I Manage Myself With The Help Of Two Reins

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person needs to see himself as a point that receives everything from the outside. The friends and the world in general, and even the inanimate, the vegetative and the animate, are all parts of my soul. All of this is one Malchut (kingdom), one Kli (desire/vessel), one man who stands across from the Creator.

Therefore, to the extent that I try to connect the enthusiasm and impressions that reach me now from the friends, not to cancel them, to that extent they become real, since I join the parts of my soul to myself. And then I acquire a new intellect and emotions as a result of the connection of the broken Kli.

It’s forbidden to extinguish any state. We need to rise above and examine it from a higher level; this is the correct approach. And therefore, it doesn’t matter how I feel during the workshop: good or bad, since in any case I must rise above everything, and clarify where the feelings come from and why, and then continue. We need to gather and accumulate the most positive and negative impressions in order to advance onward above them.

I must, in advance, agree to every state that comes, since my self – annulment will be built above all of these states. Everything that I go through is necessary in order to teach me to take control of all my states and above them to connect with the friends in spite of my rejection. The most important thing for me must be the connection that I will manage seemingly via two reins, and all my feelings and experiences will be in the background. The end of the act is in the initial thought. If a person behaves in this way, then he correctly uses all of his discernments.

It’s forbidden to allow your horse to run away, not to the left or right. There’s a goal in front of you and you need to constantly examine yourself according to it: if you deviate to the left, then you need to add from the right line, and if you deviate to the right, you need to add from the left line. Everything is determined only by the direction to the goal, and the goal is unity. We don’t see any other goal in spirituality other than the point of unity, Arvut (mutual guarantee).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Giving And Receiving

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what way is the giving of the Torah different from the receiving of the Torah with regard to the holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost)?

Answer: The Torah was given from Above, and the question is whether we receive it below. Therefore the holiday of Shavuot is called the “holiday of the giving of the Torah,” meaning that if you went through the early stages of the preparation, then you are given the opportunity and you are given the Torah which you should receive under certain conditions.

According to the way it’s described, we see that it isn’t enough just to reach Mt. Sinai; we also have to discover that it’s the mountain of hatred. This means that we return from the “right line” to the “left line.” Why do we need it after the escape from Egypt when I have already detached myself from the ego? But the Torah isn’t given just like that, I have to evoke the “Egypt” in me again, my evil inclination, while standing before this mountain and connect it with the Creator, with the Light that can correct me.

Then, by standing against the Light, I see the conditions that are revealed in my ego, I see what relations I have to establish between them, so that “the darkness will shine like Light,” so that the ego will resemble the Light by fully dressing in bestowal.

In order to do that a person undoubtedly needs many external forces of bestowal because I don’t have these forces and never will have them. So where can I find them? I am ready to connect with all the friends under conditions of mutual guarantee, and this enables me to connect with the general power of bestowal, meaning the upper Light, with the Creator. Thus the main condition is revealed: If we receive it, we will advance towards the Light, towards life, and if not, “here will be your burial place.” This is the condition of mutual guarantee; I annul myself only in order to connect.

If I accept this means, meaning mutual guarantee, the goal of creation, which is mutual correction of all the vessels of bestowal until adhesion into one whole according to the principle of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are One,” then I accept the method, the instruction, called the “Torah.” Then I enter the desert and start correcting myself. Each time new parts of Egypt, of the “left line,” are revealed to me; each time I find sins, mistakes, and evil inside me and correct them by rising to the level of Bina.

When I rise to this level after “forty years in the desert,” I will be worthy of working with the desire to receive in receiving in order to bestow. This is already the work in the Land of Israel, meaning in the desire that is aimed directly at the Creator (Yashar El). By fulfilling these corrections, I build the Temple, a special vessel into which I draw the Reforming Light and the Light of fulfillment. Thus I reach my Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction).

Then new vessels, which do not belong to Israel, are immediately evoked. Where do they come from? The point is that I didn’t take into account all the vessels because I selected and corrected only part of them in order to include Malchut in Bina, and not more than that. Now when the desires of Malchut itself are evoked, I see that my Temple is in the Land of Israel, meaning in Malchut that has joined Bina. But this isn’t enough. We have to reach the state in which the Land of Israel will spread all over the world, to bring Malchut back from the level of Bina to its place.

Thus the third Temple will be built from the desires of the whole world that will go through complete correction. Therefore it’s clear that all our history was only a preparation for the final correction, which we are fulfilling today.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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My Self Is Actually Not Mine

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says in the Torah: “I am thy Lord,” what does it actually mean?

Answer: It means that the Creator controls everything. If you consider any thoughts, or desires that you have or actions that you perform as your own, it is only because you are confused and have the illusion that it is you. Actually “you” don’t exist at all.

Question: So when do I become myself?

Answer: If I become equal to Him, then He and I “sound” in unison. My self actually doesn’t exist. My free will, my independence, is only to perform consciously and willingly what the Creator does with me.

I am merely a “zombie,” but I was given the chance to grow a “head,” a mechanism, an understanding, and a recognition so that I will understand where I am, who created me and who performs all these actions. I am given that so that I will agree or disagree with His actions, so that I will accept Him and feel Him as good, will identify with Him and will only want His full control. Then I will see that He withdraws and doesn’t want to control me because now I want to control myself exactly as He controlled me and no other way.

This means that I am in adhesion with Him. He makes room for me to the extent that I agree with Him. He created me, I am totally under His control, and He only wants to build this “head” from me, the understanding and the recognition, so that I will resemble Him, and be like Him.

With this goal I can join the game—I constantly agree or disagree with Him alternately, in order to understand Him through these changes and eventually to want only His control over me with my heart and soul.

In any case, we are never detached from the Creator—He is the first and He is the last, and there is none else besides Him. The only thing missing is our recognition of the force that controls us.

Question: But doesn’t a father want his son to be independent? Doesn’t he leave his hand leave him alone for a moment? Can’t we operate on our own even in bestowal?

Answer: If the Creator left us we would disappear from HaVaYaH, from existing. He creates the illusion of whether I agree or disagree with His actions in order to allow the growth of a “head” in addition to the “stomach.” First you worried about filling your desires, and now you are given doubts, and a space is opened from which He seems to be absent. Thus the Creator raises you in small portions of imaginary independence, while you may be satisfied or dissatisfied with His control.

And so, in contrast to religions, we arrive at a critical clarification and examination and eventually reach an agreement, and from that we reach adhesion when the Creator’s control over us is felt as undividedly good and absolute. This actually stems from the initial disagreement and my rejection of His actions. “As the benefit of the Light from the darkness”—I constantly try to clarify things, have doubts and resent the Creator, disagree with Him and curse Him, until I reach adhesion with Him.

This is why it says that “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” A person who develops by the wisdom of Kabbalah seems like an actual “offender,” since he goes through such doubts and serious questions, but without this he cannot reach adhesion.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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Shortage Of Time: Good Or Bad?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The human psyche is designed so that it allows a person to accurately estimate the time of speaking: If he is given three minutes, he will talk for three minutes; if he is given an hour, he will talk for an hour.

What time allotment is better: a little shortage of time or should it be sufficient for everyone to speak?

Answer: Certainly there should be a little lack of time, but it should be just a little. It is not good when people feel that they only just started talking.

Usually each question winds in a spiral: becoming deeper, and better, and more. Therefore, there is never enough time.

However, we have to understand that in general this is given to us only with a purpose to “kick off” the unity between us, but then all of it should be passed into the daily lesson. There we realize everything that we created, that we begot during the workshop.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.29.12

Writings of Rabash You Stand Today All of You” (To: “According to the above-said”)

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpts “Beresheet (Genesis),” “For He Did Shower Rain,” Item 422, Lesson 107

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 2, Item 1, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam “600,000 Souls,” Lesson 2

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 05.28.12

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

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls”: In reality nothing exists in the world besides one single soul, which is divided by man’s egoism into 600,000 parts and a multitude of spiritual sparks.

A unified soul was created, and nothing else. Only it exists, and we are always inside of it. And if it seems to us that this is not so, that is because we are flawed. To me the general vessel divides into my “self” and “others” instead of appearing to me as an integral whole where there is only “we”. And all of my work amounts to correcting my own perception.

Until now I was in a world whose parts seemed disconnected and void of interconnection. That is how I am built on the inside. That is how it was always comfortable for me to see the outer world, and I was on good terms with it. However, today the world on the outside is taking on different forms: it turns out that the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are tightly interconnected. True, this is not so important to me, yet ecology also matters since my ill-considered actions evoke unpleasant changes in natural phenomena.

But most important is that human society itself is becoming a single “mechanism” to me. Stated differently, the world today is being expressed as a single soul, a single vessel, while I do not wish to recognize that unity. I see that I involuntarily enter the world, that reality literally “pushes” me inside, although this is against my wishes. I want to remain an egoist, but the reality of the single soul is being revealed to me.

Thus, the picture of the broken world is only being depicted in the “curved mirror” of the flawed human consciousness. The faster we understand this and correct our perception, the faster we will achieve success.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/12, “600 souls”

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Growing Inward And Upward

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the elevator by which we rise to the center of the group?

Answer: I rise by absorbing the desires and aspirations of all the friends. I subdue myself and raise the others by seeing them as more important than me, and thanks to that, I receive power from them.

This power pushes me and enables me to adhere to the center of the group correctly. First, it helps me imagine this center, because I am always confused and keep losing this concept. I have to hold on to it like to a gun sight and constantly correct myself.

We started from this central point because we will deal with it all the time. We grow only on its basis, starting from this point and rising higher and higher. The growth doesn’t simply represent a physical height, but an increasingly growing concentration of the inner connection.

Therefore, in the future workshops, we have to clarify what a desire, a feeling, and an attainment are, how they are connected and to what extent, so that we can attain our root in them, the Creator.

This is practical work which we have to perform all our life and not only in the workshops. I am constantly in a workshop with myself: before the lesson, after the lesson, 24 hours a day, in order to connect “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.” I have to listen to the friends, not just when they say certain words, and hear what their hearts say. I receive all these impressions through the center of the group, through everyone.

The Creator treats us as a corrected system, but I can’t see it this way. Instead I judge it according to my deficiencies. If I correct my egoistic defect just a little, I will join the corrected concept of the group, as the Creator sees it. In order to do that there is no need to wait for the specific time of the workshop: Our whole life is a workshop called internal work, the work of the Creator!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, ”Talk About the Workshop”

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What Is Born In The Center Of The Group?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do we give birth to together in the common center of the group?

Answer: Every time in the center of the group, we give birth to the force of connection, unity, guarantee, bestowal, and love above our egoism, on its foundation, but rising above it. And so, we create the condition for the revelation of the upper Light, a place for the revelation of the Creator. It is called Shechina, because Shochen, the Creator, ascends the throne in it.

The center of the group, from the perspective of desires, is a sensation of the extent to which we want to connect all these desires together. Man sees that the whole world depends on him, and on the other hand, he sees the extent to which he depends on the whole world. It is a twofold feeling. One moment, I feel myself standing in front of a perfect system; the next moment, I see that the system is all broken because of lack of my participation in it.

We always reveal two polar opposite qualities. But by reconciling them by compensating with the upper Light, we reach the middle line. This middle line includes in itself a multitude of components; it is not necessarily a direct path but something in the middle between the right line and the left line. It is not simply their averaging-out but their compensation of each other to 100%. A 100% thief and a 100% altruist-philanthropist connect in the middle point and use both qualities in all their force, not by half.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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Connecting Through The Central Control

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does our collective reality exist, or does each one build his own individual reality?

Answer: Our collective reality exists similarly to the way we feel ourselves living in one world, but everyone feels it differently. We cannot even measure in what way our feeling of this world is different. In our superficiality, we cannot be included in each other’s desires, I can’t enter your desire and you can’t enter my desire. Each one has his elementary point, which determines the uniqueness of his personality, which he received from the Creator.

The Creator is our common denominator, the factor that unifies us. Only through Him can we connect. Therefore, the center of the group is the starting point of that place, which is called the Creator, or a desire in which He is revealed.

Only in this central point can we understand one another, and at the same time, we discover that we will never be able to feel what is actually happening in the desire of the friend and what he feels. We connect with each other only through the Creator, and even then it is unconsciously!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, ”Talk About the Workshop”

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