A Trap And The Way Out Of It

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Vedomosti): “We received new information only when nothing threatens our outlook. Negative facts brought to the supporters of the regime cannot be digested by them and will not change their views. By virtue of these features of our consciousness, the existence of independent media and the Internet does not solve the problem.

“People perceive information that does not constitute a threat to their worldview and filter out all the rest. It is incredibly difficult for politicians and peoples to accept a dead end of the chosen path since changing a course undermines the worldview system.

“Having realized that the chosen political course does not lead to the expected results, the country often does not change, but on the contrary, intensifies the realization of the initial program, which worsens the economic situation in the country and leads to a tightening of the wrong political course. A mental trap brings a country into a vicious circle.”

My Comment: Although opposite to its course, the correct decision can be accepted only when it is viewed objectively. This is possible only in a workshop which is organized according to the principles of integral education, in a circle where people are equal and cancel themselves. They must be ready for full connection for the sake of revealing unity (the Upper Force) within it, adhering to the Upper Force through similarity of properties (mutual bestowal) in order to create contentment in it.
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Warning: Israel! – Laitman Unplugged

Audio Version Of The Blog – 06.09.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
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How Do You Imagine Hell?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is Gehenna (Hell)?

Answer: Gehenna depends on how a person defines it. There are those who suppose that Gehenna is when everything that they had in this world disappears and they regret that life passed by without any benefit.

There are those who suppose that Gehenna is not here in this world from an emotional point of view: good or bad, with all kinds of observations. Rather, it waits for us in the future, after the body dies. They think that after the body dies, Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden, heaven) or Gehenna waits for them.

In Kabbalah, what is called Gehenna is the most undesirable state. Through our study and work in a group, we strive to reach a state where values are changed so that hell and heaven take on a different identity in comparison to what is conventionally accepted. Regular people think that when the body dies, some kind of door opens to hell or heaven for a person.

But is this wretched beast at fault for having died or because it was alive? This is speaking about life or death of the desire to receive in the same situation when we have free choice. This illusion that I am found in a physical body and feel this world is intentionally given so that I will leap above it and see myself as alive and existing only in a spiritual Kli (vessel) in relation to Light.

It is very good and beneficial to imagine hell Gehenna and see it in a different form all the time. When I am under the control of the desire to receive, which doesn’t let me bestow, this is called hell. Then we have such a Gehenna!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/14, The Zohar

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Accumulative Clarification

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible to say that a workshop is a conversation without arguments?

Answer: A workshop is an “accumulative clarification” where everyone adds to clarify the answer, the problem, the phenomenon, with the power of connection.

For every problem there is a key, which is called the wisdom of the crowd, where through taking an average of a large number of answers, a correct solution emerges, despite the fact that all of the answers were not correct. So let’s solve our problems with the help of the wisdom of the crowd, the wisdom of the group.

If we don’t argue with each other, but gather together our knowledge and sense of unity, then we suddenly begin to discover a unique phenomenon within our connection. In this way we clarify a particular problematic question or phenomenon that becomes understandable.

This is because the connection is found above us and gives us additional wisdom, an additional I.Q. Suppose that everyone had an I.Q. of 100. From the connection of five, in sum we have 500. But through our connection, the result is 1000. That is how the connection between people works. There are experiments that confirm this phenomenon called collective intelligence.

Question: Is the wisdom of the crowd revealed only in a good connection at the time of the workshop or can there be disputes?

Answer: The wisdom of the crowd cannot be revealed during an argument, for there will not be a connection between opinions. Only when all of the opinions are connected do we attain the higher knowledge.

In arguments we don’t reach agreement between people. Someone simply surrenders due to all kinds of different reasons, but he doesn’t complete you. While in a workshop we complete each other.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/14

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Under The Anesthesia Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe whole world is my Kli. Only one person was created in the world. This is a paradox, also known in quantum physics. Our perception of the world can transform in a moment and the situation will appear completely different, like quantum superpositions.

There is no contradiction between the fact that I the only one in the world and seeing the whole world as parts of me. Because of some kind of psychological effect it seems to me that these parts are outside of me.

It is as if they gave me an injection of an anesthetic in my leg and I stop feeling it as part of my body. Now someone could come with a saw and cut off my leg and I would not react because I don’t feel any pain. My feeling is so clouded that I don’t see that it is mine at all.

We are under an anesthetic like this in relation to the whole world. All of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and people are parts of my Kli, vessel. All of them belong to me, to my desire to receive. I am Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity), the entire creation. So the whole world was created for me, to serve me. But my ego detaches me from the world and presents it to me as being outside of me and not as belonging to me.

The ego works like an anesthetic that disengages all of my organs from me and leaves me with only a small part of all of reality. So I must begin to correct my ego, and through the Surrounding Light, I return to myself my parts that seem to me as being cut off and distant from me, in that I work with them as if they are mine.

This is specifically what we try to do in a group: to come closer as one person with one heart and see all of reality as one. We ourselves invest effort to reach this and are not pushed backward by the crisis like all of the rest of the world is, which must be compelled to accept all of reality as one system.

I have the opportunity to not wait until the crisis will begin to push all of reality back at me, arguing that it is all mine and forcing me to recognize this through the way of suffering.

If I will begin to bring all of reality to myself, according to the advice of the Kabbalists, and relate to all of its levels— the still, vegetative, animate, and human—as my parts, then I will receive huge additional deficiencies. They will make it possible for me to see reality not through my small part, but through them, through the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, which I bring close and adhere to me by leaping over my ego. In this way I build a bridge above all of my hatred, as it is said, (Proverbs 10:12) “Love covereth all transgressions.”
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/14

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How Do You Develop The Sense For Feeling Others?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you develop the sense for feeling others?

Answer: The sense for feeling others develops by our attempts and efforts force ourselves to bow before the right environment and to attach the external environment to it so that they will connect, and I will serve them. By my good and benevolent attitude towards them, I discover the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form.

The more I try to do good to the environment, the more I will discover the Creator, because He is good and benevolent to the wicked and to the good. So I also need to try to treat everyone that way.

The wicked are those who try to be good but at the moment are dominated by evil. By discovering my attitude towards them in different ways, I discover the Creator and to what extent I have to adjust myself to Him.

The examination and the clarification are only possible with regard to the environment. There is no other place I can meet the Creator, to see Him and to measure in what way I am different from Him. His form is revealed in the general public or in the group, that is, in the environment, in the world, so the world (Olam) is the concealment (Alam – which has the same root in Hebrew) of the Creator.

To the extent that I try to treat the world better and accordingly change myself, I discover the Creator there. There is no other place I can feel Him, since He has no form. By changing myself, I begin to treat the world differently, which means in a better way, and then accordingly I begin to discover that the world is the Shechina where He, the Creator, dwells (Shochen).
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/14

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A Formula With One Unknown

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to be responsible for everyone else?

Answer: There are simple formulas in which all parameters and the relationships between them are known and there is only one unknown, for example: x + 3 = 5.

In that case it is easy to calculate the unknown: x = 5 – 3 = 2.

But how can we solve an equation in which there are two unknowns y + x = 5? We need another equation, but we don’t have one. I get such a result at the output of a certain system and I have to know how it works, with what parameters. It can be whatever you want 4 + 1, 1 + 4, positive parameters or negative ones, but the final result is 5, and I cannot determine them.

This is the result we come out with. We have a group in which there are seven billion people and there should be harmony among them, perfect unity, which means 1.

A Formula With One Unknown
How can we reach that? I can only say that this one depends on me and all the other seven billion are in a fixed state. I am the only one who changes; I am not constant. I am responsible, I am independent, I work for everyone, and the whole world is inside me.

I determine the general state for everyone and am responsible for it to the extent that I can take upon myself the responsibility for the whole world. I am independent and can tilt the scale for better or for worse.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The World Is Constant And I Am Changing

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe feeling of the external world was given to us on purpose in order to develop the sense of knowing others. I can use others egoistically by bringing them closer to me or distancing them depending on their benefit to me. I can also use others not according to my own benefit but according to their benefit and thus change myself and use myself.

One time the friend is important to me and I change everything inside me that needs to be changed in order to make him feel better, and another time I am important and I bend the friend in my direction in my own benefit.

The struggle is actually between these two perceptions: who is more important and who determines everything. This struggle is very important to me because it helps me understand what I lack in order to build the sense for knowing others.

The others are in fact the Creator, and this whole picture—this world and the upper worlds, which are seemingly external to me—are only tools to discover the Creator. At first we don’t have such tools but only their initial form, the point in the heart. However, by working in the group, with the friends, in dissemination, in the larger world, I build this sense.

One time I imagine that everything is inside me and that all these parts are depicted as external to me, and that it is my illusion. If I step through this perception, I correct it and begin to establish the sense of bestowal, the sense of feeling others.

And again, I imagine that there is “I” and there is “they” who are external to me. My egoistic desire grows and lets me know that I have to take care of myself at their expense. This means that I have to remain constant and the others change for my own benefit.

I imagine things this way, and at another time, I imagine them another way, and thus I determine my ascents and descents and I develop additional senses. When it begins to work, it is called Shechina, a sense by which I perceive the one who dwells (Shochen, which has the same root in Hebrew), the Creator. I reveal Him as this sense develops, and I feel and understand Him.

Therefore, the most important engagement in this world, which is the reason that we are on this planet, is to develop the sense of recognizing the good and the evil during our lifetime, to duplicate and to improve it, and by it, to attain the sense of recognizing the Creator.

All this is attained by working with the public according by which I can accurately measure how far I have advanced towards this goal, towards the development of the vessels, the senses for the revelation of the Creator, which means to the revelation of the attribute of love and bestowal. To the extent that the group and all the world that is external to me become more important to me than myself, so that I see them as constant and myself as changing with regards to them, I can estimate and measure my advancement.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/14

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Sochi Convention – 06.09.14

Convention in Sochi, “Discussion on the Conclusions from the Activity in Sochi”

[media 1] [media 2]