The American Dream Boomeranging Back

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Should the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah in America differ from its dissemination in other countries due to the influence of the “American dream,” which we are supposedly able to achieve here—the dream of lots of money, a good life,…? How can we fight this stereotype?

Answer: I think that other countries still have fantasies that it is possible to attain this “dream” in America. Yet, I think all of this is becoming a thing of the past. People have to wake up from the dream. I don’t think this “dream” will last much longer, both for those living in America and for those living abroad.

Look at how Americans are losing respect in the whole world, how people are no longer showing a good attitude to them and are in fact starting to look down upon them. And soon this will even turn into hatred. This is happening particularly because people do not wish to tolerate America’s attitude to them, the attitude of a country that allows itself the liberty to do anything it wishes.

Therefore, I don’t think this “American dream” has any power. As the crisis gets worse, more and more people in the world will reveal that the “American dream,” which has already melted, was built at their expense because America shrewdly exploited the whole world. And this will come back to it as a very powerful boomerang.

To the extent we disseminate the method of correction, which lies in unity, equality, and mutual guarantee, we will save ourselves from blame and blows, as it is written, “Love will cover all sins.” We won’t try to settle old scores, but will create new, kind relationships. Whatever happened happened. It’s not worth raking up the past.

If we start settling old scores, then the whole world will come to America with complaints because that is how its economic systems are built: at the expense of other nations. Only the method offered to us by the science of Kabbalah will cleanse all the old scores until today, and from here on we will begin building something new, without remembering any of what happened yesterday.
[54425]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

Related Material:
How Are We Different?
The New Babylon
Now That You Have The Method, Pass It Forward

Let’s Make The Year 2012 A Good Turning Point

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is there a connection between the acceleration of time you described and the year 2012?

Answer: People ask me about the year 2012 at every lecture I give. There is nothing written about it in the science of Kabbalah. But frankly, the times really are becoming compressed and they eventually become concentrated together.

The year 2012 can indeed become a fateful year, marking a significant change in the world. But I don’t think this will be a change for the worse. I think that eventually, the world will take a turn for the better. I think we will manage to reveal the entire method of correction without problems or suffering.

Problems and suffering have to be revealed inside a person because all we have to feel is that there is something missing in our lives. And this feeling can even come in the best possible state, when everything in my life is OK, but I don’t see what the purpose of life is and therefore I desire to reveal it.
[54435]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/2011

Related Material:
Escaping The Developmental Press
A Little Lost World
2012 Is Just Another Year – Laitman Unplugged

What About The Authorities?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As the crisis in the USA gets worse, people are delegating more and more authority to the government. What can be done before the authorities suppress everything from above?

Answer: I don’t think that the authorities will stop people from moving toward unification, love, and good relationships. Besides, we are working on dissemination armed with the opinion of scientists and experts in various fields who confirm that the global, integral world requires precisely this from us. So who can be opposed to this?

Who can possibly object to equal, mutual unification, to concern that aims to ensure that no one in the country goes hungry, and that the poor have at least minimal work? People have to be taught about life in the new, global state, and I don’t see why anyone would oppose this. Therefore, there is nothing to fear.

At the end of the day, the government views any activity negatively. It likes it when everyone acts like slaves. That is how the government is in every country. Therefore, you should only take into consideration the people who come, hear, and participate in dissemination work.
[54446]
From the  New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

Related Material:
Why Don’t We Pass A Law About Mutual Guarantee?
Experts, Speak Out!
From Vertical Power To Round Table

The U.S. Is Preparing For “Complex Catastrophes”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (From army.mi): “Department of Defense resources stand ready to provide defense support to civil authority in the case of any man-made or natural disaster, said Dr. Paul Stockton, the assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs.

“Stockton said the DOD [Department of Defense] is also honing its skills for the possibility of facing complex catastrophes, such as what was practiced in the recent National Level Exercise 11…

“The exercise scenario featured a 7.7 earthquake along the New Madrid fault, which falls along the Mississippi River. The 7.7 earthquake typifies what Stockton terms as the challenges of complex catastrophes.

“’First, the magnitude,’ he said, because ‘it’s so much bigger than anything we’ve faced — way beyond Hurricane Katrina — over 100,000 casualties in the scenario.’”

My Comment: Although these catastrophes manifest as natural disasters, their real cause is man, and therefore, it is in our power to prevent them. In any case, no country has any other choice but to implement a national program of adapting its citizens to the new conditions in the world—to life in a single integrated society.

Namely the resistance of our egoistic nature to the implementation of the method of correction is called the “evil inclination” (Yetzer Ha Ra). How much do we need to suffer like stubborn children in order to start acting sensibly?!
[54303]

Related Material:
Crisis: Connection Through An Explosion
Can Development Happen Without Destruction?
Which Way Will The World Scale Tip?

How To Bleach The Different Colors Of Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll of reality is the development of our desire to receive pleasure. It first needs to develop on its own—until it reaches a spiritual degree. And from this point on, we begin to develop in two ways, according to two parallel paths: a left and a right one, always rising above our desire to receive pleasure and working for the importance of the desire to bestow. We do this until we understand that there is no such thing as the desire to receive: Everything that exists is pure bestowal.

It is in this way that we come to a point where there is nothing white, but there is continuous white Light around it, and we begin to do different actions to maintain this white quality. The entire work happens at night in order to separate the nature of the receiver from the nature of the giver and to understand that our desire to receive pleasure is merely the reverse imprint of Light. It is specifically given to us so we will overcome it, rise above this darkness, and build our own reality.

These obstacles to overcome are like school exercises or sports practices which our entire advancement depends upon. And the instructor is good when he has a big reserve of good and appropriate exercises organized in the right sequence, according to the needs of every student. He also knows how to bring a person to correction, meaning to the goal, in the quickest and most efficient way.

Our entire life is a series of exercises that the Creator puts before us, waiting for us to properly react to them every time. And He is a competent judge who never makes mistakes, who knows all our ways and everyone’s foundation. This is why we need to understand that everything we feel, in every moment of our existence, is only intended for the quickest and most efficient attainment of the good and proper goal of our development, till we reach the final perfect state.

This is why we need to justify all of the Creator’s actions over us and all the situations He places before us so that we can practice overcoming and evaluating, thereby establishing a proper attitude. This is our life in every aspect of it.

But when we fail to do an exercise and react the right way, the next stage follows. And if our actions are successful at this stage, we also correct the debt we have left over from last time. All the states at any moment are connected in a chain as causes and consequences: the sensation in the heart and the mind, the perception of reality, the sensation of the past, the present, and the future, and of the entire environment. All these things I paint with my own qualities, like using paints on a canvas of white Light, which I take from the black point, submerged in a white ocean of bestowal.

Everything that exists besides this white Light that I do not yet distinguish, all these things are shades of my qualities. And if I raise them to the level of justifying the One who brings me the current sensations, I will see myself as a black point in the ocean of white Light. And everything else I see besides this is an addition to bring me to the next, higher degree.

And His addition always comes as a sensation of darkness in all the different forms my current reality paints for me. But all these colors are made with my “613” corrupt desires. This is why I see that in all of reality, both corporeal life and inner sensation (the heart and the mind), the Creator always invites me to attain similarity to Him. After all, I have nothing more than one single black point as the foundation that He used to create me “from absence” thanks to the ocean of upper Light.

Spiritual work begins here.
[54025]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/2011, Shamati #127

Related Material:
A Ray Of Light In Pitch Darkness
A Proper Attitude Towards The Light:Entrance And Exit
The Current Situation Is An Exercise From The Creator

A New Book On Kabbalah In Macedonian

A New Book In Macedonia My second book on Kabbalah is being published in Macedonia. The first book, Kabbalah Revealed, was published by the leading publishing house in the country and presented at one of the major book fairs, Club Matica. It is very popular with a wide audience.
[54290]

 
Related Material:
The First Kabbalah Book In Macedonia

G7: No Clear Economic Plan

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News: “Commentators warned that although there had been agreement on the need for a joint response to the renewed global economic slowdown, there was little commitment to concrete action.

“Analysts said officials from the G7 nations (the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, France, Italy and Germany) are still divided over growth strategies.” (Source: Euronews.net)

“While Europe wants to keep its commitment to austerity, the United States is closer to the International Monetary Fund’s position that fiscal stimulus is needed.

“President Barack Obama is due to announce a big job-creating package on Thursday.

“A Canadian official said on Tuesday that loosening austerity measures could ease short-term recession risks but pruning sovereign debt was the top goal.

“Britain, meanwhile, is sticking fast to its tough austerity program.” (Source: huffingtonpost.com)

My Comment: “Happiness is so close,” but “you don’t understand me,” meaning, there is a solution to all problems, but it is anti-egoistic, and therefore, no one hears “a voice in the wilderness.” When demonstrations will be organized by scientists, economists, political analysts, and all those who understand the integral nature of the world crisis, which has to be counteracted by forming a “new human” ready for mutual guarantee, when they will demand of the government to create specifically such program of fighting the crisis, then we will see the light at the end of the tunnel.
[54361]

Related Material:
Urgent Action Needed To Protect Recovery
Fair Distribution: Nothing For Anyone
Is It The Economy Or Something More?

Moments Of Unity: Pictures From Achziv Convention 2011

Pictures from the Achziv Convention in Israel, September 1-3, 2011.

[54356]

Anyone Is Capable Of It

Dr. Michael LaitmanRav Kook: “Great spiritual questions that are resolved only for great and outstanding people now have to be resolved on different levels of the entire nation. In order to lower great, lofty things from the height of their grandeur to the depth of the level of the masses, a tremendous wealth of spirit is needed, as well as constant social activity that becomes a habit. Only then will knowledge expand and the language appear enabling deeper things to be expressed in an easy, popular style, thereby returning the afflicted souls.”

The science of Kabbalah really is very concealed and distant from people, even though everything is in one “place”: the worlds and souls, Sefirot, Partzufim, circles, and lines. Everything we study in the science of Kabbalah is in one place, in one state. However, in the perception of the receivers, it becomes revealed according to the law of equivalence of form. Our current qualities determine which part of the perfect reality we are able to perceive.

Today our qualities are egoistic, extremely limited, and restricted. Therefore, we perceive only a tiny portion of the enormous world we are in. And we perceive it through the bodily perception, which is confined by the boundaries of time, motion, and space. All of this limits us tremendously.

Throughout all of history, human creatures were in this state, and only individuals were able to perceive the true reality where “to perceive” means to live it, to exist in the same quality. This is because I live in concordance with the qualities that I am able to develop within. If they are above time, then I am eternal, and if they are immersed inside of time, then my existence is temporary. If my qualities are above space, I feel all of reality from end to end, but if they are closed in on some tiny fragment, then I am inside of it and perceive myself as limited in volume inside of this 3D coordinate system. I am also limited in motion, shifting along the physical axis rather than the time axis.

In short, there are many limitations, and in this regard everything depends on my qualities. We don’t really understand this because we are used to certain qualities that we were born in, grew up in, and now live in. However, if we really change them, then we will transform our reality completely. By perceiving a higher layer of it, we will experience it as infinite, located above time, space, and motion. There, we can live in completely different conditions.

This is why Kabbalah is called the science about reception because with its help, we can receive or perceive a completely different reality. We acquire a certain “regulator” by means of which we can change the axis of time, space, and motion, shifting to other dimensions and times with a slight shift of inner qualities.

All of this is realistic. This capability is present inside of us. We can influence the Light that forms us, and accordingly, it will endow us with various qualities. This mechanism was used by Kabbalists of all generations until our time.

However, today we have found ourselves in a special state where all of humanity is acquiring this capability. An impulse is being born in us to change the current form of existence. We are starting to feel worse and worse in this world and are finding less and less benefits from life in it. We are still holding on to it due to not having any other choice, due to the unwillingness to suffer, but are starting to be more persistent in asking ourselves the question, “What for? Why? What’s the point of this existence?”

Questions and suffering of different levels are pushing us to search. And at the same time, we are revealing an inner capability to control the force that created us to such an extent that we really will change with its help. Then, in this period of time, in this life, in our reality, we will be able to turn the little wheels inside of us and find ourselves in completely different dimensions.

This is what Rav Kook writes about: “Great spiritual questions that are resolved only for great and outstanding people now have to be resolved on different levels of the entire nation.” Anyone is capable of it.
[54417]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

Related Material:
Not Bolts, But Creators Of A New World
How To Bleach The Different Colors Of Desire
An Application For An Internal Use

How Are We Different?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Without mentioning the science of Kabbalah in our dissemination, we are simply telling people that mutual guarantee will provide them with a good life. In that case, how are we different from other organizations that hand out similar promises?

Answer: It’s bad if you don’t feel the difference.

The modern person is experiencing a global, integral crisis. In this way, the Creator is showing him that he is connected with others the wrong way and that he has to reach mutual guarantee. There is a method that will help him unite with others correctly and to start living a good life. This method operates by creating the appropriate atmosphere, a “shell” out of the environment, which gives a person the explanation of how to live together and lead a good, healthy, safe life.

A person hears this and understands that there is no other solution. And others hear the same thing, so it’s easier to make this happen conjointly, together with them. A person learns to unite with others the right way, and in the process he attracts the Light that reforms to himself. This is the same thing that children do while playing, becoming older and smarter in the process.

Thus, when a person finds himself in a bad situation, he uses others to attract the Light, and gradually he starts valuing the force of bestowal. He holds it in high regard and it becomes the highest value for him. And suddenly he begins respecting it so much that even when everything in his life is going ok, he does not abandon bestowal, wishing to enact it regardless of his sensations. That’s because he attributes the primary importance to it.

That is how a person becomes spiritual, going from the egoistic intention, Lo Lishma to the altruistic one, Lishma. And there is no chance that 99% of the population will reach correction in any other way. Can you recommend anything else besides the Torah?

I think the problem is an elementary misunderstanding of how to advance AHP. We have known how to correct Galgalta Eynaim since the times of Babylon, but to correct AHP, this is the only means we have.
[54407]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

Related Material:
Becoming The Center Of Good
Learning To “Share Everything”
“The Living Water” For All Humanity
A Fire Extinguisher For Humanity