Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.25.13

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Conventions: Breaking The Shell Of The Old World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We are now on the threshold of three big conventions. What state does the world group need to reach as a result of the upcoming conventions?

Answer: At these conventions, we need to reach the entrance to the upper world, to begin to feel it, at least temporarily!

Before a person enters the upper world, he moves like a worm that tries to get out of a radish. He sticks his head out a little bit and pulls back, comes out and back again. He moves like a piston, back and forth.

Similarly, we do the same: We stick our heads out and back, stick out and back, until we accumulate the desired pressure and use it to finally come out of that radish, from our world. Thus, there are moments when we gnaw at the peel of that radish and begin to break it.

This is a difficult step, but I hope we will do it at our conventions and at least begin to get outside, to breathe in a different reality.
[105856]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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Concerns And Prospective

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can we say that a linear, individual problem solving method (for example, finding a solution for drug addiction) amounts to the further growth of this phenomenon?

Answer: Yes, we can. These problems will continue expanding since our egoism continues unfolding. If we don’t involve people into altruistic interaction, they won’t even know what to do with themselves and will feel as if they are being totally torn apart.

That’s why various problems such as drug addiction, terrorism, suicides, and so on will become regular phenomena. People have to do something with themselves, but they don’t know what exactly they should be doing. So, these problems will only grow. The only thing we can do is to teach everybody how to enter a new integral sphere of nature.

First, people have to learn how to organize themselves in a small integral environment. Then, they will feel that it makes them so much more comfortable when they are going through various unfortunate situations, such as family issues, social problems, and so on.

People will feel safer and more confident. They will even feel that the world they are connected with becomes much friendlier to them, not to others but to them particularly.

Individual self-regulation starts taking place, a homeostasis that fills us with completely different feelings, sensations, and potentials.
[105210]
From a Talk on Integral Education, 4/2/13

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Terminology And Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Contemporary social sciences don’t provide suitable terms for defining our next state, when we all become connected. What’s the way of conveying this phenomenon through the scientific language?

Answer: You shouldn’t use old terms since they will be understood conventionally. Here, we have a chance to “shine” and develop a new language.

Question: What can be “new” except integrity? Scientists have a hard time understanding the terms “integrity” and “commonality” since they sound rather abstract to them.

Answer: Back in Soviet times, I used to constantly hear the word “commonality.” It’s a very adequate word! We gradually rise to benevolent good connection between us, reciprocal inclusion into each other, merging and establishing contacts that allow us to make one big picture (a mosaic) comprised of each of us. Every one in this mosaic is a separate part preoccupied with how to match with the “protrusions and concavities” of others, how to complete others correctly.

Perhaps “integrality” is too abstract of a notion. On other hand, “inter” and “enter” are prefixes that are used on a constant basis; we just have to get used to them. “Integrality” can be replaced by some other words. I am using it because it seems to me that it defines very well the upcoming state that the world will be in soon.

Question: The main disparagement brought up by the scientists is as follows: “How can a psychological state of mind lead to financial well-being or to the disappearance of diseases?”

Answer: Let’s refer to statistics. Where does financial instability come from? Isn’t it originated by our egoism? Aren’t all banks usurped by a small elite group that “gobbles up” everything and yet doesn’t take good advantage of what they have? All “greenery” that they collect just deteriorates.

Why is our healthcare the way it is? It’s because it’s much more profitable to sell medications and create diagnostic devices than to cure illnesses. It allows selling more medications, thus generating more profits. In other words, even the healthcare system is just about increasing somebody’s profits.

Should we even mention the education system? It’s a complete failure. The same applies to family values, upbringing children, arts, culture, etc.

When scientists study all spheres of our life and explore many social phenomena, they see that the cause of negativity is human egoism. It spoils everything. Have a look at our culture or science! It has nothing to do with science anymore; rather, it’s a source of finances. Nowadays, everything is for sale and purchase.

In other words, egoism consumes everything there is in all countries, all over the world.… Everything is subject to “cutting” and “sawing.” Isn’t it clear that we have to correct ourselves rather than the external world?

And what can be corrected in the surrounding world?Something that we’ve managed to distort? But then again, we don’t know how to approach these issues since we lack these sensations and don’t know how to fix things. Let’s try to “repair” ecology. It will take us forever since so much has been already destroyed. Where shall we start? Where shall we get money? Who will give it to us? Who will allow us to act? Who cares? “I’ll die tomorrow, but I am still alive today…”—this is how our egoism works.

We will never be able to correct what has been already damaged unless people start regarding themselves differently and see the entire world from a different angle: through integrity, reciprocity, harmony, consideration, and at least some elements of complicity. This explains why the world continues to roll downhill. That’s why integral education is our foremost and most urgent task.
[105215]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

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Once Upon A Time There Lived A Husband And A Wife…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today people feel the gap between real life and their psychological well-being. I remember our grandparents didn’t experience this discrepancy. Meanwhile, for a contemporary person (even if he has a family) a good psychological atmosphere is separated from the material well-being. Is there a way to demonstrate that these things are nevertheless connected?

Answer: It doesn’t matter if they are strangers to each other or a family. They still have to attend the same seminars, listen to the same explanations, thus rising above their egoism.

Before, our egoism was not as big as it is now! Once upon a time there lived “a husband and wife”; they had a “hen” (meaning a household, a home, a vegetable garden, etc). A husband worked, his wife took care of the home. It was an old-fashioned household arrangement. The family life revolved around the home, community, children, and so on.

Today, it’s nothing like that. At this time, we all work for somebody else, for some society, for something unintelligible. In the morning, we take our kids to kindergartens, then we rush to our jobs, and after we are done for the day, we head to supermarkets…. From there, we run back home, quickly warm food, feed everybody as soon as possible, wash the kids, and go to bed. The next day, we repeat the same pattern.

Is it similar in any way to the previous way that family life was set up? Before, people used to have a home, a household. Today, we only call it a household. Everybody has individual possessions; even spouses have separate bank accounts.

So, we have to teach people at our seminars to rise above their egoism and unite beyond it. Otherwise, family will cease to exist since our egoism cuts us off from others, pushes us aside, while we take no action in response. And the state officials cannot do anything here. Two egoists cannot be forced to stay in one territory.

Why do I need a family? I go to work and earn my own money; I don’t need anyone! If I need to, in the evening I can bring home whoever I want. I can go to a supermarket, buy ready-made foods, warm them in microwave, and eat them for dinner. The whole arrangement serves the purpose of allowing everybody to live separately. Manufacturers of consumer goods get maximum benefits if there is only one person in the household since two single people will buy more of everything: refrigerators, TV sets, and washing machines.…
[105212]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” 4/2/13

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The Purpose Of Life Is The Revelation Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe always clarify the issue of “there is none else besides Him” in our conventions. It’s a very important issue because it actually opens up the essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah, meaning the method for the revelation of the Creator, the only force that operates in all of creation.

Besides this force there is nothing else indeed. Everything else is what it generates, develops, what it motivates and manages. Everything depends on this one unique force. It makes no difference whether we call it “Nature” or the “Creator”; it creates and manages everything, but it’s actually one.

Unlike other parts of nature (the still, vegetative, and animate), man has a goal, a role, a purpose, and he has to attain it: to discover this force and to feel it. The perception of this force and its revelation happens according to the basic law of physics, the basic law of nature, the law of equivalence of form: To the extent that our attributes are similar to the Creator’s, we feel Him, become part of Him, and merge with Him.

The Creator constantly pushes us towards this state so that we will attain Him. This movement occurs from the beginning of the creation to its end, until we fully discover Him. We start the path of revealing and attaining the Creator while being in our world.

Our world conceals the Creator from us.

The Purpose of Life is the Revelation of the Creator

The Creator influences this world. He influences us and if we perceive His influence correctly as essential so as to attain Him from within and from this world, then we advance towards the Creator. We are given the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to attune ourselves to the revelation of the Creator through the outward shell of our world.

By revealing the Creator we attain our source, our root, the state of eternity and perfection. We can detach from our body to such a degree that our body (drawn as a point from which we attain Him, the point in the heart) and our world suddenly disappear.

We begin to feel that there is one Creator in all this, one upper Light. Everything that was previously depicted to us, our body, the five senses, by which we felt ourselves and the world, all seem to evaporate, disappear, and through this we see the one upper Light.

This is the state we need to reach. It’s very real, much more real than our “illusive” world. The article “There is None Else Besides Him” tells us how to do that.
[105510]
From the European Convention 3/23/13, Lesson 3

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Hollywood Can’t Even Dream About This

Dr. Michael LaitmanTorah, Exodus, “BeShalach,” 17:14 – 17:16: The Lord said to Moses, Inscribe this [as] a memorial in the book, and recite it into Joshua’s ears, that I will surely obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. Then Moses built an altar, and he named it The Lord is my miracle. And he said, For there is a hand on the throne of the Eternal, (that there shall be) a war for the Lord against Amalek from generation to generation.

In general, a human being cannot conquer the quality of Amalek. But he has to create a situation when he places himself between the Creator and Amalek and really wants for the Creator to eliminate the property of Amalek within him.

A person needs Amalek. Otherwise, he won’t have a  connection with the Creator. In other words, the egoism (Pharaoh and so on) deliberately pushes us to the Creator. Without this pressure, we wouldn’t feel a need for Him.

In the end, corrections are made thanks to Amalek. But because he manifests in various forms, they are given different names.

Comment: Interestingly, when we read the Torah, we understand that all movie scenarios are extremely trivial and insignificant compared to it. They don’t even come close to the unbelievable height of the Torah.

Answer: There is no doubt about it since the Torah describes the inner world. It depicts completely different pictures of internal connections among everything there is. We recognize the system that unites us, see the properties and energies of the Universe, and become aware of everything that exists and happens between us. Undoubtedly, it’s a great action! A person rises to the level where his body no longer exists and there is only him inside these great forces.
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From KabTV’s “The Mysteries of the Eternal Book” 2/11/13

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Love That Doesn’t Leave Us Alone

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) Part 1, “Inner Reflection,” Item 12: It is said: “He is One and His Name is One.” “His name” stands for Malchut of the World of Infinity, i.e., of the desire to receive, an inseparable organic part of the reality that was originally included in the thought of creation.

The Light descends through five phases: from phase zero to phase four (Malchut of the world of Infinity). This process can be presented either as a sequential progression or in the form of concentric circles. In either case, the main thing is the progress. With each step, revelation of the Light becomes more intense, the desire manifests and gets clarified more, it feels and attains more.

Love That Doesn’t Leave Us Alone

As a result, the fourth phase receives the Light of Infinity without limitations. In other words, the creature wants to receive all of the Light not restricted by anything at all, neither by shortage nor by excess  It’s an ideal state that can be described as giving a glass of water to a thirsty man. One glass is exactly what he needs to satisfy his thirst, not more and not less. The amount of water is precisely sufficient to satiate his thirst. There is nothing left, nor is there a need for more water.

This is what the Creator prepared for us: a permanent state of “Malchut of the world of Infinity,” which we have to attain at this time of our evolution. For that, our desire has to exactly match the Light and be accompanied by the corresponding intention, in unity, in perfect harmony.

In general, it’s about the process of establishing correct relationships between the Creator and the creature. It’s because the fourth phase senses everything that is going on with it; it feels that it receives the Light, it senses the Creator’s attitude. All of it is given for the creature with the exception of its own reaction to what is happening. The Creator gives the desire to receive everything that He originally conceived, completely fills it with feeling, attitude, and goodness. Having received all this, the fourth phase becomes closed in itself and starts developing on this basis as it now has all three necessary parameters:

  • The desire to receive;
  • The desire to please, meaning the Creator’s love and good attitude;
  • The pleasure that fills it.

In other words, there is me who strives to receive, there is the pleasure that I get, and there is a sensation of the loving Giver. These factors begin working inside me. If I didn’t feel the Creator’s love, I would simply keep enjoying myself without limits. However, love “spoils the whole thing”: Apparently, besides pleasure there is something that requires my response. It doesn’t “leave me alone,” and I begin the journey.
[104851]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/2013, TES

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The Family Nest Of The Creator And The Created Being

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Shell of Noga is half good and half bad. It belongs to me and doesn’t belong to me; it’s something that stands in the middle, connecting me with all of reality. On one hand, it is an impure force (shell), but on the other, it’s a shell that I can use in the transition from one reality to the other.

There is always a bridge that connects between the good and the evil. There is no evil that is totally disconnected from the good, except for the stony heart (Lev HaEven). The stony heart has no contact with the good. The Creator is the attribute of “existence from existence” (Yesh mi Yesh), and He created the attribute of the creature “from absence” (Yesh Mi Ein) that did not exist before, and so there is no connection between them.

There is no Shell of Noga between the attributes of “existence from existence” (the Creator) and “existence from absence” (the desire of the creature). There is no connection between the stony heart and the Creator, and so it’s impossible to correct it directly. But among all the other properties there is such a transition, and we should always try to look for it. Therefore it is said: “A person should always turn the good inclination against the evil inclination,” which means that we should create a conflict between them.

But I should know from the start that at the end of this conflict, of this strong friction, of the real explosion, something new will be revealed, something in the middle, that connects the two hostile sides, just like the monkey is the link between the animate level and man, the transition between the levels, between the states.

This transition is the most important thing. It’s because the two opposite sides, the good and the bad, remain on the current level, while the transition suddenly becomes the place of a new birth that raises me upwards. Therefore, the middle third of Tifferet in which Bina and Malchut, GE and AHP, connect is the most central point of creation, where the Creator and the created being begin to build their “family nest,” their common home.
[105642]
From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, Shamati #68

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.25.13

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash Dargot HaSulam,” “Article 217”

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpt, “Bereshit,” Item 45, Lesson 6

[media 5] [media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 17, Lesson 37

[media 7] [media 8]

Writings of Baal HaSulam The Mutual Guarantee,” Lesson 4

[media 9] [media 10]