Opinion (Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, Economist and Historian, Politician, member of the British House of Lords): “More equality would not only produce the contentment that flows from more security and better health, but also the satisfaction that flows from having more leisure, more time with family and friends, more respect from one’s fellows, and more lifestyle choices. Great inequality makes us hungrier for goods than we would otherwise be, by constantly reminding us that we have less than the next person. …

“The nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill had a more civilized view:

“’I confess I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think…that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind. …The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.’”

My Comment: A human being is a psychological system and determines his state only in comparison with his peers. Therefore, the future, how it is felt and perceived, depends on the “settings” of the system “individual-society” in in every human. This is realized in integral education and upbringing.
[91213]

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Opinion (Vince Cable, UK Secretary of State for Business): “Europe could be plunged into war if the euro collapses, Vince Cable warned… .

“’We tend to forget, until we were reminded last week of that Nobel Prize, the European project was constructed in order to rescue Europe from extreme nationalism and conflict. There is no automatic guarantee that won’t return.’ The Business Secretary described the euro as ‘very valuable’ and said the UK would ‘be heard very loudly if it does unravel.’

“He added: ‘My sense is that the Germans in particular realise how much is at stake. A series of sensible measures have been taken in recent months.

“‘I think deep down there is enough common sense and a sense of survival to prevent this getting out of control. If it does, I’m afraid the consequences for us will be awful.’”

My Comment: The problem is not in the euro and not even in Europe, but in the general program of human evolutionary development. Humanity must move to the next state, similarity to Nature, meaning unity and reasonable consumption. Unity, because in this we level our egoism and become like all parts of nature, interconnected with it. Reasonable consumption, because in this we are in equilibrium with the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

Through this change in ourselves, we go out of our egoism and begin to feel the next level of nature, the sphere of bestowal, besides the sphere of receiving in which we exist for the time being. So, the euro plays just a small role, pushing us towards the change.
[91127]

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Opinion (Jane Jones,  David Wong): ”If 80s movies taught us anything, it’s that at some point you’re going to run into a mysterious relic that lets you switch bodies with other people.

“Would you use it? But let’s say the artifact doesn’t let you choose, but will instead switch you randomly with one of the other six billion people on the planet. Virtually nobody will take that deal, for fear they’d switch with some poor villager in Nigeria.

“So what does that say about us? Well, according to experts, it says almost everything we think about what would make us happy is dead wrong. Let’s look at the five things we’re most wrong about…

“#5 Fame…

“This is brand new to humanity, for thousands of years, material goods and security dominated. Now, fame is at the top. Obviously part of the reason is the perception that anybody can get famous these days–reality TV and YouTube have proven that you can become a celebrity for doing not a…thing. But there’s another, less obvious factor. And it explains why so many famous people are miserable.

“So What’s the Problem

“Experts say where you find kids who desperately want to be famous, you find a history of neglect at home. Parents were either absent completely or, at best, emotionally distant…. It turns out the whole surge in aspirations for fame came right along with the explosion of single parents and ‘broken’ homes. Only half of today’s children live with their original two parents.

“You can see how this sad mechanism works in the attention-starved mind. The kid is programmed by biology to love a parent, but the parent doesn’t return the love. Fame lets them turn the tables on that arrangement. When you’re famous, millions love you, but you don’t even know their names. It’s purely one-sided. They wait for hours in the cold for your autograph, you barely glance at them on the way to your limo. You get to take their love and wipe your…with it, the same as your parents did to you.

“But it turns out that kind of massive, paper-thin adoration is a poor substitute. Famous people are four times as likely to commit suicide as the rest of us (…you’d think it’d be higher–everybody reading this has seen more than one of their favorite performers self-destruct).

“#4 Wealth…

“Hey, remember when we said earlier that most people wouldn’t do the body-switching thing for fear they’d wake up in Nigeria? Well according to surveys, Nigerians are happier with their lives than the people of any other country.

“The USA came in 16^th.

Hey, did we mention that the average Nigerian makes $300 a year? That’s less than a hundredth of what the average American makes. America being the country that hands out 120 million prescriptions for anit-depressants every year.

“China is turning into a great object lesson in this, as their economy explodes and incomes skyrocket, but levels of happiness and personal satisfaction are dropping at the same rapid rate.

“There’s a couple of reasons for it. First, your brain adjusts feelings of happiness downward after you’ve reached some goal or other. It regulates the good feelings, presumably so that you have motivation to reach the next goal instead of just lounging by the pool for the rest of your days. …

“#3. Beauty…

“Yes, being physically attractive has concrete advantages. Attractive people earn more, get better grades, have better jobs and find more successful partners than average or ugly people. Strangers are more likely to help them in a crisis. They have wider social circles.

“So What’s the Problem

“Remember, we’re talking about happiness here, not success. For one, attractive people have the same self-esteem problems the ugly people do. Like money, attractiveness is relative and if you’re hotter than your friends, at that stage you start comparing yourself to people in the media. You know, like the magazine covers we mentioned before, the ones that that have had the living…Photoshopped out of them. …

“#2.Genius

“We’re using the broader definition of the word “genius” here, meaning anyone with an extraordinary talent or skill. …

“Want to know what it’s like to live life as a genius? All you have to do is go hang around with the stupidest, most incompetent people you know. Cringe at their stupid jokes, feel the frustration as they fumble even the easiest tasks and fail to grasp the simplest concepts. Being a genius must be like that, only everyday. Everyone is an idiot compared to them. They’re living Idiocracy. …

“If you’re not the Einstein kind of genius, it doesn’t matter, any situation where you’re 10 levels above your coworkers is going to be daily frustration. If you’re a genius at spreading concrete, that feeling only occurs to you in the form of everyone else being sloppy and helpless. No wonder they wind up treating people like dirt.

“Not that you’d have time for friends anyway. Genius takes practice. Lots of it. …

“All of this is a great recipe for the stereotypical depressed, moody genius who dies alone and bitter.

“Wait, it Gets Worse…

“If your genius lies in some kind of creative field, then there’s a good chance you have actual mental illness to deal with. While only one percent of the population suffers from bipolar disorder, it is claimed that 50 percent of poets, 38 percent of musicians and 20 percent of painters have it. It’s just part of the package.

“Compare the number of great musical innovators who have died of suicide or drug overdose versus, say, the number of plumbers who have died the same way. It might be better to just stand in the poop all day.

“#1.Power…

“…power is what everything else on this list is about. Fame is about having power in the relationship with the fans. Beauty is about gaining power through others’ sexual desire and jealousy. Genius means society needs your skills more than you need its approval. Money . . . well, money and power are conjoined twins. …

“So What’s the Problem

“Maybe you’re eying the kind of job where you’ll be the boss, or maybe you want to go into law enforcement. Or maybe you’re just driven by that bitter, unspoken urge almost all of us feel at least once in our youth: ‘I’ll show them! I’ll show them all.’…

“It has nothing to do with the ‘culture of corruption in Washington DC’ the Libertarians are always talking about. You find it everywhere, from the…supervisor to the bitter gym coach. Small people driven to mindless, unethical behavior, drunk on just a few drops of…power. They often can’t make friends, their marriages end badly, they self destruct. The world is full of these miniature, sad Tony Montanas, destined for a proverbial bloody downfall.”

My Comment: Research shows that friendship, altruism, and community service bring happiness and satisfaction. Detachment from attempts to arrange personal, individual happiness and focus on others is what makes happiness possible.
[91030]

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Preparation to the Lesson

Rabash – The Social Writings “The  Agenda of the Assembly 2” 

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Kdoshim,” Item 34, Lesson 3

Shamati #3 “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment” (Starting with: “The Upper Light is made of two discernments”)

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Question: You always say that The Book of Zohar can sometimes be a cure and sometimes poison, what does that mean?

Answer: Kabbalists describe this dilemma by using the allegory of choosing between the elixir of life and the potion of death, or by bringing the example of the rooster and the bat. Everything depends on a person’s intention: Is it the urge for the goal that drives him? This doesn’t mean that by opening a Kabbalah book he necessarily has to focus himself on the true goal because otherwise he will receive the potion of death. It is impossible to demand such things. So the Creator gives a person the right intentions, just like a baby who is under the full supervision of a grown up.

Even if a person comes to study without any basic knowledge and thinks about anything he feels like, it isn’t actually he who thinks and who is operating. From Above he is provided with constant supervision and care. If you could see this from the side, you would see that a person is like a newborn baby, that he has nothing of his own. It is simply a system, a “body” that functions according to a plan. He is equipped with everything that he needs, absorbing and emitting what he has to and thus grows. At this point a person has no freewill and no discernments.

Gradually, however, he grows and begins to move independently. At first he doesn’t feel responsible for what is going on, but later he begins to consciously perceive something and to shout intentionally at something, etc. Gradually he begins to understand what is good and what is bad and under which circumstances he feels good or bad. Accordingly he is played with and shown what he does correctly and what he doesn’t.

There are those who hear better and there are those who hear less, it depends on your innate attributes and on your upbringing. Generally speaking, it is about a huge system called Shechina that takes care of every one and brings everyone to the end of correction.

So, I cannot tell you when a Kabbalah book gives life and when it brings death. First a person is taught all this and after several years he understands that only in a group can he fulfill himself and move on from a corporeal connection with the friends to an internal, spiritual connection.

And then it his choice to reach for the opening of the spiritual network between the friends. It may be concealed from them, but he wants to reveal it. This means that he is attracted to life since this network is totally filled with bestowal.
[91015]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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Question: What should I do when I try to hold on to the intention and then the opposite happens and something draws me to the side?

Answer: This is wonderful. The moment you try to hold on to an intention, it evades you or is extinguished by something so that you will hold on to it more strongly. Then by different interruptions, you will be able to differentiate the corrections that you make by carrying on. The Creator shows them to you.

Today it is as if everything is blurred by different problems, but in fact it isn’t so, it is always a kind of help, and it guides you more accurately towards the goal. You aim at it, and suddenly it seems blurry, so that you will “aim” more sensitively and more accurately. And that’s how it is all the time.

Eventually you will be able to recognize the state of the next level from your current state. By the revelation of the ten Sefirot you see reality from end to end and then you are allowed to ascend higher.
[91009]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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Sometimes a person is in such a state that he doesn’t want anything. Nothing attracts him: not unity with the friends, not understanding the Kabbalistic texts, no feeling, and no connection to someone important. He doesn’t think about the inner goals that should be fulfilled during the day in the group and at work. It is as if he is “dead.” It isn’t that he feels that he is “dead,” but that he doesn’t feel himself at all, he is asleep.

What can a person ask for in such a case? He can ask for two things:

• To be a little closer to the group, so that the “currents” that flow through the friends will flow through him too, and will thus shake him and wake him up.
• A basic desire to place himself under the Light so that it will impress him and revive him.

If he has no clear demand that comes from his deficiencies or his impressions, he needs these two factors: One of them operates from the side of the vessel and the other is operated from the side of the Light.

First I want to belong to the friends so that everything that flows through them will flow through me. The main thing here is to be involved in “spiritual matters.” I come, sit down, and listen to what is going on; I just listen on the spiritual level, by opening all my spiritual “openings” to the currents that flow in the group.

Second, I allow the Light to operate on me, to go through me by filling me and by bringing me back to life
[91018]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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Everything is arranged such that the upper force, the good and the benevolent, is Above in the hands of the Creator. In order to reach this force and to identify with it, a person has to be adapted to it, to adhere to it, and to just discover a desire for that. His corrections and his ascent totally depend on the upper force.

It turns out that there is a negative force below and a positive force above, and a person is in between so that he will be able to determine by himself whether he wants to join the force of receiving or the force of bestowal.

When he sets himself apart from these two forces and begins to determine his state, it means that he is connected to the “human” point in him. All our work is to clarify what the states we constantly fall into mean. The upper force determines all these feelings within our ego, our desires, and our attributes so that we will see how opposite we are from the upper nature that we want to resemble and attain.

Accordingly, we will be able to determine what to ask for. In fact, nothing is required of us but the request, and it is the sum of all our exertion.

Therefore it says: “I have labored and found!” I exert myself in order to check and to clarify my current attributes, which I received as a preparation from Above as a result of the shattering. I have to compare these attributes to the Creator’s attributes, but how do I know who the Creator is?

I have to yearn for bestowal in the group and constantly feel the greatness of the goal. When an opposite force is revealed in me, I will be able to compare the two forces. I don’t compare myself with others, but constantly raise the right line and then the left line is evoked in me. Between these two lines I clarify my deficiency by yearning to resemble the right line together with my left line.

Thus I perform the “holy work” in my correction and do everything in my power to finally discover how opposite I am from holiness and purity. This brings me to a prayer.

Everything is first attained only by the power of prayer, which is the end result of all our efforts. If I discover the right deficiency inside me, I am rewarded with bestowal by the Light, with correction and then with a filling, which means with adhesion to the Creator.

A person attains the implementation of the work in this very special way: From the absolute opposite from the Creator, he adheres to the Creator. We should understand that there is no higher state in our work than the feeling of deficiency, a prayer, if this deficiency is real. This is how the sum, the conclusion, of all our exertion is revealed.
[91011]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12

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In the News (from Rabobank): “Skyrocketing agricultural commodity prices are causing the world to re-enter a period of “agflation”, with food prices forecast to reach record highs in 2013 and to continue to rise well into Q3 2013. Unlike the staple grain shortage of 2008, this year’s scarcity will affect feed intensive crops with serious repercussions for the animal protein and dairy industries. …

“Rabobank estimates that the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Food Price Index will rise by 15% by the end of June 2013. In order for demand rationing to take place, in turn encouraging a supply response, prices will need to stay high. As such Rabobank expects prices – particularly for grains and oilseeds – to remain at elevated levels for at least the next 12 months.”

“While the impact of higher food prices should be reduced by favorable macroeconomic fundamentals (low growth, lower oil prices, weak consumer confidence, and a depreciated U.S. dollar), interventionist government policies could exacerbate the issue. Stockpiling and export bans are a distinct possibility in 2012/13, as governments seek to protect domestic consumers from increasing food prices. Increased government intervention will likely encourage further increases in world commodity and food prices.

“Rabobank expects that localized efforts to increase stockpiles will prove counterproductive at the global level, with those countries least able to pay higher prices likely to see greater moves in domestic food price inflation. This is a vicious circle, with governments committing to domestic stockpiling and other interventionist measures earlier than usual—recognizing the risk of being left out as exportable stocks decline further.

“On top of that, Rabobank warns that global food stocks have not been replenished since 2008, leaving the market without any buffer to adverse growing conditions. Efforts by governments to rebuild stocks are likely to add to food prices and take supplies off the market at a time when they are most needed.”

My Comment: If we distribute food equally among all the population, it will be enough for everybody. The problem is not in the quantity of food, but in its distribution, that is, in human relations. So, we are not facing a food crisis, but a crisis of distribution.

Incidentally, the word “crisis” means “opportunity” in Chinese; if we use it properly, we all have enough.
[91131]

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