Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.16.14

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Governments Should Reduce Inequality

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Kenneth Rogoff, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University): “There’s little doubt that globalization and technological innovation are the driving forces behind rising inequality, Rogoff said in a panel discussion on income inequality and role of money in politics. So for the stability of the system, ‘government policy should mitigate the effects of this big change that technology and globalization is achieving and not exacerbate them.’”

My Comment: This is possible only by becoming aware of the necessity to rise to the next level of human development. It is possible to reach the awareness of the need either under the influence of great suffering or with strong dissemination of the method of integral education and upbringing, or both of them together.
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Crisis: Not Hitting Mystics!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Local): “The economic crisis has prompted a rise in the number of Italians seeking help from fortune tellers, in turn helping their fortunes to boom, according to figures from Italy’s consumer association, Codacons.

“Fortune tellers and psychics seem to be among the lucky few people benefiting from Italy’s economic crisis, raking in an estimated €8.3 billion from the black economy during the first six months of 2013 alone as an increasing number of Italians call on them for assurance in times of need, according to the Codacons report.

“An estimated 13 million people sought help from psychics and a myriad of other ‘occult’ specialists in 2013, a rise of one million since 2011.

“They pay anything between €50 and €1,000 for a consultation – mostly in cash – but also through ‘payments in kind’, such as with food or jewelry, which is later sold.

“The reasons behind it range from a job loss and matters of the heart to health concerns and fear about the future.

“Many are business executives or entrepreneurs seeking guidance on how to navigate the economic crisis, Codacons said.

“An estimated 160,000 people work in Italy’s ‘occult’ sector, including fortune tellers, psychics, magicians and spiritualists.”

My Comment: That’s how people in the 21st century remain the same as the “ancient” thousands of years ago. They have not changed themselves; only their external, mechanical world has changed. We can overcome barbarism only through rising to a new level of values: from the animal (I, for myself) to the spiritual (we, for us), in which the next stage of civilization is revealed. And this is still ahead of us.
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Man’s Purpose Is To Serve The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 6:You were not created to follow the act of the grain and the potato, you and your asses in one trough.” And as the purpose of the ass is not to serve all its contemporary asses, man’s purpose is not to serve all the bodies of the people of his time, the contemporaries of his physical body. Rather, the purpose of the ass is to serve and be of use to man, who is superior to it, and the purpose of man is to serve the Creator and complete His aim.

Question: How can a person be sure that he serves the Creator?

Answer: To serve the Creator means to serve the thought of creation, to do good to His created beings. There is nothing else you can give the Creator except for discovering that He loves you, which is possible only by the equivalence of form. This is called “to serve.” Parents don’t expect anything from their children except for the children’s recognition of how much they love them.

Kabbalists teach us how to do it. If I don’t feel anything but this world, it means that I don’t know anything about the Creator. Kabbalists give us advice as to what we should do in order to reach the goal and there are teachers who teach me.

We can learn from the example of the animal world that a mother has to take care of her cubs otherwise they will not survive. She has to feed them and to teach them how to obtain food so that they can survive. The same applies in the spiritual world that a person knows nothing about. He has to be totally devoted to the teacher, like a little cub who follows his mother because without her he will die. But a person thinks that he is smart and that he already knows everything.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Adaptation Of Inner Images

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Sometimes we feel bored, fall asleep during the lesson, or are carried away by foreign thoughts. Why does the Creator prepare things this way? What does He want to show us? How is it possible to keep the same level of intention all the time?

Answer: When you listen to my lessons you should try to feel every word I say to its full depth. Everything is built on your identification with me.

I don’t say anything before I create some images inside me that I then convey verbally to others, hoping that they can hear them and accordingly build that same image inside them. When our images correlate, we start a dialog of inner clarifications of that image: what attributes, merits, and movements are in it.

If you don’t form an inner sensory image inside yourself from what you hear from me, you probably are sitting without your incorporation in me and my incorporation in you. This is the problem. So, after a while, you surely fall asleep, lose contact, and the meaning and feeling of the necessity of this lesson.

There are people who cannot operate this way because they think they know a lot. What’s important for them is to hear me in order to dispute me. I am not offended by them since this attitude is naturally imprinted in them and it is very hard for them to perceive the material correctly. I identify with them, but they should overcome these states because if a student doesn’t form the image that the teacher conveys inside him, he doesn’t learn.

On the other hand, when you have a dialog with your friends, it is certainly easier, simpler, and better for you. Everything between you is built especially on sympathy and empathy. It is much easier for you to communicate with the friends because their language is much simpler than mine.

We try to convey the lessons in the form of workshops. This method helps people feel and connect to the text and the one who wrote it much more deeply.
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The Spiritual World Is Right Here

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll of creation is in a fixed, unchanging state, but we perceive and discover creation according to the attributes that are revealed in us, just as a person can look at the same thing without glasses, with glasses, with binoculars, or with a microscope. That is, it all depends on the vessels of our perception through which we look at creation.

Everything is assessed only with regard to a person. We are actually in the world of Infinity. I remember hearing a lecture of a local Rabbi in Rehovot in the 70’s who amazed me when he spread out his arms and said: “Here is the next world, here is the spiritual world.” I didn’t understand what he was talking about and what he was looking at. He was a Kabbalist who had attained spirituality.

I couldn’t understand what he meant then; how can the next world be right here? He hardly explained anything more than that, but it really impressed me.

So we are in the world of Infinity, in the only state that was created, and we have to discover these vessels of perception. This is all our work.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Revealing The Light Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanAs a result of the shattering of the vessels we understand that we have to return to the state that preceded the shattering. By raising MAN from the shattered state, we exert ourselves and expand our vessels 620 times. Then we reach the corrected state equipped with such intensity, as a result of our exertion, that we can reveal the Light in all its NRNHY, which is the goal of creation.

The Creator wants us to reveal His attribute of love and bestowal, and not just that we will taste only a drop of His filling. It’s like a baby who receives 100 grams of porridge from his mother and at the same time actually also receives all the love and care his mother feels for him.

Since we were created with a desire to receive, we cannot taste anything more than a tiny spark, “a thin candle,” of all the Light. This is actually enough in order to be in contact and somehow connected to the Creator. But all the rest is the Light of love, the Light of bestowal, our attitude towards one another. According to the law of equivalence of form, we have to reach the same attitude towards the Creator in order to reveal His attitude towards us.

For this reason we were given the shattering of the vessels so that we will discover and reveal this shattered state and from it discover the corrected state. Then we will be able to understand the Creator’s attitude towards us. So all our work is focused on the connection between us, and so that, above the shattering, we will discover the right relations of love and bestowal instead of separation and hate.

The Creator is the attribute of love and bestowal that is revealed inside the vessel, in the desire. This attribute is revealed between us because love cannot exist in one person but has to be directed to someone. We engage in the revelation of this attribute and have to establish the same relations between us.

At first we don’t feel anything between us, neither good relations nor bad ones, but we begin to work on them by evoking one another. We understand that a person will never awaken to love, bestowal, and connection by himself. He has to be awakened; shown an example; envy , lust, and honor must be kindled; he must openly respect those who relate well to the friends and show their love, giving and concern for all.

We should really envy those who behave that way in the group, should want to be like them, and should respect this behavior. It turns out that a person begins to awaken, and from Lo Lishma (not for His sake) and different actions with the right intention, he should simply learn from others and reach Lishma (for His sake). Despite the hardening of the heart, he should always be above any disagreements, different problems, and conflicts between the friends by showing everyone how strongly he yearns for love and connection. All we attain by the Light that Reforms are the levels of connections, states that existed before the shattering.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/14

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The Warning Of Our Sages

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 3: It is known that the beneficial force and the detrimental force go hand in hand. In other words, as much as something can benefit, so it can harm. Hence, since the force of one person is greater than all the beasts and the animals of all times, one’s harmful force supersedes them all, as well.

Thus, as long as one does not merit one’s degree in a way that one uses one’s force only to do good, one needs a careful watch so he will not acquire great amounts of the human level, which is wisdom and science.

For this reason, the first sages hid the wisdom from the masses for fear of taking indecent disciples who would use the force of the wisdom to harm and damage. These would break and destroy the entire population with their lust and beastly savageness, using man’s great powers.

If humanity were given too much power that compared to its mind, it becomes dangerous. It’s like a child who grows to be two meters tall and weighs 200 kilos but remains mentally undeveloped and therefore he could perform dangerous actions.

It’s the same with humanity who has received nuclear bombs and is armed with immense quantities of the most modern weaponry. Weapons are the most common, most popular, and profitable commodity today.

However, unfortunately, the human brain lags behind technological advancement. Our leaders are becoming shallower and hardly know anything about this world and where it’s headed. The problem is that we have used advanced technology to develop tools that only empower our ego, the egoistic desire to receive, instead of weakening it. So we have brought ourselves to a position that we have armed our ego to such an extent that we don’t know how to get rid of it now, and this is a real problem.

This is why our sages warned that the wisdom mustn’t be revealed to just anyone because people can use it to harm others. Therefore, they concealed the wisdom from the masses. However, today things have changed and anyone can go to a university and study anything and then use it according to his egoistic desire. Today you can surf the Internet and find instructions for building a nuclear bomb by yourself. You can learn how to do anything.

But it was different when it came to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalists didn’t allow themselves to open the wisdom of Kabbalah and waited until people began to despair from the egoistic progress in this world. Only then, did it become possible to convey this wisdom to them and only so it could help them fulfill correction. Otherwise it’s impossible to use it.

It’s impossible to use it to harm yourself and to harm others. There is a condition to the wisdom according to which you cannot use its powers unless you acquire a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light, vessels of bestowal, love of others, and connection to others. You don’t have these features, but if you have them and use them wrongly, these powers will immediately disappear.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Hunters Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are no weak or strong when it comes to the spiritual work because we all are absolute zeros. We must understand what an integral system means. None of its components have any meaning by themselves. Instead, they all totally depend on all the others.

Question: However, it is said that only the strong and the heroes will reach the King’s palace.

Answer: They are strong because they constantly work on building the system between them in order to discover the source of the upper force in the network between them. They must “hunt” for the Creator!

Question: How can you stick to the spiritual work if there are thoughts that distract you all the time?

Answer: I don’t need to account for what happens to me since I don’t know the upper plan, how it shakes me, and what obstacles it may send me at any given moment or, conversely, what different forms of advancement. My mission is to accept all of this and grow stronger.

I climb the mountain to the King’s palace. However, suddenly, the guards appear and push me down and I roll to the bottom again. Should I calculate how they pushed me and why? These are desires that have been revealed from the next higher level that I can’t clarify. It is only later that I discover that it all stems from the mercy of the Creator who is benevolent. In the meantime, I simply accept what I have, which means that I justify every state above reason, above my heart and mind, and believe that it advances me in the right direction.

This is how I regard everything up to the current moment. From now on, everything depends on me, although nothing depended on me until now. So, how I can I be sure that from now on everything depends on me? If I adhere to the Creator, I can determine the manner and the speed of my advancement. However, the actual levels and the states I go through depend on the Upper Light and on my shattered Reshimot (spiritual genes).

My place on the spiritual ladder, the states and the levels I must go through are predetermined already. The only thing that is unclear is the manner by which I go through them and my ability to want to actually advance in order to bestow upon the Creator, which is the only independent factor that I have. We stop each step of the way until we establish the intention to delight the Creator in every state and on every level.

The levels themselves are predetermined already, but the extent of their revelation depends on my preparation. How I fulfill them and the pace of my advancement depend on my work in the group. This determines how I accept the next level when it is revealed, how I accept the Surrounding Light, whether I will want it or not. It may illuminate and reveal my terrible egoistic desires, but I will accept it gladly.

However, it also can be the opposite: that I will not want this revelation when afflictions suddenly hit me. It is easy to talk about that, but when the full ten Sefirot approach you and you find yourself in a dark world surrounded by different problems and troubles, everything already depends on your preparation.

This preparation enables you to change your attitude to problems and see them in the exact opposite manner. On one hand, the world is simply terrible, and this is actually what is revealed on the next level, which adds more and more new Aviut (thickness) to my desire. Then, I discover the world of “the good and the whole,” and I realize that all the afflictions were given to me only so that I would ascend.

When some difficult state is over, we realize how much we have gained, although it seems very unpleasant at first. It is impossible to “awaken the dawn” if we don’t reach a state in which Light and darkness are equal. I don’t care which states come along, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant. I agree to stop half-way and not attain anything as long as I delight the Creator and perhaps, without even being aware of it.

Even this is too much! It is enough just to think that I care about Him a little. This is the thin line between this world and the next world.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.16.14

Preparation for the Lesson

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Workshop 

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts 

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 200   

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Writings of Rabash, “Dargot HaSulam,” Article 913

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