Shamati #110 “A Field Which the Lord Has Blessed”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled)” “What Is Sabbath,” (start with: “Bina receives three lines…”), Item 182, Lesson 11
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 2, Chapter 2, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 3, Item 38, Lesson 20
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 98, Lesson 45
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation,” (start with: “Only individuals have gathered here…”), Lesson 8
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My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice and Principles for the Week

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We are moving toward balance with nature. It aspires to bring all of its parts to balance. The difference between temperatures gets balanced out, the wind balances out the difference in air pressure, an object that is thrown falls down toward the place where it will find balance with the force of gravity. The process is aimed at a balanced state everywhere and in every regard. In any area, be it chemistry, physics, biology, and so on, everything is built upon this principle. Everything aspires to equilibrium, to a relief of pressure. Everything submits to the law of entropy. Nature wishes to become appeased. It does not tolerate differences and fluctuations in any parameters.

Eventually, everything has to reach balance. And now the law of nature is demanding balance in human society. We see outbursts and disorder, and this is nature’s way of demanding balance. The still, vegetative, and animate levels have already had their turn, and now it’s the human level’s turn. The desire for balance is emerging within us, but becoming balanced among us means becoming “as one man with one heart.” We might all be different, but there is one criterion: We are all obligated to mutually support one another.

And there is nothing to be done about that: Whether we want it or not, nature will win because it is a tremendous force.

A question arises: Why won’t we disappear, like the mammoths and dinosaurs? Why don’t we just leave the stage like a part that doesn’t fit? After all, our discord with nature is much greater than that of the extinct dinosaurs. However, unlike them, we have a mission, a predestination, a goal: We have to correct ourselves and transform our initial nature. They were unable to do that and they disappeared with the natural course of evolution, whereas we are obligated to bring ourselves into balance with the current phase of development.

That is why we are brought to states where our lack of harmony with nature will become expressed in the gravest forms, but it won’t get to total extinction. 90% of the world might disappear, but some people will remain nevertheless in order to change human nature and reach the necessary balance.

This is the goal and we have no other way to go.
[52967]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/11, “The Nation”

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Question: When there are many people sitting in a hot room, there will always be one person who is cold and who forces everyone else to turn off the AC. Say most of humanity is able to adapt to the impending changes. But what should we do about those who are stuck and are not ready to leave the current state?

Answer: It’s important to correct yourself rather than the world. True, I want to elicit external movements and I try to help people understand the process and method of self-correction. However, in essence, I only care about how to correct myself. I do not correct my neighbor. I give him the method in the gentlest form possible, but I do not make him act; this is already his choice.

Therefore, we do not bother people who aren’t ready for change in any way, shape, or form. They aren’t ripe for it yet. When disseminating the Kabbalisic method, we let every person assess it for himself. I have already stated on numerous occasions that I don’t care how people accept our message. I listen to their responses only to improve the presentation: to state something in a new way and to answer a question that bothers someone. But if I have given all I have and a person still rejects and scorns my words, then I treat him with respect. To me this is also a sign of success because I was able to approach him and reveal his resistance. This is the correct reaction for him today, and nothing can be done about that.

We turn to the outside world only in order to improve ourselves. And if we improve ourselves to the best of our ability, then I don’t have any complaints about people’s responses. Let’s wait another year, or five more years.

However, if we go too far, this will be coercion and we won’t be leaving a person with the opportunity of free choice.
[52963]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/11, “The Nation”

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The entire creation is divided into the four levels of development: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. And human development also follows the same four stages.

On the still level, a person does not hesitate to agree with everything the upper governance does with him. On the vegetative level, he acquires his own desire, agreement and disagreement.

To rise to the animate level means to have one’s own character and destiny, direction and individuality, that is, to perform a special purpose in creation, posses an active force within a general, large machine of nature, and turn its gears correctly, according to the actions of the Creator, but with one’s own hand.

When a person himself becomes like this enormous machine, he is called a human, Adam. That is, he encompasses all this mechanism of nature and manages it instead of the Creator; he becomes included in the general program of creation. This means to rise to the human level.

Nowadays, humanity begins to awaken to rise above the still to the vegetative level. That is why we feel discomfort and the loss of direction; we do not know where to go and why. And in the coming years, many such events will be manifested, which will puzzle people and deprive them of understanding how to go on.

This will involve the simplest, seemingly clear things and not high principles. Suddenly, the basis of life will disappear: The economy will stop functioning; relationships between people will disintegrate; confusion will overwhelm the power structures. It’s as if a fog falls and everything becomes unclear.

Everyone who came to Kabbalah began to study because at some point, he felt that he had entered such a fog. In other worlds, a person no longer feels that he is the master of his life with everything following a clear order. Here, an obscure factor appears that confuses him.

The protective function of the body starts operating, which wants to feel confident and secure, to stand firmly on the ground, to hold control in its hands, and to know that one has a job, money, health, and pension. But suddenly you see that all this as if disappears in a fog.

The entire humanity will feel this condition. And when, instead of being someone’s personal state, it will start to happen on a great scale, it will be frightening. But this will push us to the next level, will force us to seek protection, a new foundation, and will bring us to the vegetative level.

On the vegetative level, people will be compelled to look for how to hold onto each other, that is, how to achieve global and integral connection voluntarily, consciously, and with the understanding that they cannot survive without this.

It’s as if we are all standing on a raft floating on the water. Imagine that everyone makes uncoordinated movements that rock the raft in opposite directions. In order not to topple the raft, we must hold onto each other and maintain balance all the time; otherwise, we will drown! This feeling will reign in the world.
[52683]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/2011, Shamati #115

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Question: Two forces act in the world: the force of bestowal and the force of the desire to receive, created as existence from absence. What is my “I,” my intention? Where does it come from?

Answer: We do not feel the Creator because we are in one desire: the desire to enjoy. Even if I want to give, it is just for fun. In reality, I am confused in intention and action. My action can be either reception or bestowal. And it can be accompanied by the intention to receive for myself or the intention to give to the other. There is nothing else, and this is our whole life.

In our world, there is an action to receive and an action to give to the other, as well as the intention to receive for oneself. But the intention to give to the other is non-existent; I do not have that ability. I can give something to somebody or receive something from somebody, but my intention is directed exclusively at receiving for myself, whereas the intention to bestow to the other belongs to the spiritual world, but I cannot reach it. It is not my fault: I am created like that.

There is no confusion here at all: My entire routine is aimed at self-enjoyment.

What I need is an intention, and it is the most important thing for me (!), regardless of what action I perform: giving or receiving. I perform bestowal to my child, to those whom I love, to friends, and even to my employer because I receive a reward in a natural way or in money, in the form of respect, power, and so on.

The key here is the intention, according to which I operate. How can I achieve the intention for the sake of bestowal to fellow human beings? And what will it give me?

This is where the problem occurs. If all of reality exists outside of me, then what I currently receive inside is only its tiny part called “this world.” It is terribly small, tight, limited in time, space, and everything else, but by crossing to the other side, I will get rid of any limitations.

This is the difference between the intentions. If my intention is aimed at myself, I will not be able to feel anything greater than I perceive today. If my intention is directed at unity with the other, to be in him, then I save myself from this horrible life with its fatal end and ascend to the next degree of life; I live outside the body. The only difference is in intention.
[52692]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/2011, “One Commandment”

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Question: How far must humanity go to realize that the true problem is the ego?

Answer: We will need to go to the very end. And I already see the economists starting to speak the words of Kabbalah and likening our ego to a cancerous tumor.

What is the limit that the world must reach before it reaches this awareness? Near complete self-destruction since that is how our ego works. It is just like the tale of Pharaoh. Imagine a big, beautiful land, a veritable oasis amidst the wretched world of old, which ruins itself completely following the ten Egyptian plagues, and the only reason is that our pigheaded ego insists on standing its ground.

And it’s incapable of doing anything else because it doesn’t feel or understand that there is a solution. We can use this example to see that we must always go to the ego and demand: “Let my people go!”
[52731]

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Explanation: There are plenty of people on a central street in New York. It would seem that if you had an accident, there would be somebody to help you. But in reality, with many people around, it is much less likely that someone would stand up for you than if only one person were near you. The reason is that when there is a crowd, it is easier to shift responsibility to another: The “diffusion of responsibility” takes place.

Experiment: In a crowded subway station, an “actor” is lying on the floor and moaning in pain, asking for “help.” Everyone walks by, glancing at his side. Helping would be inconvenient and even risky. Nobody helped him for 20 minutes.

The psychologist’s explanation: Two conflicting rules clash:

• I should help;
• I should do what others do.

A crowd of strangers translates to: It is not worth helping, and it is difficult to go against their opinion. They form a temporary group that says: Do not get involved.

The experiment continues: An “actress” is lying on the same place as if she has fainted. Four minutes later, thirty-four people have passed without stopping. One woman stopped, took a notice, but conformed to the rule and did nothing. But when somebody else came to the sick “actress’s” help, the woman immediately joined the new group with a new rule: “To help.”

The experiment continues: This time an “actor” is dressed as a respectable gentleman, resembling many people around him. It takes a mere six seconds before he is rescued, and somebody even calls him “Sir.” Everyone suddenly becomes a good Samaritan.

Explanation: Everyone wants to help him because he is part of the “right” group. If we all feel close to each other, each of us will feel the need to help everyone else.
[52441]

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Opinion: (Kim Sung-Hwan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea): “The international community has experience in overcoming economic difficulties such as the global financial crisis of 2008. But no country can cope with such global shocks alone. This requires close cooperation among all members of the international community. Today, it is extremely important to combine efforts.”

My Comment: Cooperation should exist not because no one has strength to overcome the crisis alone, but because the crisis was caused in order for us to discover the need to unite into one whole.
[52037]

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In the News (From Theaustralian.com.au): “The world has moved into a ‘new and more dangerous phase’ of economic uncertainty because of the European sovereign debt crisis, according to World Bank president Robert Zoellick.

“Despite decades of fixing problems at the top of US and international institutions, Mr Zoellick could offer no ready solution to Europe’s problems.

“He urged European leaders to approach their continent’s sovereign debt malaise with a greater sense of urgency, and lamented the European Union structures that made effective economic reform difficult.

“‘It’s not the same as 2008 (when the previous global financial crisis hit),’ he said.

“‘On the positive side, people have paid down debt and there is not the same sudden shock as in 2009. But, on the other hand, most developed countries have used up fiscal space and monetary policy is about as loose as it can be.'”

My Comment: Everything is going according to plan: Nature presses us, still leaving time for reflection. Then the pressure will increase, and there will be no more time to think. Assessing the situation correctly and understanding that we must quickly become global and integral: This the solution to all problems. Will we understand this before it’s too late?
[51940]

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