What 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.
[53395]
From Lesson 1, the Achziv Convention 9/1/2011

Related Material:
Let’s Take The Good Path To Unity
The Inner Revolution
Mutual Guarantee Is A Response To Nature’s Challenge

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Economy, Israel, Mutual Guarantee, Mutual Guarantee Movement - No Comments →

When 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

Related Material:
Evolution Of Consciousness
The Force That Arises From Opposites
“Call Upon Him While He Is Near”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: 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” (Lamed–Bet), 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.
[53323]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/2011, Shamati #101

Related Material:
A Lily Among Thorns
Blunting The Illusion Of The Breaking
Holding Your Head Up

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: 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

Related Material:
There Is No Empty Space, All Is Filled With Desires
Walking The Tight Wire Straight To The Creator
Write A Prayer

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - 2 Comments →

The 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

Related Material:
The Book That Connects The Sky And The Earth
How To Understand The Zohar
The Key From The Concealed World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Torah, Zohar - 2 Comments →

Question: 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!
[53433]

Related Material:
The Unique Force Of Kabbalah Conventions
What Is Light?
The Group: Virtual Or Physical?

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Zohar - 3 Comments →

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

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

We attain everything according to our sensations. And reality, as it is in itself, is of no interest to us at all. Hence, we do not attain the upper Light and the Creator at all, but only attain our sensations. Thus, all of our impressions follow only our sensations.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 66, “The Giving of the Torah”

The spiritual Light tells us not about its path, but only about the reaction within us to the encounter with the Light.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”
[51984]

Related Material:
Kabbalists On Perception Of Reality, Part 10
Kabbalists On Perception Of Reality, Part 9
Kabbalists On Perception Of Reality, Part 8

Filed under: Kabbalistic Sources, Perception - No Comments →

Shamati #118 “To Understand the Matter of the Knees Which Have Bowed Unto Baal”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled)” “The Firmaments of Assiya,” Item 289, Lesson 15
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 2, Chapter 2, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 5, Item 64, Lesson 24
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 112, Lesson 49
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation,” (Start with: “This is like the sin of Adam HaRishon…”), Lesson 12
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

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

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

Question: Do people have any choice left once they’ve heard the explanation of the laws of the integral world?

Answer: No, because these laws do not depend on us. Imagine a fictional scenario where an alien ship is approaching us and is warning us in advance that by the time it reaches us, we have to reach mutual guarantee. And whoever does not is “doomed.” That is exactly how the laws of nature operate: They suddenly become revealed to us and force us to become aware of what is happening.

Nature’s condition is invariable. We have reached the phase of the single system, whose law is the interconnection of all the parts. This is the mutual guarantee, or in other words, mutual support, the proper participation in the common life, mutual understanding and respect, friendship. You can put it any way you like. Say it warmly and pleasantly, but don’t forget to inform people of the fact that this is an invariable law and there is nowhere to run from it.

Today and tomorrow depend on our explanations. The need for mutual guarantee will not disappear. It will only increase from one day to the next and will require us to realize it. The common system will become increasingly more closed and fused together, the interconnection will become tighter, and the transfer of information via communication lines between us will gain more power, pressure, and intensity.

We will become more aware of these processes and whoever understands and recognizes them will come out on top. In any part of the word, in any society, in manufacturing and trade, in children’s upbringing, and in any other area, success will come to those who are able to use this integral system correctly, who become integral on the inside. These people will gain the right approach and the right calculation, will draw up agreements the right way, and will succeed in everything by virtue of having an inner copy or mold of the external system.

Today we lack this correspondence, which is why we are in crisis: I am an egoist on the inside, while the system is already being revealed to me as united, as all-inclusive. As a result, I cannot treat anyone or anything correctly.

Thus, nature places us before an inevitable necessity. However, when we explain it to people, it is nevertheless better to soften this harsh message. Our task is not to take a person’s freedom away or to tie his hands, but to wrap him in warmth despite the inevitable changes.

The process changes fundamentally if we bring ourselves into similarity with the system. Imagine that the nation tries to attain mutual guarantee, mutual empathy. This will give us an enormous desire to help people. They are like children, and even though their pleas are not turned to us, we will be imbued by their desire, which we won’t be able to satisfy. It will tear us apart on the inside like birth pangs, and that is how we will evoke a tremendous force in order to conduct it to others. And then, the Creator will become revealed—for us and for them.

It doesn’t matter that they still don’t feel that this is Him. At the initial stages, this does not appear as the upper force but as an understanding of things and forces that operate in the world, the expression of the universal interconnection and mutual interaction. The air will suddenly become thicker and a person will acquire the general understanding, a common sensation together with others, unity without words.

And that is already a revelation because a person acquires a new mind, a new feeling. He opens up a new perception and suddenly notices things that did not exist for him before.

We are standing at the threshold, and this is a very exciting period. I am very anxious because this has never before happened in history, but today we are being obligated to do it. I am waiting for you to finally attain what you desire. This is a chance for the whole world: Today we can already accelerate and reduce the entire process. Let us hope that we will achieve success.

Until this time we did not advance by our own mind or our own correct decisions, but with the help of the upper force. And still, we have been brought to this. And that is very important.
[53607]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/11, “The Nation”

Related Material:
Is It The Economy Or Something More?
The Homework That Is Done Together
Knowledge, Not Orders

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Mutual Guarantee, Mutual Guarantee Movement, Q&A - No Comments →