Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.12.15

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Avoiding The Obstacles

Laitman_931-02Question: We raised a prayer of many during the Arava convention so that we could be incorporated in one field in order to become one whole. Does that mean that if we simply remember it now, we can return to this point?

Answer: Why should you remember it? See what a global group we have! I never regard a certain small part. A group for me is all those who are members in our movement.

The main law of the general system of the universe is mutual guarantee, an absolute harmonious mutual connection among all the parts of creation. There is nothing but that!

It seems that this is some virtual condition, but in fact, mutual guarantee is the law according to which the system of creation exists and functions! If we are compatible with this law, we not only begin to feel the creation, but even take an active part in managing it. After all, according to the thought of creation, we are the most developed part that is equal to the Creator. This is the level to which we should evolve.

Now, we enter it unconsciously like the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, and in the current phase, we begin to ascend to the human level since human, Adam (in Hebrew) means to resemble the Creator. There is nothing other than this law!

The prayer of many or the general prayer is worrying about the entire system when I am incorporated in it integrally. How can I receive the right influence from it and influence it correctly if I am not connected to it this way? This is the reason that I must study and teach others only about this connection.

Question: What should we do if we are incorporated already in a unified field but don’t discern the Creator yet? What should we ask for?

Answer: The system is already in a state of complete unity, but we are not aware of it and don’t feel it. There is an obstacle here when I begin to ask for myself. We mustn’t do that. We must mean and ask to be an active partner, an assistant, who pushes the entire group, the whole system, toward unity.

The Creator is the force that sets the system into motion in unity, in wholeness, and that connects everything into one whole. This is the reason that when I aspire to resemble this force through the souls, through the components of the system, I bring it to the state of “He and His name are one.”

I must build this model, the image of this system, inside me, and then I will constantly feel exactly what I need and toward what I must advance.

Question: But we cannot fully imagine this model.

Answer: Imagine it to the extent that you can because the aspiration for Him will keep on guiding you later on. If you focus yourself this way, you won’t divert from the right path.

Actually, it isn’t complicated at all, but it isn’t easy to get used to it from our world. The actual structure is, in fact, very simple. What else is there besides the shattered desire that must collect and unite and discover as one whole desire that the Light, the upper force, is in it? This is the force of love and bestowal that we raise above all the other attributes and therefore call the upper force.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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A Place Of His Own

laitman_533_02Question: What should I do if I tend to fall asleep during the lesson?

Answer: Sleep! I am serious. The main point is that you are among friends. Sleep! Rabash used to say so, and I got used to it.

At first I thought, “How could that be? After all, I must do something!” There were people who used to come and sleep for three hours. There are also such people here, but I value them no less than I value others since they make an effort in coming here! Frankly, it doesn’t bother me at all. I value this friend just like any other member of the group like anyone other.

Question: But I don’t want to come here to sleep during the lesson! There should be a certain level of importance.

Answer: First of all, you should be happy that you have a place among the friends. It is very meaningful. You come here and take your place and not someone else’s. It is best if everyone has his own place, that you have found your place.

Then the collective work begins: the study, the workshops, and reading articles. Preferably, all of our study would be in the form of workshops, as we study TES, The Book of Zohar and the articles, since the discussions help extract more than usual from a person.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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The Most Practical Invention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I understand that it is necessary to be integrated into a group and to direct all of my thoughts there. But where is it possible to get the strength when I am thrown out of this state? What can be done so that I would have this force?

Answer: The best thing that they have invented in our times is an environment that can stimulate me somehow.

Other than this, it is possible to use an alarm clock or cell phone that will turn on automatically, awaken and get me running through music or songs. However, the main thing is the friends who will communicate with me from time to time and begin to be interested in what I am doing. I really don’t want to respond to them, but I am forced to keep the conversation going, and this gets me out of a bad state.

Only the environment saves us. In general, what exists in the universe? It is me or the world. This means that, if I don’t do it, then the world does.

So, when I feel emptiness, relaxation, a cloudy head, lack of inspiration and elevated spirit, I don’t hear or don’t remember what happened yesterday, it means that it is necessary to fill this with the greatness of the group and the Creator.

Where is it possible to get this greatness? It is precisely here that I can check as to how much I am connected with the group, how much I owe them something.

Suppose I have a fever. I don’t feel good and in the next room a child is crying. So, do I get up or not? I get up. Do I go to him? Yes. Do I do everything necessary? Yes. Do I gradually recover? Yes. What can I do? It’s my obligation.

Have I connected myself to a group in the same way with my obligations toward it? After all, don’t I have to get up, go to the kitchen and help the friends somehow? Do I get up in the morning to come to the lesson and sit there, even though I am really asleep? I am saying this absolutely seriously! I went through all of this myself.
Without this, nothing will succeed! Like they say, “The doctor says operate, so it is necessary to operate.”

It is the same thing regarding the group too. Are they pulling me toward them by the ear? Are they pulling me out of the swamp? They must do this if I have signed an agreement with them. Otherwise, what are we together for? It’s only for this. That is also what is written, “A prisoner doesn’t free himself from prison” (Berachot 5b). It’s only the group, the environment, the power of the environment.

I must be obligated to a group like I am to my baby whom I take care of even when I am feeling bad, and the group, in turn, must take care of me like they would care for a baby, even if I disappear from their field of vision, “Something happened to him; he seems to be quiet.” It is necessary to be concerned like that, like parents are concerned about their children.

If we don’t build relationships like these, nothing will result! We go through all of these situations only so that we will strengthen the connection between us.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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The Shattering Ended – The Shattering Continues

laitman_527_04Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57: …Imagine that there are people who study Kabbalah and attract the light of Infinity, lead the generation after them and the people follow them, and then all will be sure they will never err on their path. But if, instead of Kabbalah, people prefer to study other parts of the Torah, no wonder that the whole generation errs through their fault. So deep is my grief that I am unable to continue speaking about it.

Why did the generations in Israel descend lower and lower, and go further away from the interior of the Torah?

After the destruction of the Temple, there were still many people in constant attainment. Not all fell at once into concealment.

In fact, with the Shevirat ha Kelim (the breaking of the vessels), the highest Kelim descended below all, and those that were not as high don’t fall as low. Besides, there is also significance to the general mixing. Every Kli that falls drags the others after it and pushes those that fell previously even lower.

As a result, the original whole Kli,  all parts of which were as a single person with one heart that revealed the Creator, in the shattering gradually lost the revelation as the vessels fell from their previous height. The Study of the Ten Sefirot (Talmud Eser Sefirot) talks about this in Section 7.

History, too, serves as an example. We see how the destruction happened gradually, stage after stage, layer after layer, and continued for a long time. Accordingly, after the destruction of the Temple, for a long time, the spiritual illumination still hadn’t disappeared. After more than a thousand years, during the time of the Ari, many people still maintained the consciousness, the spiritual sensation. It is possible to explain this partially through the great troubles of the exile that held people above the Machsom (the barrier).

Later, after the time of the Ari, a new awakening began, an ascent, a slight call for correction from the side of the Reshimot (remembrances). And therefore, the Baal Shem Tov conducted his work.

It would be possible to ask, “Who gave him permission to do this?” However, the Ari called for correction and suggested his students to “go up to Jerusalem.” Rabbi Chaim Vital also writes about this in Sefer HaHakdamot (The Book of Introductions), and in our day, Baal HaSulam wrote the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot on the same basis.

So, for the Baal Shem Tov, there was a basis for beginning to act and awaken the people to inner work and corrections. He began to speak about the five spiritual worlds, about the Partzufim, about the Sefirot, about the Creator that is clothed in them, and so forth. Why did he and his students disseminate the new message among the people? It was because the crisis had ended by then.

Since then, since we are late with our corrections, we haven’t realized what has been given to us from above, just as we have encountered problems of a different type that have come from below.

Here we are talking about the Yeridat HaDorot (descent of the generations). This was discovered in the 19th century and especially in the 20th century. Despite the fact that the people received a push to return to the land of Israel, this hasn’t had any internal influence on us to this very day. The descent has continued, and we see how from year to year the people gave up the last connections of unity, even in the worst form. But in spite of it all, they are still holding it together. As of today, the shared values of the roots of the movement have disappeared without a trace, like the Kibbutz movement in the form in which it was born.

Baal HaSulam writes that all of this happens, of course, also among those who study the Torah. Instead of turning toward its interior, as all of the Kabbalists in all generations taught—as it was before the destruction of the Temple, according to the principle, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)—they were drawn in an absolutely different direction where it was not possible to find love of others, mutual bestowal, and connection.

This is the reason for the situation we are now in. The generations descended lower, but the people still were not awakened. On the contrary, they continued to descend even lower, even in comparison to the state in which it was in the lands of the exile.

Indeed I have known the reason: that it is mainly because faith has generally diminished, especially faith in the holy men, the wise men of all generations. And the books of Kabbalah and The Zohar are full of corporeal parables. …And that is what prompted me to compose a thorough interpretation… (Item 58)

The books of the Kabbalists were written for Kabbalists, and the common man is not able to understand them. So, Baal HaSulam was compelled to write “The Sulam Commentary to The Book of Zohar.” This commentary, on condition that one learns it correctly, makes it possible for everyone to approach a true understanding and gradually advance toward the truth, to bring the concealed layers of The Book of Zohar down until it will begin to shine from within.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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More Religious Wars?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (elpais.com): “In the Judeo-Christian traditional imagery is chronicled the murder of Abel by Cain. …  From the moment Cain killed Abel, violence has become an inseparable part of human history. …

“The obvious question is whether religions are the source of violence or the way to peace. Is violence actually embedded in monotheistic religions? …When we thought religious wars were phenomena of the past, they have resurfaced particularly harshly and radically… carrying black flags and destroying everything in their path, from human life to cultural symbols that are the heritage to humanity. …

“In the absence of rational arguments to justify these wars, they rely on God and in His name, they aggressively kill others, thus making God Himself a murderer. The philosopher Martin Buber said: ‘”God” is the word most vilified of all human words. None has been so tarnished, so manipulated…Human generations, with their religious partisanship, have torn the word.  They have killed and are willing to die for it. This word carries fingerprints and blood. People draw a stick figure below and write the word “God.” They murder each other and say, “we do this in the name of God.”‘”

My Comment: Indeed, religions do indeed only divides, separate, and incite us against one another. Because all the religions in the world are based on human nature: egoism.

And only the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches a person how to ascend above his egoism and reach unity to reveal the upper world inside us. This is the next level of our existence. In this, Kabbalah differs from Judaism and other religions. We have to reveal to the world, the way of ascending to the next level of our evolution as soon as possible, not along the path of suffering, but along the path of path of connection and unity.
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The World Economy: On The Threshold Of Drastic Changes

Laitman_182_02Question: How will the transition from previous material values to new ones influence the world economy?

Answer: I think that in the present situation, the economy will gradually exhaust itself. Moreover, it is not the economy itself but the attitude of people toward it. Today we view the changing world and life and become more passive.

Therefore, the economy of unbridled consumption will become an economy of providing for one’s personal existence. Humanity will stop running after big materialistic attainments and wealth.

I see how great masses of people are becoming more and more passive. We see this in Russia and in America. In Russia they agree with the policy of a relaxed existence on private land; in America they agree with the more socialist policies with the national health insurance plan and all the rest. That is, we have reached a state in which after transition to a new stage of rational development will prevail. We understand that nothing from the past, not wealth, nor respect, nor knowledge, nor art and not even religion (because there are no religions today, it is all just the politics of control) can bring us anywhere. What remains is only attainment of the meaning of life, because humanity has already gone through everything else.

And so certainly the economy will change. It will be sustained, develop, and transform externally just because we must fill our body (the level of the beast), meaning normally feed and dress everyone. Whereas, everything that is expanding today in all directions like a soap bubble will exhaust itself and disappear because we are bringing the world to a state of crisis.

Question: So, the economy will burst like a soap bubble?

Answer: It will shrink because it is superfluous! Either it will be replaced by a world war or the isolation of people. If we avoid war somehow, the indifference of people toward anything new will gradually obligate the economy to fold. We see what is happening today, nobody needs the vast Chinese and Japanese manufacturing technology anymore. Everything will gradually fold, and people will lose interest in consumption.

And this is a natural process of development of internal human desires that are moving from material consumption toward something new. We have already experienced the rise of interest in science and culture; they don’t fill us with anything now, they don’t give meaning to life. And without that, all that remains is drugs or war and other extreme decisions, or an exit to a new level, a new level of existence. That is, it is necessary to give people the possibility of seeing that there truly is an exit; it exists.

Ultimately an inner demand for this will appear because it is developing from within; a person will begin to ask: “What is the meaning of my existence? If there is no meaning, it is unfortunate that I was born….”

To be continued….
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 8/19/15

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10.12.15

Preparation for the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “The Importance of a Prayer of Many”

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee” 

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