Good Environment – 07.21.11

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

Without Concealment, We Couldn’t Reveal Perfection

Dr. Michael LaitmanShamati #174 “Concealment″: Concerning the concealment, which is a correction, had it not been for that, man would have been unable to attain any perfection, since he would not be worthy of attaining the importance of the matter.

We were created by the Light as the will to enjoy, and therefore we are entirely in its power and do not feel ourselves as existing. Today we don’t feel our existence yet. What we do feel is a deceitful sensation because it’s only possible to feel separated, distanced, and apart on the condition that you stand opposite the one you are apart from.

But we do not feel that we are standing opposite the Creator, against the Light, and therefore we cannot consider ourselves existing. After all, we are obligated to perceive everything on the contrast of opposites: as “me” and something outside of me. Then, in relation to this “outside,” I will be able to determine who I am.

But in the meantime I remain alone, just an object inside myself. I cannot say anything about myself because there is no one in relation to whom I could measure myself.

Therefore, before a person can stop himself and perform a restriction on his ego, meaning “pass the Machsom” (the boundary into the spiritual world) and stand opposite the Creator, he is not called creation yet. This is called the preparation period, when we are entirely governed from above.

Only after we are ready to take upon ourselves the concealment which arises between us and the Creator, we grow distant from Him and receive an independent existence. Concealment makes the higher goal important to me. To the extent I want to attain this quality and am unable to because it is concealed, that is how much I feel its importance.

Eventually I get to a point where I begin to value the concealment because it turns into my vessel for the Light. It is written, “Wisdom (Hochma) is given to the modest.” Because I make my will to enjoy modest, I am able to attain the Light of Hochma that stands opposite to me, accepting it in the Reflected Light, for the sake of bestowal.

Therefore, concealment expands my spiritual vessel by “620” times and gives me a new necessity—instead of pleasure, I want to attain the importance of the Giver. All of the qualities of the spiritual vessel are present in the actual concealment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/11, Shamati

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What Is The Creator’s Image Built Of?

Dr. Michael LaitmanUsually we make a very common mistake, thinking that we have to reveal the Creator Himself. We wait, “When is He going to be revealed already!?” As if the most important thing is for Him to appear.

But that will never happen. What has to appear is precisely the restriction, our desire to conceal Him from our will to enjoy, from our understanding, so we would have the opportunity to work with Him only on the condition that we give Him pleasure in return.

Then concealment, the aspiration for true bestowal, called “Lishma,” becomes our vessel. Inside of that concealment, we will be able to build the image of the Giver and to understand what bestowal is. Because we will aspire only to bestowal, without any other vestment of pleasure into our desires, we will therefore begin to really attain what spirituality means.

Every person would like to reveal the Creator in the depth of exile. But the issue is how to ask for none other than His concealment while we are in exile, how to preserve this concealment ourselves and elevate it. All the levels of ascent are separated from one another by how much we desire and are able to contain ourselves, to hold us back from revelation, and to reveal ourselves only for the sake of bestowal.

And inside of this attitude to the upper one, our desire to conceal Him, we build His image. The greatness of the Creator that is born inside of us by virtue of this concealment enables us to value him and start feeling His form. That is, the form of the Creator is determined by the form of the importance that we are able to give to Him.

This explanation does not lend itself to being understood easily, but it already directly touches upon the relationship between creation and the Creator in the spiritual world….
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/11, Shamati

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There Is Wisdom Hidden Behind The Simplicity

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur entire soul is built of concealmentfrom the fact that we conceal our will to enjoy in all kinds of ways. The first concealment is a simple concealment. But then I begin to research what I restrict, in which desire I make myself modest, and what I want from myself.

My entire reception can only be for the sake of bestowal, meaning that I build four levels of concealment: concealment upon concealment upon concealment…. And that is how I attain greater importance of the Creator.

But we will never be able to understand His true height this way (or maybe in the new reality, after the end of correction). After all, for now it is entirely composed of what we are able to perceive inside of the concealments we have built.

We cannot value anything that becomes revealed to us clearly, but only by concealing it from ourselves. When a person becomes revealed to us and we start receiving from him openly, we stop respecting him because I now have everything he has. He became revealed to me and treats me simply, and I also treat him simply.

All value is born from concealment. But in spirituality, we do not play “political games,” but reveal ourselves. Precisely others have to make a concealment on themselves in order to attain us.

For example, a teacher in relation to a student opens himself up and comes closer to him. But the student has to make a concealment on him by himself because that is the only way he will be able to receive something from him. Otherwise the teacher will seem simple to him and he won’t be able to absorb his wisdom.

This is why Kabbalists have always carried themselves very simply, while the student’s responsibility is to make a concealment on that.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/11, Shamati

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The Bible According To Americans

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (Gallup News Service): “About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word. This percentage is slightly lower than several decades ago. The majority of those Americans who don’t believe that the Bible is literally true believe that it is the inspired word of God but that not everything it in should be taken literally. About one in five Americans believes the Bible is an ancient book of ‘fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man.’

Belief in a literal Bible is strongly correlated with indicators of religion, including church attendance and identification with a Protestant or other non-Catholic Christian faith. There is also a strong relationship between education and belief in a literal Bible, with such belief becoming much less prevalent among those who have college educations.”

My comment: Obviously, a wide-spread and long-term systematic education is necessary to instill in people an objective view of the world, to raise them from their childish level of perceiving the world to the level where they don’t reject the Bible, but rather understand it sensibly: as the wisdom of a highest level, the next state of humanity.

Humans are created in the property of “reception” (egoism) and sense themselves in it. They call their feelings “this world.” The Bible talks about another way of perceiving the world, in the property of “bestowal” (altruism), and about a sensation in it called “the future or upper world.”

Kabbalah provides an opportunity for a peaceful transition from the perception in the property to “receive” to the perception in the property to “bestow.” Otherwise, the transition will be tragic.

Since we completed our development in the property to “receive” and exist at the beginning of the transition to the property to “bestow,” Kabbalah is being revealed to us today. It suggests that we use it to learn what to expect and how to plan the future.
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The Direct “Reverse” Order

Dr. Michael LaitmanStudents usually have a hard time grasping the concept of the “reverse order of the Light entering the desire.” But in reality it is a very natural process.

If I am at degree zero (Shoresh), I understand and attain only the minimal Light of Nefesh. When my desire grows and attains Level 1 (Aleph), the Light of Nefesh passes into it, while the Light of the next degree (Ruach) enters degree zero.

The Direct Reverse Order

When I was with the Light of Nefesh, meaning with little reason, little strength and calculations, that was the only way I could sense my relationship and connection with the Light. That was all I had.

Now I’ve reached a greater depth of the desire and attained a greater Light. But this Light doesn’t pertain to my current state. At this degree where I’ve ascended with my new, stronger desire, I receive the weakest Light, Nefesh, because I’m only beginning to learn about this new desire.

Yet now I also feel and understand my previous state better. I feel that it was the beginning, the springboard from which I ascended to my present degree. That is why I now attain in it a greater understanding, which is called the Light of Ruach, compared to the Light of Nefesh that I had before.

Suppose that I grew from one to two years of age. At the level of a two-year-old child I don’t yet know the world and myself and I possess a very basic perception and reason (the Light of Nefesh)—I simply exist. But my understanding of what it is to be a one-year-old, including all the previous forms and states, is already better. In them I already have a kind of attainment, the Light of Ruach.

It follows that the more I grow, the smarter I become, only not in my present state. It’s because in spirituality, we always advance by faith above reason, without fully understanding the process, but merely entering into a new state every time. And when I ascend onto this new state, in it I will acquire the Light of Nefesh.

But I have already attained the previous states and recognized their necessity and inevitability. I know why they actualized in me the way they did, why I underwent the entire string of these states. That is why in these state I sense NaRaNHaY (Nefesh-Ruach-Neshama-Haya-Yechida).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Don’t Rush To Be An Angel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I think that I have already torn myself away from my ego. What do I do next?

Answer: You cannot tear yourself away from the ego. It is a great and lengthy work that continues through all the degrees of your spiritual ascent. This is because the higher you ascend along the degrees of the spiritual worlds, the more your ego grows.

You are presently in a state where, indeed, you barely feel the ego at your current degree. What can you do about that? I think that you don’t study enough. If you study more, together with us and more intensively, your ego will have no choice but to grow quickly.

The growth of the ego depends on whether or not you have the tools to work with it. If you’re connected to the group, to dissemination, to our lessons, and to my blog, then your ego will grow every second, and you won’t be able to escape it. You will discover that it’s terrorizing you, and then you will be able to work with it. However, if you’re weak, you will not be given this kind of ego, and you will sit there peacefully and think that you’re already an angel.

In reality, this cannot be. If you don’t feel the blows of the ego every second that arise in us so that we could correct them, all that it means is that you’re not yet sufficiently connected with the group and the study.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 7/17/2011

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A Sage Raises Himself As A Newborn

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf a person does not aspire to fulfill himself egoistically, if he does not wait for the Light to come and fulfill him without any preparation, but understands that the Light is a sensation within a desire, such a person wishes to change himself and is called a sage.

He understands that he was allowed only to experience an initial, small impression, and he will only experience all the other phenomena under the condition of developing his desire according to the four phases of the Direct Light. There, at the last phase of the development of desire, he will feel that he bestows, and in accordance with it, he will experience life in bestowal called the upper Light.

So, a sage is someone who sees a “newborn,” a new state that is being born. With his actions and the help of the Light influencing him, he reaches such profound changes in his desire that he transitions from reception, the desire to receive pleasure, to the desire to bestow and the sensation of love, which is life.

His desire changes, and he begins to feel himself coming closer to the action of bestowal which initially repulsed him. At first, he forced himself to act. However, by exerting effort and attracting upon himself the influence of the Light, he came to a point when he actually started to desire bestowal.

This is a miracle of the Light. It acts in response to our efforts, even without our initial desire, and changes it. This way, the desire goes through qualitative stages of development and becomes a new desire.

A person who is wise enough to see the “newborn,” the new desire being conceived in him, the need to bestow, exerts effort and understands that he is working against the constant Light, the “Good Who does Good.” He uses the Light that Reforms. This way, he goes through one state after another, stage after stage, and comes to the Light of life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, Shamati #122

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Learning To Perceive Goodness

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are used to seeing clear, familiar phenomena of our world, which do not change. On the other hand, some phenomena do depend on the way we use them. For example, there is electricity which we can use to produce different and completely opposite actions such as to acquire cold and heat. Fire that can heat or burn is another example. Basically, everything depends on the way it is used. In other words, everything depends on the user, the desire (Kli) that this force clothes into.

It is the same regarding the upper Light. It contains everything, including the desire itself, all the phenomena that can happen in it, and all the impressions it will perceive from the Light.

A common beginner’s mistake is to think that the Light is something specific and constant that is always good. But this is not always so. There is even the notion of Pulsa de Nura (lashes of fire), a curse. Overall, all the best and all the worst things come from the Light. It is like electricity: Everything depends on the way it is used.

For this reason, the definition of the Creator as “Good Who does Dood” refers to the Light, a phenomenon that can be accepted and revealed only in the desires to bestow. It is impossible to receive and feel this goodness in an egoistic desire. It simply does not exist there.

Since the desire to bestow is not limited by anything, and the nature of the actual Light in its root of the “Good Who does Good” is unlimited, the phenomenon called Light and life can only be experienced in a desire that is fully directed toward bestowal. All the other, opposite forms are not called life and Light.

We would like to reach the sensation of the Good Who does Good, but we do not understand that this means nothing other than the sensation of bestowal and love. It is like when a drug addict thinks that good states only exist under the influence of drugs, not understanding that there is a way to receive pleasure from other things.

For this reason, our objective is to prepare the desire, the vessel, in order to perceive the quality of bestowal. As it is written: “Wisdom is given to sages.” This means that it is given to those who understand that they do not exist in the quality of bestowal, and that this is the only nature they need to reach to receive the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), the Light of life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, Shamati #122

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The Result Of The Lesson

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In his article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Baal HaSulam writes that we have to act without any payment, without any compensation, and without any admixture of self-love. How can we cleanse ourselves from the expectations of reward, of good results?

Answer: You have the tools: the Kabbalistic method called the Torah and the group. If you want to unite with the entire group and build a future world in it as a proper example for everyone, do this.

How can you unite? You can unite through the Torah. The Light in it reforms. Everyone should feel how much he is disconnected or connected with others. Each must try to check all the time whether he gives an impulse to connect.

Finally, our aspiration is necessary during studying. Where is the prayer during the lesson? Where is the prayer that motivates you to unite?

There is a common network; however, its threads are cut off, and we have to reconnect them. We come to the lesson to study the broken ties between us and to understand how to weave them back together. These are the results that we should expect from the lesson. Are we expecting them?
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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