Opinion (Boris Yakimenko, historian, member of the Public Chamber, head of the Nashi [Ours] Movement): “Transformation, which in the past 10-15 years has experienced all socially significant phenomena of life, touched sport, primarily this large-scale phenomenon of soccer. There are plenty of reasons for this transformation.

“First, human physical capacities have reached their limit. The inability to advance brings to the foreground not the result, but the process of participation, both athletes and spectators alike. Thus, sports (especially soccer) becomes more a ritual.

“The second reason – sports turns into a business process. The player, as well as everything connected with him, becomes a commodity.

“The third reason – is that sport (primarily soccer) sphere is made sacred, when not the result but the process and the experience of oneness with the environment come to the fore. Researchers have drawn parallels between soccer and religious practices. Self-identification with the soccer club or team is stronger than with religion and family. Fanatic movements are booming mostly in religious countries – Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Russia.

“The business component of sports definitively destroys national sports teams and brings to the fore merchants, financiers, club owners, etc. those who own the technology of promotion and sale of spectacles, while the player and the game will fall to the background and lose their uniqueness.

“The fans’ environment that turns players into pop stars sooner or later will inevitably force the latter to expand their roles – besides their main occupation, they will become models, will sing, dance, play in movies, walk on tightrope with a pole or start to juggle.

“The process, but not the result, will take another step towards becoming a target. That is, sports will turn into a special sphere of social life where it would be possible to escape from the problems of the surrounding world, have fun, refresh, and in which the sport component itself is almost irrelevant.”

My Comment: Records do not matter if they are so far from ordinary people being able to repeat them; the main thing is the spectacle, the show and everything else; the participants and the results do not matter. While this will not turn into the usual “home sports,” but professional sports will disappear.
[126139]

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #19 “What Is the Creator Hates the Bodies, in the Work”: One must especially try to have a strong desire to obtain the will to bestow and overcome the will to receive. The meaning of a strong desire is that a strong desire is measured by the proliferation of the in-between rests and the arrests, meaning the cessations between each overcoming.

Sometimes one receives a cessation in the middle, meaning a descent. This descent can be a cessation of a minute, an hour, a day, or a month. Afterwards, one resumes the work of overcoming the will to receive, and the attempts to achieve the will to bestow. A strong desire means that the cessation does not take him a long time and he is immediately reawakened to the work.

It is like a person who wants to break a big rock. He takes a big hammer and hammers many times all day long, but they are weak. In other words, he does not hammer the rock in one swing but brings the big hammer down slowly. After that he complains that this work of breaking the rock is not for him, that it must take a hero to have the ability to break this big rock. He says that he was not born with such great powers to have the ability to break the rock.

However, one who lifts this big hammer and strikes the rock in a big swing, not slowly but with great effort, the rock immediately surrenders to him and breaks down. This is the meaning of, “like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.”

This is how we test and evaluate our advancement: by watching whether the cessations (interruptions) and breaks between the states, the rises and falls that we go through, shorten, by seeing the pressure and power we are applying towards our advancement becoming stronger. We see if we really jump from one state to another with increasing energy, desire, persistency, and this is a necessity.

This is the criteria that should be used for checking: How much time during a day  have we wasted in empty thoughts and actions not directly connected with the goal of creation, which we made without linking them to the Creator.

It should never happen, because everything is controlled by and comes from a single source and returns back to Him. We are only an intermediary in the middle, which either connects or disconnects the link between the two points: the onset of the action emanating from the Creator and the result of the action that returns us back to Him.

It’s essential to realize that we are positioned in the middle, thus we should always serve as a connection channel through all of creation, which is realized in us. Only we have this special area that is free of the Creator. If we try fulfilling ourselves with His presence, to the extent that He becomes the reason and the final destination for us, it will mean that we return everything there is to the world of Infinity, to the endless Light that fills the entire reality.

We are the reality since everything “happens” inside us. That’s why one can calculate one’s advancement by evaluating how much you try to reduce the gaps between the states and increase the pressure and the strength of one’s exertions.
[125434]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/14

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In the process of its development, the creation goes through three basic states.

The first step is the world of Infinity. The Upper Force, the Creator, made the creation perfect. Perfection cannot be divided into phases; it’s unified. It derives from the initial thought of creation according to which the creation and the Creator are at the same level.

However, the perfection associated with the initial state transforms into the third, final developmental phase only after it goes through the second phase. During this process, the creation descends from the world of Infinity through five worlds; it goes down 125 steps that separate the creation from the Creator. Gradually, the creation “distances itself” even more and thus develops a sensation of its “independence.” Finally, it ends up in this world: the worst, most distant condition from the Creator. It is through this separation that the creation can feel it exists independently.

And then the process of correction begins, an ascent from this world through the spiritual worlds back to Infinity. So man (Adam) begins developing in us; it’s not the body but the soul when we gradually acquire similarity with the Creator, the power of bestowal and love of neighbors.

And “neighbor” is one who is outside of our will to receive; he is the one we cultivate love towards. This sensation is above knowledge, beyond our emotions and intellect, above us, and above our perception of reality. Loving our neighbors is really feeling them, sensing that they are included in us. This brings us closer with them until it reaches love for them.

Thus, love for our neighbors moves us back to Infinity, rises us up and brings us to a state the final correction.

The whole world is entering this process; people discover it within. Why?—because nobody is in control of this tendency.

For thousands of years we never thought about our internal advancement; we simply went ahead, driven by our own desires. Until now, there was no contradiction between the vector of general development and our internal natural impulses. Our advancement matched and complemented our selfish aspirations.

As a result, we came to capitalism and within a short period of time made an egoistic “leap” in science and technologies, and in recent decades began to sink in crisis.

Our egoistic development is coming to an end. Our nature “rounds out”, integrates, and unveils new laws to us. Previously, we used our abilities to take advantage of others to earn money and succeed; now, this approach is winding down. Environmental conditions have changed; we can continue our path only if are consistent with them and adapt to them.

So in our perception and sensations, in our decision-making processes, we have to comply with nature: “round,” integral, and comprehensive. Without this, we won’t understand what’s going on and won’t find correct approaches. If we don’t comply, we will always make wrong decisions that won’t benefit us.

This is the situation we are in now and why Kabbalah is revealed to us. After all, we are in the beginning of the conscious state of the second developmental phase. Our descent from Infinity to this world is completed; the preparation period in this world is completed, and now we begin the correction, the realization of evil and ascent to Infinity.
[125438]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Preparation to the Lesson

Workshop

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3, Chapter 5, Item 6

Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Congress”

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The meal is a very important act. In the Talmud there is a story that tells how a group of students who lost their teacher held a dinner in his memory. And suddenly they discovered that they couldn’t arrange the meal, they weren’t able to say the blessing because they didn’t have enough strength for that; the strength comes from Above.

During the meal there is a power that is present because it is compatible to receive the Light that Reforms, the Light that gives life to the body and the soul. Thus the meals with Rabash took place in complete silence. It was forbidden to speak with each other. Each one had to focus within himself and talk within himself.

There was a very strict order that was entirely directed toward inner work. There was such tension in the air, that each person was forced to accompany each crumb that went into his mouth with an intention. If after the meal, he wanted to remember what he had eaten, he had great difficulty remembering. The food, as if, had no taste, because the taste was received from the state itself and not the food.

We are not able to carry out these conditions since both women and children are present at the meal, but still we need to try as much as is possible. Our society is special; it longs for a spiritual goal, so let’s begin to rise up a little.

I want to thank all the friends that are involved with the convention preparations and wish for us to resolve all the problems that appear on the way. You need to feel that you are great. In the meantime, it is not understood or felt who we really are. But when it is discovered, you will realize that you are in the center of the whole creation, and all of the previous generations of Kabbalists and  all of  humanity is looking at you in anticipation of what you are now doing: as you tilt the world to the side of the righteousness.
[125787]
From a Talk during the Meal 1/17/14

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In the whole vessel everything is connected together: the deficiencies, the flaws, the refinements, and the attainments. Everything is linked together and interwoven into one whole: reception and bestowal, a sense of the depth of the vessel and the height of the Light. But when the vessel is shattered and separated into many small parts, then each and every part receives some unique characteristic that is typical only of it. And therefore everyone feels their own difficulties and suffers from the shattering, but each one in his very unique way.

We must try to see in each and every friend that the sufferings with which he lives are the sufferings that he endures for everyone. Each one receives some part of the vessel, of the collective burden: one receives one thing, and a second receives something else, and so forth. And each one carries what he receives for all, a carrier of some type of deficiency. That is how the shattering divides us from one another.

Therefore, we need to see the problems of each and every one not as his personal problems and difficulties, but our shared problems and difficulties. He just loaded them on his back, that i, he received instructions from Above to carry this burden. And the second one was chosen to bear another burden, and the third bears another and so forth. And from this we must change our attitude to the friends and appreciate their work in clarification and correction of our collective problems. In the end, we must reach a state where we see every person, man or woman, as a bearer of some specific flaw of the entire world.
[125964]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Workshop

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You should try to imagine and feel that you disappear into the general integration inside the others. That is, we are all united in this notion of one; one means that there is not one of us us personally. One is not our sum total; this is not “we,” but a single whole that cannot be divided into separate parts. It follows that on one hand, I seemingly disappear there. My “I” disappears, but instead of this, I feel all. So I discover two opposite extremes.

Once I felt myself existing separately, a limited personality, but with its sphere of ownership. But now, having nullified my egoistic authority, on the one hand, I have cancelled my individuality and lost my “I.” But on the other hand, with this I acquired everything!
[125962]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Workshop

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Every problem can be healed through the connection between us. This will be understood from the clarification of the shattering. After all, before the shattering, there was one desire under one screen. But since it wanted to receive more than was possible for the purpose of bestowal, the collective soul could not hold the immense Light and was shattered.

It was separated into small fragments of individual desires: into money, power, knowledge, and all kinds of things that are in each and every person. All of these desires lost the anti-egoistic screen, because of which, the specific fulfillment in each particular desire was not important to us, but for whom we work is.

This intention was a common screen that comprised all of the desires, characteristics, and inclinations, uniting them into a single whole. But after the screen disappeared, every desire, every inclination, every characteristic took on a life of its own even within the person, but mainly between people. Therefore we feel the separation between us.

It follows that none of us is evil by himself! All the evil is between us, although it is manifested in ways as if it is me or others that are evil. But essentially, that is how the rejection between us is discovered. And within the person himself there is no evil. Rather the evil is the force of mutual rejection that is active between us.

We must try to see that the evil is not concealed in the friends and not in me, but only between us. If we rise above it and connect, then we correct this entire condition. That is my task:  to translate that evil that I see in me or in everyone as a problem of our uncorrected connection.

Therefore we must comprehend our personal problems and our recognition of evil as a discovery of our collective evil. Precisely from this we are able to build and stabilize the collective prayer, the “prayer of many,” and receive an answer from Above, that is, correct our collective vessel and restore its wholeness.

The Creator reveals the evil to us in such a way that it illuminates us a bit more from above in comparison to others. But each one of us feels this illumination in his own personal way and therefore below, we must connect between us in order to respond to Him as one, as if it were a one-on-one conversation. Therefore all personal shortcomings and problems should be accepted as our one common evil. This is the first step towards correcting our vessel.
[125881]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Workshop

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Opinion (Konstantin Frumkin, Ph.D., journalist, philosopher, coordinator of the Association of Futurologists): “Capitalism can be defined as an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, wage labor and the labor market. Thus, the disappearance of capitalism is connected to the replacement of private ownership of the means of production, wage labor and commodity and currency markets.

“The state economy will replace capitalism. The society that is in transition from capitalism will not have a single dominant type of ownership, but will have a ‘mixed economy’ and equality of all forms of ownership. This idea is already a reality of the modern world.

“Any manufacturer has to receive compensation for his costs so that the economy does not stop. The market plays a fundamental role in the organization of economy. Exchange is at the heart of the market.

“In order to abandon market exchange, it is necessary to solve a) the problem of supply and demand, how to orient producers towards the targets that are necessary to consumers b) the problem of the motivation of producers.

The overcoming of capitalism will happen by overcoming the economy, when economic motives will not affect people’s behavior: the economy will be overcome by an excess of wealth, when general abundance simply will allow people not to think about earning and exchange, or the same effect is achieved through automation and total replacement of the human in the manufacturing process.”

My Comment: Usual mass production will become the thing of the past; robots and programs will replace people. Home 3-D printers will displace factories. Through the gradual integral education of society and the fall of egoistic interest for unnecessary material needs, we will come, in addition to robotics, to the emergence of interest in joint work as the reward.
[126090]

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