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The Force Of Envy Is Not Limited By Time And Space

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

The inclination for envy elicits the sages from among them, as our sages said, “Author’s envy increases wisdom.” The strong-willed, with the inclination for envy, excel in acquiring wisdom and knowledge. It is like the speaking degree in the whole of reality, in which the operating force is not limited by time and place, but is collective and encompasses every item in the world, throughout all times.

Also, it is the nature of the fire of envy to be general, encompassing all times and the whole reality. This is because it is the conduct of envy: if one had not seen the object in one’s friend’s possession, the desire for it would not have awakened in one at all.

The force of envy is the most powerful force, particularly in the workers of the Creator and a little less in ordinary people. If it is possible to say that ordinary people have envy in the same way we mean.

It is said that, “Author’s envy increases wisdom”; that is, this is the only force that acts, pushes, and pulls a person forward. It is a very useful force. That is why, we need to show each other how much we invest in the group, try to love friends, to exaggerate good examples, and not be afraid that you may appear immodest and not righteous.

You should not present yourself as a hidden righteous. On the contrary, your demonstrative example of showing your devotion, enthusiasm greatly benefits your friends. Understanding this, the group already shows the principle of “love they neighbor as yourself.” Indeed, I am interested in seeing that others are better than me!

Usually, our egoism wants to belittle everyone; even if I am absolutely nothing, at least others are even less than me. Here, on the contrary, I want to see others higher than me. Although this is against my egoism and is unpleasant, I begin to criticize myself—but it is for the good of my advancement.

Thus we show examples to young children, “Look at this boy, what he can do! Try to do the same”! It is natural for a child to learn from others’ examples. It is the same in spiritual development: We need to show each other a good example and deliberately stir up envy.

In the outside world, people love that others envy them and suffer, seeing them so successful, rich, and powerful. But here, it is opposite, by allowing others to see me as strong and goal-oriented, I help them because I want them to be better than me. Thus, I raise the group according to the principle, “The one who chooses a better environment is rewarded with success and advancement.”

We need to use this means, the lever, the fire of envy that burns us, with the utmost cunning, trying to awaken good envy in the friends. We need not only play in relation with each other, but also to talk about this, to learn from all the forms, which others show, and become like them and even better. Then the group will become stronger, grow, and move forward.
[124022]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/13

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Now It’s Your Turn To Be King And To Rule

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll changes occur in the desire to receive while the Upper Light is in a state of absolute rest. At the same time, we know that everything comes from Above and that there is none else besides Him, the Creator, and that He alone decides and acts. So how can it be that one time we say that everything is determined by the Light and another time that everything depends on the vessel, on our efforts, on the desire, on our exertion, and our work?

We can see it in two ways: from the perspective of the Light or from the perspective of the desire. But it’s clear that all the attributes and the software that are part of the Light operate in a concealed manner on the desire and activate it. This is called the “force of the operator on the operated.”

We can assess the Light that operates the desire according to its actions in the desire. This means that all our revelations start from the vessel, from the desire. I don’t reveal the Creator who operates on me, but rather, within my vessels, I discover the phenomena by which I guess that He operates inside me.

The Light is always there and I only discover its influence. Then it seems that my desires are full and that they begin to illuminate like sparkling Lights, but they only reveal the Light that is already in them. So it’s better to look at the vessels from the side, since it helps us focus on the work correctly and not wait for something to come from Above from the Light.

The Upper Light doesn’t stop its illumination on the lower even for a moment. This means that its influence doesn’t change because it’s good and benevolent for all. The force doesn’t change, but only the vessels do under the influence of this force. I must say so since it obliges me to take care of my vessels, to think about the connection with the friends, and to absorb additional spiritual deficiencies from them.

Thanks to the additional deficiency that I receive from the connection, by the greater importance of the goal, I demand the Light! I don’t ask it to illuminate on me more, but rather to open up my desire, and then the Light can influence me more.

My desire opens up and the Light remains the same. This is a significant difference in approach. Do we just pray and ask for mercy or do we know that everything depends on our work? Our desire is a result of our work and of the connection between us. This is how we seem to operate the Light, but, in fact, we only open the channels in our desire to receive in which the Light can be revealed.

If I speak from the perspective of the vessels, I oblige myself to constantly worry about them. I don’t wait for the Light to change, and I don’t shed a tear when it doesn’t operate on me and doesn’t fill me, and I don’t blame it for what it did to me and to the whole world in the past. This means that I don’t see the Light as responsible for everything as people commonly do when they make a mistake. After all, nothing depends on the Light because “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” He has given a person everything, like a scepter, so that he will be king and rule. So everything depends only on me and there is no one else I can count on.

Therefore, we must go out to disseminate and support the group and not be materialists and mystics who count on some hidden upper force. This is the great difference between the different religions and Kabbalah, that is, between beliefs and science. In Kabbalah all the tools are in our hands since we know that our desire determines everything and that the Creator doesn’t decide anything; He actually gives us full control.

So why do Kabbalists say that everything depends on the Creator? If we discover that everything is up to us, we will discover that everything is indeed up to Him, according to the work that we do. Therefore, it says, “I have exerted and I have found, believe!” But this is actually something the world isn’t ready to accept. Only by our efforts can we reach anything, and otherwise we can keep on praying forever. At the same time we say, “if only one could pray all day.” This means that we should reach a deficiency in our prayer that will be constantly renewed thanks to our work on the connection between us. So the prayer is the work of the heart, above our desire. This is a critical point and it is the foundation of all the spiritual work. This is the bone of contention that distinguishes the wisdom of Kabbalah from all the other beliefs.
[123679]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/13Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Third Industrial Revolution

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Igor Agamirzyan, CEO Russian Venture Company): “Robotics and new production methods will turn factories into deserted premises, which will be run by a dozen of operators. What could be done with free time that people all over the world will have?

“The first industrial revolution began in Britain in the late 18th century with the mechanization of the textile industry. The culmination of the second industrial revolution became Ford’s assembly lines.

“In less than two centuries, the economic, political and social structure of the world became completely subordinated to the new industrial reality. Now we live in the era of the third industrial revolution. However, not everyone understands that it is radically different from the previous two. And together with it, our life will be fundamentally different.

“The main feature of the new industrialization is the shift of the center of the added value from manufacturing to the development, engineering and design. In the modern technological economy, the replication of complex objects became practically free.

“In the pharmaceutical industry, the production cost of a pill is nearing zero, while corporations spend billions of dollars on the development and marketing of new drugs. In the near future, the production capacity will be in the form of a home printer.

“Production returns from developing countries to the developed ones because now goods are created in shops without people. As a result, the role of the various states will change in the global world.

“The first two industrial revolutions brought changes to the structure of society. In a short time, the number of people in the world grew from tens of millions to seven billion. The average life expectancy has doubled; for the first time in human history, the majority of the population do not starve; only 5% of the population can satisfy the basic needs of humankind. The main outcome of this transformation is the emergence of surplus of the free time that people have. The third industrial revolution will fill this time with ideas and meaning.”

My Comment: Our development is heading towards freeing the human being from the animal level where it is necessary to take care of the body, so that at the moment when we begin to recognize the evil of our egoism and its finality, we could become fully engaged in our re-education and similarity to the next degree of our —the level of “human,” in the implementation of the Biblical condition of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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A Magnifying Glass For The Upper Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to try to connect while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: Reading The Zohar is the time when you shouldn’t use your mind but your soul. Now you have to think about how we should connect in order to be like a magnifying glass by which we draw the sun rays in order to light something that is under the glass.

How can we concentrate and focus on this point? If we do, we will feel the Light that influences us going through us, illuminating our desire to receive and changing it. Then the desire will restrict itself, acquire a Masach (screen) and will begin to work.

Our whole work is done by this magnifying glass that is becoming more powerful. Our work is in the growing concentration of the group in quantity and quality so that a stronger Light will come and bring us to a more substantial and more qualitative connection. Then we will discover the spiritual state in the connection between us. What we discover is called the spiritual world.

Question: Do I build this magnifying glass by my efforts or is it created by everyone’s efforts?

Answer: By all our efforts. The magnifying glass itself isn’t important. What’s important is the central point in the magnifying glass, in which all the rays of Light connect and descend through it.

Question: How do we know that all our efforts are successful?

Answer: According to the result: You you will receive the desired change, as it says: “I labored and I found.” The exertion is in the connection between us, in one heart and in mutual guarantee, and the finding is when we discover between us the first attribute of bestowal called the first spiritual level.

Question: What will change in me after this change?

Answer: You will not only want to bestow but will also be able to bestow.
[122430]
From the 2nd part of the the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/08/13, The Book of Zohar

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The Process Of Societal Decay

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The present state of humanity is a typical picture of the degradation of all of humanity. If we take the Roman Empire as an example, there the system deteriorated and broke apart so much that every part worked only for itself and for the whole, and therefore, the commands of the authorities lacked power. The terrible process of societal decay began. And now we are speaking about a much larger scale that humanity has never experienced.

Answer: And even now this is happening without sword and spear, just as it was then! If we see humanity as some kind of unified system, various societies developed at different rates, but in general, it was a collective system within which individual units were damaged. But the system was always restored, whereas today the state is such that no healthy societies are left because the crisis touches all of humanity in general and damages the entire system.

The Kabbalists predicted these phenomena on a completely scientific basis. If we take our ego as the basic force of nature from which all social and even natural laws are derived, then in the end, the ego must grow to a state like this where it subjugates everything that exists, meaning that it will destroy all the connections between people.

And while in the beginning it acts to create these connections, yet after it arranges them, it reaches personal satisfaction. This happened in the mid ‘50s of the previous century, when everyone thought that humanity was entering a state of the infinite development of the consumer society in which everything was for the good of the person: schools, universities, culture, science, the conquest of space.

Various societies encountered this in different ways, yet they specifically wanted to attain this goal. Egoism attracted us towards this type of development. And as a result of this, when we systematically connected and organized reciprocal worldwide global connections, we immediately began to die, like the Roman Empire.

To date, we certainly see that we don’t have the ability to use these connections correctly. They all act not only against the person himself but also against the entire society, and destroys them. In this connection it’s possible to see the nature of the cancerous growth in the body clearly as it kills everything that nourishes it and in the end itself dies.

To be continued – please see Avoiding Fatal Destiny.
[122973]
From KabTV’s “An Integral World” 10/24/2013

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Two Partners: Egoism and Altruism

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the past, at the time of the transition from one system to another, did the ego also require altruism or not?

Answer: Egoism nourishes itself by always conquering something. It is like a cancerous tumor that gradually grows while not yet being apparent. And now it is grown to the last stage and is beginning to devour itself.

Until the ‘80s, all of the systems that we constructed served to extend and expand a particular goal. We flew into space, to the stars; we went deep into the bowels of the earth; we built great cities, and we created new technologies. We developed under the influence of one and only one force, and we thought that this would continue forever.

If we were to continue to develop further in this way, we would advance ourselves only externally and not internally. Human development was done in a mechanical, technological manner: Instead of two hands, I would have had twenty; instead of seeing for a distance of two kilometers, I would have seen two hundred thousand kilometers ahead.

In this case, the human became an appendage of a machine, an appendage of a computer. So today the egoistic system begins to work more and more against him. The human has become unnecessary to it.

We have grown to such a state where we must discover the meaning of our existence. Now, for many people, in particular among the youth, the reason for living, the aspiration for some kind of goal, has disappeared. “What is there to strive for? I exist comfortably, I don’t need children, a family, or serious work; what will this give me? It is better if I sit somewhere with friends, have fun. What else is there to live for; what is the reason for living? I will play a little and die, like everyone”.

Therefore the question now is, either to give a person a motivation for living, or drugs. And here Kabbalah or the method of integral education show people a completely different way: to get from nature a second anti-egoistic power. It is precisely this power that created and developed the ego so that we would consciously get it from nature and could mutually manage the two forces of our development.

One of them can inspire us forward with good, through the goal that shines from afar. And the second is like a developmental steamroller that chases me, and I flee from it like that poor coyote in the cartoons.

Question: But even the altruistic force requires egoism, at least in this stage?

Answer: Yes, for this, the ego develops. And now it shows that if we don’t balance it through the altruistic force, it will devour us, like a cancerous tumor in the human body that devours the body and in the end kills itself.

What does a cancerous tumor mean? This is a disrupted program of the development of the body, of the functioning of its cells, where they begin to proliferate beyond their contained space and have an opposite effect.

In principle, every cell has the possibility of cancerous development, but they are always found in harmony between them, in a relative balance between positive and negative forces. But when one of them becomes greater, then another either disappears or there is a disruption in the polarity between them, and in this imbalance destructive development appears.

It is the same thing in society as well. We should begin quickly, through a second positive force, to balance the entire human society that has become a cancerous tumor. And this is the remedy for its recovery.

Unfortunately, at the time of healing cancer, we are satisfied with suppressing the egoistic development of the cells through various kinds of short radiation, thereby killing them. This is not a cure. It is not necessary to kill human society or to do anything else with it. You just need to add the second developmental force to it.
[123876]
From Kab TV’s “An Integral World” 10/24/2013

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Our Leader: It’s The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What role does the ego play in the transition to a new formation, considering that it has finally evolved?

Answer: It will help us in that it shows us where and how to add the opposite force of good so that they will develop in a mutually balanced manner.

The ego is our leader in that it shows what must be done. The egoistic desires in every case will determine the activities of the person, we don’t remove anything here in any way, and we don’t discard what we created. We only add a positive component to everything that is now gradually dying and animate.

Question: You said that the altruistic force is a creative force. Can the ego also create?

Answer: It can create in a wonderful way. See what it did with us? All this is for the good. There is nothing wrong in nature.

This is the program of nature that we carry out unconsciously under the influence of its forces. Every time that we feel it is bad for us in a given state, we begin to move towards the next state, towards a better state. The ego subconsciously shows us that it will be good for us here, and there, no. It directs us from within, telling us what to do.

The ego manages all of our strength, all the characteristics, and leads us forward precisely and sharply. Sometimes we fall into something, suppose in the building socialism or something else, but this is only to understand the ramifications of the blind alley, and after that we continue to develop further.
[123874]
From KabTV’s “An Integral World” 10/24/2013

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.30.13

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic: Preparation for the Convention

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 8

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