Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/22/18
Posted on June 22nd, 2018
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The Jerusalem Post published my new article “Why Do We Construct Theories and Philosophies about What Happens After We Die?“
Why does a person who is alive need to construct theories and philosophies about death? It’s an inseparable part of life, so why is it concealed from us?
The still, vegetative and animate levels of nature have no awareness about death. They feel weak when they’re nearing death, but only in terms of their survival coming to an end. Therefore, they have no questions beyond death, nor about the past, present or future in general. Those questions emerge only in humans, because we have a special point above the bodily, animal existence.
We feel no life while we are gametes in our parents. We don’t know how our parents met and brought about that initial live cell from which we developed. We also lack the sensation of how our body gradually disbands until something causes its death, as well as what remains of it afterward.
What we especially fail to understand is that, as opposed to animals and plants, we feel ourselves as existing in something higher and greater than our bodies. We can’t pinpoint this sensation, but in general, we call it “life.”
There is subsistence, living for the sake of survival and reproduction, and there is life, living for the sake of something greater.
We spend much of our lives contemplating, examining and researching this point of what life is and how we can fill our existence. This additional desire above our will for survival means a lot to us. We’re ready to toil and suffer for it.
Humanity’s development is leading us gradually toward an increasingly greater desire to understand the addition of life above our mere survival needs. What is especially evident in our era is that, while we have an abundance of life’s necessities — more than in any other historical period — the eternal question about the meaning and purpose of life awakens more than in any other era.
Yet, the answer to that question is elusive.
The myriad theories, fantasies and methods we have developed, whether religious or secular, are all baseless speculation.
Why?
It’s because the form of our current lives is sealed in our inborn corporeal-material nature, which is a desire to receive enjoyment and pleasure. We feel and identify ourselves in this desire and have no ability to envision anything outside of it.
Our sensations, thoughts, desires and fantasies are all aimed at the fulfillment of our desire to enjoy.
But is this our only desire?
If we had only the desire to enjoy, then we would be like animals, locked solely in an instinctive drive to fulfill ourselves maximally at every moment of our lives.
However, we have a very small point, a spark that comes from a higher level than our animal existence. Due to this point awakening in us, we ask the questions: “What is the meaning of life?” and “What do we live for?”
This point also awakens negative sensations in us — dissatisfaction, emptiness, depression, helplessness and despair — which our generation senses more than any other. We’ve organized our lives to allow us freedom from worries about providing for our necessities, and precisely because of this, the question about life’s meaning is liberated, causing more forceful demands to surface. As a result, many new problems in human society are emerging.
We think that we have all kinds of different cravings in humanity for money, honor and knowledge, for all kinds of things beyond the level of food, sex and family. However, we really only have the question about life’s meaning and purpose, which demands a response.
There are differing levels of feeling and awareness of this question in different people, and it is a major influence in our daily lives.
The different mannerisms, cultures, customs and beliefs of every nation are all ultimately responses to the question about life’s meaning and purpose. In our basic needs for food, sex and family, we are all essentially the same. However, the moment we enter our social desires for money, honor and knowledge, our lives are shaped by the character of how the question about life’s meaning and purpose surfaces in us, and how we respond to it. We differ precisely in how we respond to that question.
We move in different directions trying to answer the question about life’s meaning and purpose. However, lacking a true answer, one that gives us lasting fulfillment, we keep finding ourselves falling short, empty and desperate. As a result, nowadays we are witnessing a reduction in our mental and emotional development. In past eras, we had far greater respect for philosophy, science and the arts. Today, however, society is turning toward heightened comfort and convenience, and valuing technologies that can serve as a means to this end.
Despite all these comforts and distractions, it remains true that if we won’t find a satisfactory answer to the question about life’s meaning and purpose, then we will increasingly suffer. While the younger generation today focuses more on technologies, that will come to an end. With less and less of a drive to build families and give birth to children, they don’t want to be “ordinary beasts” that live as if in a herd, because the question about the meaning of life lives and breathes in them.
Up to now, the younger generation passively responds: “We’re not in your game. You want to live and succeed, so be it. It’s not for us.” The next stage after this generation will be sharper, and its response, far angrier.
The more the answer to the question about the meaning of life will elude us, the more we will see the rise and fall of all kinds of distortions that try to appear in its place. The legalization and promotion of hard drugs will rise to try calm us down. Technologies will continually emerge to make our lives easier, to make us feel content sitting in our residences all day. But such efforts won’t hold.
Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of life?” In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight? It is indeed true that historians have grown weary
contemplating it, and particularly in our generation. No one even wishes to consider it. Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvited, pecks at our minds and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy of flowing mindlessly in the currents of life as always. –
Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot.
Centuries ago, The Book of Zohar, as well as renowned twentieth century Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), predicted that starting from the end of the 20th century, the question about the meaning of life would intensify throughout humanity, demanding more and more people to seek its true answer. Those who remain unsatisfied with what our culture creates to deal with this question in the meantime, who keep exploring different approaches, methods and environments to no avail, are expected to eventually find themselves delving into the wisdom of Kabbalah.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method of how to perceive and sense the eternal reality while living our current lives. Attaining such a perception ultimately answers questions such as “What happens when you die?” and “What is the meaning of life?” because by doing so, we access our spiritual life that continues living after the death of our protein bodies. By engaging in the method, we undergo significant changes that reveal a completely different perception of reality, discover lasting fulfillment, a deeper connection with others and with the causal force of reality, and gain a sense of wholeness and harmony with the world around us. This wondrous wisdom is open to all, and awaits anyone with a sincere desire to find the core reason of why we appeared here on this planet.
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 6/21/18
No leader or organization today seems to know how to successfully handle immigrant integration into their respective countries and societies, because there is no clear understanding of what has led to such a large-scale displacement. This situation is not limited to America. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRA) reported that the total number of displaced people worldwide rose to a record 68.5 million last year.
This is not only relevant for immigrants. As the world evolves, human society the world over will have to engage in a new process of learning and transformation, one that expands our perception of the world, the needs of our fellow man, and brings us to a realization that we depend on each other to not only succeed, but to survive.
Read my full article >>>>>>>>
Why should the connection be attacked? After all, we do not fight against it, but on the contrary, we want to elevate it to a higher degree, and that is why we attack. We see that our connection was insufficient, or more precisely, it was unsuccessful, or even more precisely, it was not just bad, but failed completely. We need to overcome all of yesterday’s failures, rejoicing that the Creator gave us such preparation and perceiving our state today as ideal for the next ascent.
Each of us came with his own problems, not ready to connect. Now we need to adjust ourselves as if there were nothing, or to take all this load of disturbances, all these desires that are not directed at connection and the burdening of the heart from yesterday’s unsuccessful attempts, and include them into the new attack on the connection. Connection is the goal, attack is the means, and we are its executors.
Yesterday’s problems serve us today as a weapon for attack. And from all this we need to organize an appeal to the Creator, because weapons and fortitude are good, but in the end, everything is done by the higher power, after we despair from our work.1
Everything that happens during the day, all the disturbances, must serve as an additional help, preparation for the attack on the connection. We need to process all these conditions that are given to us from above to support our advancement toward the connection. That is, all the disturbances are undoubtedly beneficial; we just need to utilize them correctly in order not to walk in circles but move to the goal by the shortest path.2
We need to feel that it is necessary to detach from our nature that resists our connection.3
There is no doubt that the burdening of the heart comes only from the Creator, besides Him there are no other forces. Therefore, we do not ask the Creator to release us from some external enemy, from the evil force that spoils everything. All changes are done only the Creator so that a person will turn to Him.4
The importance of the goal and the desire to reach our connection and adhesion with the Creator can be increased so much that it will reach the limit, bring us to tears. It cannot be any greater; this is the very final stage when a person did everything in his power, scrutinized everything he could by descending to the very depth of creation and of his nature. He realized that only the connection of all the parts of nature allows the entire system to come to life and advance. However, he sees that he cannot lead to this connection and be in it.
The goal is absolutely clear, but a person has no chance to achieve it, and he bursts into tears. These are tears of weakness because he discovers that some important part is missing in his nature from the very beginning of creation and that it is impossible to reach connection without it.
Only then the Creator reveals Himself and gives a person the gift called Lishma, intention for the sake of bestowal. A person rises to the new level of understanding, feeling, connection, and action, and can compensate his previous deficiency.5
When can a person determine that his heart is broken and be happy about it instead of grieving?6
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/18, Lesson on the Topic: “Attacking the Connection”
1 Minute 1:15
2 Minute 21:40
3 Minute 26:27
4 Minute 38:52
5 Minute 41:45
6 Minute 54:30
Related Material:
Attacking The Connection
New Life #957 – Spiritual Connection Is The Next Step Of Evolution
New Life #42 – Connection Is The Key To Fulfillment
Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation: All of the anticipated reward from the Creator, and the purpose of the entire creation, are Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator, as in, “A tower filled abundantly, but no guests.” This is what they who cling to Him with love receive.
Baal HaSulam emphasizes that the most important reward from all the work of a person in this world, out of the efforts he makes and what he lives for, is the achievement of the revelation of the Creator, uniting with Him, the complete resemblance of a person’s properties to the properties of the Creator.
This is “a tower filled abundantly, but there are no guests.”
However, the Creator awaits them.
In the meantime, instead of the castle, we are in a prison from which we must step out and gradually approach the castle.
The problem is that a person must feel as if he is in prison. This happens by hook or by crook. In other words, if we do not want to escape from prison by ourselves, nature will operate on us such that we will have to do it.
Question: If there is no feeling that you are in prison, what is the use of the efforts that we make during workshops?
Answer: It is so that you will be given this feeling. It comes from the fact that you see the kind of world you live in.
While studying Kabbalah, you understand a little, that it somehow works. But time has passed, and now you are again trying to find a cozy place. Therefore, you need to leave this state. But it is much more difficult to do it now than before because in the common “prison” you were pushed forward, and now it works differently.
You yourself must consciously understand that in spite of the fact that you are physically fairly comfortable, you are in a deceitful state, far from the Creator, from the quality of bestowal and love for your neighbor. And therefore, this property, which you cannot and even do not want to achieve, is standing before you and shows that you are in prison.
Now we must imagine that we are in prison. And it is possible to come to this only by means of developing the feeling in the group that we are unable to reach connection, love, an internal state of unity between us in which the Creator would reveal Himself—the common property of bestowal and love.
Constant efforts aimed at connection will lead us to understanding that we cannot do this. In accordance with them, we will see what efforts come to us from outside: from the Creator, by the Light.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 19/12/17
Related Material:
A Group Of Ten As A Tool For Adhesion
The Way To Adhesion With The Creator
A Recipe For Adhesion: Don’t Forget To Add The Light
New Life #42 – Connection Is The Key To Fulfillment
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
Connection can solve all our problems. We can be fulfilled only through others and can never fulfill ourselves. A feeling of vitality, health, relaxation, happiness, security, support, warmth, love, and mutual responsibility will awaken in you if you feel that your partner is within you, ready to help you with everything. When we take on the emotions and thoughts of our partner, we see the world their way. We build an integral system and acquire the tools we need in order to perceive an unlimited world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #42 – Connection Is The Key To Fulfillment,” 7/26/12
 Video: Play Now | Download |
 Audio: Play Now | Download |
Lesson Preparation
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Lesson on the Topic: “Unite Into One Ten” (Preparation for the Convention in Italy 2018)
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 8
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
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