The Mechanism Of Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: How can I conduct my point in the heart through the group, which functions as a spiritual amplifier?

My Answer: There are external means that we use: books, the group, the teacher, our study system, and connections around the whole world. These are the conditions that Kabbalists have fixed for us. If we realize them by building external boundaries for ourselves, and bring our desire for spirituality into this system, then this desire begins to grow.

Initially, I have just my single point in the heart. Then, I give it to my friends, thus receiving from them the points that belong to them. This system of connection between us, the souls, already exists. Everything is already prepared in advance during the descent of the worlds from above downwards, in order for us to ascend from our world to the World of Infinity.

All I have to do is tune into this system: Lower myself, see all others as corrected, and desire to receive the Light of Correction through them. Then I will receive desires for bestowal from all the other people, which will increase my desire. This will happen even though I initially had only my own small point in the heart, which probably wasn’t even aimed at the right goal. Yet, I invested in the group, desired to be a part of it, and therefore, I performed an act of bestowal. In response, I received a real force from others, a real desire to bestow.

You suddenly see that you really desire and value this. And then you start to experience fear: “Will I be able to attain bestowal to the Creator or will I complete my life in vain?” These are still egoistic thoughts, but they are already concerning how to attain bestowal. This is called “Lo Lishma“: When one a) aspires to give, and b) thinks about profiting.

It turns out that through the group you receive a more internal direction – to the Creator. But when you aspire to the Creator, you come closer to faith, and thus begin to draw the Surrounding Light upon yourself. It’s not that the Light changes, but it’s you who change, and therefore, the Light influences you differently. Now it can give you the quality of bestowal. When you acquire this quality, you begin to rise above your egoism.

This is what you wanted to achieve from the very beginning, but the Light arranged everything so that it happened according to your own desire, rather than by force. Suddenly you feel how you are filled by the quality of faith, meaning the quality of bestowal, Bina. It gives you freedom from your ego! And it’s not that it liberates you from your egoism, but it gives you the power to ascend above it. That’s when you rise above the Machsom.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/10, Article, “Love of Friends”

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This World Is Just A Starting Point

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator did not create our material world. It exists only in our imagination because we are within the boundaries of our egoism. The moment we transition to bestowal and begin to acquire bestowing desires, the Upper reality (in which we in fact exist and develop) will reveal itself to us.

The lower layer of this material world will continue to exist for it has to constantly provide us with the freedom of choice in attaining spirituality. In this world we go to work or go to buy groceries, yet we know that we have a permanent place of residence, our home and family. The same thing applies to spirituality: There is a place where we permanently exist. We climb and descend spiritual steps, but the lowest level of existence (our world) is always guaranteed to us.

This world is illusory and doesn’t exist anywhere except in our imagination; it’s a basic point that allows us to act on our own for the sake of bestowal. The Creator shows all of us the same movie, thus allowing us to exist within the same reality. That is the reason why the most advanced Kabbalist and the most feeble-minded, silly person perceive the same material world.

It goes without saying that an intelligent person sees our world a little differently and understands more, but in general all of us see the same picture. It makes no difference whether a person possesses specific properties because it doesn’t have anything in common with spirituality.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, The Zohar

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Shaping Our World View To Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why do 90% of the obstacles I get pertain to my physical body (I’m hungry, I’m tired, and so on)? After all, corporeality is far less important than spirituality and contains only a small spark of life.

My Answer: You’re asking why we weren’t given the opportunity to work with spiritual desires, lights, and screens, instead of the corporeal ones. But to the extent that you begin to view the world in waves of bestowal, you naturally stop noticing this world. It stops being the determining world for you. You continue to exist in this world and connecting with people, but without this world being connected to the spiritual world, it loses its meaning. It is merely a consequence, a reflection, of the spiritual worlds that project reality to you.

There is a special technology that projects three-dimensional, holographic images in the air via laser beams. They make all kinds of figures appear in empty space. In a similar fashion, this world is presented to you in illusory images, for this world is but an imprint of what exists in spirituality.

It is our egoistic desire that projects this world for us. For the time being, it can only exist in this form that does not disappear until the very end of correction. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai could be sitting here with us and he would be seeing our corporeal world despite being fully corrected himself. Indeed, this world will only disappear from our senses following the general, final correction.

This world pertains to the general desire to receive pleasure. It is an egoistic desire, yet it is not against the Creator. It is simply a desire to lead an animal life and receive pleasure.
Therefore, it is not considered criminal and does not require correction. You simply need to use it like an animal and shape it into a desire to bestow – the soul.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, The Zohar

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Choosing The Good Fortune In The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: How can I annul myself before the environment if I have no desire to do so?

My Answer: Understand that there is no choice; you are facing the wall. There is a group; annul yourself before it and you’ll receive from it the importance of the goal. It’s like filling up at a gas station. You refuel in the environment, and hence can drive a few more miles. If you refuel again, then you can drive a little further, and so on. You are saying: “I don’t want to get any fuel; it’s hard for me to drive to the gas station, what should I do?” You have no choice, strict laws are at work here.

Ask for your friends to help you, as it is said: “Help a fellow man.” But after you clarify all the conditions, there is nothing to ask for. You should act. Don’t expect to find a back door to spirituality for it does not exist!

There is only one principle: “We are under the influence of the environment which we choose.” The Creator created it this way because we are parts of a single soul, and everybody depends on everybody else. This dependency remains even after the breaking of the vessels. It’s either a good or bad influence, but in any case, a person is completely dependent on the environment.

You were presented with the opportunity to enter the society that aspires to spirituality. However, now it is you who decides how to get established in it. The Creator puts your hand on a good fortune and says: “Take it!” Now everything depends on you, whether you’ll take it or not. He can’t help you with anything else, for otherwise He will deprive you of free will. If He does your work instead of you, your individuality will cease to exist.

But if a person wants to stick to his old ways, meaning behave according to his nature as does the animal within him, it is his choice. How can he become “human”? He has to rise above the “animal” within and understand that he should overcome himself and annul himself before the group. From the first moment, any act consists only in feeling the importance of the others and uniting with them. You won’t be able to do anything alone.

Only together can we change and attain anything. If it’s not together, all that you do will be in vain. You won’t realize yourself as a human being and will remain an animal. A “human” is he who was born by annulling himself before this special environment. It sounds paradoxical, but it is so.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/10, Article, “According to What is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend’”

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The Holographic Picture Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator demands of our souls to unite. Our distancing from each other and feeling as strangers constitutes the entire corruption. The correction, on the other hand, lies in perceiving ourselves as being parts of a single body. Yet, if we simply perceive ourselves as parts of a body working together, it’s not enough.

I have to become incorporated into everybody, they have to become incorporated into everybody else, and so on till infinity! It resembles a holographic picture where each element contains all the others in itself.

We are still unable to imagine this sensorially because we are opposite to such a picture. The breaking of the vessels resulted in us feeling completely separate from each other. We can’t even understand how it is possible to incorporate into each other when there is no “I,” which unites with all the others and becomes a single whole.

When our points in the heart unite, this illusionary reality of physical bodies fades away; only our desires remain. The more correctly each of us attempts to imagine our unification, the closer we move toward the true picture of reality, the only one there is. We only have to draw closer to it and reveal it. This is how we gradually heal ourselves from all these material illusions that envelop us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/10, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.30.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYikra (The Lord Called),” Item 411
Inner disagreement is positive and necessary because by resolving it a person advances forward.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 27
The left and the right line can never achive perfection. Only the middle line, which is the result of unifying with the Creator, can bring them to reconciliation.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 17
The Light acts upon me to the degree of my desire to obtain the quality of bestowal. This desire is acquired through the group, and my success is determined by this desire.
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Rav Baruch Ashlag, According to “What is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend‘” 
My environment forms my future-the fulfillment that I’ll wish to obtain in the mind and in the heart.
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The Fundamental Difference Of Today’s Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Many people in the world now suffer from depression; they don’t leave their homes for months, and require psychological help. What can help them?

My Answer: Depression is the most common illness in the world today. Only one remedy can be advised for it: the Light that Reforms. No psychologist can help in this regard for it is due to the Creator being revealed to us in the opposite form that is prompting rampant depression.

Once each of us felt that he or she was one little person around which the world was revealed in different layers of our egoism: 1, 2, 3. As our ego grew bigger and bigger, we developed in accordance with it by creating a new environment: a world of new technology and social relations. This is how we developed over the course of our entire history, stage by stage, 1 – 2 – 3, toward wealth, honor, and knowledge.

However, today we have come to the fourth level, which is a special one. At this level, what is becoming revealed is the Creator, the quality of “bestowal,” and not our developing ego, our property of “receiving.” This is the fundamental difference of our epoch, which is the epoch of revealing the Creator.

Previously, nature (the Creator) forced us to develop, that is, to grow and become smarter, more knowledgeable, understanding, and powerful. But now human beings have completed their development at the level of this world. People are recognizing the pointlessness of new discoveries, and everything gradually fades, the development of science, space research, and so on. We have completely depleted ourselves.

Today, in contrast to this, the Creator – a new nature – is revealed. And here we need to proceed in a different manner. We cannot enter a new stage with our egoism; we will only harm ourselves. We need to realize that a completely new approach has begun, and neither our strength, nor advanced technologies and scientific discoveries can help us.

Suddenly we will discover that all the systems that we built in this world have stopped working. All the former goals (money, power, knowledge, family, education, and culture) have lost their value. Darkness and despair are coming into the world, but this is because the Creator, the Force of bestowal is being revealed in it. We don’t want it, since it cancels out our egoism, our nature, and all our desires!

It is like a child who ran around wanting to play, and suddenly he is told “That’s enough. Now you have to give and to love. Go play with your little sister.” This is contrary to his nature, and hence his life becomes dark; he immediately loses all his energy.

Therefore, we can understand why people are sitting around depressed, unable to leave their homes for months at a time. Antidepressants are the most popular medicine today. However, I can advise that the Surrounding Light is the only medicine.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Shamati #16

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The Psychological Change That Turns The World Around

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why does Baal HaSulam write that the transition to bestowal is nothing more than a psychological problem? Then what is so difficult about it?

My Answer: The psychological problem consists of beginning to relate to everything that happens to an intentional external influence on you. Afterward, all the worlds will connect together for us. However, for the time being it poses a psychological problem for us.

We need to try to detach slightly from ourselves, as though we are looking at and evaluating ourselves from the side (drunk people sometimes experience a similar sensation of a double vision). We should continuously analyze ourselves and to say that everything that happens in our heart, mind, and life in general is the Creator fulfilling, controlling, and playing with us. "I" is not I, but His game, and I am watching this myself.

I have no other choice. I am completely driven by the inner fulfillment, which He gives me. However, He gave me an additional point from which I could look at myself and say, “Everything you think and everything you feel comes from Him.”

Question (continued): How does one rise above this state?

My Answer: You need to demand from Him to change your nature. The Creator gives you special, external circumstances all the time, and you need to ask Him to change the circumstances within you (your properties) and to bring them into agreement with the external ones (the Creator’s properties).

Suppose we enter a place with particular external circumstances, which we are unable to stand. Usually, in this case we wish to change the environment to suit us. A “psychological change,” however, is understanding that instead of changing external circumstances, we need to change ourselves to match the external circumstances since the externality cannot be changed. We can transform ourselves to resemble the new environment, and then we will feel comfortable in it. This is a psychological change, a new approach to the changes that humanity is going through today.

Even now, like during all times, we wish to change the nature that surrounds us and to arrange the world according to how we understand it. However, we have begun a different program, and this world (the Creator who arranges all this) now demands that we ourselves begin to change in the direction of the Creator.

New circumstances emerge around me: Darkness comes into the world, everything contracts, becomes more confusing, unclear, and scary. But rather than asking to change the world around me, I need to ask to change me.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Shamati #16

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Weekly Torah Portion Lesson – 05.28.10

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Bealutecha,” Selected Excerpts
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Let The Light Shine

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Is bestowal an act or a desire to give?

My Answer: What can you give to the Creator if He doesn’t lack anything except your attitude toward Him? He doesn’t need even this. The only thing He lacks is for you to become like Him. This will delight Him. Why? It’s because, then, you’ll exist in the most comfortable state. “But I don’t want to be in the most comfortable state. I want to think only about bestowal!” If you’re thinking about bestowal, you’re thinking about how to attain the most comfortable state.

What motivates you is essential. If it is to give to the Creator,  for this sake you attain the perfect state, or if  you desire this state because it’s the best and giving to the Creator looks like a reward? What are you working for?

You can’t have the will to bestow without realizing it. If you have this desire, you must fulfill it. The act of bestowal and the desire to bestow are the same. In the spiritual world, there aren’t physical actions. To attain the will to bestow is our entire work. Indeed, what can we give to the Creator? It is the will to bestow onto Him.

We discover the Light of Hochma. In regard to whom must we uncover this Light, the creature or the Creator? The Light of Hochma fills the entire system. You only discover yourself or your own perception by sensing that you enjoy, bestow, and become infinite. Your will (Kli) is the only thing that changes.

“I am bestowing onto the Creator.”  What are you bestowing?  Did He really lack Light before and now He’s got it? You’re giving Him your attitude. Your attitude to Him is called action. Your will is already an act. However, this will must be complete. Otherwise, it isn’t considered a will.

The desire has to evolve through all four stages. Then, undoubtedly, from the 4th stage, its Reflected Light reaches Keter, and this is bestowal. However, where is bestowal in Keter? One feels the he is bestowing onto the Creator, and this is enough. The Creator has no desires (Kelim) for either reception or bestowal. He has nothing.

Yet, when you perceive that you are bestowing to the Creator, it is His pleasure because He’s within you. You allow the Light to shine.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/10, The Zohar

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