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European Convention In Germany – 03.24.13

European Convention Day Three, Lesson 6

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European Convention Day Three, Workshop 4

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Signals From The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We know that the difference between the path of suffering and the short path is that during the acceleration I am not only pushed from behind but am also pulled forward by myself…

Answer: That’s the main idea, to be pulled forward. A little push from behind is enough to wake you to take more work upon yourself. It says that the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate, which means that He directs a person. Then you do the work.

Question: But in order to be drawn forward I must first hold on to something. After all, I will not climb up in the air. What can I hold to up there above my head in order to be drawn upward?

Answer: It’s hard to say. Every person has an “angel” that guides him. It’s a special force, aimed at connection, at participating in the life of the general system. On the whole, a person advances not knowing where and why, by urges that he doesn’t understand.

These are not urges of the “steamroller of evolution” that come from behind, but rather “signals from the future,” that pull me somewhere, saying something, and on the whole creating different opportunities. Suddenly I see and hear something, come across someone, find a book…this is how my “angel” operates.

So in the meantime there is no clear cut answer to your question. Later you will see that these are all the forces of our evolution about which we study in The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Soon, we will approach them and will start speaking the language of this book…
[103331]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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You Cannot Command The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We want to change our intention. Does that mean that we change our thoughts?

Answer: You differentiate the thought from the desire, but in spirituality it’s the opposite, we connect the two. It’s because the thought is actually a result of the desire. The action stems from the desire and the intention that is dressed in the desire is called a thought. In this world the mind operates the feelings, the brain influences the heart, but they are separate. In spirituality a desire is the heart and an intention is the mind and they are mutually connected.

You Cannot Command The Heart
[103325]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Humanity Upon Whom the Entire Creation Depends

Dr. Michael LaitmanSlander is disorder, detachment of connection, and communication between humans on the speaking level, but what happens with a person is projected to all other forms of nature that are found below him. Therefore, the behavior of the entire collective system—including the upper worlds with all that is in them and our world with all of its levels below the speaking: the animate, vegetative, and still—depends only upon the only free choice that exists in all of reality. Everything depends upon the only free choice: the correct connection between the parts on that level that can be established according to the will of the creatures themselves.

This connection cannot be established through elementary particles or molecules, not through animals that are lower than us, and not through angels who are higher than us, which means not through higher forces. The connection is established only on our level, the human level; only this establishes the entire hierarchy of forces and forms. Only human beings have free choice, and the choice belongs and is related only to how to establish the correct relationships between them instead of the first, naturally-given relationship—natural hatred and egoistic rejection—rather, the corrected relationship called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In this way, we reach the perfected functioning of all parts of creation as one integral system.

The entire Torah speaks only about the correction of the relationships between humans since by means of this, the entire reality returns to the corrected state. Other than this, there is no need to correct anything.

First, humanity needs to develop to the level where it can understand that it is broken. Then, it begins to feel that there is no choice and that it is necessary to do something with itself in order to correct the lack of coordination between its separate parts. Otherwise, it simply will disappear from the face of the earth, and then the method of correction is discovered.

Now we are in such a time where human desire and its characteristics have been changed and developed throughout evolution to the degree that we already have begun to feel that we are not able to fix the world, that is, to build the right relationship between us, and, on the other hand, we simply must do this otherwise there will be no future for us. And therefore, the method of correction has been revealed to arrange the right connection between humans so that all of humanity will be found in accord with nature, in harmony.

In all of the vastness of nature, only humans have inserted a defect into the wondrous collective harmony and integral unity of all the parts where each supports the others and feels itself as a component of a complete analog system that works with complete mutuality. Today we have reached a development that finally we have begun to realize that we have no way out and that we must become aware of the system of correction. Otherwise, we will have no chance of continuing human history; our state is very dangerous.
[103171]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, Writings of Rabash

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The Program And The Programmer

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is a kind of “virtual printer” inside me that prints the picture of my world. In other words, there is a program inside me that operates me and draws the world for me. It actually does not exist. Everything is internal, in my feelings, but the program gives them an effect of something that is external.

Question: What happens if the friends decide to focus on thoughts about creating one reality and mutual connection?

Answer: The program also is shows me the group in which I work. It just seems to me that I am among other people and that we make decisions together. The inner attributes project certain images, shadows in different forms, but they actually do not exist.

In the same way, our collective decision and my inner resistance to it are all determined by the program. There is only one way to correct it: If I know about it and about the reality that is projected by it, and I want to unite everything into one, to connect. In that case, I rise to the level of the programmer and understand why he has arranged all that for me.

On the one hand, I get to know the program, and, on the other hand, I see which pictures it draws in my imagination. So, when I correct my imagination through using it, I crosscheck them and unite them into one. Thus, I go through different corruptions and corrections, and eventually I discover the mind of the programmer, the plan of creation. This is the desired effect of the process—to be incorporated in the purpose of creation.

Question: Does this mean that the programmer wants us to be constantly in two worlds, the imaginary one and the real one?

Answer: It is essential that we discover the goal of creation by ourselves. What for? So we treat it with respect.

After all, the ego pulls me downward, offers me sleep and distracts me. If I want to wake myself up, there is only one way to do that: to use this program, the environment, and everything that is related to it, but only if, at the same time, I respect the programmer. This is called bringing Him contentment in Kabbalah.

Question: So, how should I integrate these two systems?

Answer: You simply should be together with the friends. Now, they seem like strangers that are external to me. Later, I will feel that, despite this picture, they are inside me. They are mine, my beloved, mutually connected and incorporated in one. Then, in the connection between them, I will begin to reveal the source, the Creator. All this will be like one whole.
[103178]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Make A Decision Regarding Our Readiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we move into high gear before the convention in Europe?

Answer: We simply need to make a decision. The two weeks of one big convention in which we want to come out of Egypt and to receive the Torah at the gathering at Mount Sinai have started.

If we want to do that, we have to see ourselves as one family, as one man in one heart. It is a precondition, and if we yearn for it, we will receive the “Torah” from Above, the Light that Reforms.

It doesn’t mean that we are already corrected but that we begin the correction then. So this isn’t some great leap upwards, but only the first step along the way. I am not exaggerating the importance of our convention and am not speaking about something unrealistic. I am very serious, with a small effort based on our understanding of what we are headed towards, we will receive the “Torah,” which means the mechanism, the tool, by which we will be able to summon the Light that Reforms time after time.

It is like a regulator, a tap, which you open and get powers. The more you open it, the more powers you receive. So how can we open it? By connecting. The more we tighten our lines, the stronger will be the flow of the Light. We learn how to come together, to connect to one another, and what it’s like to unite, and each time, the upper Light influences us in different ways. Gradually, we begin to feel how the upper Light fills us, we accept its importance, its greatness, and the process already takes on a different form…

The main thing is to pass the current point of the shattering. In it we discover our readiness for connection, and in response to that we receive the Light. It is because the Light is only meant for connection. So the only thing we have to do is to unite into one mechanism, into a vessel for the Lights of NRNHY.

Question: What does it mean to “make a decision?”

Answer: We don’t think about anything else; we simply don’t think about anything else, think only about connection.
[103080]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Where Does The Culture Of Consumerism Come From?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Business Insider): “Americans weren’t always addicted to buying things. … People used to save money for things they actually needed.

“But in the age of plenty that followed World War I, corporations countered the threat of overproduction with a manipulative psychological strategy.

“We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture,” wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers. “People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

“This conspiracy, enabled by new sophistication in advertising and supported by the government, was shockingly effective….

“A new kind of advertising was key to this possible, and the pioneer in this field was Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who showed corporations how to make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass-produced goods to unconscious desires….

“Bernays shattered the taboo against women smoking by persuading a group of debutantes to light up at a parade — an event he leaked to the media ahead of time with the phrase ‘Torches Of Freedom’ — thereby linking smoking with challenging male authority.

“In 1927 an American journalist wrote: ‘A change has come over our democracy, it is called consumptionism. The American citizens first importance to his country is now no longer that of citizen, but that of consumer.’

“Elected in 1928, President Herbert Hoover was the first politician to embrace the central role of consumerism.”

My Comment: But time develops a desire in people, and they are no longer satisfied with shopping. There is a desire, but there is no fulfillment because desires became virtual, aimed at the meaning of life, the feeling of happiness. In addition, an understanding has come that fulfillment of the material desires kills the desire itself, and thus the feeling of enjoyment and happiness disappears because pleasure is felt only when the desire and fulfillment meet, and fulfillment reduces the feeling of happiness.

It turns out that happiness is unattainable if we fulfill the desire, and how is it possible to satisfy it so it is not satisfied, to always have desire and not receive?

There is a science of receiving—the science of Kabbalah (to receive in Hebrew), which teaches us how to achieve eternal and infinite happiness! It is possible if we break the link between desire and fulfillment, if I love someone by fulfilling him, I enjoy. That is why love (not for the body, but for a human being) is a means of achieving happiness. (See the Talk on the Economics of Happiness, 3/1/13)
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The “Aliens” Of Our World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In one of the weekly Torah portions, it speaks mainly about Mount Sinai and the commandments, but it is called by the name of the hero “Yitro – Jethro.” Why? It speaks about him only in the beginning and this is not the main thing in it.

Answer: This only seems that way. We don’t know what is important in the Torah and what is not. It reveals everything in a contingent form like this so that only a person who is occupied with the work in order to enter into the spiritual world begins to understand what is actually being said in this instruction book. Therefore, there are four levels of understanding of the Torah: simple, literary, allegorical, and truth.

Jethro is a great system of the spiritual world that essentially connects the characteristic of bestowal and the characteristic of reception, and, specifically owing to that, a person can begin to work with his egoistical desires in the right form.

The characteristic Israel is the characteristic of bestowal abstracted from our world and not connected to the ego. Therefore, they speak about the Jews almost as if they were aliens: They have something unique that makes them stand out from the general masses. There exists such a suspicious look at them from the side of the rest of the nations—and this is truly so.

We see this regarding the relationship of the Jews to the world in regard to life and not in regard to the superficial egoistical relationship that is found on the surface, but rather if we dig deeper into them. In spite of all this, there is some kind of different relationship, different knowledge, different characteristics, different behavior, and caution, not from fear, but rather from an understanding that the world is not so simple, which is to say, from a characteristic of a unique relationship seen in them in regard to the world, in regard to fate, in regard to history, and in regard to some kind of external system.

In our world, this is emanated into all kinds of ordinary characteristics, However, derived from this, in these people from the beginning, there was rooted a spiritual source, a spark that is called the point in the heart, and, therefore, they are dual, and not just egoistical, for, within their ego, the point in the heart is also found.

This point can become prominent and can drag the ego after it, and it also can be the opposite when the ego drags the point in the heart after it. People of the first type embodied that Israel, that nation, which existed 2000 years ago from the days of Babylon until the destruction of the Second Temple. They lived, then, specifically with this point in the heart; it led them forward. They corrected their ego according to the instruction of the Torah.

And, after that, came the exile, a state in which the point in the heart was found within the ego and obeyed it, and, so, the ego dragged it. However, thanks to this point in the heart, the ego profited. Therefore we see that the Jews in our world are more egoistic, more successful, more agile, and so forth, which is to say, they are immersed in the ego more than all the rest of the nations.

Those characteristics that were given to them for the needs of ascent were used in them to go deeper into the ego. They understood how it was possible to use the ego in order to fulfill it, but this was a necessary mixture of the characteristics of reception and bestowal, and Jethro is the system that helps to direct the ego in the right way for gradual work on itself with the help of the point in the heart.
[102928]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/11/13

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A Family In Which Everyone Is Loved

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur desires are divided into two:

      • “Animal” desires—related to food, sex, family
      • “Human” desires— related to money, respect, knowledge.

In every circumstance, both these and those are related to this world; there is nothing spiritual in them.

A Family In Which Everyone Is Loved

Regarding the lower group of this world, it’s possible to say that these are “personal” desires. And the upper are “social” desires. And above, all of us are one family. In any event, we strive for this.

Question: Which of the desires arouse gossip and slander in us?

Answer: In particular the desires for respect and control.

Question: And how do we contend with this in order to be one family?

Answer: In crude language: shut the mouth and the ears, to harden the heart. This is the work. Nobody demands from the other to be corrected, but it’s necessary to understand the need for correction and to want it, or at least to aspire to this desire. You see if the desire is ready, then from the point of view of the Light, there will not be any hindrance. And meanwhile I raise, as it is called, a “prayer before a prayer,” a want to want.

A Family In Which Everyone Is Loved

Question: How do my negative thoughts separate the family that we want to build?

Answer: This is the same thing as boring a hole in the side of the shared boat. You see, one hole is enough to sink everyone. Moreover, even if I don’t add my effort, my support, this is already harmful. We need to want with all our powers to be one family. In it there are no beautiful and ugly, wise and foolish, good and bad; the Creator gathers us, and we need only to love one another. All are beautiful, all are wise, all are good, all are loved.

Question: Our group is one Partzuf. Does a similar division of desires exist in it?

Answer: If we already become one Partzuf, then all of our particular desires are mixed together, are included in each other. Overall, we are working with a joint account. And within it everyone receives a different Partzuf, not as it was before. With this merit, those desires in each one are integrated in a new form. Thus we are combined in thoughts and receive an immense driving force towards advancement, negatively and positively alike.

Question: What are the minimal compulsory desires in a group?

Answer: I don’t have anywhere to acquire new spiritual desires from if I am not included within the group and I will not begin to receive a new “model” from the friends. I have no other possibilities. In general, according to the degree of advancement, we gradually build a Partzuf, which includes and covers everyone together.

Malchut of the world of Atzilut in itself is a point in which there is nothing, an empty place, into which we enter and join one another. Everyone strives to work for the sake of the others, and then we have a shared request for correction (MAN).

Suppose, that five people are gathered, each one has a part, a desire, ready to unite with the others. Malchut de Atzilut connects all of these parts, takes care of them, helps them to contract all the rest, and builds from them one shared desire that is not realized yet. That is what rises to receive the Masach (screen) that at the end of the matter, everyone receives. From this Masach everyone gets back what he invested.

Thus, everyone works according to one desire. According to that principle, interaction exists between the neurons in the brain, the cells of the body, the synapses, which build different integrations with every action, and so forth. There is one principle everywhere: to gain a common desire, to process it, and to prepare for the next step. Every state, every moment on this way, is not like the previous moment, and in the end we correct them all.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/17/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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