Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.13.12

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Fukuyama: The End Of History

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist, political economist): “…the excesses of capitalism are a threat to democracy…

“We have had a lot of technological change that substituted for low-skill labor and made many people in Western democracies lose their jobs.

“We have unthinkingly embraced a certain version of globalization that assumed we had to move very quickly into this post-industrial, post-manufacturing world. Doing so, we forgot that the whole reason real socialism never took off in the US was the fact that the modern economy seemed to produce middle-class societies in which the bulk of the population could enjoy a middle-class status. They worked in industries that were abolished in our countries and transferred to countries like China.

“What you are going to see in a democracy with a weaker middle class is much more populism, more internal conflict, an inability to resolve distributional issues in an orderly way.

“The president [Obama] never annunciated a vision of a different kind of economic order that did not just look like a return to a kind of classic big spending, liberal Democratic formula. The Democrats have never articulated an economic philosophy that is not just the return to the 1970s, big government and so forth, or the position of the labor unions which is very hostile to globalization.

“We should never have permitted the Chinese to de-industrialize a large part of the world.

“China is never going to be a global model. Our current Western system is really broken in some fundamental ways, but the Chinese system is not going to work either. It is a deeply unfair and immoral system where everything can be taken away from anyone in a split second, where people die in train accidents because of a rampant lack of public oversight and transparency, where corruption rules. We are already seeing huge protests in all parts of China …

“Liberal democracy still really is the only game in town worldwide, in spite of all of its shortcomings.”

My Comment: This is the end of history of the past history and the beginning of a new history. The next level of human development has to replace a person with a machine, to eliminate excess production, to release people from unnecessary labor, and to free as many as possible man-hours from environmentally harmful production of unnecessary things and services.

We need to look at people’s liberation from labor as a necessity, the requirement of nature, and to become aware of our transition to the next level of development. It involves achieving unity and completing each other, to the point when society will become a single whole in which we will feel the unity of nature—the upper dimension.
[72379]

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Introductory Lecture “Course To Be A Man, A New Labor Market” – 03.13.12

Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Course to Be A Man, A New Labor Market”
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Who Will Help Me Return

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati #99, “He Did Not Say Wicked or Righteous”: Now we can understand what is written, that the Creator says, “Return unto Me and I will return unto you.” And Israel say the opposite: “bring us back, Lord, and then we shall return.

We want the Creator to first perform His action. But He tells us: “First you return to Me, and then I will return to you.” It is as if we argue about who will be the first to solve this difficult situation. In every state there are two such discernments: on the Creator’s part and on the part of the created being.

The work is done as usual: through the teacher, the books, the group, the study, and dissemination so that all of this will influence a person in every state. Otherwise he will not be able to exit his state and will remain “himself.”

Imagine that I am in a certain state now, as if I stop time with a stopwatch. It is my current state on my present degree. How can I change it and do something with myself, operating within that state? I will never be able to do anything. I need some external force to push me from behind by suffering or to pull me forward by pleasures.

These are all the tools that I have. But where can I get them in every state? I need to arrange them in advance, and so I have to make sure beforehand that in every state there will be the teacher, the books, the group, dissemination, and the friends’ meetings, which will not let me relax and forget, so that I will not fall without anyone knowing about it. Even if I live in the North Pole, isolated from everyone, I still need to “buy” friends who will care about me all the time, who will call me, and do something with me. This is the only way I can advance.
[72431]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, Shamati #99

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Crime Lords

Dr. Michael LaitmanTogether, we all need to concentrate very well on the correction of the world and unity so that people will discover: This is the only thing they lack. Every person wants something. And it does not matter what they want—it is impossible to satisfy every desire. They always pile one on top of another, forcing us to enjoy at the expense of others. This is how everything is arranged: Egoistically, we can only achieve a tiny bit, and everything else we do at the expense of others.

One way or the other, except for the food for his body, a person takes everything else from others. This applies to everyone without exception: Someone lacks the piece of bread I threw away, the tomato that went bad. By definition, every egoist lives by stealing from others.

And this is why no one can be happy and satisfied in our world. The system is integral, and this is why when I take something for myself, I automatically steal it from others.

Only when I bestow to everyone does the abundance go through me. “Digesting” this method is hard, however, it is a very simple method. In reality, everything exists only because of it, while the only thing that exists due to our egoism is the flow in our heart and mind—nonsense for the altruistic reality.

And for this reason we only have one solution: to concern ourselves with unity. As soon as we manage to bring our hearts at least a few millimeters closer, the world will immediately experience a relief. So let us do it.

Everything depends on what is happening inside the person. This is what determines his or her perception of reality and the actual reality as well.
[72438]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, TES

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To Be Free In Your Own Land

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to make independent decisions and at the same time to annul oneself before nature?

Answer: It is the same thing. To annul yourself, meaning your egoistic intention, and to implement the Creator’s commands with all your heart and soul means to be independent.

A person needs to ponder about why this is so. This allows him to call himself “a free nation in its own land” since he ceases to be a slave to his desire (the word “land” or “Eretz” comes from the word “desire” or “Ratzon”).

He wants to be a slave of the altruistic intention and that is called to be a “slave of the Lord.” He sells himself to be a slave of bestowal since in the meantime, he is not able to bestow independently. But this is already his first step towards independence, and afterwards he will become completely independent.
[72345]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, Shamati #9

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The Planet Of The Sleeping People

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator, nature, is everything, and we exist within it. However, because of the concealment that was made for us, we have the ability to see ourselves and nature in a very strange way, as if we exist independently from it and are able to decide and act on our own.

It is a complete illusion. Both we and the world, all of our actions, thoughts, and opinions, all of it is a total fantasy, the mirage in the air. All of this was done to give a person a beginning point from which he would be able to advance truly independently. Otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to build the foundation for being “human,” Adam, which means “similar” to nature, the Creator, in all its height.

But if we want to grow correctly, we need to constantly remember that we exist within nature that determines everything for us: the thoughts, the desires, the intentions, relations between us, everything that happens—all our lives. Nature controls us completely, and we are not only governed by it, but don’t even exist.

We live in this lie, in the illusion that we seemingly exist, like in a dream or some kind of legend. However, if we try to focus our attention, thoughts, and perception in order to rise above our ego, above our present nature, where all of this dream and fantasy is, then indeed, we will be able to try to break through this dream and reach the truth.

This is why we act: We gather in the group, study, and implement all the recommendations of Kabbalists. Indeed, they want to pull us out from this illusory existence, from the life in a dream, as though withdraw from the fog, from the deep hole that we are stuck in, and to save us. Thus they give us various advice on how we need to concentrate on perception of reality in order to dissipate the cloud and see the truth. This is what our entire work is about.
[72348]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, Shamati #9

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How To “Weave” A Created Being

Dr. Michael LaitmanEven in order to exist in corporeality we need the Light: a slight illumination (Kista de Huyuta), the smallest spark of the Light that broke through from spirituality as a result of the Big Bang and created all the matter in our world, which is actually imaginary and exists only in our perception. But that was only the beginning, and the rest of our evolution is in building the real matter, meaning the desire. The matter that we see in front of us is ephemeral and nonexistent. Physicists have also discovered lately that the matter of this world does not exist, that it’s not particles, but the energetic field of forces, which appears like moving particles to them.

In order to discover the real matter, the great desire to receive in all its different fashions, we need the Light that created, made, begot, all these forms of matter in four phases of HaVaYaH (YodKeyVavKey), or in the worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya, which stem from the world of Adam Kadmon. This is called “the lower half of Keter,” while the world of Infinity is “the upper half of Keter.”

We begin to advance in spirituality if we receive the Light from Above that develops matter. In order to hasten the development of our matter, the desire to receive, we were given the wisdom of Kabbalah that can help us consciously perform different actions, instead of waiting for many stages of our development to go by, and only afterwards to begin to understand what’s going on. Even then we’ll not understand it until the end. Does a person at the end of his life understand much of all he has been through? After all, he doesn’t understand the reasons for different events, the connection between them, or the depth of creation. Nothing is revealed to him, and his life just passes by.

We, however, can advance in life by putting ourselves in motion by ourselves, when we understand what’s happening to us so well that we can check and change ourselves and put together the parts of this creation. Then we’ll be able to see and to study how by putting things together in different ways we can get different results and by that learn. We acquire the upper spiritual knowledge in the mind (Daat) of our Partzuf, which is gradually revealed to us. This is called “the Light of Hassadim in the illumination of Hochma.” Thus, from the bottom up, we begin to attain it and by that become real scientists who compose creation of all these particles.

Where can we get the mind, the feeling, the discernments, and the intentions for how to carry this out? From the simple upper Light that descends upon us. Then we’ll begin to develop. We don’t know what we lack, in which directions our mind and feelings should expand, and in what way our brain and heart should cooperate in order to “weave” the right vessel for us.

Let’s hope that by reading The Zohar we’ll be able to draw this general Light, and it will prepare the understanding and the feeling for us, by which we’ll eventually be able to participate in the creation of the vessels. It says that “the Creator creates the worlds and destroys them, and the righteous correct these worlds,” working with Him like partners.
[72352]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, The Zohar

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Passing On The Materials Of Our Teachers To The Masses

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn general, we don’t use adapted materials. The only exception is the text of Zohar L’Am (The Zohar for All), which we prepared not for ourselves but rather for the people. We see that it does help to create a close contact with the source. So as part of the help that we have to offer humanity that is sinking in the crisis, we must turn to the masses.

Baal HaSulam even went to Poland in order to become acquainted with the workers’ uprising movements. In general, he made great efforts to create a dialogue with the world: He published a newspaper, wrote The Writings of the Last Generation, tried to get closer to the people, spoke with Ben Gurion about the necessary changes in society, in education, and so on. Therefore, we, who are following Baal HaSulam’s footsteps, must promote and bring the masses even closer to the method that Baal HaSulam and Rabash left us.

Of course, we can’t write the right materials by ourselves. After all, we are not on a level that will enable us to fill them with the Light that Reforms. We have no connection with the upper Lights as did our teachers. But in order to serve as the link, the pipe that passes the Light to the people, we should try to be “Israel,” which means with the help of our teachers, to yearn as much as we can straight to the Creator (Yashar – El) and also to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” with regards to the world.

Therefore, we should try to adapt a bit the materials, written by our holy teachers, for the public—to adapt them externally, changing the inner content as little as possible, to the extent that we understand it. This will certainly be a corruption, but by that at least we start correcting something. Eventually, the world may begin to read the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash in their original form.

Therefore, we adapt the articles that appeal to a person and talk about his internal work, about his connection with the group and about getting closer to nature, to the Creator. After all, the Gematria (numerical value) of the word “God” (אלה-ים) is the same as “nature” (הטבע). We hope that this will help people come closer to the method of correction.

Let’s hope that the public will use these texts. They don’t repel the reader because they have been adapted so there is nothing that may seem religious, related to some sect or nationality. It’s about the balance between man and nature in our days, which is an essential precondition for saving humanity from the crisis and total collapse.
[72360]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012

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The Only Thing Missing In The World Of Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhile advancing toward revelation, we have to understand how to collect broken vessels (desires). Baal HaSulam writes about this in Igrot (Letters), Pg. 70: “However, because of the breaking of the vessels, all the Otiot (letters) were ejected to corporeal conducts and people. When one corrects oneself and reaches the root of one’s soul, he must collect them by himself, one-by-one, and bring them back to the root, to holiness.”

With the breakage of the vessels in the spiritual world, a coarser layer of desire was formed called “this world,” which is where we find ourselves now. Everything that happened at that time of breakage is now being revealed in our world in a corrupted form, between corporeal people.

And if a person realizes that everything happening between him and others is a result of the shattering of desires, he then takes all the connections with other people and returns them to the root, corrects them one by one. That means he “sentences himself and the entire world to a scale of merit.”

“The matter of the unification of the Creator and Divinity that one induces when he has had his fill of yearning and longing is precisely like the underside coupling, applying in the birth of a corporeal body. It too extends necessarily by cause and effect, meaning the hardening that is a certain measure of longing and yearning, called hardness in the corporeal tongue. Then, one’s seed is also blessed…” (Baal HaSulam, Igrot [Letters], Pg. 70).

A person reaches unity with the Creator only when he ardently longs for it. We possess a desire toward spiritual attainment, but it’s given to us from Above and doesn’t belong to us. Everyone was brought into a group at some point of time, and he comes to study because he is being awakened from Above. Everything he does is guided from Above; his actions are not yet his own, but the work of the Creator on him.

Apart from a desire, there is also yearning, and that is a special notion: an addition to the desire. It comes to me not from the Creator, but from the environment. When I connect with others, I receive their yearning toward spirituality. It’s an addition to the desire that I get from working with the environment. Only this yearning is counted in spiritual work, meaning only the additional desire that I gained with my own efforts, and I advance accordingly to it.

A simple desire toward spirituality can be great, and a person may be ready to study around the clock and to disseminate. But that’s not his own desire. He’s being wound up from Above like a windup toy; when you turn a key, it starts jumping. And a person can do a lot, but the question is whether this can be attributed to his own earned desire or to a desire given to him from Above.

Looking from aside, it’s impossible to know what’s the case. Only a person himself can examine and discover that. And in so doing, he won’t be able to complain about studying for so many years, learning so much, but not receiving a revelation. This is because the desire he is working with is not his, but belongs to the Creator who created it. He has to receive an addition to this desire that is called spiritual yearning.

It’s very important. However, many make the mistake of working with the original desire thinking that everything is fine: “Look at how much I do.” But only an addition that I earned with my own efforts is counted in spirituality. Everything that was given by the Creator is not counted because it existed in the world of Infinity. This is not why the development of the worlds and the breaking of Adam HaRishon took place. Everything already existed in the world of Infinity.

The only thing that didn’t exist in Infinity and that is required for us to start ascending from below upward is a spiritual yearning, pressure, and our own awakening. This is called MAN, a prayer.

We have to take this additional desire that didn’t exist in the world of Infinity from the environment. We have it thanks to the shattering! This is why I feel all the others as strangers. If they are separate from me, I can receive an impression from them. This impression is called “envy, lust, and ambition lead a person out of this world.”

I envy what others have and thereby increase my desire. This addition to my desire, which is called yearning, pressure, or perseverance with which I realize this desire, is what helps me build my spiritual vessel.
[72225]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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