Introductory Lecture “The Picnic Of Unity” – 04.10.12
Posted on April 22nd, 2012
Question: From what I understand, when we speak of fulfilling desires at the “human” degree, we’re talking about fulfilling the desire for connection with the Creator. Should I also be fulfilling a person’s corporeal desires, like his desire to watch football?
Answer: The fact is that all unfulfilled desires of our world, meaning suffering, are aimed only at revealing the Creator to a human being. And only if we continue toward this goal will these desires be fulfilled.
We see that the world is full of pleasures, opportunities—anything you can think of—and still people suffer. We see that despite the fact that there’s an abundance of resources in the world, half of humanity is hungry. We see that despite the great advances made by medicine, people are sicker today than they were in the past. We see that although people are given all the means to lead a normal life, they still get divorced and don’t want to raise children, suicide rates are rising, and so on and so forth.
Why is this happening?! What is the problem?!
So you let a person watch some football. Then what? It is better to teach him something that will actually allow him to come closer to the source of fulfillment because any fulfillments that I can give him, besides whatever is necessary for our physical body, will only divert him from the goal, causing him to suffer in the end.
There is nothing else. There is only one goal. And all of humanity must aspire to it.
If we fulfill our physical body on the animate level with all it needs for survival, all our remaining motives, all our remaining desires must be aimed only at achieving the goal. Otherwise, if I use them in some other direction and not toward the goal, I receive feedback that will trigger suffering in me, to make me correct my direction.
Therefore, if I give a person anything other than his bare necessities, something additional, like letting him watch football, my actions indirectly cause him to suffer. I’ll buy him a ticket to see a game, and he will definitely receive some blow from fate because he’s not moving in the right direction. This will happen all the time. That is why humanity’s suffering only increases as we develop further.
And we have no other means of doing good to a person other than to give him a normal, sensible standard of living: food, shelter, family, health, and everything else, but only in order to achieve the goal. Herein lies the program of creation.
And If I lead him away from this path, I am to blame for him failing to achieve this program of creation. And both of us will suffer for it. I cannot act in any other way.
That is why all my work in this world amounts to helping people to feed and take care of themselves only so that they understand how they can truly achieve happiness. All other paths only lead to misery because the Light’s influence will be opposite in order to guide the person to itself thereby.
[75893]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1
Related Material:
No To Unemployment Yes To The Real Work
Justifying The Credit Of Trust
Double The suffering Of Love
Question: During the workshop, the work was very intensive, but now I feel that I have lost the sensation that I acquired over the course of the workshop. So do I have to play this game my entire life?
Answer: You don’t have another choice. You play this game one way or the other!
You either play a game that the surrounding society presents to you, the society that doesn’t know itself what game it is playing. Or you play a real game offered to you by people who attained the upper layer of the universe. For you it is a game that tells you what you can attain. And so you choose. There is nothing else: You have two games to choose from.
One game is this life, and everybody plays it. They curse this game, not knowing by whose will they ended up here and when they will finish it, because they constantly lose in between.
Another game offers you an opportunity to attain a completely different level of nature, of the upper, spiritual matter, and do it in the course of your lifetime, even during its relatively short part. You only need to yearn for this revelation, to change your properties into bestowal and love: not to use others for your selfish interests, but to try to have a good, benevolent connection with them. That’s all. There is nothing else!
The theory is very simple. And practice depends on you. Choose which game to play. You either learn from people who want for you to do good and to create a world similar to the force of bestowal and love. Or you will learn from the examples of the surrounding world: mass media, TV, newspapers, and soap operas.
That’s the choice you have. The surrounding society shapes you anyway: either the group or the “street.” Only that! Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
[75890]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1
Related Material:
The Creator’s Game
Choosing To Be Born
Striving Towards The Force Of Ascent
Question: In the convention in the Arava desert you said that our work is very serious, but at the same time joyful. How do these two things go together?
Answer: The main thing in spiritual work is the greatness of the goal. Rabash wrote that inspiration, the greatness of the goal, the yearning for it, it all stems from the fact that we feel that we are on a special mission, have a special responsibility, a big goal before us, and have to naturally perceive all this with gratitude and with joy. If it weren’t for the joy, we would have no power to do anything.
Therefore, we must constantly feel inspiration, which will be cultivated naturally within us if we begin to appreciate the cause we gathered for. Together with inspiration, with the feeling of joy and the greatness, we need to feel some concern that we might not be able to do it. Without this opposite part we will take our current actions lightly, while it is actually a very serious matter.
All our other studies: the structure of the worlds, the souls, the Lights that enter the vessels, and other processes that take place there, they are all theoretical. The realization of this theory takes place in the group, and this is the practical part. Here we can see and feel to what extent this method is working internally, if we really take it seriously: on one hand, in great inspiration (it is like Keter), and on the other, in fear and some concern regarding the success of the mission (it relates to Malchut).
The greater the gap between these attributes in us, the gap between the concern and the great inspiration, the stronger and bigger our vessel, in which we perceive the revelation of the upper Light. The capacity of the vessel depends on the gap between the two attributes.
[75317]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2
Related Material:
Building Blocks Of The First Spiritual Degree
A Person Is Born In Joy
A Student’s Obligation Is To Be Happy!
Question: Why is the Creator concealed from me? What is He afraid of?
Answer: During the preparation period a person sometimes feels that the Creator is concealed from him, and sometimes he doesn’t feel anything. As a person advances he feels how much he needs the revelation of the Creator so that he will be able to bestow.
A person understands that without this revelation he will never be able to bestow. Only the revelation of the Creator in contrasts to my ego will provide me with the attribute of bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason.” Then I will be able to restrict myself, and will receive a Masach, (screen) and the Returning Light, and will be able to bestow, but it all depends on the level of the Creator’s revelation to me.
I am waiting for His revelation, not in order to receive pleasure from Him, but so that I will be able to work above my desire to receive. This is the state we should reach and we are almost there. We have to feel that the revelation of the Creator is essential, so that we will be able to attain bestowal and connect among us and bestow upon Him.
First different thoughts come up, searches and then feelings. It is the state of the “posterior,” which is a state of deficiency, of necessity. The “face” is already the filling, the revelation. But in spirituality the filling and the revelation symbolize the ability to bestow by which I am filled.
I am not filled in my vessels of receiving as I previously thought. New vessels are depicted in me and by them I feel a deficiency for connection, for bestowal, a yearning to see everyone and all of reality as one. By trying to actually implement this I suddenly understand that I can’t do that and that I want to do something else, but I don’t have the “hands” to do so.
I cannot perform an action of bestowal. It is like wanting to do something in this world but not having the tools to do it, and so I feel totally helpless and powerless, lacking the understanding and the resources to carry it out. I feel like a fish that has no fins that cannot do anything and cannot change anything.
I understand that I need a certain force, in order to discover all three discernments: right, left and the middle. Then I will discover how to work with the right and left lines in order to build the “head” between them, the mind. My fulfillment is when I will be able to fulfill this action of bestowal above myself. I have to imagine exactly how to put all the components together, in order to feel the importance of bestowal, who I bestow upon, what do I bestow, and by what do I bestow. This means that I clearly understand this action.
[75389]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/12, Writings of Rabash
Related Material:
When All Doubts Will Dissipate
The Protective Shield Of The Concealment
Being Grateful For The Concealment
There is no schedule or exact timeframe set for our development, understanding, persuasion, analysis, and self-correction so that from being egoists we will become altruists, permeated with love and concern for one another. Don’t wait for some time period or change of generations because changes can happen in our generation. Everything depends upon one’s readiness and the extent of his desire to change.
As we have learned from the studies of free will, our desire depends entirely on our environment. We have to work together. A person can’t work on himself by himself and convince himself of something; this never bring any positive results. We have to build an environment, a society, which will influence us, and then everyone will change. So go ahead and build this great environment for all of us! With the help of this environment we will become convinced of the necessity of this path and will quickly wish to change and become connected through mutual guarantee.
As a result, the environment will influence us with such intensity that changes will take on a flying speed. After all, these changes don’t depend on our timeframe.
The still, vegetative, and animal levels of nature evolved over billions of years. This is the process of the egoism’s development. We aren’t responsible for this process; we only actualize it more and more in accordance with our growth.
However, right now the intensity and the speed of development is in our hands. Everything depends upon the environment, and I can artificially build it, constantly improving it so that it will become greater and stronger in its influence over me. Here I need people of the arts, scientists, sociologists, and psychologists. I must use all that exists in humanity in order to create an intense and effective influence. Then we will experience a happy life in this generation and see the good that we’ll leave for our children.
If we separate human desires within this context, we can then say that they divide into two parts: individual desires that relate to a human being personally, and social desires. A person should limit his individual desires to the point that allows him or her to lead a normal life. However, a person should develop his social desires as much as possible, starting from a small circle of friends and then expand it, until the influence of the environment will help him develop to the level of good relations, responsibility, concern, mutual guarantee, and love for the entire world.
One has to understand that by exiting one’s egoism and by becoming more concerned with building mutual relationships with the widening circles of humanity, he obtains more wisdom and deeper sensations; he includes everyone within and thereby senses all of reality and all of nature. This way one opens for himself a new reality, world—he lives in it by exiting himself and sensing everyone. This constitutes life on the human level, which nature prepared for us. Through this we realize ourselves correctly here, in this world.
[75203]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 11, 01/09/12
Related Material:
A Holistic Approach
Invitations To Rise Are Everywhere
The Wonderful Metamorphosis Of A Notorious Egoist
Preparation to the Lesson
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Writings of Rabash “What Is the Blessing that He Made a Miracle for Me in this Place in the Work”
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Zohar for All – Passover “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” “The Passover Sacrifice,” Item 186
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 15, Item 37
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
Writings of Rabash “Dargot HaSulam.” Talk About the Preparations for the Conventions and About the Dissemination
| [media 9] | [media 10] |
Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
Opinion (Charles Kupchan, Professor of International Affairs, Georgetown University): “The distribution of global power is fast changing. That much is certain. China and other developing nations are quickly ascending the pecking order. Meanwhile, the three pillars of the Western world – the United States, Europe, and Japan – are beset by a prolonged economic downturn and disaffected electorates.
“The absence of consensus over which a country will oversee the coming world is just as it should be. That’s because the twenty-first century will not be dominated by any country. The United States will do just fine, but the era of Western primacy is coming to an end. Meanwhile, none of the world’s rising nations will have the combination of material and ideological strength needed to exercise global hegemony. Although ascending nations have forged a new grouping – the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) – to coordinate their policies and aggregate their muscle, they do not share a coherent vision of what comes next. They know what they do not want: the continuation of a world dominated by the West. But they are very unlikely to arrive at a common view of what they want instead. This century will not belong to the United States, China, India, Brazil, or anyone else; it will be no one’s world.”
My Comment: The world will change, not according to the rules of international relations, but in accordance with the change in people. It will “fall apart” in order to be “assembled” in a completely new world order that will be dominated by one force only: the force of mutual bestowal, guarantee, and love.
[75533]
Related Material:
Solution To The Crisis
Love Of Friends
The Fundamental Difference Of A New Life
Opinion (B. Dalinger, Professor, Member of the Russian Academy of Natural History):“Man’s mission is not to adapt to the environment, but to act, to create, to change the environment. … the purpose of education is not to transfer knowledge, abilities, and practical skills and to help students “master” concepts and socially important values, but to create conditions for developing the human aspect within man. Schools need to ensure that the picture of the world that the student acquires will be whole and meaningful.”
My Comment: The world is becoming more and more convinced that education is the only means for the correction of a human being and the world that he creates around him.
[75125]
Related Material:
Solving Problems That Have No Solution
The Cure For The World Is In Integral Education
Replacing Outdated Education
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
