Audio Version Of The Blog – 6.14.13

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-06-14_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’14.6.13′]

Whom We Correct

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam “Peace in the World”: Everything is evaluated not by its appearance at a given moment, but according to its measure of development. Everything in reality, good and bad, and even the most harmful in the world, has a right to exist and should not be eradicated from the world and destroyed. We must only mend and reform it because any observation of the work of Creation is enough to teach us about the greatness and perfection of its operator and Creator.

From here clear and far-reaching conclusions can be made. Everything that happens in the world at every moment comes from the single source, from the Creator. I correct only my own perception, my own vision. Moreover, I correct it in only one direction: to achieve bestowal fully. Thus I discover the world, which is less distorted by my nature, more complete; I see that this is its true, immutable form.

Question: If we correct only our perception of the world, then why do we need to disseminate among other people?

Answer: I want to bring them closer to the goal through dissemination. In fact, they are parts of my soul. The whole world is parts of my soul, and I work with them twofold: on the one hand, I carry the Light to them, and on the other hand, I create the condition for them to get closer to me. The main thing is that thanks to these two actions, directly and “through the back door,” alternating them we unite, and eventually I return all the parts of my soul.

This is the way I have to look at the world, including the still, vegetative, and animate nature. All reality is the essence of my soul, a unified desire. It’s revealed to me now because by definition, I cannot feel anything but it. The desire is my “sensitive material,” and I need only to reveal its reality correctly. I work on that, on correcting my own perception.

How? According to the principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Why? I do so because now parts of my ego, which distort the picture of the world, seem remote to me, often disgusting, opposite, and I have to correct my perception.

Thus, in the end, I correct only myself. That is why Baal HaSulam writes that even bad things should be not destroyed, but corrected. Now they are bad, hateful in my eyes, and when I correct my vision, my attitude, they will become good and useful for me.

It’s impossible to correct anything in the world, but oneself. We already see that this brings only harm. And hence it’s necessary to understand that all the corrections, all the positive changes, are realized precisely in our attitude.

Even if I see the most evil person in front of me, I need to correct myself so that he ceases to do harm. You can destroy someone only if he wants to stop my action of correction, meaning to kill me. Thus, he leaves me no choice, and in this case it will also be a correction. However, while I have a different solution, I must act, work on correction, so that evil is eliminated from the world.

Question: Still, why do we tell people about the integral methodology as if we want to convince them of something?

Answer: Because in this manner we assure the correction of ourselves. To whom do I explain the method? I explain to the parts of my soul. However, I do not correct them, but just give them a tool to correct themselves. And for me, this is self-correction.

We must imagine a system where my parts are outside of me, and that is why I can correct them in this way. I do not destroy or suppress them, but pass the method of correction by gentle explanations. I care about them to the extent of how much they are able to use it, and to the extent of their inability, I create the conditions for them to get closer to me. However, I do not pull them by force, do not demand obedience. After all, we are separated by the evil inclination and I have to correct it. In other words, I do so and they approach me, in spite of mutual rejection. And thus, I return them to the source.

We have to think about this picture. An evil motive penetrated the unified desire, broke it into pieces and scattered them in different directions. Now, when instead of belonging to one whole, we experience oppositeness, hatred; we need to understand how we transform this separation into unity; in the new power of our unity, we need to understand why we start correction in this way, preserving everyone’s uniqueness. I have to protect the egoistic desire. It’s like the “Angel of Death” that will turn into the “Pure Angel.” Without it, the whole creation is worthless.
[109564]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Genuine Dissemination
Responsible For Humanity
To Correct The World Means To Correct Ourselves

Choose Who You Prefer to Be: A Sinner Or A Righteous

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati No. 99, “He Did Not Say Wicked or Righteous”: …if one does not have any desire and craving for spirituality, if he is among people who have a desire for spirituality, if he likes these people, he, too, will take their strength to prevail and their desires and aspirations, although by his own quality, he does not have these desires and cravings and the power to overcome. But according to the grace and the importance he ascribes to these people, he will receive new powers.

This means that we are capable of controlling our lives and advancing to the goal. First of all, one has to clarify if the goal is really worth sacrificing one’s life for. This life will not repeat. It’s impossible to try, then get disappointed in the goal and start living anew. It will not happen.

So, one has to check diligently whether it’s worth spending one’s life for and then join the company of the people who exercise, share, and cherish the same aspirations. It will allow us to obtain this aspiration from them, meaning that we regard our goal as something great and have the energy to attain it.

After choosing the goal, one should select the environment that is able to empower him to attain the goal. After that, one starts working on making his environment pleasant for himself. The more one gets inspired from one’s surrounding (from his friends’ advancement and from the importance of their activities) the more one manages to diminish oneself and become subordinate to one’s friends’ influence, the more one acquires energy and inspiration to attain the goal and will by all means achieve it.

Consequently, after we choose the goal and the corresponding environment, all our subsequent work is only about getting as much impact and stimulus from the environment as possible. Without it, we won’t have any energy; we will be “tossed” up and down. We will waste lots of time by uselessly swinging up and down and being in foggy states. It’s called “not a day, not a night.” Thus, we won’t even notice how our lives will end.

So, the most important thing is to cling to our friends, stick to them, get a “warm spot” next to them and nourish ourselves with the importance of the goal. This is how relationships of a person with the society and one’s duties in regard to others are outlined. It’s necessary to enhance the society not by enlarging it in quantity, but qualitatively. Beyond everything else, we should pretend and demonstrate to our friends how precious our goal is and how important our environment is to us. We should set an example to others of how to diminish ourselves in front of the group and in regard to our goal. Rabash described all of the above conditions as essential laws that should be used to create a group in order to empower each friend with enough energy to attain the goal.

All depends on the “attractiveness” of the group in one’s eyes. This is what one has to work on. That’s why it is written: “It would be better if I was forgotten, but my Torah would be treasured, since Its Light Reforms.” The Light works within the connection among people. So, please leave the Creator alone, since He will reveal Himself as soon as we manage to establish a correct connection among us.

I recommend everybody to talk about this issue in the evening with their families. A short conversation and reading of a small portion is quite enough, but it’s very important for everybody, for women in their circles and for the kids.
[109561]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/13

Related Material:
Prepare Seriously Or Have Fun, You Decide!
The Only Method To Change Oneself
Keeping The Environment Up High

Throw All The Power Toward The Main Matter

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe first time there was a truly egoistic alienation between people—the desire to separate—was in ancient Babylon. Egoism grew, and this was the reason why people began to distance themselves from others. As they say, they no longer understood each other. It was then that the wisdom of Kabbalah appeared.

It was revealed to one of the priests in ancient Babylon, Abraham, who discovered our dependence on egoism and understood that this egoism started developing on purpose. That was when it abruptly appeared, causing all the nations from ancient Mesopotamia to disperse around the world.

Then the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed which basically said that people must unite in spite of egoism. This is very difficult and beyond human abilities, but we need to understand that this is the challenge of nature, and we need to act in this way. “If we unite and keep the same unity that we had before the outbreak of egoism,” Abraham preached, “then, all the time, we will rise above egoism. As it grows, we will maintain unity and rise higher.”

So, it is said in the primary sources that in the past all people were like one family. Everyone spoke the same language, everyone understood each other, and everyone was close to each other. They lived a simple life and ate the same food. Even if someone was richer and the other poorer, this was not reflected much in their way of life. Everyone ate dried fish (it was in abundance in Mesopotamia), bread, onions, garlic, and some dairy products. That is all in general. That was all they had, but everyone had it. That is, people had little concern about how to feed themselves. The land was fertile, everything was good, and everyone lived in the same way until the outbreak of egoism.

That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah, revealed by Abraham, is based on the fact that people practically have to live the same way, satisfying their natural needs in the form that the body demands, that is, normally, rationally, and everything else, all the other forces, they should apply to ascend above their egoism.

Abraham spoke about the egoism that began to rise and grow rapidly. It drew someone into business and another one into something else. Everyone wanted to be more than the others, better than others, stronger, more important, and so on. “We must, on the contrary, remain at the same level,” Abraham said, “or, quite possibly, rise, but at the same time in order to improve our life, but equally in order to be a community, as a family.” People in a family care about everyone equally so that everyone has what he needs relative to his requirements, and, for all the rest, forces are to be applied only to rise above egoism. This attitude toward our development is the basis of Kabbalah.

However, the majority did not listen to Abraham and they followed the egoistic path of development with the exception of the group of people that he had gathered. It was ruled by the laws of bestowal. People provided each other with the necessary things, and at the same time, everyone ascended according to his abilities, and all the other forces were invested in being interconnected with others. If people act in this way, then the upper force of nature (we can call it the Creator) begins to be revealed in the relationships between them, and then they sense the next level of existence—not the still, vegetative, and animate nature that we feel today, constantly caring about the well-being of the body, its pleasures, satisfaction, comfort—but the next level.

This level is called the “human” or “Adam,” from the word “similar” (Domeh), similar to the Creator, to the upper force, the force of bestowal and love, which is actually inside nature that manages, drives, and develops it. This is what was discovered then and what was hidden for thousands of years and is beginning to be revealed again today.

The last Kabbalists of our time are Baal HaSulam, Rabash, you and me. Moreover, we are not just revealing it as they did. We are beginning to realize it, and, of course, the realization is carried out not from the level of ancient Babylon where people were like one family on the same level. Then, perhaps everything was simple but obviously further history was to be different.

Humanity needs to develop its egoism and develop it well up to the realization that it really is ruining us. Instead of all the goods that it had promised us, we find ourselves lost, defective, having achieved nothing. We try to live better and in the end spend all those years on this, all those opportunities that we have in this state, in our lives.

So today, we start with a completely different level, an egoistic, complete, final level of the world’s development. Actually, egoism will grow much more, but on the next level, people already will begin to be engaged in unity and proceed to the next stage of development.
[109849]
From the Talk before the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/12/13

Related Material:
The World Is Ready To Hear
Looking At The Same “Window” Together
Do Not Wish Any Harm To Others

A Person’s Private Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean: “…but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,  thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates…?”

Answer: These are a person’s private desires; my cattle, my manservant, etc. are all levels of my desires and they are inside me. They are the only thing I am responsible for.

Question: Is the correction done from the most complicated to the easiest?

Answer: No, it is fulfilled by being integrated with all the desires on every spiritual level. You cannot correct one part more and another part less, so the work is done both with the “manservant” and the “cattle,” with all the desires and in every condition! Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, and Hod have to correspond with one another and it has to be one unit.

One enters the other and thus a week comes to an end. The following week is the next unit. You receive a new “package,” which you have to correct, a new revelation of your attributes.
[109771]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13

Related Material:
Eternal Sabbath
The Light Of The Seventh Day
Saturday As The Result Of Corrections

“Honor Thy Father And Thy Mother”

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, Exodus 20:12:”Honor thy father and thy mother:  that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee”

Question: The commandment of “honor thy father and thy mother”‘ is accepted literally by humanity, how can we explain it?

Answer: The point is that the “father” and “mother” that are mentioned in the Ten Commandments have nothing to do with our corporeal father and mother but rather belong to two special systems.

“Father” is the attribute of Hochma from which the Light of Hochma stems, the Light of life.  “Mother” is the attribute of Bina from which all the worries stem. These Lights are opposite to each other and mutually complement one another. The Light of “Father” is white and it gives a person brains, courage, and power. The light of “Mother” gives him softness, connections, and a right attitude towards others. Revealed in this Light is love and the ability to feel others, etc.

“Honor” means to look at how “Father” and “Mother” integrate these forces correctly. The force of “Father” and the tenderness of “Mother” enter one another and you should do the exact same thing inside you, integrating these attributes.

“… so that thy days may be long upon the land,” means that such an integration has to be done with “the land”‘ which means with your ego, with your desire. You will not be able to easily exist with it.

On the whole it is all very simple. We must understand that it all refers to our nature and tells us about how we should correct it. What else can we speak about? About life in this world? It ends in any case. Here we speak about how we should rise to the next level and start to live in a totally different dimension while still here in this world.
[109768]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13

Related Material:
The General Plan And Every Step Along The Way
The Vessel Of Knowledge
Turn On The Faucet To The Pipe Of Light

The Integral Method: Present And Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday, many people already want to hear about the method of integral education. Just in the last year or two, many people are willing to listen because they are becoming aware that they are like lost children. A lost child is standing and crying, not knowing what to do. They imagine themselves in this form already today and clearly so.

That is why we have to master the method of integral interaction, to understand what it is, how to implement it, and try to realize it between us as much as possible. We do not have common economic, cultural, political and other relations, there is just human relationship. And it opens the way for us.

In addition, as you know, we are trying to access various structures and organizations: schools, educational institutions, businesses, colleges, universities, etc., where the need for it is felt. After all, the crisis in relations between adults, between children is manifested, and it is already obvious how big this problem is. For example, the family institution is disintegrating, divorces and the number of single people are on the rise, and so on. We can already gradually introduce the integral methodology here and there. Moreover, it turns out that our method starts to live from the very first class, from the first presentation. People immediately begin to realize that it has some special power, a special “miracle” even. It is manifested so much that they see that here they can really achieve miraculous changes.

We notice this especially in the groups in the European part of Russia, we see this partially in the United States, we see this in Israel. But of course, it is not enough. We need to expand and try to further this integral methodology into life wherever possible. Gradually, we will learn and will be able to show others that with its help it is possible to save regions, countries, and the whole world from a serious crisis.

We live with this today, trying very much to accelerate the pace of our development in integral education and upbringing to include various regions, countries, even civilizations in this work, for example, Western, Eastern, and Asian. Each region has its own problems. On the one hand, the “heaviest” one is Eastern Europe—really, to this day, it is very difficult to talk to them. It is a bit easier in America; the Americans respect news, business suggestions, all kinds of coaching and training. They are happy to do this, and it might be easier there.

Russians are also used to all kinds of innovations, and in general people are prepared for them. It is easier here, although egoism is serious here as well. Perhaps, due to this increased egoism, which is manifested sooner, it will be easier for us to talk to people. After all, business managers see that the relationships between employees lowers productivity so much that there is nothing they can do. In addition, social issues are bigger here, in the European part.

In general, I think that the situation is a bit different here in this region, Krasnoyarsk, and the whole of Siberia, Russia’s territory beyond the Ural is less egoistic. It is very different from the western part of Russia, and especially from Western Europe and North America. Nature acts in different ways here, and that is why it could be opposite: On the one hand, people do not feel so egoistic yet as to discover that their egoism is to blame for everything, and on the other hand, they may be inclined towards getting closer with each other, and it makes our task easier.

In any case, no matter how it manifests itself, it is important that this region, I think, is favorable for implementing the method of integral education and upbringing. There is a different atmosphere, different relations between people, they are more trusting, it seems to me, more peaceful. So if we do this here together, we will succeed in spite of vast distances.

But first of course, we need to have a good course of integral education and upbringing, and then organize a demonstration classes, and workshops for businesses, in schools, in other institutions, in various forms. Thus, serious work in the entire region is required to do that.

Overall, we are pioneers. We have to develop this method to apply to modern humanity. You know what Baal HaSulam wrote; you know what Rabash wrote. And the rest we have developed over the last decade, especially in the last few years. Kabbalah can be described more clearly every time

The interaction between us, the applicability of this science to the connection between us in every way, it does not exist anywhere else, it was not described earlier. Just knowing the method of my teachers, I develop it further. In principle, I speak of nothing new. What seems like something new is actually the application of their ideas to the current state of humanity.

So, we will have to develop this method together with regard to your region.
[109843]
From the Talk before the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/1/13

Related Material:
What You Cannot Learn From Nature
Understanding The Integral Method
Form Your Future Yourself!

Who Can Rethink This World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Yehuda Elkana, distinguished historian and philosopher of science, former President and Rector of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary): “We face the following problem: our science, technology, medicine, governance, and economy in our global world have become so advanced and so complex, that we need all the energy to produce carriers of knowledge on the highest level who not only are technically equipped to cope with what is there, but who can also find the appropriate measures for dealing with crisis-like emergencies in ecology, epidemics, famine, and destitution… . In other words we need many ‘experts’ who do more of the same, instead of rethinking the foundations. Yet it is indispensable to find the few thousands of intellectuals all around the globe who will rethink the world, discipline by discipline and problem area by problem area.”

My Comment: Intellectuals who are able to rethink our world are the Kabbalists and no one else! After all, we for the first time in history have reached the insolubility of accumulated problems. And problems are in everything we are engaged with in our world. They cannot be solved through external changes and mechanisms (new technologies, economic or social reforms, wars and revolutions) but through demanding inner changes—the changes of the human himself—changing his attitude towards himself, others, the world, instead of devouring our world (himself, society, nature) to taking care of everyone and everything.

In this case, people will come to the rational use of resources and consumption and to kind communication. This change is possible in a person only by means of Integral Education. The solution to the crisis is in the realization of the project of the implementation of Integral Education.
[109740]

Related Material:
To Change A Person
Global Crisis Solution: Change Yourself To Fit The World
Humanity’s Global Problems

Questions About North American Groups And Women’s Groups of Ten

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The group in Israel has been advancing with you for much longer than the groups in North America. What can we do in North America to catch up with them?

Answer: Carry out what I say and then we will keep pace. To do this, you should take example from and work together with Israeli groups. If the group is moving forward, I am ready to engage in their process immediately.

Question: Do you allow or recommend women’s groups of ten in the world women’s group?

Answer: I recommend being in groups of five to ten, but the main thing is to be connected daily to discuss the daily topic and to support each other.
[109646]

Related Material:
Glasses To Correct Spiritual Vision
A Special Invitation For Our Students In The U.S.
Now That You Have The Method, Pass It Forward

Convention In Krasnoyarsk Day One – 06.14.13

Convention in Krasnoyarsk, “We’re All One Family,” Day One, Lesson 1

[media 1]   [media 2]

Convention in Krasnoyarsk, “We’re All One Family,” Day One, Workshop 1

[media 3]   [media 4]

Convention in Krasnoyarsk, Day One, Lesson 2

[media 5]   [media 6]

Convention in Krasnoyarsk, Day One, Workshop 2

[media 7]   [media 8]