Good Environment – 08.16.11

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

Mutual Guarantee Is A Response To Nature’s Challenge

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It’s hard to believe that there is an organization that suddenly wants to do only good things without any selfish interests, which is why people naturally feel distrust toward your “Mutual Guarantee” movement. Can you comment?

Answer: We are not planning to do any good things for anyone just like that, out of the goodness of our heart, so to say. This is not natural for people—and who knows that better than Kabbalists! We want people to find out why nature is advancing this condition of having to “create a global, integral interconnection,” of being “as one family” to us, and how we can make ourselves, our society, our government, and our world balanced, harmonious, safe, and full of everything we need to lead a good, correct existence.

On one hand, this calls for a gradual, patient explanation and education. On the other hand, the world is moving toward greater chaos, which will force people to be more attentive to the search for a way out of the situation, for the instrument to change it. Then they will gradually discover that the solution we offer actually comes from nature’s conditions.

This is not an artificial theory created by economists, ecologists, or other specialists, but one that comes from the very conditions of nature. Therefore, nothing about it is ours. We simply explain it to people: Look at what is really happening in nature, how our world is built, how the system of interactions between people is arranged, where we are going, and how we can change everything.

Today nature itself is presenting this challenge to us. If we reveal the global, integral crisis, and if we reveal our universal interconnection in a negative manner, then naturally, this will lead us to war, to a big fight. But if we constantly improve and soften that interconnection, this will lead us to a mutual, good, kind connection. This is the mutual guarantee, when I know that I depend on everyone and everyone depends on me, and I try to make this interconnection kind and good.
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The Crisis Is Here For Our Own Good!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: At a time when governments are unable to govern, economists are unable to regulate, and nations are in disarray, both on their own and because of the manipulation coming from virtual networks, the world is facing a threatening lack of instability. What can bring this ship that’s out in a stormy sea back into balance?

Answer: Right now the global, integral, universal interdependence between everyone is being revealed in our world more and more clearly, and it’s happening in all areas and dimensions of human activity. This global interconnection is paralyzing all of our efforts to regulate anything by the outdated, forceful political, economic, and social methods.

The only way we know to control things is egoistically, within a discrete system, by considering the source of pressure, the object of pressure, and the goal. But the world has acquired an integral, analog form of universal, mutual dependence. This is the expression of the next level of development in humanity—the state of total interaction between parts of one organism. This is the evolutionary plan of our development by nature, the plan of evolution.

The appearance of the altruistic image of our next degree of development within our egoistic, individualistic society is bringing to light our opposition to that image. This is the essence of the crisis, our lack of correspondence to the next level.

We will have to assimilate our next state either by the path of suffering or through realization and purposeful efforts. Either way, we will have to study it and change ourselves to suit its demands for the same reason that creatures that were unable to adapt to new conditions and demands from nature went extinct. But nature has planned our ascent to this level—the attainment of harmony with nature. To accomplish that, we have to become integrally interconnected as one whole, as all of nature. In our language this demand means, “everyone loves everyone,” and “everyone is included in everyone.”

The way to carry out this demand from nature is by applying the method of our egoistic correction called “Kabbalah,” which comes from the word “to receive or acquire,” to acquire new, altruistic qualities.

Many thousands of years ago, in every generation there were separate individuals who acquired these qualities and felt the new level of humanity’s development. This is described in authentic Kabbalistic sources. We cannot understand them because they describe a different structure of interconnections among people, their relationships of love and bestowal, called the soul, their sensation of unity and commonality, which is called the upper world, the following dimension.

However, we can use their instructions to change ourselves, to make ourselves suitable to the new conditions, and thus to start feeling the next level of the world—its harmony, eternity, and perfection. Then we will be convinced that nature’s goal is perfect just like nature.
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Related Material:
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Don’t Be Scared Of Your Fear

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What’s the right attitude to have to the fear that I now experience when I go out to speak to people about Kabbalah?

Answer: This fear does not disappear until the very end of correction. If you read Psalms, you will be amazed to discover that even King David, who, at the highest spiritual levels, felt fear. Obviously, it’s not the same kind of fear that we feel, but the fear of whether or not you will be able to bestow, whether or not you will perform the action correctly. One has constant doubts about this.

Every spiritual degree begins with these fears and doubts. And the same thing is true for us: Everything begins with fear, repulsion, aversion, and apprehension. This is Malchut, which reveals the lack of everything within her. This is the degree of entering the state of bestowal for the sake of bestowal, Bina, Hafetz Hesed.

The state of bestowal for the sake of bestowal is not the state of a fearless hero. For now one is just rising above his ego, above all of the fears, and he can only bestow for the sake of bestowal. And it is possible to rise to this level of bestowal only from fear and apprehension, the feeling that you don’t have anything—no strength or understanding, but that doesn’t matter!

The most important is to rise above all of these fears and cleave to the upper one, and thus to attain the smallest, initial adhesion that is called the state of an “embryo,” three days of the seed’s absorption, above all of these unpleasant sensations.

This is a state of crisis, separation, and weakness which is in fact, worse than death. After all, death would provide some kind of escape, but here there is no escape. All you can do is leap upwards! This is not a simple state.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/11, “The Nation”

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At The Threshold Of Practical Kabbalah

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is “practical Kabbalah”?

Answer: “Practical Kabbalah” is when you act in practice and not just inside of yourself. However, inner work is also called practical Kabbalah, when you create an intention, adhesion (Zivug), and reception of Light for the sake of bestowal. It’s when you don’t just read about it in a book, but attain the instrument of bestowal called “a screen” and can use it to perform practical actions.

You have matter which you have to work on. And this work is only possible with the help of a screen. You receive a screen by virtue of the Light that reforms. All of this is called practical Kabbalah. There are no other practical actions besides giving matter the form of bestowal. The will to enjoy has to acquire the intention for the sake of bestowal. This is the only action operating in the world.

Besides the science of Kabbalah, nothing can bring this about because this science talks about how the general system operates and how we have to operate inside of it. If I take this entire science and start realizing it, this is called “practical Kabbalah.”

It’s similar to how there is theoretical physics and practical, applied physics. In the theoretical part of it, you can think about things and you may understand them or not, but then you come to the practical realization where you stage all kinds of experiments, study and measure things, and check whether they’re one way or another. It’s similar to children who play in order to grow, and once they become adults, they perform these actions correctly in real life. This is what the scientific experiment is intended for.

The actual practice is already the realization of the scientific achievements in life. And the same thing is true in the science of Kabbalah. If you study in order to realize it in practice, that means you are already at the threshold of practical Kabbalah, even though it might take you a lot more time to acquire a screen and start carrying out these actions. Still, according to your direction and goal, you are already considered to be dealing with practical Kabbalah.

The only practical action that exists in reality is adhesion with the Light (Zivug de Hakaa), the degree of equivalence of form that we attain.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/11, “The Nation”

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The Time Has Come!

Dr. Michael LaitmanFriends, for the first time in history we have reached the actual realization of the science of Kabbalah, which is intended for man and for the correction that creation has to go through! All of this is now in our hands and we have to do this even though it might seem difficult and even impossible.

Even if we are still afraid of being incapable and unable to do this, and even if we feel insecure, there is no other way to go—the time has come! Reality is obligating us to act. The place of the breaking is being revealed to us and we are obligated to perform the correction.

Even though we are used to thinking that Kabbalah is a study of some texts, intentions, and actions that don’t bring the desired result, but only become expressed deep inside, in a person’s experiences and sensations, yet at the same time, today we have reached a situation where this is also starting to become expressed in matter. That is, everything we study and everything we are trying to realize in the intention, are things we also have to see as clearly affecting matter and the occurrences happening in the world, in the new balance of forces, in the process that the world is going through.

We have reached practical Kabbalah! And it is impossible to leave your mission and run away. If we don’t do what is incumbent on us, then there are very dramatic events waiting for us and for the rest of the world.

The force that has come to help us advance will continue to operate even if we don’t use it correctly. If we miss the opportunity to use it correctly, by the desired path, then it will influence us in spite of our desire, in a very negative form.

Whether we want it or not, this force is now being revealed and it has to become expressed in us. We can turn it into an anti-egoistic screen and Reflected Light, to the degree we become similar to the Creator’s bestowal. And nothing can be better than that! But if we don’t do that, then the same force that we did not turn into a screen and intention, into the Reflected Light and bestowal, into Light and goodness, will start influencing us in the opposite form.

That is why Baal HaSulam says that he had to publish the newspaper and start acting so everyone would find out what kind of task they are facing, and would be able to carry it out.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/11, “The Nation”

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Introductory Lecture “Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) Above All” -08.16.11

Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) Above All”
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The Prospects Of The Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you see the prospects of the world’s stock markets?

Answer: I am in no way an economist, so this question should not be addressed to me. I will only say that the world is starting to get tired of whatever is happening, and the fact that people have a bad feeling is not a good sign. The mood is getting worse. Optimists are disappearing; people no longer believe in the abilities of politicians, trust in them is exhausted; no one expects normalization; there is a constant threat of new bankruptcies; everyone is depressed.

As Ezra Klein writes in The Washington Post, no one knows where the economic recovery will come from, but one can tell for sure where it will not: neither from the US, Europe, Japan, nor China, the economy of which “has overheated” and where the authorities only dream of a “soft landing,” in other words, they are afraid of bankruptcy and public unrest.

For now the feeling is that we have gotten accustomed to the crisis, but this is temporarynature will compel us to wise up and become similar to it. We must become one whole with the environment. And this is attained between people by observing the condition of the mutual guarantee: a good-hearted connection and relating of nature like to oneself.  In this case the world will attain harmony, balance, and it will reign between us.
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Kabbalists On Spiritual Work In The Group, Part 10

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

The Power of Bonding

If one does not have any desire and craving for spirituality, if he is among people who have a desire for spirituality, if he likes these people, he, too, will become imbued with their desires, and…he will receive new aspirations and powers.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 99, “He Did Not Say Wicked or Righteous”

The advice for one to be able to increase his strength in the rule, “Love thy friend,” is love of friends. If every one is nullified before his friend and mingles with him, they become one mass, where all the little parts that want the love of others unite in a collective force that consists of many parts. And when he has great strength, he can execute the love of others. And then he can achieve the love of the Creator.
– The Rabash, Rabash—the Social Writings, “According to What Is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’”
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.16.11

Shamati #175 And If the Way Be Too Long for Thee
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter Hukat (The Statute), “And the People Spoke Against God and Moses,” Item 70(a). “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled),” Item 1, Lesson 6
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 2, Chapter 2, Item 1, Lesson 10
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 61, Lesson 35
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Writings of Baal HaSulam The Nation,” “Start with: In addition to all the above…,” Lesson 2
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