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A Tuning Fork Focused On The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person is taught from Above to rise above his desire to receive. This world brings me different surprises, all kinds of states, induces me to do foolish things, influences me through my family and friends, and I must respond. According to my response, I am tested as to whether I keep the rule of “there is none else besides Him,” “the Good who does Good,” and whether I can confidently say that everything comes from the Creator and not retreat from this decision.

Other than that, I do not ask for any changes. I want everything to remain the way it is, I want to feel the worst states as the best states. I want to correct the actual state, not to escape it. I want to correct the desires in which I feel pain at the moment.

Otherwise I will not be able to justify Him. How else can I direct myself at bestowal, justify the evil, subdue myself, and bless the upper force if I have no contact with it? The shattering occurred in order to give me this option.

It is precisely for this reason that this whole world was given to me, like a tuning fork according to which musical instruments are tuned, so that I will attune myself to the Creator. Otherwise, without subduing myself and serving others, without the connection with the friends, I will not be able to do that. I have to feel that I receive all my thoughts and feelings through them, that I use the collective mind together with them.

I discover that the group is the vessel outside of my ego. My inability to connect with the friends shows me to what extent I cannot exit my ego. My fault is not my sophistication or my intelligence, but the hatred and the detachment, meaning the shattering. A person was given a group in order to give him a clear understanding, an example, a means to measure where he is with regard to the Creator.

You can feel hate, envy, pride, and ambition with regard to the group. You can annul yourself before it or not, you can shout at them or beat them, and they can do the same to you. But you cannot do that to the Creator since the Creator is the general, absolute force of nature. Only according to your equivalence to Him do you reveal the opportunity to be in contact with Him, to connect, since it is a perfect, fixed system.

So the preparation can only be by the influence of the environment, and it takes place on every level until the end of correction. Until the very end of correction we prepare for the revelation of the Creator in its fullest form.
[106072]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Shattered Into Parts To Understand The Whole

Dr. Michael LaitmanMalchut feels reward or punishment according to its connection or separation from Bina. Generally two states exist: a good state (the corrected Malchut) and a bad state (the corrupted, shattered Malchut). The whole question is whom does it want to please, where does it find reward and punishment: in its own benefit or the benefit of the other?

It’s one of the two; there are no intermediary states: I either care for myself or for the other. The criterion for reward and punishment corresponds to it: “Do I enjoy or not?” or “Does the other enjoy or not?”

It is clear that in the shattered state reward and punishment are felt only within the shattered Malchut, and in the corrected state they are verified by the Creator. This is the entire difference.

Baal HaSulam writes in Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), Part 10, “Inner Reflection,” Item 15: The main correction of the world is through reward and punishment. And all reward of the righteous starts from there, meaning from an ascent, from attaching the AHP to Galgalta ve Eynaim. Certainly, the Creator could have created the world with one saying. However, He caused a shattering. What for? It is the meaning of the inclusion of the property of mercy into the property of judgment. Thanks to the shattering, there appeared multitude forms and ways of connection, joining, between Malchut and Bina.

The “one saying” includes ten complete Sefirot , and that’s it. But instead of this, there is a need for various combinations of properties so as “to increase the reward of the righteous.” Now that the evil shattered, egoists appeared, they are capable of becoming righteous. And their reward will be even higher because they, so to speak, “attained their names” in similarity to the Creator. By joining Bina, Malchut assumes its form, and this is the reward for the righteous.

“To attain the sacred names” is to be clothed in them, to be like the Creator in regard to others in one way or another. Thereby I adhere to Him. It’s because a “name” is a form, a manner of bestowal. It is as if I clothe in these garments, become like Him, and this is my reward.

The shattering gave  a multitude of aspects to the Creator. It is correct that He created the world with “one saying,” but everything is concealed, closed, bound within these ten Sefirot, impenetrably. Ten Sefirot of Malchut of the world of Infinity or the four phases of the Direct Light don’t give anything. The creature doesn’t exist yet; that is, it cannot manifest or attain.

For a person to truly understand something he has to take on the appropriate form internally, “to clothe” in it. If I understand how an engine runs, it is as if I am within it and feel with my “nerves” all that is happening there. This is true knowledge, true attainment.

Therefore, before the shattering everything was wonderful, except for one thing: The creature didn’t exist yet. It remained motionless at the very bottom of the still level, similar to an angel, meaning a simple force, devoid of the evil inclination and feeling, and totally activated from Above, without any independence. The shattering made it possible for it to acquire various “garments,” “letters,” and “names” of the Creator, different forms of behavior, based on inner opposition to the Creator and external similarity to Him.

This is the reason for the creation of the evil inclinationeverything begins from this.…
[105872]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/2013, TES

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A Shorter Working Week Suggested In Germany

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from CNBC): “A group of 100 German academics, trade unionists and politicians is calling for a 30-hour working week with full pay, German daily Tageszeitung reported on Monday, with the petitioners arguing that a shorter working week is the best way to address rising unemployment.

“Germany’s unemployment rate, which increased to 7.4 percent in January, remains well below the 26 percent reached in Spain. But in an open letter published on Monday and cited by the newspaper, the group said a reduction in working hours could help German workers.

“Under the plan, devised by politicians from left wing parties, philosophers and academics, a 30-hour working week would be introduced gradually over the course of several years. It would markedly improve productivity, the group argued, which in turn would help employers pay out full wages.”

My Comment: We see how the world gradually realizes the proposals of the Integral Upbringing method, but by the path of suffering rather than by a reasonable approach and balanced planned reduction of “unnecessary” production. At this rate and form, reduction of the economy will take many years, accompanied by suffering of the masses in the whole world and thus, naturally by protests, re-elections, and other undesired problems.

It is necessary to explain to the elite and the masses where we, all the humans, are heading by the natural force of development—toward society (economy) of rational (necessary) consumption and integral universal unification. To make a transition to this state, we must understand what is happening and adjust ourselves to it, and this is achieved by the method of Integral Upbringing.
[106087]

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“Big Thinkers Still Stumped On Global Economic Crisis”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Andrew Walker, BBC World Service economics correspondent): “More than five years after the onset of the financial crisis, you might have thought economic policy makers would know what to do next.

“Well they don’t. Or at the very least, there is nothing like the kind of consensus that prevailed before the financial crisis. …

“There were plenty of ideas for sure. But this is how the IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard put it at the end of the conference: “‘We don’t have a sense of our final destination… Where we end I really don’t have much of a clue.’”

My Comment: This is the beginning of insight. It is now possible to search for the true cause of the crisis and then for its solution. More and more people realize that the problem is not in economic policy, but in the human being himself—or rather in our relationships, and even more precisely in the fact that we, society, exist in a completely interconnected, integral world. However, we do not correspond to the structure of the world because we remain egoists, protectionists, who compete with each other.

The single system of the world that manifests today requires us to be in complete cooperation. Of course, through its development, the crisis will lead us to the realization of the need to unite all the nations and countries, but it will be a long and dramatic path. We must learn from nature its interconnection and emulate it. The method of Integral Upbringing exists for this purpose. It will help us create the right relationship between us quickly and easily and thus eliminate the crisis.
[106045]

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On A Deserted Island And In Manhattan

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We say that we want to correct a person. What part within us is called a human being?

Answer: If we separate man’s three main physical needs that are related to the physical (animal) body—food, sex, and family—then the fulfillment of these desires is the satisfaction of normal animal needs. The next level of desires—wealth, power, fame, and knowledge—belongs to human aspirations, and you have to fulfill them only in accordance with the social environment that surrounds you.

You can satisfy your animal desires in the family, regardless of where you live: on a farm, in a small village, or on an uninhabited island. You have a family, a wife and children; you have enough food and live in peace. If your desires are greater than food, home, and family, then you cannot live on an uninhabited island. You want to be in Manhattan because only there do you have the opportunity to realize your aspiration for wealth, power, fame, and knowledge.

Question: However, what would be wrong if I were a famous doctor and earned a hundred times more than others?

Answer: If you are in your animal state on a separate island, in balance with the environment and consuming as much as you need, you do not harm nature. You eat and reproduce, and everything is fine.

However, in Manhattan, with desires for wealth, power, and knowledge, you too must be in balance with the material nature that surrounds you. You find yourself in a new “jungle,” but are you in balance with it? The question arises: What is “balance” in today’s society, not somewhere on an island or in a village, but in Manhattan?

This means that you give as much as you receive. This is the basic law of nature, the law of equilibrium.

This law also applies to our bodies. All that exists—the still, vegetative, and animate nature—aspires toward equilibrium. And if balance suddenly disappears, this is a temporary condition, an illness, like in our body, when there is a difference between various internal parameters.

The question is whether all of it is established correctly. If we consider our natural internal system, then we can measure the health of society as the health of the body. According to this system, you can learn how we should behave in the environment, that is, with our own kind.

The fact is that wolves, bears, or tigers do not destroy the environment. They take as much as they need for food and no more. Being in dis-balance with nature, we destroy it and thus we destroy ourselves.

Imagine if a healthy bear killed all the rabbits with his paws. What would he do tomorrow? He would die from hunger. Thus, nature instinctively creates in animals a protective reflex, and a well-fed bear wants nothing more. He can play with these other bunnies.

A hunter’s instinct awakens in it only with the sensation of hunger. The bear is not an enemy to someone whom it kills; it does not do it to dominate others. It does not yearn for power as it is usually shown in cartoons. It is absolutely not true! The bear views other animals as a source of energy and nothing more.

However, the human being sees in the other person an object whom he can dominate. As much as I humiliate him, to that extent, I feel better. I am willing to subjugate the entire world and I want that. I want to know more than anyone else, to have more influence than anyone else, so that everyone bows to me, so that I am the richest. I want my “Self” to exist. All the rest are just tiny insects, crawling around me.

Of course, a person cannot be blamed for this because nature develops all these desires within us. For what purpose does it develop them?

Even if we don’t know why, we at least need to understand the cause of all our suffering. This is only in the fact that we must come into balance with each other. Any unbalanced state brings about big problems, and they lead us to destruction.
[105698]
From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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The Nature Of The Good Is To Do Good

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll of our work is to acquire the property of bestowal above the property of reception so at every moment I clarify that all that happens within me and around me, in all my thoughts and desires, in the entire picture of reality, comes only from the Creator.  I clarify this despite all the disturbances that come to me from the world. The world shows that, allegedly, a multitude of various extraneous factors and forces work in it, establishing my state and affecting me. But behind all of this I have to see the Creator.

It is easier to do this if the world relates to me with hostility and I try to flee from it.  But when I become strong enough, I’m being sent forces that seem good, attracting me to this world.  I have to oppose them saying that this is evil, even worse than what was before.

I need to at least be as thankful for the evil as for the good and to be grateful for the suffering more than for the temptations that attract me to this world.  Behind it all I must see the rule of one Creator, the Good who does Good.

This work is called the work of the Creator because, through it, I learn how the Creator relates to me, teaching me his “customs.”  I discover that the Creator surrounds me with all this virtual reality so that through this world, above this reality, I will discover the force that activates me and creates all of reality for me.

I need to always see that this is the Creator’s finger that directs me to choose, to be in the Klipat Noga, in the middle third of Tifferet.  With this I recognize that everything comes from one source only, from Keter, from Sun. I must adhere to Him like Moon, to reflect to Sun the Light that I received from it.

But I bless the state of the new moon, which is completely dark and doesn’t shine.  It is enough for me to remain in faith above reason, in bestowal above reception. I bless this form specifically, the form to which I aspire in my work.
[106078]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Man Is More Dangerous Than An Animal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A person who uses and suppresses the other person is not in balance with nature. But isn’t it natural for him because it is his nature?

Answer: It is natural if you use something only for your biological needs, within the limits of your beastly egoism, as the wolf eats the lamb in order to live and nothing more.

But the human being is willing to enslave all the people on earth. And this is unnatural because, according to his biological potential development, he is just an animal, and his human part he should use on a completely different level.

In his physical (animal) body, a person has to receive a certain amount of energy. Every animal can use the environment for this. It is located in a particular biological niche, which is its home—where it eats, reproduces, and so on. This is the way any biological creature exists, from a small insect to elephants.

That is why our protein state needs energy and for this purpose you can use the environment like animals that attack each other, kill, and eat within this framework. In this regard, people in the past were the same as animals.

But besides attacking, animals have a special way of protection. If for example, tigers are fighting with each other, they do not harm each other but just threaten, determining who is stronger, and the weaker one obeys and leaves. It happens to all kinds of animals: No one ever harms the other because it does not eat its own species.

However, there are cannibals among human beings. Animals do not exhibit this; they never use their own kind as food, but feed in a certain pattern: They kill and eat only certain kind of animals and only in the quantities necessary to replenish life energy. If a lion lies with a full belly, you can walk next to him; he will not even look at you.

The human being cannot get enough. His egoism, besides the animal type, is also human. And because of this additional human egoism he is willing to subjugate the entire world.

In the past, egoism was on a simple level. Then, throughout the millennia, it has developed in us more and more, and lately it has soared exponentially. Now, it begins to become round and changes from individual to integral, to global.
[105629]
From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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Health Is A Spiritual Necessity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The great thinker and physician Rambam brought a set of postulates, one of which reads: “To live healthy is a spiritual necessity.” Could you comment on that?

Answer: Our health is one of the conditions of general equilibrium between man and nature, of the balance of the person himself and his adhesion with the Creator. That is why the balance on all the levels—mental, moral, physical, ethical, spiritual, and physiological—is one and the same system of complete equilibrium. There is no doubt that a person who, in the future—together with the entire world—will reach complete correction, will receive from all the sides only positive feedback, and this overall balance will make him absolutely healthy.

We can talk about eternity, infinity, and eternal life, but all this is not for us at the moment. We do not understand all those beautiful changes that may occur in a person since, according to our current notions, the material body cannot exist forever. But that’s not the point.

The fact is that this is possible only when the human being will be included in the general system, when all the people in the world will be interconnected correctly, will mutually complement and balance one another to such an extent that everyone’s health will be determined by the correct health of everyone else.

Question: When Rambam says that physical health is a spiritual necessity, what is meant by the word “spiritual”?

Answer: The world spiritual means the future spiritual state of a person, when he ascends above his animal part and begins to make his spiritual part healthier, the part which, at the moment, is not felt by anyone but Kabbalists. Every person has it in some kind of internal latent, embryonic state, similar to how a small child potentially incorporates his future child; that is, a person’s spiritual part is not manifested in any way.
[106151]
From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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The Source Of All The Problems Of The Universe

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can motivate a doctor to change? It is clear for a patient that he wants to become healthy, but for a doctor? How can a doctor and a patient be encouraged to become closer to each other?

Answer: I was born and grew up in a family of doctors. My mother is a gynecologist, my father was a dentist, and my aunt and uncle were also doctors. If suddenly someone fell ill, at once there were a phonendoscope, medications; everyone knew what to do, you got treatment, and everything was fine, no problems. In this regard, the entire Department of Health was at my home.

The same feeling of one family should be between doctors and patients; otherwise, there is no trust towards a doctor. But today, a doctor cannot afford this. No matter how many gifts you give him, he is still swamped by patients.

So, it must be a completely different system, with the emphasis not on medications but on the attention to a person, as in ancient Chinese medicine.

That is, the health care system should include the entire life of a person. This is a technology of life: How you are born, what you breathe, what you eat, the impact of your environment, how your body reacts to all this (like a biological system to the surrounding system), and how you live your life—getting married, giving birth, getting old, and dying.

But all this should be viewed as a system that is in equilibrium with nature. And for this, a person has to be organically, integrally connected to nature, to abide by its laws, understanding what it required of him, and how he has to attune himself to a mutual interconnection.

Just as harmony and balance within us means the health of the body, the balance in nature means the health of the environment, so there should be homeostasis between us and the surrounding environment. We disrupt the balance of nature, upset the balance within ourselves, but most importantly, this disturbs the balance between us and the environment. Here, we do not correspond to it at all.

It is known that the surrounding nature acts according to the law of self-stabilization: You give as much as you receive. Thus, homeostasis is sustained and balance is preserved. But we are in absolute disparity with nature because we savagely consume all of it and give nothing in return, just pollute it.

It all depends on a person’s education, on his environmental education in the first place. But we call this integral education because, in order to change human attitude toward nature and society, it is necessary to change a human being himself.

We live in a society that constantly affects us in a negative way, and we do the same, being driven by our egoism: To consume, to suppress the other, to earn as much as possible—or better yet steal—without giving anything in return. Thus we have to correct both a human being and the entire society.

As a result, we come to a single conclusion: Man needs to be changed. The only source of all the problems in the universe is the human being. Unfortunately, no attention is paid to this issue.

So now we can see how, on the one hand, the crisis puts pressure on us—and it will cleanse everything, but by its firm hand. Nature knows no doubts, it puts pressure so that some species become extinct, and this is what could happen with humanity—everything is heading toward this. We will have to face the “Ice Age” and other environmental and social problems. We see that our imbalance with nature leads us to nothing good.

On the other hand, we have the method in hand that shows how we can nevertheless change the human being and make him an integral part of nature. Then we will be able to see the entire nature: still, vegetative, animal, and speaking like a single organism. By the way, this is also the view of Chinese medicine that treats a human being not as a separate part, but as being integrated into the general system of nature.
[105632]
From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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