Audio Version Of The Blog – 12.01.11

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2011-12-01_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3]

Endeavoring The Impossible


Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion:
When we try to realize the force that the upper degree sends to us, we discover that it’s impossible…

Answer: That’s absolutely correct. We are endeavoring the impossible, something that is beyond our ability.

Can we ask a donkey to sing us an aria from an opera? It is incapable of that both by its development and physical ability. But we are in a much more dire situation. A donkey at least has auditory and vocal faculties, while we don’t have anything from the spiritual world. We are absolutely cut off from it.

That’s because the spiritual world is the quality of bestowal. So how can we feel it in the egoistic desire? Can bestowal dress into reception? Can fire dress into water? Of course not.

Therefore, our enormous desire is not just aimed at an abstract idea, but at having the upper Light correct us. Three components must be welded in this desire: Israel, Torah, and the Creator. Stated differently: me, the group, and the upper Light. The Light is what corrects me; I will never achieve anything alone.

Therefore, at the Mutual Guarantee Convention, we raise MAN—a desire, a plea, a need for the upper force to correct us. This is the entire essence and objective of the convention.
[62266]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/11, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

Related Material:
He Will Do What I Couldn’t
Returning To The Unity That Already Exists
Only One Desire? That’s Not Enough…

Love that Egoists Are Not Familiar With

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is really not easy to arrive at the sensation of need of true love. In our world, the only love that exists is love for one’s own self. When I love something, I want to come closer to it, bring it close to me, and fulfill myself with something. In other words, I wish to “get hold of it.” For us “love” is acquisition. “I love” means that I like the fact that it is mine—this is what the desire to receive pleasure says.

Naturally, it brings a good sensation. But we value this quality in man as if it was referring to his good qualities, which is because our entire world is made of “consumers.” We do not love anything in any other way but in our egoistic desires.

Love that Kabbalah speaks of is completely different, and we are not able to understand it well. There is the upper force that does not depend on us and that has existed before we were created, without us, that is, before the Creator had the desire to create the creature. The creature is something that exists outside this upper force, the Creator, and perceives Him.

To perceive Him means to understand, feel, and attain His qualities. To bring the creature to the point of perceiving the Creator, it was necessary to create the creature with the qualities opposite to the Creator’s: in egoistic love. And development must bring the creature to love of the Creator referred to as “love thy neighbor.” After all, no one else exists beside the Creator and the creature.

We must go through this development on our own, that is, we must feel, understand, examine, and evaluate all the details of perceiving the Creator. And at the end, we must change our egoistic love—the desire to enjoy that only allows us to perceive ourselves and encapsulates us within ourselves—to the development of perception of what exists outside of us. This is why the one external to us is called a “neighbor.” And since this perception is given to us by the Creator’s degree, position, it is referred to as the good inclination.

There is nothing beside these two states: either I perceive myself or I perceive the Creator. But this transition is absolutely not clear to us since I am absolutely separated from the second state and am unable to feel it. To help me go from perceiving myself to perceiving Him, the Creator prepared a certain illusion within my egoistic desire, my perception of myself, which gives me the feeling of not being alone.

This is why I feel like I am in an environment that is referred to as my “neighbor” and includes the still, vegetative, and animate world, and the people, that is, different creatures, different parts of creation. And I, a certain regular person, feel how I can use this environment either for my own interests or as an exercise to try to do it for the sake of the environment.

My need to act for the sake of the environment arises when my desire for the Creator awakens. I do not understand this desire yet, I do not know the Creator, and this is why I am given this exercise: Try to treat your neighbor, those who are outside of you, altruistically. This is the place where you will be able to build your love for your neighbor.

When through these exercises you will acquire new qualities and understanding and will perform multiple clarifications, then you will be able to come closer to having a connection with the Creator.
[62041]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Looking For The Mysterious Unknown
About The Value Of Love Of Friends
Jumping Out Of Your Skin

What Is The Purpose Of Our World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanAt the end of our development, we must reach a state of unlimited reception, unlimited revelation of good, eternity, perfection, and power, as well as absolute fulfilment. This is what awaits us ahead if we begin to receive in order to express intentions toward the Creator that are equivalent to those He displays toward us. This is the essence of all our work.

The purpose of the creation of our world, meaning the concealment of the Creator, is for us to try, under these conditions and with the environment that is given to us, to develop such skills of interaction between us that will allow us to switch from reception—theft, bad intentions, rivalry, envy, and hatred—to the feeling of bestowal, love, and rising above oneself.

If a person truly rises above himself, he begins to perceive the Light that fills the world around him, the Creator who is present in this world, the general Light, the general quality of love and bestowal. Then, he disconnects from his animal body and simply “floats” in this huge, endless atmosphere of being filled with love and goodness.

This is the next state that we must ascend to. In no way does this destroy our world. We enter it gradually, feeling it together with our world, and transform in our sensations to the next degree.
[62032]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/6/2011

Related Material:
Love That Egoists Are Not Familiar With
The Love That Reveals Infinity
Looking For The Mysterious Unknown

The Love That Reveals Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is very hard to find some connection between the words or the letters in The Book of Zohar and the love of friends. How do you do that?

Answer: We’ve already said that we don’t define the word “love” correctly. Love means connection, equivalence of form, equivalence of attributes. It is not the concept of love that we use in our world: I love what belongs to me, and I don’t love what isn’t mine.

We build love, we actually acquire love: Through the efforts that I make, by changing and correcting my attributes, I attain love. It isn’t a love that is typical to my nature and my character, when I love one thing and not another. I naturally love those who are close to me, and not those who are distant because I want to use them in order to fill my ego. We are not speaking about such relationships. Everything that takes place inside our ego has nothing at all to do with the love the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks of.

When I am in the group and try to work on the connection with the friends, I know that it is all depicted only in my imagination. Actually, there is no group or anything else. Only I exist. All of the external images that I see are only a play of my imagination. My ego, that still dominates me, divides me into internality and externality.

If I corrected myself, I would return to the real picture of reality that actually exists right now, but it is hidden from me by the degrees and the worlds (concealments). I would return to the world of Infinity where there is no “I” and no “others.” Everything is my desire, my vessel, where there is the Creator, the fulfillment, and where there is none else besides Him. This is how I should imagine all of reality.

So, what is love? It is the attainment of the attributes of love and bestowal, bestowal upon others, the love of others. Eventually, it is all about overcoming the lie I am in. That is all.

The infinite reality divided by the force of separation into numerous forms that seem to be outside of me. This was done intentionally. This is a false image of reality. If I work on the basis of this false form that I cannot annul, if I rise above it and reunite Infinity into one whole, then even though the false form remains, I attain the feeling of Infinity that is 620 times stronger in my true sensation, understanding, and awareness.
[62045]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, The Zohar

Related Material:
To Love “As Yourself” Is To Love More Than Yourself
The World Of Infinity – Here And Now!
Revealing The Light Of Infinity Between Us

Understanding The Great Kabbalists

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator is the force of bestowal that dominates all of reality. The force of bestowal can glow from a distance. No matter who we are and of what matter we are made, its bestowal upon us can make us resemble it: turn us into the ones who bestow.

In order to connect to this force, those who have attained it describe the different revelations of the force of bestowal, the Creator. They tell us about the mechanism of His system of bestowal upon us, and thus we can connect to Him. Indeed, we can never say anything about a person himself. We can speak only about how his actions are revealed to us. Baal HaSulam writes that we never can know the “essence,” but only the actions of the essence.

It is the same with the Creator. It is written: “By Your actions, we will know You.” By His actions, we gradually perceive His correct image. This is because His actions are imprinted within us in different forms. From them we begin to understand, ponder about, clarify, and arrange the Creator’s actions, and then we can create His image. It all stems from our impressions, and this is how we reach recognition.

The revelation, recognition, and understanding that we reach is called “imaginative cognition.” It is imaginative because on one hand, our matter remains the same: the desire to enjoy. There is no other matter. On the other hand, the form that dresses in this matter is the desire to bestow, the attribute of the one Who bestows, His image, by which I am impressed.

In order to be impressed by that image, by the Creator, I am impressed by the group. Thus, I come closer to perceiving Him. Reading The Book of Zohar is special because while we read it, we want to be impressed by the different forms of the Creator’s bestowal that were revealed to those who were able to attain His forms. These forms come to us, but they are hidden, and we don’t feel them, we cannot describe how we sense them. We don’t have a clear feeling of the forms, of their various types, manifestations, or attributes, whereby I would feel any inner changes.

Kabbalists describe all these forms and give us a whole picture as to how this understanding is formed within a person, how it changes and develops in him from a very small form: the point in the heart. Starting from this tiny point, every stage develops first in a negative direction that is opposite to the Creator, and then in a positive direction that resembles Him. Then again, development is in a negative direction, in another attribute that is opposite to the Creator, and then in a positive direction that is like Him. Thus it continues: left, right, left, right. This is how our understanding develops, from the smallest to the greatest.

The states where we are opposite to the Creator are called the “evil inclination,” and the states where we receive attributes like His are called the “good inclination.” In other words, the “inclination,” the desire, remains, but we call it “bad” if it is opposite in form to the Creator, and we call it “good” if we receive attributes that resemble Him.

We are actually talking about ourselves in relation to the attribute of love. This is the Creator’s attitude toward the created beings. So, in every step that we take, we advance from hatred to love, then again from hatred to love. When we feel hatred, in some way, we feel the notion of “Mount Sinai,” a mountain of hatred. Then, when we feel love, we feel the Light that Reforms, the revelation of the Torah.

When we read The Book of Zohar that tells us about all the states, good and bad, the negative forces and the positive ones that operate mutually and equally in order to attain the goal, we have to try and connect to the great Kabbalists who felt all these states and adhered to them. Now, I want to be part of Rabbi Shimon’s group that includes Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and all the great Kabbalists.

This is all one mechanism, one system, the corrected part of the whole vessel of the soul that has been corrected. There, in these desires, are the great souls that feel and have attained the Creator, that have the same attributes that He has. They talk to us about this mechanism just as parents talk to their children. Although the child doesn’t understand everything he is told, he still has to try to.
[62053]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, The Zohar

Related Material:
In A Circle Of Great Kabbalists
A Net Enveloping The Whole Universe
How To Enter The Book Of Zohar

One Prayer From One Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Each time after an intensive day, the morning lessons seem to “heal all the wounds,” opening a new page and giving us a new urge.

Answer: That’s right, throughout the day you do many things, prepare yourselves, and do your internal work so that the next morning we can make a breakthrough.

Question: How can we keep this trend from slowing down before the convention?

Answer: We will not slow down. After all, we’ve become a great global vessel, world Kli, and we have the power to unite and not to lose the deficiency. Besides, we should understand that we have to do only half the work: to create a deficiency, a vessel. The filling will come from Above, the Light that Reforms will do the work. We have to recognize evil, our lack of power, and this will be our greatest accomplishment. At the same time, we need hope, readiness, and confidence that the Surrounding Light will do its job.

So in order to raise a request for correction (MAN), we need two things: a feeling of helplessness and confidence in the power that comes from Above. You believe in Bina, which is called “faith,” “bestowal,” and at the same time you also see that you, meaning Malchut, cannot do anything.

Question: We are riding on a certain wave now. How can we not feel “drunk with success”?

Answer: Everything will be alright. We don’t have to be absolutely sure of ourselves, and at the same time we shouldn’t worry. There are always two opposites that operate here: How can I be worried if I believe in the upper force? I have to worry that we will all connect in one desire. We don’t need anything except for that. Only mutual guarantee will enable us, by the prayer of many, to demand the upper force to be revealed. The more we connect, the more we will reveal its Light.

Question: How can I fine-tune this yearning and not be satisfied with the natural joy from the gathering?

Answer: You cannot avoid the ups and downs. Someone my feel emptiness now, and someone else may be dancing with joy. This is how we complement each other. Thus, the shattering of the vessels manifests: By working on themselves, they connect and actually incorporate into each other.

We have to increase our efforts. The main thing is to reach the prayer of many that will burst out of our unified heart.
[62070]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

Related Material:
The Picture Of Reality On A Scale Of 1:125
Breaking The Protective Wall Of Indifference
Appealing To The Creator Together

Questions About What To Do On One’s Own And Physical Presence

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We know that a person needs to humble himself and connect with the group through mutual guarantee. But what does one do when he is at home on his own? How does a person act with the correct intention when he is doing mundane things such as eating, cleaning, and so on?

Answer: Be under our influence with our channel of communication turned on.

Question: I am a 70 year-old lady. I have been studying Kabbalah for seven years now. I have some health problems, which make it very difficult for me to be away from home, drive, attend congresses, and so on. I watch you every day during the morning lesson, and since I am retired, I do translations and work with texts most of my time.

However, it bothers me that I cannot be with the group very often. Yet, I have found that many discernments and changes within me are the result of interacting with my own family. I wonder, do you think this is the correct path?

Answer: You are advancing wonderfully; continue, this will give you strength and add years to your life.
[62085]

Related Material:
Some Beginner Questions About Studying
Dissemination Is Like Giving Birth In The Spiritual World
Value Every Minute

Two Paths To Attaining The Level Of “Adam”

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are two paths for attaining the level of “Adam”: the path of suffering and the path of the Light. Being in our world in the lowest state, we suddenly revealed a push that led us to the group, to the general system of uncorrected separate souls.

However, we have all the means: the teacher, the books, and the instructions to begin our correction and become similar to the system of Adam that exists in the world of Atzilut. If we unite and wish to be like Adam in order to bestow to the Creator and thereby become similar to Him, then from this general system of Adam, during our studies we receive the influence of the Surrounding Light or Ohr Makif. It gradually corrects us and connects us into one whole.

It all depends on the extent to which we try to gather into a group, study together from the sources, and strive to attain the goal of creation. These are the means for attaining our higher state. Altogether we must come to the state of Adam.

There are two paths of advancement toward the goal: the path of the Light, when we attract the influence of the Light, and the path of suffering, when we are in the group, but don’t really wish to advance. This creates great problems for us because as years go by, we don’t know what to do with ourselves and why we are not getting anywhere. Due to the fact that we aren’t using the means that are given to us, our advancement becomes slow, difficult, and lengthy. In other words, we advance by the path of suffering.

If we could only rise above ourselves and with clenched teeth strive towards each other, to see that only in this connection between us will we find a happy, perfect future, then we would instantly reveal the Light of correction within us, the Surrounding Light that connects us. In this connection we would instantly sense the upper world.

We lack an attack directed at lowering oneself and elevating the quality of bestowal and love for each other above ourselves. I hope that we will be able to achieve this at our forthcoming convention. We have all the necessary conditions to make it happen.
[61931]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/6/2011

Related Material:
Was There Really Adam HaRishon?
The Space Derivative Of The Soul
The Collective Soul: Is It All Me Or Am I A Part Of It? 

From Quavering To Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that it is necessary to be in constant worry and fear before the convention. How do we raise such a feeling inside the group?

Answer: In The Book of Zohar it is said that there are two degrees in reaching the goal of creation. The first degree is fear, but it’s not a physical, animalistic fear for oneself. It is a quavering, a worry, about whether I can reach the quality of bestowal. We have to have that specific kind of fear, to ask ourselves: “Am I ready for that? Am I capable of that? Will I be able to reach that?”

If such a fear exists in a person, he relates to the friends, the group and even perceives the world in a completely different way. He feels constant internal worry in the search for the quality of bestowal. He wants to know how to find it, how to determine it, and what it is exactly.

If he is in a constant search to find that quality of bestowal inside and outside of himself, to see its examples, he gradually reaches the quality of quavering that is required of him. Then, from the quality of quavering (his worrying about revealing bestowal to some extent, feeling it, and letting it fill him), he comes to the quality of bestowal.

Thus, a quiver is a vessel, a condition, a desire, that has to be inside of us in order for us to receive a fulfilment inside of it. But what kind of fulfilment do we get? We get the ability to give.

Nothing else is required because as soon as a true intention to bestow appears in me, the upper Light instantly becomes revealed to me, and the Creator gives me everything He has. If I want to and can bestow to Him, I begin receiving from Him to the extent of my desire, my intention to bestow. The contact between us happens in such a way that I rise above egoism, and I am working in the quality of bestowal.

The more I receive, the more I give to Him. I become filled, receiving pleasure from everything I get from the “Host.” At the same time, I feel the enormous pleasure that I invoke in Him, how He enjoys me. In this way, we please each other.

It is a wonderful state when people feel that their common actions are in pleasing one another. Such a relationship, when I do everything to please you and you do everything to please me, is called love. It doesn’t matter which one of us receives or gives physically, whose it is, and to whom it is attributed. The main thing is our intention to fill one another.

It doesn’t matter that initially, the Creator had the pleasure and I had just the desire. What counts is that we come to a state where we feel love by filling each other with pleasure. It cannot be unrequited. Love is a mutual fulfilment of one another.

We have to come to that state. Let’s try reaching it at our upcoming convention.
[61928]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/6/2011

Related Material:
Salt In Order To Sweeten
Uneasiness Before The Convention
The Long Path To Fear