Operating The Generator Of The Energy Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we want to behave between us according to the same rules that the upper system operates by, this will be called “practical Kabbalah.” After all, we will desire to discover between us the same ties that exist in the spiritual world.

The spiritual world is a permanent structure, like a still, switched-off engine that I operate through my desire. The moment my desire disappears, the engine stalls again. The engine will work according to the amount of “fuel” I put in, depending on how I influence it, and thus I will awaken and put in motion all of this system. In this way, I will fill everyone through this system.

The preparation to enter this system is called the beginning of the New Year, whereby a person tries with all his might to feel the tremendous value of bestowal. Through the group and dissemination, he tries to summon on himself the external influence that will change him and bring him closer to bestowal, as it is said: “From the love of the created beings to love of the Creator.”

Thanks to his good attitude towards fellow human beings and his good influence on them, meaning, thanks to the attempts to bring them closer to the Creator and to get closer to Him together with them, he merits the Creator’s Light that Reforms. And thus he enters this special “club” and begins to know it, through the sensation of the Light of life that flows through him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42

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Science Instead Of Instincts

Dr. Michael LaitmanContrary to animals, we develop with the help of science. However, this isn’t free will yet. Science only advances us a bit forward. Animals are driven by blows and their instincts, but since we hardly have any instincts, we develop by blows and science.

Scientific advances allow us to see and resolve problems in advance. For example, x-rays enable us to identify a disease and to start treating it without waiting for it to actually appear. Without x-rays, only the pain could tell us that there is a problem.

Thus science helps us suffer less, and we pay dearly for scientific knowledge. However, it is still the same beastly tendency: the desire to be free of troubles. Science doesn’t raise us to the human degree since it is part of the animate level. By using it, we compensate for our lack of instincts, that’s all.

Animals manage very well without doctors. They know how to eat right, how to give birth, and how to build their shelter. Animals do everything by instinct, while we replace instincts with science. This is actually the role of science—to serve our egoism so that we will suffer less.

So we also examine our development on the animate level. Even when people become aware of the necessity to unite and connect, they don’t know how to attain it.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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The Alternative To Suffering

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Peace in the World“: Four properties are provided for that purpose: mercy, truth, justice, and peace. Those attributes have been used by all world reformers thus far. It is more correct to say that it is with those four attributes that human development has advanced thus far…

It is only by these four attributes that we manage ourselves in order to bring ourselves to the end of correction. So how do we discern them? Many can speak about mercy, truth, justice, and peace for hours, but can we agree on what these attributes are?

It isn’t simple, but Baal HaSulam, knowing the spiritual nature, wrote that this is what we have to clarify in order to manage ourselves and the world. We don’t know what a corrected world is. We are all corrupt and so it seems to us that any egoistic improvement is already correction. However, for Baal HaSulam, the corrected world is a world in which all the possible deficiencies are totally filled. How is that possible? We will have to find that out.

First, we have to understand that we will never be able to fill ourselves egotistically, but only in bestowal because while there is no restriction on bestowal, there is on reception. So how can we desire to receive in such a way that receiving itself will make us understand that it is worthwhile to bestow?

We can develop in this direction by blows: Every time that I want to receive something, I receive more and more blows, until I finally come to the conclusion that it is better not to want to receive egoistically. Then I begin to hate my desire to receive, and I don’t know what to do with it anymore. “So, perhaps I will enjoy bestowal?”

And so different flaws bring me to a point where I ask for the desire to bestow, for the power to bestow, the power to connect to others. This is the road of suffering and asceticism about which it says: “Eat bread with water sparingly and sleep on the ground.” In the past people used accept this and thus advance to bestowal.

It is the same today, if people don’t accept the wisdom of Kabbalah and the explanation about the development of the world, they too will advance in the same way. They will want more and more, but will get less and less, and as a result of suffering, people will begin to feel that it is worthwhile to be together, to bestow upon each other, to connect, to restrict our ego, and even to totally erase it.

We see that in wartime, when the troubles descend upon everyone, people begin to connect. Even animals are not afraid of one another when there is a fire in a forest or an earthquake, and they all escape the danger together. The common problem unites them because the fear of death is greater than the fear of hunger. Clearly, they don’t become “righteous,” but the desire to satisfy their hunger is pushed aside by a greater desire to survive.

We are the same. Of course, we can advance towards correction by suffering. It will compel us to aspire to bestow and to destroy our ego, the source of all the evil in our world. But this is a long and painful way.

This is why we were given an alternative—the way of the Torah. Why? Why do we need this other way? It is because we don’t reach free will by suffering. We only run away from it, like animals. Out of despair, we are even ready to bestow, but it is only because we feel bad when we receive. We don’t choose bestowal by our own free will, but as a result of our suffering as we have no choice. This is the degree of a beast, not man.

In order to bring us to the human level, we need two forces: the force of bestowal and the force of reception, with free will lying between the two. This is the path of people who have the point in the heart.

People who don’t have the point in the heart will also have free will: They can choose to follow those who can lead them forward.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Cursory Thoughts On Shamati, “What Is The Habit Becomes A Second Nature, In The Work”

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen we raise children, we always try to accustom the child to take certain actions so that they would become a habit, such as to wash himself, brush his teeth, or clean the table after himself. We insist on these things day after day, until a person can no longer do without them—he begins to feel uncomfortable. Eventually, this habit frees him from effort.

My mother reminded me to brush my teeth so many times. I tried to get out of it, but she would not let me. Now, I am bound to brushing my teeth, even without my mother’s reminder, because I became used to it.

This implies that we can create habits that will literally become innate and will not require any effort on our part to do them. On the contrary, it will be difficult not to do them because they have become part of our nature. All of this comes from actions that we constantly repeat until they become habits.

How does this law of habits becoming a second nature work? We receive a correcting force every time we make the effort to repeat an action so many times that it becomes imprinted upon us. This is the rule according to which habit becomes a second nature.

This is why a person can become accustomed to anything. One can also attain feelings that he has never experienced before. In this way, he will become accustomed to the upper Light that he has never felt before. Right now, we are in an ocean of Light, but who perceives it? So, what do we lack? We need to become accustomed to it.

We must always try to become sensitive toward the Light. Where is it? How does it operate? Do you feel it? Is it already here? It comes closer and closer, and I can almost feel that it is here. What do I need to do inside myself to start feeling it? What do I need to change? What do I need to do to become more sensitive to it?

When a person tries to reveal the Light in this way, he begins to ask questions: “How can I feel it? I lack the quality of bestowal, a little greater sensitivity toward what exists outside of me, and then I will perceive these vibrations until the Light reveals itself, and not temporarily, but constantly.”

Everything materializes through habit, and this is why our work consists of acquiring habits. All the advice that Kabbalists give us are directed toward accustoming us to actions relative to our friends, dissemination, and study. Why is that?

Try to come out of your “beast.” Start becoming accustomed to the fact that you exist outside of yourself. As soon as you really acquire this inclination, you will perceive the Light. You will never reveal it within yourself, only outside.
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From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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The Creature’s Childhood Years

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe desire to receive pleasure that the Creator created is opposite to Him, the Light, the quality of bestowal, and this is why it only wishes to receive. However, when the creature reveals its opposition to the Creator and desires to become like Him, to bestow, it rises higher and higher in the qualities of bestowal that it receives directly from the Creator. Yet, its very central, original point remains concealed.

The desire to receive that becomes revealed to us in Malchut of the world of Infinity absolutely does not know anything about itself. It is just like an infant who sees something happening in front of him and wishes to participate, thinking that everything adults do is good.

In this same way, Malchut of the world of Infinity restricts itself and says that it wishes to be just like the Creator and nothing else. The Light agrees and plays with the child. It gives Malchut all the necessary strength. If you want a screen, here it is. Here are the Partzufim of Galgalta, AB, SAG, MA, and BON, and the world of Nekudim.

The first time the Light, the Creator, reveals the creature’s true essence to it is during the breaking of the vessels. Imagine the “cruelty” with which it was done. However, at this point, there is no creature. We are only referring to the matter of the desire to receive pleasure. During the breaking, just how opposite the creature is from the Light becomes revealed .

However, this is not yet its own revelation. It is the Light that breaks the desire, and itself together with the desire. In this way, the system of the world of Atzilut and the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya) are created, and a certain perfect state is attained, where everything is prepared for the birth of man.

Man is born out of a special union of Malchut and Bina. When this unique creature, based on the union of the qualities of reception and bestowal, appears, it acquires the possibility to make its own conscious actions with the purpose of gradually attaining the purpose of creation.

This is a very complicated topic, and there are not enough words to express it. The Study of The Ten Sefirot reveals the structure of man in a very general form, without going into any special details. We only know that man arises from the middle third of Sefira Tifferet of the world of Yetzira, but it is impossible to understand the meaning of this without sensing the spiritual world. It is similar to speaking about a phenomenon in this world that you have never encountered.

So, man is born, and he begins to work with the entire system that was created before him, the system he came out of and thanks to which he was born. The system of worlds has a special interweaving of the forces of reception and bestowal with the purpose of leaving this special creature called man with the freedom of choice. Once the creature was broken, the broken souls begin to raise a prayer, MAN, and build Malchut of the world of Atzilut.

This is what our inner work consists of. If we want to connect between us and become like “one man with one heart,” we must become included in this Malchut and obligate it to rise toward Zeir Anpin of the world of Atzilut in order to connect with Him. We must work within the same boundaries and on the same levels where the Creator played with the creature, when it had no knowledge or understanding of anything: in Malchut of the world of Infinity and all the worlds that spread from there downward, until the creature acquired individual perception and consciousness.

We are not able to work within the area of our original qualities, our own “I.” We can only work on becoming included in the upper one, the Creator. This is because our root remains concealed until the very end of correction.

Thus, when we awaken Malchut, we do it through faith above reason. We only ask to be included in the upper one, only to become like Him, to join His actions. This adhesion is also done by the upper one, just like the entire descent of the worlds from Above downward. In the same way, we must obligate the upper one to lift us back from below upward.

However, we never touch upon our true, natural “I” anywhere along this entire path, and we never play with it. We do not touch upon the Creator’s essence, but only His attitude toward us. In the same way, we do not touch upon our own essence, but only our attitude toward Him. We work with the entire range of attitudes between us, except for these two extremes, these last points where, for now, we are absolutely powerless.

Once we complete our full inclusion in one another, Malchut in Bina and Bina in Malchut, me in the Creator and the Creator in me, a special union happens that is called “Rav Paalim uMekabtziel,” and the end of correction, Gmar Tikkkun, is attained.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, TES

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A Loaded Message

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today the crisis has reached all corners of the world and no one sees a solution to it. Why don’t we examine the economic system analogously to our system of upbringing, and offer it to the world?

Answer: We can provide a wonderful description of the economy in the period of the final correction: a balanced society, consumption within the boundaries of reasonable necessity, conservation of nature and man, the sole development of projects that save time and energy and benefit people’s health…. All of this is logical and is easy to put in writing if you are not writing about egoistic gratification, but basic necessity, the harmony between us and nature.

But how can we transition to this stage? How can we explain it to the modern tycoons who are essentially the ones to decide the fate of the world? They manipulate governments which in turn manipulate people. So how can we present this final goal to them? How can we tell them about the phases on the path to it? They will ask: “What will be left for us?” And what will we tell them in response?

“You will receive exactly the same amount as a regular housewife, and your billions will be returned to nature’s needs in order to fix the mess you have made by proliferating excessive consumption in the world. And beyond that you will enjoy internally, spiritually. You will no longer be ‘the top roosters in the pen,’ proudly parading around the perches. You will mature and this will cease giving you pleasure.” You will be fulfilled by the attainment of a higher level.” On the contrary, it will evoke scorn.

Will you be able to explain all of that to a tycoon so he will be enticed by the idea of eternal, perfect life, so he will want to enter the eternity of nature itself, join it, and reveal a higher level of existence in it?… “You will live there like a respectable tycoon. Even when your animate body dies, it is not really you at all. After all, you will become Human in the true, spiritual sense….”

This works only for refined individuals, yet others just might understand it right away. That is why today we are disseminating the force of mutual guarantee to the whole world, and we are not addressing the tycoons, but the people. “It’s worthwhile for us to get closer to one another so life gets better.” And in the meantime, with a view to the future, we inject Light into people, the force of unity. Once they are filled by this force, they begin to understand more and to agree with us, seeing real benefit in the mutual guarantee. That is how they advance.

The path to the heart is not through the mind. You can’t get your mind around this because the mind’s level corresponds to the level of the desire it serves. The mind can never rise above the desire. Deceived by illusions, we might look down on our animate being, but the mind seems like the pinnacle of creation to us. Yet in reality our mind is even lower than the animate desire, being a mere servant of it.

Therefore, the only opportunity we have is to change people’s desires, which can change only under the influence of the Light. This is what we have to provide for them. Your logical conclusions alone won’t help. People will not understand you and will think that you are simply an idiot or a mystic, or in the best case, a great guy dreaming about peace and love on the planet.

There is only one solution: to unite among ourselves and to give people the force of unity. Only this will raise them to a new level of understanding, perception, and agreement with us. Moreover, later, once they agree, they will see that it’s worthwhile for them to follow us because they can’t understand our message fully. By acquiring the force of unity, they will rise to a level where it will become clear that they have to hold on to us, as it is written in the Torah: They will “grab onto your clothes,” meaning the garment, the external vessels, and will say, “Take us there!”

Obviously, you are right in that we do have to talk a little about the economy, upbringing, and the world of the future so as not to push people away at the initial stage. But the most important thing is to transmit the force of unity to them. This is dissemination. In the Introduction to Panim Meirot UMasbirot, Baal HaSulam writes that when the sons of Israel become filled with this force of unity, it will spill from them to everyone else. We have to be ready to receive this force and then it really will spill over to people, who will be receptive to the influence of the Light of Hassadim, giving themselves over to it wholeheartedly.
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From the lesson on 10/24/11

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10.06.11

Shamati #177 Atonements
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts)” “If the Lord Does Not Build the House” Item 103, Lesson 5
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 6, Chapter 15, Question 143, Lesson 8
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 144, Lesson 62
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Writings of Baal HaSulam Peace in the World,” “Practical Difficulties in Determining the Truth,” Lesson 3
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