Audio Version Of The Blog – 12.27.11

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The Main Problem Of Humanity: Lack Of Happiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion: (Herman Van Rompuy, EU President): “European Union President Herman Van Rompuy is just trying to spread a little happiness. For the New Year, the politician who fancies soothing Haiku poetry in his free time is sending The World Book of Happiness to world leaders and urging them ‘to make people’s happiness and well-being our political priority for 2012.’

“‘Positive thinking is no longer something for drifters, dreamers, and the perpetually naive,’ Van Rompuy said.

“His ‘happiness’ message comes at a time when the European Union is going through the worst crisis in its half-century history, as high levels of government debt threaten the future of the shared euro currency.

“The book may even hold a key for some of the richer member states, who have been reluctant to help out troubled nations like Italy and Spain, which are suffering from high levels of debt that need to be refinanced.

“‘Money can buy happiness, if we spend it on others,’ it says.”

My Comment: Because the essence of the created being is the desire to receive pleasure, we feel happiness when this desire is filled, and vice versa, when it’s not, we are unhappy. Under the influence of personal and social egoism, we accept artificial fulfillment as happiness and never feel contentment.

Today, when we have entered the global crisis and feel emptiness, we begin to realize that we can be filled only by such natural fulfillments as calmness, kindness, and reciprocity, and nothing else. Hence, we will arrive to the need to become closer, to observe the condition of the general integral connection. As a manifestation of disease, the crisis directs us to receive treatment.
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China: Between Money And Force

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Spiegel Online): “China’s leaders are currently contending with declining demand, rising debt, and a real estate bubble. Some factories are laying off workers, suffering financial losses, or even closing as orders from crisis-plagued Europe dry up. The economic strains are frustrating workers and consumers in the country, threatening the political establishment and Beijing’s economic miracle.

“The new global crisis has reached China. Debt problems in Europe, the country’s most important trading partner, are starting to dim prospects here in the nation that has effectively become the world’s factory, as well. The unstable United States economy and threat of a trade war between the two superpowers make the situation even more uncertain.

“This October was the third straight month Chinese exports decreased. Along with it, the hopes of German manufacturers that Asia’s growth market might help lift them out of the global crisis as it did in 2008 are also evaporating.

“Many of those development projects, often megalomaniac undertakings from the start, are now ghost towns.

“While many in the West hold out hope that China can solve the euro and dollar debt crisis with its foreign currency holdings, the rift between rich and poor within the country is growing.

“This time China faces enormous challenges of its own — a real estate market bubble and local government debt — that could even pose a risk to the global economy.

“Now China’s state-run banks are paying their customers negative interest and Shanghai’s stock market is considered a high-risk casino, where a few major governmental investors are believed to manipulate exchange rates at will.

“As long as the one-party dictatorship kept growth in the double digits, most people accepted their lack of freedom. Now, though, Beijing is facing a dilemma. Tough police crackdowns will hardly get the consequences of the stagnating economy under control in the long term. But nor are government subsidies enough to stimulate the economy. It seems neither money nor force will help.”

My Comment: Nature directs us to an entirely new state in which we will have to change ourselves rather than anything outside. Humanity must become like the compelling forces of nature: integrally connected in general design, care, compliance, and mutual guarantee in reducing growth to the level of reasonable consumption and striving for universal fair distribution.

This can be achieved only through universal education, by transforming an egoistic human being into an altruistic one. Even if it may sound like a fantasy, suffering will force us to accept these conditions as binding. Not forced but conscious communism is a bright future for the entire humanity.
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The World Is Ruled By Those Who Have The Power To Create Money

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion: (Stephen Lendman): The late Georgetown University historian Carroll Quigley, in his book titled, Tragedy and Hope: ‘(T)he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.’

“By controlling democratic and despotic governments as well as others in between, they’ve moved closer to absolute global control of money, credit and debt to dominate economies, politics, commerce, and imperial adventurism. As a result, they’ve benefitted handsomely at the expense of nations and popular interests.

“Josiah Stamp, former Director of the Bank of England said: ‘Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again.

“’However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money.’

“Ellen Brown’s must-read book titled, Web of Debt discussed private banking, how it usurped money creation power, and how we can get it back.

“She explained what growing numbers know about the malignant effects of its destructive power. Everyone should understand that the Fed isn’t federal. It’s a private banking cartel owned by its major bank members in 12 Fed districts. New York has controlling power through its majority interest.

“As a result, the Fed rules globally with the European Central Bank, Bank of England, and Bank of Japan. They’re the world’s dominant central banks along with the Bank for International Settlements – the central bank for central bankers, or unaccountable banking boss of bosses.

“In America, except for coins, banks create money called Federal Reserve notes, in violation of the Constitution under Article I, Section 8 that gives Congress sole power ‘To coin (create) money (and) regulate the value thereof…’

“Coins and paper money comprise less than 3 percent of America’s money supply. The rest is in computer entries for loans.

“Banks create money that didn’t previously exist. Around 30% of it is for their private accounts – for speculation and other non-productive purposes.

“If America controlled its own money, it would be interest-free, and taxing people to pay it wouldn’t be necessary… Money for productive growth could be created inflation-free. Prosperity could be sustained. Full employment and social justice would be possible.

“A Final Comment

“Clearly, money power in private hands failed. It’s wrecking the country, devastating the American dream, impoverishing millions, destroying jobs, contaminating the environment, and funding America’s military machine that’s ravaging the world one country at a time, and threatening humanity with extinction.

“OWS and global protesters must grasp this as top goal to achieve others for long-denied social justice currently being lost entirely because corrupt politicians plan it with bankers.”

My Comment: Since the program of our development is to bring humanity to full integration, mutual guarantee, and unity above all the differences, only the revelation of the system of our mutual connection will explain to us how to correct the situation and lead us to reasonable consumption and balance. Only obeying the natural rules of our development will let us avoid bloody mistakes.
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The Virtual Connection: Wherever You Are

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is love of friends in the Internet era?

Answer: The Internet is a wonderful means. Really, what prevents me from being impressed when I see and hear you on the virtual network? In what other way can you convey that you are impressed if not by hearing and seeing? Do I have to smell you, or are the eyes and ears enough? Actually I can be moved to tears, even if I only hear something without seeing. It all depends on my ability to use the contact in order to be impressed.

For example, people who viewed the convention we held in the Arava desert really felt that something was going on there. This is what obliged them to later come to the convention in Tel Aviv, and it even made some of them stay for several weeks. It’s all thanks to the ascent we achieved in the Arava.

I see that it works. If we can raise our intention, our connection, our desire, our focused yearning for the goal, just as we did then, then no matter where a person is, he will be lit by that fire. There’s no doubt.

We have friends in Europe and even in America who want us to inform them when we intend to go out again so that they can book flights. I don’t think that they should come. If they stay where they are in front of the screen worrying about missing even a moment, it’s much better than being here and missing the opportunities, not even paying attention to it. A person, who didn’t want to come to the big convention, but was impressed by our ascent in the desert and then nevertheless came, profited more than anyone else. This is because he received a strong spiritual charge.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, “The Freedom”

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Burning The Bridges

Convention in the Arava DesertQuestion: What are the best means to help each other at any given moment to make the right choice?

Answer: If we speak about the mutual connection between us, there is nothing more efficient than a thought. Everything is revealed in it and only in it. If we were strong in this, we could disseminate only by our thoughts.

We will reach that, and then, we won’t need so many materials. If we were strong, if we were united, we undoubtedly could fill the entire network with our force.

We have to create a powerful field around us, but we cannot do that yet. The moment this happens, we will leave all of externality. After all, even without that, everyone will begin to “sniff” around, trying to find out from where this spirit is coming. One web page would be enough, and they would come to us.

In the meantime, our spirit is weak. So, we need many materials.

Question: What is that thought?

Answer: It is the correction, the corrected state. We are all connected, the Creator is among us, and we are connected to Him: We fill Him, and He fills us. It is unity.

Question: What prevents us from holding on to this thought?

Answer: We can’t even reach the first level. In this force field, there are 125 levels of intensity, unity. This is a good environment. It begins to draw all the points in the heart to it, no matter under what material “trash” they are buried in. Its radiation penetrates the thickness of the desires to such a depth that the person himself doesn’t feel it; yet, there, behind the iron armor, it finds the hidden point.

However, we haven’t reached the necessary intensity yet. We are not generating this force field between us yet.

Question: What is preventing each of us? What is stopping us?

Answer: I don’t perceive the importance of the environment as a factor, as a place where I correct and discover my spiritual world, where I reveal the Light that reforms. I don’t see the group as our mutual system of connection that manifests as the system of the worlds.

In short, I don’t connect to the group everything that I really need on my way to spirituality. I am prepared to study, to make efforts, but I still ignore the place in which I can realize my efforts. I constantly forget that it is the group and nothing but that. I cannot convince myself that all the reasons and all the outcomes, all the spiritual discernments, including the Creator and the goal, are revealed in the group. There is simply no other place.

Our work is to constantly penetrate through the fog, through the 125 levels. Rabbi Shimon’s students also hated one another, even on the last level before the end of correction. Meanwhile, we haven’t risen to our first level yet. Our entire path is a search for the environment. It is the factor for our development.

Question: What exercise would you recommend for us in order to perceive this point?

Answer: The Arava convention and the convention that followed it were the best exercise. However, I am afraid to repeat it because a new experience can “erase” the previous, unique taste. We need to prepare ourselves, to decide that we have to break through to the next level and not return to the previous state.

If we go out to the desert, it should be different from the last time. First, everything must be new. We shouldn’t repeat the format we already used. We need a new breakthrough that will not remind us of the past in any way. After all, if we return to the past, it is already a Klipa (shell).

We need the necessity, the desire, the resolution, the challenge. It must be something that you desperately want to reach, but cannot for some reason. It must be a true yearning for the goal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, “The Freedom”

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The Place Of Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur work, just like any other work, consists of three main parts: the workplace, the means to perform the work, and the knowledge to do what should be done. The workplace is the corrupt part, detail, matter, machine, or system that we must correct. This system is the main thing for us. We need to understand that we have to be in it. It was shattered and prepared for our work.

In our attempts to activate this system, we should discover its malfunction, just like we discover a malfunction in an engine when we try to start it. Then, we try to determine what exactly isn’t working. Doctors, too, perform tests, checking the body to diagnose the sick and unhealthy parts. It is an essential, preliminary stage.

This way we make efforts in diagnosing the system, having the knowledge, the means, and the possibility to diagnose it in order to discover the malfunction. This is part of the work, and it isn’t so simple. Sometimes, you pay a lot of money to get the correct diagnosis. After all, the key is to diagnose the illness, and then the remedy can be found.

So, we must understand that it all begins, is realized, and ends only in the group. That is the system that we should correct. We haven’t discovered where the malfunction is. We may have felt it, but we missed it. Still, that is okay as that is how a diagnosis is performed. In any case, before we start the correction, we must check everything thoroughly.

However, we first of all have to understand, clearly and unequivocally, that we have to be within this system with all our desires, knowledge, and attributes. Only then will we be able to speak about the next steps. It must be absolutely clear: If we abstract ourselves from the environment, from the network of our mutual connection, there is nothing else to talk about. In such a case, it means that we haven’t found the place for work and the correction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, “The Freedom”

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When Pharaoh’s Deception Becomes Revealed

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe work in Egypt does not end until you see that you will not be able to achieve anything there. You think that you have become free and have acquired everything, but you suddenly reveal that you are still in exile!

You thought that you were in the land of Israel, the land of the Creator (“Yashar-El“). After all, there are no geographic locations in the spiritual world. “Place” is created by the same desires, and in them you wanted to build spirituality, thinking that you are building a holy temple, doing the work of a priest (Cohen), Levite, and the nation of Israel.

You thought that you were in the holy land, and you suddenly discover that all your actions were egoistic, for your own sake. It was Pharaoh instead of the Creator, Pithom and Ramses instead of the Temple, and Egyptians instead of the priests, Cohens and Levites. Then, you run from Egypt.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Accelerating Our Exertion

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we can advance in spirituality only by constant acceleration, how can we achieve that?

Answer: We have to “accelerate” our exertion and constantly increase it. Every next level includes the entire previous level in its lowest Sefira, Malchut. Thus the effort multiplies constantly.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Ascending Above One’s Fate

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As a psychiatrist I clearly picture people studying in the program of integral upbringing for three to five years. Do you think there are any time constraints, or will people be studying it all their lives?

Answer: Until the entire humanity reaches the highest level of integration with Nature, when we are all connected to it internally, almost instinctively, working with it in unison, I don’t see any way we could walk away from or refuse this. Nature will nonetheless immediately push us toward equilibrium with it with all kinds of blows.

As to what will happen after we’ve reached this state, that I do not know. However, at least for now, observing this developmental trend, meaning nature’s behavior with respect to us, one could say that it will certainly bring us to a state of total harmony.

Comment: So there is some kind of a higher goal in this method that we will all eventually reach?

Answer: I think that in so doing a person will attain the informational depths of his being that exist as though outside his body. In our body we exist for a certain time, while information and its circulation in its various incarnations are eternal. Presently the circulation of information is manifested through the body, though it can manifest through some other images.

Practically speaking, here we rise to a fantastic degree. It may appear that we’re talking about life after death or something like that. However, we’re rising to levels that many people, such as Wolf Messing, already feel in this world.

I think that all people in the world can attain this. In other words, a person ascends above the will of chance, above his own fate.
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Talk on Integral Education 12/12/11

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