The Two Forces That Motivate Our Development

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are two forces by which we advance, and the relation between them indicates the level a person is on. The Creator has no problem pushing us from behind and advancing us by sufferings. Then we have no choice but to advance. We will advance in the direction the Creator wants us to advance, but that isn’t considered advancement.

Throughout history and our evolution, the created being has been through the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels; that is called “nature.” Then in the level of the speaking there are also levels of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking, but they belong to the human level already.

The inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels develop in us under pressure and suffering. But the human in us develops thanks to awareness, consciousness, faith, and attaining the greatness of the goal, the yearning for bestowal.

For generations, we humans have developed in the levels of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate and now we enter the level of “human” development. The difference is that as humans we can develop only if we ourselves yearn forward by the greatness of the goal.

This means that I have to stabilize the goal and its worth inside me as much as I can, to aim towards it, using every means I can. As it says: “Israel (those who yearn for the Creator, the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator—are one.” The main thing is that I should yearn for the goal and not for someone else to manage me, to oblige me to go, to push me from behind by sufferings.

Thanks to the sufferings, I can be influenced through my egoism and then start moving. But it isn’t because the greatness of the goal, the greatness of bestowal and the Creator are pulling me. Thus, I don’t develop my point in the heart, but simply run away from suffering.

A different force and factor are active here by which I am motivated. So this isn’t development. A person can experience great sufferings; there were many attempts to wake him up, but it doesn’t mean that he has advanced by even one millimeter.

Although it may seem that he has advanced, he hasn’t. This is why it says that the sufferings polish a person’s body (his egoism) just like salt polishes the meat. The sufferings only make us become more sensitive, but they don’t make us start moving. A person can only move if he begins to resemble the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/11, Shamati

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Without Intention There Is No Result

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe difference between spirituality and corporeality is that in spirituality the intention is first and foremost and the action is only meant to implement the intention. Without an intention there is no action. Even an intention by itself is an action.

So every word we read in The Book of Zohar should be with an intention throughout the text. We should only think about the intention and be in it, while the text “flows” downwards, as if we are swimming in a river and need to constantly control and manage ourselves: How and in what direction are we swimming?

Without an intention we immediately lose the action. So, the intention should be above and the action below both in the way we see it and in priority.

We must constantly think about the intention: What do I want from it, how do I aim the forces that are evoked while reading The Zohar together with the friends, and what do I want as a result of their influence?

If we don’t focus their influence on us, there is no result.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/11, The Zohar

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Place Your Desire Under The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal Hasulam, “The Freedom”: “All their wisdom did not help them find a bridge on which to cross that wide and deep crevice that spreads between the spiritual entity and the corporeal atom. Thus, science has gained nothing from all these metaphysical methods.”

A person inherits his attributes from his parents. These attributes cannot be changed, but society influences them and gives them different forms. Eventually a person doesn’t express himself but rather expresses the external society.

The attributes can differ but what matters is the form they are given: a person can be a great gangster or a great scientist, can slaughter animals or slaughter people. The distance between a policeman and a thief is very small, and they both understand each other.

So society does whatever it wants with a person. Although there is the preliminary kernel in a person, the influencing factors do whatever they want with him. This is the way things are on the corporeal level, and so we don’t decide anything here.

However, on the spiritual level we have to discover the root of a person’s soul, the point in the heart, and to place it in an environment that will provide it with the reforming Light. We have to build a spiritual environment that will provide a person with this spiritual Light that will influence the point in his heart and open it.

A person, on his part has to lower himself in front of the right environment and to neutralize his ego in order to remove the egotistic covers from the point in the heart. He has to bring his point out and to connect it with the other points, so that it will really look like yearning for bestowal. Although their intention is still egoistic, they are attracted to mutual bestowal, to the force that resembles, at least to some extent, the reforming Light. This is the only way to draw it. This Light influences the egoistic forces in us that are trying to keep in contact, despite the hatred we feel.

So there is the preliminary point in the heart, the root of a person’s soul, and there is the reforming Light, the force that develops the root of the soul. All the egoistic conditions in a person and in the environment, meaning the group, were meant to develop the force of bestowal, the intention to reach bestowal as much as possible. It is for this reason that we see ourselves dressed in an egoistic shell, and we also see the group as repulsive. This allows us to bring out our point and to place it against the reforming Light. Otherwise, we would simply not be able to do it.

So the shell is called “helpmate.” It enables me to place my point under the Light.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/11, Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”

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Where Is Our Freedom?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe already understand that free will isn’t a simple term. We are born with attributes we didn’t choose, to a family and conditions we didn’t choose, we get an education we didn’t choose…in short, we are raised and molded having no free will.

As a result, a person in this world is “cooked” by his parents, the environment, and society…so he has no freedom and we cannot demand anything from him; after all, he is a machine. It seems to him that he has his own thoughts, his own desires, his own deeds, but actually they are inevitable and he is compelled to act that way.

So, what is the point of creation? We are talking about a thought of nature, about the desire, the intention, the great wisdom. In fact, the Creator, or the Upper Force, by definition, has great wisdom, much more than all of the creation that is below Him.

When we study the world, we discover inconceivable wisdom in it. We only manage to “scratch” the surface and all our science is based on that. In fact, we haven’t started to discover the real forces, the real relationships, the real forms and connection that exist in this reality.

So why did the Creator create the world?—So that the created beings will follow a predetermined plan? After all, the beginning and end are already known, and everything is predetermined and we have no say and no free will. Our whole development is predetermined. And for the Creator the concept of time doesn’t exist.

So all this is useless. Can the created beings do anything independently, in some way or at some point?—Something for which it was worthwhile to create them, together with this whole reality?

The basic question is: Where is our free will for which the Creator created everything? The spiritual worlds, the innumerable forms and phenomena and the corporeal universe we live in—is all this only so that a person will perform some independent action at some brief moment in his life? The one moment that gives everything else a meaning.

At present this moment it is evasive, leaving us with a question we have no answer for. But if we find the point in which we can add one gram by ourselves, then all of reality will light up and you will discover its wonderful infinite filling….

So we have to find out where our free will is. If we check this logically, reality cannot exist without this option. After all, there would be no reason for the wise nature to create anything otherwise. In such a case, there would be no meaning for its actions.

We have to look for our freedom. Without it our life will remain programmed, planned, and we will continue to be managed like puppets on a string. We have to look for the point of free will and to realize it. This is man’s whole designation.

What is that freedom? Freedom from whom? From the Creator and His orders? Of course; as long as I am attached to Him, I am not me. He moves me. So I have to be free not from other people and not even from myself, but first and foremost from Him. The Creator has created a certain state in which I can be detached from Him, from His control. Then I will be free.

The question is: What do I do with this freedom? What new abilities do I acquire? With what thought, with what feeling, and with what action do I fill the void that is suddenly revealed for me?

We will talk about this some other time.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/11, Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.30.11

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The Power of Thought”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let the Earth Put Forth Grass,” Item 89, Lesson 23
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Preface to The Book of Zohar, Item 27, Lesson 11
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Writings of Baal HaSulam The Peace,” (Start with: “Because the purpose is undoubtedly built”), Lesson 6
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