by the development of the idea of political freedom. But at the same time, the establishment of world colonialism takes place. During the period of colonial expansion, more than 80 million slaves were shipped from Africa. It is significant that among slaveholders there were many theorists of liberalism. The founding fathers of the United States – Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were owners of slave plantations. The value of freedom was wonderfully combined in their perception with non-freedom. The term “man” was still selective. The paradox of Russian liberals, serf-owners, had the same basis.

“Only in the 19th century, was a ban on slavery introduced. But colonialist learned how to use the mechanisms of exploitation through indirect coercion. Direct physical slavery was replaced by economic slavery. The freedom of resource owners is still combined with the lack of freedom of others, who are now formally free.

“Liberalism today is a variant of neo-colonialism; it is the mechanism of non-violent economic slavery. …

“Fascism and liberalism are related phenomena; they are two variants of Western expansion in the world. Fascism is condemned. It is time to condemn liberal utopia.”

My Comment: Our natural egoism only changes its signs, but its essence and thus the socio-economic formation, exploitation, remains at all times the same. We are facing either the return to barbarism or universal integration of equal citizens through correcting human nature by means of integral education.
[119582]

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How To Become A Good Lecturer

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I am taking the integral education courses, I am trying and want to learn to manage and to moderate roundtable sessions, but I cannot be friendly and communicative. How can I learn to speak to people?

Answer: Speaking to people is an art, but it comes with experience, contact and knowledge of the material. It is a technique that should be developed. First, you must make a plan for your lecture in great detail, collecting specific phrases and preparing questions and the answers for the audience.

We need to clearly plan the whole presentation in advance to tune every lecture and to have all the materials you need.

Then the material you have prepared should be checked by the friends and agreed upon by all, then practice it aloud over and over again so that you will remember the lecture plan and be able to use it automatically. You should understand that the way you prepare and present the material will guarantee that you will be able to convey it to the listeners because it has a certain logic, one thing flows to another coherently.

When you prepare and organize the material internally it gives you the appearance of the lecturer you will become.
[119332]
From a Talk About the Dissemination 10/17/13

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The Film Commissioned By The Viewer

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe difference between the spiritual and material worlds is that spirituality is our internal state. There is not some external picture with flying angels and evil spirits. But the world that we perceive outside of us is our inner state. All sensations are developed within the material of our perception.

Previously, in the past centuries, madmen who had visions were considered saints and seers. Later psychology explained that hallucinations were caused by internal processes that occur in people. The wisdom of Kabbalah agrees with these findings of psychology.

Since ancient times, from the very beginning of the revelation of the Creator by a man, Kabbalah has said that the pictures of this world are just projections of our internal sensations. However, we have an ability to change our psychology, and our perception and not live in this current reality, which occurs spontaneously and presents the picture of this world; we can choose what movie we want to watch.

To do this we need to investigate who we are, who governs us, and how it works, and then we’ll be able to look at ourselves rationally and soberly. It is written: “A judge has only what his eyes can see,” and all the rest is just our imagination. Our entire lives and all this world are also a dream.

Kabbalah gives us the tools to accomplish these changes: This is how it differs from any other approaches, whether religious or scientific. Kabbalah gives us the means to change our dreams and imaginary pictures we live in; it allows us to explore them, look at them from the side and see the forces acting on them, and to create these pictures. It elevates us to a degree where we begin to develop these pictures, the shape of the world.

In essence, we develop an ability to define what dimension we want to be in and what to choose.

Thus, we rise to a degree of attainment of the forces governing us and learn how to use them. And in the end, behind all these forces, we reveal the upper intelligence, the Creator’s desire. This is the most exalted level, the level of revelation of the cause of creation, its purpose and design; we achieve complete unity with the Creator.

But this is only a transitory peak, and what follows: Let’s wait and see. After all, at that time we’ll exist in a different form. And then there will be new and different levels of attainment and advancement. But, they have nothing to do with material desires because at that point our attitude towards the matter will be already corrected. This new revelation is outside the boundaries of the “matter” in more sublime properties.
[118181]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13

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Two-Way Channel Of Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe must reach a state of having utmost concern about the welfare of others, as if we are concerned about our children. For now this is all due to our growing egoism. The question is what we will do next, how we shall elevate to the Upper, to the center of the group through which we can penetrate inside the group where the Upper Force is concentrated. Shall we ask Him to fulfill us or shall we give Him a chance to reveal Himself in the world so that the property of bestowal and love manifests itself in this realm?

It all depends on us. We bridge the desires of the public, asking what each needs: wealth, honor, knowledge, food, family, wellbeing… and attach our attitude to them. After all, we want their desires to be closer to the Creator, to reveal the Creator in the people, thus bringing pleasure to the Creator. We elevate others’ corporal needs for food, money, and respect to a spiritual level so that the Light (the Creator) is revealed inside them. When it happens, it will answer all their requests in a way that they will turn to bestowal, thus pleasing the Creator.

The Creator’s joy has to be the initial and final point of any of our actions, their cause and goal. In this world, we serve as a “conductor,” a “transmission channel.”

We operate in two directions: toward the general public and toward the Creator, both material and spiritual desires. We are positioned in the middle: half here and half there. We empathize with the suffering of the people and constantly feel that we are not satisfied with the Creator. This is how He provokes us and places obstacles on our way to make us regret other people’s sufferings, about how bad their situations are and how miserable they are: without shelter, food, and security, and with terrible conflicts, frustrations, and diseases.

We are forced to blame the Creator, rather than to justify Him. That’s why we get a chance to work on His justification, on seeing Him with faith above reason as “the Good that does good to good and the bad!”
[117474]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Performing Mitzvot Both Externally And Internally

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Orthodox claim that you are revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah to the whole world, yet the Jews are the ones who have to learn it first.

Answer: That’s right! But on the other hand, it says that the Jews will not come out of exile until they disseminate the whole wisdom among the nations of the world. I support the Jews coming out of exile and so I disseminate our method to the nations of the world. I do everything as stated in our sources.

Let those who disagree with me explain their stand based on the system of creation, as the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us. I am ready to change my approach. Am I my own enemy, or someone else’s enemy? Don’t I want to fulfill the Creator’s desire?

Perhaps I am wrong about something. It says: “never believe in yourself until your dying day.” I am ready to listen.

What is disturbing the Orthodox? Is it the fact that I don’t teach my students to observe the Mitzvot (commandments)? I am waiting for us to reach the right level of understanding so that we will feel these Mitzvot inside us. Then it will be easier for me to explain to my students how to perform them.

I cannot tell them now that when we perform the ritual act of hand washing we first wash the right hand and then the left hand, or that we first tie the laces of the shoe on the right foot and then the laces of the shoe on the left foot. It will do nothing because it is just the keeping of one condition: of starting everything from the right line (the love of others, of in order to bestow) and to the extent that the left line will be revealed (an even bigger ego).

I can explain all the Mitzvot that were written in this world’s language by using their inner attribute.

But the Ari tells us about it by using high Kabbalistic language, by talking about worlds, Partzufim, Sefirot, etc. It can be explained not only by the language of the Sefirot, but also by the language of attributes, which means by using the language of the psychology of human attributes: bestowal, receiving, mercy, justice, etc.

But all the languages were meant to correct the heart. In his commentary to the Torah, Eben Ezra says: “All the Mitzvot were meant only to correct a person’s heart,” which means his ego.

Do we also think that we have to give up a certain part of our ego that is revealed in us when we perform the ritual of washing our hands (I am not against it and I don’t say that we shouldn’t do it)? Should we constantly check ourselves?

Usually I am inside myself with my ego. If I annul it with regard to the attribute of bestowal and the love that is called the Creator, and pass it through the other, I have to check whether I am aiming at the other so that I want to bestow upon him, that I want his wellbeing despite my ego, so that I can be sure that I am operating correctly and that I am not lying to myself.

In order to do so, I advance along the right line. If the left line is revealed at the same time, I pull it to the right line again and only later does it turn into the middle line. Am I in this inner process (no matter what you call it, you can call it meditation or a prayer)?

If that’s the case, then we should perform mechanical actions. If not, then perhaps they distract a person. I see that those who perform them don’t think about their inner performance, about their inner meaning. None of us knows it.

I want all my students all over the world (and not only the Jewish ones) to start feeling the inner movements of “I – the group – the Creator” to some degree when they annul themselves before the Creator, and the group is between them as the link.

When I perform all that, no matter what I do in the world (Me with regard to the Creator and the group or humanity, all of nature, the whole world in the middle), I should always do so, so that no matter what I encounter, I should delight the Creator through the world. Then I perform a Mitzva.

If I want to drink a glass of water, for example, how can I bestow upon the Creator and delight Him? I bless Him. I bless Him because I really feel this and convey it to Him through people. I am incorporated in it and feel that I am really ready to rise to the same level not for myself, but for Him, for others.

It is as if I convey the pleasure from myself to them and to the Creator and don’t take it for myself. What is more, it is not only that I don’t take the pleasure for myself, but I also perform the first restriction over my ego and now I think about how I can still bestow something upon others.

Then I understand (a system of connections is created between us) that only if I receive the pleasure will I be able to pass it on to them. This is a higher level of receiving in order to bestow. Only then do I perform this movement, the inner intention that is so powerful that it fills me with pleasure in which I feel a huge deficiency, but I do not fill it only for myself but for others.

It is a whole system of corrections, decisions, and very serious inner measures. Only after that can I do it.

Therefore, if a person can bless the glass of water spiritually, which means to truly receive it in order to bestow and to pass the pleasure through all of humanity to the Creator, then he is already on a very high spiritual level.

I hope that we will at least be able to come close to a state in which I can explain these things freely, easily, and simply to my students. They will immediately begin to understand, and then we can explore what the Mitzvot mean. This will be our system of inner training. The 613 Mitzvot are the system of the spiritual levels; our system of correction of in order to bestow or of receiving in order to bestow.

But this will happen when we have not only a common written language or an oral language, but also a common language of sensations. But if I just teach them the Mitzvot, without understanding the inner meaning of the Mitzvot, they will misconceptions and misperceptions. They will be confused and who knows what this will lead to.
[118682]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/29/13

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