Good Environment – 04.27.11

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

The Beginning Of Birth

Dr. Michael LaitmanI think that the days of unification during Passover went really well for us. Essentially, we have revealed a very important moment in man’s spiritual development, which marks the beginning of his spiritual birth, the beginning of the exit out of the spiritual exile: The “place” of the unity of the group, the friends, was discovered in each one of us.

This sensation of the single spiritual place needs to expand. This is the new reality. When a person does not abandon the concern for this “place,” he quickly advances towards its realization. At the end, it will become the place of the revelation of the Creator and will further develop to a point of complete adhesion of the created being with the Creator: the world of Infinity.
[41531]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/2011, “Disclosing A Portion, Covering Two”

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Want To Know The Creator? Done Deal!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is necessary to understand that we are before the Creator, the force that is good and does good, and that there is none else besides Him. What will you ask of Him? He treats you 100% well and doesn’t change. What will you ask, that He should treat you 101% well?

Our plea to the Creator is regarded as the development of our sensory organs. Then, by arranging our desire, constantly molding it into a more correct form, we reach a state where we must know the Creator in all His totality, His authentic form. And this is regarded as a prayer, after which we get to know the Creator.

We don’t order any actions of the Creator. After all, He is “one, unique, and unified” and “there is none else besides Him.” It can be said that He acts constantly or not at all, while we reside in Him and that’s it; He does not change. It all depends on how we view the Creator.

Thus, to pray, in Hebrew, means to “judge oneself.” We judge ourselves or change, and due to our internal transformations, feel a new, other reality. Hence, we always speak on behalf of desires (Kelim), whereas the Light, or the Creator, is at absolute rest.

Therefore, a plea to the Creator reflects solely to what extent I have corrected myself and acquired new organs of perception, in which I reach the revelation of “There is none besides Him, the good who does good.” And no action ever derives from the Creator as such.
[41540]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/2011, Shamati No.1

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Before The Desired Breakthrough

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is written that everybody crosses the Red Sea: men, women, elderly, children, the cattle, and so on. We, too, have to gather all our strength, each of us individually and everyone together. If we put forth this effort, we will definitely enter the spiritual realm.

It has never happened before and it will never happen that a person was ready for the exodus. Indeed, the exodus from Egypt is a blow from Above, which takes us from one place and transfers to another. A person cannot identify this state in advance and stands no chance of reaching it independently. It can’t be measured or predicted.

We only need to join forces and pressure, push, until it happens. What’s more, it will happen without a warning, forcefully, “in haste.” It may happen tomorrow, a day after tomorrow or in a week, it’s not important. We only need to anticipate redemption, and we will acquire it.

Let me dip into the past, into the Egyptian hell again and again, not feeling any progress. Let the efforts that I exerted a moment ago go down the drain, let me feel desperate and weak again. Let me gather my strength anew each time, in order to aspire to unification. Despite all this, I need to keep trying, harder and harder.

Baal HaSulam writes that a true, seasoned, steadfast desire is formed gradually. Overcoming hardships, we finally reach a force that shoots our desire like an arrow—and it receives a response. This is the only way to escape egoism.

Hence, do not think that we worked for nothing. Not at all. It’s just that our efforts accumulate and ultimately produce a result. We only need to be sure that we gather our efforts; at the end, they reach a required measure and bring us closer to the desired breakthrough.

I think it is very close. We only need to anticipate it every moment.
[41378]
From the talk during the festive meal 4/22/2011

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The Correct Attitude Toward Sacred Books

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen reading a Kabbalistic article, a person needs to attune himself or herself correctly to its perception. Not a single word in the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks of our world, ever. We do not exist in this world. It is an imaginary world; it is not taken into account at all and does not fit in with the entire system of the worlds. It simply does not exist!

Therefore, Kabbalah does not talk about this world, man’s physical body, or certain geographical places: the land of Israel, the Sinai desert, Egypt, or Babylon. It only concerns itself with the internal states a person undergoes in his aspiration to reach correction, the purpose of creation.

If a person has the point in the heart and aims himself or herself at the purpose of creation, on the path toward this goal, he begins to experience various states. The wisdom of Kabbalah and all the Kabbalistic books—the Torah, Talmud, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Mishna, and so on—describe these states, these degrees in particular. All spiritual, “sacred” books talk exclusively about “sanctity,” meaning about reaching the property of bestowal referred to as sanctity.

Hence, while reading these articles, we need to completely sever ourselves from all familiar material pictures and images and imagine only spiritual degrees, meaning the degrees of coming closer to or further away from the property of bestowal. They talk only about it. These books describe desire created by the Creator, its state in each of us, and our experience on the path when, from our current state, we start aspiring to the property of bestowal, to love of another, which is called “sanctity.”
[41393]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

A Gun Against Your Temple

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: An example of mutual guarantee at the cellular level is very convincing. One can easily imagine how the cells act for the sake of the body, leaving for themselves only life’s necessities. But why is it so hard to imagine mutual guarantee at our human degree?

Answer: It is because we do not see this system with our own eyes. If we saw it now, we would have no freedom of will and would be forced to comply with its laws. If the necessity to bestow is suffocating me, if I have two options: to die or to give myself away for the benefit of others, then I surely agree; “Take everything I have.”

I as though feel a gun against my temple:
“Give everything you have!”
“Take it, I can’t help it.”
Death is not an option—they would take everything anyway. This is the absence of choice.

This is why our interconnection is hidden from our sight, and we are unable to comply with it. What can be done? With the help of the environment, I have to come to a state when I will put a gun against my own temple.
[41409]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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How To Avoid Tsunamis

Dr. Michael LaitmanA child’s question: The Creator promised Noah that there wouldn’t be another flood. So why was there another tsunami?

Answer: That’s a difficult question. I’m not used to viewing the Torah as a historical tale. The corruption that happened then—the sin of Adam and all the other transgressions leading up to today—is still the same corruption, and we are beginning its correction only now.

The reason for disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes, past or future, is that we are causing an imbalance. Does the Creator really promise that the blows will stop? No. He promises that there won’t be a flood that would wash away the whole world!

The flood means that malicious waters arrive and wash away everything, leaving only the point in the heart. It really did happen once because a corruption of that magnitude had to happen, but no more. We are facing only correction. But if we don’t correct ourselves in time, we ourselves trigger the blows that befall us.

I hope that we will be able to avoid them, but we must feel responsible for what’s happening. After all, if the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed, and we know that by building on our interconnection, we correct the world, we are capable of preventing misfortunes.

Remember what the Creator said to Abraham: “If I find ten righteous men in Sodom, I will not destroy it with an earthquake.” But there were not ten good people, and so the earthquake happened.

If we so desire, we are capable of saving the world from suffering. Everything depends on us. I hope that we will be successful because we really need to take this seriously.
[41304]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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The Remote Control To All The Souls

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Ever since we started studying the article “There is none else besides Him,” I feel totally confused about the intention. If the upper Light is constantly at work, doing 100%, then what is the “Light that reforms?” And whom do I ask for it? From whom do I demand it for others? What works here if everything is inside of me?

Answer: Suppose I have a remote control. I press a button and activate some kind of mechanism. Nowadays there are many devices that work this way. However, if you were to show this to a person who lived 100 years ago, he would think that you are simply an angel that performs miracles: You press a button and suddenly the glass turns into a picture….

That is, using the remote control I can activate various systems. For example, I press a button and you, who are looking at a piece of glass (a screen), start to receive all sorts of impressions. You start crying and then laughing, experiencing worry and then joy. It turns out that by simply pressing a button, I made such a powerful impact on you. I influenced a friend.

Kabbalists say that when reading The Book of Zohar, it’s as if you are holding the remote control to all the souls and they depend on you. Think about how you awaken them! This is called “pressing a button.” If you think about this, then you “press the button” and activate an influence that causes them to begin awakening.

Everything depends on how much you desire for this to happen and how many other people also aspire to awaken others. All the efforts must be both qualitative and quantitative.

That is how we awaken one another. No one can awaken himself. Every person can attain this spiritual community called “the group” only in order to awaken others. Otherwise, he does not even come in contact with the group. That’s because the group is like Malchut of the world of Atzilut.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/11, The Zohar

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That Elusive “Faith Above Reason”

Dr. Michael LaitmanShamati #13, “A Pomegranate”: The measure of the filling is as much as one can go above reason, and this is called Romemut.

There is only emptiness in a place where there is no existence, as it is written, “hangeth the earth over nothing.” You find that what is the measure of the filling, of the empty place? The answer is, according to one’s elevation of oneself above reason.

This means that the emptiness should be filled with loftiness, meaning with above reason, and to ask of the Creator to give one that strength. It will mean that all the emptiness was created, meaning it comes to a person to feel thus, that he is empty, only in order to fill it with the Romemut [greatness] of the Creator. In other words, one is to take everything above reason.

We do not know what “faith above reason” is. It is a total separation from all of our calculations. I remember how three or four months after I started studying with Rabash, I asked him, “What is faith above reason, since it is written that a person must always be in it?” At that time, I even wrote down on my hand that one mustn’t forget to think about faith above reason, even though I did not know what this was. As I was sitting in the car behind the wheel next to Rabash, I looked at what was written on my hand and asked him: What is the meaning of this concept?

In reply he gave me an example that is, of course, limited by the boundaries of this world: Suppose that a friend borrowed a thousand dollars from you and later returned the envelope to you as if it had the entire sum inside. But you find only one dollar inside. Your friend says that there is a thousand dollars inside, but according to your calculation there is only one. Where are the other $999?

That is when you can advance by faith above reason. That is, you attain such a correction (rather than just forgiving your friend the debt!) that you perceive this dollar as if you received a thousand instead of one, as if the friend returned everything to you.

But how do you perceive the $999 that are missing? This is called the force of faith above reason. It is impossible to understand what this means ahead of time. Only when this force becomes revealed inside of us as a result of our inner efforts, inside of our desires, when we change, then we see that we really can make up for the knowledge with faith, and this faith is bestowal instead of reception.

In any case this will remain unclear until a person actually acquires this quality.
[41537]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, Shamati

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