The US Continues To Face An Ongoing National Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from President Obama’s speech to Congress): “…The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy…. Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. …

“I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. …

“The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. … It will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business. It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled….”

Comment: If that is what Mr. President really thinks, then he is mistaken at the root. It is necessary to change one’s attitude to the world, to show an example of a country that replaced power politics and economy with a politics and economy of unity.

And to accomplish that, it is necessary to launch a wide-ranging system of worldwide, integral upbringing in the spirit of “mutual guarantee,” and according to the understanding of the new connections in society, to create the economy of the new world—the economy of mutual guarantee.

Only that will help us come out of the crisis!
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Don’t Wait For Trouble

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In America there is no protest movement like in Spain or Israel. So how can we transmit the message of mutual guarantee to people here?

Answer: First of all, don’t be sorry that your situation differs from Spain or Israel. In these countries the problems are much greater than the ones you are experiencing. Don’t be sorry about this. You should learn from small troubles. Our approach is not to be happy about people’s suffering.

One way or another, people feel that the world has changed and has placed such problems before them that their solution cannot be found by politicians, sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, economists, or pedagogues. This allows us to come forth with the explanations.

First of all, we explain why no one is able to find the solution: because there are new forces now operating in the world, which are in harmony and global interconnection, while the leaders do not understand that and are using outdated methods. We have to try to bring this message to people so it will seep into them drop by drop.

Obviously, it’s easier to give explanations to those who suffer. However, we have to treat everyone with love. We wish to save our own children from troubles so they won’t have to learn on bitter experience. We want them to go from good to better. And that is the same approach we should have towards everyone.

If we don’t attain success after all our efforts, the troubles will nevertheless arrive, and under their blows people will become more and more perceptive to our explanations. But it’s best to explain everything to them before that. It’s like you are throwing a seed into the ground and with time, it grows through.
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From the Miami lecture 9/14/11

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The Best Example Of All

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the right approach to teaching children?

Answer: This is a special task because we are teaching those who are not familiar with the world at all yet. And the most important thing here is to organize an environment for them. Without an environment, it is very difficult to teach a child our method. A child needs a connection with other children and together they have to be organized into a group.

In the process of studying they have to sit in a common circle and feel that they are strong only when they are united together. A teacher is not really a teacher, but an educator, a mentor. He is like an older friend of the children. Sitting in a circle with them, he conceals his grown-up understanding of the world and skillfully guides them toward unity of equals. The most important thing is to keep this unity.

Every person attains success only on the condition that he is united with others and attains group results with them. The success of each person is determined by how much he helps others. We evaluate each person not by himself, but only by the achievements attained in the group and through the group.

We don’t need “outstanding” or smart students, and we don’t ask, “Who knows?” looking for a “hero” who will prove himself more clever or knowledgeable than others. We do not want this. What we want is for the children to feel that the question and the answer are aimed at the group, that the most important thing is to be together, and even if the answer is incorrect, it is still correct because it brings about a common solution in which everyone takes part.

If there is a chance to do so, a younger group should work with educators who are two or three years older. Children learn from these kinds of instructors better than anyone, looking up at them like at “angels.” And this obligates the older kids, in turn, to study so they won’t slip up in front of the younger ones. As a result, we win twofold: 10-year-olds happily learn from 13-year-olds, rejoicing that the older kids give them time and attention. And the 13-year-olds study the material, spurred by the feeling of their importance, in order to educate the younger ones.

Children have to be taught how to judge one another, separately and together. If someone acted wrongly, a “court discussion” has to be arranged where we study the incident and its causes, examining questions such as, “Was this action correct or not? Would I have acted the same way in that person’s place?” Every person has to hold himself accountable for conducting intensive, inner psychological work.

It’s good to take children on trips where they get to know the world they live in. Let them visit all sorts of factories, an airport, bank, post office, planetarium, and so on. At every place they visit, they should hear explanations about how each establishment is constructed and how it works. This can even be a storeroom of a supermarket where goods are received, sorted, and stockpiled so they can later be arranged on the display shelves for the consumers.

In short, the children have to know how our life is built and what it is comprised of. At every place they visit, the person responsible or the supervisor should give them the appropriate clarifications, and when they return to school, together they should discuss what they saw and heard. Every one of them has to write a report about the place he visited, describing what it is, what it is intended for, how it serves people and humanity as a whole, what kind of people work there, what kind of preparation they must go through, and so on.

These trips enable children to learn about the big world, how it is built, and the interconnections permeating it. They see how complicated it is to organize various areas of life and this motivates them to prepare for becoming full-fledged citizens of the world.

The process of studying in class is filmed on camera. Obviously, children quickly forget the events of the day that has passed, but later they can come back to them and look at themselves from aside, in particular, noting: Were they able to unite this time? This is part of self-study.

Our primary concern is not so much to give them specific, professional knowledge, but to give them the right approach to life. A person has to know what kind of world he lives in and how human society has to function in order to maintain a harmonious interconnection among all its parts.

We teach our children the inner psychology of the connection between them. This develops them internally a great deal, enabling them to learn new material. Recently, as was requested by the Ministry of Education, they participated in a symposium that was attended by hundreds of pedagogues and educators from all over the country. Teenagers dispersed among different discussion tables and communicated with the experts on such a high level that the experts were astounded.

Also this year, several of our children have been accepted to university. In short, we see that it’s worthwhile to invest efforts and resources into upbringing. An example of the proper upbringing works better than any other example because it shows all of the advantages of the global, integral mode of study in a group that is permeated by unity, love, and correct relationships. This enables one to see with one’s own eyes how this approach opens up a person’s ability to perceive and forms him differently.

We have already published several books on upbringing. I hope that by the end of the year we will complete working on our curriculum and the set of study materials, which will include CDs and DVDs.

It’s advisable to study the topic of upbringing on our website. Maybe professionals in this field should even come to visit us to exchange experience. We will be happy to show you the method and bring you up to date.
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From the Miami lecture 9/14/11

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Like Fish In A Net

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we go about mass dissemination and what should we do differently from how we have acted until now?

Answer: In some people the urge to reveal a perfect reality awakens by itself. These are the people with “a point in the heart.” They ask questions like, “What is the purpose of my life? What am I living for? What gives me life?” By no means does this have to make them depressed, or perhaps just a little. But most importantly, they have a burning passion within. They feel that there is something concealed from this world, that there is something else operating in reality.

In reality, everyone comes up against this question, but most people muffle it out. Yet not everyone is able to. These people get “swept” onto our shore, similarly to how an electric charge in a magnetic field moves toward its source, carried by the force of attraction. People come to us not knowing how or why. The fact of the matter is that everyone is inside a single field of information, nature, or plan of creation, and precisely we have the primary sources that originate from there, answers to timeless questions.

We roughly designate these people as 1% of humanity. Their number grows from one day to the next and they awaken across the whole world: at the icy north and in a Nigerian village, in Japan, China, Chile, and in the center of Europe…. The point in the heart does not depend on geography. It is a sign of a new phase of development. Gradually it will start awakening in everyone, but for now we are the first generation that aspires to find out what it is living for. Our egoistic desire has reached the stage where it demands to attain the meaning of its existence.

This is already a question asked by a human being rather than an animal whose sole interest is only to arrange its life the best way. Precisely the human being in us asks, “What am I living for?” For people like that, we have a method that’s ready. They start studying and receiving explanations.

But what should be done about the others? We never thought we would have to address those who do not ask the question about the cause and purpose of life. However, the events taking place today are obligating us to act. The crisis has arrived and humanity has found itself at a dead end with the world’s leaders not knowing what to do, as if they are little children. They get together at G8 and G20 conferences, but there is no answer. They make far-reaching decisions, but the decisions don’t work.

The problem is that the world has become closed in a global system, while they are not global. On the contrary, they are individualists and egoists. Therefore, they do not know how to approach modern global problems correctly.

The science of Kabbalah says that during these times, we have to come out into the world and disseminate knowledge about the new situation in it. Obviously, we have to act without pressuring anyone and without looking down on people from above, but on the contrary, we have to be as friendly as possible and approach people in the way that’s most comfortable for them. We have to give them an explanation of the fact that we have entered a new system of interconnection and therefore all of the previous forms of connection do not work any longer.

We have to learn this new system and understand what our universal interconnection means. It’s similar to entering a new workplace that is governed by rules you do not know, and where you must first find your bearings. It takes time for you to get used to the accepted norms of communication, to figure out the system, to find the points of contact in it, to start pressing the right buttons and receiving the right reactions…. And that is just a regular situation in our world.

In contrast to it, the new interconnection that is being revealed between us today is opposite to our nature. It does not match my inner quality and I cannot study it. First I have to change on the inside, and only then will I be able to figure out this integral connection that is being revealed everywhere today: at workplaces, in industry and production, politics and economy, and in all the relationships between us, even including family life.

Therefore, the first thing required of me is a willingness to understand. If I, an egoist, were entering a regular egoistic company, then with time I would set up the right relationships. However, today I am entering an integral society in which everyone is interconnected as cells of one body, even if they do not feel it yet. That means I have to rebuild myself from the inside, to receive correction.

It turns out that humanity has found itself in a critical state. Today every person has to change and understand what kind of net has come down on us. In this net we are flapping about like fish, unable to escape the universal connection. Without understanding this connection, we will not be able to do anything in our world. After all, we depend on one another, and therefore, without becoming aware of the new laws, we won’t be able to make contracts, maintain the bank system, production and trade, exchange goods and knowledge….

The doors that were open to us before are closing, and the mechanisms that have been working are drawing to a halt. “It’s a crisis,” we say, but it’s not a regular crisis and therefore, we are unable to control it. This unusual, nonstandard, and completely new state is what we have to explain to the world.

Besides, we have to explain how we can change in accordance with the new, global system. After all, in essence, nature is inviting us to become integral parts of it. Previously every one of us was blowing up his own, egoistic “bubble,” swallowing the resources of the environment. But today, despite the enormous egoism, we have to set up an interconnection and unite among one another based on the principles of mutual help and support, similar to parts of one body. And that is extremely opposite to our personal benefit.

Therefore, in order to change, I have to involve an external pressure, or stated differently, build an environment. It’s similar to how parents are watchful of who their child is friends with because his environment today is him tomorrow. That is how I must artificially form an environment for myself that will influence me from all sides. By doing so, it’s as if I pull myself out of the swamp by the hair because I create a wonderful, proper environment for myself so it will cultivate the right approach in me and imbue me with new, global, integral values that I lack.

I build this environment artificially, but when it influences me, I change in actuality. Then I add new “bricks” to it so it will provide me with even greater support, so it would be even more consolidated, interconnected, and global, and then it influences me again.

That is how I form myself and pull myself out of egoism and individualism into the general unity. At the same time, I study nature’s enormous system and in essence, carry out the Creator’s work. There is nowhere for me to take an example from besides the books written by Kabbalists who have already done this. Side by side with modern scientists, they explain to us what the global nature is.

At the end of the day, it’s as if we are playing: We turn ourselves into a game that raises us. It’s the same as how little children grow and get smarter as they “play.” By acting this way, I start to understand this enormous system and from there I see how to build new mechanisms of our relationships.

That is how I come out of the crisis and start to understand that this is not a crisis at all, but a game, a disassembled Lego set that we have to assemble. By putting together pieces of the broken whole, similar to a child, I develop until reaching the level of this whole system.

For the first time in history, we are facing the need to build the new, human society ourselves, to create a system of the proper interconnection out of small egoists. By doing so, we will reveal this system and will start living in it all together with a common mind and feeling, and then we will rise to a mind and feeling that lie above the current, individual life of each of us. This will become the revelation of the concealed world.

We have to perform this work ourselves in our global system. And we must also explain it to others. Humanity will have to make this happen. Otherwise we won’t get through the crisis. It will exert extremely powerful pressure on us until we carry out this task, similar to how parents pressure children to study.
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From the Miami lecture 9/14/11

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The Crisis Is Like The Finger Of Fate

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe world is changing, and we must connect. We see that life is slipping out of our control. Before this started happening, it was forbidden to speak about it and reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah.

However, a new power is being revealed in the world between people, countries, different systems, and banks and trade. It confuses us and ruins our lives, threatening our essential needs, our food. The further we advance, the more we will see the system fail. It will simply stop working.

It is like an idea or a misfortune enters your very close family, the entire household begins to worry, and you are unable to agree with one another. This is what is happening now with the world. A new idea has appeared, and one part agrees with it, while the other does not. The first says that there is no choice and that we must accept it. The others say that this does not bother them and that they do not wish to participate.

Then a lack of understanding appears between us where we stop speaking, responding only when we must. Coldness and inner rejection appears. This can happen in any family, and this is now happening in the entire human society. Something simply is no longer working.

We would like it to work again. Would banks and trade not want to fix the situation? They are willing to pay double for it. All of a sudden, capitalists are willing to pay more taxes, but it still will not work. This calls for a new power, not the power that we built ourselves and that we ourselves can fix.

Sometimes, when something does not work, you can see where it needs a little fix. This is the way we always build, empirically, through trial and error. However, here, we feel that the situation has gone out of our control. This new network that is being revealed is simply “the finger of fate,” as Pharaoh’s advisers once referred to the plagues.

We always thought we rule, but the Creator, Who according to Gematria (the numerical value of a word) equals nature, shows Himself to be the ruler. We are beginning to understand that there is a new power here. We must become human beings and acquaint ourselves with it, unlike an ape that does not think about the Creator or any higher power, but simply lives its life.

A new power is manifesting, and this power has feelings, reason, and a program for us. This power was ruling us all along, but we were very naïve children, completely unaware that we constantly follow its directions. For the first time, we start realizing this.

We are rising to the next, higher degree by becoming acquainted with the upper force, the Creator. This is the true birth on a new degree. Until now, we were as apes because we completely followed nature’s directions by the decree of natural feeling and reason. However, today, we are receiving additional feelings and reason as well as the other ones. These new feelings and reason are different from the initial ones.

A global network, a new power in the world, is being revealed, and this is why we are experiencing this discord, dissonance, and we do not know how to combine one with the other. It is revealed to us as a new image that we face.

It is hard for a person to understand it. Usually, people acknowledge that nature has its own laws, but they consider it at the still level, lacking in feelings and reason. However, it should be obvious that nature has a program that precedes the creature because we can see how everything develops. It is naïve to believe that this entire world appeared on its own as a result of an accidental combination of particles, which also happened by accident. If so, we also could believe that a monkey, pounding a keyboard, typed up the Encyclopedia Britannica by accident.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Principles Of Spiritual Work – 9.9.2011

Dr. Michael LaitmanA collection of tips and principles of spiritual work studied during the Daily Kabbalah Lesson

The Truth Only Comes Forth Through Difficult Work

Spiritual work consists of preferring the truth to everything else: falsehood and sweetness vs. bitterness. When I hold onto this truth, I start attaining perfection and eternity, which I did not previously know. When I place the truth above everything else, without preferring anything else, I ultimately learn that there was nothing but it.

When the desire to receive pleasure rises above the point of one’s creation, it becomes included in the thought of the upper one where it had not yet actually existed, but was only in potential. It disappears in the upper one to such an extent that it begins to perceive eternity. All the steps that we take to return to our root remain in us.

When we ascend them, we collect them and include them within us. This is why this entire process, our entire history, becomes the inner part of our existence. We experience all the states described in the books of Kabbalah on our path. We include them within us, and we feel as one whole with all the souls of the Kabbalists who have already completed the entire path of the return to the world of Infinity.

There is nothing but desire. The place of the spiritual world is desire, similar to the Creator’s desire. The place of the corporeal world is desire opposite to that of the Creator.
[Read more →]

Unity As The Method Of Solving The Crisis, Part 2

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion: (Ludger Kühnhardt, Professor of Political Science, Director at the Center for European Integration Studies, Bonn University): “The 21st century, unlike the period after the Congress of Vienna, is no longer a zero-sum game of winners and losers. Rather, it is a century of multiple networked nodes.

“The better these nodes are connected with each other, the more they will resonate with the best ideals and principles Europe and the United States stand for. This lesson of history is yet to be discovered by those who try to reinvigorate a common transatlantic frame of mind. This effort goes well beyond the surface of debates on a ‘declining’ West and of U.S. ‘exceptionalism.’”

My Comment: Ah, if only politicians understood the world as scientists, or if scientists had an opportunity to operate as politicians! How can we “cross” them to produce a new type of man who understands and performs?
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One Can’t Be Forced To Become A Human

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are still in an old state where we perceive ourselves as the masters of the world, and we hope to correct the current situation with some sort of action. We will discover that none of our actions work, and we won’t know what to do next. If there is nothing that can be done, then we can only wait and see what unfolds. Whatever happens, happens. We’re left with no choice; we’re completely helpless.

Here, somewhat indirectly, the science of Kabbalah reveals itself and explains to the confused and desperate world that a new authority of nature is becoming revealed. It is telling us to stop treating nature as something primitive, existing on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Nature exists on a far more absolute degree, and it contains a program for all of its parts, especially the human part.

Finally, the time has come for us to truly separate from the apes. Until today, we were as apes, that is, we acted according to our inherent nature and were led only by our desires, deciding which banana to rip off the tree. However, from now on, we must evolve according to nature’s program that has developed us up to this day, only now we’ll have to do it consciously, as humans. This is what is being revealed today.

It’s clear why this explanation had to come from some external force. (Understand now how vital the science of Kabbalah is and why it had to happen in an artificial sort of way, through an external breakthrough.) After all, the Creator could have revealed all of this for us, but if He had, we would have had no choice. We would have continued our advancement as apes, as “holy animals.”

If the Creator would reveal Himself, we would accept His rule as nature’s condition. We would act obediently in accordance with it, just like animals. However, we wouldn’t become independent; we wouldn’t become humans, Adam, derived from the word, Domeh or similar to the Creator. We would be only at the still, vegetative, and animate levels of holiness because Nature (the Creator) obliges us.

Our method of correction had to come to us indirectly so that we could become independent like the Creator and have the freedom to choose. It’s so that we would not be faced with the Creator, but instead with the group and the books, with something that doesn’t directly obligate us and doesn’t affect our minds and sensations.

I’m not obliged in any way. I read a Kabbalistic book, and I become impressed up to a certain point, starting from zero, then on the first, second and third levels, but not on the fourth. In order to become impressed on the fourth (human) level, I must activate myself, inspire myself to take certain actions to draw the upper Light that Reforms. Then, I’ll begin to understand and feel changes on my fourth level, within my matter, the desire to receive.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Is Man The Master Of The World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanI see the current crisis not as a punishment to us, but as a unique opportunity to reach an eternal and perfect existence, a totally different frame of reference. We have made many discoveries in this world in the evolution from ape to human, but now, for the first time, the upper management is being revealed to us. We are beginning to hear that indeed, there is some force beyond us.

We understood that the forces of nature existed: the force of hurricanes or the force of gravity, but all these forces were less than us. They were the forces of blind nature: still, vegetative, and animate.

However, I, a human being, was above them. Who else could compete with me? Let an animal attack me. I can kill, defeat, or tame and domesticate it to serve me. I was the strongest among them.

Of course, there were some phenomena before which we were powerless. Suddenly, a volcano would erupt or some other natural disaster would occur, but we understood that they were the laws of a blind nature that had no mind. We could predict those catastrophes by various signs or calculate them using formulas. However, suddenly, for the first time in history, a new power is revealed between us, the human beings.

Try to feel the unusual things that we are talking about. This creates a situation as if we were gathered in one room for some meeting: There are many people, and an intimate atmosphere prevails between us because we have known each other for a long time. Let’s suppose that it is someone’s birthday, and everyone is mingling with a glass in his hand. Everyone knows what is happening.

Then, all of a sudden, a new attitude, a new power, breaks through, and no one can get along with one another. That is how our world appears now. People are beginning to feel that this new power is coming from outside, and they do not understand what to do with it.

Everything is changing at the level of man himself. The fact that some hurricane occurs is still okay. This is the still nature, or the vegetative, or the animate, but it is less than human. These things are stronger than me, but below me because they are devoid of sense and reason.

Unexpectedly, however, changes are taking place that seem to have sense and reason. I still cannot clearly distinguish the intellect there, but I already understand that these changes are at my own level. A new power is being revealed where I, using my sense and reason, have built the systems of connection between us, the people. I do not know about it, but I see that I cannot manage there myself. I cannot achieve what I wanted.

This is revealed to me slowly and from a distance, but I already see that I am not the master in this world. I do not attribute this to some force outside of me that has sense and reason, but I see that this obstruction is at my height. Therefore, today, we do not know what to do.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Building A Bridge Above Hatred

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is there a difference between personal internal work and work in the group?

Answer: In spirituality, there is no separate personal and group work—it is all a single work. If I exist only under one authority, under the complete rule of my egoism, nothing can be done. Such a reality is called “this world,” and in such a state, I have no chance in changing my ego.

To change my state means to change “a place.” That is, I have to build a new place, new spiritual feelings and mind. And that is possible only by means of connection.

My personal work is to exert effort to connect with others. And for that reason, I select people who can help me—they are called “the group.” Thus, both my personal and group work take place, but essentially, this is one general work. It’s because I can’t be without them, and they can’t exist without me: This is the way we are arranged from the beginning.

There is no other work besides connecting and feeling new spiritual phenomena inside of that connection. To the extent that I want to attach their internal desire to me, I correct my desire. In fact, my spiritual vessel exists beyond my “I,” in all the others.

I have to connect what seems separate and remote from me in my consciousness, obscured by a wall of my egoism, envy, hatred, and ambition, meaning my desire to dominate the others, to disregard everyone, to rule and to use.

Thus my ego purposefully shows me different forms of my remoteness and neglect of a fellow human being so that I build the bridge of love towards him. And the further I advance, the stronger I will feel that I despise others, repel them, and want to use them for my own good.

I do that with pleasure or see that it is simply necessary, and I will suffer if I don’t use the other. We are being put through such states and placed before the need of using the other and neglecting him or her to save us from problems. Meanwhile, I have to realize that all of that is just an exercise or a joke that I have to rise above in order to overcome it and to connect to others, namely above it.

The egoistic force brings me to a state of total despair: “Look, if you don’t cause damage to others, you won’t be able to exist!” All our work is in rising above it. That’s why this principle is expressed in such general words: “Love the other as thyself”—above envy and hatred, above the desire to use others.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/2011, Shamati #121

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