Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.01.12

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Scientific Measurements

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can we measure our attainment?

Answer: First, what do I actually attain? To the extent that I bring contentment to the Creator, to that extent I attain the attribute called the “Creator (Boreh)” within me, according to the principle of “Bo-Reh” or “come and see.”

I attain the Creator in my understanding and awareness. This is my internal image. In the same way I also “draw” other people in my perception, and thus I attain them. My attributes are built so that I can imagine certain figures. I don’t know who is on the outside. Forces act outside of me, which project into my perception the “holographic picture” of other people who only seem to me as external. Thus my whole picture of the world is put together.

So what can I measure or weigh? I weigh my bestowal with regards to everything that I feel. This general measurement is called the “Creator.” Thus the Creator “clothes” a person, the Light “clothes” the created being.

I perceive different forms thanks to the attribute of bestowal that operates on the desires and arranges them in a certain way. From that I feel who the Creator is. I imagine the Creator and those who surround me as my own reaction to a certain action.

I don’t know who I am and what the world is. I don’t know anything, but gradually I begin to draw the sketches of different reactions and feelings in me. This is how I am built: The forms are all depicted as if on the outside. This illusion exists only here, in our current state.

A sensory system is developed in me along with its logical understanding. I live by the mind and the feeling. This reality is divided into four levels, the four layers of the desire: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. By the right combination of the four I discover the origin of everything that happens, my source, the source of my feeling, and of my four-layer images. I discover that there is an initial reason for all that, which I call the “Creator.” This reason is revealed when I begin to relate to all four levels with bestowal. Then out of equivalence of form, I discover the attributes of the Creator, the Giver.

Therefore, don’t think that our world actually exists—it all ends within me. Later, when I ascend the spiritual levels, it’s as if I move from one class to another. Suppose I know that I am in the first grade now, but can I compare it with the eighth grade or even with the second grade?

Today the clear measurements are still unavailable to us. We only have vague feelings, but there are no accurate tools because the mind and the feeling are not tied in such a way that we can attribute quantitative characteristics to our sensations. In the meantime we are on the psychological level, which lacks the mathematical tool for measurements and comparisons. Such a tool is truly provided by the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/2012, “Introduction to TES” 

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Why Do We Need All These Obstacles?!

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll the obstacles stem from the unified force of nature. What do we need these obstacles for? Suppose I realized that this force has cut the ground under my feet, that it has misguided me, has forced me to forget the goal, the search, because it has caused me pain, worry, an unpleasant feeling, and I began to feel afraid of something, to worry about something. After all, I am only human, and it’s very easy to knock me out. And what’s next? What do we need all this for?

We need it so that we will feel that we cannot manage without this force, without its personal help to each one; that without our appeal to what we call the upper Light, the Surrounding Light, we cannot advance. Attaining this state is the next level of our development. When I understand that everything that happens is done only by this one and only force, and that it does it on purpose so that I will need its help, while I cannot do anything on my own, this is already the beginning of direct interaction with it. This is a very important and serious stage that cannot be attained if the surrounding environment doesn’t support me.

We have talked about the fact that a person actually has no free will in this world. He is totally managed by his genes, hormones, and other things. There are people who can predict a person’s future. It is really so, except for one thing: Free will is actually expressed in self-development aimed at the search for this force, for the direction towards it, the connection with it, and the demand that it help us, which is most important. This is actually what it wants: to help us if we ask it to do so.

Why does such an immense, perfect, and eternal force that includes all of nature, not confined by our corporeal frameworks of time and place, and unlimited in its capabilities and actions, why does it need us to need it, to ask it, and to expect that it will do something with us since we cannot do it by ourselves? Why does it need such actions on our part, our weak attempts?

It’s necessary so that we will develop a new desire in us that doesn’t exist in nature: a desire to be in contact with it, to attain it, and to work together with it. To the extent that this desire develops in us, this force makes contact with us and is revealed in this desire. Then I can feel this great managing force.

From this recognition, from this feeling, we begin to understand everything: who we are, where we are, for what reason, for what purpose, and what is happening to us. Therefore, I should want the revelation of this force in me. I have to develop this desire in me by myself; otherwise I will not be independent. If it gives me this desire, I will not be free. And if so, what’s the point in creating all this?…
[73788]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3 

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TV Program “Foundations Of The Integral Society” – 04.01.12

TV Program “Foundations of the Integral Society”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Crossing To Another Dimension

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean that we can exist in another form: without the body or outside of it?

Answer: There is information, its carrier, and someone who senses this information. And all of them can change. Information (the intellect and so on) can exist not only in a protein, silicon, or other carrier, and not even in the material one, not in the brain.

Information per se is not material. It is only us who perceive it through a material carrier. We are already able to pass on information from a protein, live carrier (the brain) to an inanimate one. All of our evolution has been leading us to gradual changes in the information carrier, the gradual distancing from its initial, natural form: from speech to writing on different carriers, and then to programming and storing information in the virtual space.

Today we are standing at the threshold to another state in which the body will lose its importance, the sensations will transfer to a new dimension (the attribute of bestowal), while we will move the information from the brain-carrier or, to be more precise, the quality of reception, to another carrier: the quality of bestowal.
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How Many Jews Are There In The World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In your opinion, how many Jews are there in the world?

Answer: According to some scientific estimates, there were about 100 million people in the world during the exodus from Egypt. Jews comprised 3% of the population, which means that now there should be 6.9 billion x 3% = 200 million. The number of Jews in the world, left of the two tribes is 14 million. One tribe is 7 million. As of today, all the tribes amount to 7 million x 12 tribes = 84 million.

Many were killed during the persecution of the Jews in the Middle Ages. But let’s take only the 6 million who where murdered in the Holocaust. Since 1940 the world population has grown three times, and so 6 million x 3 = 18 million. This means that there could have been 18 +14 = 32 million Jews, together with those murdered in the Holocaust. And one tribe is 16 million.

16 million x 12 = 192 million Jews in 12 tribes as of today. This means that the number of Jews is about 200 million: 3% of the world’s population.
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Alarab.Net Reports On The Round Table Discussion In The Arab Locality In Israel

Alarab.Net Reports On The Round Table DiscussionAlarab.net published an article about the round table discussion organized by the Mutual Guarantee movement in the Arab Locality in Israel. The site was established in 2006 and covers mainly the issues related to Palestine. Its main audience is the Palestinian youth, although the site also appeals to other nations of the Arab world.


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Working With Disturbances

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If disturbances come to me in the form of foreign thoughts, can I just stop thinking about them and ask the upper force to direct me back on the right path?

Answer: If I get a disturbance from the upper force, why should I ask It to remove it? It is the same as when my mother asks me to assemble a new toy from a Meccano kit, an airplane or a car, and I say: “I don’t want to.” How can I grow? If I want a car that is already assembled, I will grow into an undeveloped child. It is because when I assemble, take apart, or break something, then everything happens the way it should. Just like all those years at school or university when we were constantly given assignments. They could have given us the answer. Why do we need disturbances?..

Question: Suppose an external thought came to me. Do I simply break through it further, realizing that this a disturbance, and think about how to work with it?

Answer: Work with a disturbance should be done in the following way: After you focus on the idea that everything comes from the Creator, you should process this disturbance together with the friends. That is all! You will not be able to direct yourself at Him on the same frequency. You cannot. You can do it only together in the group!

When you are together in one group, and all kinds of mutual relationships exist between you (we are talking only about the relationships that are relevant to the goal), then this single force of nature exists around you and above you. You have to create a resonant circuit in yourself like in a radio receiver, which tunes to Him, and then you will pick Him up. This force fills everything around and inside you, but you can pick it up when you tune into the same frequency.

People come to the group with their problems, with the minuses. What happens next? They connect with each other, and all the minuses disappear because we only desire to work on bestowal. I rise above my problems—they remain below. There are plenty of minuses below me and below each of our friends, but we understand that they are created in order for us to aspire to mutual bestowal, so that we work on these minuses.

How Do We Work With Disturbances

In what way? They come from a single unified force. It does this on purpose so we rush towards it in spite of the problems that arise in each of us, and most importantly between us. After all, great hatred, dislike, contradictions, and misunderstanding arise between us: No one understands me, and I do not understand anyone; no one appreciates me, and I do not want or appreciate anyone.

Everyday problems are more or less discarded, but the problems that exist in the group and repel us from each other are the central problems. “Stacking” these problems, aiming them forward together, we as though tell the Creator: “You will not divert us from the path. We understand where this comes from. You put all these problems in front of us so that we’ll rise above them, like above Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred), to You.”

Here, against all the disturbances that He causes purposely, you generate a completely new property: unity. Thus, you begin to discover Him between you—His quality, His force. This is your radio receiver, your sensor, the sensory organ that you create in yourself. In it, you immediately reveal Him—not somewhere outside or above, but here, inside.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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Preparation Period: A Voucher To The Spiritual Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhy don’t we feel progress? We can aspire to each other for a long time, try to organize a group, and in the end we get no results.

The truth of the matter is that we need to pass through what is called the “preparation period.” It is exactly like the first twenty years in a person’s life, which he spends to become a grown up and enter into life. Only after that does the next stage, the real correction, begin.

At the new level, we continue to work in the same group. However, if previously we had the group and the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif or OM), now we have the group and the Direct Light (Ohr Pnimi or OP). Therein lies all the difference.

Preparation Period - A Voucher To The Spiritual Life

Of course this is a huge difference. During the preparation, we work in darkness and constantly suffer with questions. It is precisely here that the work is the strongest. After all, we work having no understanding, no knowledge of what we are doing.

Actually, the most important work is realized at these levels. It is also like this with small children. During their growth process, they set the basis for their subsequent existence, for their entire life. The way a person spends his first twenty years, prepares himself, absorbs the good acts, the intentions, the understanding of what is happening, knowledge, and so on, that’s the way he will continue to exist in this world. And in spirituality the situation is even more rigorous: Until a person passes these years, meaning the time of preparation, he doesn’t enter the upper world.

In this way, the preparation period demands a question: How many years do we need to devote to it? The answer is simple: It’s not about the number of years—it depends on us. We see that many new students come to the group much more prepared than we were in the past. Everything is already internally arranged within them, they quickly grasp the principles and connect to the group; it’s as if it’s easier for them. From this we see that the time changes everything.

Thus, this time depends only on us. We can compress, shorten it. Only the intensity of our studies determines how quickly we will advance on this path, this introductory phase, the time of preparation.
[73865]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 4

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Through Integral Upbringing To Mutual Guarantee

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe further we develop, the clearer it becomes that with each year we sink into an ever-deepening crisis. And the problem isn’t just the economy; there are other crises as well that we’ve failed to resolve over many years. Some areas have been mired in crisis for decades now: drugs, depression, ecology, upbringing, and family.

The common explanation to all these problems is the lack of correct connection between us, which manifests on all levels: international, national, and family. This is why right now it is mandatory to have knowledge of the system of our interconnection which obliges us to establish good relationships between ourselves and not just sign some agreements on a piece of paper about peace, trade, or production.

This resembles a marriage contract that only exists on paper: People live together in one house, but there is no emotional, inner contact between them; they simply exist in a shared space. In this case, they very quickly reach a point when they can no longer tolerate this situation and are forced to separate.

In order to avoid bringing humanity to a world war and explosion of egoism, it’s necessary for every person to see the connection between us and to understand that today this connection must flow from heart to heart.

By observing nature, we see how wisely everything is arranged in it: All of its parts, from enormous faraway stars to the tiniest of particles, everything forms a single system. With the development of science, we discover the existence of this integral connection and reciprocity more and more. And if it ever happens that we violate a certain area, this provokes thousands of consequences in our life.

This happens in human society even more obviously. This is why our success depends only on that correct connection between us, called mutual guarantee: Each individual feels that they are dependent on everyone, and all depend on each individual.

In accordance with this, new social and international laws need to be established, new norms of relationships between people, within a family, in a workplace, in public places, and even when a person is alone: Everyone needs to take care of our big family. Ultimately, we are all living in one place and are connected even more than members of a family, who live in the same house.

This dependence gives a person more than the sense of security, prosperity, and well-being. After all, he or she is among people who wish them well. If the world becomes a single family, I have no fear, no shame, and generally am not worried or afraid of anything. The whole world is mine, I breathe with ease, and in any place, be it on a street, in a store, or while traveling, I feel like I am at home.

And here we need to understand the importance of upbringing. To make a person see, agree with, and realize such attitude towards other people is very big and important work. And now humanity is entering the epoch where it will be required to perform correction and ascend to the level of Human, that is, to resemble the image of Human that we form all together.

I hope that the development of integral upbringing will allow people to see evidence in nature, science, and life, which will convince them to join this process and start changing under the influence of knowledge and practical exercises. Then we’ll be able to reach the bright and kind world, at the threshold of which we are already standing now.

The wonderful thing about it is that a person who is connected to other people begins to feel life through them. Indeed, if I love my child, it’s as if I am with him anywhere he is, I enjoy everything that brings him pleasure, and I feel everything he does.

It turns out that as soon as I begin to connect this way to the world, I receive an impression from it, and knowledge and sensation of all the people in the world appear in me. I broaden my life so much that I no longer live inside of myself but in them! And here I touch a certain eternal point within me, the ability to feel life outside my body to the measure of my inclusion into everyone within the framework of the system of mutual guarantee. We’ll hope that we will manage to achieve this!
[67969]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/5/12

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