Audio Version Of The Blog – 07.10.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2014-07-10_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’10.7.14′]

What Brings One To The Creator?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is modern humanity yearning again for religion?

Answer: There is a crisis in the world. After the last world war, which was less than three generations ago, the population of developed countries with predictability, stability, and confidence in the future. Whereas now, with the appearance of the global crisis, it feels uncertainty, instability, a lack of a quest, certainly lack of a future, and a lack of hope for success.

Moreover, this feeling encompasses the entire planet. This feeling summons waves of concern all the time. Nothing is stable, not the future, nor any plans. After losing all hope, only one hope remains, which is hope in the Creator, an image ready to take the first position in the world and  to stabilize it. So a person creates the Creator for himself.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that there is nothing in the world other than nature, the force of bestowal and love that creates everything, directs and develops us to a state where we can understand our difference and opposition to this force and want to resemble it; which is to say, to acquire the characteristic of bestowal and love. Therefore the goal, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18) must become the principle for all of our activities.

Religions heard this commandment and forgot it, because in order to implement it, they had to change the egoistic nature of the person to an altruistic one (to bestowal and love for all). There is no profit in altruism; therefore all the religions speak about “And you shall love,” but not one of them implements it or understands its intent, because within the egoistic characteristics it is not possible to understand the characteristic of bestowal..

If they would understand what “And you shall love” means, then all religions would disappear and everything that separates people would disappear. The modern yearning for religion will lead to its reassessment by humanity and its replacement with a religion called, “love.”
[109953]
Also see the article, “The Essence of Religion and its Purpose

Related Material:
Religion And The Process Of Integration
Religions Go With The Childhood Of Mankind
We All Believe In Something

Join In The Good Method!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a person watches Channel 66 all the time and in spite of it all doesn’t understand the essence of the method of connection, is viewing like this beneficial to him?

Answer: I agree that our channel is still not really accessible to everyone and it needs to be improved to be more understandable to every viewer. But as much as we try to do that, we always are behind schedule.

This is because time passes until we hear, begin to understand, learn, scrutinize, and try to realize this phenomenon among us. We are within it and must work with the new material and with the new feelings. Only after this can we realize this on our channel. This doesn’t happen immediately, and in the meantime, the audience has grown.

For some time we have been talking about the necessity for connection, and the audience of viewers gradually is beginning to agree. But still there is no feeling that connection is the solution to every problem. Through our separation and distance, we see this material world, and specifically when we connect all of the stitches between our hearts, we will see the upper world. In the meantime, we don’t hang all of our material and spiritual hopes on this. It takes time.

Certainly we must always improve our channel, and we are investing a lot of time and resources in this.

Question: If a person watches Channel 66, is he going by the way of “I will hasten it” or not?

Answer: Yes, this is certain! We need to try for our channel to be attractive, interesting, understandable, and more fascinating than the World Cup games or some series.

But even now, if the viewer watches and doesn’t understand anything, he is already participating in the general connection. This is because there is a group along with me and many higher forces, that are connected to the broadcast on Channel 66. So every viewer who sees Channel 66 is connected through that channel to the end of a thread that joins our world with the upper world in a way that is stronger and better than he can find elsewhere. And in general, there is no connection like this anywhere else.

Certainly if a person doesn’t just watch the channel but also participates in the workshops and the roundtables, he will strongly hasten his advancement. One could fly in a rocket, another in an airplane, and a third could ride on a donkey. But in every case, this is advancement towards the good.
[138918]
From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/03/14

Related Material:
The Reward Is Bestowal
Unity With Filling
Learning To Love

Fulfilling Our Mission

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is your response to the murder of the boys who were kidnapped by terrorists? The whole nation is mourning their death now.

Answer: The nation of Israel has a mission and we have to fulfill it. If we don’t do so, we won’t bring the world to the right correction and head it in the right direction. As a result, we encounter phenomena such as kidnapping and of course, murder.

This didn’t start today. We study the roots of what happened in the shattering of the vessels and about the upper actions that we have been through. After all, we are in a system that is controlled by rigid laws, as it says: “He has given a law that cannot be broken.”

The Upper Light is above the shattered vessels, and if they correct themselves as a result of its influence, which means that they take part in their self-correction, everything will progress along the good way of I shall hasten it. This is the desired way in the eyes of the upper force and also in the eyes of other people, including the nations of the world, which will then have no complaints about Israel, no anti-Semitic feelings or no negative feelings of any kind.

Kabbalists say a lot about the fact that only Israel can bring the world to correction, since they have the sparks and the connection to the Light that Reforms in the first place. But if the Israeli nation does not perform the corrections, then to that extent, they are the source of all the evil in the world.

All this goes back to the gathering at the giving of the Torah. After all, the Torah is the Light that Reforms, the upper force that brings all the goodness to humanity. This force can be revealed in the word only by our participation, in coordination with it.

We invoke the upper force when we do what we have to do and then abundance and goodness pours unto the whole world, everyone respects us and is ready to participate in our activities. But if we don’t fulfill our mission in every moment of our life, we don’t draw the Light that Reforms and there is a deficiency of Light in this world, a deficiency of the upper force, which means that we cause harm to the world.

No wonder then that evil is first revealed among us, the Israeli nation, including general hatred and anti-Semitism. Ultimately we summon this by ourselves by not participating in the correction of the world.

Baal HaSulam cites the Talmud in “The Introduction To The Book Of Zohar” saying: “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.” And in the book The Light and the Sun it says, “the main protection against calamity is love and unity. When there is love, unity, and friendship in Israel among one another, there is no room for any calamity to affect them and thus all the curses and the afflictions are kept away from them.”

So we have freewill and if we do good, it will be good for the whole world, including us, and by that we will delight the Creator. Otherwise the outcome will be different.

Just think, who has free will? Not the Israeli nation, since only a couple of million live in the land of Israel. Those who work for the Creator to some extent have it. This means that those who take this work upon themselves have freewill. This includes us and other groups.

Many speak about God’s work, but the mission is to accelerate the process through those who understand that it is about the correction of the world, which depends on them accelerating the process. If people who have received this opportunity don’t fulfill it, they are to blame for all the evil that is revealed in the world.

I am very serious. There is no point blaming the terrorists, other nations, or whoever it may be, because they have no freewill. We are the ones who design the world map.

Politicians can keep on playing their games as long as they want, it makes no difference. We should stop connecting our fate to a certain leader or another. We have already seen that nothing is up to them and that it all depends only on the upper force, to the extent that we can influence it. This depends on our work. We develop an opening for it in order to pour the Light unto the world and to bring us to the desired correction in a good way.

Therefore, anyone who hears and who understands this and who is part of this path in some way, has to try to prevent the afflictions. If they occur, we should understand that we have caused them by our negligence.

Of course hate and a variety of other emotions emerge after such a calamity, but everything is done by the Upper Light that is revealed in the world, and we connect the two. We are the ones who didn’t allow the Upper Light to operate in this world as it should, and so it is all our fault.

So let’s hate ourselves and our egos, the evil in us that didn’t allow us to act as we should. We have to regret what we did and correct ourselves and thus correct the general state.

The disasters are only an indication as to how far we are behind the pace of the evolution of the world, which is constantly developing egoistically, meaning towards evil. If we don’t connect the good evolution to this process and don’t open up the way for the Light that Reforms, then of course we bring about even worse states.

We shouldn’t count on the army or a military solution. It is only the Light that we should let in, and it will do whatever needs to be done. Only then will we be able to unite with our neighbors who hate us so much today. Only we can turn them into loyal friends. It is all in our hands.

We shouldn’t focus on forceful military responses. Let the military commanders do their job, but on the whole it is the path of suffering and not the path of I shall hasten it.

The point is that it all depends on us, not on others. We should engage ourselves as much as we can, after all, there is a “field blessed by the Lord” before us waiting to be plowed. We have to calculate the aspects that we are unable to correct yet which lead to disasters.

First I look for what is in my power to do; what I have to do, without criticizing anyone. If we seriously worked on the connection between us and by that, allow the Light to reveal its action, we would at least correct the Israeli nation and prevent such disasters.

Correcting the world is a much more complicated thing, but we can begin to understand how to approach the next phases of this process.

So let the Light be revealed where you, specifically you, can open up the way for it. Then you will see what comes next. The Light will do its work and you will understand how to continue the correction and how to spur additional circles.

The world shouldn’t count on blows or on anyone else. We have a group that is big and strong enough, but it doesn’t do everything that it can do.
[138864]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/14, Lesson on the Topic “Unity of the People”

Related Material:
An Army Is Not Our Weapon
The Force Of Connection Will Disarm The Terrorists
The Kidnapping Of The Boys Is Like A Knife In The Heart

The Reward Is Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A very famous actress asked for an explanation of the meaning of connection so that it would not become a “collection of clowns.” She and her whole family watch Channel 66, but this concept still remains unclear for them.

Answer: The “people of Israel” are the first part of humanity to receive an additional need and are not willing to live only in the service of its ego on the physical, beastly, earthly level. In “Israel” there is an additional spark that connects it with the Creator, with the origin of the Light. So it cannot be satisfied with physical life on the earthly plane; it must connect with the higher source.

In order to attain spiritual fulfillment, connection with the upper source, we are compelled to be connected among us, meaning to connect our sparks. Thus, our work is on two planes. Work on the physical plane is directed at satisfying a reasonable existence, without excesses, but also without deprivation.

All other efforts must be directed at spiritual elevation that depends fully on acquiring a need for connection, not the attainment of the connection itself but for a desire for it. The connection itself will come later, thanks to the Upper Light.

“Israel” is also divided into two parts. One part feels an attraction towards attaining the spiritual world and includes various people, not only from among the physical people of Israel, but also from other nations. This is due to the mutual integration of souls after the destruction of the Temple and the exile that followed.

In the meantime, these are egoistic desires to attain the Creator, and these desires are clothed in our ego. So we want to reach the Creator in order to enjoy that, to be filled, to feel Him, to discover Olam HaBa (the world to come), to rise above death.

But after that. we begin to understand that all of this is achieved with the desire to bestow. Therefore, all the questions that we ask in the beginning about attaining the spiritual world become invalid. So a person passes through a very serious internal crisis, endures descents and disappointments in his ego.

This is because he suddenly understands that he doesn’t get egoistic fulfillment, but specifically the opposite; he must have self-realization in an opposite form, in bestowal. Thus, step by step, we begin to approach the truth, which is not easy. In the end, we must be ready to abandon our ego in order to attain the Creator. “To attain” doesn’t mean to catch or grab Him, rather the opposite, to sacrifice yourself, to give yourself over to Him, to be devoted to the Creator.

And here it will be clear that it is not in our ability to do this at all because we are absolute egoists. The only thing we can do is to understand that such an action is carried out by  the Light that Reforms, which transforms our understanding, consciousness, and values.

We begin to appreciate bestowal more than reception and prefer it, and that is how bestowal becomes a reward for us. We want to be bestowers, to be freed from all egoistic gain and be devoted to the service of everyone, and through them, the Creator, in order to give Him contentment. This is what is specifically called connection.
[138893]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/14

Related Material:
Becoming Grateful Guests
Difficult But Very Clear Actions
Sparks Of Purity For All Mankind

The Fragments Of The Shattered Vessel

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach of us is a particle, a fragment of the shattered vessel. If we could connect, we would become Malchut of the world of Infinity and we would feel ourselves as one soul filled with infinite Light.

But there was a shattering when the Light of Ein Sof entered the desire it had created and blew it up from the inside by filling it with the intensity of the Creator, of the Emanator. Thus the Creator inserted His desire to do good into the created beings.

It turns out that our small desire expanded all at once by 620 times than it was before, and with all this intensity, the desire drew the Light into it in order to receive, but it wasn’t protected by the conditions of the first restriction or by a Masach (screen).

As a result, there was an explosion and the desire was shattered into many fragments. Even before that it was made of many pieces: five types of desire , meaning the levels of the root phase, phase one, two, three and four ,which are different in quantity and in quality, although it had never previously felt that it was divided.

Every level is divided into five other parts and then into five other parts, etc., and the result is a huge number of particles. In every particle there is a desire that is different from the others both in quality and in quantity. The distance between the desires is the difference between the parts, and this is the reason that no one understands each other.

Because everyone is separated from the others, no one can feel his own reality since reality is felt in the whole vessel, or at least in the connection between two, when each one feels his reality in the other. The more parts one can connect to himself, the more strongly he can feel the reality. In order to reach this correction, we are in a state called this world, and by actions of connection, we draw back the great Light that left us, so that it will influence us and correct things.
[138380]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/14

Related Material:
Collecting The Splinters Of Perception
Fragmented Perception
The Real Purpose Of The Human Brain

The Light Will Illuminate The Next Step

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we do in order to not miss any opportunity to act independently?

Answer: You can identify such opportunities only in the environment. I constantly look for how to improve and be useful to the environment, to the world. If I yearn for that, I get the opportunities.

If a person is passive and thinks that there is nothing he can do, he will not identify the opportunities he is given. But if he pressures himself and looks for how to do good and be helpful, he finds the opportunities. It is just as we disseminate now in many countries, participate in book fairs, and organize workshops in workplaces and in people’s homes.

We are on a constant search and we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I emphasize this on purpose, so that you will learn to feel that way. It is the Upper Light that has to illuminate everything and show us the right way for today and for tomorrow.

I don’t know what will happen in the future and I don’t want to know. Such a desire is already a sign of the ego. If you want to bestow, you should do it right now and right here. Do your utmost wherever you can. This is called bestowal. If you calculate things and think that perhaps not now, perhaps later, it isn’t bestowal anymore.

Do everything today and then the Upper Light will arrive according to your state and will give you the mind and the heart to understand what your next step should be. This is how it is.
[138177]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Preparation In Action
The Specifics Of Our Generation
Helping The World Reveal The Creator

Commitment To The Spiritual Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we regard the position of a person who thinks that, even if he doesn’t attain the spiritual level, he is at least advancing toward it?

Answer: This is also praiseworthy. Every person can show signs of weakness, “I probably don’t have the strength. It seems like it’s not for me, but for strong-willed people.” But eventually everyone understands that there is no weaker person than himself and there is no more successful person than himself.

Question: What did you feel when you had just begun your spiritual path, and when you progressed along the path?

Answer: When I began, I was absolutely sure that I would tear everything to pieces and attain the goal! Then, there were short periods, but many, when I felt total despair.

I remember going with my teacher to Tiberias. He slept at night while I sat on the balcony every night looking at the lake, listening to crickets and smoking entire packs of cigarettes. I felt that I was incapable of anything and that nothing would become of me.

These are terrible states—absolute physical, moral, and spiritual weakness. However, everyone goes through this, even if he is with a teacher or in a group. You cannot escape this. However, each of us should have the support of the group. We need the group. It works for me and I work for it, and so we help one another.

Question: Have you ever felt like throwing everything away and leaving?

Answer: Never. Once, when I was in Canada, I was taken to different places and shown places where I was offered a house to buy with a private lake and a forest nearby. I could do it and, as I was told, could live in peace, without thinking about anything.

However, never for a moment did the thought of accepting to leave cross my mind. I understood that the Creator was only playing with me, and, so, I pretended to agree, but never thought of leaving the spiritual path.

In such cases, you must let go and wait, and engage in some daily work, write something and process material. When I feel that I have no more power, I take an article by Baal HaSulam or Rabash and begin to edit it and rewrite it. It is pointless to copy it since you will only ruin everything, but, at the same time, you digest it internally. I think this kind of work is very beneficial.
[138721]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/14

Related Material:
This Is Undoubtedly the Right Place!
One Hundred Percent Confident Of Success
Despair And Confidence: The Components Of A Prayer

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 07.10.14

Preparation for the Lesson

[media 1] [media 2]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Who Is This?” Item 169

[media 3] [media 4]

Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 2, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 4, Item 37

[media 5] [media 6]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Unity of the Nation”

[media 7] [media 8]