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Moving Fast Forward By Running In Place

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Walking the Path of Truth,” Letter 17: …so as to always be a target for you between right and left. This is because there is one who walks who is worse than he who sits idly. It is he who deflects from the road, for the path of truth is a very thin line…

First, we must make sure that we know the right direction so that we can perform actions that aim at the right, accurate, and clarified direction. If I am not sure as to what I must do, it means that I don’t know what the right direction is. If I know what to do, I still must check whether it is the right direction.

It turns out that a person moves by walking not the actual steps, but by clarifying their direction. There are no steps forward as one walks, but only the clarification of the right direction. This means that I advance.

If I am at a certain point where I clarify the direction from it to the Creator, I unite with the Creator at that point. It turns out that I make the right step forward without moving from that place. Then, immediately at that point, new conditions are revealed which I must clarify again as to which way to turn, how to use all the conditions in order to unite, and where I must get to. If I determine how to perform such an action, it means that I have discovered unity at that point, and there is nowhere I must move to.

The steps by which we advance are not by moving, but by determining the point of a more correct attitude, perspective and trend each time, the point of attaining unity and connection, this is actually an attainment along the spiritual path.
[112988]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Penetrating The New World Through The Eye Of A Needle

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Letter 17: For the path of truth is a very thin line that one walks until one comes to the King’s palace.

One who begins to walk at the beginning of the line needs great care so as not to deviate to the right or to the left of the line even as much as a hair’s breadth. This is so because if at first the deviation is as a hair’s breadth, even if one continues completely straight, it is certain that he will no longer come to the King’s palace, as he is not stepping on the true line.

It’s not clear how one can keep the right direction if one has deviated from it once. So this is a very serious warning. How do I know that I have never been wrong before? Is it possible to choose correctly if I am at a certain point now after having made a mistake? Can I find the right direction and advance if I am at the wrong point?

It’s a very uncertain and scary situation. Like all of you, I have made many turns throughout my lifetime. I have been confused and took the wrong direction. So how can I find the right direction after all this? Even if I find it, will it correct all my previous corruptions?

Such questions make our state very uncertain. How can I advance if I don’t know for sure that I have been following the right path? How many times have I gone in the wrong direction?

Hence, one who walks upon the true line of preparing for the work of God (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.) must always test himself to see if he wants the three above aspects equally, as the end of the act is equal with its beginning. If one wants one of them more than the second or the third, then one deflects from the path of truth, and understands this.

This is the meaning of, “Open for me one aperture of repentance, such as the eye of a needle, and I will open for you gates where carts and coaches enter.” Interpretation: the aperture is not for entrance and exit, but to insert the thread for sewing and for work.

Similarly, you are to crave only the commandment of the upper One, to work, and then I will open for you a door such as an entrance to a hall. This is the meaning of the Explicit Name in the verse, “but in every deed (spelled like Hall in Hebrew) as I live and all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

An eye of a needle means worrying about uniting Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one point. We constantly worry only about that and this point becomes smaller and more focused. In order to reach it we have to constantly unite all the 613 attributes, meaning the desires that awaken in us and which are opposite from one another and present different conditions: those of Israel, those of the Torah, and those of the Creator. We need to unite all this into one whole, into unity.

If we can bring all to such unity, it means that we collect everything into one point into an eye of a needle. When we focus ourselves on one point through an optical instrument, we can see an opening in it that leads to a new world.
[112981]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Main Point Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I check that I do not deviate from the right course?

Answer: The course can be checked only according to the principle: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.” All the deviations are only from this unity. There is nothing else to worry about but to clarify this principle precisely as it determines the correct state in every moment of our life. And if we are not in this unity, then we have swerved from the right course.

Check how much everything that happens is connected to one source: You yourself with all your qualities and all the conditions that you received in the group. And the whole world is a small addition to your relationships with the friends. Connect the Creator to all of this.

Everything needs to be focused together as in a gun sight, constantly connecting these three points in your life. Then you will have a correct view of the world, the correct perception. You will see the true world, not a false one.

If you look through a telescope and see people, stars, rocks, plants, animals and their different relationships with each other, you would see the whole world as a kaleidoscope. There, you see the friends and all their problems, as well as your personal problems, as spiritual, internal. The entire picture is inside the kaleidoscope.

And then you start to focus this lens, tighten up its axis, until they all merge into one. That is, you understand that all this comes from the Creator and is sent to you on purpose. There is a system between the Creator and you, consisting of 613 parts, every one of which and all together you need to organize correctly so that between you and the Creator there is only one straight line that connects you, which in the end is reduced to a single point of unity, adhesion!

Everything disappears but this point of adhesion. This means that you created yourself, placed yourself in the correct place, in the correct point. We need to begin to feel our 613 desires and the Light that stands against them and swings them, and if not the Light, at least some forces, sensations, that are perceived closer to unity or further away.

You need to deeply regret if you suddenly don’t feel this unity, feeling as if something has gone wrong in your life. You need to be constantly concerned that this is in order. You will not be able to live without it; this concern will not give you rest.

It would seem that it’s impossible to always be in these thoughts. But this point of unity is special because we don’t need anything else in life but it! Even if you work somewhere, are involved with family, children, home, or various problems, you begin to see that the unity “Israel, the Torah, and Creator” solves any problem and everything calms down and falls into place.

When this unity is achieved, the actions that had to be made disappear. You seemingly perform them to achieve unity. But as soon as it’s achieved with their help, they immediately disappear because this world becomes clothed in the spiritual world.
[112977]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rising Above Reason

Dr. Michael LaitmanFaith above reason” means that a person has pushed the limits of the property of bestowal within himself, exiting himself. Faith is called bestowal, the property of Bina, the Light of Hassadim. When I am on any spiritual degree, in any state, I expand my possibility of bestowal and love. This is called “faith,” which begins to predominate, to prevail over the property of receiving, over egoism. Reason is the Light that we receive that fills our egoistic desire. But faith is the property of bestowal, the condition of spiritual advancement.

After the convention in St. Petersburg in 2013, I heard from many people that “now was the first time we felt that we really achieved something.” Indeed, after this convention we first felt unity, and not everyone by himself, but something common, some common mass that linked each other together, closes everyone in itself. In addition, we have found that there is connection between what happens in us and what we study in the primary sources (partly, in The Book of Zohar, partly in the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash) about the conditions of connecting a person within the group, the conditions of our unity.

All this has become much closer to us. We seem to have confirmed the correctness of our development. This means that we have received new knowledge. And how can we now go in faith above the acquired reason?

In this state, of course I can be happy that I have become convinced of the correctness of my path: that I have a teacher who does not fool me, that I have dispelled my doubts and solved some problems. But I fell into the desire to receive and got a bit of the Light into these desires. On the one hand, it’s good that I have achieved this, it should be so. We must never doubt that what we receive and what we are in is how it should be, and we got it from the Creator. And now another question arises: How can we go further?

Next, I have to close my eyes to everything that I received and advance to faith above reason: to break through to the next level by the fact that I do not want to look at the gained knowledge or to pay attention to everything that exists in me today as a proof of the correctness of the path. I want to move forward with eyes closed, only for the sake of bestowal. This means that I should not think that I have confirmation of the evidence that I am advancing on the right path or whether I have the inner confidence that I am in the right group with the right teacher or not.

If we go by faith, it’s completely different conditions, the opposite of reason. That is, the property of bestowal is opposite of the property of reception, as is the property of the Creator opposite to the property of the created being. So, the next degree that we have to cover, to which we should ascend, is realized not by our reason and not with our confidence, but on the contrary, when we rise above them.

In other words, now I want to go only to the property of bestowal, paying no attention to anything, despite everything I received at the convention, despite the sensation that gave me confidence, the foundation of life. I am interested only in that, and I want to enter in that.
[112969]
From the Virtual Lesson 7/21/13

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