Questions About Learning Hebrew And Egoism

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I’m Roman Catholic, and I’m currently teaching myself how to read in Hebrew so I can read the Torah in it’s original language. I feel that it will be very beneficial for my Kabbalah studies. My questions is: Would it hinder or slow down my studies in Kabbalah? Do I need to study Hebrew? I’m just a beginning student.

Answer: It will help you to the extent that we use the definitions in Hebrew, which is necessary. Everything else is according to your desire.

Question: What is preventing the World Kli from connecting? How will we overcome it?

Answer: It’s egoism, and even more than in the case of regular people!

Question: It seems that our only work is to reveal the evil inclination and ask for correction. How can one fight with the feeling of guilt and worthlessness, which is an obstacle in asking for correction? It starts to be unbearable to see each time the bad in oneself.

Answer: All thoughts except for a plea for correction are empty and confusing, and as they arise, one must immediately reject them.
[61829]

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Circulation Is Our Guarantee

Dr. Michael LaitmanSome people think that if they listen to our lessons, read my blog, and exchange emails, they take part in the general advancement. Actually there is no practical participation here.

The more you spread our message in the world, the more you advance. Don’t forget that. If you don’t disseminate, you’re standing still, you’re not advancing. So calculate your actions at the end of the day: Did you do anything or not? Only the concrete actions can be measured. Don’t expect someone else to do them for you.

To be a member of Bnei Baruch means to circulate the wisdom of Kabbalah or the Arvut (mutual guarantee) message, to do actual circulation work, and to be able to bring numbers and reports that you can present. But if you simply download a lesson, it is worthless.

At the convention we achieved the point of connection. We achieved it thanks to fact that the whole world demands this of us. The question is whether we are ready to respond to its demand? Can we lead it forward and give it the method of correction and connection? We can advance only by fulfilling this mission and not in any other way.

The goal of creation calls for the whole world to advance, not only us. We are the means for the general advancement. If the means fulfills its mission, then it’s okay, and then it also advances with everyone else. If it doesn’t, another means will be found. There are no guarantees.

Look at groups that don’t disseminate, or to be more accurate, at what is left of them. How can you advance without fulfilling the advice of Kabbalists who have attained the laws of creation? It isn’t just my caprice, it is written in the sources.

So pay attention to the fact that you’re behind in your circulation compared to the advancement of the world, and that you’re still looking for different excuses. But there are no excuses here. We are talking about concrete actions that have nothing to do with a person’s present state, with his ups and downs.

So don’t wait for the initiatives of the central group. If you want to advance, this is the way.

Up until now we were given the chance to advance forward, but the future isn’t guaranteed at all. We advance only thanks to circulation. This is our guarantee. So at the end of each day, we need to clearly examine: What have I done for the world today? After all, the world needs this, and the Creator has arranged everything this way: The wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed to me only so that I will disseminate it to others, one way or another. I am the adapter, the link. Otherwise nothing will come of it.
[62943]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Not One Link Is Redundant

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do I have to constantly worry about the world’s spiritual advancement or should I keep my mind on the group?

Answer: This is the order:

1. I work with the friends;
2. By the love of friends I organize the group;
3. With the group I disseminate;
4. Through dissemination, which helps the masses come closer to the Creator, I please Him.

The group in itself doesn’t please Him; the mass dissemination, which opens up the path to Him for everyone, does. It’s not important that they are distant and don’t understand yet to where this path is leading—if the masses come closer to the Creator at least a little, it brings Him contentment. And that’s the main point.

If you bring a small part of His message to Indonesia or Polynesia, it pleases Him. It is the same way the guest pleases the Host by partaking of the meal the Host has prepared for him.

So, let’s get things right:

First, our goal is to reach adhesion. Adhesion is equivalence of form, bestowal on my part, just like bestowal coming from the Creator. I must reach bestowal, and then I will reach adhesion with the Creator. Bestowal means bringing contentment to Him.

Second, He is pleased when thanks to me, the huge desire to receive that He has created approaches adhesion. My bestowal upon the world has to bring all of it closer to the Creator. How? Through circulation.

Third, in order to do that I must first join a group so that I will have a means, a “commando.” When I have a group, I can disseminate. So it follows that I enter the group and with its help bestow upon the world, circulate, help people come closer to the Creator, and thus please Him. Not one link in the chain is redundant.

In the past, circulation wasn’t part of the chain. One used to sit in a group of Kabbalists, and they would attain the Creator directly. But today it’s impossible because the whole world needs to reach the Creator. In the past, in previous generations, Kabbalists only prepared themselves as a means to advance the world, and now all the efforts are aimed at helping the world. There is no other choice, and Baal HaSulam says this in many places: at the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” the article “The Messiah’s Horn,” and others.

Question: Is the concern about the world a natural result of our work in the group? Or do we have to increase the importance of what we are doing for humanity?

Answer: I—the world—the Creator. We are connected, and I cannot distinguish one from the other. Adhesion means that we are all connected, no matter to what extent. That main thing is that we are together, and I cannot distinguish between the group, the world, and myself.  I simply cannot because if I do, I won’t feel this, won’t reach the revelation, and won’t fulfill the goal. These links don’t exist separately, although today, in our unconscious state, they seem separate.

 

Not One Link Is Redundant

[62937]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The Words Of Sages Will Be Heard

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If everyone sitting at the lesson was to be asked whether he wants fast advancement towards the final, highest point of development, everyone would say: “Yes.” But at the same time I see that we are satisfied with your answers. We come to the lesson with a desire, a need, but we gradually fall into a state of sleep. How can we be constantly active? How can we advance faster?

Answer: You cannot maintain your desire near me. Even though I have a need of my own in relation to you, I exist in the state of perfection and am a higher degree. For this reason, when you connect to me, you also experience perfection, like a child next to an adult. Sometimes he demands something from his elders, but still, as a rule, they give him confidence, a sense of reliability, and he peacefully falls asleep in his parents’ arms.

To tell you the truth, it’s even better for me when you fall asleep. It’s because then more enters you. People “snoozing” during the lesson do not disturb me; they’re not supposed to always be “on fire.” It’s written that “the words of sages are soothing.” And it’s not because sages speak calmly; it’s simply that their wisdom flows like water from one place to another and enters the person in the right way. So don’t worry.

It’s good that sometimes people come to the lesson with fire in their hearts, but when they receive the Light that reforms, a sense of appeasement is better for them.
[62918]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, The Zohar

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Coming Home, To One’s Spiritual Root

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why are some friends able to go to the convention and others are not?

Answer: We study everything we need in order to enter the spiritual world. Once we enter this sensation, we will begin to study other levels of attainment of the universe. We will already be in the upper world, like on a tour.

And then we’ll be able to understand where each one of us comes from: This is your spiritual home, your source, this one is mine, and this one is his. We’ll understand how different we are, and at the same time, we will realize why from all of humanity specifically we needed to unite into this collective Kli that represents the entire mankind. This vessel is very diverse but at the same time integrally connected due to our efforts, and this is exactly why all other people on earth can connect to it.

Today we still don’t understand where each one of us comes from, from which spiritual root, and why we connect in this specific way. We don’t know why we exist as we do, men, women, with different personalities and qualities, or why one’s destiny suddenly lands him somewhere North or South, and another one lands in the center of the civilized world, and so on.

Later a person will understand how necessary all of this was. He’ll see that all of his qualities, origin, and distance or closeness to others, absolutely everything comes from his higher spiritual root to the tiniest elements of his physical and spiritual body. And this is why no one will have any questions about why he was created one way and not another. He’ll see that he was placed in the most optimal conditions that enable him to reach his correction, including his presence at the convention or participation in local groups out of lack of another opportunity.

We need to understand that everything comes from the need for our common correction. For this reason let everyone make the most effort in the place and state where the Creator has placed him or her. If we make these efforts, everyone will necessarily receive absolute fulfillment for their soul. They will have no questions, no empty spaces in desires or the possibilities to perceive the upper world.
[62435]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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From Separated Egoists To A Single Whole

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does one’s perception of oneself as a separate individual need to disappear?

Answer: We all unite into one team. At first it’s a team where each one of us represents a separate individual, but we all act in coordination, like cogwheels that spin and try to synchronize the common movement. Then this connection becomes adhesion: Certain parts of every one of us join each other’s parts to such an extent that we don’t just wear out as we brush against one another and spin together like separate parts of one mechanism, but this entire mechanism becomes one whole void of any inconsistencies.

The absolutely full interaction between everyone brings us to the point whereby we stop perceiving ourselves as existing separately or even as our collective “we,” but begin to perceive ourselves as one single whole. This transition to one single whole is our goal, and there we begin to perceive the upper force, the Creator.

The world must strive to properly connect all its parts. Global interconnection, world integration, the crisis, and all the problems are obligating us to do this today. This is enough for people without points in the heart to reach an absolutely coordinated interaction between them. This is called “we.”

And “we” with the points in the heart must unite these points. Other people do not have them. But we do, and we must connect our points in the heart so that they will unite into one whole, not into “we,” but into union, “one.” This is our next level. On the level of union into “one,” meaning when we are like one man with one heart, we begin to feel the upper world and the upper force that controls and maintains the entire creation, including our universe and us.

The world consisting of separate egoists will have to unite because it can’t survive any other way. This is nature’s condition, which it sets for our egoistic desires. And when people with a point in the heart wish to rise above their egoistic desires, these points connect into a spiritual vessel.

So it’s as if three degrees exist here: egoistic (separated), egoistic (connected, combined in reciprocity and integration), and spiritual, when everything connects into a single whole.
[62438]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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Get Included Into The Common Thoughts And Desires!

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person who is far away from us should by all means try to pursue the same actions and activities that take place in the main group. It’s desirable that he should find friends like himself to organize gatherings and meals similar to ours and to participate with us in all our events. We sing, and you sing with us; we dance, and you dance; we take part in the lessons, talks, and various events, and you, if it’s possible, physically participate in the same actions.

It’s desirable to free the three days of the convention from your everyday activities, not to be burdened with any problems or be distracted by anything, but to be included in our common thoughts and desires. When you are somewhere else, for instance, in London, try to ensure that the everyday surroundings don’t affect you. You should exclude them as much as possible so that you are in a room, apartment, or house where there are no strangers and nothing but your thoughts and feelings.

It’s in this way that you’ll organize a kind of mini-convention and will be with us by your own efforts and actions. This is identical to your direct presence at the event because by multiplying everything by the distance and your desires for unity, you will enter our common Kli (vessel) with us and feel and receive everything we have.

It’s not important where a person is. If he cannot come, but his heart and soul are with us, the distance does not matter.
[62442]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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Happiness From The Point In The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we speed up the clarification that the group is the main means for reaching the goal?

Answer: The difficult part is to feel that we need an internal revolution. The mind, ego, and pride are obscuring a person’s perception, and he is unable to realize that there is something higher than him here in this world. He got used to making decisions about everything in this life with the help of his own mind, feelings, and analysis. He’s not able to accept anything without checking it. This is the behavior of an animal or a fool, but not of a serious person.

However, then we come across things beyond our comprehension. For instance, tell me how a group is stronger than me? And why should I lose my mind and feelings there in order to get newer, more internal ones from it? I don’t know what a more internal mind from a higher dimension is.

Everyone has an internal urge and a rudiment of a spiritual vessel, but between this spark and its connection with other sparks, a huge gap of separation is felt. A person cannot imagine that there is something higher relative to him, where all of the desires unite. And this is precisely what the spiritual world is. It’s where he’ll discover his new life and change his perception of reality, after having passed through this world and connecting to the inside.

In order for a person to gradually change and correct his perception, he has to spend a lot of time under the influence of the surrounding Light that comes from the higher level, the energetic field  located above him. This is a constant, uninterrupted process, during which the Light is working upon us, and this takes years.

We don’t understand the immensity of this process, this evolution that we are going through, how many changes must happen inside of us owing to such special events as conventions or gatherings of friends. Although these affairs seem a bit primitive and not serious to us, and we don’t find any special flavor in them, we still do this again and again until we finally begin to reveal the flavor in it.

The difference is that if I receive this flavor, I’m ready to participate. But if there is no flavor, I am looking for ways to escape. So does it turn out that everything depends on the flavor, and not on whether I can rise above my desire!

Furthermore, my egoistic desire controls everything depending on whether it receives pleasure or not. Then perhaps the fact that my egoistic desire does not feel any flavor is a good sign after all? Maybe this is exactly what I need? I come into the group, and for reasons not under my control, I do things that do not give me any pleasure. And that’s why I can only participate in them with my point in the heart!

If I liked being in the group, uniting with friends, and singing together, then possibly I would have to overcome this feeling because it would simply be that I came for the sake of pleasure. But I am being helped from Above, and the flavor for this is being taken away from me. Now I can sit without any flavor and I must be thankful for this since the Creator has done half of the work for me. This is temporary since later the Creator will give me the flavor, and I’ll have to overcome it in order to sit in the group not for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of spiritual connection.

All of these stages and states are not simple at all. A person can promise himself that he will never again miss an opportunity, and then just a moment later he can forget it. And even though he remembers that such states are being revealed to him and he knows that he should behave in another way, he is not capable of doing it. This way it is shown to him how this does not depend upon him.

This is how we gradually discover who we are relative to the upper force being revealed in this field.
[61943]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Just Wish For It – And It Will Come True!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to attract the Light that reforms?

Answer: We can only bring our desire, the need to become corrected, but who will correct it? I can only reveal the breaking, while the remedy can come only from Above, only from the Light. The Light broke our Kli or desire, and it also corrects it. It’s the same Light, the same action, but in its opposite form, which is what I now desire.

It turns out that besides revealing the desire, I don’t need anything. As soon as I reveal a desire, it is called a prayer and all of the evil that I revealed immediately becomes corrected. If I really reveal evil in its final, last form on every phase, then it becomes corrected because there I unequivocally reach the true prayer, a cry, a MAN—and correction definitely comes to me.
[63110]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/11, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.15.11

Writings of Rabash What Does the Rule ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’ Give Us?”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “And the Land was Tohu (Chaos),” Item 25, Lesson 13
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 3, Chapter 1, “Ohr Pnimi,” Item 30, Lesson 2
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “The First Reason: The Source, The First Matter,” Lesson 3
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