Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.25.14

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War With Myself

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I was constantly at war with the Creator and I always argued that only I exist. And He, the good and benevolent, let me do this, and after that He took everything from me and brought me to a Bnei Baruch group.

The fact that there is a group and a teacher is proof that “There is none else besides Him.” The Creator always teaches me to nullify myself in regard to the group and all that I have left is fear and awe that because of this nullification I could miss the action called “I will hasten it” (Achishena).

Answer: But it is specifically the approach towards the Creator through the group that is called hastening (Achishena).

Question: So why do I feel this fear?

Answer: Because you are not in a covenant, with the group or with the Creator. You don’t have any faith to fall into the hands of the group, the teacher, and all the more so, the Creator. How can you nullify yourself if you don’t have an inclination like this?

Question: Meaning that I feel an indication that I am not there yet?

Answer: Indications gradually change, become more subtle, precise, and narrow.

Time is running out, and you need to feel for yourself how you are advancing forward. Are you placing yourself in the right way regarding the group or do you have many philosophical thoughts that come out of your egoistic mind? You cannot trust this intellect and rely upon it; this is impossible.

You need to rise above everything that is in you today. Spirituality is on the next level and you want to rise to it by using your present emotions and intellect. It will not happen.
[130349]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Lesson 1

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Course Of Spiritual Progress

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: My physical group, which is closest to me, is a four hour journey away by train. I meet with it once a month. I don’t see and don’t know the trend and direction of advancement of this group.

But the trend and the direction of my virtual group, which meets daily and lives in my heart, I understand. And I try to hold onto it with both hands in order not to deviate and move to the side. Is this enough for spiritual progress, or in spite of all this, is it necessary to change something?

Answer: If you are in contact with your virtual group all the time and this is a good, strong group that tries to be together and to participate in all of our events, and first and foremost in the lessons, even if it is not at the actual time, because we live in different time zones, then this is enough. Moreover, you travel once a month to visit the physical group.

More than this, it provides you with a good indication between the physical and virtual inner perception. And this is good.

To the degree possible, come to all of the various conventions, because you see how participating in it, you can take off in one week.
[130351]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Lesson 1

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The Ego Blocks The Brain

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the right way to approach the public today in our generation, is it through the mind or through the heart?

Answer: It should be both ways but more through the heart.

Most people are underdeveloped, which means that their ego blocks their mind. We are all like that. The ego blocks a person’s brain, his mind, and he cannot see more than his ego. It turns out that he is wretched and limited. He may have great, wonderful abilities, but the ego stops him and doesn’t let them be expressed.

If for example you want control, the ego blocks everything else. Although you could prosper, the strong desire for control obliges you to engage only in that. This is an example of how limited we are in our ability to work with our brain. But by working with the heart, we can open the way to the brain. This means that we have to turn to the heart and to work on it, but it is possible only by mutual incorporation with the friends and through them with the public.

People have to penetrate our heart this way, so that we will not be able to abandon our concern for them. Then it means that we have incorporated them in us like the upper level with regard to the lower level.
[130627]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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A Filter Of Zero Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If several people decide to do something, but each one is in his own ego, in his own perception of reality, and cannot concede to others, will the decision be right?

Answer: First we have to reach general equality. It is impossible to advance without that.

Each one has to do his best to annul himself and his own opinion in order to do what the book says, and what the author of the book and the teacher say. Otherwise a person doesn’t learn.

Only a person who feels that he is less than the teacher can learn: from me, from Rabash, from Baal HaSulam and all the great Kabbalists who stand behind us and who teach us. If a person doesn’t humble himself before everyone else, by seeing himself last on this chain and that he is not even part of this system.

If we could strain all the students here through a special filter, we could see who does and does not pass this test: his humbling himself to others, to the group, to the teacher, to the opinions of the authors of the books. So how many people would be left? As it says: “I have arrived and there is no one.” There are many bodies, but internally there isn’t even a Minyan (ten people). So we must first fulfill this condition.

Everyone thinks that he is the one who knows how to do things right, but he should not “think,” our role is not to think but to fulfill. After a person reaches certain spiritual discernments, he realizes that it requires annulling himself towards the group and he begins to incorporate in it, to see everything that happens through it from the perspective of the group’s benefit and not of his own, for the goal that Kabbalists write about. He receives this as if from the outside, as if he is a third party who isn’t related to it; that it, he makes a total zero of himself.

The main problem which stops us from reaching spirituality, from feeling it, and from starting to live in it is that we see everything through our ego, through the intention of in order to receive. We have to annul it a little bit, to set it aside, and then we get closer to the real perception and will be able to see everything the way it actually is. So we should constantly try to lower ourselves until absolute zero.

When a person reaches this level, he begins to perceive the goal independent of his ego, objectively, he should take it and run. No matter if he is capable of that or not, or whether he acts within reason or above reason, he will see the truth.
[130370]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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Waiting For The Dear Guests

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean that the Creator’s tower is full of abundance but empty of guests?

Answer: There is the thought of creation to do good for His creations. The Creator created one creation so it would attain His form, which means His state. But the creation has to be separated from the Creator; otherwise, it isn’t considered as a creation. And thus it was created with an attribute opposite to the Creator, and it establishes a special connection with Him, not in the same attribute inherent the Creator.

So there is a desire to receive and its fulfillment, a concept that is not a characteristic of the Creator. In the relationship between the creation and the Creator there must be two planes. One plane is the fulfillment that the Creator gave the creature with the desire to receive. And the second plane, which is more elevated, is the relationship between them. Both planes need to develop simultaneously so the creature will receive greater and greater fulfillment, and in spite of it, will build above the fulfillment his relation to the Creator, to bestow.

The Creator has a tower filled with abundance. But we are not talking about a juicy steak with which the Creator wants to honor the creature, but about relationship, about love. This tower is filled with love, with the Light of Hochma. This is what the Creator wants to give the creature. And the creature has to prepare himself in order to come and receive all of this love.

For this purpose, he needs to come with a huge vessel (desire) of mercy (Hassadim) of the Returning Light so that he is able to receive the Light of Hochma to receive in order to bestow. So he needs the Light of Hassadim on all of his vessels (desires), on all the levels, i.e., the root level, the first, second, third, and fourth levels.
[130036]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Find Patience When Cooking The Soup

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam writes in “The Last Generation”: “People don’t understand how to be careful and to look at everything to see if it is fully cooked. And even though the thing is useful and true according to plan, there is more deepening that can be done in the matter, if it is fully cooked, if the receivers have matured to a sufficient degree already, so that they can digest it in the bowels, and when they lack the time for development, indeed the truth and the benefit transforms into false and damaging.

This is clearly seen from experience, how much we don’t agree with the stages of our advancement. We are inside the soup: We are being cooked and as we are being cooked, we don’t agree with this process. Suddenly all kinds of emotions disappear from us, and this is how we go on for a few months. After some time we wake up again and again we fall.

The problem is that we live within our emotions and are not ready to see advancement as long as only half of the matter is done. And here the main thing is to surrender ourselves and continue patiently. We need to give ourselves time to be cooked completely, for we are in a slow and gradual developmental process.
[130021]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/14

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Who Can Hear The Torah?

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:4-34:7: So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, and early in the morning he went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, taking the two stone tablets with him. The Lord came down in the cloud; He stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed: “The Lord! the Lord! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”

“To the third and fourth generations” refers to the third and fourth levels when the Light already stems from a spiritual state and all the Reshimot (spiritual genes) stop. On the whole this is what Moses attains and expresses in his attainment. He clearly sees two lines: The right and the left, a blessing and a curse, that descend from the Creator and manage the ego pulling if forward in perfect accordance between them, forcing it to want to change.

Question: Do all the people hear what the Creator proclaims?

Answer: No. It is only the attribute of Moses; others cannot hear anything! The point isn’t where they are since the mountain only symbolizes distance. So under the hatred, which are the remaining attributes of a person, they don’t perceive the attribute of bestowal and it doesn’t exist for them.

Thanks to the first restriction that they have put themselves under, they can only watch what is happening from a distance. A mountain covered in smoke means that the ego itself is concealed from the people. They don’t even understand the ego that is before them and that they have to overcome. They don’t feel how Mt. Sinai becomes the Sinai desert they have to go through.

The mountain becomes a desert because the people cannot ascend to the level of Moses, and their egoistic desires seem to gradually open up before them now as they advance. To advance means that they correct every desire they have and eventually rise to Mt. Sinai, but this happens during forty years of wandering.

It turns out that only a person who is close to the attributes of Moses can hear the Torah that Moses wrote. In fact the Torah is totally concealed from everyone, so all the attempts and the efforts are only exercises that help them get closer to Moses, to decipher all the phases of his ascent and to follow him.

Then we will not just read, hear, and feel everything that is said in the Torah, but will actually fulfill it, which means that we will attain the state of love and bestowal. The Torah is not a secret, but a method that can be revealed to us only to the extent that we accept it in advance. Its fulfillment in our world is very simple if we begin to implement it accurately, without any abstruse projects.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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Spiritual Аctions In Daily Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I have been studying for over five years and I feel like my entire life is in the group. In the past five months, however, it has been progressively harder for me to unite with the friends. Even in my corporeal life I have lost all desire for anything; there is nothing that I can do. If I am not physically with the friends, I cannot move even for my own sake in my everyday life.

Answer: This is because you do not feel that your entire daily life outside the group also belongs to your spiritual path.

Suppose you work in some factory or corporation. You need to understand that working in this business is your spiritual work. If you keep the necessity of spiritual advancement in mind while working at this office or factory, then through any of your movements and actions, you pass along your personal spiritual energy. This is how you should act in this world in order for it to become corrected.

Our entire work in this world is intended so that we would influence each other with our spiritual forces. Thus, if, while working in the office or alongside one hundred complete strangers who are far from spirituality, but you come there with spiritual filling, then you, through your work, like an undercover agent, channel spiritual content that they feel this, and through them, the entire world.

This is our work at the level of the spiritual still. In such manner we are connected to each other and we imbue the entire world with spirituality. This is necessary for us! Therefore, our world is created so  that we have to work in it, and this is why Kabbalists obligate every one of us to work at an external job.

Try to work with this intention. You will see how much you will succeed at work, how your coworkers will start relating to you differently, and what advancements you will reach spiritually.

You must combine your spiritual actions and your job correctly. It is not easy, but at the same time, this is actually your correction. This is the most important thing an individual can do in our world rather than having your head in the clouds when listening to The Book of Zohar. That is not a correction.

We are intentionally created in such a way that we spend 10-12 hours a day being occupied with our home and work. Today, many people think like this: ”Marriage, kids – who needs that? I will keep living with my mom, she will feed me and clothe me, while I contemplate philosophical matters.” This is what modern men want.

You must get married, have children, work, study, and see in all of that the realization of your spiritual potential, so that one activity would not be different from the other, so that in the group, at work, at the lesson, at a workshop, with your spouse and children, in all of those things, you will be internally connected to the Upper energy through the group and pass it through yourself downward to everyone else: your family, workplace, and to the entire world, wherever you may be.
[129314]
From a lesson in Russian, 2/07/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.25.14

Preparation for the Lesson

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Workshop 

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Bereshit-1

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, “Histaklut Pnimit,”  Item 20   

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

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