Audio Version Of The Blog – 05.31.12

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-05-31_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’31.5.12′]

Dividing The Spiritual Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam: “The Arvut, (Mutual Guarantee)”: And once the whole nation unanimously agreed and said, “We shall do and we shall hear,” each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before.

We are demanded to correct the general vessel, the desires that now feel that they are detached, foreign, and even opposite to one another. Before, the Light advanced them to connection and to unity, but now, because of the shattering, it separates them, leads them to oppositeness, to quarrels, violence, etc. We need the Light to come and to correct and connect these desires.

We don’t know how to correct them, how to put the parts of the broken vessel together, because we don’t know in advance what the vessel should be like and any assumption we make is only a guess. So what should we do? The point is that we don’t correct anything by ourselves. We ask, demand, and evoke the upper One so that He will perform the correction.

There is no way a person can correct himself. Each time we rise to a higher level, but can a baby be smarter than his mother? So every ascent is accompanied by a request and the upper in response performs the necessary work on it and moves us to the next state.

There is a request on our part and the work on the part of the upper. This is why it is called “God’s work.” It is He who works, and my work is to request.

If we are constantly careful in dividing this work, we save a lot of energy and are not confused. We must make sure that we do that and do not forget about it. We as a rule want to operate on our own, while the actual action on our part is to prepare ourselves for His work, to exert ourselves, and then to discover our helplessness. Baal HaSulam says: “There isn’t a happier state in a person’s work than when he is despaired of his own powers.” A person should understand that only the Creator, the upper Force, can correct him, and that’s the way it is all the time.

It isn’t by chance that our mission seems so difficult: to become “as one man in one heart,” to unite completely; how is that possible? These are illusions that can only lead to crisis and disappointment, to an even greater collapse than the one we’ve seen in the USSR for example. It is really so if we use the wrong means, the wrong program. But the method of Kabbalah provides us with a natural plan that is led by nature itself: Your life doesn’t have to be bad, you only need to discover, to identify that you are in a bad state. This is enough so that you will demand a change and you will receive the next state.

Thus our work is simple. If we all gather and work according to the law of mutual guarantee, the mission becomes much easier: We discover the evil and at the same time we discover the good, which means the source and the means for the changes. The tension between these two poles advances us to correction; we summon the Reforming Light and it performs the work. This arrangement repeats time after time.

The real life, the real ascent, will be revealed in the permanent closeness of people, in common circles, in discussions, in impressions, in excitement, and in mutual help. Thus we will discover more deficiencies in us in comparison to the corrected state of the general unity; we will discover the effectiveness of the greatness of the state of mutual bestowal, and we will activate the upper Force that performs the whole work. It says: “He that makes peace in Heaven, will make peace on us.” This is the order of the actions.
[79343]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Asking The Light For Acceleration
One Prayer From One Heart
The Life Of Bestowal: Easy And Beautiful

Completing The Puzzle: What Is The Original Message?

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33: So is the matter before us: All these images and changes begin and end only with the impression of the souls. Yet, by the will of God, they appear as though they are in him himself. He does that to enhance and expand the attainment of the souls to the utmost, in accordance with the Thought of Creation, to delight His creatures.”

The gap between me and the desired picture, which I imagine, should be filled with knowledge. We must make efforts to understand and clarify and thus expand our vessels.

Eventually we attain a reality that is 620 times greater than the initial reality, and this addition comes from the head of the Partzuf. The desire that was created by the Creator stays the same, but it receives an additional understanding and recognition, and by that it grows qualitatively. Thus I attain not what I have received from the Creator but the Creator Himself.

Question: If I fill this gap with knowledge, what is the role of the feeling?

Answer: The Creator wants only one thing from us, that we will build a mind above the feeling so that we will understand, attain, and reveal Him. By that our vessels of feeling expand as well, because the mind operates on feeling; if I know whom I receive pleasure from, then it is 620 times greater.

Before I was offered a candy, but I didn’t want to taste it. Suddenly I discover that someone I respect gave it to me and so the candy immediately tastes differently.

It all depends on our evaluation. Suppose you were served fine, vintage wine from special reserves, and you are also told about its history, of course you will pour it and enjoy every sip. But what if suddenly it will turned out to be a mistake and that the wine was actually from a barrel that was intended for an ordinary supermarket?

Our tastes and preferences depend on our values, it all depends on our evaluation. If I value something, I feel its taste. Then according to this taste, I evaluate other things. However, without any initial evaluation, I am like a computer without software, just a piece of metal. Of course there are genetic discernments of tastes, but the filling of my desire is what determines the set of values.

Therefore, the addition of 620 times provides me with a mental evaluation, recognition, of the one who brings me the pleasure.

Question: How should I establish the right evaluation if I see before me a picture that is totally opposite from the right order of priorities?

Answer: This picture was given to you on purpose so that you would correct it. I have to see the importance of the one who sent me this corrupt form that allows me to be corrected. Without the broken puzzle I wouldn’t put the separated parts together and wouldn’t acquire the mind of the artist through this process.

I exert myself in order to put the pieces together and eventually, by completing the original picture, I discover its message: “I love you.” What is more, now I know who is saying this to me and what His words mean.
[79259]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/12, Baal HaSulam “600,000 Souls”

Related Material:
Not In Quantity, But In Intensity
The Taste Enhancer
The Void Where The Supreme Thought Dwells

To Fill The Heart With Love

If in spite of everything, we drop all the contrived classes and will think only about how to connect hearts (desires) in one heart (desire) of love so that it covers all the seeming deficiencies under the condition “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” then we will reveal a unified system of nature and its force of love, which will fill our common desire (heart).
[79242]
From Baal HaSulam, Pri Hacham (Fruit of the Wise), Letter 47, 1927

Related Material:
Love Your Neighbor As Yourself
Love Of Friends (3)
Love Of Friends (2)

Life Itself Promotes The Integral Process

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What percentage of a city’s population needs to be involved in the integral process in order to tip the situation? After all, there should be some critical mass? It is impossible to include 100% of the population, isn’t it?

Answer: It is not necessary to include 100% of a city’s population in the integral process. It is sufficient for about 40% of the society to embrace this idea in order for it to become prevalent in the general mass.

Since the integral method is favorable, it will start penetrating the masses through all the other layers of society like kids or senior citizens. Besides, there will be serious supporting public structures. I hope that even the first few weeks of building a healthier society will show its effect on all municipal and other services that support the city: Life itself will be promoting this.
[79323]
From KabTV’s “Experimental City: Upbringing” 3/3/12

Related Material:
From Great To Small
A Real Transition
Lessons About A New World: 80% At The School Desk

The Ruse In The Quality Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should the situation change, qualitatively and quantitatively after the introduction of integral education and upbringing?

Answer: For example, we can compare the statistics of a city where an integral experiment is being conducted, a city like Detroit, where violence, murder, and suicide are prevalent and the most active part of population is leaving the city. If things are left to take a natural course of development, like in Detroit, the city will become a ghost town.

But a town with integral learning is beginning to prosper, because residents together build parks and attractions, and find ways to attract tourists, etc. All of this is possible.

If we were to compare the data from the two cities, it is like heaven and earth. If once Detroit was a prospering city, now it is impossible to step outside. The homes, that once cost a million dollars to build, now go for no more than five to ten thousand dollars! But no one wants to buy them; it is impossible to live in these houses because you do not feel safe at home. No one goes there. It is impossible to convey what a city turns into in a case like this.

But a city where an integral process is taking place will attract everyone, since its population is becoming richer by creating a completely new atmosphere. For this reason, apartments in a city, a place where this is happening, will rise in value.
[79317]
From KabTV’s “Experimental City: Upbringing” 3/3/12

Related Material:
Life Itself Promotes The Integral Process
Want To Become An Educator- Teach Me How
Do Catastrophes Unify?

Magazine “Raum & Zeit” About Kabbalah

One of the oldest and most important periodicals in Germany, the magazine Raum & Zeit (Space & Time) published a long article about Kabbalah on the topic “Human Development.”

[79253]

“Occupy Protest Draws 20,000 in Frankfurt”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “At least 20,000 people held a major rally of the local Occupy movement in Frankfurt on Saturday to decry austerity measures affecting much of Europe, the dominance of banks, and what they call untamed capitalism. …

“Last year, thousands in Germany took to the streets in rallies during the world-wide Occupy movement. But as Germany’s economy is robust and unemployment at a record low, those protests mostly have fizzled out.

“But Europe’s lingering debt crisis has given new fuel to some demonstrations.

“Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, suffers none of the austerity measures now heavily affecting southern European nations, such as Greece, Portugal and Spain. But Germany has championed sometimes-harsh spending cuts across Europe to get budget deficits under control.”

My Comment: After all, saving is against the modern economy of a consumer society, which rests only on growth and expansion, rather than reasonable consumption. As society has become, like the world, globally interconnected, Germany will get a boomerang reaction from all the EU countries. There comes a  time when the strong one is not strong on his own, but strong in its connection with others in a united system. The world turns from individual, egoistic, and discrete into round, integral, altruistic, and analog.
[79162]

Related Material:
Europe: The New Economic Reality
2012: A Decisive Year For Europe
Either Integration Or Defeat

“100 Million Americans Without Jobs”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Crossing Wall Street): “The national unemployment rate gets lots of attention, and lately more attention has been paid to the workforce participation rate since more Americans have given up looking for a job. … According to the April jobs report, the number of jobless American stood at 100.9 million. … The numbers are staggering.”

My Comment: Their number will only rise until the economy is reduced to a reasonable size. Only the introduction of integral upbringing will ensure that everyone finds his place in the world in a correct harmonious combination, to live not to work, but to live in order to reveal a higher existence, a higher dimension, in an increasing unity.
[79079]

Related Material:
The Unemployed Must Work
Unemployment: The Threat Of Global Scale
Jobless In The USA

A Shadow Over The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanA ladder, which divides the worlds into levels and the Light into portions, descends from Above, from the whole state, all the way to our world, until the total concealment. The concealments were created so that we will grow and fill them with our recognition, our work, with our exertion and efforts.

Instead of working with the vessels of receiving, we should begin to work with the vessels of bestowal, which means with the desire to receive in the intention of in order to bestow and not with the intention of in order to receive. Thanks to that, a person acquires freedom and independence, knowledge and the feeling that he’s in the Creator’s world, in the upper world.

In order to bring a person to this state, he’s shown concealments from a certain point in his development, which is happening in our times. For selected individuals this already happened in previous centuries, but today the whole world feels the concealment, a kind of obscurity, confusion, helplessness, and disorientation. There’s a feeling that we can no longer advance with the old attributes and forces to calculate our exertion and our desires to make plans and achieve results.

There is nothing to yearn for since the world is covered by a shadow. But this shadow is the same concealment, which we have to balance and to fill with our exertion. We know that this concealment was given to us on purpose, not in order to divert us from the good goal, but on the contrary, in order to bring us to the good but consciously, by understanding and feeling it as grown-ups.

Accordingly we have to determine the right way to advance, by clarifying what is required from us and how to organize all the means we have and our vessel, so that they will raise us above the concealment. We don’t annul the concealment, but we rise above it.

Everything depends upon how a person accepts these states. It says: “and each man shall help his friend,” the group has to give each one the powers as well as to constantly remind him that “there is none else besides Him,” and that we must ascend the levels of bestowal in “faith above reason.”

Then all the concealments will turn into a shade of Holiness by which we acquire vessels of bestowal, which are called “holy.” If we forget that, both we and the group, it’s a serious problem because we no longer exert ourselves in order to rise above the concealment; we are not thankful for the concealment and don’t accept it as something that’s desirable, as a springboard to ascent. Instead, we are angry about the concealment and ask for it and all the unpleasantness in life to be removed.

The concealment can be very strong, but a person should remember that there is none else besides Him. A person is only required to determine his relationship with the group correctly in order to raise a request and to draw the Reforming Light, and then he will attain adhesion above the concealment. This is how he will advance.

Otherwise it will turn into a shade of the Sitra Achra, of the egoistic forces, which will lead to a greater fall, which won’t allow him to fulfill himself correctly. No matter what happens, he should rise again and start everything anew. The main thing is to determine a framework for himself: a schedule for studying and for working in the group, which will remind him in every state that his obligation is to differentiate between the shade of Holiness and the shade of the Sitra Achra.
[79182]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/12, Shamati #8

Related Material:
Until The Shadow Clears Away
Checking The Connection With The Group
“Until The Day Withers And Shadows Will Flee…”