Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.04.14

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“Global Bifurcation: The Decision Window”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Ervin Laszlo, Hungarian philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, author of 75 books, Founder and President of The Club of Budapest): “It has been said that our generation is the first in history that can decide whether it is the last in history. We need to add that our generation is also the first in history that can decide whether it will be the first generation of a new phase in history. We have reached a watershed in our social and cultural evolution. The sciences of systems tell us that when complex open systems, such as living organisms, and also ecologies and societies of organisms, approach a condition of critical instability, they face a moment of truth: they either transform, or break down. …

“Humankind is approaching a critical instability – a global bifurcation.”

My Comment: In our present state, there is only one choice between the two scenarios: a continuation of egoistic development that will lead us to a world war or the introduction of universal integral education and upbringing that will lead us to the creation of a new type of society, which is in balance with nature.
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Internal Search

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Pekudei), 39:1-39:2, 39:22, 39:27: And out of the blue, purple, and crimson wool they made the meshwork garments to serve in the Holy, and they made Aaron’s holy garments, as the Lord had commanded Moses. And he made the ephod of gold, blue, purple, and crimson wool and twisted fine linen. And he made the robe of the ephod, the work of a weaver, completely of blue wool. And they made the linen tunics, the work of a weaver, for Aaron and for his sons.

The garments for ministering, the Ephod, Choshen (the robe), are all garments of a totally corrected person that symbolize different Masachim (screens).

It is about levels that we should raise our desires to, the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate, so they will create the right Masach and will enable us to work on the level of the speaking, on the level of the priest.

We have to correct 613 desires according to love and bestowal as the attribute of the Upper Light demands of us.

By reading the description, which is an allegory of the spiritual actions, we have to understand what happens during these actions: where the purple, the scarlet, the Choshen, the ephod, and the Tabernacle are in us, and look for everything internally.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/16/13

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Physical Actions That Lead To The Spiritual World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it said that due to corporeal pleasure you come to spirituality?

Answer: It means that I try to do all kinds of actions of bestowal to friends or in dissemination to another, to the general public.

Even though I try to carry them out only in order to bestow, without any personal benefit, ultimately I discover that they bring me pleasure and I am ready to do them only on condition that I will enjoy them.

I don’t have perpetual energy in me allowing me to perform actions without any fuel. If I move my hand, I must expend calories, expend energy. But where does this come from? So I must have pleasure to supply myself with energy.

I am not ready to just bestow. The Creator is the source of the energy, whereas I cannot be a source of energy. If I do something, I must get adequate compensation for this so that it will be worthwhile for me to act according to my emotion and intellect according to the calculations of my internal computer.

So even though I perform good actions: studying, dissemination, strengthening the group, I discover that in spite of it all, I am working for my own sake. I clarify that I am not prepared to be a power supply; rather, I always must have the thought of the benefits that I get from it. This is corporeal action.

From this it is clear to me that I am the opposite of the Creator and also perform actions of bestowal for the sake of my gain and benefit. I am like Pharaoh who used the children of Israel, meaning bestowal for my own pleasure. Pharaoh was very happy that the children of Israel were working for him. It was worthwhile for him to hold onto slaves like these.

They seemingly acted in order to bestow, but the ego, Pharaoh, received all of the fruits of labor for himself. What could be better than that? The desire to receive alone, without acts of bestowal, which just works in the form of reception, is called a “beast.” That is how all the animals and beasts act, receiving pleasure directly. The calculation is very simple: How much to pay for each pleasure and how much I will get?

But the exile and enslavement in Egypt is that I already want to approach the Creator, and so I enter into this period. I do acts of bestowal, am connected with the friends, establish Arvut (mutual guarantee) between us, do acts of dissemination, do a multitude of things, invest all of my life in this. But I always discover that I did all of this for personal benefit.

In the end, I don’t want this to be for my own benefit, but I cannot do anything except for myself, otherwise I cannot work. So I fall, lose all my energy and I don’t have the strength to move. Kill me, I will not get up.

So I begin to discover how much I am not ready to work without a payoff. So how can I do acts of bestowal? If the society shows me the importance of bestowal and I see that I am not ready for this, then I feel myself enslaved. And accordingly, I already begin the struggle and I am approaching the plagues in Egypt.

I feel myself as if I am Moses, it is in my interest that my desire receives blows. Only this will allow me to break away from it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/14, Shamati #190

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The Ability To Manage My Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the ability of the person to be patient along this path depend on?

Answer: Patience depends upon preparation, when I know that in the next moment I could receive such inner changes, like an upgrade of emotions and intelligence that I am not responsible for.

Who knows what I will be in the next moment: a complete fool or a world-class genius or a giant Kabbalist. I am just a computer that one touch of a button will change its entire program.

Therefore, I myself cannot prepare anything but only in my environment. The Creator gave me the possibility of controlling and managing my future through the environment! If I want to know who I will be in another moment, I can look at my environment, at my relationship with the friends, and on the commitments between us, and then I can envision my next state.

This is because the Upper Light always elevates me, reveals to me more and more evil so that I can advance. And so according to my connection with the environment, I can be sure that they will protect me and will be concerned for me and will help me to advance.

I cannot come closer and approach the Creator if I do not sign a covenant with the environment. Therefore, it is said, (II Kings 4:13) “I dwell in the midst of my people”. Without support from the environment that I prepared for myself, I will get only additional ego, additional disturbances from the Creator.

I don’t know what to expect from Him, but if you prepare yourself, this backing from the environment, then with their help you will surely be able to develop the right deficiency. In the face of that evil that the Creator will reveal to me, I can develop and create a request to the Creator through the environment so that He will transform the evil into good.

That is how I work all the time: I – environment – Creator, I – environment – Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/14, Shamati #190

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Question And Answer On Both Sides Of The Machsom

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe point this question is asked from is very important. A question symbolizes your connection to a phenomenon and your ability to clarify its source. I don’t think that you are in a state where you can find the right answer to a certain question. This cannot be below the Machsom.

All of reality descends from Above and it is all above the Machsom. Below the Machsom, there is the fictitious world. What we see here is a corrupt and distorted replica of the spiritual world according to which it is impossible to understand anything. This is your perception at the moment, just like all the other people who yearn to fill their corporeal desires for food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge.

On the other hand, you learn that bestowal is a good thing. On one hand, you ask a question and, on the other hand, you want to find an answer. This won’t work until this picture is stabilized as a unified picture: either on this side of the Machsom or on the other side of the Machsom, but it is impossible to ask on one side about what happens on the other side. So it is impossible to answer such questions.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/14, The Zohar

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Signs Of Disengagement From The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why at the time of the Passover holiday is it so important to carry out physical activities in this “imaginary world”?

Answer: This is important so that we will work on them as if we were working on spiritual characteristics. The symbols of the Passover holiday indicate that we want to abstain completely from the desire to receive, to disengage from Pharaoh. After this we begin to correct it, to build the “Golden Calf,” but this is already after the Exodus from Egypt.

We escape and disengage from it, but we take with us gold and silver vessels. In the wilderness all of our desires are awakened again and we regret the loss of the meat, onions, and garlic that we ate in Egypt. All this will be afterward, but for now we simply disengage from Pharaoh.

Disengagement is possible from something that is known to you. We don’t have a feeling of our desire to receive that will make it possible for us to disengage from it because we don’t feel it. How is it possible to disengage from the “heart of stone” if I don’t feel it and don’t understand what this is?

We are in such a state, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt where we need to discover the 49 gates of Tuma’a (impurity), but we don’t know exactly what they are. So we carry out an exercise through symbolic activities in our world that show our desire to be disengaged from our desire to receive for the sake of reception, which is called “Hametz” (leavening).

At the time of the exodus from Egypt it is forbidden for us to be connected with the desire to receive. So we must carry out these conditions precisely: in every place where you can see your desire to receive for the sake of reception, you need to be disengaged from it. Do this action in the physical world also and you will see how difficult this is; it depends upon you and puts you in a unique state.

The symbols that connect branch and root, these unique times, the Kabbalists always related reverently to these conditions.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/14, The Zohar

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In A Circle Of Friends

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today adolescent youths often suffer from depression; there is no incentive in life, a lack of energy. How does one cope with this problem in the family?

Answer: The fact is that this is an unconscious problem. And it is not because the adolescent suffers from unrequited love or problems at school. In general what concerns him is the interaction with his peers and not the school itself, which for him is no more than a place for competition, who is better and who is stronger.

So parents must try to change their home into a club so that their child’s friends can freely come so that the children won’t feel that parents are some kind of hindrance. Good and pleasant communication is the main factor that prevents the appearance of depression among children. This is desirable and useful both from a psychological point of view and from a materialistic point of view. It is preferable to allow them to communicate in your territory than in dubious places (like bars, various clubs, and so forth).

Question: In the integral method there is a very interesting exercise. Suppose that there is depression or a bad mood with one of the members of a couple, and the other is happy and cheerful. In order to take the partner out of the depression, he needs to enter into the other’s state, to look at the world with the same eyes, to be integrated with the spouse, and then together with him or her, gradually come out of this state. Is it possible to use this exercise with an adolescent?

Answer: It is very difficult to use this with adolescents. I don’t think that this is possible at all. This is an offensive assault. Even if you show that you are ready for any approach, with this, on the contrary, you are inviting arrogance and opposition in him: “I don’t want to!” You must understand the psychology of adolescents. A result like this is also typical of adults who immediately begin to be more arrogant and boastful.

So it is best to interest the child in what attracts him more: sports, dances, and so forth. At this age physical movements throw all kinds of garbage out of the body and the head. It is good if there is a small trampoline in the house that the child can jump on. This will shake all the nonsense out of him.

In the evenings it is possible to organize dances at home, gatherings with his friends, and in general to do something active.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/11/13

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Building A Spiritual Image

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “Pekudei,” Item 13: When the Creator wanted to create the world, He looked at the Torah and created it. And He looked at the holy name HaVaYaH, the whole Torah, and sustained the world. The world was created in three sides: wisdom, intelligence, and reason.

In wisdom, as it says, the Creator founded the Earth in wisdom. In intelligence, as it says, He founded the sky in intelligence. In reason, as it says, in His reason abysses were opened. That means that they all have a right to exist in the world. In these three the Tabernacle was built, as it says, and I shall fill it with the spirit of the Lord, with wisdom, intelligence and reason.

The Torah provides a comparison between the creation of the world and the creation of the Tabernacle. If the world was created by the upper force, the Tabernacle was created by man himself and it symbolizes a vessel in which we begin to feel the upper world.

In the corporeal world our desires depict the feeling of this world. We can feel anything according to our desire: according to its style, to its inner states. But when we are not attracted to anything specifically, I don’t perceive this “thing.” If we cut off a certain sense, a person will cease to feel certain objects or phenomena, and will even lose the ability to think, feel, investigate, and examine things.

But when we receive spiritual bestowal from Above, we begin to build a totally different vessel of perception, not of this world but of the spiritual world: a world of forces, attributes, and values. It is actually built on the basis of currents of Light, knowledge, and upper feelings that descend upon us and gradually form the image of the upper world in us.

Just as our body was made of elementary matter and then there were stem cells from which living tissues were formed, we also begin to create the image of the spiritual vessel out of tissues of elementary stem cells, which on the whole is similar to our corporeal body but in a spiritual form.

It has the same organs and arrangement as in the human body but they are in potential and are qualitative. So the spiritual image is called a human being, just as our body is. We build it from the elements that we receive from Above. The Torah is the plan for building a human being, a spiritual vessel that will eventually be filled with wholeness. Just as our physical body is filled with a corporeal life force, so is this spiritual image (the spiritual vessel, the spiritual body) filled with a force called Light, or the spiritual life.

The only difference is that the existence of the spiritual part is totally independent of the corporeal body. The corporeal body may die while this part remains because it already belongs to the world of forces that manage all of creation.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book”10/16/13

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The Source Of The Spiritual Movement

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book Of Zohar, “Pekudei,” Item 3: It says how much goodness You have prepared for those who fear You, and have acted for those who find shelter in You against people. How much do humans have to see and to learn about the ways of the Lord since everyday a voice decrees and says, beware dwellers of the world, shut the doors of sins, leave the net that hunts people before your feet are caught in this net.

There is a perpetual spinning wheel in the world, which means that the Din (judgment) from Above ascends and descends, raising people and lowering people. Woe to those whose feet have been rejected by the wheel, since they fall into the depth prepared for the wicked of the world.

We learn about two ways of evolving here because a person is given freewill but it is very limited since the plan of creation must be carried out and it is running. The freewill is in realizing this plan independently and in the best way possible and executing it voluntarily.

Even if we see how beneficial this plan really is and how essential it is, our ego still opposes it and doesn’t let us carry it out. And it was originally done on purpose because the two forces, the positive and the negative (negative inside a person and positive on the outside) operate on us and influence us; between them we discover our freewill.

If a person is created by nature, the Creator, the upper force, the Light, he cannot be totally free; he is under the influence of this force like everything in nature.

How can our thoughts and desires be free so that we will be able to exist independently of the Creator? We are given two forces that descend from Above simultaneously, the ego and the attribute of bestowal that appears in us; both are under the control of the upper force and develop in parallel. Between them there is a mutual struggle, rejection, conflict.

If we place ourselves between them, we can choose a state in which the attraction on one side and the attraction on the other side balance one another. The balance point between these two forces is the middle line, and being in it we feel that we are totally free of all the egoistic nature and of the upper nature.

However, there is a problem here: How can we choose anything? A person cannot operate like a donkey. If there are two totally identical objects before him, he doesn’t know what to choose, the moment he feels a yearning for one of them there is an immediate identical yearning for the other, and he is between them, feeling split not knowing what to choose.

Thus we experience very unpleasant feelings: On the one hand, nothing seems to operate on us here, and, on the other hand, we don’t know what to do. It is in this state that a person has the option to create the source of a new movement inside him. This point is the starting point from which a person can raise the human being in him. Before he was like a puppet that the upper Providence operated by pulling its strings.

Only by raising the human being in us do we begin to feel how streams of Light descend from Above and flow into the sea, into Malchut of the world of Atzilut and this is never filled but actually leads us forward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book”10/16/13

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