Good Environment – 12.02.10

My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

Kabbalah Moments: That’s How You Grow

When The Alarm Rings

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn their books, Kabbalists only write about the soul. They do not touch our world which is below the life line. It is an illusion given to us temporarily so we would begin to awaken from this dream and build a true life.

Now, think how to value your friends who can help you awaken toward a new life. Understand that you are together in a dream, and only a tiny spark that you have been given can help you come out of it. This is similar to the times when you sleep, and you understand that you can wake up if you try. This “clue” that can help you wake up is the “point in the heart.”

When you connect all the points that wish to awaken and demand for the “alarm to ring,” the Upper Force will awaken you. It will pull you out of this dream. Otherwise, we will all just continue sleeping.

The only possibility to reveal the spiritual world is being in this dream. There is nothing lesser than it, lesser than the beastly existence, lower than this illusionary life.

The only thing that will remain after death is what you have attained in the spiritual world while in this life. Where would something else come from? Why does it not exist now? How does your animate body get in the way? Why do you need to suffer now to enjoy later?

We only have what we perceive within the desire to receive pleasure. If, in addition to the perception of my corporeal life, I will also acquire a spiritual one, then I will definitely have it. It does not depend on the corporeal life. There are two types of desires: one is “for your own sake,” and the other “for the sake of bestowal.”

This means that, for now, I will continue living simultaneously in two worlds, and once the body dies, I will continue living just in the spiritual world. The animate body dies and ceases to perceive this reality in its five senses, similar to as if I had lost my hearing now. This way, all the corporeal sensations disappear.

Egoistic desire cannot exist forever; it has a limit. However, once you acquire the desire to bestow, it is eternal.
[27676]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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Kabbalists About Kabbalah Today, Part 5

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

An Opportunity for Redemption

Our generation is the generation of the days of the Messiah [the generation that is rising from egoism to the property of bestowal and love of  another]. This is why we have been granted the redemption of our holy land from the hands of the foreigners [to stop our dependence a foreign power and create a state as a group of people who strive to attain the Creator]. We have also been rewarded with the revelation of The Book of Zohar, which is the beginning of the realization of the verse, “for the earth [desire made by the Creator] shall be full of the knowledge [Light] of the Lord.” “And they shall teach no more [religious stories]… for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them(Jeremiah 31).

Yet, we have only been rewarded with giving from the Creator, but we have not received anything into our own hands [we are not ready to implement correction]. Instead, we have been given a chance to begin with the work of God, to engage in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma. Then we will be granted the great success that is promised to the generation of the Messiah, which all the generations before us did not know. And then we will be rewarded with the time of reception of both the complete attainment [of the Upper World, the Creator] and the complete redemption [from our egoistic nature].
– Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar
[26896]

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Life Inside The Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: While reading The Zohar, who can I identify with in the text instead of imagining some abstract forces?

Answer: We can imagine only one thing: the connection between us. In the end, we exist inside Malchut. Parts of Malchut unite with each other in all possible connections. It is a net of connections that constantly change, like in an electric device or computer. The matter, the desire to receive pleasure, remains an unchanged, rigid desire.

The forces inside the desire begin to work, serving as the material with which they can connect to each other. We exist within this desire along with the force that works in it. And everything that this force does inside the desire is done because we created it this way, as though we printed it using a model, and that’s it.

Inside this desire are “impulses,” the forces of good and evil, Light and darkness, two influences from the Creator which pass through this desire. We perceive and feel our reality as “me” and “the world” I live and feel within this material. We are talking only about the forces that act inside this matter, the desire to receive pleasure.

Thus as we read The Zohar, we wish to completely leave the picture of this world since it is false. I am situated in the desire to enjoy, and the force that acts in it is presented to me. And there is nothing else, no pictures or images.
[27926]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Zohar

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A Cry In The Desert

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does raising MAN mean?

Answer: MAN is a plea to become like the Creator. It occurs when a person feels helpless, as though he’s in a middle of a desert. He is stripped of all things, he’s withered, and others can’t help him. He understands that he has no chance of reaching love and bestowal. He feels weak and “surrounded by lions,” desires that are “devouring” him. His life is in danger and he is unable to get out of this state and enter bestowal.

The whole world is at a person’s feet except for bestowal and love for his friend or the Creator. It doesn’t matter what pleasures the ego fills itself with; if the quality of love and bestowal doesn’t stand behind all of these things, the person is lost in the desert. In this desert, this empty ego, a person’s spiritual desire becomes so powerful that it makes him cry out, and this cry reaches the goal.
[27907]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Rose”

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Accept The Creator’s Invitation

Dr. Michael LaitmanNever in history has there been such a powerful environment as our world group, which aspires to reveal spirituality so much, prepares for it, and gives every person the opportunity to join it and draw energy from it. Indeed, all the necessary forces are already present inside it. Let every person imagine that he is in the position of Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma, who valued his environment so much that he was not willing to leave it at any price.

Start to value your environment. It is the only place where I reveal spirituality and the only condition that the Creator has placed before me. It is the only free action; nothing else will help.

This is exactly where our “evil inclination” is concealed, the Machsom. The entire problem lies only in this and all the efforts must be placed only here.

We are now at a very critical state! Either we will “freeze” in this state or we will make a super effort and approach the second blow to Pharaoh. The second blow will be of a completely different quality. We are starting to reveal Pharaoh, his qualities, even deeper inside us, and the qualities of the Creator against it.

The Creator tells Moses: “Let’s go to Pharaoh together with Me.” It is necessary to attain both of them together, one against the other. The Creator hardens Pharaoh’s heart so you would get to know the Creator in opposition to this. That is why He says, “Let’s go!” So accept the invitation!
[28483]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, Writings of Rabash

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Intention Is Reflected Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person who listens to the lesson and does not understand it has to think about the intention even more than others. Everything is clear in the intention and there is nothing to explain about it; it is the thing that a person has to discern for himself! Clarify exactly what you want. Even if your desires do not suit spirituality, the Upper Light will influence you during the study, gradually attuning you correctly. The most important thing is that you are trying to analyze your intentions.

Our efforts are not made in the study or in understanding, but in the intention: Why am I studying, what for, and what do I want from it? Even if all of your inner calculations are incorrect, it doesn’t matter. If you activate the intention, the Light influences it. The Light does not affect the desire, but only the intention (which is egoistic in order to turn it into being altruistic) because it comes from Above through the worlds, already clothed in intention, in the Reflected Light.

Therefore you cannot receive the Upper Light unless you also create Reflected Light. Reflected Light is the intention.

Therefore we have no choice; everything depends only on how we activate the intentions. Even if they are incorrect, like the intentions of a baby who doesn’t understand anything yet, it doesn’t matter. The most important thing is for the Upper Light to have something to correct!
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Watching Life From "The 10th Floor"

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the secret of life?

Answer: The secret is to change the direction of this life from reception to bestowal, to “love for the neighbor” or at least to the principle, “Do not do to another what you yourself hate.”

As soon as you start to go in the direction of bestowal, you come out of your narrow world where you are locked and operate like a robot, following specific, deterministic laws that are set in advance. Nothing can escape the boundaries of the law. We only think this way because of concealment and lack of knowledge.

For example, suppose I am looking down at what is happening from the 10th story and I see how a car is about to turn the corner, whereas a person who is entering the street does not see the car and therefore gets run over by it. Or I see how a person leaves his car in a place he isn’t supposed to, but there is already a policeman coming in his direction in order to give him a fine.

I see all of this from above, but the people below don’t see any of it! But does this lack of knowledge enable them to say that this event is pure coincidence? For me it isn’t a coincidence because I see how everything was interconnected ahead of time. This is not just a fantasy, but a certain revelation.

Sometimes we look at a baby and understand that something is about to happen as a result of what he is doing. We already know it ahead of time, but he does not know because he lacks knowledge about himself. Therefore, we have no freedom of choice; there is only lack of knowledge.

The deeper we reveal this world, the more we feel how we are bound in iron chains. There is no freedom – not in thought, nor in desire, nor in action. The only thing we can do is change our direction. Our current paradigm is entirely aimed at reception for our own sake; it is completely limited and it is limited by ourselves or our desire.

However, we are able to change it to the opposite, from minus to plus! Start bestowing and you will see what you can do through it! You already have the root of that future altruistic desire, “the point in the heart.” You must only attract the force that will develop it. Then you will no longer be limited in this regard because you will come out of yourself to the outside!

After going through all of our development we will eventually reveal that the animate body we are placed in contains nothing “human” besides one single point! If you focus on the body, then you are an animal, and if you are focus on this point in the heart, then in it you reveal the human.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/10, “Body and Soul”

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Weekly Torah Portion – 12.02.10

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Meketz,” Selected Excerpts
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