Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/30/18

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Melting The Hearts Into One

laitman_284.03All yesterday’s achievements must turn into today’s descent, otherwise I am not advancing. I put one foot forward and advance because that same foot lags behind me. Then again, I step forward with the other foot and move so that it again is behind. Therefore, if today I woke up in a bad mood, if today’s lesson does not excite me, does not cause the same burning as before, then I have to understand that this is a sign of advancement. This is exactly how we advance.

Therefore, I am happy that I have received a burdening of the heart and that I am not as excited as a little child or a beginner who has just discovered Kabbalah. Now I need to reach at least the same awakening as yesterday, but already by my own work and not like a gift from above that I received before.

I should constantly examine myself whether I work on awakening, on the importance of the goal, on the significance of the connection that must become a central point of reality for us, and on my yearning for it. All of it is work, but I am happy about it because if it is hard for me to work today, this is a sign that I made good progress yesterday. Each moment I examine myself whether I can reach at least the same awakening as yesterday, but by my own efforts.1

Everything depends on our attitude toward the spiritual spark. When we feel that it becomes quenched, pulls us down, or when it raises us up, we have an opportunity to remain independent of it and determine by ourselves in what state this spark will be in us. If we use it correctly, it will always pull us forward.

The spark is our connection with the Creator, with the spiritual reality. It does not matter whether this connection is positive or negative, the main thing is that it exists! We need to be grateful for the bad state same as for the good one. On the contrary, when the spark fades, the Creator gives me an opportunity to light it up by myself and to inspire myself.2

The development in the corporeal world also requires stepping over previous achievements if you want to advance. It happens this way in any place. Then why is it so difficult for us to accept that in spiritual advancement, yesterday’s achievement turns into today’s descent, into a step from which we need to rise?

In corporeal development, this is perceived as a natural process; after all, we are pushed forward by the force of egoism. Yet in spirituality, it is very hard to accept this principle because we need to advance by faith above reason, by spiritual, not egoistic, awakening.

Even if the ego sees no benefit for itself, no future, only darkness, and does not push us forward, we must somehow push ourselves, find spiritual motivation.

This is only possible in the ten, through our unity. If all others, except from the one who is in descent, connect their points in the heart above the ego, stepping on it, and relate to the friend that way, they give him spiritual strength.

After discovering that one of the friends is in descent, the other nine intentionally reveal their egoism and lower its value to a minimum, while elevating their connection, the points in the heart, the purpose of creation, and the Creator, upward. Then this gap between connection in the group and its disconnection, between appreciation of spirituality and disrespect of it, provide the pressure with which they affect the fallen friend by giving him spiritual force. He is awakened by this force and can use it to advance and to incorporate with the ten. In fact, through his descent, he became a reason for the common ascent.3

If one friend was knocked off his feet, how can the others help him? Simple persuasion and attempts to inspire him are not spiritual work yet. This is how we support a depleted person in the corporeal world. The spiritual force is faith above reason, bestowal above reception, Bina above Malchut, the gap between these two points. During the descent, these two points meet and the gap disappears; there is no up and down, everything is gray.4

When a friend is in descent, we support him and begin to influence him from the gap between our collective spiritual point and the corporeal point that exist within us. We tell him about our perception of spiritual elevation, about its uniqueness and exaltedness, in comparison to the corporeal point.

For this, first of all we need to achieve agreement, connection, and mutual understanding. Then from our nine points of Bina and nine points of Malchut, we bestow to our friend and revive him. Through this gap we attract the reforming Light and pass it to him: he joins us and together we rise to the next degree.

So, who saved whom? The spiritual ascent always happens this way. According to the general system, the Creator chooses to whom to give a descent in the given moment of time in order to advance the entire group through him.5

The fallen friend cannot rise by himself, he as if died or is in prison, chained by his egoism. However, his friends come and save him. Even the words themselves are not that important; the main thing is to connect our points together where the greatness of the Creator, the group, and the points of understanding the lowliness of the desire to enjoy are felt.

If there is such an agreement between the nine friends, then the tenth friend undoubtedly will receive an awakening. He cannot avoid it because they are the nine first Sefirot and he is the Malchut. If he now received a descent, he cannot do anything by himself, and they, on the contrary, can do everything. Then they use him as a lever because at that moment, he is the new Malchut of the group.6

In the spiritual work, there is always a difference between good and evil from the egoistic point of view and the difference between spiritual good and evil. I need to create the gap between them: to what extent is my desire to be inside egoism lower that my desire to be in bestowal, in adhesion with the Creator through the group.7

The fallen friend receives awakening from the other nine friends connected together, because they multiplied their force 620 times through the Light of unity. This is not just one force times nine, but one force times nine times 620. With this force they influence him and no one can stand against such a powerful force.8

By helping a friend, we allow him to feel the difference of the value of spirituality in comparison to corporeality. We agree that indeed there are corporeal problems, but they are insignificant next to spirituality and our connection through which we connect with the upper force, with eternity and perfection.

Annulling ourselves and connecting in order to help the friend, we generate a spiritual force of bestowal. Then our nine points of Keter and nine points of Malchut connect together and we have one great Keter and one great Malchut, and a great difference between them to the extent that Keter is above Malchut. By this gap we influence the friend and revive him.

It is the connection that turns our influence from corporeal into spiritual. After all, we do it for the spiritual goal and build a spiritual Kli from nine egoists. The gap influences the friend and reformats him.

It works like a swing: one goes down, then the other. All the time someone is down and all the others are above, against him, helping him, and thus everybody rises. We receive such opportunities to advance from above.

The gap that awakens a friend is the difference between the sum of nine Keters and nine Malchuts that are in the nine friends, the difference between the value of spirituality and the value of corporeality: the greatness of the Creator relative to the greatness of the creation, this world, our egoism.

The friend fell because his Keter and Malchut merged together and he is left with just a point of animalistic existence. Only at the degree of a human is there a difference between Keter and Malchut, between the greatness of the Creator and the greatness of the creation. If this difference does not exist, we lead an animalistic existence.9
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/18, Lesson on the Topic: “Melting the Hearts into One Heart” (Preparation for the Convention in Italy 2018)
1 Minute 0:30
2 Minute 5:10
3 Minute 14:40
4 Minute 28:50
5 Minute 3020
6 Minute 32:10
7 Minute 34:30
8 Minute 38:15
9 Minute 39:42

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New Life #50 – Organizing The Social Network

New Life #50 – Organizing The Social Network
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

People connecting will solve all economic, educational, and health problems. It will increase everyone’s standard of living and sense of personal security. People should proactively organize mechanisms of social volunteerism and mutual support. This can be achieved through special evenings in which public workshops would be held. In the new network, all will become equal. Everyone will learn about partnership, unity, and how to give and receive.
[87931]
From KabTV’s “New Life #50 – Organizing The Social Network,” 8/6/12

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“I” – The Degree Of Similarity To The Creator

laitman_622.02Question: What exactly do I attain in the process of self-attainment: the laws, the program, or the concept of my “self”? What is the “I” of a person?

Answer: The degree of the clothing of the Creator in a person is called his “I.” In our world we correlate our “I” with our egoism. And in the spiritual world, the “I” does not exist. In the spiritual world, “I” is a measure of similarity to the Creator.

Question: What exists from a Kabbalistic point of view: “I” or only “we”?

Answer: The problem is that the whole world, the entire universe is me. Therefore, when I unite with my friends, I attain my true “I.”

Question: Is my “I” a degree of clothing of the Creator in a person or a degree of my realization that the Creator is clothed in me?

Answer: Your “I” is what is talking in you now; this is what you are today. And the real “I” of a person is a desire to unite and love, which becomes equal to the Creator. This must be achieved.

Start striving to unite and reveal the Creator in this unity, and everything will be alright.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/11/18

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The Ignition System For The World Soul

laitman_212In the past, there were cars that required a great deal of effort to start. You would turn the key, the starter would sputter, and then die; over and over again like this until it would finally start.

Here an individual must “start” himself. For each such attempt at igniting our soul, we receive the upper light, which acts on us and begins to gradually turn on the soul, according to the force of the light, toward bestowal.

Initially, needing to connect are just empty words because the heart cannot be forced. Nonetheless, we try with all our might to start it, each time drawing the light that reforms with our efforts.

This takes a long time, since the engine of our soul is very old, broken, and refuses to ignite. But once in a while it starts to turn over a little, and then we can already understand that love of others that the Kabbalists write about is not morality, but a law of nature, the law of all of creation.

We must unite in order to enter the real world, to enter our true existence. Without it we exist in an illusion, in an imaginary world, as if watching a movie that has nothing to do with reality.

We apply all our efforts in order to awaken our soul. As a result of a great number of such attempts, our engine finally turns over and begins to turn in the right direction. Fuel enters it, the upper light, and it begins to work.

Europe is very similar to this untuned engine. There are many groups there, new and old, and also individuals who do not belong to any group. We need to try to prepare everyone so that all turn in the same direction, in the direction of the general movement.

Each group that already has experience, strength, the correct direction, understanding, and, most importantly, feels that it is within the connection that opens the entrance to the true world from the unconscious state we now are in now, as in a fog.

We need to understand what responsibility lies on each one who has achieved an advanced state. He must tow this entire broken, creaking cart, that doesn’t want to move on it’s own. This will be our attack on connection. We don’t need to wait for the Congress for this; even before it, we can reach such unity as is planned in the Creator’s program.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/18 “Preparation for the World Convention in Italy 2018 – Melting the Hearts into One”

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My Thoughts On Twitter 6/29/18

Dr Michael Laitman Twitter
The body exists only for the sake of wrapping the soul. The material body dies and disintegrates, but the #soul lives on by clothing into a new body to continue the spiritual cycle until its full correction. #death #NDE
My near-death experience @Medium

The body exists only for the sake of wrapping the soul. The material body dies and disintegrates, but the soul lives on by clothing into a new body to continue the spiritual cycle until its full correction. #death #life #NDE
My latest on @BINAlerts

“Prayer of many” is when I pray for others, who seem to exist outside of me.
I ask the Creator to unite everyone into one soul of Adam and I pray for that soul.
That’s how I recreate my soul.
Besides the soul of “Adam” there is no other reality, besides the Creator.
#Kabbalah
From Twitter, 6/29/18

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/29/18

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Medium: “How Misguided We Are in Thinking That God Is Anything Like Us”

The portal Medium published my new article “How Misguided We Are in Thinking That God Is Anything Like Us

Even as a child, long before I knew the wisdom of Kabbalah, I never thought about the upper force as anything similar to a flesh and blood human who consumes food and secretes waste, sweats, gets sick from time to time, and is not always “aesthetically pleasing,” to say the least.

It didn’t make sense to me that this limited, transient body somehow reflects a force that is supposedly universal, eternal and lofty.

So I was surprised to hear that a new research asked participants to describe what they thought the face of God looked like. Merging results from hundreds of American believers, the researchers assembled the “face of God.”

Now, if the image of the Creator was indeed like that of a human being, then something went wrong with that Creator…

According to Kabbalah, “God,” or “the Creator,” is the quality of complete, unconditional love and bestowal. It’s a spiritual force devoid of any corporeal depiction, a force that guides and sustains the whole of reality, and its purpose is one: to do good. To that end, the Creator created a creature who is destined to reach the ultimate goodness — acquiring the godly, eternal quality of absolute love and bestowal.

However, the path to perfection begins with imperfection. The Creator “shattered” the created being, which put him in the exact opposite state — a quality of self-reception. As a result, all of us are shattered pieces of the created being, and the corporeal reality we are familiar with is the farthest state from the Creator.

In fact, we have no connection with the quality of absolute love and bestowal. And even when we think we are giving to others, it’s an illusion; our acts of giving are mixed with self-interest.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that participants in the study chose the most beautiful and lofty image they could think of. It’s the top of what the human imagination can conjure up. It also explains why some participants chose images that reflect their position on the political spectrum.

Sorry to kill the romance, but whatever human image we come up with, as beautiful as it may be, will never have any connection with the true image of the Creator. That is, with the quality of unconditional love and bestowal.

Then how do we “draw” the correct image of the Creator?

First, erase any corporeal depiction. Second, internalize that the Creator cannot be perceived through our five senses. And third, learn how to develop inner qualities that are similar to the Creator’s qualities.

A person who learns how to develop a universal attitude of love and bestowal to all created beings and to reality as a whole, becomes internally similar to the Creator. Thus, through his new thoughts and desires, he builds the image of the Creator within himself.

The authentic wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that was weaved for generations based on the practical experience of thousands of people who detached from the corporeal depiction and acquired the inner qualities of the Creator.

Some of them recorded their findings in writing and passed them down to the next generations. Today, any person can use their method to develop a new, inner set of “brushes and color palettes,” with which one can draw the image of the Creator.

Breaking Israel News: “Prominent Kabbalist Describes Near-Death Experience“

The largest portal Breaking Israel News published my new article “Prominent Kabbalist Describes Near-Death Experience

It happened twenty years ago but I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was driving with a few of my long-time students on a road outside Jerusalem when another car violently crashed into ours. We all suffered severe injuries, but I was the only one declared clinically dead.

Right after the impact, I didn’t realize my state. All I knew was that I couldn’t breathe. My lungs began filling up with blood and I almost lost consciousness. Then, the ambulance arrived. While we were on our way to the hospital, I had only a vague sense of my surroundings, conscious one moment, and unconscious the next.

My Out-of-Body Experience

Once at the hospital, I was asked to sign a paper. They took my arm and I scribbled something. Afterward, I experienced a total blackout. I could, however, somehow see the doctor trying to resuscitate me. He aggressively raised and flexed my leg, pressing it very hard against my torso. He later explained to me that although I was technically dead, he had tried to stabilize my blood flow that had unsettled due to internal bleeding in my liver.

I had never met the doctor before, and I would not until after three weeks of recovery in the hospital. Interestingly, I clearly saw him pushing my leg. I did not see him with my eyes. I was seeing myself and what was happening to me from outside my body. Yes, this is what people commonly refer to as an “out-of-body experience.”

What Is an Out-of-Body Experience?

Since I’m a teacher of Kabbalah, my students have since asked me: If I didn’t see the doctor with my eyes, what did I see him with? Also, what exactly is an out-of-body experience? Is it connected to spirituality?

I did not see the doctor or my surroundings with my eyes, but with an internal sense. However, I do not connect this internal sense or my out-of-body experience to spirituality. Such experiences are mere psychological, non-coincidental impressions that are processed by our brain and manifest in a supranormal form.

After surgery, when I was recovering and going in and out of consciousness, I saw blurry, colorful images, but no concrete shapes. Yet it was clear to me that all this had nothing to do with spirituality. When people grasp images as if they are from outside, they actually see a resemblance of what they have learned, heard and processed throughout their lives.

Corporeal Laundry

First of all, there is no such as a thing as “clinical death” according to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Death is death, and there are undeniable scientific signs to measure it through the physical human functions or the lack of them.

The body exists only for the sake of wrapping the soul. The material body dies and disintegrates, but the soul lives on by clothing into a new body to continue the spiritual cycle until its full correction.

Only while we’re alive in this world is our spiritual advancement possible. So what happens when you die? Very simply, if we do not make efforts to develop a soul in our lifetime, we keep reincarnating. As explained by Kabbalist Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) in his article “From My Flesh I Shall See God,” “The connection between the body and the soul is only that in the former, things happen to it naturally and by themselves, and in the latter they happen through work and joint relation between the spiritual and the corporeal.”

I remember when I came to Baal HaSulam’s son, Rav Baruch Ashlag (Rabash), who was my teacher for over a decade, one of my first questions to him was: “How does a person who has attained spirituality relate to life and death?” He answered: “I see that today you came to my lesson in a nice, new, white shirt and later you will change it. You know that you will have to change your shirt. This is exactly how a person living in his soul views his body: he knows that the time will come when it will have to be changed.”

So why do we make such a big deal about dying? From a Kabbalistic perspective, it is not important whatsoever. If we invest in our spiritual development and the correction of our soul, we remain alive after “taking off” the physical body in the same way we remain alive after we take off our shirt. It’s a sort of corporeal laundry; we just get rid of dirty clothing.

Unraveling Humanity’s Google

If a person does not develop his soul during his lifetime, it means that he did not prepare for the second stage of his existence, which is life above the corporeal egoistic desire, the self-aimed desire to enjoy. This desire renews itself and appears in different ways, undergoing an upgrade from one incarnation to the next. It gets a new opportunity to develop until it acquires what, according to Kabbalah, it was created for: the attainment of the soul—connection to the spiritual world—while still in this world.

When the material body dies, the remaining desire is called a Reshimo (from Hebrew “roshem” – a record or reminiscence), a sort of code that includes everything a person consisted of, a kind of spiritual DNA passed on from generation to generation. It is the particle from which we eventually develop a soul .

Baal HaSulam explains this in his article “The Peace”: “Thus, in our world, there are no new souls the way bodies are renewed, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate….Therefore, with regard to the souls, all generations since the beginning of creation to the end of correction are as one generation that has extended its life over several thousand years….”

This collection of spiritual information is “humanity’s Google,” so to speak, a system where we are all connected. Through Kabbalah, we can open, explore, understand and use that system, entering its “control room,” a heightened sense of balance and harmony with our surrounding reality.

Moreover, Kabbalah states that reaching such a unified and harmonious state is the reason we’re alive: the purpose of our existence. Its attainment grants us the perception of our eternal soul and the connections between us, and sensations of unbounded tranquility and bliss, without departing from this material existence.

Freedom from Fear

What I felt in my near-death experience, and what many people have reported to feel, does indeed exemplify a certain sense of freedom from the corporeal body. While in that limbo between life and death, I thought about my state and felt it vividly. I did not feel fear or pleasure, only a sense of transition to a new state. I did not care about whether I died or stayed alive, and had no perception of good or bad. I only felt the sensation of some flow taking me wherever it wanted, here or there, and that nothing depended on me.

Fear is experienced only when a person is strongly attached to life and gets frightened by the unknown. However, on the verge of death, when the five senses are shut down, you become free from the corporeal body; there is no sense of belonging to it.

However, such feelings of freedom are temporary, limited and miniscule compared to the boundless sensations of fulfillment, connection and delight that come from attaining our eternal soul.

The wisdom of Kabbalah invites anyone who so desires to embark on the journey of the soul’s discovery during our lifetime. Moreover, both Baal HaSulam and The Book of Zohar (a principle Kabbalistic text), pointed specifically to our era as the one when more and more people would increasingly question the meaning of their lives, becoming ready to make steps toward their soul’s attainment, learning and using the wisdom of Kabbalah for this purpose.

The Highest Peace

laitman_537Question: We must become independent of egoism, but dependent on the Creator. Is the freedom of choice to establish a connection with Him and consciously observe His control?

Answer: Correct! If I feel how the Creator controls me, then at the same time, I feel great spiritual pleasure. There is nothing more pleasant than to feel that the Creator is in you and controls you.

This is the state of the highest peace because the Creator is felt both in the senses and in the mind. And then the truth of this state is revealed to you, its eternity, perfection, that it is a closed system; you comprehend the upper harmony.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/11/17

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