Good Environment – 09.05.11

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

The Whole World Unites Around Toronto

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the best way for us to use the Toronto Convention that is coming up in order to bring us to the level of mutual guarantee?

Answer: I hope that I will come to Toronto where we will discern things together, study, have discussions, and participate in all kinds of events simultaneously with all of our students around the whole world, who will also take part in everything. Then we really will be able to make the jump onto the next level in our dissemination.

I very much hope that all of our friends from America will finally connect with us and will come to the convention. We have to understand that our good future is already very close, and now everything depends on how we accelerate the time.
[53739]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/11, “The Nation”

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Which Way Will The World Scale Tip?

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday it is difficult to tell what the role of different countries will be in the new global world. Everything depends on how Israel will operate in the spiritual realm and which way it will tip the scale – what kind of balance will America, Russia, and the Arab world settle into.

Europe is losing its influence. The main forces remaining on the world map are the Arab world, America, and Russia. China will not manage to come out of its concealment, its place at the far end of the world. The crisis will not give them enough time to develop. They will soon begin to feel that the world does not need what they produce. That’s because the world will only need the bare necessities, but China does not produce objects that are vitally necessary.

However, right now it’s impossible to predict anything with precision because everything depends on our freedom of choice. If we act properly and well, then these forces will settle down into a balance. Then Americans won’t be using the Arab countries to cope with everyone else and to rule over the world, which is what they aspire to do today.

That is why Israel became an obstacle for them, which they wish to remove in order to then move in the direction of Russia and China. And to accomplish that they want to use the force of the most extreme Arab fundamentalism by allying with it, together with all of its terrorist branches.

This phenomenon is already well-known and has been described in many sources. I do not say a word of my own opinion here. Therefore, we have to understand that all of the good changes that can be made in the world can only happen above nature – only with the help of the method of correction! There are no chances here to achieve anything by force, especially in a country like Israel. By the recent disorder we see how the American program is being realized.

All of these demonstrations and demands are part of big politics, whose objective is to level this entire area and establish the power of Arab fundamentalism here. Americans expect this to become a powerful weapon in their hands, and this tendency or program has existed for a long time now and is gradually being realized.

America perceives Islam as an external force that enables it to control the world. But this is all arranged for Israel from Above in order to push us toward a spiritual solution. However, Russia and China have to feel that they are our allies in this situation because they are also in danger. We are just a “small obstacle” on America’s path, whereas they are the real goal.

This is the balance of forces that Americans want to establish in the world. And indeed, what other force is available today that can be manipulated and used for fighting, that has oil backing it as well as the pressurizing force of fundamentalism? Europe has gotten old completely, and Russia has also grown very weak and has gotten old over the years. It does not have the energy it once did, which is obvious even by the dynamics of the national gross product.

China also lacks real power because it is occupied with producing “toys.” This activity does not provide it with a powerful influence. It is a center of great financial and human resources, but this country has not built itself yet. And its psychology is to stay on the sidelines, as it did for millennia. And even though the Chinese have now dispersed all over the world, this still isn’t an “incursion” because their inner psychology has not changed, and it stops them.

All of this is finely calculated, and it is arranged from Above. Everything unravels by a strict program, which you can read about in the Prophets, which describe what will happen to the world in the end of days. And Israel is precisely at the very tip of the scale’s indicator, determining the direction and the steps that the world will take.

This tendency is very precise and it is already clear to many. I am not revealing anything new here. In the end, we will gain greater awareness of a simple fact: That we have nothing to rely on besides the upper force. But that doesn’t mean simply screaming “Save me!” into the sky, but rather, we have to make real actions and attract this force to us. Just as America attracts foreign forces to itself and operates through them, so we attract the upper force and operate with its help. I think that the success of the good forces is guaranteed to us. We only have to keep working and do what is necessary.

All other attempts and big plans are worthless. Only by acting correctly will we muffle all of this evil so it will choke by itself.
[53721]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/11, “The Nation”

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Knowledge, Not Orders

Dr. Michael LaitmanLeading the spiritual process, we neither “impose arrangements” on the masses nor give out orders to anyone. We only pass knowledge on to people.

For a few hours a day I study reports and analytical articles on the events transpiring in the world today. I don’t take everything for granted, but perform my own analysis, forming my own view on the affairs, which form the basis upon which I act.

In exactly the same manner we leave people the freedom of opinion. We merely pass the method to them, which Nature itself “imposes” upon us. This method is based on scientific research.

For instance, many of the things I read now are familiar to me from my studies of systems laws and cybernetics. Cybernetics is a science about systems and their regulation in different diapasons: biological, mechanical, natural, ecological, and so on. Numerous formulas describe certain levels of regulation: input, output, and sought-for state. It relates to rocket launch, movement under certain conditions, and so on.…

Suppose a train has to reach point B from point A using the least amount of fuel, with minimal wear and tear on mechanisms, going at a minimum and maximum speed at rail junctions, without sudden braking or acceleration. Optimal fulfillment of, say, twenty similar conditions is one of the problems of the correct regulation. In our organism, thousands of parameters balance each other and come down to a unified formula called “life” according to the same principle.

So, today we have to explain to all people what will happen if we do not fulfill the formula of mutual guarantee—to the extent that it is becoming revealed to us today. In reality, we are talking about the corrected and balanced Malchut of the world of Infinity, but we are guided by the current moment. By ignoring the formula of mutual guarantee, we will suffer a loss; we simply must learn to comply to its parameters.

Therefore, our approach is informative. This is how students are taught in a university as well so that later they could apply the received knowledge in life. A person needs to learn reciprocity in his interrelationships with others, and he has to learn it himself without receiving leaflets from us.

Today there are virtually no professions that require no intelligence from a person. After all, he is not an animal. Let him dig a hole, but even here besides physical strength, he needs the head.

Hence, by training people to interact correctly, we present them a field of action for the mind and feelings. We do not leave them at the animate level since mutual guarantee relates to the human degree: Namely the human within me ponders how to co-exist with others. We are talking about an inner, sensual development.

It is not accidental that today people are looking for interconnection, go to demonstrations, and demand social justice and universal unification. This is what they lack, and we explain that this is the dictate of Nature, and according to it, we ourselves have to establish a connection between us. Mutual communication, mutual guarantee, is the law of an integral system we represent.
[53614]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/2011, “The Nation”

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Is It The Economy Or Something More?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhat economists, politicians, sociologists, and political scientists call today a “crisis,” actually is not. The real crisis arrives when a person must find an answer or he will die. Kabbalists wrote that this condition will transpire, and then we will have to reveal the method of unity and mutual guarantee and carry it to the world. This is the destiny of the people of Israel.

That is why the whole world blames the Jews for their problems. We will need to explain first of all to the Jewish people that we have to achieve mutual guarantee, that without this we will not solve a single problem. We cannot exist in any rational form; this is possible only above nature, in mutual guarantee. This is what the current situation pushes us towards, and people are beginning to sense this.

The wave of protests, which is not over yet, are people’s inner reaction to the necessity to do something with themselves. People demand social justice, housing, higher wages, all kinds of benefits, but in reality, it is not so. It is no coincidence that the head of the commission of social change writes that these demands contain the desire of internal compensation, but not money. A person lacks something inside, and he doesn’t usually complain about material problems. At the end, as the commission head concluded, people lack love and unity.

And this is true. Observing the laws of nature, we will see that this is what is required of us. The current crisis is global and integral. In other words, we discover that we are connected with each other, depend on each other, and are linked by countless technological, virtual, trade, and other ties, so strongly that it is impossible to break them. Our interdependence has become truly total.

We are fused with each other, hate each other, feel insecure and helpless in the seven-billion-people mass, who demand from each other, lay claims, and show cruelty. There is no end to it. Every moment, Nature “compresses” us more and more, and we do not know where to escape from this, like a married couple who started to hate each other, but meanwhile cannot get a divorce and argue within four walls.

This is how we feel the reality today. Kabbalists wrote that this is a wonderful state, that the need to find some solution to the problem will manifest itself finally in the nation and in the world. First of all, it will be the economic solution, on which our material life depends. Nature starts with the basics and pushes us towards unity. As a result, we will have to unite just to save ourselves, as in ancient times the sons of Israel had to flee from famine to Egypt. Literally, the same process takes place in our times.
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From Lesson 1, the Achziv Convention 9/1/2011

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There Are No Breaks In Spirituality

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen a person attains his first contact with the Creator on some level, meaning the revelation of two opposites together, he immediately needs help from the upper one. The “covenant of circumcision” is merely the first action of the upper one over the lower one.

This is the Light that reveals the upper force as the bestowing and loving one, which stands opposite to the creature’s egoistic desire that wants to use it. But at the same time we now need to reveal a new level of connection between us, attained through the screen and the Reflected Light.

There is still a great deal of work ahead of us, before we attain adhesion. And all this is the work of the creature that evokes the force of the Light to work over it, creating a multitude of step by step corrections of various qualities. We need to understand deeply and thoroughly what we demand that the upper force does with us. After all, the entire meaning of our work is to reveal through it the plan of creation. The process we experience helps us become acquainted with the actual upper force, as it is written: “We will know You by Your actions.”

When we go through all the actions He has prepared for us, we reveal His thought, intention, and the plan of creation through it. This is why every action is followed by another, a more complicated one. There are no actions in the spiritual world that allow you to sit, rest, and enjoy the fruits of completed work, such as the way we allow our egoistic desire to rest a little after the attained pleasure in our world. There is no such thing as breaks in the spiritual world.

There is no notion of time there because we are continually under the pressure of the constantly increasing force of bestowal. There can be periods of weakness and confusion, but it’s impossible to fall from this path and stop doing what’s required.

This is why there is no time. Time is made by alternating swings back and forth, like a clock pendulum that counts interruptions: It stops and hovers in order to swing back. Such breaks do not exist in the spiritual world. The entire spiritual process consists of us connecting Light and darkness together. There are no descents as all the “descents” only happen in order to ascend!

And even when we feel weakness, it is not our fault, but a mandatory condition to reveal a deeper desire. Look how much feeling, weeping, fear, and pleading there is in King David’s Book of Psalms, all this together with the revelation of a new desire that he perceives with joy. Otherwise, it would not have been spiritual.
[53296]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/2011, Shamati #95

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In-Between The Heart And The Mind

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is egoism related to “teeth” in spiritual work, as it is written that we need to “break egoism’s teeth?”

Answer: We have 32 “teeth” (LamedBet), the fundamental qualities that “grind,” meaning explore food or fulfillment. This happens after we learn about the kind of fulfillment we can and cannot accept, the amount we can accept for the sake of bestowal and its form. This happens after the final evaluation done by the “lips” (one on top, the other on the bottom) and the tongue in the middle (called the “holy tongue”) that is in the middle line.

Our entire structure reflects the distribution of forces that examine our desires and thoughts. This determines the human form in this world, the imaginary form.

Examination of the fulfillment that we can accept for the sake of bestowal is the “teeth’s” special work, which separate and masticate the desire to receive pleasure as they collide. The mouth is located in the middle between the heart and the mind; it examines and works with thoughts that come from the brain and the desires that come from the heart. And we learn through the proper relation between them what we can accept in the form of the Inner Light as “flavors” (Taamim).

The heart contains desires that have not yet been evaluated finally for correction. The place where correction happens is the mouth. But its most special area is the throat located above the body but below the head, in the place of transition from one to the other. This is why the throat (Garon) sounds like the word “Ger” (one who crosses and joins Isra-El).

It is as though the entire difference between animal and man is contained in the throat, the so-called “speaking” degree that follows the still, vegetative, and animate levels. It’s as if this part I use to speak, the throat, separates me from an animal and makes me human. The entire mind, clarifications, thoughts that stem from the reason, as well as the desires coming from the heart eventually land in the throat, where the entire human essence is concentrated.

The throat contains a special mechanism controlled by the brain by virtue of which we perform clarifications, speak, and sing—essentially, we thus  express our human degree. Everything that exists in our heart and mind is expressed through speech, meaning the throat. One could think: What’s so special about it, considering it simply consists of a pipe, several strings (cords) and muscles?…

But it’s not as simple as it seems. This mechanism of speech needs to understand everything that exists in our mind and heart, and execute it by expressing it. It’s activated by the “five lung areas” from below upward, then it reaches the “five sources in the mouth” (tongue, palate, throat, teeth, and lips). It’s a very complicated spiritual mechanism.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/2011, Shamati #101

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A Prayer Is A Desire For Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If the Creator is my inner property, then who do I raise my prayer to?

Answer: You are raising it to that perfect property which you need to reach. To pray means to desire to obtain some connection with something you want to become closer to. A prayer is a desire, a need for connection, as it is said: “I desire!”

The connection can be external, meaning from a distance, or it can be close and more internal to the extent that there is no difference between us. In either case this is connection. There is nothing else in our reality besides being further or closer to something. I want to distance myself from something bad and be closer to something good to the extent that I become included in him or he becomes included in me.

The way that we feel our connection depends upon the spiritual degrees where we exist. If we sense the upper degree, then it is a more inner connection, where the AHP of the upper one exists in the GE of the lower one. If we sense the lower degree, we enter its inner part and act there.

However, there is nothing other than drawing further away or closer. My entire prayer and all desires are about this: to either become closer to something or distance myself from it.
[53310]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/2011, The Zohar

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Reading Is Revelation

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled),” Item 226: It is forbidden to read in the book of Torah, but only one alone, and everyone listens and keeps silent so that they hear his words as though they had just received it from Mount Sinai. And above the one who is reading the Torah there should be one standing above him, ascending to the Torah, and keeping silent so that only one speaking will be heard and not two.

One should not forget that we are talking about one person. The one who reads the Torah and the one who listens to it, the nation, the Creator and the creature, the mountain and the pillar by which people are praying, all these properties exist in one person. All of them are his inner states. We have to recognize them within ourselves and find out what exactly every word or property relates to.

We are dealing with the revelation of the upper nature to the creature according to the similarity of properties in the degree of the corrections it undergoes. Reading means revelation.

If a person is unable to imagine the true state, it is better to not imagine anything. Otherwise he will begin to imagine a corporeal picture: How they take the book of Torah from a cabinet, bring it to the raised platform from where the Torah is read, and start reading it. That’s all. However, this is not what The Zohar is talking about.

True, these are all symbols reflected in corporeality. However, from them a person has to rise to the original form. Instead of the imaginary world that is being revealed to us now, he needs to reveal the true world: the desire to receive pleasure corrected in all of its parts that manifest in some form, as well as the book of Torah, the revelation of the Light within the desire.

Our desire is constantly changing. It is similar to the letters constantly flying out and becoming revealed, while the vowel marks (Taamim, Nekudot, and Tagin) fill the letters. This way a person reveals the Light within the vessel or desire. This is called the reading the book of Torah, about which it is said that a person has to write the book of Torah on his heart. The heart is all his desires.

Then all my desires, all my properties, and everything existing within me will turn into the letters of Torah. When I want to organize them correctly, I fill these letters with “tastes (Taamim),” “dots (Nekudot),” and “crowns (Tagin).” Then I have the text of the book of the Torah, which I live and sense on myself. This is my spiritual life. The person himself becomes the flow of the text of the Torah. No person is separate from the Torah or separate from the letters of the Torah. All of it is the person himself.
[53173]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/2011, The Zohar

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Questions On The Zohar And Spiritual Life In A Desert

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the post “It Takes Preparation To Tune Into The Book Of Zohar” you wrote that “The Zohar is not revealed unless studied in a group. It’s impossible to study The Zohar alone because The Zohar was written by a group of Kabbalists who formed a complete Kli. All of the ten authors of The Zohar formed a complete Kli, the ten fundamental Sefirot. Each one of them represents a specific Sefira, a unique force that the Creator created as a complete Kli.”

Does listening to and reading The Zohar alone also attract the Surrounding Light?

Answer: Any contact with the text, even if you simply read it not knowing how to attract upon yourself its influence (see “Introduction to TES,” Item 154), nevertheless works on you but to a lesser extent. We always strive for the maximum effect of correction, and this is achieved either virtually or in a physical group.

Question: I live in the desert of California. There are no Kabbalah groups to study with out here. I do not want to give up the study of Kabbalah. It found me when I was empty and deeply yearning for answers and God. So much has been given so far, but what am I to do? It is said I must study with a group. I only have my books, the web, and this bothersome yearning inside. What can I do? To stop my study is as to say to a thirsty man, you have had a cup of water, now forget drinking here; go back into the desert and die. Please help.

Answer: I assure you that a virtual connection with us during the lessons and a physical presence at the conventions in the U.S. will suffice for your spiritual progress!
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