Audio Version Of The Blog – 08.02.13

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Buying A Place Next To The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhile reading The Zohar we have to try to find the contact between us and to feel the upper force in this contact. Our connection will become the vessel for the revelation of the contact with the Creator.

If I try to connect with the friends, I already establish a vessel above reason, since according to my reason, I am not connected to anyone, and I don’t need to be connected to anyone; I am by myself and it’s as if everyone else doesn’t exist. If I believe that the connection between us is more important than me, I already rise above my reason, above my desire.

So even if the connection between us has not reached the level of true bestowal yet, it has already received a certain form above a person’s individual ego. So to this extent, he is already awarded with an illumination from above with the bestowal of the Light.

There is no other means in our world to come near the Light, to become similar to it, to become adapted to it, so that the Light will begin to influence us, but by connecting to others above my reason. This action is already arranged for us so that we can perform it. We can fulfill it in different ways. We have the support of the environment. This means that everything is arranged on the lowest corporeal level: You have friends and a group, so just do it!

No one can claim that he wasn’t given a chance to advance. If a person places himself in the group as the simplest, smallest, most humble member, then by this simple corporeal action he can already begin his spiritual ascent even without a special mind, without feeling, and without any information about the spiritual advancement. He doesn’t have to do anything except serve the group. This is the real form of Malchut of Nukva (the female part of the created being). If she serves, helps, supports, and does her husband’s will, she “buys” her place next to him. We have to do the same with regard to the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/13, The Book of Zohar — Introduction

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The Root Of The Spiritual Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe root of spiritual work is in finding the basis of the Creator’s actions on us. The moment we reveal that the Creator is everywhere, that He is the founder and the one who sustains everything, we actually begin to work in understanding and recognizing this. This understanding and recognition are above reason in new vessels and not in the vessels that we have now.

So our ascent up the levels of revelation is the revelation of the upper Providence and the understanding that the Creator has arranged and fixed all the events and is the cause for everything that happens. The higher we ascend the ladder of attainment, the more deeply we discover our roots by looking backwards at the entire way we ascended up to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

Each time we discover that every event has a much deeper root than we thought. Every action, even the smallest one, and every state has a thousand different reasons that are connected to a thousand other important actions that affect the very foundations of creation.

It seems to us that we go through different individual events and incidents in our relationships with the friends, with the group, with the outside world, with our family, with ourselves, but suddenly we discover how all this, including the smallest details, are connected to all of reality, to thousands of years of evolution in our world, to other life cycles, to the elements of the universe, of all creation, above all the worlds.

Thus from the “front” we perceive the “posterior,” and from the “posterior” we perceive the “front.” With this mutual support—as it says, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before”—we reveal His direct and indirect control. A person yearns for the “front” and the “posterior is revealed,” then the “front” is revealed, and thus the Light of Hassadim and the Light of Hochma are revealed to him one inside the other in the new vessels, and he attains his roots.

From the roots, he already attains the one who implements them, who establishes and fixes them, which means, the Creator, as it says: “From Your actions we shall know You.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Zohar: The Management Program Of The “Computer” Of Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “The Night of the Bride,” Item 145: The word HaVaYaH is written six times, and there are six verses from “the Heavens declare” and until “The Creator’s Torah is perfect” (Tehilim [Psalms], 19:2-8). And this is the secret of the word BERESHEET, which consists of six letters: “THE CREATOR CREATED ET (THE) HEAVENS AND THE EARTH,” six words in all.

The Zohar explains the program: “There is a program before you. Read it, talk about it, and discuss it. Those who can, remember it, and those who cannot, forget it; it doesn’t matter. Work with it. In any case you will not understand it. But by engaging in this program by reading about it and wanting to know what it is and what it speaks about, you are gradually putting it together inside you in your vessels, in your discernments.”

This is why we read about the operating program. It dresses in us to the extent that we want it to be dressed in us. The text itself helps us be somehow connected to that program.

There are different souls. For the first generation a program that was written in the form of the Torah was enough, the generations that followed needed additions, the Prophets, the Mishna, Gemarah, and then more and more new books. On the whole, however, they all explain the initial program, the five books of the Torah, by helping us want to put this program together in us so that we will actually begin to operate according to this program.

Question: If we follow the analogy of the computer and the program, then the hardware is our desire to receive. What does the program do with the desire to receive, how does it operate it differently?

Answer: In our case the hardware, the desire to receive, doesn’t change. It remains the same. Judging by the hardware, the computer is perfect. The whole difference between the programs is in the connections, in their numbers, in their ability to connect.

The software only connects all the computer parts, gives each memory cell a number, according to its importance, and connects all the cells. Accordingly, each memory cell contains certain information and they are all connected according to a certain order. This order can also change but it’s all part of the same software.

This is all we actually have. All the cells now contain one and zero and it’s up to the connection between these cells. This is life, this is the whole software, the whole operating program, and everything there is. We don’t take the actual memory cells into account, not the zero and the one in each cell. What is important and what determines things is the order of the connection between them and the dynamics of the mutual connections that constantly change, since this is what determines the flow of information that is felt in us as the flow of life. The same thing happens in our body now.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/13, The Book of Zohar — Introduction

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Clarifications And Examinations In A Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that we need to develop sensitivity to the group and to be included in it. What clarifications bring the person to ascend to a higher level in a group?

Answer: The clarification is that the group is found above me, that it becomes my next level. And if I connect with the friends within it, melt completely into them, then this will be my next spiritual state.

And after this, even more ego will be added to me and I will again feel that the group and I are two different states, two different elements, and again there will be a need to work on the connection. In this manner I will rise to the next spiritual state.

We rise only in a form like this until we begin to feel the entire creation as one complete unit. And to this degree, according to the law of equivalence of form, we will feel the discovery of the Creator.

But as long as I have never connected to the group, even on the most minimal level, I still don’t feel the Creator even on the first level.

Question: A person needs to give himself to the group. How does this help him to make clarifications?

Answer: The clarifications are about this: The group becomes his next level. And if he connects with the group (it makes no difference how it seems to him), nullifies himself and mixes with it, there he will find the Creator. It is possible to do this through all kinds of work in a group: studying, disseminating, gatherings of friends, and so forth, in everything that we do.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, Shamati #59 “About the Rod and Serpent”

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Serving A Noble Purpose Is Healthier

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The University of North Carolina): “’We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically. At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose,” according to new research led by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“The sense of well-being derived from ‘a noble purpose’ may provide cellular health benefits, whereas ‘simple self-gratification’ may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found. …

“’Philosophers have long distinguished two basic forms of well-being: a ‘hedonic’ [hee-DON-ic] [egoistic] form representing an individual’s pleasurable experiences, and a deeper ‘eudaimonic,’ [u-DY-moh-nick] [altruistic] form that results from striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification,’ wrote Fredrickson and her colleagues.

“Collaborating with a team from the University of California at Los Angeles  led by Steven W. Cole, professor of medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Fredrickson and her colleagues looked at the biological influence of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being through the human genome. They were interested in the pattern of gene expression within people’s immune cells.

“Past work by Cole and colleagues had discovered a systematic shift in gene expression associated with chronic stress, a shift ‘characterized by increased expression of genes involved in inflammation’ that are implicated in a wide variety of human ills, including arthritis and heart disease, and “decreased expression of genes involved in … antiviral responses,” the study noted.

“It’s the difference, for example, between enjoying a good meal and feeling connected to a larger community through a service project, she said. Both give us a sense of happiness, but each is experienced very differently in the body’s cells. …

“But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers.

“Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.

“Fredrickson found the results initially surprising, because study participants themselves reported overall feelings of well-being. One possibility, she suggested, is that people who experience more hedonic than eudaimonic well-being consume the emotional equivalent of empty calories. ‘Their daily activities provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical consequences long-term,’ she said.”

My Comment: Nature is unified, and seeking to reach its wholeness is beneficial for all the systems, physical and spiritual, for an individual and the world. The higher (spiritual) degree a person applies effort to bring nature to unity, the stronger is its affect on the lower (physical) degrees.
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Not Punishment, But An Integral Responsibility

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean that the entire system is stopped if one of us doesn’t participate in it in the right way?

Answer: It’s like one valve in an engine suddenly gets stuck and the entire machine stops, or one component on the computer motherboard is burned. However, there is significance to how important this unit is. Is it the motherboard or something minor? Whereas in the integral system, the components are not more or less important;  it is round so each one is important to the same degree as every other unit. If it disappears, the entire system will stop.

Also if one component burns, they all burn, because it’s included in them all. We are like gears in the mechanism of a watch. If one gear is broken and doesn’t turn, it blocks them all and the watch stops.

The system works thanks to the fact that all of its components are linked with each other and work together. And if some part stops working, it stops the entire system. No gear can be removed from the others and just turn like it wants. This cannot be. In a working engine, all the gears must turn, and if suddenly some of them get stuck, the entire machine stops.

You cannot enter into the system or leave it. You are found in it against your will and you cannot do anything about this. Throughout history to date we have only grown; this entire system grew thanks to egoism. And when it grew, it began to show the link between all its parts.

Today the relations between us are revealed more and more. Every day we discover tens or hundreds of threads that are stretched from me to you and from you to me and to all the rest of the people. From day to day this giant octopus catches us more and more in its arms, through new connections, from all of my thoughts and desires to everyone and from everyone to me.

We are connected by innumerable binding threads; there are so many of them and they are so tightly intertwined that they eventually merge into one great field. Now the world is passing precisely through this process: At every moment these connections are becoming stronger and stronger, and they define our lives. Before they were hidden, but today these relationships are revealed. And in fact, no new connections are created, rather the system that already exists is being discovered.

But at least this disclosure is beginning to judge us and demand a response. The world crisis is spreading and intensifying, revealing our interconnectedness, and we feel worse. This system is being revealed as already existing, and it demands that we begin to act to the degree of this discovery.

Suppose that 10% of the linkages out of 100% are revealed to us. We don’t know or understand 90% of them, but we must comply with the system according to the degree of the discovery of the mutual connection. If we aspire to be supported by it, then we are walking in the way of the Light (“Achishenah”); we agree with the system, want to join with it, cooperate, and work together, and we want to adhere to the higher power. The law that works in this system and connects all of its parts is called the Creator, the higher power, the Light.

Even if we don’t want to be associate with it and don’t want to participate in it, the system still continues to work. But the difference, this gap, between its active state and our unwillingness to work is felt as a crisis. The system continues to reveal itself because according to the program, 6,000 years were allocated for its development.

For example, in another year the system will reveal itself, and our fault and lack of cooperation is no longer 10% but 20%. And so we will feel the crisis twice as much as the present crisis, and even worse because this is an integral system that multiplies its reaction. So it will be several times worse than it is now. Just imagine temperatures of 50 degrees hotter and 50 degrees colder; the crops will naturally die, also all the cattle. And what are we going to do?

If we don’t participate in this system, don’t obey the law of nature to which we are required to meet, then it’s true form will be revealed. This is not a punishment that someone is sending intentionally. Simply the true picture is being revealed: that you are not participating in the common system, and therefore you are harming yourself. The Creator doesn’t punish you; in general, He is ready to help you. He simply doesn’t want to take away your free choice. You yourself must decide who you want to be: a sinner or a righteous.

If I am conscious of the system, want to be better aware of it and to participate in it as its integral part, this is called the “prayer of the many.” And then I can pray for the others or for my participation in the system, this makes no difference, in any case it’s considered that I am praying for the whole in order to fulfill my obligation in relation to all. I ask only that it will give me the strength to participate in everything for everyone in the right way. I feel myself responsible for all, for the entire world, and am obliged to carry out my function. And in fact, with this I define the state of all the rest.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/05/13, Writings of Rabash

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Don’t Build A “Golden Calf”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is very difficult to convince a person, even if he has already begun to study Kabbalah, that we need to connect with others. He doesn’t have any desire or need for this. On the contrary, the average person would rather get close to his neighbors and others. After all, he feels that it’s advantageous for him to maintain good relations and avoid conflicts in order to make his life safer.

But a person who has received a personal desire to discover the higher power, to discover the world and wants to know the meaning of life, becomes very individualistic. He doesn’t want to be linked with anyone, for he feels that the essential question is found within him. Therefore it’s very difficult for him to hear about connection, which seems to him like a children’s game and is incomprehensible in any form.

That’s why I am very happy that today we have succeeded in beginning to talk about this. We have come close to finding the most fundamental point. And if we will be concerned about this all the time, then all the rest will be revealed by way of it, within it, within the connection between us.

Our unity is that black point through which we pass as the barrier (Machsom) to another world, “the eye of a needle,” about which the Creator says, “Open an opening for me like the eye of a needle.” After connecting with one heart, in one desire, we are connected in one point. All of our points are connected into one point and it creates an opening like the eye of a needle. If we prepare ourselves this way, then we open a passage to the new world, then the highest level will be revealed to us, that is the first step on the spiritual ladder.

This need for connection is preparation for receiving the Torah. It’s clear that the connection will not be realized by us except with the help of the higher power. But our task is to feel the need for connection and to build a common prayer.

It’s logical that we don’t have anything to pray for, neither privately or collectively, except for the need to reach connection. And thus we discover all the positive results that we need. But if I decide by myself that I must know more, to succeed more, or even to love more, it shows my pride. It’s necessary to ask only for connection, and other than this, nothing; this will be our common prayer.

The “prayer of the many” cannot be otherwise—only about unity. And it makes no difference what comes out of this, for the results will be precisely according to the arrangement of the ladder of levels that we must climb higher and higher. We don’t establish their arrangement; rather, we only decide that we must connect more and more strongly between everyone.

This means that I don’t ask for a payoff. It will come by itself, will be discovered within the society, which is to say in the connection between us, and that we seek only this. This is a very simple truth, but it keeps slipping because our ego is renewed all the time. Again and again we are forced to return ourselves to the “prayer of the many” in which we are united as one, in one request.

And if we want to join any other requests to this, even the highest spiritual goals, like success in integral education and attracting all people to it, but we put this as our private goal, then this is incorrect. This again is the same pride that forces us to decide what the connection between us should be. Thus we build the “golden calf.”

The “golden calf” is not just the work of the person for the good of his ego. They don’t say anything at all about this in the Torah. The “golden calf” is the desire of the person to establish for himself the form of his spiritual advancement instead of simply desiring connection. The “point in the heart” gathers all the points and rises up the mountain in order to receive the Torah, the Light that Reforms. And then all the desires that are gathered at the foot of the mountain will connect to the same point and disappear into the point of connection.

But in spite of all this, a person is drawn to decide something by himself, to add some kind of private demands that are imperative for him in order to advance in service to the Creator, this is called a “golden calf.” These are very high levels, spiritual levels. The entire way explained in the Torah of how we must traverse in order to reach the completion of correction, from beginning to end, is only with the strength of the connection and not with anything else.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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An Attractive Cover Or A Never Ending Story?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When trying to understand a little more deeply one’s relationships with the opposite sex, a person discovers that he is not familiar with himself, with whole layers of himself. He needs guidance, coaching…

Answer: Human development has reached the point of the “recognition of evil” in the current situation. Without the “recognition of evil” it is impossible to turn into an Adam. And on the other hand, the crisis in the realm of love still hasn’t caused people to abandon the search for their “other half” and they move en masse to artificial substitutes for sex, drugs, and other sources that distort the original subject matter.

If we look at the problem from a historical, systemic point of view, we now have the opportunity to join in the process of the correction of the human species, including and through relationships between the two sexes.

Question: But today it is very difficult for people to find a compatible partner for themselves…

Answer: Basically there are no more compatible partners. Today nobody declares his love before knowing the name of his partner. But that is exactly the way it was in the past when people felt that they were made for each other at first sight.

Today we have learned that we need to adjust to each other through work on mutual rapprochement. In order truly to connect between us, we must work together at least a number of months and sometimes a year or two. And only then do we begin to adjust to each other and there is an inner link between us that makes it possible to “diffuse,” to penetrate into each other, like coffee and water that mix together no longer remain as they were, but together create something new. Only after we penetrate at least a little into each other mentally can we understand how to continue this process of mutual integration. This mutual penetration is true mating, mating between souls. And then we are ready to get married, be linked together for many years. For we have already acquired a program of mutual mental interpenetration, we understand how we do this and are ready to sustain this mutually.

That’s why my teacher Rabash said that in the beginning there should be no external rejection between the people and all the rest depends upon collective efforts through which the family will flourish, not resting on its laurels, but developing the relationship more and more.

Question: But how can a person decide to begin this work even before starting the “diffusion”? After all, it is driven by love, that is, feelings, not reason.

Answer: It is necessary to get rid of all the dirty “clothing” from the soul in which it is dressed: the egoistic preferences, the “Hollywood” standards, and the various stereotypes the majority establishes.

We judge the opposite sex according to artificial external signs. So if we talk about true change, then first of all we must work with a crowd of singles so that they will understand their nature and why they don’t succeed in building stable relationships. A person requires a healthy approach towards himself and towards others: a little less of the Hollywood and Internet standards, fewer chats sprinkled with emoticons.

We speak through emoticons, we look at life through the prism of templates. But in fact, I need to be like a child who can fall in love without reserve, like in the days when external props didn’t interest me. I don’t really see my lover because she dissolves in a fog of emotional outpourings, as if someone pressed on an invisible button and I am “on fire” about her. I must return to a state like this.

And for this we need to get rid of all the “clothing” that we have pinned ourselves under through the pressure of society, whether it is the influence of the Internet, books, movies, social contracts, or just someone else’s assessments of what is good and what is bad. I have to become more natural, closer to nature, even if this is more simple and egoistic, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to depend on everyone anymore.

It is possible to reach this only in a large society of people like me, of singles, where all of us together are learning to recognize ourselves: who and what we are, what our nature is, how to relate to ourselves, to a partner, to the world and so on. For gradually we stop being dependent on all the external standards that come to us from across the ocean.

Everything depends on social agreement. If it changes, then we look at those things absolutely differently. The modern pictures are groundless, imaginary. First of all, we need to take them off the “pedestal” and at the same time, not later, but specifically in parallel, raise completely different values so that I will not be attracted to external connection but to an inner connection. After all, external connection is fragile and fleeting, often it is already over by the next morning, while we can develop the inner connection infinitely.

In any case, we need to learn together, with mutual cooperation within the group. To make shared workshops and other means that make it possible to build a different relationship between us. Only then will I feel which woman is truly closer to me in the deeper and truer sense. And it is possible to rely on this feeling, for I will stop seeing the externalities but will concentrate only on the essence, on the internality. The woman will no longer be just a “cover” for me, but will be like a valuable “book” in which a new depth of emotion and mental intimacy is discovered. And expectation of this connection will immediately reach the hidden chord within me. And after that I then add the external component to this spark.

In this way we build the right order of priorities and mutual approach, a completely opposite approach compared to what is happening today. This is because I am not searching for a wife for myself, rather specifically inner connection in the mind and feelings. I want it to fill the space that was left empty since my first love.

It is up to me to reach the foundation of all the corrections. If the void had not been left in me after the first feeling, I would have nothing for which to live. All the rest of the feelings are transient and shallow compared to this feeling. The basic desire for inner connection forces me to search for fulfillment, even though I don’t know myself what I truly want to fill.

Only this void accompanied me throughout my life, pushing me to find and attain. It is my soul that I can fill only through connecting with the other. And its essential part is the connection called “family,” “husband” or “wife.” And gradually this is added to the foundation of my development, covering my love, gradually covering the entire world. This is the beginning of the human soul, its two foundations, the male and the female, that are connected together and in their development they include everything.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 6/20/13

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.02.13

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 6

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The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Heaven and Earth,” Item 154, Lesson 55

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Writings of Baal HaSulamExile and Redemption,” Lesson 2

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