Valuing The Means As Highly As The Goal

Dr. Michael LaitmanMan is naturally able to take only his own egoistic desire into consideration. Wherever it might throw him in, whatever it may give value to in his eyes, he considers only what is important to his ego. This is how a person evolves.

Advancement by the orders of the will to receive is conducted on the scale of “bitter or sweet.” Without being aware of it, a person always turns in the direction of unfolding egoism. He carries out internal orders of egoism unconsciously, having no idea where they come from. This is how we live our lives, without free will, obeying internal urges of our egoistic Reshimot (informational genes).

If a person is presented with an opportunity to establish connection with the Creator and undertake another type of analysis, on the scale of “true or false,” then in order to carry it out, he must immediately arrange support for this analysis for himself.

Support is the environment. Without it, a person will remain in “bitter or sweet” experiences forever and will surely continue to choose sweet over bitter, in various forms, according to the degree of the development of his egoism. And he will always have an illusion of advancement, although in reality, time after time, he just chooses a more refined sweet.

If a person really wants to grow toward independence, he can do so only if he counters the “bitter or sweet” sensations with the “true or false” analysis. This analysis has to be done according to the external criteria that lie outside of his egoism, which only the environment can provide.

In this case, it’s all in the hands of luck: Does a person hear what independence that he has a chance to form and implement involves? If he does, at least to a small degree, he nullifies himself before the teacher, Kabbalistic books, and the group (the environment).

He puts this in front of him, and then realizes that his advancement depends solely on the awareness of the importance of how high he elevates his view of the importance of this environment compared with the sweetness of egoistic desires.

This is the nature of our work. Is a person able to employ the power of our studies, prayer, and analysis in full and accept the view of the right environment? After all, it isn’t something external, not just the faces of the friends. He forms an internal image of the environment and is willing to lower his head before them. And then, by virtue of the environment, a person receives an awareness of the Creator’s greatness.

Initially, there are only two: a person and the Creator. And now, he starts actualizing this principle. If the environment (the means) is as important to him as much as the goal (the Creator) is, he starts working with this tool correctly.

A person’s job is to value the environment as highly as he values the Creator. And this requires constant work. If a person values the environment because it brings him to attainment of the Creator, then to that degree he advances.

Consequently, one can test himself in practice: What motivates him each moment? Is it internal urges, such as “bitter or sweet” sensations or values absorbed from the environment, such as “true or false”? And “truth” is the greatness of the Creator. That is what a person works for: the integral force of love and bestowal, which he wants to connect to until the point of total adhesion.

Therefore, the opinion of the environment has to be firm and consistent so that it may obligate each friend to remember about the goal (attainment of the greatness of the Creator) and about the means (attainment of the greatness of the group. If the environment thinks about it and places this analysis as mandatory before all of the friends every moment, thereby, it provides great support to everyone.

Here begins the mutual guarantee, and a person receives a chance to come to the revelation of the Creator.
[35286]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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A Flying Jump

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe work in a “binary,” discrete form, by way of individual impulses: yes or no, connection or no connection, ascent or descent, right or left. In this way, little by little, we add one step after the other, and all of this finally forms into one integral whole.

When it is necessary to calculate the area of a certain complex shape, scientists use an integral equation: They fill this complex form with squares that can be measured and make them smaller and smaller, and in the end, they sum it all up.

On one hand, the connecting grid that works between the souls within which we reside is discrete, with individual impulses and actions. But in the end, as a result of our attainment, when we penetrate it deeper and deeper, it gets transformed into an integral network. In other words, there is such an enormous amount of ties and actions, which depend on each other so much, that we get infinity.

It isn’t just a sum at the rung where I accumulate all these properties and actions, but it is also their “summarizing” component that has another essence, from a higher spiritual degree. Conversely, from the discrete form we are moving toward the integral one. The “integral form,” the sum of these discrete forms is the Creator, One, as it is written: “He and His Name are one.” We are approaching this integral form discretely, yet by accumulating a little more with each time, by adding our little “bricks,” we connect to the One.

We, ourselves, can never reach this One. We do everything we can at our current degree, accumulate the necessary sum of efforts, and reach the degree equal to “10 Sefirot.” And finally, the leap to the next degree occurs.

But I cannot leap on my own; the upper force gives me a lift. This force is the “summing up factor,” the One. And then, instead of “10,” I reach 1 (One), like a calculator which after 10 of my clicks jumps to the next digit.

This is how we keep accumulating all our corrections until the force of “Rav Paalim u-Mekabtziel” arrives, and Gmar Tikkun (the final correction) occurs!
[35318]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, "The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah"

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 02.18.11

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “The Still and the Vegetative”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Seventh Commandment,” Item 225, Lesson 1
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag “The Freedom,” Lesson 14
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“Ask The Kabbalist” – 3

 


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