Audio Version Of The Blog – 06.18.12

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The Creator Is Concealed In The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is written, “There is no coercion in spirituality,” which means that progress happens only through our free choice. And we have a choice only in this regard and in nothing else. Therefore, we shouldn’t relate things to free choice that we are completely not free in.

Freedom was given to us only in uniting with the group or humanity, with the whole world, with parts of my own soul, which only in my imagination appear external and alien, hateful, and distant spiritually and physically. And actions through which I try to bring them closer to myself is where I have been given freedom of choice. That’s because essentially, this is the only thing I have to do. There is nothing besides correcting the vessel of my own soul, whose parts I must all bring closer so as to perceive them as my own.

I have to feel the whole world, everything that seems to be on the outside, as my closest parts, even closer than my own body. After all, the body is merely an animal that lives and dies. But the parts that I now feel outside of me are the still, vegetative, animate and human degrees of my soul.

The entire world surrounding me now are four levels of the vessel of my soul, and therefore I see them outside for now. My body is a product of my imagination. It only seems to me that I exist in it. Therefore, while I am in this imaginary body, I have to try to bring all parts of my soul on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th degrees closer to me. I have to relate to them lovingly since this is all I have, my entire treasure.

As for this body, it is an illusion; it lives and dies in my imagination. It does not belong to the spiritual world. Everyone I now see around me – they are my spirituality. If I bring them closer to myself, then these corrected desires and my corrected attitude to them turns into my spiritual body. In them I reveal the Creator.

That is why it is written, “The Creator is concealed in the world.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati

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The Crisis Of Incompatibility

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should be the optimal result of our mass dissemination?

Answer: We are speaking about a process: The general population has to realize that they are in crisis, and that the essence of this crisis does not lie in the economy, the financial industry, the family, education, religion, science, or other problems. The crisis is developing within a person and is intended to bring him into balance with a new system that is now revealed in the world. The gap is between me, the egoist who looks at everything from a personal, individual position, and the world, the parts enclosed in greater interconnections. I don’t match the world, nature, and that is why today I am a foreign force inside it. The crisis is the revelation of this incompatibility.

Accordingly, the correction is to become compatible, in other words, to become equivalent to the properties of nature. How can I do this? Nature will not change, the bad phenomena manifested in all the spheres of life will not disappear; on the contrary, they will become stronger, more destructive, and painful.

That is the problem that people must recognize. And then, they will ask themselves: “How can I change myself? What kind of people should we become? Who can give us a method of correction?”

In the end, we bring them to the fact that no changes are possible in the world without an integral upbringing. Only when a person gradually starts to correct himself, will he then change the existing systems. He will transform the financial, economic, cultural, educational, and commercial systems, all this according to the changes within himself.

After all, a person has formed these systems himself on the basis of his egoistic attitude towards the world, and now slowly rising to globalism and interaction by becoming one integrated whole, he will change all that he has built accordingly.

At this point, he doesn’t understand how to realize these changes yet because he has not changed himself; he is not different from the old systems. However, they are already failing and no longer yield the same results as before. Here, we need to explain and prove to people that they cannot climb out of the crisis without internal changes. And then, they will take a course in integral upbringing.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Overview Of The Integral Education Course: The History Of The Evolution Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanSince our nature is the desire to receive and to be filled (to fill our corporeal desires for food, sex, and family; and our human desires for money, respect, control, and knowledge), our ego revealed in these desires was constantly developing and determining the advancement of humanity since ancient times until the middle of the 20th century. So, we have been constantly changing, and at the same time changing our society, developing technology, industry, and family and social arrangements, and so on.

Starting from the middle of the 20th century, the ego stopped its linear growth and started to grow round, which means to become egoistically global. And so, we discover that nature around us is opposite from us, that is, it is altruistically global (in bestowal). These two systems are now in a conflict.

Our role is to make sure that they will not be in a conflict and will not negate one another; otherwise, humanity will begin to destroy itself by summoning an undesirable negative influence from nature. It is important that humanity becomes more like nature and in harmony with it.

This means that the development of the ego has reached its end. For a long time, it has pushed us forward; we believed that it was the way to change the world and to do whatever we want with it, and now this has come to an end.

Now the world, nature, is turning against us, demanding that we change. So we have to switch from changing our environment to changing ourselves.

This is very difficult and it is impossible to agree to it, but we see that many people in the world have already reached this conclusion.

The integral education method is built to tell, explain, reassure, and convince people that it isn’t difficult to change one’s self under the influence of the environment and the society. If we operate this way, we will create a harmonious society and a life that will open new heights to us.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/22/12

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Slavery Is The Lack Of The Quality Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen time after time a man is rejected from unity and he is yearning for it again, he is going through a chain of situations that are called “exile.” He begins to feel more and more that this is exile. Exile from what?

Here there is a whole series of clarifications: exile from the good state, exile from understanding, and exile from what can fulfill my ego. But I begin to receive everything in spite of all this. It is not important to me what I should feel. Even if I will not feel anything, the main thing is that I will rise above this state so the exile for me will be the lack of the quality of bestowal is in me.

When I annul myself, I stop feeling my state. If I annul my “I” (my personality): I do not exist, only the Creator exists and I as if disappear in Him, then I do not feel myself. The only thing I want is to enter to the quality of bestowal, this love that fulfills everything around me. If I make such an effort, I begin to feel that I really work with Him in harmony. And this movement is already conscious and is expressed as the correct exile.

I begin to change my values. If before I felt the fulfillment, the understanding, the good feeling, and all the personal things were sublime, I no longer do now.

Now, the most important and primary thing for me is the yearning for the quality of bestowal. Even better, if I strive to it above imperfect situations because this gives me full confidence that it is not my ego that pushes me forward.

It weakens me, I feel bad, I feel out of place, but in spite of these situations, I am attracted to the quality of bestowal, to the Creator, to this field that fulfills everything that is around. By annulling myself, I become transparent toward this field and the upper Light passes through me.

And then suddenly it is revealed that the Creator accompanies me, as if saying to Moses, (to my point in the heart) “Come to Pharaoh.” It means, I begin to see when He awakens the ego in me He at the same time helps me to be connected to Him. Why? Because when he awakens my ego, He awakens great suffering. And I now, if I can be attracted to the quality of bestowal, it is not for the fulfillment because it is against my ego: so, he helps me to make my first restriction (Tzimtzum) and so I go forward all the while increasing my efforts in the direction of the quality of bestowal despite what I myself feel.

The main thing here is to annul ourselves and to be attracted to the quality of bestowal. In this case I’m already building above the vessel, the desire, a screen and Reflected light. This is the first spiritual stage.

After I direct myself, I exit to such a level that I rise above the “Pharaoh.” This state is what is called the “escape from Egypt.” I rose above my ego; certainly I don’t run away from it to any place, it exists in me, but under the “screen,” and I above it. This is the meaning of the “Exodus from Egypt” when I, in my feeling, am not in the slavery of my ego.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 4/1/12

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An Essential Method

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it a good idea to speak about the crisis right at the beginning of an introductory lecture about integral education, or is it better to focus on the positive?

Answer: In an introductory lecture we must talk about movement, about the evolution of humanity, about what nature has brought us to, and what challenges it presents to us. At the same time, we should bring facts as evidence by citing research and opinions of scientists, psychologists, political scientists, economists, and all those who deal with global mechanisms of humanity or nature.

Now, all of them have almost come to a consensus that we have entered a very interesting system that shows its global, full interaction, and absolute integrality in which every piece depends on the others and determines what will happen with others.

In this system everything operates in harmony, except for man: He violates the balance because he is opposite from nature. Man’s ego has developed to such a degree that suddenly a mismatch, contrast, and oppositeness is revealed between human society, including all the systems and the institutions we’ve created, and the general system of nature.

So there is no other choice. Because we feel this oppositeness as a crisis, we should look for the method of balancing ourselves with nature. Then we will feel comfortable.

This is the topic of the introductory lecture: why should we study the integral method, for what purpose.

Thus the integral course should be perceived as most important and urgent for humanity, since without reaching a state of balance with nature, the global situation will threaten our existence.

A person should be shown that he is dealing with something that is very important and essential. By studying the integral method, he acquires the necessary vessels to change himself and his society, which will help him with his family and children, at work, and in every interaction with others, in business, in his personal dealings, in everything. He will understand today’s world, which in the meantime we don’t understand at all and are terribly confused about. A person should feel all this so that he will feel how important an integral course is.

The course is rather easy, and it is given in the form of a discussion among the participants sitting in a circle. They exchange opinions and thus advance faster. This format of studying enables the participants to remember the material better than in a lecture format.

Because the integral education is becoming more and more popular in different parts and circles of society, it is clear that the more we attain it the easier it will for us to adapt ourselves to others, thus feeling more secure in every sense.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/22/12

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Escaping Consumer Society!

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economic): “Many, if not all, of the world’s most pressing macroeconomic problems relate to the massive overhang of all forms of debt. …

“Aside from wringing their hands, what should governments be doing? One extreme is the simplistic Keynesian remedy that assumes that government deficits don’t matter when the economy is in deep recession; indeed, the bigger the better. At the opposite extreme are the debt-ceiling absolutists who want governments to start balancing their budgets tomorrow (if not yesterday). …

“Of course, there is an appealing logic to saying that governments should have to balance their budgets just like the rest of us; unfortunately, it is not so simple. Governments typically have myriad ongoing expenditure commitments related to basic services such as national defense, infrastructure projects, education, and health care, not to mention to retirees. No government can just walk away from these responsibilities overnight. …

“Above all, voters and politicians must beware of seductively simple approaches to today’s debt problems.”

My Comment: There is a solution, but not in the plane of economy and finance, but in the change of the paradigm, the view of the world, society, and the goal of life. And the crisis will hit us until we become smarter and accept the future society of reasonable consumption, a society of “The Last Generation,” as necessary.
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Why Love The Other?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The call or, as you say, the commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” has been discussed many times, and many desired to implement it, until it turned into the appeal for children to be peaceful, rather than the real call for grown-ups to change their relationships. What’s the difference between your appeal and others, and why are you certain that you will be able to realize your fantasy?

Answer: When ordinary people, the 99%, talk about connection, they refer to the correction of human society, similar to how we advise children to be friends and not to argue. When Kabbalists, the 1%, talk about connection, for them this connection is the means for reaching a higher goal: the revelation and attainment of the Creator, the upper force of nature, and reaching the next level of development, the sensation of the upper world.
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Drachmageddon

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Times): “A win by the Radical Left Coalition, known by its acronym Syriza, would raise the prospect of a Greek exit from the euro — and secret talks between European finance officials this week are said to have examined possible limits on withdrawals from cash machines, reimposing checks on the country’s borders, and reinstituting capital controls.”

My Comment: But most importantly, all of it will not help, and the entire EU is to slide down. If we are talking about an interconnected system, it’s impossible to sacrifice one organ and hope that the rest will become healthier.
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The End Of The World As We Know It

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Dani Rodrik, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government): “Over the next few years, the world economy slumps into what future historians will call the Second Great Depression. Unemployment rises to record-high levels. Governments without fiscal resources are left with little option but to respond in ways that will only exacerbate problems for other countries: trade protection and competitive exchange-rate depreciation. As countries sink into economic autarky, repeated global economic summits yield few results beyond empty promises of cooperation.

“As in the Great Depression, the political consequences are more serious and hold longer-term significance. The eurozone’s collapse (and, for all practical purposes, that of the EU itself) forces a major realignment of European politics. …Centrist parties pay the price for their support of the European integration project, and are repudiated in the polls by parties of the extreme right or extreme left. Nativist governments begin to kick out immigrants.

“For nearby countries, Europe no longer shines as a beacon of democracy. The Arab Middle East takes a decisive turn towards authoritarian Islamic states. In Asia, economic strife between the US and China spills over into military conflict, with increasingly frequent naval clashes in the South China Sea threatening to erupt into a full-scale war.”

My Comment: To prevent the downfall of humanity, it’s necessary to tell the world, like a sick person, about its illness and to spread this knowledge widely, to everybody, so that society becomes aware of the peril it is in. Knowing about the illness and its possible consequences is the first step towards overcoming it. Then it’s necessary to explain the reason for the situation we find ourselves in, the reason for the crisis. Having analyzed it, it’s possible to understand how to treat it. This is how the integral upbringing course is built.

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