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Are You Ready To Bestow?

Dr. Michael LaitmanEventually on the spiritual path, we reveal love. An expression of love is bestowal.

If I discover love towards myself, then I experience hate towards the other. I am looking for an opportunity to please myself everywhere, no matter at whose expense. I take others into account only when necessary. Thus, we initially love ourselves and hate others.

Then, I start to work in the group, study, become involved in dissemination, and thereby attract the reforming Light. Only It changes and improves me. Time after time, I change until suddenly I begin to feel respect for the property of bestowal.

Then, I have to relate this property to the group of friends because it is realized among them. This is already the next stage: Here I need to work against my egoism. Now, it is not enough just to be inspired by the upper Light. Yes, I would like to bestow, and this is wonderful, this adds fuel and  elevates, but if you really want this, try to show this in the group, in your relationships with friends.

“Yes, I am ready! I already have a good attitude to them!”

“Really? Let’s see. First of all, how often do you forget about them?”

Indeed, in everyday life, if I love someone, I think about him or her all the time. A mother does not forget about her baby: He is constantly in her thoughts in feelings. Here is a check for you: How many times a day do you care about the group of friends and their unity? How often do you want to feel in connection with them in order to reveal the reforming Light and the desire to love?

Remember, you need to put all the pieces together: the desire for love and the group.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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What Does It Mean To Unite With The Creator?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to unite with the Creator?

Answer: With the help of friends and study, due to the surrounding Light, I obtain the aspiration for the Creator, the desire to bestow upon Him, to be in bestowal, disconnected from myself so there is no longer my “I,” and I am entirely in this property of bestowal. Then, I discover that I become similar to Him because He is the very desire for bestowal, not a body, object, or entity.

Thus, the Creator begins to appear to me more and more as the property of bestowing force governing the Universe. And when I rise above myself and exit myself, I discover that in essence, I am a force, a desire, aspiration itself. And then I loose the feeling of my body, and I feel that there are only two mutual desires: His and mine.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, Shamati #16

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The Outline Of The Opposite World Is On The Horizon

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you combine “faith above reason” and the principle that “you may only judge what your eyes see”?

Answer: You must only base your critical assessment on your real sensations, as it is written: “A judge has only what his eyes can see” and not on what I think is written, what I was taught, or what someone said. What matters is what a person feels in his desires and what he understands with his mind.

This is our foundation: I don’t have more than what I am feeling now. And now I need to see how I can rise above it. This is because all spiritual growth is based on rising to a new degree every single time. But how can I rise to a new degree? In corporeal life we ascend the degrees through our egoistic desires and deeper, comprehending thoughts, in other words through the growth of the heart and the mind. But when it comes to spiritual ascent what matters is not the quantitative growth, but elevated qualities.

This is why I don’t work on growing my mind and feelings. I don’t strive to feel and understand more in my studies and regular life. It’s not that I limit myself; this simply is not the direction I see for myself. After all I want to acquire a new quality which is not inside the old heart and mind.

I need a different heart and mind! It is like two different pictures. The heart and mind which operate in the new picture of the world care for their neighbor even though I don’t yet know what this is. But back at the old picture it’s the other way around, I only care for myself.

And both of these pictures have an absolutely equal right to exist. But I need to reveal this second picture, the second reality. And it’s impossible to imagine it until it becomes revealed. We are only preparing ourselves for it. Light comes to us from that new picture according to the efforts we make to attain it from our previous position. This Light gradually forms the ability in us to begin to distinguish this picture from afar and gradually imagine what it’s like. But that which happens there we call the “higher knowledge,” beyond our mind, as it is written: “I have seen an opposite world.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, Shamati #16

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Turn On The Faucet To The Pipe Of Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanHochma and Bina can be in four states (as well as Partzufim Aba and Ima in the world of Nekudim):

1. Back to back (Achor be-Achor): no Light of Hochma and no need (from downward or upward) for Hochma and Bina to be connected.

2. Face to back (Panim be-Achor): there is Hochma in Aba, but Ima has no need to receive it;

3. Back to face (Achor be-Panim): Ima needs the Light of Hochma while Aba doesn’t have it.

4. Face to face: (Panim be-Panim): Aba desires to bestow, and Ima desires to receive the Light of Hochma in order to pass it to the lower ones.

The state “Face” means handing over the Light of Hochma; “Back” means connection solely in Hassadim or the lack of connection.

Face to back is a constant state in the world of Nekudim, when there is Hochma in Aba but Ima is unwilling to receive it. This state can be permanent since it doesn’t result in breaking. This state can continue in the world of Atzilut, like during the preparation stage, in the state of anticipation (standby mode).

The system is ready, and as soon as a desire to be corrected is raised by the broken souls, Aba and Ima’s adhesion (Zivug) immediately occurs, thereby passing down the Light from Above. But MAN, a plea, the prayer of the lower ones, is mandatory. It serves as an agent opening the so-called faucet holding back the flow of the Light, and it starts streaming downward.

This can be likened to a transistor to which the appropriate voltage is applied (MAN), and then the electric current flows. No matter what systems we are discussing, be they mechanical or electronic, thoughts or desires, the principle remains.

A state in which the system stands by is regarded as face to back. Aba turns its face to Ima, who turns its back. But as soon as MAN, the lower one’s desire, rises up, it affects Ima, which turns to Aba, followed by their adhesion (Zivug) in the state of face to face, and the Light of Hochma passes downward to the souls.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Weekly Torah Portion – 02.10.12

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Yitro,” Selected Excerpts
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The New Life Of The Internet

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you see the future development of technology, the future of the Internet, which is a means of connecting people, if Kabbalah continues to expand further?

Answer: First of all, I think that we will experience an inner revolution in mankind rather than in technology. Nowadays, humanity is undergoing an internal crisis and total re-evaluation of values; consequently, the future generation will not be carried away by social networks and all the other toys clogging the Internet. Man, willingly and naturally, will distance himself from it, and according to a newly emerging desire, humanity will become occupied with more exalted and meaningful things, leaving the empty chatter behind.

After all, we are advancing and the Internet will gradually get filled with things closer to spirituality. Science, technology, and everything that man is surrounded by at home and at work will be aimed only at helping us evolve spiritually. The spiritual world has come very close to man! We feel that it affects us, that it is here, nearby, around us, and that it is in the same network of the Internet, and we just need to see it.

We are permeated by a field of spiritual waves, which determines our true existence, and the world that we currently see around us is merely a projection onto an imaginary screen. Thanks to modern technology, humanity will make a transition from today’s illusory perception of reality to spirituality. It is a type of a bridge; so, naturally, I am for the development of the Internet. You are to see how we will fill it with new content: We just need time.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/10, “The Peace”

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If You Wish To Fix The World, Start With Yourself

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we force ourselves onto nature in an attempt to “correct” it as our mind dictates, nothing good will ever come out of it. In truth, we don’t know what brings harm and what makes an improvement, and what form it will take in the end. One thing is certain: The world completely depends on the correction of man who must correct himself. If he doesn’t, he sees the surrounding world as corrupted as it is now. But if instead of correcting himself he starts correcting it, he makes it worse!

On the outside, in still, vegetative, and animate nature there is nothing to correct! It must remain the way it is; and the only thing we can transform is man, internally. Therefore, don’t evaluate what is harmful and what is beneficial: If I am getting a beating to get transformed during the journey, then I accept these problems as aid. After all, only man pays dues. If it weren’t for you, all nature would be in balance. But in order to have you evolve, it gets out of balance, and you start feeling it in yourself.

All of the surrounding nature is your external desires that you cannot correct yet; in Kabbalah these outward levels are regarded as “cover” and “house” (“Levush” and “Eichal”). If you don’t wish to work on them, they will be bothering you. And if you decide to correct them directly, instead of reforming your inner desires, by annihilating some type of fly or other animal species, hoping to improve the world thereby, it will only lead to a double catastrophe on both planes: as on the material plane, so on the spiritual one.

From trying to perform “corrections” on the outside, which wasn’t supposed to be touched at all, not only will you continue to suffer internally, but also externally. Everything there is in the world, no matter how harmful, has its designation and must exist. If you wish to fix it, please do: Fix yourself!

Before World War II, Baal HaSulam was shouting out that we were headed for disaster, and he appealed to people to make corrections, but nobody would listen. And all who remained in Poland ended up in Nazi concentration camps. But even today, we still don’t hear the warnings.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/10, “The Peace”

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Everything Is Determined By The Human Degree

Dr. Michael LaitmanAt the animate level, we transplant and clone organs; at the vegetative one, we employ the newest agricultural technologies. If we didn’t genetically modify the produce we grow, we wouldn’t have much to eat.

In the past, fruit and vegetables would rot in a few days, but today, you can use a tomato to play football with and eat it a week later. Despite all the disadvantages, it should be understood that this serves to save the world. On one hand we “corrupt” what nature created; on the other, we perform a correction.

Therefore, at the still, vegetative and animate levels, we manage to make life more comfortable and pleasant for our egoism. Indeed, we can modify the previous levels of evolution to fit our needs by creating a comfortable environment. We don’t live in tree houses, teepees, and igloos any more, but we build houses with heating systems and electricity for ourselves. We modernize the earlier stages and see how beneficial it is for us. But the benefit expires when we transfer our approach to the level of “human.”

People don’t see this border, while at the human level, we don’t have the means to correct the situation. Therefore, by employing the same methods, we are destroying everything. By not correcting the human degree, we cause corruption at the lower rungs. As a result, although we might succeed there, to a greater extent, we do not, and the situation is getting worse.

Try as we might to improve and upgrade our life, we suffer from it nevertheless. After all, the human degree in us is above all the others, which results in their falling apart under its pressure. This is why Baal HaSulam writes in the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” there is no point in taking into consideration the lower rungs since they rise and fall along with man. Moreover, this mostly implies not the external world but primarily our inner degrees of development.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/10, “The Peace”

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Etiquette Is Not Development

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom the materials on the principles of global education: “A more developed person feels that even a small evil inside of him is not bearable. The perception of this evil obliges a person to get rid of it, just like of everything else that is harmful. It follows from here that the person’s level of development is defined by his sensitivity to the oppositeness between him and the common law of nature: love and bestowal.”

We teach children to behave politely in society, to look good in the eyes of others. For example, it is natural for a child to get dirty while eating and while playing, but we explain to him that these are bad manners. In other words, we increase his egoism, so that other people’s disdain becomes an important factor for him. The same old savage still exists within the person, but, on the outside, everything is very proper.

The question is should we be improving our external inter-relationships? In doing so, our ego grows even more. We look proper and respectable. There are entire schools of good manners where they teach a person the rules of polite behavior. In our world, a well brought up person is called  “developed” but here we are not talking about the correction of egoism, but about looking better.

Of course, all of this is a lie that the science of Kabbalah does not take into account. Let a man live in the African jungle, and let him eat with his hands from a common bowl. This does not mean that he is less developed than a gentleman from London who flawlessly handles tableware.

Obviously, good manners should be exercised in human society, and we absolutely are not disregarding them. However, they do not relate to the internal correction of a person. Internal correction is built on the realization of evil.

This is a question of intentions. Here, a person does not need to look at the external, but to delve inside. How pleasant is he to others in his intention for the sake of bestowal? Does he relate well to others in his soul?

External presence, behind which stands the desire to use others, is of no help here. On the contrary, everything is defined by the internal approach, while the external can become its projection.

Furthermore, although it may be that regardless of all my love for my little son externally, I display strictness and I even punish him because I have no other choice. Otherwise, he will harm himself.

My love for him sometimes requires tough measures, and I need to increase this love in order for me to limit him externally or to upset him.

In relation to nature, the Creator, all of us are small children, and it relates to us exactly in the same way. Inside nature, the force of love and the unity of all parts rules. This force can even create a living body, all parts of which are in harmony with each other. They are not simply living, but they are developing, rising above the animate state on to the level of nature itself, to the human level.

It is love, instilled in the base of the force of nature, which is being revealed in the harmony of all of its parts.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/11, “Principles of Global Education”

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