Kabbalah For The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday a completely new paradigm, a new worldview, and a new approach is arising before us that has never existed before. In the past we changed the world, but now the world is invariant and we have to change ourselves.

These inner changes in a person can come only by his choice, by his desire, by a conscious decision that he makes with every step. And Kabbalah is essentially the method, the action plan on this path.

By definition, the science of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to creation. By changing, a person reaches similarity with nature. And being similar to nature means being similar to the Creator. A person (Adam) is one who is similar (Domeh) to the upper one. This is what we must constantly discover in the process that is sweeping the world forward.

By having a Kabbalistic method and being its representatives in our world, we have to help all of humanity by disclosing this method in all sorts of ways. Obviously, it has to be done with the understanding that people resist changes, don’t want them, and look down on them. That’s true, but nevertheless, this is how everything should be. And on our part, we have to improve the presentation in order to bring the method to the people in a comfortable and pleasant form.

Otherwise, the world will of course suffer more and more from one day to the next, becoming immersed in confusion, helplessness, and bewilderment. People can become so confused that matters will escalate to a war. After all, when you are confused and disoriented under a hail of blows, your nerves can give way.

And then you will be willing to do anything just to stop the chaos. Even war will seem like salvation because it seems to put everything in their place. Just like a person can go into a rage, so can humanity, and in our days, we understand that this means a world war.

It’s up to us: How quickly will we assimilate the science of Kabbalah and place it on the runway in a clear, correct presentation for the whole world? All of us together have to become an enlightening, educational organization that helps and explains to people how to change in order to establish the right interconnection and thereby reach equivalence with nature or with the Creator, which is the same thing.

If we don’t attain balance and harmony with nature, then besides social failures, we will feel its devastating blows, which will finish us off. After all, even in human society today, we are incapable of anything until we change ourselves. Egoism is evoking an enormous amount of social problems, but we cannot stop.

The consumer society is depleting the earth, 200 years of the industrial era have exhausted all of its resources and soon they will dry up completely. Drinking water, oil, and other resources are all nearing their end. Eventually we won’t even be able to lead a normal life, not to mention the excesses. And still, we are incapable of holding ourselves back, of limiting production and pollution.

And we won’t be able to do that until we change man’s nature. No artificial solutions will help us. We still put our hopes on the old methods, but nature no longer accepts “payment by credit” from us. It will accept only one thing from us: harmony with it, homeostasis with this global system.

The need to change man is forcing us, Kabbalists, to come out of the previous boundaries and start making actions on the scale of the whole world. And we don’t have any other choice. As Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Science of Kabbalah and its Essence”: As a whole, Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator. Where? In a person. According to what? His equivalence of form. A person acquires similarity to the Creator, the all-enveloping, global nature, becoming a single whole with it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/11, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and its Essence”

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How To Measure Spiritual Acceleration

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the material world we know how to measure acceleration. But how can we do it in our spiritual progress, with the help of what?

Answer: You measure the acceleration by evaluating your connection with the group. You don’t have anything else. This is why one common soul was broken into many souls – so you would have a means to change, a place to work and make efforts, so you could assess how far or close you are to them – and not simply to people, but to their desires to reveal spirituality, the Creator. You check whether you are among these desires, together with them, so that in the right connection, in the mutual guarantee between you, you will reveal the Creator.

Therefore you can assess your spiritual state only in relation to these desires of your friends – how close are you together with them to the upper world.

Question: But where is the acceleration here? How can it be measured?

Answer: From one day to the next, from one minute to the next, you evaluate this connection. There is a distance between you and others, and you assess whether it is becoming reduced or not, how, with constant speed or with acceleration. Acceleration is speed that increases at every moment.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbaalh Lesson 7/22/11, The Zohar

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The Generation Burnt-Out At Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News: (Why You Burn out and How to Revive, by J.Borysenko, The Daily Mail): “This week, a study found that those putting in more than an eight-hour day, five days a week, are six times more likely to suffer burn-out syndrome….

“In fact, it’s an issue that’s becoming increasingly problematic now that redundancies have left the remaining staff to cope with impossible workloads, too afraid to object for fear they’ll be next in the firing line.

Dr. Borysenko, a Harvard-trained scientist and psychologist, believes women suffer so severely because they are more likely than men to be people-pleasers who ignore their own needs….‘Burn-out is a disorder of hope. It sucks the life out of competent, hard-working people. You lose motivation and vitality,’ says Dr Borysenko….

“‘There are several brain changes when we’re overwhelmed. The fear centre in the brain is activated, our frontal lobe works differently and we lose emotional control.’… ‘You can’t behave like that at work, so you hold yourself back. But when you get home, it’s easy to take it out on the person who loves you or your children. The danger is that it poisons relationships and family life.’”

My comment: Parents, if they wish so, need to stay at home with their children. Children (and parents) should study from home through TV and the Internet, getting general education for everyone, and be required to attend only discussions and physical training, chosen by them. We have to work less and produce only the necessities; otherwise, we will burn-out or stop only when, having exhausted the Earth, we will find out that there is nothing else to process.
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Our World Is Like The Titanic

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion: (Giulio Tremonti, Italian Economy and Finance Minister, msnbc.msn.com): Addressing the Senate shortly before the vote, Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said Europe needed a political solution to the unraveling debt crisis because no country would be spared dire consequences.

‘No-one should have any illusions of individual salvation. Just like on the Titanic, not even the first class passengers will be saved,’ he said, referring to Europe’s stronger economies.”

My comment: The world is in a predicament todayif you look at its state from a traditional perspective. Or the situation is quite the opposite if you understand that nature has given us a problem to solve: to develop towards integral society, and we have to tackle it now, without being lazy or delaying the decision. Otherwise, we will have to “work on the mistakes,” and it will be even more difficult.

The problem is in a new attitude towards the world: We must learn how to see it as single, closed, and interconnected and to realize that these connections were manifested from within human society which has developed to this level. We have no way back.

There is only one way out: to learn how to live in the new system by changing people in accordance with it. That is, we need universal upbringing and education: to study a new nature of the world.

The world has become integral and unified, and this means that we all are completely dependent on each other. To the degree that we can behave like this, we will win. Otherwise, we will lose.
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Wisdom Comes With Experience

Dr. Michael LaitmanOnly one desire exists; only it had been created and then began to develop. It is not divided into levels or parts: It is divided by the states of awareness of itself. All the time, I reveal the first state more and more.

The spark of Light created the point of darkness, and creation was over. Now, this point of darkness, the point of desire, begins to discover: Who am I, who created me and with what purpose, what should I do, and what do I want from the Light and from myself? It keeps digging into itself and clarifies, learns more about itself and through self-realization, discovers the Light that created it.

There is nothing else in the entire universe except the creature who learns more about the Creator. But the reality does not change. The Light filled the desire, and now the desire perceives this single state more deeply.

All the changes occur only in consciousness, sensation, reaction, but inside the same substance. That is why I feel a little bit in my very first state; I only begin to sense myself existing in it, as if I am waking up. This is called the Light of Nefesh in my desire, existing at the zero level (Shoresh or root).

Now, I start to wake up more and look around. What I see at this degree, next to me, is not familiar to me yet; hence, I perceive this in the Light of Nefesh. But I already realize my previous state from which I woke up; I understand that I was asleep and now I have woken up.

How do I know that I was asleep? I learned about that because I woke up, found out about the next state, and now understand the previous one better. Therefore, the Light of Ruach clothes in the previous state, although I have only the Light of Nefesh in the current state.

I will never have anything more than the Light of Nefesh at the most advanced state. Only all the previous states become more and more clarified. That is why a person who advances correctly will always feel like in a fog, confusion, and misunderstandings; he will face incomprehensible forces and calculations and will always have doubts.

However, he already understands more about the path he has covered, all his history, and looking back on this history, the future perspective as well. That is, on one hand, he is accompanied by confusion, fog, and helplessness, but at the same time, he becomes smarter about the past, by seeing the whole path, its causes and consequences, and thereby revealing the Creator.

This is called the “reverse order” of the Light and desire. Our desire develops more and more and becomes “smarter,” educated, specific, high, and closer to the Creator, but only the Light of Nefesh is felt in it. However, in the previous desires, which we perceive deeper as we advance, we feel the Light of NaRaNHaY (Nefesh-Ruach-Neshama-Haya-Yechida). As it is said: “Wisdom comes only with experience.”
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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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Kabbalists About Freedom Of Choice, Part 5

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

The Influence of the Environment on a Person

Everyone has his own spiritual root, but its forces are revealed only through the environment one is in. This is similar to the wheat sown in the ground, whose forces become apparent only through its environment. Thus, only in the matter of the choice of environment is man’s reign over himself measured, and for this he should receive either reward or punishment.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom

The measure of the greatness of the Creator and the goal does not depend on the individual, but on the environment. And even if one is filled with virtues but the environment does not favor their development, one will be unable to develop them.
– Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 07.22.11

Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “On My Bed at Night
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter “Truma (Donation) 2, “Lift Up a Song for Him Who Rides Through the Prairies,” Item 721, Lesson 30
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Kabbalah for the Student, General Preface,” Item 3, Lesson 4
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The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence
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