All that the Creator created, all of matter, is a desire. By acting like the Creator, I am essentially researching myself. It seems to us that there are many things existing in the world. However, the world is actually a person’s inner perception: it’s his inner state.

The matter of which I am made, the desire to receive pleasure, is organized within me in such a way that I call it, “my world.” Within this matter, I discover everything at the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human levels of nature. My entire desire is the reality within which I exist. All I have left to do is to uncover it completely and see how it is structured, what are its constituent parts, what forms each of the parts takes, and what are the various connections between the forms and parts.

This is how the Creator teaches me to identify His actions, and I increasingly study Him within myself. In the end, He is the one who acts and manages everything, while I am the one who becomes His creation by uncovering it all. How do I complete an action? I do it by uncovering the Creator within that action.

The Creator and I are both working on the same thing – my desire. With the help of my point in the heart, I can come out of my matter and study it from the outside. I can relate to it like the Creator does. In this case, He and I are together above this matter, above creation, and I can acquire the Creator’s mind and the Thought of Creation.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on the article, “The Acting Mind”)

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The prayer said on the Jewish New Year mentions three conditions of ascending to the spiritual level called the New Year:

1. Kingdom
2. Memory
3. Blowing into the ram’s horn (Shofar)

What does this mean?

1. Kingdom is the desire for the force of bestowal (the Creator), the Upper Force that created everything, to rule inside us.

2. We have “memories” or “reminiscences,” which are informational genes (Reshimot) that are able to bring us to a state where we will reveal the Creator to the degree of our similarity to Him, to the quality of bestowal.

3. The way to achieve this is by blowing into the ram’s horn, or in other words, by raising the quality of bestowal above the quality of reception. (The word Shofar – Horn, comes from the Aramaic word Shufra – importance.)

(From Part 1 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on Rabash’s article, “The Prayer of Rosh HaShanah”)

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Suffering is pushing man towards entering a higher dimension and to waking up from this sick, deformed dream where he feels himself as existing in a shattered reality.

He can look back and understand that by causing harm onto others he was only hurting himself. If he only knew then what he knows now!

He looks back and sees that those parts of reality that appeared foreign to him and which he only wanted to exploit, are in actuality, close to him and more importantly, are parts which he considers as himself.

He will see that the part which he sensed as his own “I,” in actuality, isn’t at all important. This is because the force of desire that is revealed in his external parts is many times more potent, and they become most important to him.

He sees that everything was deception and that by hating and exploiting all that surrounded him he was only harming himself. It was all a big mistake.

These revelations help him advance until he reaches full equilibrium with the entire universe being revealed and he begins to identify with it.

In coming to know that he belongs to this vast universe and that the universe belongs to him, he reveals the Upper force which fills everything.

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In the News (translated from MIGnews.com): The largest manufacturer of the “Kalashnikov” machine gun has stopped production of this weapon at the Moscow Metallugical Plant, “Serp i Molot” (hammer and sickle).

My Comment: I don’t believe it and I don’t understand!  Last year, military expenditures rose 27% worldwide!  They can’t even sell machine guns?

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A question I received: What is the unification of the points in the heart that we are trying to achieve?

My Answer: When a desire for bestowal, called a point in the heart, emerges in a person, at first it is controlled by the desire to receive pleasure. So for now, the desire to bestow is situated within our egoistic desire to receive, and this is why it is called a “point in the heart.”

The unification of the points in the heart that we are trying to achieve is the unification of our desires to bestow. You have to unite your point with other points in order for all of you to influence each other. Thus your desire to bestow will rise above the desire to receive.

If we come out of our desire to receive and create a net among us above it, then precisely this net will be called the soul. All the points that I have joined, will turn into my soul. In addition, the might of the soul is determined by how connected I am to others and how much I desire to bestow to them.

If we influence the desire to receive pleasure with the force of the Light, then this desire will not be able to interfere with our progress, since it has no contact with the Light. And then we can raise our point in the heart higher. This is called “the exodus from exile.”

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I am the desire to enjoy. This is the only quality I was created having, and so I exist in it. However, I also have the ability to attain bestowal by uniting with this quality.

My essence will always remain the desire to enjoy. I cannot change it; I can only control it through the force of bestowal that I receive from outside. If the Creator will become important enough for me, then I will then start using my nature for His sake.

The way to receive the quality of bestowal is from outside, with the help of the Light. We can do this because we have a memory of this quality, which we used to have before we fell into egoism. This is why the quality of bestowal can reawaken in us under the influence of the Light.

This is exactly why I am referred to as man (Adam), because eventually I can and must become like the Creator. (In Hebrew, Adam comes from the word “Dommeh” – similar.)

So, what I have to do is to consciously use the Light so it will bring the quality of bestowal back to me. At the same time, my desire to receive pleasure will remain the same. Yet, the quality of bestowal can grow inside me so much that it will become more important and will control the quality of receiving pleasure.

The two qualities – reception and bestowal – never change. The only thing that changes is their balance inside a person. The stronger of the two qualities controls him.

It’s like a magnet that holds up a piece of metal: While the magnet is working, it holds the piece of metal suspended in the air, as if it were “spiritual.” But as soon as the magnet lets go of the piece of metal, the latter immediately falls back into quality of absolute egoism.
(From Part 2 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”)

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A question I received: Despite the numbers and facts you believe that the world economy is not getting out of the crisis, and this is the opinion of Kabbalah?

My Answer: I am not an economist and Kabbalah doesn’t do market forecasts. But here is my personal opinion:

We observe rising oil prices, rising market indices and rising stock prices. That’s why people talk about the end of the recession and the beginning of world economic growth.

However, it is not a reflection of real economic growth,  but an artificial stimulus of demand and new market speculations as a result of the infusion of government funds into the economy. Speculation in the oil market has caused a rise in oil prices, triggering a rise in prices on other goods. So new bubbles are being created, which will eventually burst and thus bring a new economic collapse.

The governments have provided funds to stimulate consumer demand and thus trigger economic growth. However, these funds have landed in the banks and instead of generating economic growth, layoffs continue, which in turn causes further decline in demand.

Governmental debts of the world’s leading economies are higher than their annual GDP, military expenses are on the rise, and the printing of money doesn’t stop.

Conclusion: We are in the next stage of the same crisis and we are heading towards the bursting of an even bigger bubble.

1. The cause of the crisis lies in the fact that we have reached the limit of our egoistic development through many centuries and we have now formed  a global, integral system.

2. The law of behavior of such a system is based on the common inter-connectedness of its elements. It is like the organs of the body, where each organ is working to support the whole system, and by this, insuring its own existence.

3. But in order to form such a connection (to love your neighbor as yourself), there must be a very evident revelation of our interconnectedness. Only in this scenario, will our personal egoism allow the possibility of taking the concept of caring for the whole system into account, .

4. Out of all doctrines, philosophies and religions, only Kabbalah talks about the revelation of the global connection between people – the Upper World, and not about suppressing the ego. Only the revelation of the concealed connection between us (which is the same as revelation of the Creator) will bring us to prosperity, according to His thought and our desire!

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Frankly, I couldn’t imagine that this would ever be possible. I didn’t think that the day would come when someone would undertake such tremendous work. But suddenly, Arkadi Duchin came along: an amazing musician and singer, and a person very close to me. He started collecting what he considers the most vivid moments from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson and writing a song based on them. And not just one song.

Every day, we hold the Daily Kabbalah Lesson. And every day, he writes a new song. But they are not just regular songs! They preserve the entire meaning of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, all its energy, its whole spiritual charge.

Thanks to Arkadi, a whole new style of spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah has suddenly emerged – one that is sensual, emotional and accurate.

Although the songs are in Hebrew, I am gladly posting them on my English blog, because I’m sure that everyone will understand them.

Here is a song called “This Is Egoism” based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of 08.04.09:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djy3UOR0F4k]

Transcript of the video:
This is the Ego
By Arkadi Duchin, Sima Duchin and Jack Duyev
Music: Arkadi Duchin
Lyrics: Arkadi Duchin

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of 08/04/09

Arkadi: For me, the goal is to stay as close as possible to what Rav Laitman is saying and to convey it through song, in a way that will be easier for people to digest. The challenge isn’t simple. I’m constantly faced with the question: “Do I understand it?” Because I have to convey the message, I have to check whether I have understood it myself and if I can even implement such a thing at all…

Lyrics:
“This Is Egoism”
Catch the fugitive – egoism – till the end,
So it won’t have anywhere to run.
So we’ll want only one thing:
To get rid of it forever.
When we attain the root of evil,
And, ashamed, will reveal the Light,
When the culprit will leave the stage,
Never bringing the wanted change,
We will discover the formula for goodness:
Only together.

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A question I received: The science of Kabbalah explains the law of roots and branches. Knowing the laws of this world helps us in our everyday lives. But how can knowledge of spiritual laws help us? I am referring specifically to the law of roots and branches.

My Answer: The law of roots and branches is the main and most important law in the entire science of Kabbalah. According to this law, everything that happens in our world comes down from above in a unilateral, absolute order.

It is written: “There is not a blade of grass that has not an angel above it that strikes it and tells it to grow.” Angels are forces, and any action, thought, desire, event or occurrence, from the most elemental particle to the biggest stars and entire galaxies, is managed by an Upper Force.

This force divides and within it, is included a number of forces on the various levels of the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human. These are physical and biological forces that influence all levels, with all of them coming from Above.

This is why the law of roots and branches is very important. With the science of Kabbalah, and learning the law of roots and branches, we can rise from the branches of our world toward the roots. We will begin to see our world as transparent and behind every object, we will see the force which manages it and brings it to action.

A person will begin to sense where his thoughts and desires come from and why things happen to him and to others. He will begin to see how a net of forces acts on this world and how it playfully and through various wavelike movements, organizes everything that occurs here for us. In this way, a person begins a dialogue with this Upper Force, with the root through which its own force operates everything in our world.

A person begins to understand where he can step in and have a dialogue with the Creator who is behind these forces, in order to respond, participate, change and consciously intervene. This is the only place in this entire net of forces that acts on him from the inside and out and where he can actively participate.

Although we are not conscious of it, we are inside of a picture prepared and formed for us by these forces. I have to come to understand how I can actively take part in this picture. In other words, how I can control my fate.

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