Audio Version Of The Blog – 01.25.14

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You Decide

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a person is used to seeing us only on television or a computer screen, what would make him switch to an active phase and make him come to the February congress? After all, he feels good being at home, even if he agrees with what he is hearing.

Answer: Undoubtedly, it is more comfortable being at home.

In this case, everything depends on your free choice. First, do you have an opportunity to come to the congress? If everything was arranged from Above so that the answer is yes—if money, time, health, and other conditions that do not depend on you are granting you this possibility—then you are obliged to come.

It is a different matter if you were denied the ability to, let’s say, buy a ticket. Our friends are gathering from all over the world, including the most remote corners. For example, traveling from South America or Australia is very expensive. For some it is almost a prohibitive amount, yet they are coming.

This is where the freedom of choice comes in: If you were given an opportunity and you did not come, then you are simply rejecting the chance given to you by the Creator to come closer to Him, to arrive at a meeting with Him. After all, as it is written, “I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

If you are not granted this possibility, if insurmountable obstacles, which truly do not depend on you, are placed in front of you, then you will be given the same direct connection while being on the other side of the screen, but only on the condition that, for given reasons, it must be exactly this way.

One way or another, the analysis is entrusted to you. I already have received dozens of letters with similar questions and I almost never answer because this is a person’s free choice. He or she needs to make this decision on their own. Sometimes, there are unsolvable problems usually related to health. In that case, I take the responsibility upon myself and send a reply.

Essentially, we need to understand that this is where freedom of will lies. If you can come, then you must, and, if you are not able to—well, the Creator has arranged it this way so that, by staying at home, you will receive even more than from physical participation. Perhaps the external impression from what you would have seen in person would have been so negative that it would have flung you to the side. Perhaps it would have entered into an irreconcilable contradiction with your tastes, habits, and so on.

In any case, however, a person needs to make this decision on his own. He only needs to seize this opportunity because it is now that he can make a true breakthrough on the path.
[125899]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Living In Denial

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When does a person get to see that everything that happens in his life comes only from the Creator?

Answer: A person gets to see, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him” when he rises to complete faith and is ready to work without any response or reaction from the Creator, from the only power. He stops hoping to receive some kind of answer within his receptive Kli to see the Creator and to be convinced that this comes from Him. Only then will he merit feeling the only higher guidance, for otherwise everything goes into his egoistic, receptive Kli.

You are waiting for when you will actually see that the Creator is doing everything and you can prove that everything is right and you are ultimately be released from all doubts. However, this gain would be felt within your ego, so you will never get it. You simply don’t understand what the path is. You must discover more each time that it is impossible to advance on this path through your corporeal senses and intellect but only through the force of bestowal and the total nullification of the self.

If you let go of everything that you have now, then you will reach a level of spirituality that becomes a nullification of this life. Besides the necessities for the beastly body, all the rest of life goes on in full self-nullification.

You discover that “There is none else besides Him” after you construct this single Creator within yourself.

Nullification is realized within a group. I throw myself into the hands of the friends, but this is so they will take care of me. I hand myself over, and at that moment, I feel that there is a system here like called a “group” and it is concerned about me.

Question: However, what if I give myself over to the friends and I suffer?

Answer: If you suffer, this is a sign that you have not given yourself over. I give myself over happily! I am happy that I don’t use my feelings or my intellect for I have friends, a teacher, the Creator! I don’t exist by myself. I only adhere myself to them and this is all. They are my head and I am only the operator, their body. Whatever they desire, I carry out.

This is what is called adhesion. I want to exist like this. And as much as all kinds of problems, egoism, and heaviness of heart are added to me, I aspire to adhere to them even more. I want them to decide for me. This is not saying that I release myself from any responsibility to make life easier for myself. I do this because I want to adhere to what is higher—and for the upper to be my head and I will be the body. I will receive all orders, all instructions, from it.

I don’t ask the Creator when He will be revealed. I don’t need to discover Him. I want to nullify myself and not discover Him.
[125817]
From a Talk during the Meal 1/17/14

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The Rhythm Of Spiritual Development

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn order to give new examples in my lectures, I constantly process texts from the primary sources and follow the news, documentaries, and anything that can help me find relevant associations.

Even if I don’t share all the information that I accumulate during the lessons, it still exists in the overall system since I am connected to everyone. So I don’t consider it my personal intellectual acquisitions because it already exists in relation to others even if I don’t express it verbally.

Question: So you never have the feeling of losing time?

Answer: This also happens sometimes. I used to see this when I was with Rabash and I didn’t understand how a person under the upper influence could be so detached from spirituality until he becomes nothing more than an ordinary protein body. Such states when you have no desire to read or to listen to anything are very rare, but from time to time they must occur, as if completing a certain rhythm in the spiritual development.

These states are very short, although they may sometimes take several hours, and when they are over, a person suddenly discovers a new stage and keeps on advancing. The best thing is if he manages to fall asleep when he is cut off, then it doesn’t pass in vain.

On the whole we deal with the desire and not with the body or with a person; the desire has to process itself to its full depth and its full height. It has to be incorporated, absorbed, and connected with all the other attributes, to develop itself, to respond, etc. Interestingly, when you are on the inanimate material level you feel it. But it is all a natural process.
[125976]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/19/13

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The Spiritual State Of Israel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do you ever have the feeling that we don’t have time to manage to do something?

Answer: The feeling that “we don’t have time” isn’t relevant for me. I am already an elderly person who knows how much time I have left. I simply want to see a clearly assembled organization that is connected to the masses and to the Creator, and begins to work seriously. This is an organization called the “State of Israel.”

In this case, the State of Israel is not a geographic concept. It consists of different interconnected functional blocks, part of which operate in order to sustain themselves both physically and spiritually.

The part that is connected to the Creator is the Kohanim (Cohens – priests). The part that provides the ideological basis is the Levites. The part that provides the material basis is the people. And together they all tied to connect with all the outside world, and they have many connections with the masses, with all countries, and with all of humanity. This is how it all works.

If I could at least see a prototype of such an organization, I might not be in such a hurry anymore. And although it’s already looming, it is not enough; there is no clear contact with the general public; there is still no contact with the Creator,

The contact with the lower and the contact with the upper are mutually dependent and we are in the middle. The more we manage to approach the general public successfully, the more will need the Creator correctly, and will thus receive help from Above.
[125973]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/19/13

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