Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.28.13

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A Kaleidoscope Of Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible to separate the desire for wealth from the desire for money? According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the first desire is the desire for wealth, then the desire for control, and only then the desire for knowledge. Today, money is everything: If I have money, I have health, wealth, knowledge, and control. It follows that money is the highest expression of a person’s desire.

Answer: Actually, every phase in our evolution is expressed differently in the hierarchy of needs. In the past the primary desire was the desire for a family. A home, a family, and relatives were the basis for everything. This is why several generations of the extended family lived together.

Until then the provision of food as a basic source of energy was very important. But because our desires change all the time and are in constant movement and combination, the next desire was the desire for sex. Previously it had an important place in man’s evolution, but today we can say that this desire is being replaced by others.

The desire for wealth is also gradually disappearing. In the past people were ready to sacrifice themselves to attain wealth, but today it’s quite the opposite: The ego has become very lazy. A person prefers to know the reason and the meaning for something first. He doesn’t feel like working twenty hours a day in order to make money.

In the past people traveled to different places in search for wealth. They were ready to work hard all their life only to climb the ladder of success, from a simple man to a great manager. But today this idea doesn’t attract young people. The question about the meaning of life arises in a person first: “So, what’s next?”

Question: Young people may not be attracted to it, but for those who control the world, money is everything.

Answer: We have to understand that the world is built as a totally different system, where 90% of the population are  at the bottom. They are totally managed and they don’t even suspect it. They are being manipulated by various systems of control, mass media, and other means. They are in a system built from above.

Ten percent of humanity are those who control all the systems. Then, according to the hierarchy, there are ten families (clans) that control everything. But it isn’t a question of wealth at all since hundreds of billions of dollars are in their hands. These are people who print money if they need to. They have a totally different standard of control.

This pyramid is very rigid. You cannot break into the system of control even if you are a very talented person. Reaching the top is practically impossible, unless you suddenly marry into one of these families.
[105583]
From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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From External Hearing To Internal One

Dr. Michael LaitmanTo the degree that a person feels the importance of the goal, he is ready to forego everything that prevents him from reaching it. But it takes time until he begins to hear what is being said because the heart is what hears and not the ears. He can go over what is written in articles many times, yet he doesn’t hear. Then he begins to hear, but doesn’t understand. After that he begins to understand something, but doesn’t absorb it. After that he begins to absorb it, but meanwhile it does not touch his desires.

When it finally penetrates into his desires, he begins to compare what he had with what enters his desires now. He begins to calculate and decide what to do, to clarify which desire is preferable: Which is more worthwhile, eternal, equal, and so forth. So, he decides whether he is able to abandon his current self, his ego,whether he can empty a place for another within himself—is he obliged to do it, does he want this or not?

After this he already begins to act on his choice, wanting the external environment to influence him as much as possible so that he can make a calculation within his heart regarding the good of the other and not his own good. All this has to be with his agreement, by his free choice, above his previous egoistic desire. In this way he advances towards the goal.

Therefore, we see many people who learn are allegedly together with everyone, but they still hear only with “external hearing.” It may take years before this enters them. Some begin to hear only after 10 – 15 years, and others much faster. There are all kinds of reactions from the soul for essentially it has to do with its correction.

So until a person realizes the need to transform his private inner essence to the collective  much time will pass. This constitutes the hardest part of our work, the most difficult first step. After this a person only increases the desire to bestow, but first he needs to establish and consolidate it, to put it on top of the mountain, above his ego, and this requires great work. One can only ask here for patience and a little submission, which is what helps us.

Thus, we have no basis to be angry at people who hear about this method of integral education yet don’t know how to implement it, to explain it to people. It’s not yet the time for them to absorb it internally. There is a difference between an ability to hear and the ability to carry it out.
[105651]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/13

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Transition To Spiritual Perception

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Quite often I don’t understand what the lesson is about: Whether it is about spirituality or about the corporeal life. How can we distinguish between the corporeal life and spirituality?

Answer: On the whole, what enters me through the five senses, through the “inlets” of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, is called “this world.”

If I develop an additional sense in me, meant for feeling others, then in my perception this sensation is divided into five parts: Ketter (K), Hochma (H), Bina (B), Zeir Anpin (ZA), and Malchut (M). I develop this sense from the point in the heart, by wanting to exit myself and to exist in the group together with the friends. It is among them that I discover the five senses that are outside the body, that make up my spiritual “body.”

This transition requires a period of preparation that is carried out by the Light. We cannot attain this by ourselves, but all our efforts summon the Light that Reforms, and eventually we acquire the new vessel of the soul.

Transition To Spiritual Perception
[106026]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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A Group Is The Unity Of Desires

A Group Is Unity Of DesireA group is an assembly of friends, a gathering of desires that reject themselves in order to unite. And only in this unity do they find the right means, the right attitude, necessary for the revelation of the Creator.

This is the law: The Light is at absolute rest, but to experience it, I need a suitable vessel that is being filled to the extent of my integrality. I have to form this vessel, which is the sum (Σ) of all the friends’ desires.

A Group Is The Unity Of Desires

[106028]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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Regarding Freedom Of Thought

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is my free choice in relation to my thoughts?

Answer: All thoughts that are within me at the moment, all sensations and understandings, all data that I as if “scan” and then process, through synthesis and analysis, all these parameters are given from Above. What I feel, how I feel, what kinds of decisions I make, all this is already predetermined from Above, right up to this moment. One can ask now: What will be from this moment on? In this “from now on” there is a parameter called my free choice.

With regards to thoughts, free choice is in the external desire and the external mind that belong to the group. After the shattering I am divided into two parts. In my sensations, one part is outside of me, whereas I perceive the second part internally as myself. Thereby my inner heart and mind appear, meaning myself, as well as an external heart and mind, meaning the group. All that I need to do is to begin to connect these two parts together, into one Kli.

Here my struggle and problems begin, and this comprises the order of the work and all corrections. By trying to come to terms with the part that constantly demonstrates to me its confrontation and opposition, I feel that I need the Creator, the only one who can connect these two parts together. The stronger I need Him to reconcile these two opposing parts together, to that degree I agree with the Creator, with His nature, with His existence, and with His rule, I agree that this property would govern me.

The more that I try to annul myself before the group, the more obvious it becomes to me that I am not ready to subdue myself before the others. Ultimately, I will “beat myself black and blue” to finally clarify that I’m not ready to yield under any circumstances. I reach such hatred that it’s like Mount Sinai (“Sinah” meanshatred” in Hebrew). But because I’ve tried to annul myself so many times I realize that I must do this, and therefore I feel the need for the help of the upper force.
[105639]
From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, Shamati #68

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Same Words, But Without Shells

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe come from the place of shattering, starting with the desire that has no idea of what bestowal, sanctity, spirituality, is. We build this understanding gradually, over time. The words that we use in the beginning and in the end of the path are the same: bestowal and love, but as we advance, we feel more depth, more accurate form in them.

It is as if you take a fruit covered by layers of skin and gradually peel one layer after another. It is only in the very middle, in the core behind dozens of coverings, that we find the fruit. We do the same when we peel shells from words, feeling what exactly each notion means and what is hidden behind them.

When we clarify one word or notion, it sheds light on other words as well. After all, everything is interconnected. Thus, we gradually begin to understand what Kabbalists write about.

We already comprehend these ideas with our mind, but we don’t feel them yet. It awakens in us a very strong desire to attain. As we advance we become “less smart.” If we didn’t strive to reveal spirituality and had no pronounced, burning point in the heart, we would continue our studies by using the power of our minds and would learn the theory pretty well. We even would think that we sense something. We would never go through the state of internal confusion, nor would we feel that there is a confrontation between our feelings and mind. Thus, we would progress in accordance with a stiff, one-way path and would be led solely by our intellect.

However, if our heart and mind act simultaneously and we develop our spiritual vessel, we will always be confused. We would feel that we lose the sharpness of perception and that our brain doesn’t progress as we study, but rather expands proportionately to our sensations.

Mind becomes a consequence of sensations. A person’s mind only works in accordance with the development on his feelings, the spiritual vessel, outlined only by sensations, desire. In other words, we become very primitive as opposed to highly intellectual people who think of complex matters and love to philosophize. We are smart to the extent that our heart can feel. It is called “being wise in the heart” since it is the heart that obligates us to be clever only at the level of the heart and no higher than that.

What’s good about it if we lose the sharpness of mind and become absorbed by our internal experiences, trying to develop only our sensations? By all means, we will do everything that is in our power to develop our hearts. Otherwise, we will stay obscure and incomplete since everything we receive comes from our spiritual vessels, through our sensations. In this world, no one considers a person who is driven solely by his sensations to be intellectual.

In the end, this ambiguity forces us urgently to expand our feelings since we understand only what we feel in the heart. The heart doesn’t feel much, and only in a very egoistic, primitive, one-way, and narrow form.

This explains why we don’t have a choice: We understand that we must open the heart. We experience a huge pressure that is getting stronger due to our jealousy, passion, and ambitions that push us to spiritual revelation in the heart. Our situation is hopeless since the Creator blocks all other forms of our development.

It is as if we lose our sharpness: We no longer hear or feel. There are people who have a very sharp mind and who know a lot about politics, science, about how to make good deals and so on. They turn into straightforward people who are driven solely by their hearts. In our world, it is called an animate level, whereas a human being is someone who is driven by intellect. But this limitation forces a person to open his heart and expand his spiritual vessel at any expense. Otherwise, he feels bad because he has no clue as to what bestowal is.
[102749]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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It Is Necessary To Be “In Time”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How does a student who learns Kabbalah need to relate to a world in which there are so many problems: terror (like the recent bombs in Boston), the economic crisis, and ecological imbalance? What needs to be done?

Answer: The truth is that the world is in a much more difficult state than we think lacking understanding and knowledge. There is a period of reaction from nature, which is accumulating our negative influences, all the destruction that we throw at it. The main destruction exists on the human level in the relationships between us since by this we directly influence the most vulnerable place, the system itself.

There was a time when the damage we caused wasn’t that great. This was when we destroyed something in the crude, mechanical part of nature. After that we began to destroy its more subtle systems, say like the electronic or electrical mechanisms that activate the whole of nature. We have finally reached the program itself, where every small injury brings terrible, negative ramifications throughout the system.

This is the problem. Today we have developed to a state where we destroy nature exactly at that level, the level of the program of nature. We must adapt ourselves to nature on this level: We need to understand it, to discover, and be sensitive to the upper force and together with it, participate in the management of all the worlds. But we are not doing this yet. This delay accumulates and accumulates and will ultimately explode on us.

So we see so many problems in the world: terror, natural disasters, and bankruptcy of entire nations. The United States is absorbing hard blows: Just as its influence on the world is enormous so is the intensity with which it will feel the corruption of the world. To keep this from happening, our friends in the United States must make great efforts to work together with us.

In general this is something all of our groups in the world must do. The entire world is facing great blows which we can prevent. We specifically can help in this, nobody else can do anything, not even a president. Everything depends on the upper force and on our accommodation to it. The more that we correct ourselves and attain equality with it, the more we balance and heal nature.

In this way we can transform every negative influence to positive. After all, every negative influence that we discover in this world due to our lack of accommodation to nature will be regarded as the realization of evil that we can transform to good. So instead of a disaster that may come if we fail to mollify it by bringing the Light into it, we will feel the opposite: a great ascent.

The evil is still accumulating now as a result of all of our deeds. The time is tight, it is becoming critical. Everything depends on one question: Do we have enough time to attract the Light to all this negative charge accumulated by humanity, transforming it into positive or not? This is where the decision is made whether we tilt the world from the scale of guilt to the scale of justification?

Hundreds of thousands of tons have already accumulated on the side of accusation, which we can transfer to the side of merit, meaning to transform the sins into merits. The higher a person is, the greater is his ego. The main thing is to turn towards correction. I very much hope that thanks to conventions like these, we will accumulate sufficient power to attract the Light that Reforms so that instead of the accumulation of negative energy in the world, we will discover its opposite: positive energy.
[105883]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.28.13

Preparation to the Lesson

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Shamati #25Things That Come From the Heart

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpt, “Bereshit,” Item 65, Lesson 7

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 18, Lesson 38

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Writings of Baal HaSulam A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar” 

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