Audio Version Of The Blog – 01.01.12

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Strike The Long-Awaited Goal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why aren’t we able to unite?

Answer: You aren’t able to unite because you don’t have enough desire. You need mutual guarantee, meaning something mutual, through which you support one another.

There is the state itself, and there is its derivative—a higher level. When separate desires get together to create a common force, like in an army, a soccer team, or a gang of criminals, this results in a unified desire of a group. But that is not enough.

The fact that we unite still doesn’t make us rise higher. We just unite our forces, the way any group or military troop does. But we have to ascend to a higher level where our desires will become mutual and we will want to support one another.

But in what regard do we support one another? In a regular group there is no problem supporting one another. Psychologists work with soccer teams, giving them pep talks before the game so the players feel mutual support and unity.

However, we have to attain mutual bestowal and love, which is something we do not have and which does not promise us any real reward. I don’t plan on hitting a ball into the net and earning a million dollars for it, and I don’t risk my life, the way soldiers in an army do. Rather, the goal I am pursuing is one that gives me no response: nothing good and nothing bad. It’s some sort of bestowal, and I don’t feel anything inside at the thought of it—neither profit nor loss.

In the best case scenario, I only feel a loss because I waste my energy on this. And in the worst case scenario, I don’t have any idea why I am doing this and who I am planning to bestow to.

It turns out that we work together in the group to create inner support for one another, to create a force instead of the Creator, which will provide every person with the force of bestowal. And if we work on this persistently, then among us we begin to reveal that we lack an additional vital force for the realization.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/11, Writings of Rabash

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An Appetite For Spirituality

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe main thing we lack is desire, similar to how a sick person who lost his appetite needs to regain it in order to start eating and get well. Or, it’s similar to how we want a child to study and he doesn’t want it, and we don’t know how to transmit our desire to him so he would attain a good result. There are many similar examples.

A sick, flawed place first of all needs a desire for correction. Our problem is that we do not feel that we need it. Nothing besides desire is required of us, whereas we are thinking about fulfillment, the total opposite.

All of my worries, searches, efforts, and thoughts—everything must be aimed only at finding the right desire. And if I am thinking about fulfillment, then it’s egoism and it is opposite to the right intention.

The entire problem amounts to the right environment, which will imbue me with this idea so I will constantly remember that I lack nothing but the desire. This is called “asking for rain”—if a person asks for it, then the rain will come, the Light will pour from above. The only thing missing is our request.

And this is a problem because we lack the desire, the passion, questions, pressure, and aspiration precisely for the spiritual goal. We don’t need anything else but the right desire. But for that, a person must always be under society’s pressure so he will feel how he lacks the right desires.

Everyone needs a “program of work”: What do I aspire to, what have I attained—which desire, how did I gain a better understanding of what I lack, did I come closer to it? Do I have the willingness to endure, because desire means suffering due to the lack of the desired thing? Am I happy that I lack spirituality, that I feel a yearning and aspiration for it—the suffering of love?

For that we need social pressure from every person upon every person in order to collect our common desires and attain revelation. The aspiration has to be logical, mutual, common, and total. Then our unification will be called “an assembly of souls aspiring to the Creator” (Knesset Israel).

What do people do in that assembly (Beit Knesset)? They ask, pray. Then it’s called Malchut, from which a request rises and to which fulfillment comes.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/11, Writings of Rabash

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Formula For The Transition To Goodness

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal Hasulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”: The philosophy of morality called “ethics,” which is based on an empirical knowledge, through examination of the practical reason, whose essence is but a summation of the visible damages that result from the nucleons of egoism.

…Once they have germinated, after they reveal in us. This approach is based on personal experience: Only after many punishments, the stubborn child begins to think about the reason for the punishments. In the same way, we first experience unpleasant feelings from different actions and only then begin to reach some conclusions. This is the path of suffering: I suffer until it forces me to change my ways.

It all depends on my egoism, which calculates benefits versus costs. For example, I sit in an uncomfortable position and still don’t want to move in order to change it. I suffer, but not enough to change my position. How long will I stay in this position? Until the suffering grows to such an extent that it will be worthwhile to make an effort to sit differently.

We always calculate things this way, and our body deals with it just fine: We can leave our present situation only if we feel suffering which make us feel that it is better to invest energy and to move to another position in which there will be no suffering.

So my calculations depend on comparing the level of suffering, the pleasure, and the efforts it takes to change. I calculate whether the expected pleasure is greater than the present suffering and the efforts I have to make.

It is a very simple formula: And thus, I can make the transition from state to state, from bad to good, because it is worth it..
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/11, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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We Have A Good Chance To Be Heard

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You are going on a tour in Europe soon; how can the European groups help? If they all connect, will this change the situation?

Answer: The point here is not so much in the connection of the European groups, which is also important, but rather, in general dissemination. We have to connect; we have to send our documents to different organizations, including the leaders of the EU in Brussels. We will gradually see the result.

We already see the positive results of working with the UN. In a formal document about education, for example, their introduction was literally “copied” from our materials.

We must understand that we are given a chance to be heard these days because people already acknowledge their helplessness. When they hear sensible ideas from us, they can use them to some extent. There are cases in which a person’s position doesn’t allow him to do that although he may totally agree with us.

But one way or the other, we have to do our best. The European groups must try to connect and start goal-oriented dissemination, aimed at the addresses of the different governments and at Brussels. We mustn’t forget the Internet and its European part either. Eventually they will hear us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/11, “The Freedom”

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Integral Education Is A Quick Process

Dr. Michael LaitmanComment: There is no force in society now that is interested in education because it is a very long process, and politicians are elected for four to five years….

Response: Integral education is a very quick process. Until now education has been perceived as the acquisition of knowledge, which really takes many years. But in addition to theoretical knowledge, what is needed nowadays is first and foremost practical application. We are talking about how to convey the idea about the structure of the world in a suitable way for the general population.

The first part of the course will take no more than two or three months. Afterwards, a person will understand that he has to act differently so as not to harm himself. Even after the first week or two, he will already understand that the world isn’t what he thought it was.

A person will see that today’s world is global and integral. He will see that he is mutually connected to the rest of the world and so he must change the principles of his behavior. He will understand that the will of nature motivates history, that evolution has a goal, and that we simply must accept the laws of the integral system. Only a comprehensive connection will allow us to live a good, balanced life.

Besides, a person will change his attitude to unemployment, to employment, and to the consumerist society that has gone too far with its enthusiasm. He will understand that we need sensible balanced consumerism. He will understand that the problem isn’t the fact that there aren’t enough jobs, but that there will be no more jobs. It isn’t that we are reluctant, but that we are simply not mutually connected and so we are opposite from nature. This understanding obliges us.

And so a person already begins to perceive what he has to do both personally and by incorporating with the society. It turns out that it does not depend on the government. He cannot demand like a small child: “Give me the benefits that I lost!” You will not have them, no matter how hard you cry. The government has no hidden ace up its sleeve. Even if you change the government and put it on trial, you will get nothing.

The correction can only come through education. Period!

The world is advancing towards harmony and balance, and this balance has nothing to do with over-production and over-consumption. The integral education is effective in a very short period of time. It helps a person change his attitude towards what is happening and he immediately changes according to the new form.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/11, “The Freedom”

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Don’t Destroy The Uniqueness

Dr. Michael LaitmanAfter we are born with innate abilities, we involuntarily absorb values and norms from the environment. Each of us chooses its influence in his own way; even babies are attracted to different things, although we don’t always notice it. And so, more and more minor, external attributes are dressed on our basic traits.

In this sense, every person is unique and we should preserve this uniqueness. We can only disagree with the external influence aimed at this uniqueness. For example, if for five years a person stayed in a bad society, which had a negative influence on his attributes and led them in an anti-social direction, we can object to this influence. But we mustn’t object to a person’s natural, preliminary attributes because they contain a person’s root, his freedom. We have no right to touch them, because no one will be able to substitute this part of the general mosaic of creation.

We must, therefore, worry only about the influence of a good environment. Then all the natural tendencies a person has will develop as they should even if until now the positive influence was missing.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/11, “The Freedom”

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Bring The Dead Time To Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is possible to control your desire through action. That is why we need to force ourselves into action. The speed of our development depends on it. People are asking: “Well, where is the spiritual world? When will it be revealed? What else can I do to get closer to it?”

They do not understand that every day we aimlessly lose a lot of hours. It turns out that what could have been done throughout a day stretches out for the whole month and even more. We don’t care about shortening all of our opportunities in order for each moment to become focused on reaching the goal—at least in the material external action if it is not possible to do it in the desire and intention, not directly, but indirectly, through other actions, which I perform for the world, dissemination, the group.

Very often and for long periods of time we are in a state when we have no desire, but the time keeps passing by and we do not know what to do with it. We are simply waiting for when it will change on its own, but nothing will change on its own.

This dead time is given precisely so that we invest action into it, and by the means of the action to change our desires, to quickly wake up and begin to move forward towards the goal. Until I get to feel that the group, the world, and the whole of reality is, in essence, me, myself, and it depends on me, I need to use all of this in order to reach the realization of the goal.

I should not wait until the awakening will come from the outside. There is a quantity and quality of efforts, which a person must exert only in action without any intention and desire! And even though in our generation we are spoiled, weak, and not ready to suffer the way the previous generations did who were closer to the condition of the Kabbalists of antiquity: “Live on bread with salt and drink water….” However, we need to understand that without the feeling of the suffering for the whole world, we will not be able to become connected into it.

Here, the mind and the feeling must supplement each other so that I would not have to suffer like everyone in the world and humanity as a whole does. By the means of the mind, I can increase my participation in the suffering of the world and to connect to one big vessel-desire.

And to the extent of that, my actions for the benefit of the world will increase, and this way I will move from action to desire and thought, I will attain the perfect vessel, worthy for correction and fulfillment. So this will be the correction and fulfillment for the whole world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/11, Shamati #189

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Feeling The Suffering Of The Whole World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to feel the suffering of the whole world? How does one join in it?

Answer: Let’s say, I am close to a person who works the land and does not know anything else in life except his cows, his field, and farm. On the other hand, there is the opportunity to get to know the big world, to multiply one’s knowledge and pleasure, to attain the eternity of nature.

The difference between what he has and what he could have reached is the shortage, the suffering. He does not feel it by himself. As if he is mentally sick and does not know about his ailment, but I know; I see it looking at him and I feel sorry about it.

It is not important that he is not sorry about it by himself. It is possible to make a pain-killing injection and people will not suffer from the pain. However, suffering exists in the world for a purpose, so that by the means of suffering, by the means of one’s simple actions, we can reach correction.

In order to feel the whole world on our shoulders, I need to feel how much everyone is missing—the difference between their current state and the end of correction. This is a perfect desire, which a person must reach.

The suffering from feeling this empty vessel is simply unimaginable. But we connect the beginning and the end, understanding that “the end of the action lies in the initial thought” and that everything is originally derived from the benevolent desire of the Creator to give pleasure to the creation, and we arrive at this good end, and a person feels the suffering only to the extent of how much he is connected to his desire to enjoy.

However, at the moment when he rises above this desire, he will no longer feel the suffering, but only inspiration and excitement. In this form, we can endure suffering from what is seen as another person suffering in his personal life as a result of being immersed in his self-interest. But when we see how much is prepared for him after he rises above his egoism, how the vessel is full of light—it helps us, suffering together with him, to endure this pain for everyone.

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Fundamentals Of Kabbalah – 01.01.12

A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
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