Good Environment – 04.26.11

My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice and Principles for the Week

Goodness Has To Become Revealed

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe upper Light leads a person through many ascents and descents, continuously giving him the sensation that only the Creator can help him. After all, He’s the one who sent me all of the troubles in order to finally teach me to pray for redemption.

The redemption is the revelation of the Creator; I ask precisely in order to live under His single power, which is the only thing that exists. I don’t want to get confused any longer or to feel any other forces. Even though I understand that all forces come from Him, yet I want to be controlled just by this single force—the force of bestowal and love for the neighbor.

I want to reveal Him because this is the truth! All my other states are a lie. Only then a demand and outcry is born in a person to which the upper force brings him. This force had always played with him, confusing him to increase his self-assurance, creating difficulties for him so he would become stronger.

That is how a person reaches a prayer and reveals the Creator. Now he does not search for the Creator in order to get rid of all his troubles and searches, but wants to be under the power of “There is none else besides Him.” This means
coming out of Pharaoh’s slavery and becoming a slave of the Creator.
[41546]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, Shamati #1

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Nothing To Your Name

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can we rely on in our spiritual advancement if it’s already clear that knowledge doesn’t matter?

Answer: You can only rely on the environment. Knowledge is worthless. I am willing to forget everything. As the Talmud says, people used to pray to forget what they have already learned. I want to start from a clean slate, like a baby who does not have anything to his name.

Let everything I knew until now vanish from my mind. Let even my heart be empty. I don’t need anything. I want to start from zero, to lose all my possessions. That is the only way we can continue the path, by beginning every day anew.

It would seem like there is so much written in the books, “Remember this, know that, don’t forget about that.” That’s true, but in reality, a person advances when he is ready to become “zero,” when he does not listen to the voice of the present moment.

Therefore, only the environment remains our unchanging source of support.
[41567]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

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Standing At The Threshold

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the concept of “secrets of the Torah” mean?

Answer: A “secret” is something I cannot reveal even though it’s clear to me that it exists. I experience the sensation of a “secret” when standing at the threshold of something new, before opening up the door.

Besides, irrelative of me, “secrets of the Torah” are the Lights that are concealed by Atik. They are in the head of Arich Anpin in the form of a concealed wisdom. These Lights are hidden because right now we do not have a covering for them which would enable us to discern them. However, for me they are not a secret because I do not feel them.

The real secret is the curtain that I feel. For example, exile is the anticipation of redemption, which is felt as extremely necessary but not yet acquired. Inside the very sensation of the emptiness, I already outline the contours of the future fulfillment. This means experiencing oneself in exile: I understand and feel what I want, and all I lack is the implementation.

The same is true for a “secret”: I feel that I lack the quality of bestowal so that inside of its Light of Hassadim I would reveal the Light of Hochma. The knowledge that brings this Light is hidden from me.
[41573]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

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Introductory Lecture “Spiritual Feeling” – 04.26.11

Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Spiritual Feeling”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Spiritual World For Beginners

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Should we only use terms that speak of the laws of nature at the classes for beginners and only later introduce the Kabbalistic terminology?

Answer: No, we can speak openly with the people who come to us with the point in the heart and gradually advance them. But if we were to speak to them about the laws of nature, they would think that we are preaching physics or sociology to them. They need to hear about the structure of the spiritual world. This is what they strive to, and we need to give it to them.
[41458]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Put Yourself In Someone Else’s Shoes

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When a person eases someone’s suffering, does he thereby distance that person from spirituality?

Answer: It seems that the person will suffer less, but then he will not ask himself why there is suffering. Does this mean that if I wish people well, I must force them to suffer?

Basically, the main commandment of the Torah is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Simply put yourself in that person’s shoes. For example, think what would you do if it were your small, favorite child, and then you will do the right thing.
[41468]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Do Children Have A Connection With The Creator?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Are children born with the point in the heart, filled with absolute love?

Answer: No, there are no people born with the point in the heart, full of love of others. On the contrary, a child is born with a ruined point in the heart. It is precisely this black point that we refer to as the “point in the heart.” He needs to develop, expand, correct, and fulfill it through connecting with others.

There are children born with the point in the heart, and there are those whose point in this incarnation has not yet “emerged” and they do not yet feel the question about the meaning of life.

Question: Do small children have contact with the Creator, and do we need to create conditions for the development of their spirituality from their early months of life?

Answer: We begin to work with children after they turn three. Until that age, they do not perceive anything but their animate state.

We need to form the proper attitude towards others in children. They do not understand what others are until the age of three. But at the age of three they develop initial “social relations” with other children, they already play together. This is why it is possible to start working with them.
[41478]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Egyptian Bondage As Big As The Universe

Dr. Michael LaitmanPharaoh and all of his ministers are the Creator’s loyal slaves, meaning “angels” or the forces that realize the program of creation. They carry out the orders of the upper force, the Creator, since besides Him, nothing else exists. But for now, the Creator is placing Pharaoh with all his loyalty as a ruler to work for the Creator and rule over man in this world instead of Him, in order to give us the sensation of darkness and bring us to the need to reveal the opposite force, that of love and bestowal.

Right now, Pharaoh himself is being revealed in our world. Before, only his helpers, his ministers, were being revealed to us. We did not hear about Pharaoh himself until the actual end of the “Egyptian exile,” when it suddenly became announced that “a new king has risen over Egypt.” Until then, certain directors and ministers were in control.

The same also happened in the history of mankind. We were influenced by different smaller forces which pushed the development of human society: new inventions, the discovery of new continents, new technologies, until we reached a global world. And here Pharaoh is beginning to reveal himself: He is the force that prevents and does not let us unite.

Many people around the world already feel that salvation lies only in connection. We see that, given such a degree of interdependence, we are not left with any other choice since the world has become so global. The only way to improve life is to come together. We don’t have any other choice when we depend on each other so much. We won’t be able to divorce one another like in a failed marriage and go our own way. We are living on a single, tiny globe, and we have nowhere to go: We are locked up, like in a cage.

But we are unable to agree with one another in this world, create a common world government, or achieve somewhat of a single opinion, and we constantly argue. And these disagreements will not end; they will only keep growing.

It will be very strange seeing it because everyone really depends on one another: Europe, America, the Arab countries, Asia, Russia, Japan, China. Is it really that difficult to gather in one place, have another “G-50,” and come to some kind of a common agreement? Otherwise, the world will simply go back to the initial “chaos and darkness.”

But people will not manage to come to an agreement. The force of evil will keep getting in the way and stand between them, and they will not be able to understand how they can connect. They will only reveal their inability to connect and will not learn how to attain it. This is because revealing the “means” of connection is the same as revealing the upper force, the only thing that can connect us. This is the state we are heading towards.

This will not be a simple time. So far, people are somehow managing to continue living as before, as if the world has not become global and they can continue to exist without taking the interests of everyone else into consideration. But our development must absolutely lead us to unification. Yet there will be no strength to unite. This is where Pharaoh, who is separating us, will be revealed.

And then, as it is written in the story of Egyptian bondage, “they will cry out (this time it will be the sons of the entire world),” not knowing what to do. And here they will reveal that there is a method, the wisdom of Kabbalah, which reveals the Creator to the creatures in this world.

After all, we won’t be able to have even a very ordinary life in this world without revealing this force. We simply will not be able to exist: We will consume one another. It is in this way that the need for Kabbalah, as the means of revealing the Creator, will be revealed. And we will learn that the world was created this way and has undergone this development only to become like the Creator and unite with Him while striving to reveal Him. The entire program of creation will be realized thereby.
[41290]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

 

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