Audio Version Of The Blog – 09.07.14

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Fear And Trembling

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to distinguish between fear and trembling?

Answer: In general, fear is a lower state, something relevant to our beastly body, our desire to receive. In contrast, trembling is felt according to the characteristic of bestowal, with regard to the Creator.

I work within my desire to receive. If I am afraid of phenomena within my desire to receive, this is called “fear.” If I suspect and am afraid about whether I will be able to bestow to the friends and through them to the Creator, this is called “awe.”

The difference between fear and awe is in this, that fear is a natural phenomenon that appears and takes place in me naturally as a result of the fear of the desire to receive if it will receive pleasure, and in this there is no difference between a person and a beast. And awe doesn’t depend on me, but in how will I receive the Light that Reforms? It brings me awe.

Fear is awakened in me naturally, by itself, whereas awe is the result of the influence of the Upper Light, the luminary, from awareness of the greatness of the Creator. That is, the main difference is that fear comes to me from nature and awe is above nature, under the influence of the Light that Reforms.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/14, The Zohar

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The Sochi Group: An Activity Or A Community Of People?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Many times you have called the people who have gathered in Sochi a group even though externally this is not a group; rather, it is an activity composed of people who constantly change. How is it possible to understand better what a group is according to this example?

Answer: For me, Sochi is a group. This is a community of people who have not yet attained unity, but who are with an inclination towards this in all of its various parts: They alternate, change, and are replaced, but it is a group.

This is a group. It is a team that was not only present here but was also supported from afar. This is because there are people who weren’t in Sochi but made an effort to be inside with you. They participated virtually in your meals and in workshops. They tasted what you are feeling here and what those who weren’t here didn’t. And this is called the “Sochi Group.”
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 3

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The Teacher Is A Kind Of Transmitter Of Spiritual Energy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a woman begin to love the spiritual teacher?

Answer: I think that it is much easier for a woman than for a man since she feels no internal resistance or conflict with the teacher. To love the teacher means to love the source of your spiritual existence. In fact, the teacher is a kind of a transmitter of spiritual energy, but for you, it is the source. It is like parents who are the source for their baby because everything the baby receives, he gets from them.

It makes no difference whether it is a man or a woman with regard to the teacher. There were times when a woman for many years was the leader of the Israeli nation, its spiritual leader, the teacher, and those were actually years when the whole nation was on a spiritual level. This indicates that people are simply detached from their external wrapping. Today it is very hard to imagine it.

In the past many prophets were women: Deborah, Huldah, and others. A prophet is a person who is in a direct connection with the Creator. What difference does it make whether it is a man or a woman? We shouldn’t regard the teacher as a man, but as the source of the power, the information, and the filling, like an upper Partzuf. This will come gradually.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 3

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Saint Petersburg Convention: Reversal Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanOn the second day of the convention it is proposed that we examine the subject, “How do we get rid of the ‘stench’ of the rotten ego with the help of our efforts?” There are articles by Baal HaSulam and Rabash in which it is said that when a person looks at how his ugly desire gradually dies in agony, he is pleased by this because with this he is born. To the same degree that the ego rots, he feels that the Adam (man) is born in him.

The ego is like inverted, plowed under by the plow. This means it is reversed, reversed to altruism. The plow is the Light of the Creator. The fertilizer is our efforts with which we previously wanted to fill the ego.

Ultimately, under the influence of the Creator, the quantity of our efforts becomes qualitative. We receive an opposite ego in which the “flower bud from the ground” is revealed, the altruistic characteristic, our soul. This is talked about in the second article of The Book of Zohar, “The Flower Buds.”

After the true “self” grows in us, we must scrutinize if we are ready to connect to “we,” meaning to attain the same covenant about which we spoke in the beginning. Thus, the second day will finish with this, where we (individualists) are connected into a single “we,” meaning into our single “self.” With this we go to sleep joyful, satisfied, and happy.

The result of the whole day must be prayer, our gathered desire, as much as this is possible, yearning for the goal, for the power to realize this goal. Every stage must be accompanied by a better and better molding of this petitioning, this prayer.
[142775]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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St. Petersburg Convention: Feeling Our Primary Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanOne of the lectures planned for the St. Petersburg convention is called “the cycle of the ego in nature.” Is there anything else in nature but that?

Everyone should draw his whole ego out and tell us how much he loves to deal with it, like a dung beetle. We should not cry or beat our chest, but normally and seriously feel what the Creator said: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.”

We have to bring out everything there is in us and compose a song about how ugly we are inside and how much we love our ugliness. Our greed, the inner lie, and our inability to see the truth, our inability to love and to bestow should be expressed in this song.

We have to feel it so well that we will really be disgusted by ourselves, but the most important thing in the revelation of our terrible primary attributes is that they don’t allow us to unite.

Question: We always try to end the day positively. But in this case is it better if everyone went to sleep in the shattered state, under the impression of the revealed ego?

Answer: No, I thing the revelation of our rotten internality should delight us. After all, we finally understand what our illness is, like a person who discovers the reason of his ill state. The next day he will come and get the medicine, but he will know the exact reason, and he will be glad about that.
[142771]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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St. Petersburg Convention: Making A Covenant

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe make a covenant at the convention because without the covenant we cannot reach the common desire by which we reveal the Creator. It isn’t anyone’s caprice but an essential condition that is necessary for the spiritual work.

According to the law of equivalence of form, a vessel (Kli) that discovers a certain attribute must resemble that attribute in our world too. Take physics, chemistry, physiology, or anything you like for example, it is the same on all levels.

Thus we should attain the attribute of resembling and becoming equal to the Creator, and it is attained in the connection between us when we ascend above the ego. This is what we should aspire to. Such acceptance of the way, the intention, and the attainment of this state is called a covenant. Although we have not attained it yet, we commit ourselves to that.

We can tell people about that in advance. We are not hiding anything, and this is the reason we are holding the convention that has to bring us all to maximum connection and unity and even, hopefully, to the first level of resembling and being equal to the Creator, which means to His revelation.
[142769]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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What Do We Expect Of The Convention In St. Petersburg?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are setting a simple standard for the upcoming convention in St. Petersburg: Those who come here and who will participate in the convention have to dedicate themselves to the covenant between us, so that the Creator and the general correction will be revealed in them. This is not subject to debate.

We tell ourselves that we are in an ideal state and that the distortion of the harmony is inside of us. Everyone must find the deficiency inside him that conceals the spiritual revelation from him and from everyone else. So the main thing is to delve into myself in self-scrutiny.

All the answers are inside me since I am surrounded by wholeness and the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). So this self-scrutiny and looking deep inside ourselves comes down to a prayer to the Creator and in increasing our sensitivity to Him.

This means that we should understand that even now we are in an absolutely ideal state and that all the problems are inside of us, in our uncorrected senses. We need each other’s help and together we can reach the state in which we feel the real ideal world. This is our mission in the convention and our mission in life.

Every day will start with a friends’ meeting in which the friends from Sochi bring everyone to an emotional state. The preparation is rather long and serious, and it increases our feelings and the inner tension. As a result, each one composes his personal prayer, which is poured from him and is expressed on paper.

Then there is the first lecture about what the Creator demands of me. In the sources, it says that the Creator demands fear. We have to unite and to connect in order to gather, establish, and create the right form of tremble.

Why is that the precondition with which we enter the next state? Fear is the feeling of necessity, the feeling of having no choice, the feeling of something that is approaching, of something that is not understood. It has to be established in the form of a special necessity. It isn’t fear but an inner tremble because I have to reach the love of the created beings and through them the love of the Creator, but I cannot attain that by myself.

The final outcome at the end of the day should be a serious prayer that is attained by the broken hearts, extracting every drop of blood from the heart, everything there is in it. The day ends with a general prayer to the Creator.
[142766]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 41

From the book: The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

Why Four?

It is very likely that unification is not just an action but something more.

To illustrate this, let’s consider a concept such as “states of aggregation.” Something that is just next to us! One and the same substance may vary in appearance beyond recognition. Behind the formula H2O there may be hidden ordinary water, a piece of ice, clouds, and even flames.

The aggregate state of matter is the state of the same substance in different ranges of temperatures and pressures. Traditionally, the aggregate states are considered gaseous, liquid and solid.

“As temperature increases, gas becomes ionized – turns into plasma, which is sometimes called the fourth aggregate state.” (Academic Dictionary)

This suggests an interesting conclusion. Things that are absolutely different in appearance may ultimately turn out to be the same thing. This topic is very promising, and we may return to it. And now let’s talk about a strange coincidence.

The fact is that the four aggregate states quantitatively match the other four, the four levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate and human.

Why do we pay attention to this similarity? Why did you decide to compare these four and not others? Because both of these groups are actually classified on the scale of the universe and this is serious.

There is a clear similarity between the fours.

Every single element in them appears in a strict sequence, one after another. For example, when steam is cooled, it turns into water first, then into ice. This order does not change.

In the second group, the principle of sequence appears in the following way.

The still nature appeared first, then the vegetative, and only after that, the animate, followed by the human.

In addition to similarities, there is a fundamental difference between the fours. In the first four, the processes of transition are reversible. For example, water may become ice, and ice can turn into water again.

In the second one (at least in its “live” part), this is not observed. A rabbit cannot turn into a cabbage, and a human being cannot become a rabbit, though a rabbit appeared after the cabbage, and a human being after the rabbit.

By the way, this process is called evolution.

“Evolution is an irreversible and to some extent, directed historical development of living nature that is accompanied by changes in the genetic structure of populations, and the formation of adaptations, the formations and extinction of species, transformation of ecosystems, major ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole.” (Academic Dictionary)

Plenty of questions arise with respect to evolution. For example, if it continues, then is it not over? If it is not over, do we expect something new? Maybe the four levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate and human, in the long run will become as one, what academician Vladimir Vernadsky called the noosphere?
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.07.14

Writings of Rabash, Letter 16

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Shamati #23″ “You that Love the Lord, Hate Evil”

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “The Third Commandment,” Item 206

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Writings of Rabash Shlavei HaSulam,” “Come Unto Pharaoh-2”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings”

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