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With The Help Of The Simple Psychology Of Egoism

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is necessary to reach the point when all your life is in the friends, together with them in collective unity where there is no difference between us. Our bodies disappear, and there is only the desire that feels the pleasure from connection and is not torn apart. All the parts not only want to unite but have already adhered to each other and dissolved in general unity, having turned into completely uniform, homogeneous material.

All our features and differences disappear in it because we complete each other so much that we turn into one unit, so much so that I do not care whose hands these are, whose feet, whose brain, whose back. Everything is collective as the image of one person. We begin to feel force within this unity that revives this general image that we have built, which is called the human being, Adam. This animating force is called the Creator.

We need to strive to this and live in it all the time. Every moment we need to seek how to strengthen this form where we come to love the Creator through the love of friends. If, for a moment, I leave this search and do not reinforce this state, I fall immediately. I will not feel this right away, but there is no doubt that I fell. It is possible to move only in one direction or another. There are no fixed states in spirituality. Do not think that you can stop and rest. Whether you want it or not in the spiritual world, it is necessary to feel where you are heading every second: to unity together with everyone or in the opposite direction. It is either one or the other.

Trembling fear is required here, which is the First Commandment, and without which you cannot even hope to advance a bit. If some material goal in this world requires me to change direction—to think about the group, the connection to the Creator to help us carry out this material task—then it already is good because it changes my direction.

At least, I am not directed toward a personal interest but at something collective, together with everyone. This already forces us to remember that we need the Creator because without Him, we will not succeed.

If this does not exist, then stronger blows must be sent to us so that we feel our helplessness, the same as the entire world, and we are compelled to recall that only the Creator can help us. No one else can. The main thing is to change direction. As soon as we do this and begin to work in the correct direction of unity, clarifying what and why we need this connection, we immediately change the goal and means.

First, we needed the Creator to succeed in achieving various external goals, and now we understand that external goals were purposefully placed in front of us in order to frighten us and force us to recall the Creator. Thus, we are awakened on the basis of a simple psychological egoism.

For the time being, it is a purely selfish approach, but it teaches us how not to exit “holiness.” After all, there is holiness even in this connection.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

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The Important Link In The Chain

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe should understand that a descent is an indication of the revelation of the illness, the revelation of evil. Evil is when we have no connection with the Creator who is concealed in our environment, in the group of the spiritual commando. Our efforts to return to the previous feeling of unity has to be focused on the Creator and not just on our connection.

The Creator was absent from our intention. We thought that we could simply connect and thus attain everything. We have lost the last link in this chain, the Creator. Now we have to emphasize this most important component according to the formula: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator,” and realize how important it is since without it there is no mutual guarantee and no covenant; without it nothing can exist!

Now we have the chance to feel the one major component that is missing which sustains everything. This is the reason that we have to gradually lose the feeling of unity and to descend further and further down, only in order to realize how much we need the upper force, which is responsible for our connection and which operates everything. If we think about the Creator, we belong to Him and He takes care of everything and will make sure that we will not exit Holiness.

It says: “For my brothers and my friends I shall speak of peace.” On the one hand, I pray that the Creator should help me with my brothers, and on the other hand, I work with my brothers in order to reveal the Creator, to reach Him and to bring Him contentment. This means that I worry both about the vessel and about the filling.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

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Where Does Life Come From?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to bring the Creator into our unity?

Answer: It’s the feeling that it is impossible to hold on to this unity without the Creator. We are gradually losing it since we lack the cause of all causes, the only force that sustains all of reality. This is what we need!

This is how a person feels himself in this world. We already have to reveal the great system that is outside our childish playground and to understand how it operates, and how the Creator has prepared everything for us. This is called the revelation of the Creator.

It’s time now after having attained and tasted the feeling of unity. Now we have to discover the One who has created and fulfills this unity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

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Freedom And Daily Bread

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if in a moment I am thrown from merit to sin? If in one tipping point, suddenly, everything turns from white to black?

Answer: What merits and sins can you have? All your life you have acted according to your natural instincts like an animal. That is why all the complaints should be directed to the Master who has created you. You have no independence, and you cannot say that you, yourself, have done something bad. Everything is done by the upper force. Soon, you will see this and understand that no one is to blame, and there is no one at which to be angry. Then, you will see a completely different picture.

The problem is that there is no Creator in your life, and thus you attribute some freedom of will to others and yourself, as if you are responsible for your actions. It is like blaming the kids in kindergarten. Is it possible to say that one child is bad and another is good? These all are natural qualities: Some children are aggressive and others are crybabies. Thus nature moves us in order to bring us to the realization of evil, which the Creator made inherent in us.

We must go through many blows and then the Creator gradually will explain that He did so, so we would want to get rid of our nature with which we were created. The Creator plays with us because, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him.” Do you think that you act yourself, instead of Him?

People are used to what is written in books: “your sins,” “your merits.” Our task is to explain this in a more understandable way because the time has come when the true meaning of these words can be revealed. However, these are not your sins and transgressions. It is not you who made and caused them. You did not choose the qualities with which to be born. We are all puppets, from Hitler and to the greatest saints of the world.

However, these puppets get an addition at some point, a drop of the opposite property, and then they change their aspirations according to this new property: They seek bestowal and begin to study without understanding why they study. The study determines the goal for them and this also is established by the Creator.

However, after these two opposite properties are determined in them, one against the other, reception and bestowal, they begin to find the opportunity for independent work in the middle line, between them. It is a special feeling that you soon reach, and then you will know how to build yourself from these two properties, the left and right lines. You will understand that both these lines are required.

The Creator will help you to connect them together, to understand what the drop of the semen of bestowal is and how to add to it more, cell by cell, a new understanding, sensing the concepts, teaching us how to grow this material.

It is clear that the Light does all the work, working on new material. The Light and desire meet and their mixture rises like dough, but I cause this myself. I understand and feel how it happens. This is my creation, like from a piece of dough. I take a handful of flour and add the exact amount of water to it, no more and no less. At first, it seems that there is not enough water and I must work hard kneading my dough, but, in the end, it will be ready to be put in the oven and baked!

Thus, these two ingredients, flour and water, are turned into the “poor man’s bread” (Matzah). From the point of the desire to enjoy, it is simple bread, and nothing more is needed, and above it, everything is open. Freedom is opened.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/13, The Zohar

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The Depressed Generation

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from DailyMail): “The use of antidepressant medication in the UK has increased five-fold since 1991, new data reveals. It also showed that the use of such drugs had increased by 20 per cent each year across Europe over a similar period. This increase in uptake across Europe was found to have coincided with a gradual decline in suicide rates. …

“Between 1995 and 2009, the use of antidepressants across Europe increased by almost 20 per cent per year on average, with a corresponding 0.8 per cent annual reduction in the suicide rate.

“Sweden, Norway and Slovakia have seen the largest growth in antidepressant usage with an 1000 per cent increase in Sweden’s case between 1980 and 2009 – while the lowest growths have been recorded in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bulgaria, France and Luxembourg.

“The United Kingdom has recorded a five-fold increase (495 per cent) in the use of antidepressants since 1991 and a 14 per cent fall in suicide rates over the same period.”

My Comment: Everything is heading towards legalizing drugs. This is the only thing that can explain strong anti-smoking advertising: drugs instead of regular cigarettes. The elite is concerned about how to calm the population.
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In The Center Of The Void

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is a force that operates inside us, in the desire to receive, in the whole creation, in Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity), and our goal is to discover this force. We suddenly begin to feel that there are certain voids inside us and that we don’t know what to do with them. We cannot fill them by ourselves or control them. This feeling of helplessness and powerlessness repeats time after time and becomes increasingly clearer.

We understand that we have to solve the problem, but we understand more clearly that we cannot do that since it’s beyond our powers. We go through different feelings and states and cannot hold on to them. We can cry out to the friends, try to perform certain actions, but nothing helps.

We feel helpless as if facing fate and the upper force, and so we understand that we need the presence of the upper force, the force that operates the whole universe. It has to start operating and performing what we cannot do, to control all the voids that were created between us and in which we feel that we are drawing away from one another and that our feelings are cooling down.

It seems that the Creator must control this state, since we cannot hold on to it. This demand already focuses us on the Creator. This is how we acquire experience and the awareness that the void, the chilling down, the detachment, the created empty spaces that didn’t exist before the descents, are all meant to create a new space for the Creator.

Later you feel that there is nothing but these voids! All of reality that is revealed to a greater extent is actually an empty space. If the Creator doesn’t feel it, it will disappear, since you have no control. The only control you have is to obligate the Creator to control.

You are in the center of reality, in the black middle point, and reality continues to expand. This void develops to the dimensions of the whole universe, swallows you and you totally disappear in it. The illumination of the empty Malchut that we feel is a very scary feeling. So you simply must have this void filled by the Creator.

Thus you thank the Creator for having awakened you to get closer by evoking the feeling of detachment in you. This is the state we are in after the convention. If we don’t want the convention to end, we have to forcefully keep the Creator, the operating force, in this picture and to try to connect “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” equally like three partners.

We forget about that and think that the main thing is Israel, which means us. But if we don’t worry about all three conditions, we are not called “Israel!” We want something to happen in our unity and that is right, but what is lacking is keeping ourselves forcefully in these three conditions. We don’t feel the Creator that must be between us, like a root that we have to reach. We don’t always remember the Light that Reforms, the Torah that has to bring us to love. Besides we have to clarify what exactly love is and to what extent it is mutual devotion and the devotion of all of us to the Creator.

These are all important issues that we have to process and to clarify. Their clarification is to constantly search where Israel that yearns for the Creator is in the connection among us. What is the Creator that we yearn for? What is the Torah and how does it operate on us? What should we do so that it will operate on us so by its bestowal we will discover the Creator’s image among us and take on His form?

We have to work on that and it will seem more vague, unclear, and crumbling each time. The Creator will let us feel more and more detached each time so we will fill the empty space, the bigger and wider circle, the inner emptiness, with the Creator’s presence.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/13

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the meaning of an empty void and how can we obligate the Creator to control it?

Answer: An empty void means that I don’t control it. The control can be mine, as Pharaoh says: “I will rule,” or it can be the Creator’s control. It’s one of the two and there is no third option.

And empty void means that I surrender; I cannot do anything. This is what happened in the convention, where there was a special feeling of unity, of connection, and of power. It was a very pleasant elated feeling, as if spiritual. But suddenly we begin to understand that it wasn’t just a corporeal feeling that was simply nice and pleasant.

It’s true that it was interesting and powerful and that we felt together and everyone stopped feeling himself and enjoyed the feeling of being incorporated in others, but where is spirituality in all that? From the new state we begin to examine things and see that perhaps there was nothing spiritual about it, but that we were just having a good time.

This means that now we feel the previous state as an empty void, a qualitative empty void. We understand that it wasn’t very spiritual since the unity of “Israel, the Torah, and Creator” was lacking in it and especially the Creator. We discover that we must bring the presence of the Creator into that state and to fill with His presence all the empty voids that are revealed.

It’s just like a child who is given more and more complicated, challenging games that force him to think and to understand, to know and to ask questions. He must develop and penetrate things and clarify what is lacking and how to fill it. This is how he advances.

So a fall is not a descent, but a revelation of areas that are meant for the spiritual filling. We have to work in order to fill them. First we have to see that we cannot control the feeling in these places of regression. But before that we have to make every possible effort, in order to find out that we are helpless. If the connection is still important to us, we will feel that we need the Creator’s help.

There are several levels here. Do we yearn for the same connection we had before or are we grateful that we don’t feel it now since we need the revelation of the Creator now?

But what does the “revelation of the Creator” mean to us? Do we perceive it as the force of bestowal that obligates us to be more devoted to everyone else, since by this devotion we bring the host greater pleasure? This is already the process of clarification. We are in a good state and we have to understand the process. The main thing is to be just as grateful for the bad as for the good.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/13

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Now There Is Already Someone To Ask!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we yearn for bestowal, we have to check ourselves and what our demands are, how pure they are, and that they are without an intention for self-benefit. We have to do it now when we have received an additional desire and have to add the force of the intention and the force of our concentration for the work. We have to try to reach the right request without mixing it with our private requests and with our ego that has now awakened in us with the desire to benefit from the work we have done for the good of our desire to receive.

Everything has to be focused only on bestowal, so that we will not even want to know that we bestow. The reason is that the actual understanding is already our payment and our reward. We want all the payment for the efforts we have made to be aimed at bestowal. Then it will be a true Returning Light.

We have to constantly fear not to receive any reward for our efforts, so that all our intentions and actions, the bestowal upon the group and the environment, and our prayer will all be external to our body. We have to greatly fear that it will not come back to us and to guard ourselves from it. Thus we build a Masach (screen) above ourselves that first protects us from the reward so that it will not come back into our desire to receive.

If we can constantly do that and feel sure that we can keep the covenant on the previous level, not thinking about receiving, we can already begin to do another kind of work and to yearn to increase our bestowal. Thus we work in both directions. On the one hand, we guard the wall that doesn’t let any self-benefit enter our body, our desires. On the other hand, we increase our bestowal outside ourselves.

This is actually the same direction thanks to which the image of the one who bestows is revealed in us. It’s thanks to this guarding that doesn’t allow any self-benefit, guarding above our personal desires, that the desires begin to take on new forms and concern about attaining the goal. We have to guard them very well so they will not receive any response from our work of in order to bestow.

As a result of this work of restricting our desires and expanding the desire to bestow, we begin to form the image of the one who bestows inside us, the image of the Creator. Then we already begin to understand what bestowal is and what altruistic actions are. We begin to acknowledge the force of bestowal as the first, elementary, primary force that revives all of creation.

Then we already have someone to ask, whom to turn to in our prayer. First this sublime image did not exist in us and we used to imagine different things without any real basis. Now, there is already a basis, and the image by which we can understand that “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” There is already a direction from us to the image of the one who bestows. This is how a person advances.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/13, Writings of Rabash

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Your Own Eyes Will See The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash: “Make Haste My Beloved”: Therefore when one prays for the general, he engages in bestowal by this prayer. And the more he prays, the vessel of bestowal is formed to the same extent, so that the Light of bestowal, called “merciful” can be revealed.

We don’t know how it happens. We have troubling thoughts only about ourselves and we cannot think about anything else. We read and hear that we have to think about the group, about the environment, about the friends, but we don’t have the power to do so.

Sometimes we succeed but mostly we don’t. We may remember for a couple of minutes that we should think about others, but then we suddenly encounter some personal problem which troubles us more than anything else and deviates us from the love of friends, the Creator, and the next world.

We see that what we go through now in this world, the need to solve a certain problem that has come up, is the most important thing for us. Sometimes we cannot get rid of such thoughts for months and sometimes we are occupied with them for years and they cause us great pain.

This is how the Creator teaches us and reveals to us our true state. He gives us the accurate standard by which we can evaluate the state we are in: What thoughts and desires we have, what matter we are made of, which means what exactly the desire to receive is. Thus we learn about our matter and how deeply immersed we are in troubling thoughts about ourselves that come up one after another and constantly occupy us. We keep returning to them and cannot do anything about it.

Sometimes they occupy us more and we are totally immersed in our concern about ourselves. Sometimes this pressure decreases and we understand that all these problems were given to us on purpose in order to teach us to resist them and not to dedicate our whole life to them. Sometimes we feel that all these problems are supposed to push us to other thoughts: about the goal of life and its meaning instead of being immersed in our small worries about our corporeal existence. After all, no real disaster ever happens.

Still, we cannot get rid of these egoistic thoughts. This is how the Creator teaches a person and it’s about that that it says “make haste my beloved.” We don’t feel the importance of the Creator anymore, the greatness of the goal. We wake up in the middle of the night troubled with our eternal personal problems and cannot get rid of them. They simply give us no rest.

We turn to the group for help, to the friends, and don’t know what else we can do. Thanks to the fact that we are among friends and participate in their activities, we finally understand, after all these efforts, that everything that happens is a game from above by which we have to learn how we are being played with from above. We see that the Creator trains us and wants to reveal to us the uppermost importance of the spiritual development by doing it.

We suddenly begin to feel that the thoughts about the friends are more important to us than all the troubling thoughts about ourselves. On the basis of these thoughts we can examine and measure how important the spiritual goal is, which means bestowal upon others, thinking about the friends and worrying about all of humanity. It is compared to the troubling thoughts that we get a chance to assess whether we can hold ourselves above them to the same extent, and worry about the good of others and the Creator.

We understand that this process is essential so that we will finally understand the importance of our spiritual advancement, of the spiritual goal. After all, spirituality has no form, no picture, no image; we form the spiritual world by ourselves, like a wrapping that is made of the intention of in order to bestow above our corporeal life. It’s as if we change the world into an opposite world and thus build the spiritual world.

It’s as if the spiritual world does not exist before we build it with regard to the person who attains it. It turns out that it’s actually above the troubling egoistic thoughts about ourselves and struggling with the problems that we have a chance to build the spiritual form that is fulfilled in us. This is why it says “your own eyes will see and not a foreigner’s eyes.” Only then will those who can face all the obstacles and overcome them—and by them learn how to build the cover of bestowal on top of all our corporeal reality—turn it into our spirituality to see the Creator.

Then we see that life has no meaning by itself. This world is only an illusion that was created on purpose so we would be able to build the real eternal spiritual world on top of it.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/13

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