Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.23.14

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NASA: The End Of Civilization

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Guardian): “A new study sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

“Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that ‘the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.’ Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.’

“The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

“By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy. …

“These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: ‘the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity;’ and ‘the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]’ These social phenomena have played ‘a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,’ in all such cases over ‘the last five thousand years.’

“Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with ‘Elites’ based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

“… ‘accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.’…

“However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

“The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth.

“’Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.’”

My Comment: Human egoism cannot be stopped; it irresistibly leads us each and everyone to death. Even in the face of death, it will not be able to contain itself! So, we cannot even talk about the awareness of death. Only a global war, in which everyone will lose everything, will stop our egoistic civilization and compel us to reassess our attitude to life. Or we can advance if we accept the method of integral education and upbringing.
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The Meter Is Ticking

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is nothing more important than dissemination. Besides this you don’t have anything more to do; nothing will help, not our beautiful intentions, not the dances with the friends. There is no other activity besides dissemination that will remain after your death and will be recorded in your account. So choose what you are doing now.

Life is going by every day, every second, every moment; the meter is ticking. If you don’t direct it towards disseminating knowledge about the Creator in the world, the revelation of the Creator to the creatures, which is the foundation of the wisdom of Kabbalah and is the goal of creation, then you are not in spirituality. There is some kind of physical protein body to which they gave the opportunity to develop a personality and it didn’t take the opportunity.

And don’t think that even the activities that you do for the sake of dissemination are your personal actions. All this is on account of the environment, the external conditions that attract and obligate you. After all the great work you invest in, what percentage is left there to be recorded on your account?

There is no other opportunity similar to revealing the deeds of the Creator to the creatures besides dissemination work. And it’s not important that this can be in a covert form like integral education, connection between people and so forth. All of this is working in the right direction and the right form through which it’s possible to turn and to reach the community. Therefore, I recommend doing this.

Otherwise, why would I need to connect all kinds of events in this world with the phenomena of the upper world and to explain this as one would to little children on their level? It’s clear in this way that all of these problems are those of the human ego. What difference does it make how this small human acts? But it’s the accommodation from above for the sake of this small human that is actually the revelation of divinity.
[130422]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/14, The Zohar

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For Whom Do I Go Out To The People?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The higher Partzuf is concerned for the lower. How do we create and develop within us that concern for people’s needs?

Answer: Where does the deficiency come from to be integrated with the desires of the people? We would want to remain by ourselves, detached from everyone. We have a link with God through the study and we don’t have any inclination to be linked with someone else. And that is how we could continue forever. Solely and only on condition that we want to give contentment to the highest, do we descend to a lower level. This is the right motivation.

And then we begin to feel the lower because we acquire the right deficiency from him. Everything depends on which purpose and goal we have for descending to the lowest.

  • Either we descend in order to give contentment to the lower.
  • Or we do this for our own good, in order to manage him, to get respect and thanks from him.
  • Or we do it for the sake of the higher.

There are only three possibilities for what stage we act: it is either for the sake of the lower, for our own sake, or for the sake of the higher. And this must be solved. Through the society, dissemination, and attraction of the Surrounding Light, we can truly begin to think about the welfare of the higher. Accordingly our relationship with Him and His revelation appears.
[130430]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/14, The Zohar

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Think, Decide, And Perform

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the manner of work for attaining unity?

Answer: First of all it’s necessary to think seriously. Try not to think with your head but with a greater and higher head, meaning, listen to what the Kabbalists recommend. After that, try as much as possible independently of the ego to decide how we will carry this out so that pride in our task, or in other words, the importance of the goal, will be greater than love for oneself.

After that, when we accept a decision like this calmly, as if nothing depends upon us, and understand which actions must be carried out, we organize a plan, and after that we pass to the next stage: How do we carry out this plan? The practical implementation stage doesn’t need to change the decision of the previous stage, meaning the plan for the necessary actions. Rather it’s only necessary to realize it and accordingly see if we are involved with spiritual work or not.

I don’t know how and why this wonderful mission to make these corrections has fallen upon us, being that we are all weak and lazy. Either we accept the mission, go forward with it, and carry it out, or we don’t. So there is nothing to complain about and don’t come with accusations that three or five years or more have gone by and there are no results. We were given this work and we need to carry it out. And alone I am prepared only to clarify the method in detail, and this is what I am doing.
[130374]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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A Jealous God

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:13-34:14: But you shall demolish their altars, shatter their monuments, and cut down their sacred trees. For you shall not prostrate yourself before another god, because the Lord, Whose Name is “Jealous One,” is a jealous God.

A person can worship idols, anything except for the incomprehensible attribute of love and bestowal, which is amorphous, unfelt, and unimaginable.

If he prefers properties other than full connection to love and bestowal, he is considered a traitor, and so the Creator is jealous when a person betrays Him.

But it is all an allegory about a person who should experience and feel this. The Torah speaks about spiritual issues using corporeal language. It is because we work as if to delight the Creator, and so expressions like “delight” and “jealous,” etc., are used here.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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An Eternal Holiday Of Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:23-34:24: “Three times during the year shall all your male[s] appear directly before the Master, the Lord, the God of Israel. When I draw out nations before you and I widen your border, no one will covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord, your God, three times each year.”

A year is a certain level. Certain levels are divided into days, weeks (a week is not an astronomical concept but a spiritual one), months and beginning of months. For those who worked correctly with the Torah, these concepts were just as familiar as they are today.

It is about the three lines by which a person has to rise on each level. Every level is a year (stemming from the word to repeat in Hebrew: “Shana” from “Lishan,” to go over again and again, to ascend and to go back).

Therefore, in principle, all the holidays are repeated every year. When this world disappears from our feelings, all the levels will fold together and only one state will be revealed, the world of Infinity, and only one holiday will remain, which is called “one day,” a continuous Light.
[130392]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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Living Space

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe must imagine the spiritual world as an empty vacuum. On one side of this empty vacuum is the person, and on its other side is the Creator, and within this emptiness that separates us, we begin to build all kinds of connections, sections, and forms that connect us with the Creator.

We fill this space with our thoughts, desires, and intentions regarding the Creator with all kinds of observations about the force of desire: Shoresh (0), Aleph (1), Bet (2), Gimel (3), Dalet (4). This means that we construct different sections within this space, forms closer to the Creator, like an internal spiral, cubes, pyramids, and all kinds of geometric forms.

All of these forms are constructed from thought, our intention to reach the Creator in all kinds of ways since in every phenomenon four phases are found, all of the restrictions. In the meantime, we are not prepared to rise above them, so they create the form of HaVaYaH.

However, after we reach the completion of correction, all of these separate forms disappear in that they are connected into an integral form that fills this space with an infinite connection with the Creator, which is no longer in various separate forms but merged together into one whole.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14, The Zohar

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“Awaken And Arise!”

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom the book, Ohrot, by Rav Avraham Isaac HaCohen Kook: The structure of the world, which is at present crumbling at the feet of the terrible storms of the sword filled with blood, requires the building of the Israeli nation. The building of the nation and the revelation of its spirit is one thing, and it is completely united with the building of the world which is crumbling and awaits the full power of unity and elevation.

And all of this is found in the soul of the community of Israel. The spirit of the Creator fills it, the spirit fills it there, and it is impossible for the human spirit, which feels its soul pounding within, to be quiet at this great hour without calling upon all of the forces concealed within the nation: awaken and arise to your tasks. The voice of the Creator calls with power and we discern this from within our living soul and its movement. Israel is compelled to seek the source of its life, to stand here on the feet of its spiritual character.

All of the cultures in the world will be renewed through the renewal of our spirit, all the sciences will be straightened, all lives will be illuminated with the happiness of the new birth in our uprising, all faiths will be clothed in new clothes, removing their soiled garments and will dress in precious clothing that was prepared from yore for every nation and every person in the well of Israel. The blessing of Abraham to all nations of the earth will begin its activity with power and revelation and will begin according to its foundation, anew, among us in the Land of Israel. The present destruction is a preparation for a new revival….

During the exile of this idea, this method, it acted in a hidden way within the people of Israel. But beginning from the time of the Ari and onward, when the period of the exile was concluded, the method began to be revealed. Since the exile brought about mutual integration, today the most refined parts of the soul begin to be aroused everywhere.

So the correction is drawn from the lightest parts to the heavier and heaviest. Each one in whom the power to recognize and discover the Creator is awakened and whoever is ready to work towards this is called Israel (Yashar-Kel).

And together with this on the material plane, there is also a group called the people of Israel. Both on these and on those the obligation for correction has been imposed. If the Reshimo (reminiscence) of Yashar-Kel has not yet been revealed, then it’s impossible to demand anything from this person. He acts according to his desires: food, sex, family, money, power, knowledge. And those who feel the desire to discover the meaning of life try to realize their Reshimo in spiritual development above physical development, and they build this on the face of that urge.

There has been no example in history for our period of correction so we cannot take an example from anywhere. It’s unique in that people who have the Reshimo Yashar-Kel must realize the method of correction actively to build the complete Kli called the Third Temple.

In order to realize the building of the Kli, they must first correct the connection between them because the Kli is built from the unification of all of these Reshimot together. And together with this they must attract all the rest of the Kelim, the souls, beginning with the lightest Kelim to the heavier.
[130245]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.23.14

Preparation for the Lesson

[media 1] [media 2]

Workshop 

[media 3] [media 4]

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Bereshit-1,” “Let Us Make Man,” Item 177

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 25   

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 11

[media 9] [media 10]