Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.12.13

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The Crisis Is Not Financial But Evolutionary

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Stratfor): “The global financial crisis of 2008 has slowly yielded to a global unemployment crisis. This unemployment crisis will, fairly quickly, give way to a political crisis. The crisis involves all three of the major pillars of the global system – Europe, China and the United States. The level of intensity differs, the political response differs and the relationship to the financial crisis differs. But there is a common element, which is that unemployment is increasingly replacing finance as the central problem of the financial system. …

“Consider the geography of unemployment. Only four countries in Europe are at or below 6 percent unemployment: the geographically contiguous countries of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The immediate periphery has much higher unemployment: Denmark at 7.4 percent, the United Kingdom at 7.7 percent, France at 10.6 percent and Poland at 10.6 percent. In the far periphery, Italy is at 11.7 percent, Lithuania is at 13.3 percent, Ireland is at 14.7 percent, Portugal is at 17.6 percent, Spain is at 26.2 percent and Greece is at 27 percent. …

“A rule I use is that for each person unemployed, three others are affected, whether spouses, children or whomever. That means that when you hit 25 percent unemployment virtually everyone is affected. At 11 percent unemployment about 44 percent are affected.

“It is important to understand the consequences of this kind of unemployment. There is the long-term unemployment of the underclass. This wave of unemployment has hit middle and upper-middle class workers. … Poverty is hard enough to manage, but when it is also linked to loss of status, the pain is compounded and a politically potent power arises. …

“Fascism had its roots in Europe in massive economic failures in which the financial elites failed to recognize the political consequences of unemployment. They laughed at parties led by men who had been vagabonds selling postcards on the street and promising economic miracles if only those responsible for the misery of the country were purged. Men and women, plunged from the comfortable life of the petite bourgeoisie, did not laugh, but responded eagerly to that hope. The result was governments who enclosed their economies from the world and managed their performance through directive and manipulation.

“This is what happened after World War I. It did not happen after World War II because Europe was occupied. But when we look at the unemployment rates today, the differentials between regions, the fact that there is no promise of improvement and that the middle class is being hurled into the ranks of the dispossessed, we can see the patterns forming.”

My Comment: As the technical and technological progress continues, unemployment will rise. In addition, human desires grow not only in size, but also in quality: a person does not want to work and buy, to be a slave of those who grow wealthy because of this. Desires change. The era of the consumer society is ending for several reasons.

A new era is ahead—a transition of the mass of unemployed to work on themselves, to build a new integral society. This phase is preceded by the phase of integral education, training, upbringing, and changing of the human being, and then his conscious transformation of the world. Working from offices and in factories will be transformed to going to the schools of integral education, the courses for retraining people who will then create new public relations—rational consumption in a unified integral community.
[104343]

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A War Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom Rabash’s Letter 5: … you should do more in love of friends. It is impossible to achieve lasting love, unless through Dvekut [adhesion], meaning that you will unite the two of you with a tight bond. And this can be only if you try to “undress” the clothing in which the inner soul is placed—the clothing called “self-love”…

And when you feel that you are at war, each of you will know and feel that he needs the help of his friend, and without him, his own strength will weaken, too. Then, when you understand that you must save your life, each of you will forget that he has a body he must keep, and you will both be tied by the thought of how to use the enemy.

Love of friends is attained by way of a war for its sake. It is impossible to attain adherence that indicates constant love without striving to leave the clothing of the evil inclination in which the soul is clothed. To leave this clothing of self-love is possible only if you exchange it for love of the other, for the screen and the Returning Light.

This, specifically, is what we must reach. When we begin to search for how to do this, we feel that everything essentially depends on our relationship to the other, things that are so contemptible in our world. All relationships in the world are established according to laws, protecting the rights of the individual, of democracy. However, when we see some of the truth through the influence of the Surrounding Light, we then understand that it is specifically through connection with the other that we realize the entire program of creation.

The other one, whether a friend or the Creator, is the same; there is no difference. If I want to rise above myself and reach the Creator, it is precisely then that I see that I require help from a friend. As long as all the friends have not come to my aid, according to how much I give myself over to them, I cannot do anything.

What we require is mutual cooperation where we depend upon each other. As much as I give myself over to others, to this extent they can help me, and when they come to help me, I stop thinking about myself. In spite of myself, I rise above myself.

However, the friends can come to help me only if I subdue myself with respect to them. With this, I oblige them to be concerned for me. This is saying that everything depends on the work of the individual regarding his environment. The more I subdue myself and am ready to adhere to the environment, to the teacher, to the books, to learning, to dissemination—which is to say, to all means for attaining the goal, trusting like an infant, surrendering myself to the lowest level—the closer I come to my spiritual realization.

I must begin my spiritual ascent from zero. The more I approach zero with my thoughts, desires, and deeds, the more I adhere to the group and oblige it to be concerned about me. I begin to receive the right influence from inside the group. Whatever level on which it is found at the moment is not even important. This influence makes it possible for me to nullify my self-love, departing from the egoistic shell (Klipa), from the evil inclination, and to start the spiritual work.
[104446]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/13

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Free With A Yoke On My Neck

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Letter 59: The Zohar says, “Everyone is what his heart presumes, to that extent the Creator’s Light illuminates on him and this is called the phase of faith.”

We speak about the human level here, which values the Creator’s greatness in one’s heart. To that extent I acquire the level of equivalence to the Creator, and discover the upper Light in me.

First we are all in an egoistic desire, and for a long time we assume that we can attain something. This period is called “the seven years of satiety.” Then we begin to understand that the ego will not give us anything, and feeling disappointed in it we turn to the desire to bestow.

This is already a great revolution, “and a new king rose in Egypt.” In other words, the egoistic desire in which I saw everything that is good now showers blows upon me. What are these blows? If we look at the modern world, we see that it is full of plenty for all. In the exact same way the children of Israel didn’t lack anything, they had more than enough “meat.” So what was the problem? What was lacking? What is this new domination?

The point is that I begin to understand and to feel that my ego is not me. It becomes a new cruel king for me. I don’t identify with it anymore and look for something above it, but it holds on to me and doesn’t let me go…

Today, even the poor live much better than most people lived two centuries ago. A simple worker enjoys what used to be luxuries for a few in the past. But the problem is that I feel bad and cannot do anything about this feeling.

The moment we feel this new dominion we begin to look for a way out, since this kind of life is meaningless. But it turns out that we cannot escape. I hate my life, I feel helpless, in exile, imprisoned. I feel that I am “cornered” by my family, my work, my debts, and by consumerism. From birth to death I am a slave that imagines that he is free and at the same time discovers the yoke on his neck.

I want to escape this slavery but encounter an even more difficult question: “What am I living for?” The simple pleasures of this world and its “animal” existence do not satisfy me anymore, and so I look upward to see if there is something there.

Then, I get a chance to rise above this life. I begin to understand and feel that we are actually living in a different reality, and that the current perception is simply unreal. This is where the work begins, the search thanks to which we discover that the only way to open our eyes and our emotions widely, in order to open the door to the real life, is through unity.

There is the personal individual perspective and there is the general perspective that goes through the general connection. By connecting we discover a totally different picture, but it’s very difficult to discern this picture. After all, I have to annul myself, and to refocus my perception of the world and my attitude to life in order to see everything through the group, though a collection of people whose opinions and desires become a “magnifying glass,” a “lens,” through which I see reality.

It’s very difficult to lower one’s head before the friends and to acknowledge the fact that they are great and to allow them to form the picture of the world for me in my mind and heart. If we do these exercises often enough, according to the method that we have, we see the results, and it’s as if we “regain our sight,” which means that we begin to see the current system in which we live, a system that was previously out of my sight.

So, the initial correction during the phase of preparation begins when I “lower my head” before others. The first phase of the annulment is called the “exodus from Egypt.” If before the ego subdued me and prevented me from connecting, now I leave its domination and I can already connect. Thus I escape the ego, detach myself from it and leave it.

But in the meantime it’s only an escape. Later I make greater efforts to annul myself and in the time of “smallness,” during the “counting of the Omer:” I am small and only want to connect to the friends as much as I can with all my might.

This is what we are going through now. If we try we will reach the giving of the Torah, which means the Light that Reforms, even if we don’t see anything and if we don’t understand, but we make efforts, wanting to connect above Pharaoh, above everything that is in us, we attain connection in which the Creator is revealed. This is called the giving of the Torah. Then we continue our connection in practice.
[104388]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/13, Writings of Rabash 

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Rabash’s Letter To Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom Rabash’s letter (No. 8): …at the end of the day, this is a group of people who have gathered in a certain place, under a certain leader, to be together. With superhuman courage they face up to all those who rise against them.

Indeed, they are brave men with a strong spirit, and they are determined not to retreat one inch. They are first-class fighters, fighting the war against the inclination to their last drop of blood, and their only wish is to win the battle for the glory of His name.

These words are said about the internal war that takes place inside us, as it is written, “There will always be a fight between good and bad inclinations.” The more we kindle this internal battle, the sooner we will understand that we have to exit from our ego, overpower it, escape from it, and rise above the materiality that we now sense.

There is no other way to escape from this world and attain the higher level other than by being under constant pressure, fear, and troubles that lead us to a condition that is defined as the “exodus from Egypt.” We begin revealing these qualities in us, and they make us come “out of our skin,” meaning to leave our bodies.

Only these conditions allow us to rise. It happens by a single circumstance: We should retain and work with our internal properties that are opposite by nature. One doesn’t escape by soaring into spirituality. We can’t do it by floating in the skies or leaving this material world below, nor is it about detaching from this corporeality. At the same time, we shouldn’t submerge into this realm or consider that this world as something that exists on its own.

We have to stay in the middle and realize that both forms are given to us by the Creator and that we are supposed to combine them together. By no means should we run away or hide from the desire to be pleased; rather, above this desire we have to stay confident that it’s the Upper Force that governs everything around us. It’s a unique and complicated approach for which we need an internal inborn readiness that is called “the root of the soul.” As well, we also need a group that is ready to follow this path, as it is written in Rabash’s letter: At the end of the day, this is a group of people who have gathered in a certain place, under a certain leader, to be together.

There are not many such groups. On the contrary, the farther we advance, the more will be the supporters around us and the fewer the people inside the group. The more precious a quality is the less it’s found in nature. Our goal is to rise to a “superhuman level.”

We can achieve it only by leading a merciless war against our egos. This war is called a “Holy War,” meaning the “war for the sake of the Creator.” In order to lead this war, we should connect both worlds with the Creator, agree to live in two parallel realms, and thank Him for everything that He sends to us. We should understand that everything is originated from one place and is given to us to make us grow.

Rabash writes to us about these issues: …at the end of the day, this is a group of people who have gathered in a certain place, under a certain leader, to be together. With superhuman courage they face up to all those who rise against them… This implies our internal problems. Indeed, they are brave men with a strong spirit, and they are determined not to retreat one inch…meaning that they won’t move towards materiality. They are first-class fighters, fighting the war against the inclination to their last drop of blood, and their only wish is to win the battle for the glory of His name.

This explains why we have to strengthen; if we manage to achieve everything that we spoke about and attain the states that we went through during this Passover, there is no doubt that we will end up being at the doorstep that is already in front of us.
[104062]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/13

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.12.13

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1] [media 2]

Shamati #68 Man’s Connection to the Sefirot

[media 3] [media 4]

The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpt, “Ki Tetze” 

[media 5] [media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1

[media 7] [media 8]

Writings of Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam, Concerning Above Reason

[media 9] [media 10]