Audio Version Of The Blog – 01.24.12

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Without A Steering Wheel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What will help us not forget about one another?

Answer: The need for spiritual work, the realization of the importance of the goal. I don’t forget about what is important to me.

If the spiritual goal is not important to me, then I have to gain its importance from the friends. But what if they don’t value it? It turns out that we are swimming across the ocean together without a steering wheel. There are many people on board, but they don’t have a direction. A few sailors on deck are yelling that we have to get to dry land, but the others are just having fun and don’t have a care in the world….
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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One Request For The Rest Of Your Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we think about while reading The Book of Zohar? Should we focus on some specific, simple thought?

Answer: During the whole day you must discern what you want to ask for. Suppose you have 20 requests. Choose one of them, the most important one, and check whether all the others are included in it. Don’t just choose one of the 20, leaving all the other ones behind. After all, that’s not how one comes to the King, who is able to carry out all of our requests.

There has to be one request, but it has to include all of your wishes. You have to be confident that if you address Him with this request and receive what you wish for, then you won’t need anything ever again. You come to the King once with one request, and if you receive an answer, then you are completely satisfied. Otherwise you would be belittling the King’s dignity and perfection.

But if you come with many requests, it means they don’t include a single real one and you are like a little child who came into a toy store and lost his head, not knowing what to grab because he wants everything. If you are in this state for now, then you won’t receive permission to come to the King as you don’t have a serious request. You are allowed to enter only with one request.

However, it shouldn’t be one request that temporarily emerged in you right now, but it has to be such that you probably won’t ever ask for anything else ever again. You discerned the most important thing that you need and this won’t change anymore.

This is the request you should write down and check – you have 24 hours to do so, until the next reading of The Book of Zohar tomorrow! And then check it for several days – whether it’s the correct request or not.

It’s desirable to check yourself and change this way your entire life, if necessary… Then you will see how your desires change and will learn who you are. All of the science of Kabbalah is a study of ourselves, the attainment of reality, the Creator through self-attainment.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, The Zohar

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Can We Not Suffer?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why do we view our spiritual path to be “masochistic”? Why can’t we avoid the emptiness and suffering?

Answer: On this path, we suffer from love. We regret that we are deprived of similarity with the Creator.

Do you really think that the Creator deprives you of food, water, shelter, and health? No, we are talking about the suffering of those who want to be like Him.

Suddenly, our egoistic desires and pleasure get bigger; the desires and pleasures are in fact the same and we cannot cope with them any longer. In this case, we suffer, and the Creator disappears from our sight. Previously, He exposed Himself to us. But later on, predicaments show up and we cannot handle His revelation any more. So, He conceals Himself from us.

There is no comparison with the suffering of a regular person who instead of earning ten thousand yesterday, earns only a hundred today. We have to understand the language of Kabbalists who talk about spiritual things rather than on the material plane. On the spiritual path, “punishment” means the Creator’s concealment and our inability to bestow.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Drawing the Creator’s Image When He Is Concealed

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSualm, “Introduction to the Study of The Ten Sefirot“: Since His Guidance is not revealed, it is impossible to see Him but only in concealment of the face, from behind, as one who sees one’s friend from behind and might doubt and think he is another. In this manner, one is always left with the choice to either keep His will or break it.”

Because the Creator is concealed, He allows us to have doubts, and hence, the opportunity to perform actions. If the Creator were revealed, we would all be His slaves, “robots” that would perform His desire unconditionally. His revelation would oblige us to do that automatically. After all, there would be no “break” between us and the Light, which is what enables us to resemble the Creator independently.

But the Creator brings us the feeling of concealment: He doesn’t just hide, but lets us feel that He doesn’t exist. In this case, we can carry out His desire as if He exists, and we act in His place. Thus He allows us to complete His actions. For us it is an opportunity, a place to work and take pride in the fact that we can fill our doubts with His Guidance.

But where can I find the power to perform this work, if He is concealed from me? I have to understand that the concealment is a kind of “black light” that builds a special form in my desires and thoughts: the hidden contours of the Creator, which I want to complete.

If this form were revealed to me, I would carry out His desire submissively. So how can I create the Creator’s form inside me, so that it will oblige me to act while He is concealed? I have to build His image inside me and only then can I carry out His plan.

And so gradually, a person builds inside him the Creator’s image. And the Creator shows him more and more how deeply and in what manner He is concealed. Thus we advance until we build everything the Creator wants. Then we will resemble Him according to the equivalence of form.

So the point is not to actually carry out the Creator’s desire. Our desire to receive and all the different ways to receive are a means. The point is in building the Creator’s image inside us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Introductory Lecture “To Be A Man, Social Psychology” – 01.24.12

Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “To Be A Man, Social Psychology”
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Understanding His Providence

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are in a state of concealment, and we must understand that we are in concealment. A person is born and lives in this world in a state of total detachment from the true reality. He doesn’t know where he is and whether there is anything besides that. If there is, can it be seen?

When we feel the presence of something, it could be that it is hidden or revealed. So, the concealment is part of the revelation because I already know about the existence of something that is hidden. This means that people who are in a state of concealment are already on the way to the truth, although it is concealed from them at the moment.

This is already an advanced state because ordinary people don’t feel that something is concealed from them.

We go through four phases: double concealment, single concealment, Providence of reward and punishment, and eternal Providence.

As far as the two concealments are concerned, it isn’t detachment any more; neither a state of unconsciousness. In double concealment, I know that I am detached from reality and that I don’t see that the Creator determines everything that happens to me. In single concealment I feel that my life depends on my being in front of the Creator. But something that brought me to concealment instead of revelation depends on me.

So in a double concealment, I determine that I am detached from the Creator, and in single concealment there is contact, but I don’t perform His desire.

In the next phase, the phase of revelation, I receive reward and punishment according to the degree that I perform His desire. The punishment is eventually also a reward, because thanks to it, I advance. It shows me where I still have to correct myself, that is, where I am “behind” the present level, because a person is not demanded to do something that is beyond his power.

Eventually, I move on to eternal Providence after having corrected all my attributes, and I reach total mutual understanding with the Creator.

All these states were meant to make us understand the Creator’s Providence. This understanding is the sign, the means, the basis for all our success and wellbeing. If I know that I receive blows for some reason, it isn’t meaningless sufferings anymore, but a punishment that will do me good, or the good itself. Everything here depends on the level I am on and on my attitude towards the punishments.

It could be that as a result of the blows on my egoism, I will feel so happy that I will rise above these feelings and enter a state of Hafetz Chesed. So I have nothing, but I don’t suffer. Apparently this is impossible? Where is the envy, the lust, the honor? Everything remains below, but a lot of work is required in order to reach that.

So we gradually go through the phases of concealment and revelation, and go up the levels of the spiritual worlds. It is about individual discernments, about a person’s internal states, but it is clear that they are realized only if I try as hard as I can to be incorporated in the right environment. Otherwise I won’t be able to rise.

Sometimes it is hard to tie all the internal work with the work in the group. But actually, it isn’t a problem, I should only check and connect these two components more carefully. All the work is in the group; all the feeling is inside me.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The Eternal Engine That Runs On Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A week ago I was driving on a foggy, rainy night. Visibility was only about 2 meters, ahead. I held on the yellow line and could only notice the oncoming trucks at the last second. I thought to myself that along our path there must also be a line you should stay on. But I couldn’t decide what that line is: Is it the group or the teacher?

Answer: The group, of course. The teacher only guides you, teaches you, and you should carry out his instructions exactly as he tells you.

Question: But the group seems to me like many lines, while the teacher is one.

Answer: We are connected like cogwheels: Everyone is connected to me and I am connected to everyone. I give the friends something from me and receive bestowal from them. Thus we form a collective “sphere.”

Question: But the cogwheels have an engine that turns them.

Answer: No, they turn by themselves. Eventually the upper Light turns them when it is revealed in the good mutual relations among them. This energy is hidden among them, in their mutual bestowal. So it turns out that they are like an eternal engine that operates on love.

It says that it is impossible to destroy “a city of outcasts.” Even if its inhabitants are criminals, if there is love among them, it is impossible to beat them.

Question: So what is the work of a cogwheel?

Answer: To adhere to others, to receive deficiencies from them and to fill them. This is what everyone should do. Eventually, you see before you the greatest of the generation who are completely corrected, except for the part that you have to fill in them. One doesn’t contradict the other: You can treat the group as Malchut of Ein Sof.

Question: So, I have to receive the power from the friends in order to give them powers? So are they strong or weak?

Answer: It works both ways. There is no other way: They are the greatest and they are the smallest. On one hand, I receive my strength from them and in them I reveal the Creator, and on the other hand, they lack what I have to give them, and without me they won’t feel it.

Question: And the Creator is revealed above that?

Answer: No, He is revealed inside, in the mutual connection between us. If it is a connection of bestowal, then in this aspiration we discover the upper Light. It isn’t above us; we are the ones who create and ignite it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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How Many Light Years?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: First there was the thought of the Creator, and then it was implemented into the plan of creation by building all the worlds from top to bottom. What is the distance that the creature needs to overcome in order to ascend back to the initial thought of creation?

Answer: There is a huge separation between the Creator’s thought of creation and us. First we rise from the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya (BYA) to the world of Atzilut when we obtain the substance and the form clothed in substance. Afterwards we reach the abstract form and then to the essence. Despite that we don’t grasp or understand these categories now, it seems that we will obtain them one day.

By performing the actions, we obtain the Creator. It is clear that we are building them with the help of the reforming Light since we ourselves have no power to do this. We are only the “bricks.” But in order to build some kind of structure from us, we need the means that will connect us together, the cement that glues all the parts together. And we need to know how it all connects together.

And when He connects all our bricks together, we begin to understand how the Creator created everything and why He broke it—so that we would build anew that structure and discover His thought, His mind.

Baal HaSulam explains to us in his article, “The Acting Mind,” that when I look at a certain creation, I obtain the desire of the craftsman who created it. In other words, the more that I penetrate into the creation through my feelings, then the more I feel the nature of its Creator, His relation to creation. I can obtain Him through my understanding of his relationship with His creation!

In our world too, it is possible to do this and understand the artist because it derives from its upper roots. The Creator created the creature within a special system, broke it, and then leads us to need to reassemble this puzzle. When we assemble this mosaic, we obtain Him because He immersed Himself in it.

The Creator doesn’t hide in this system, just the opposite. He implants within each part of it, His mind, attitude, and sense of Himself. And when we assemble this puzzle, we don’t just simply receive a corrected picture and begin to exist in this wonderful world. We obtain the general law that operates within this system, the law of love and unity!

And we also obtain that same One that is operating in this system,” the inclusive,” the upper force that built the entire system. And in the power of One, we discover His attitude toward us which is called AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh – the lower part) of Keter (crown).

Despite that I still can not study it with certainty, but it is certainly possible that we can also obtain the upper part of Keter, that is disconnected from us, in as much as we have that desire.

It is impossible in the meantime to say it with certainty because these states exist after Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction), which is beyond the tasks that are imposed on us today.

However, thanks to this process, ultimately we obtain the operating upper mind and not only His plan, but the thought of creation itself, the upper thought, and all that is included in it. And this is our goal: to reach the thought of creation, to rise there and be included in the Creator, to reach adhesion with Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/12, Shamati #174

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A New Profession: Human

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur attitude towards nature, towards that one law which obliges us to connect with each other into one whole, is manifested within the environment. That’s why our attitude towards the environment, building it on the basis of this law, is more important than the attitude towards Nature itself. The main thing is to build one’s environment.

It’s not for nothing that thousands and millions of people are forced to leave their jobs and become unemployed; we need to open courses for teachers, educators, and facilitators. In fact, in this work, each of us is a teacher, an educator, and an assistant in relation to others. Therefore, everyone will have to go through this learning process and acquire a new “profession,” meaning to become a “Human Being” in a new society. Each of us should rise to a level where we’ll be able to understand what happens in Nature, and what is going on inside of us, what forms of relationships we can build with each other.

According to research, if a person finds himself in an environment where there is mutual influence, he can’t escape. This compels him, envelops him, and unwittingly or not, he changes. We see how the environment raises our children just by examples. The environment educates us, and in our life, we acquire new forms of behavior, relationships, and a new scale of values.

That’s why we don’t even count our desires, be they the desires for food, sex, family, money, power, knowledge, or hundreds of other things. We should look not at how to use these desires, but at their direction (and this is the most important!). In other words, the most important thing is solely my intention in the use of my “I” with all of my desires. I must transform the use of all my abilities for the benefit of society, and then my “I” will turn into “we.” And from the notion of “we,” which is like the gathering of individuals, we will arrive at the concept of “One.” And this “One” is already in balance, in unity with the only Law that governs us.

Then, a person becomes a Human Being, and begins to understand his nature and general Nature. On this path, he studies a lot of inner laws, the laws of psychology and the universe, and he absorbs everything that exists in nature, reaching its highest degree, the degree of that single force that affects us, and in the form which today we perceive as the crisis, it invites us to approach It. This course is designed to teach a person how to become a Human, how to reach the best, safest, and most comfortable, healthy state. Therefore, we should be thankful to this situation that leads us to a new era, to the world full of goodness.

However today, we have not yet begun this process and are not yet aware of it; our lives seem pointless; we are fearful of what awaits our children and grandchildren. So people don’t want to bear children and don’t even understand their place in this world. But everything is just the opposite! In the real sense of this word, “crisis” means a new birth, the threshold of a new humanity. The realization of our greatest hopes lies ahead of us.

We have to begin to realize this single law, and in a very short time, within a few weeks, we’ll feel how much it works, how “habit becomes second nature,” how much we can’t live without showing a good attitude towards each other. And if by chance we forget about it, we must remind each other while we’re together, united, when everyone feels the others, what a warm and desired state this is so that we want to return there again.

Let’s hope that due to our mutual support, we’ll be able to come to this state where a game, a habit, will help us achieve the good nature of love.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode #4, 1/1/12

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