Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.08.13

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-02-08_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’8.2.13′]

Equal And Different

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Hence, those with attainment can compose books and put their attainments to writing in intimations and allegories. They will be understood by all who have been rewarded with the degrees that the books describe, and they will have common attainment with them. But those who have not been rewarded with the full measure of the degree as the authors will not be able to understand their intimations. It is even more so with those who have not been rewarded with any attainment; they will not understand a thing about them, as they have no common attainments.

If a person attains something, then according to his understanding he can imagine and clarify, at least a little, what Kabbalists on other levels feel. But of course, a person who has not been through the levels that the books speak about cannot understand what they are like. Of course, if a person is only in this world and has not acquired any spiritual attainment on any level, he will certainly not be able to imagine correctly anything that is said in Kabbalah books.

Question: Can we say that two people who are in the same spiritual world attain the same level of annulment?

Answer: But each one does only in his own way and according to his specific measure.

Question: So in what way is their annulment equal and in what way are they different?

Answer: Suppose I started studying in a university together with my clever talented friend; he is clever and I am not so clever, and so we are each required to make different efforts. He, along with his study, manages to have fun and to look for work; everything is easy for him, while poor me, I have to sweat over my books from morning to night and don’t see the light of day. Eventually we both graduate: He has a diploma and I have a diploma. This is what usually happens in our world.

But in spirituality it’s different; the whole point is the efforts a person makes. I feel the level that I acquire to the full depth of NRNHY, while he attains the minimal level of Nefesh. Therefore it says, “The reward is according to one’s sorrow.” The sorrow in this case is a person’s exertion. This is the way the opposite value between Lights and vessels is arranged.

Question: So what does it mean to be in the same world with someone?

Answer: We are on the same level, but the depth, the recognition, the understanding, the reasons, and the outcomes are different for each of us. On every level there are the Lights of NRNHY, the Sefirot KHB-ZON, the levels of the still nature, the vegetative, the animate and the speaking. A cat lives in our world just like us, but what does it understand compared to us? It’s the same in spirituality: What will a desire on the level of a “cat” understand and feel?

Question: If two people worry about one another and each one does his best, how can their effort be compatible?

Answer: Each one’s specific personal force doesn’t change, just like stem cells. It is rather the efforts and the exertion that change: to what extent each one has made efforts and is incorporated in everyone. If I am incorporated in everyone at my root point, at the end of correction I attain what you attain and we are totally adhered. But each of us can reach this adhesion from this root point.

Thus we differ in the initial “root” point in which there is no thickness (no “thickness” of the desire), but only the difference, the root, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha. We take everything else from the whole general vessel, eventually, we become equal in our attainment, in our understanding, in everything, but each one still sees it from his initial point. We remain different, the root disparity that comes from the Creator remains, and from it we begin to see and to discover His richness and variedness.

Question: The picture at the end of correction is clear, but what happens along the way?

Answer: All the friends are in the same world, but each one thinks and understands differently. Each one has his own abilities and skills: one is more talented in music or in painting, another writes books, and another makes movies, and still another only knows how to fix a flat tire. It’s the same in spirituality: At the end of correction there are no differences, but in the intermediate levels during the ascent, everyone attains the world in his own way, of course.
[99706]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
An Endless Road
Attainment That Leaves No Doubts
The General And The Particular Attainment

How To Set Priorities

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can a woman do if dissemination takes 5-6 hours a day and there is no time left for group work, in particular, to participate in workshops? How can we prioritize our time?

Answer: I think that one must necessarily devote a certain amount of time to their inner work. Although dissemination to the general public is very important because without it we will not advance, but if you do not pay attention to internal spiritual advancement, it’s not good.

You will fall behind in the material; you will not be with everyone as in one team, etc. We must still prioritize so that the inner work, meaning participation in women’s workshops, in general lessons and workshops, does not suffer because of external dissemination. You should tighten the schedule and not miss our general activities, especially workshops.

But without dissemination, it’s impossible as well, not because someone calls us to it, but rather because we reveal internally those gaps that will be filled with the upper Light. If we study without passing it to others, we remain just empty smart alecks because only mechanical knowledge will enter us, but not spiritual.
[99795]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

Related Material:
A Gift Of Fate
Coming Of Age
The Way Of The World Group

A Gift Of Fate

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we combine the work in unity and dissemination correctly?

Answer: Work in dissemination unites by itself. Precisely in the process of dissemination, many people are brought closer together, stay in the group, do not leave it, unite with each other, and find their closest friends.

I believe that dissemination is a huge gift that fate has given us because it was impossible to disseminate in the past, and you can do it now. In addition to Kabbalah, there is integral education, which is a great place where we can unite.
[99792]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

Related Material:
How To Set Priorities
Coming Of Age
The Way Of The World Group

Coming Of Age

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it typical in the formation of the group to have periods when the need for unity arises from lessons, workshops, conventions, or from participation in dissemination?

Answer: I know for myself that I was involved in one or another. All of a sudden I wanted to further explore the material, or to disseminate more, or to be engaged precisely in spiritual ascent, or in some “mundane” things like making the layout for books or preparing them for publication. A person always has these swings in different directions. We have to go through all of them. This is a natural period of our growing up, and then everything gradually comes into balance.
[99789]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

Related Material:
How To Set Priorities
A Gift Of Fate
Everything Is Attained By Connection

The EU Hasn’t Solved Problems

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Gary Cohn, President of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.): “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn said Europe still faces ‘fundamental problems’ and policy makers lack plans to foster economic growth in southern European nations. Spain’s recession deepened in the last quarter of 2012 and its economy is set to shrink a second year in 2013, undermining the government’s efforts to reorder public finances amid a 26 percent unemployment rate.”

My Comment: When will financiers finally stop dreaming of new growth? Already for many years, they have been producing just to buy, throw away, and buy again. They are ready to lend for this purpose and they live in a dreamland that all this will continue. Of course, the process of establishing new (necessary, rational) needs runs consistently and gradually, but it is strongly implemented around the world by Nature.
[99775]

Related Material:
Several Possible Scenarios For The Fate Of Europe
Only Full Integration Can Save Europe
“Eurozone Biggest Threat To Global Outlook, OECD Says”

A Reality Given In Sensation

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Michael Khazin, economist): “The feelings of the end of 2011 were optimistic. Everyone was confident that the crises would end in 2012. … But by the end of 2012, the situation began to change dramatically. The main example of that was the report of the U.S. intelligence community about the future of the world in 2030. The report itself is not crucial, what is important is that none of the reviewed scenarios considers the option of the U.S. dominance in that period. …

“It is not just an important event, it is in some ways a radical change in the conditions of human existence in the last 2000 years. … Since then, there was always a group of people who were ready to take responsibility for the entire humanity, offering universal “rules of the game.” Originally, they were built only on the basis of the Biblical values (Christian global projects and Islam), then, from the 16th century, there were also projects that began to limit the Biblical value system (the global capitalist project). …

“Today, we see that the elite of the “capitalist” project … is ready to hold back and give up on imposing the rules of conduct and social behavior.

“But people in all the countries and regions are not ready to write rules for themselves. This means that they will be established spontaneously and not always peacefully and safely. …

“Unless someone takes responsibility again by proposing common rules. But there will be a problem because in any case this “someone” will have to be strong enough to explain to the nervous opponents that some things should not be done. …

“I think that it was namely the refusal of the elite of the “capitalist” project to dominate globally that became the main result of the previous year. …. The crisis that we faced was not only economic; it has already reached the systemic level.”

My Comment: For those who study Kabbalah, it is clear that with the destruction of connection with the upper world 2000 years ago, religion (the religious project) prevailed in the world, which was replaced during the time of Ari (the 16th century, the beginning of correction of the world) with the economic project. All these are the stages of development of egoism that are manifested in the form of various “projects.”

In 1995, we actively entered the latest “project”—the correction of egoism, integral humanity, ascent to the upper stages of unity, bestowal, and love—unwillingly, through suffering, or knowingly, with joy. No one but Kabbalists wants and is able to lead us forward because we know the next states of humanity.
[99677]

Related Material:
Why No One Will Dominate The 21st Century
The End Of Capitalism
The Law Of Globalization In Action

How Can I Stop Thinking About Myself?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what vessel does a person discover spirituality?

Answer: In the Returning Light, which means in bestowal, when he worries about the other more than about himself, when the other is more important to him than he is.

Question: What does a person have to annul in order to acquire the spiritual vessel?

Answer: Thoughts about himself. How can I, who can only think about myself, switch to a state in which I will totally change myself for the good of others? Where can I get such a desire? Where can I find the powers to make such an effort?

Here the Light that Reforms helps me. It’s called the “miracle of the exodus from Egypt:” I take my feelings (heart) and mind out of the control of my desire, of the caring for myself and put them into the other. Of course, I can’t do this by myself. A prisoner can’t release himself from prison, and you can’t pull yourself by the hair out of a swamp. After all, the desire and worrying about myself are all that I have.

But the Light comes and takes this concern out of the desire and puts it into someone else. Then I begin to care about him like a mother worries about her baby. After all, the same thing happens with her, but on an egoistic level: It’s as if she is hypnotized in her concern for her baby, looking at him all the time and worrying about him. If we didn’t know about such processes in this world we might think that she had lost her mind.

This is also the work of the Light, but a mother is not required to ask to be able to love her baby, she is simply given this love from Above. In our case, however, it’s different. A person is given a choice, “Do you want to remain on the “animal” level? Go ahead. But if you want to rise to the spiritual level, then you need to activate this force.”

You need to constantly improve, become wiser, and, in short, you need to acquire the Creator’s mind in order to activate Him. This is the difference between the two levels—the fact that you activate Him. It’s about this that it says: “My sons have defeated me.”
[99703]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
The Powerful And Exalted Ideal Of Bestowal
Mutual Guarantee Is The Precondition For Our Spiritual Birth
Five Seconds Of Life A Day

When Bestowal Is Beyond My Powers

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a “prayer of an individual?”

Answer: A “prayer of an individual” is a person’s clarification. On the whole, one can pray a “prayer of an individual” or a “prayer of many.” A “prayer” is a deficiency that I discover in my heart. But I discover it intentionally by first clarifying the prayer, which is called “a prayer before a prayer.” On this preliminary level I make many corrections in order to reach the special inner deficiency that will be compatible with the amount of Light that is before me and which I want to acquire.

I acquire it; purchase it by paying with my exertion, my power, my deficiency, by my “appetite.” It’s as if I enter a bakery shop and “freeze” in front of a marvelous cake. But I am put on a scale, my deficiency is measured, and I am told:

– You have deficiency of only 150 grams and this cake is worth half a kilogram so you can’t buy it.

Then my taste buds are examined by a special sensor, and I am told:

– Your taste buds don’t work. You actually want fish and not a cake. The two can’t even be compared, come back another time when you have the right quantity and quality for a cake, and then you will receive it.

So I need a deficiency for bestowal. Where can I purchase this deficiency in our world in order to come to the Creator’s “store” with it and buy that “cake”? Where can I get the money to buy the ticket with which I can enter bestowal? This is already “a prayer before a prayer”; I constantly think about the deficiency in quantity and in quality that I must have, since otherwise I don’t have a real vessel.

If I understand this whole process, then there is a “prayer of an individual” and a “prayer of many” in it. But these are only names. In fact, I always pray by myself, I am always one, and there is nothing but me. But I want to attach and connect those who are seemingly external to me: all my desires and thoughts that were thrown outside by the ego and that seem to be scattered according to the corruption in my vessel. I want to work above this “thickness” of the desire, and thus I am drawn to “a prayer of many,” by wanting to see them as one whole unit…
[99700]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
Despair And Confidence: The Components Of A Prayer
Standing Before The Absolute
How Can An Egoist Pray For Bestowal?

The Point Of “No I”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I have to totally annul myself by remaining as one point while everything else comes from the Creator, where is the volume in which I feel my existence, my spiritual reality?

Answer: This is called the “spiritual world.” Think only about how to penetrate it. Your existence there begins after you cease to exist. When you cease to exist in your current form, you will appear there.

Now it seems unclear, but from this negative form you already begin to move towards the Light; you have the feeling that this place may actually exist and is real, but that it’s beyond the Machsom (barrier), beyond the border after which the “I” אוי(: aleph – nun- yod) becomes “no I” (אין: aleph – yod – nun).

This point of “no I” is in the new space that is felt by this negative form as a very solid, strong field, that fills it and that is essential. But with regard to the previous state, with regards to my egoistic “I,” it is called “no I” and this fills me with joy.

In our world joy is felt as a filling in the desire to receive, but in spirituality joy is felt as “in Him our heart shall rejoice.” I am very happy that you have such thoughts and that they make you suffer since you feel disoriented. Later you will feel the joy when you attain the goal. Now you have to be happy that you are on the way to it and that you have at least risen above your ego a little. The stronger the Light shines and the more the group strengthens you, the more you can rejoice that you have transcended yourself.
[99696]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The Joy Of Liberation
Coming Out Of The Fog
Moving To The Side Of Bestowal