Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.18.12

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-04-18_declamation_blog-rav_full_mus.mp3 title=’18.4.12′]

A Man And A Woman As Traits Of Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: My parents got divorced and that left its imprint in me. I know that there are many people in my generation who are affected by this as well. We are afraid of women. It is very difficult to trust them.

Answer: I don’t understand your problems because we talk about absolutely different things. We don’t talk about men and women as biological bodies, a set of chromosomes, genes, and hormones.

We talk about men and women as traits of nature (and it is very important to us!), when we as adults understand how to use our strengths and weaknesses properly in order to reach a common goal. Serious people gathered here who want to reach that and don’t care about everyday problems between men and women in our regular life. We get away from a material life and rise above it. We want to use our spiritual qualities, either masculine or feminine, in order to support each other and rise. We must go together toward the goal in order to reach it.

Each of us has his or her own mission, own role, but can’t be without others. Only our mutual combination makes our connection productive.

We learn about Aviut (desire) and Zakut (screen). It is necessary to have both as complementary and equal to each other. One cannot exist without the other. If a screen were bigger than Aviut, where would it appear from the start? A screen cannot be different because it appears only on top of a desire. If a desire is bigger than the screen, it means it is no longer aimed toward bestowal, but toward reception. Thus it is important to have a right combination of masculine and feminine qualities.

I’d like to emphasize that we talk about qualities, not about hormones or other material traits. Under the concept of “a woman” an aspiration toward spiritual is meant, and “a man” is a realization of this aspiration that absolutely doesn’t apply to this world.
[75499]
From the Vilnius Convention 3//23/12, Lesson 2

Related Material:
The Power Of Women And Men: A Condition For Spiritual Ascent
Female Desire And Male Intention
There’s No Development Without Women

The Expanding World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the purpose of the endless transitions from one state to another?

Answer: This chain will end at a certain point. Each time you are entering a different dimension, and it is as if the world opens up and you reach a dimension that is twice the power. From there you enter a higher dimension; so you advance as if the layers of Heaven open up for you at the same time, motion, and place, every element of the previous level becomes inanimate in relation to the new level.

Again and again you penetrate a new dimension between two moments of transition. Every previous level loses its value and its vitality, just like in our world. Life is actually felt during the transition, and this is why it is so different from the life we feel today.

We are outside spirituality because we are locked in one static state, like in a cocoon. Then you suddenly break through a tiny opening into the big world. This opening doesn’t exist either, but you have to create it by yourself, by the transition from one level to another.

A person’s spiritual Partzuf is formed by these transitions. It is a qualitative structure that is formed by your efforts to create such transitions. It doesn’t actually exist by itself, only the transmitter which it builds itself upon exists
[75513]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Prayer About A Successful Birth
Self-Sacrifice Above Love And Hate
In The Desert There Is No One To Cry Out To – Only Heaven

A Message With A Hidden Meaning

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Shlavei HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), 1986, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”: Also, we were given the Mitzva [commandment/good deed] of “love thy friend as thyself,” and Rabbi Akiva said, “This is the great rule of the Torah” (Beresheet Rabba, Parasha 24). In other words, by working in love of friends, a person accustoms himself to exit self-love and achieve love of others.

At first it is hard for a person to agree with the idea of working in a group. It is hard for him to tie it to his spiritual advancement and the understanding of the Creator, which is the general force operating in reality, in the whole universe, the stars, the galaxies, and other phenomena studied by scientists like physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, etc. There are immense forces operating in our reality. What does that have to do with good mutual relations with other people? Why do I have to live with them in agreement and in love?

It takes a long time to accept this. We agree and accept this burden just like “Upper grace.” Until then, by reading about love, we wait impatiently for someone to explain to us how to reach the hidden forces so that we will be able to understand what is going on and will be able to attain greatness.

A person is attracted to control, but here he is told otherwise: “You should be good and love others, and serve them, they are great and you are small…”; It doesn’t fit his self-image at all. A person wants greatness, control, attainment, passion, and respect; he feels envy; he develops his selfhood and his independence. But the “good ego” pushes him forward in order to arrange his life in the best possible way. “Let me understand how this is done. Show me something,” in response he hears: “Annul your mind, abandon all your expectations and aspirations, and start working in the group.”

We are not prepared for this; we have no clue about it and no need for it. Today when we speak about the love of others and the friends, we probably don’t understand it or we accept the words of the Kabbalists out of a habit. But in fact, it is a great process, which every person in the world should go through one way or the other, before he hears about the message of love, unity, and bestowal. Many are attracted more easily to that, being much more egoistic than we are.

We, on the other hand, do not emphasize enough what belongs to perception, habit, and adaptability. People gradually get used to the thought of bestowal, love, and connection since they don’t see an egoistic benefit in it any more, but a tool that leads to something much more sublime. In the past a person heard explanations about love and at the same time went on with his daily dealings, and one didn’t interfere with the other. But now it isn’t only about a person’s moral improvement, but also about the correction of the world.

We still don’t understand that our “slogans” are quite easy to digest, but they are actually aimed at the economists, the businessmen, the politicians, etc. because the bottom line of what we are saying is: “You are behaving badly, you are destroying the world, while its correction should be of a different nature. You don’t understand what needs to be done. In the meantime everything has to be turned 180 degrees, and we should look at the world through connection and love. Then you will see the correct system and understand how to run the world in goodness and by the dominion of love.”

This is a delicate moment, which is about to clash in the future. On the whole there is a Gog and Magog war going on here. We are talking about an approach to managing life without settling for the modern education system to which everyone agrees. But when it comes to something bigger, like high officials who are in charge of important funds, who are in control, they feel that we are bringing them a totally different system.

These aren’t just some comforting changes that we offer the people and which answer their needs, it is a condemnation of the way they operate.

So we should be gentle, soften our message, and be very careful so that our message will not seem threatening. We speak about love and this satisfies everyone, but they are not aware that they have to change themselves and their managing system yet.
[75522]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Healers Of The World
According To The Laws Of The Bubble
A Loaded Message

Life Is The Calibration Of Our Attributes

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything depends on a person’s attributes, on the state he is in. It is said: “A student who was exiled, his teacher is exiled with him.” Everything is measured only with regard to the receiver: “It takes one to know one” and “love will cover all the sins.”

This is what makes a Kabbalist’s perception different from an ordinary person’s. A Kabbalist understands that he receives the upper Providence and sees one picture out of endless pictures that are revealed to him. All this is revealed according to the upper plan and the efforts that he makes below.

Accordingly, the point where the plan of a person’s development and a person’s exertion meet is the picture of the phenomena he sees and feels.

The perception can be internal and external. Externally a person receives everything that is revealed to him as facts, the laws of this world. He understands that everything comes from the Creator, and that this is how the Creator shows him the world. This is the “landlord’s'” perspective.

The perspective of the Torah is the understanding that the Creator is showing me the whole picture that I see, but it is revealed in my desire to receive according to my attributes. Two different behaviors and perceptions stem from this, as it says, “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.”

So in the group we have to treat the friends, the Rav, the environment, and the books with respect, despite the disrespect that we feel towards them internally. If a person wants to advance, he is constantly in this struggle because his ego constantly grows, showing him the baseness of everything that is not part of his self-interest.

We have to preserve the internal feeling of the greatness of the Creator and the faith in the Rav, to treat the friends as the greatest in our generation, and to appreciate the quality of the group more than the quantity. We have to do all that in order to calibrate our vessel correctly.

If everything is revealed inside me according to my present attributes, I have to relate accordingly to the reality that shows me how I should change my attributes, so that I will constantly be able to advance by that.
[75510]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Environment In Place Of The Creator
The Choice Is Yours
The Path To A Perfect Reality

We Must Find The Way Out

Dr. Michael LaitmanAlthough the method of uniting into the group and attaining the upper reality through it has existed for more than 5000 years, it has never been described in any of the sources. People just had no need for this since our ego hadn’t developed enough for us to demand change within us and in the world. Egoism had to discover its insolvency by itself; it had to realize that it has reached the dead end in its development, when we together, globally, on the entire planet, began to feel that it’s impossible to continue this life.

Despite the fact that a lot of people and societies believe that we still have a future to aspire towards and something to attain in our development, no one thinks about this seriously. In the meantime, the movement continues by inertia. The governments and economists are helpless but continue to maintain that everything will be over soon and life will be normal again. But actually, everyone knows that there is no way out.

We need to find this way out, to realize it, and become an example for everyone. Since nowadays there is such a need, the method is being revealed as well, which in the past was transferred only from teacher to student, through a chain of separate individuals in each generation up until our times. Therefore, my teacher was the first in history to write about the group in his articles. No one ever wrote about the work in the group before him. It’s possible to find only a few phrases and sections in the ancient sources of 300 to 500 or even 1000 years ago, but they are only small commentaries and nothing more.

My teacher Rabash was the person who first described the systemic work in the group, clarifying how to connect between us in order to create a sensory organ for feeling the upper state. Everything began from that famous piece of silver foil from the cigarette pack on which he wrote the first article that begins with the words: “We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to follow the path and method of Baal HaSulam, the way by which to climb the degrees of man, and not remain as a beast….” And this is what we do.
[75091]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Dissolving In The Group
The Goal Of The Group
Tuning In The Group

100% Spiritual Work In The Chains Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we work so that an action will be above our desire to receive?

Answer: It is hard to imagine this at the moment because for us even an action of bestowal is because of the desire to receive. But this is also good and it is called “Lo Lishma,” (not for His sake).

If I bestow in order to gain more, then it is a big and developed ego in our world. An undeveloped egoist simply takes for himself, like a robber who threatens you with a gun and takes everything for himself like the simplest naïve egoist operates.

If the bank steals from you by seemingly helping you by giving you a loan, you later see that they made a big profit at your expense, but this is already a higher more developed ego. Even throughout human history there were many wars and stealing at first and people had to hide behind city walls.

But later people got wiser and learned to lie to one another and to steal cleverly, legally. People already calculate things and see that there is no point using weapons and shedding so much blood if it can be done differently by making deals that will bring greater and safer profits. However, all these calculations stem from the same desire to receive.

But when I attain a desire to bestow, my actions are called “Lo Lishma,” because although I do them egoistically, for myself, I try to do it not for myself. I simply have no choice because I am in exile, enslaved to my ego, and so I have to listen to it and to think about myself.

Sometimes I want to bestow so much, to connect with others, but later I see that I did everything for myself. If it weren’t in my interest to do so, I couldn’t do anything, not even think about it. But I already disagree with that and try to do at least something in order to bestow, this is why it is called “Lo Lishma.” It is 100% spiritual work because it isn’t a person’s fault that he is in exile, under the domination of his desire to receive.

He has no choice, and he must go through this process, by building up a high enough speed in order to attain a full deficiency, a whole vessel for bestowal. We still have to operate in “Lo Lishma” by trying to imagine all the states in which bestowal itself is fulfilled “Lishma,” (for His sake), to actually try physically, mentally, internally, with all our heart (desire) to take part in this action, by forcing ourselves to be included in it.

Even if I succeed to some extent to think about bestowal and everything else is egoistic, I still tried. Therefore, it is called “spiritual work,” because even if I know that I am working for myself, at least externally, I do everything in my power to act in order to bestow. This is why it is called “Lo Lishma.” It is already spiritual work and not just false altruism as we see in our world.
[75389]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Let The Light Do Its Work
The Force Of Birthright
Refuse To Pay The Debts of Egoism

A Rally In Lithuania

This coming Saturday, April 21, 2012 in front of the Lithuanian Parliament, a rally dedicated to justice and fairness in Lithuanian society will take place. The organizers of the rally are respected politicians. Our Lithuanian team is also participating in the meeting and has prepared printed materials for dissemination.

In addition, the team is expecting to obtain approval for conducting round table discussions as a solution to the problem of fairness, justice, and unity.
[75397]

Related Material:
Integral Upbringing In Chicago
Viva Espana!
Second Lecture In Beijing

Why The Desert?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why was the last convention in Israel held in the desert? Is symbolism really that important to Kabbalists?

Answer: We saw that it does matter and make a difference. The first time we went there because we have a big, serious group of 40-50 people there, who are scattered throughout a number of smaller spots in the desert. They live in their small houses in the middle of the desert and farm for a living, growing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, figs, bananas, and so on.

It virtually never rains in the desert, you have a few drops once a year at the most. Therefore, what we have witnessed was a supernatural phenomenon. Even the people who were born in that area and have lived there for 40+ years have never seen anything like it. Let alone the fact that the rain was accompanied by thunder and lightning, which is entirely unnatural for the desert. We view this as a good omen.

Why the desert? It’s not the desert in the traditional sense. There were mountains there. Essentially, it’s empty land, but not sand.

Interestingly enough, there are huge reserves of water underground: from saltwater, like in the Dead Sea, to water with salt concentrations, like in a regular sea or ocean, to plain, so-called sweet water. Depending on where you drill the earth’s crust, you can produce a different type of water. And while there’s an ocean of water underneath, above ground is the desert.

This is why the locals grow special fruits and vegetables there. Depending on the concentration of salt in the water they use to irrigate their crops, they get a particular flavor. For instance, figs are very sweet by nature, but if you irrigate them with saltwater, they grow to be several times larger and several times sweeter because they need to as if fight the saltwater.

There is also a nature reserve where special horned animals are bred. Many international organizations fund the reserve because special genetic experiments are conducted there.

In short, it’s a very interesting place. In the desert you can truly isolate yourself from outside distractions. We’ve already gone there several times, and we liked it. But this time, obviously, the convention surpassed all expectations.

I think that the convention site and the timing were chosen well. We should all be happy with what we’ve attained. We felt ourselves as a single whole, and through that we can continue to develop within us the rudiments of viewing the world in an integrated way. And from there we can reveal the Creator, as per the law of equivalence of form.
[75493]
From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/26/12

Related Material:
Common Trophies From The Military Operation In The Desert
The Desire That Will Turn The Desert Green
Desert Flowing With Milk And Honey

Increase The Volume Of The Point In The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You have said that we have to look at the world through the prism of the group. In other words, anything that happens to us in the corporeal life has to remind us that we must return to the thought about our friends and the degree of unity between us. Have I understood correctly that everything that happens is just a reminder? Is this the prism of the group?

Answer: There is no reminder here. You exist in an enormous integral infinite world. The Creator did not create anything but the world of Infinity. Everything that exists in our understanding and sensations, besides for the world of Infinity, is a partial perception of the same world of Infinity.

We receive the great Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), the Light of correction, to the extent of our ability to pull ourselves towards the perception of the integral world. In other words, we have to try to be closer to it, try to sense it as a general, eternal, perfect Light, the way it actually is, and not the way we imagine it to be. We evoke the illumination from the upper degree upon us to the extent of our efforts, and thus we grow.

We have now reached a state when we are able to look at the world and begin to perceive it as a single whole, and perceive ourselves as those revealing it. This is necessary.

Why do we need a group? Our common Kli (desire) broke only in order for us to begin to put it together with our own efforts. These efforts evoke the Surrounding Light. On one hand, the Surrounding Light increases the sensation of our individuality, meaning our egoism grows (the left side, the left line). But on the other hand, the Light gives us the sensation of unity, the revelation of the quality of bestowal (the right side, the right line).

When we are not in the world of Infinity, but 125 degrees beneath it, by pulling ourselves towards it, by force, like on a high bar, to the extent of our aspiration, we attract upon ourselves the upper Light from that same world of Infinity. This Light increases both our egoism and the quality of bestowal—two opposite qualities.

This way you reveal the world of Infinity to be 620 times greater in its power than before. If before you were on the lowest, zero, level, then by attaining the 125th degree you increase yourself 620 times. You attain all the Lights of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida, you rise from Malchut through Zeir Anpin, Bina, and Hochma towards Keter, and thus arrive at the state of Infinity from our world.

All these sensations are not physical; they are inside of you. It is as if you were inflating a sensory organ inside of you, which initially is only a point, and this is why it is called the point in the heart, where you are unable to feel anything. You gradually inflate it by using two opposite lines: a line of reception and a line of bestowal, the desires to enjoy and the intentions to bestow.

You grow as you ascend these degrees to the extent of your intention to bestow and your desire. Thus, everything depends on our pressure, on your aspiration towards the next and always greater degree.
[75484]
From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/26/12

Related Material:
To Understand And To Feel
The Only Thing Missing In The World Of Infinity
Driven By Suffering, Curiosity, Or The Point In The Heart