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Love Is Not Make Believe

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”: A more developed person recognizes in himself a greater amount of evil, and hence repels and separates the evil from within to a greater extent. The undeveloped senses in himself only a small amount of evil, and will therefore repel only a small amount of evil. As a result, he leaves all his filth within, for he does not recognize it as filth.

Suppose that I am faced with evil in my life. However, Kabbalists say that this “evil,” as everything else, comes from the Creator. It turns out that I experience bad feelings and they come from Him. Accordingly, they seem like punishment to me and bring about fear. In fact, most of our efforts we devote to ward off such “punishment.” It happens that we do not even dream of good, but at least try to avoid evil, to escape from “punishment.”

A more developed person understands that he must do good, not so much because of possible punishments, but simply because it is good. It’s worthwhile to bring good to others and oneself. This level of being no longer allows him to simply to do wrong and hurt others.

An even more developed person begins to tie his relationship to the world with the concepts of reward and punishment. In other words, he sees the system’s attributes: some deeds lead to an award, another to a punishment. As if there is a judge, Nature, the upper force, no matter what its name, and He shows His attitude.

And some go even higher and realize that there is no punishment at all. On the contrary, if bad states seem to me as punishments that come from the Creator,  this is actually a punishment and a mistake. After all, only good comes from the Creator, and my bad feelings are caused by the fact that I am opposite to Him. I need to change my oppositeness, to become similar (Domeh) to the Creator, to become a human being (Adam). Then, being similar to Him, I will feel myself in goodness.

But then the question arises: Why do I need this? Just for the sake of good feelings? In this case, I am a “savage,” not a human. It’s even possible that I could become worse than I was before, turning into filth, wanting to take advantage of the Creator. Or I have no choice: I have to have good feelings because otherwise my desire will not let me do anything.

Maybe, I will ask the Creator to still help me do good things but not because of a reward or punishment. I want to disconnect from them, disconnect from them so much that even in my vessels (desires) I am experiencing “punishment,” darkness; nonetheless, I will rise above this feeling and remain in bestowal upon the Creator. There is darkness in the desires, and above them I will give Him the Light, my good attitude to Him.

But how? Do I have to kiss the stick that beats me? No. I want to really change my nature, I don’t want to pretend to love, not fake love, but to truly rise above myself, over the “material” of my desire.

How can we do this? What we call a “miracle” will work here: I begin to live in what is happening above the screen and the Reflected Light, above my “body.”

Question: And am I shrouded in darkness until then?

Answer: Until then, I go through the stages of analysis until I decide that the darkness in me is the Light coming from the Creator. It’s no coincidence that the Aramaic word “Orta” means “night,” the opposite side of Light (“Ohr” is light in Hebrew). Each stage begins from the “evening,” as it is said, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” I always start with the darkness, with the breaking, and this leads me to a new analysis, a new dawn.

So, what is the darkness that I feel? Is this darkness or not darkness? This is the Light that appears as darkness in my corrupted vessels, desires.

But wait, is it only in mine? Didn’t King David “get up at midnight,” when the “north wind” was playing on the strings of the “harp” that hung over his bed (see the treatise “Brachot”)? Doesn’t he write in Psalms about his misadventures? Hence, he felt darkness, didn’t he?

That is correct, Kabbalists also experience these states. May God grant us experiencing them, to come to the Light through them. Anyway, these are not the “blows of fate,” but rather the calls that draw us forward. There are no troubles; there are only appeals, calling us to come to the Creator as soon as possible.
[120028]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Hope For A Better Outcome

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Our group works very actively organizing a multitude of great projects and we feel there is a future for this. At the same time we see how our friends lose their jobs, their businesses fail, bankruptcies occur, and this is very difficult. Does this indicate that the Creator is trying to confuse us, or does it mean that we don’t have the right balance between dissemination and providing for our basic needs?

Answer: The Creator doesn’t want to confuse us. He wants only good for us. We are confusing ourselves.

The world must go either by way of suffering or by way of our illumination and education. We need to understand that nothing needs to change in the world except for the person himself, there is no other way. If we don’t change our nature, we will destroy ourselves and all of civilization on the face of our small globe. Terrible world suffering and wars are waiting for us to the point where there will be only a few thousand people left who will implement the plan of creation anyway. They will be able to change since all of the suffering of humanity that will have disappeared by then will be included within them.

But it’s also possible to do this in another way, through dissemination. Or with the “middlel line”: partly through suffering and partly through dissemination. We must try to solve everything in a good way, by the way of consciousness and awareness. This will be for the good of all.

Specifically what is it possible to do? I don’t know. I have tried many times to converse with all kinds of leaders, including the leaders of the European Union. In the meantime they believe they have the ability to protect themselves and that what they have will be enough. Somehow they will supply themselves with both security and wealth, and all the rest is unimportant to them. They are not ready to do anything.

Therefore, all hope for a better outcome depends only upon us. Try to do something, disseminate, try to write letters, turn both to the higher strata of the population and the lower strata. Otherwise you will be doing nothing.

For in spite of all this we have accomplished something: You are found here, listening to the possibilities of bringing our world out of the blind alley. And each one of you can reveal this to another thousand people.

Only through the group do we attract the Light of the Creator. And isn’t it up to us to transmit it? To do this we must create a connection with the nation; the ball is in our hands. Don’t think that the wisdom of Kabbalah or something else will give you wealth, control, respect, knowledge, and some kind of improvement. Nothing will help! Only correction will help.

When the crisis began, I received a multitude of letters with a request to show what the wisdom of Kabbalah is prepared to do. As a rule I answered very simply: The wisdom of Kabbalah is ready to explain to you how it’s possible to change yourselves so that the world will be changed, otherwise it will not change.

Therefore there is nothing to complain about when people have lost their jobs and cannot live anymore like they did in the past; this is the natural movement of our development. Now in the meantime everything is organized such that the governments somehow provide for the needs of their populations. But the situation could become much worse. The Creator will continue to agitate us until all the ego will be shaken out of us, until we understand that it’s necessary to change.
[119964]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day One 11/01/13, Lesson 2

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A Sign Of Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What are the signs that can help us determine that the desire is corrected?

Answer: The corrected desire can connect to other desires. This is the sign according to which you can check it. If several desires connect, it is a sign that they are corrected to some extent and that they have a collective Masach (screen).

Two desires that connect can already create a spiritual Partzuf, just like when two cells merge into one that is the beginning of a new body. Each of these cells is egoistic, but the connection between them is performed by the force that is above nature. Although each cell is meant to keep its boundaries according to its egoistic nature, the force, the instinct that arrives, forces them to connect.

The force of nature connects the cells, breaking their egoistic Masachim, the shells that don’t allow them to connect. But in nature everything happens automatically according to instincts, while we need to ask for that, since we are the special part in all of nature; we want to resemble the Creator. So we use His powers, but we form the creation by ourselves. It says that the Creator has prepared everything and shattered the creation, and the righteous correct and reconstruct creation.
[119597]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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A Moral Tale About The Village Donkey

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it written, (Psalms 126:5) “Those who sow in tears will reap with song.” Why don’t they sow with rejoicing? Why do I need to be in tears all the time?

Answer: The sowing is always done with tears, for we invest much effort and feel the deficiency of dissatisfaction. What is it to sow in the inner work? I take a plow and begin to plow myself with the help of a donkey or a bull, and if I don’t have a donkey or a bull, then I tie the plow to the members of my household so that they will pull the plow and will make furrows in the ground, meaning in my desire.

Through their desire to live, they make a groove in me, in my heart. In this groove, I need to sow seeds, but I want to eat them! I don’t understand why I must put them in the ground. This is completely unnatural. If someone were to look at this from the side, he would scream, “Wait a minute. Why are you throwing this into the ground? Come, and bake bread!” However, my behavior is very strange. I put this into the ground, and further, I water it so it will rot. I look forward to the seeds that could have been eaten decomposing. I am like some lunatic.

And then, the first sprouts, shoots and stem appear. I wait a long time for the seeds to ripen on the stalks. All of my behavior seems completely illogical, but, “There is none so wise as the experienced,” and I understand that from this bread is produced.

Question: However, in any case, can I be sure that they will reap in joy, that there won’t be mistakes on the way?

Answer: If you make a mistake, then there will be nothing to harvest, and everything will be lost, and, if you don’t err, they will grow. If you know how to use all the laws of creation in the right form, then you will reach rejoicing and harvesting, and will eat all the fruit. However, this is only on condition that you are not so naïve as the villager who eats the raw, unprocessed grain, like his donkey. In the book, Sifra D’tzniuta, a story is told about a simple villager who never had left his village. But one day, he journeyed to a city and saw that they were selling all kinds of delicious, breads, cakes, and pastries. He was amazed and asked where all these wonderful things came from? And he was told that it was from the wheat grain that he raised and sent to the city.

However, he didn’t know all this because he was a “donkey” the same as his donkey. “City” means that we are joined together and then we can bake a delicious bread, and as long as you are alone, you will live on the level of the donkey. All the advancements are possible only through connection between people, which is the first, lowest level in correction of the shattered Kli in the correction of the shattering of the soul.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/13, Writings of Rabash

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The Collapse Of The American Dream

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Russian Bazaar): “Once the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world. Almost everyone had a house, a couple of good cars and the ability to provide a comfortable life for his family. However, the bulk of this was done on credit – but at least then people had the ability to pay their loans on time.

“Unfortunately, those days are over. In today’s America, prices, unlike revenue, grow at an astounding pace; jobs are scarce, and most of the created jobs are low paying.

“In a desperate attempt to make ends meet, millions of American families plunge deeper into debt, and millions of others are forced to seek help from the authorities.

“Unfortunately, today’s politicians do nothing while jobs go overseas, inflation destroys purchasing power, and the middle class continues to shrink.”

My Comment: This is the natural tendency of the evolution of egoistic society. No attempts by the government to prevent a further decline in the standard of living and in the feeling of wellbeing will bring any result. Ahead, is the prolonged agony of the thousand-year period of the human egoistic development and an enforced (by suffering) or voluntarily (by awareness) change to the altruistic development and the achievement of universal unity toward the similarity with the Creator.
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Integral Education And Information – This Is A Continuation Of Kabbalah

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why don’t you say that the method of integral education and information is our higher level, where the entire world must become a group? And of course, in this case, we must descend from our spiritual height, find language suitable for the general public, adapt, and rewrite the Kabbalistic articles, to find common ground with the aspirations of the masses so that there will be a basis for union with the entire world, to combine their desires with us, and so we go out with broad dissemination of integral education and information?

People who have been with you for a long time are leaving the wisdom of Kabbalah—deleting their accounts, “We are not with you!”—because of integral education, because they are in the dark; they don’t understand what this is for. They cannot appreciate your idea, and it seems to them that you surround yourself with naïve people who dance in your presence to the sound of the music, and everything is good. (I wanted to upset everyone, but I haven’t succeeded).

Answer: It is difficult to explain to people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah (i.e., that have a desire and within it, a “point in the heart”) that the integral union of all of humanity is the correction of the shattering of Malchut (the correction of Adam, the only soul that was created), even though they are studying this through the system of worlds, and I explain this to my students throughout the world in every lesson!

The idea is that the person who is involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah must evolve to understand the method of correction. After all, through studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, he develops his point in the heart and only when it reaches a particular development will he understand that spiritual attainment, meaning, attainment within him of the characteristic of bestowal, takes place only according to the degree that he connects with a group, to its center, with its common characteristic of Arvut (guarantee), and this could take years of intensive study.

Then, when a person understands the need to unite with a group and he works on this, he will feel that he has no need or desire for connection, and if, in spite of it all he continues to study and to act within a group, the additional efforts will lead him to an understanding that he can get the aspiration to unite in a group in order to discover the Creator from an outer circle of people if he begins to attract them toward unity. Reaching this understanding also could take several years, and then he understands that he needs to study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to work in a group and integral education in order to work with the world. It is possible to decrease this time only through blindly carrying out the instructions of the teacher. Yet, only particular individuals are prepared to do this.

Those people toward whom we turn are another matter. They only have a need to organize this life (the desires of this world without a point in the heart), and therefore, they can quickly and easily understand and accept the method of integral education and information.
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Opportunity For Spiritual Ascent

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: According to our experience, there are circumstances where, while we are still sitting in the integral circle, one of the participants begins to feel nervous, aggressive, and hatred. What should we do if someone expresses irritation by what the others say? Should he hide it, be silent, or let off steam in the circle?

Answer: There is no need to let off steam, but rather, just talk about how you feel, and the people in the circle need to clarify why this is happening. After all, a new stream of ego is penetrating into you, and suddenly you began to look at a person not objectively, but through your new egoistic desire. You don’t like him, he annoys you; it is not important what. So now you should clarify with the help of the correct ego how to raise yourself to the next level.

At the moment, you are not in command of yourself. You cannot remember that this is done intentionally. Therefore, you need to turn to the members of the workshop for help, but only if this doesn’t conflict with the general flow so that you will not begin to divert the others from the main topic when you describe how repulsive everyone is to you.

Question: What is the mechanism for clarifying this state? How does this take place?

Answer: After the person gives us part of how he feels, we need to bring him to awareness, to raise him to our level.

After all, nothing is by chance. He got some ego to help us, too. He is found together with us in the same network; he is linked to us. It cannot be that, suddenly, the ego jumped into him, and he needs to swallow it. Since we are found with him in the same system, you see that, somehow, he needs to convey this to us. You see, with the help of this ego, all of us can ascend. We need to look at this process as our guidance from above.

Question: What is the mechanism to clarify this condition? How does this happen?

Answer: So, he says, “Guys, I am torn apart; everything is boiling in me,” and everyone must react. We begin to discuss why and for what purpose this was done. We relate to this as to an objective reason for all of us since we are in the same network, and this touches everyone. At the moment that we are sitting around one table and are gathered together, that’s it. There is nothing personal.

This situation was given to us so that, by working together, we would rise above the ego of our friend. Through conversation, by working on the situation, agreeing that there is nothing bad in nature, that all this is for the sake of our development, that, through the states of the friend, nature is presenting to us an example of its evolution. We transform the negative, egoistic outburst of the friend into something positive, and thanks to him, we rise.

Perhaps in this case it is not necessary to take up any other topic for the workshop. We turn to discussing this situation in a conscious manner, and this will be the best solution for us. We all can ascend. After all, it is clear to us that the idea is not about the friend who is sitting there and boiling; rather, all this comes to us from the upper management in order to give us an opportunity for ascent.
[118935]
From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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Understanding The Nature Of Man

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In an integral circle sometimes there is the dynamic of a person who does not engage with the problems of others, but wants to constantly pull the attention of the group to himself, to use the circle to resolve his own inner discomfort. By this, he breaks the effect of the circle. How should one work with a person like this?

Answer: There are many different techniques to balance the circle. Therefore, on one hand, we constantly need to remind everyone about the conditions of the work in the circle, and on the other hand, we should understand this person, his nature.

Take this example and discuss it. How does the ego show itself in each one of us? What is my main, external egoistic characteristic? In what ways do I express myself as an egoist? Someone doesn’t let others speak, and that woman sits quietly and doesn’t show any action. The third person doesn’t say a word, but at the end, blurts out such an assessment of what is killing everyone else, and that one sits there red as a lobster, and now it seems that he will tear everyone to pieces or explode, and so forth.

In other words, we discuss how our external ego is revealed and how we should with care and love, bit by bit build it with the help of everyone, and specifically by using it, by our loving the negative attributes of our friend, rise above it. There is no need to say that the negative attributes of the friend are the reflections of my own attributes; that is a very high level. At least, in the meantime, explain it in this way to them.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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