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In the News (from Facte.ru): “Over the past 50 years, Germans have become richer by 400%, while the number of people suffering from depression has increased by 38%. Advertising instills a feeling of inferiority in people if they do not buy the new, the fashionable.
“$500 billion is spent on advertising per year; this money is enough to make humanity feel miserable. Only $50 billion a year is necessary to solve the problem of hunger in the world.
“The main problem is not that we should throw away good things because they are out of fashion. The human tragedy is unjustified expectations. Having bought a new car, a man enjoys it for a very short time. If the next day his friends get a car better than his, this joy will be limited to just one day. Without noticing, many of us become unhappy in the pursuit of new fashionable things.”
My Comment: Getting out of this race is possible only by consistent participation in one’s own re-education under the influence of the right environment according to the method of integral education and upbringing.
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Question: When we are talking with the general public about Arvut (Mutual Guarantee), do we mean material Arvut and not spiritual Arvut?
Answer: If you are talking about material Arvut, this is a political conversation. But if we are talking about spiritual Arvut, then this is about the spirit that dwells within the people through which we can change everything. We are talking about the power that is found in the center of the group, in the center of connection.
We are not calling for people to gather and bring order to government offices, to human society, to physical life, to the schools, to the police, and so forth. We are talking about discovering a unique higher force within our connection. This power is called the power of connection, the power of Arvut, and it can organize our entire lives.
If we want to correct and organize everything through our physical powers, we need to struggle with someone and organize a civil war within the nation. But we don’t want to struggle with anyone. We only want to institute education for the people. And when the people connect and unite through this education, through studying the wisdom of connection, then they will discover the power of connection that organizes everything.
We don’t rely on anyone, not on ourselves and not on our powers. We are far from all politics, because the Light that Reforms will correct everything.
Question: But people don’t feel this Light.
Answer: The Light doesn’t interest people; what matters to them is having a good life. The lack of Light brings them all their troubles, whereas through Arvut they attain the Light that Reforms that will remove all troubles.
There is a provider of Light of great intensity, but it is found ten feet from you; and so you barely feel the vitality that comes from this illumination. But through Arvut everyone gets the power of everyone. In this way, the provider of the Light approaches us and we begin to better feel ourselves.
We turn to the same source that makes the troubles for us and attract Him to us so that He will correct everything for us. This works in a very simple form.
It is necessary only to attract this source to us and people will feel good. They also will not ask where this good comes from. Suddenly they will feel that everything is okay at work, in relationships with neighbors, with their children, in the schools, and in their family. But they will understand that this is done thanks to the Arvut, because there is a deliberate action between the Light and the Kli vessel) and people will begin to discover this. This is practical Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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The Great Commentary is a book that was written close to 3,600 years ago. Much later it was amended again and again, but the beginning of its creation coincided with Abraham leaving Babylon and the subsequent destruction of the kingdom of Babylon. The Great Commentary is a book of chronicles that accompanied the history of the people throughout the many years before they went into the Egyptian exile.
There it is said that when the sacrificial animals were ready, it was Aaron’s turn to begin the sacred service. But he stood and didn’t move. “Aaron, go out!” shouted Moses. “Why are you stalling? Indeed you were chosen to be the high priest. Find the courage to begin the sacred service!” But Aaron continued to stand hesitantly, because every time he looked at the altar, the altar took on the outline of a bull.
Question: How does a person feel inside himself when the altar takes on the outline of a bull?
Answer: For me these words don’t evoke any associations with bulls. First of all, this is all about one person. But because it is difficult for us to describe the actions that are considered as happening within one person, let’s describe them as people who identify and feel everything as one person, how their feelings are mutual and their sensations acute.
As one person, they begin to elevate themselves, dividing themselves into the people (Israel), Levites serving the people, and the Cohens, the highest level of service in a person. For in a person, meaning in the general image of an Adam (human), in the general Partzuf there are three levels, NHY ( Neshama. Haya, Yechida), HGT (Hesed, Gvurah, Tifferet), HBD (Hochma, Bina, Daat).
In principle, they are always gathering and assembling the image of the whole person, of Adam. So they begin to feel whether they rise to the level of Aaron, coming into contact with the Creator. Their mission is to reach adherence between them, for only in connection do they rise sequentially to the level of the “people,” to the level of the Levites, and after that to the level of the Cohens, and from the level of Cohens to the level of Aaron, and after that they attain the level of Moses.
That is how they solve the problem of connection for themselves, and in their common unity, which is called Mishkan, the dweller (Shochen) is discovered. The dweller is the Creator who is felt in a person as having descended to this place and filling it, like a fog that fills a valley.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/15/13
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Baal HaSulam, Article, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: And once the whole nation unanimously agreed and said, “We shall do and we shall hear,” each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before.
“Exodus” 24:7 “We shall do and we shall hear” at Mount Sinai refers to accepting the guarantee. Only to the degree of revealing the vessel of the damaged desires that we agree to connect to help each friend to correct the desires and approach the goal of creation, reaching adherence with the Creator, do we attract the Light that Reforms. It corrects our vessels and we put them in the framework of mutual guarantee.
Meanwhile, all the rest of the desires that cannot enter into the framework of guarantee are left out. This means that a guarantee is the condition that we must reach on every new level.
In accord with the guarantee between us, time after time, we receive the Light that Reforms that corrects us, and then we discover the Creator, the Master, we carry out the action for the sake of bestowal, reach adherence, and continue onward. On each and every level there are the conditions for guarantee that must be maintained according to the level that is attained. And in that vessel that is called guarantee, we receive the Light that Reforms.
But how can I be a guarantor for someone if I don’t have any power; I am not found beyond time, I don’t see the past, the present, and the future, and I have no possibility of changing them? I cannot change my desires. So how can I be obligated to be a guarantor for someone?
The guarantee means that I am ready to join with you with all the available forces, but I must attract the Creator to this. Because who am I to be able to be a guarantor?
At the bank I sign a guarantee for a friend hoping that he will be able to pay it. In the worst case, if he cannot repay the loan, I will somehow pay it. While here, I am simply not able to cope. How can I be a guarantor for attaining connection, for attaining adherence, for attaining the spiritual goal? I must, in place of the Creator, sign guarantees like these, otherwise this is a lie!
How is it possible to demand something like this from me if even in this world I have difficulty understanding what is happening here? All the more so, I am not responsible for what is happening on spiritual levels. So we need a higher power within our guarantee.
I don’t attract more Light than what I need to be a guarantor for others. I ask for the help and cooperation of the Creator to help everyone. This is what we can realize today!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Rav Kook’s Letters: Even the lowest person, when offered to do kindness with the whole world, which includes everything infinitely, will powerfully rejoice to do good.
All the laziness and the weakness is only a result of lack of faith in the greatness of the good that can be done to the whole universe when engaging in the Torah, the Mitzvot, the work and the purity of our measures. This is depicted by understanding the spiritual unity, which means knowing that the light of the soul of every individual is connected to the general soul of the whole existence.
Every person should say that the world was created for him. When a person does his work he generates a change in all the other souls. It is because we all belong to and are included in one mechanism, and when a person corrects his connection with the whole world, he brings the parts of his soul back to him and thus helps others connect.
It is like fishnet that was thrown into the sea during the shattering. As a result of the shattering, I am left with only a point in the heart, and my other parts dispersed in the water and remain external to me. I was born this way; it is a fact. Now I need to take the fishnet out and to gather my lost parts and connect them back to me.
By working with the public, I connect my parts back to me on one hand, and on the other hand, I give each and everyone the spiritual force to start working with his own net. It seems that I speak to strangers but really it is me in different forms.
When I draw people to this idea, it turns out that I bring the parts of my soul closer to me. All of humanity are parts of my soul. But except for this, my part, each one has his own personality. By attracting my parts, I convey the spiritual force to them by which they can work in their own circle, with their own world.
It turns out that when I pull this net out of the water, I awaken all the parts of my soul that were connected to this net, and each one pulls out his own net and clarifies its content because everyone has his own world. Thus we understand that working with the public enables us to connect the parts of my soul; the quantity becomes quality and so each one advances toward implementing the establishment of the ten Sefirot of his own soul.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/14
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When working on corrections we have to work in the opposite direction of the shattering and to understand that everything depends on our mutual incorporation. Therefore, the correction begins from having an inclination, a deficiency, a need, to unite for different reasons.
There is a purely pragmatic aspiration to unite in order to make a living from one another in the corporeal sense, and there is the commandment to connect in order to earn from one another spiritual advancement.
All the corrections are performed by mutual incorporation. So when we want to put the shattered vessel together again, we should make sure that a person feels that he is an inseparable part of the world. That is, he has to correct the whole world in order to correct himself.
This means that a person will not be able to correct himself unless he corrects his connection with the whole world, with all of humanity. Although it may seem impossible, we depend on one another in the correction to the same extent that we depend on one another in the shattering.
To the extent that I depended on everyone during the shattering, as is being revealed now, I also depend on everyone during the correction. So even if I only perform minor personal corrections that I manage to carry out, I thus touch every person in the world. It is because we are in an integral system in which there are no detached parts, but where everything is connected and everyone influences one another.
Of course, everyone operates according to his level and according to his Reshimot (spiritual genes), according to the depth of their fall during the shattering and after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. But still, if we pull a certain thin wire at the end of the system, the whole system rocks and moves, and is accordingly invoked either for better or for worse.
That’s why it is said: “He who saves one soul of Israel, it’s as if he saved the entire world.” It’s because he who is called Israel (according to his yearning for the revelation of the Creator, the force of bestowal and love in the desires) corrects his attitude to the system he encounters at least to the first level of Nefesh, and by that he certainly influences the whole system.
For this reason it is said in The Book of Zohar that when Israel corrects themselves, the Upper Light that comes into their vessels pours outside and fills the whole world. This means that we don’t have to take care of the world, but it is enough to take care of those who can wake up. Although we can go out to the public and hasten their development.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/14, Writings of Rabash
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Throughout its entire history, humanity has invented numerous methods of social correction. Along with the progress of humanity, the structure of society acquired new shapes and turned into a more complicated configuration. Consequently, methodologies of augmenting human society have improved and become much more substantial and sophisticated. This is the reason philosophy was brought about, followed by psychology and other social sciences.
Among them, we can find both religious and social movements that are aimed at correcting our society. People are always dissatisfied with the environment they live in. In fact, it’s really a problem. Many studies have been conducted and countless books written on this topic; however, social problems still remain unsolved.
What all these methodologies have in common is that hey are all understandable to mankind. Each methodology can be explored, understood, and implemented. And although none of them have ever brought any benefit to humankind, people do not give up on them and still hope to implement them. People still hope that eventually they will find a way of making them work.
Lately, the growing frustration and sense of powerlessness is becoming clearer by the day. It is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot do anything with our nature, which is the cause of all evil in the world.
Our egoism, our evil inclination, has been expanding over several thousand years. We advance due to our ego. In fact, we really progressed, constructed, and evolved because of our egos. Actually, everything that was ever built and created by a human being in this world was done by a monkey that at some point in its evolution came down from the trees, a monkey that happened to have a mounting egoism which eventually forced it to turn into a human being. Egoism made a monkey develop socially in cities and countries of its habitat. Egoism encouraged the monkey to build, invent, and discover.
We had no doubts that our advancement would carry on. Based on what scientists, economists, and philosophers state today, humanity still hopes that it will continue developing. What else can people hope for? In fact, is there any other way to advance if not for our egoism? It’s the only force in this world that pushes everything ahead and governs every atom, all galaxies, each person, as well as all still, vegetative, and animate nature.
Everything moves because of our egoism. However, during the last 50 years this progressive force that made us advance, create, and construct turned into a “malicious demon,” a cancerous tumor that devours us. Previously, our egoism was used for creativity, although currently it doesn’t produce anything anymore; on the contrary, it destroys everything around.
The systems that were created for our benefit such as high technologies, medicine, education, and culture now work against us. Moreover, they harm us. Modern medicine, instead of healing us, aims to profit from us. High technology destroys the environment. The educational system cripples our children.
There is nothing we can do about it since we are positioned inside our egoism that has turned into a malignant tumor and gobbles itself and everything there is. Thus, it kills the body, all of humanity.
Nobody in this world has a solution to the current situation. If there is only one force in nature, what can we do about it? We have nothing in our possession but our egoism. Our egos govern us, they push us ahead, accompany and embrace us from ahead and from behind. We know nothing but our egoism. We are totally at its mercy and have no idea where it leads us. Even approaching an abyss, there is nothing we can do against it. That’s why scientists, philosophers, and economists now cling to old values that were in use many years ago, irrespective of the fact that our world is rapidly and strongly declining. Nobody can change this state of affairs!
So, why don’t we, those who learn the wisdom of Kabbalah and who have the second force that is capable to confront egoism, go out and provide others with the recipe for salvation? Why don’t we participate in all the mass media? Why don’t we shout in the streets or give away our books at each street corner? Why don’t we flood newspapers and magazines with our articles? Why don’t we do all of this? Why don’t we meet with scientists, philosophers, well-known artists, and educators?
We actually held several meetings with them. The answer to these questions is very simple. Our methodology is based on having a point in the heart; we simply do not have a chance to explain to others that there exists another force that is capable of opposing our ego, a force with the help of which we can correct egoism. They don’t understand, feel or believe in such a force.
It doesn’t matter if they are religious or secular; they are just unaware that this force exists. Even if it is written in books they consider sacred, they still lack the internal sensation and do not have two bases. And inside we have both of them: our egoistic inclination and a point that pulls us in a different direction. This point can provide us with the positive force in addition to the negative. We can unleash a war between these two vectors and correct the evil power by the benevolent force, because the Light that the latter contains reforms.
So, we have no chance to appeal to those who don’t have the internal prerequisites. They won’t understand us! They will consider us mystics, and dreamers. This explains why there is no other way to prove that our path and our methodology are correct except for bringing explicit examples. Baal HaSulam writes that we have to show a model that will convince people that our methodology is correct and that it really works! They won’t understand the mechanism of how it works, but the facts will speak for themselves.
If we manage to provide such an example, we’ll then have something to advertise, something that will serve as proof and will appeal to others. It’s impossible to make them feel it directly. The example should be clear and shared not only by us, some special people, but it also has to be apparent to the general public. The example should become known to thousands around us, then they will take part in building unity among everybody. They will feel that bestowal, giving, unity, warmth and love that awaken in us are the best rewards. They will exert to achieve these sensations, leave their egoism behind, and unite with each other on the basis of equality.
Our activities should be very simple: address regular people, unite them, and take care of them until we create an example that will be obvious to everyone. Then, we will be able to advertise this form to introduce people to the method.
The general public won’t understand its deep essence, but those who attain unity will feel where the source of the positive force is. Thus, the methodology will spread. That’s why we are making big and extremely important steps that will demonstrate to the entire world the essence of our methodology; we have to show others the outcome and set an example for the entire humanity.
I certainly hope that our joint care for the general public will help us unite to the extent that inside our strong association we will sense the internal fire and feel the power of bestowal. It will reveal itself in the very center of our unity, in the core of the group, and we’ll feel it. Those who join us without studying the wisdom of Kabbalah will simply feel that they are happier. They will feel good because their desires and goals will be fulfilled through having positive relationships with others. It will give them a sense of confidence; they will feel safer and will finally resolve their most vital problems. People will realize that everything is great about their lives, each one of them according to their level of desires.
Let’s hope that we’ll manage to set such an example for humanity and that it will demonstrate to everybody that it’s not about just empty words, but that it is really possible to trigger the benevolent force in our lives, and that with its help, we can correct the evil inclination by turning it into good.
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From a Talk during the Meal 10/23/13
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