Audio Version Of The Blog – 08.28.15

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Back To The New Pharaoh

laitman_236_02The Torah, “Numbers” 14:1 – 14:4: The entire community raised their voices and shouted, and the people wept on that night. All the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the entire congregation said, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this desert. Why does the Lord bring us to this land to fall by the sword; our wives and children will be as spoils. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?” They said to each other, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!”

The nation of Israel falls to the lowest point again and cannot begin to rise again. This is the best place to start and until a person falls to this point, there is no reascending. Until then the children of Israel resisted, spied, and clarified things, and suddenly they discovered the ego that tells them that they don’t need anyone but Pharaoh: “We cannot do anything against him.”

Just as they escaped from Egypt to Sinai, now having crossed the Sinai desert, they fall to the initial state once again and once again feel that they are in Egypt but of their own free will! With that will they will reach the land of Israel. The people begin to rebel: “We don’t want Moses! He leads us to the land of Israel, but we don’t want to go there. We want to be under the domination of Pharaoh until we reach the complete feeling and will not be able to ascend before that. But this has to be attained consciously, when we understand who we are. Then we will be able to advance.”

Question: How would you feel if your students came to you with complaints like the people came to Moses saying he brought them nowhere?

Answer: I would accept it with absolute tranquility and would leave everything the way it is. There is nothing one can do here. If there were a consensus, I would have no choice but to retire and leave everything to the Creator’s mercy.

We are actually far from this point and have to work hard in order to attain it, but if it were revealed, I would be delighted because it is the recognition of our evil nature, of our weakness, our powerlessness, and our lack of faith and total lack of connection with the person who has lead you forward, which is simply vital and has to be fulfilled. I felt a similar resistance towards my teacher Rabash. These states are essential and this is the reason I am not worried and actually rejoice inside because it is impossible to advance without such breaking points.

Then the people don’t disperse and say: “Let’s go back to Egypt and live there. We will reconnect to our Pharaoh.” In other words, all the work we did during the 40 years in the desert now becomes in Pharaoh’ s favor. It is bestowal with the intention to receive, good egoistic communism. They want Pharaoh, not the same Pharaoh they knew before, not the Pharaoh of Egypt, but the new one that is now revealed. This means that the ego is revealed in them on a totally new level. It is a very good state because when they cross this point, they enter the land of Israel.

Only after a person yearns to advance with all his might and is repeatedly set back, and returns time after time, until he is finally thrown out. But now against his will, he surrenders to the ego and says: “I cannot, I am helpless.” This point of helplessness is essential in order to understand that you have to be totally connected to the Creator to an even greater extent than before. Without it you don’t feel the need for the Creator.

Therefore, when you think that you can only manage with Pharaoh, it is a sign of your lack of connection with the Creator. You would like to be connected, but you cannot, and so you prefer Pharaoh. This means that although the spies brought fruits from the land of Israel with them, they remain outside the land of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/8/15

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Towards The Next Level With Minimal Losses

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I can understand that egoism is the reason for the crisis, but I don’t see the connection to how we can ascend to some degree as a result. What are the signs that we have to ascend to a new level now and not continue to advance linearly?

Answer:  You can make up whatever you want: different rules and especially social and economic ones. Politicians do whatever they believe to be right, and economists manage everything the way they think things should be, but all this leads to nothing.

We can learn something only if we listen to those who understand the plan of our evolution and its goal, which others cannot see because it isn’t in our ego, not in our nature, not in our thinking, and not in our feelings. The people who feel and attain it have to try to explain it to everyone and the rest of humanity will follow them like small children who follow those who know what is going on. There is no other way. It is like a herd that follows one shepherd who brings the herd to the well or back home. That’s the way it will also be in this case.

Although very few people understand the next phase, all of humanity has to follow them in order to be saved and to reach the right state with minimal losses.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 8/12/15

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Two Views Of The State The World Is In

laitman_202_0Question: If humanity experienced periods of cultural, scientific, economic, and social advancement in the past, like the Renaissance period for example, or even the 20th century, is it intentionally sinking to the bottom now? The level of education is dropping: people don’t read books anymore, they watch primitive TV programs, and participate in shallow entertainment programs for the masses.  Many countries have lost the hope of reaching the level of more advanced states, not to speak of the developed countries.

Answer: Personally I look at all this a bit differently. The point is that the law of denial is working here. Before we ascend to the next level there is always a negation, a denial, of the previous level. We have to fully acknowledge the worthlessness of the current stage and stop aspiring for its ideals, goals, and values. Only then do we begin to understand the next level, which in our case is a special level of development, since we have to totally change our attitude to our life.

If in the past we changed one social development to another, like the regime of slavery to the feudal regime, and then feudalism to capitalism, etc., it all advanced in one direction, in one channel. Now we experience a totally different state. We rise to a new qualitative level where all our nature works in a different direction, not according to the straight line we advanced along, but in a totally different direction.

We will use our nature not in order to enjoy increasingly greater achievements but so that these achievements will be totally different. Here a person has to reach a level where he is not interested in life inside life but in life above life. That’s the main thing.

Therefore, the alienation everyone feels towards everyone is coercive, no one controls it: not the banks, not businessmen, and not the government. The actual law of nature controls it and it brings a person to a feeling of absolute indifference regarding his previous values.

Gradually we begin to prefer totally different things that cannot be attained by linear egoism, but on a level above it. In order to do so we have to be connected above our animal needs so that we will provide ourselves with all the basic necessities but only in order to exist with dignity. As for our impulses, our ideals will be much higher and only the minimal care for our physical body will sustain us in this world, while our true internal human essence will not come down to wanting to satisfy our body but to wanting to attain the next level of the development of society and the universe. Then we will discover a new society and a new universe.

In that case, we totally change our attitude towards our life, and so the previous level is dead. And not only is the previous level dead, but all our previous history from the time the first elementary particle was created until today is dead.

This means that our attitude towards history is dead and there is a totally new attitude towards the world, towards life. There is the attainment of its internal structure, the attainment of the internal plan of the creation, the attainment of the force that manages everything! You can call it the Creator, God, it makes no difference, but this is where we are headed.

Therefore, the alienation, the frustration, the inertia, and the fall of humanity to a passive lifestyle is simply necessary. I see it as a great move and a big step forward.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 8/12/15

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The Heart Is Stronger Than The Brain

Laitman_198From the News (ratical.org): “The idea that we can think with our hearts is no longer just a metaphor, but is, in fact, a very real phenomenon. We now know this because the combined research of two or three fields is proving that the heart is the major center of intelligence in human beings.

“Molecular biologists have discovered that the heart is the body’s most important endocrine gland. In response to our experience of the world, it produces and releases a major hormone, ANF — which stands for Atriol Neuriatic Factor — that profoundly effects every operation in the limbic structure, or what we refer to as the ’emotional brain.’ This includes the hippocampal area where memory and learning take place, and also the control centers for the entire hormonal system. And neurocardiologist have found that 60 to 65% of the cells of the heart are actually neural cells, not muscle cells as was previously believed. They are identical to the neural cells in the brain, operating through the same connecting links called ganglia, with the same axonal anddendritic connections that take place in the brain, as well as through the very same kinds of neurotransmitters found in the brain.

“Quite literally, in other words, there is a “brain” in the heart, whose ganglia are linked to every major organ in the body, to the entire muscle spindle system that uniquely enables humans to express their emotions. About half of the heart’s neural cells are involved in translating information sent to it from all over the body so that it can keep the body working as one harmonious whole. And the other half make up a very large, unmediated neural connection with the emotional brain in our head and carry on a twenty-four-hour-a-day dialogue between the heart and the brain that we are not even aware of.”

My Comment: As we all know, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the heart and the brain are connected and cooperate in operating the whole body, and the heart feels and thinks (the heart understands) and only then is the brain operated as a mechanism that carries out the decisions of the heart. In fact the heart and the brain don’t decide. All the decisions take place on a higher level of nature where all the worlds and their fillings are in complete mutual connection, in the one field of the management.
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Under The Shadow Of Egoism

laitman_741_02Midrash Raba, “BeShalach“: Do you know which giants we met there? They are the descendants of the generation of Enosh, and they are so tall that their heads seem to reach the sun. Anyone who sees them is terrified of the thought that one may fall to the ground! Listen to what happened once, when we looked for a shady place to rest.

The spies look for shadows because they don’t want the direct bright Light, and they cannot bear it. They can exist when everything closes outside their ego and the oppositeness between the ego and the Light cannot be seen anymore. The giants whose heads reach the sun, which means the level of Zeir Anpin and above up to the level of Arich Anpin of the world of Atzilut, are souls that have corrected themselves.

We entered what we thought to be a cave, but in fact it was the peel of a giant pomegranate. We rested there a bit and then a daughter of a giant went by us and picked up this peel with all of us in it, twelve men sitting in it.

The word “pomegranate” (Rimon) stems from the word “Romemut” (exaltedness), which refers to how high the upper force can raise them. And the female part Malchut raises them above, to the Creator.

She didn’t even realize that we were there! She simply threw the peel away in her garden. We are like miserable ants compared to these giants. In fact, we once heard how one giant spoke about us: “There are these creatures in the vine who are as small as grasshoppers and who resemble human beings.”

This means that for Malchut their ascent is not a burden. They cannot give her any desire, any MAN, in order to oblige her to raise them. This ascent happens passively.

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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/8/15

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Coping With The Harmful Climate Of The Land Of Israel

laitman_746_03Midrash Raba, “BeShalach“: Not wanting to let the people hear what Caleb had to say to the end, the spies began to speak against the land: it is a land that destroys its inhabitants, they claimed, and is filthy and disease ridden and we have seen people dying everywhere we went. But because its inhabitants are especially strong they do not die of being physically weak, no! It is the harmful climate of the land that kills whoever lives there.

Question: What does it mean that the people in this land are dying?

Answer: The word “death” refers to a person who cannot overcome the spiritual growth offered to him according to the plan of creation. The spies see how the ego dies and they are terribly afraid of it. They say that it is the harmful climate of the land that kills whoever lives there. The word “land” (Eretz) stems from the Hebrew word “desire” (Ratzon), referring to the egoistic desire. If you agree with this egoistic desire, you immediately find yourself under its influence and it kills you. That means that the Light leaves you and this is death.

Question: So how did the spies reach this land?

Answer: The spies are very special people who belong to the generation of the desert and represent the best and greatest attributes in a person that begins to feel what there is on the next level. But at the same time they keep contradicting themselves: First they lead the people, but then they say, “Quick, Let’s go back!”

This dual experience a person undergoes, this double burden, indicates to what extent he has to establish a connection with the Creator in order to advance. It is because the greatest and best attributes pull him backwards: You shouldn’t go there; this land is cursed by the Creator; there are desires and moods there that you cannot bear and must escape from! Therefore it is impossible to predict anything in advance; the strongest person can be transformed and can turn into the weakest person.

Question: Does this mean that you cannot be sure about anything?

Answer: And we shouldn’t be sure about anything. God forbid that we should be sure about anything, because then we wouldn’t need the help of upper force so that He should lead us forward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/8/15

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.28.15

Preparation for the Lesson 

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “Love of Friends”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Article 20

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Lesson on the Topic: “European Convention,” Lesson 6

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