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The Decline Of Babylon, Part 2

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person is born and develops as an egoist. It is written, “I created the evil inclination [egoism]; I created the Torah as a spice,” for its correction, so the Torah will give you the Light with whose help you can correct the ego. That is how two lines are formed, two parts of the inner work: the separated ego, the left part, and the Torah, the right part.

Question: Am I such an egoist that only the negative force is within me? In addition, with a message like this, is it possible to attract the public to us just like Abraham did?

Answer: As it seems, he simply scattered flyers all over ancient Babylon. He printed them quickly in a local print shop and scattered them among all the Babylonians, a total population of three million inhabitants, according to the myth. So, they read the flyers and five thousand people gathered around Abraham.

Joking aside, Abraham was a very great spiritual leader, a high priest, a great scientist of those times. Furthermore, he was the son of the head Babylonian ideologue, his father Terah. So, he had the means, the knowledge, power, and connections, all the possibilities to spread his message. All this is compulsory in our world.

So, Abraham spread the knowledge and people joined with him. He was joined by those who felt that they no longer wanted to work with just the ego.

In other words, they already had a new sensation, an awareness of the evil of selfishness; they had already developed and realized that it must be in balance, and that they had been longing for the second force, which could be used to balance the selfishness, to create a “dipole” of positive and negative forces and exist in it.

They felt that only the ego motivated them. They lived thanks only to its negative power, and surely this plunged them to depression. After all, they didn’t feel any satisfaction, any fulfillment, in this life even though ancient Babylon was a developed civilization. If a person understands that only a single negative force is working and evolving within him, he would jump from a bridge or a high tower. At best, he would go and smoke dope.

Another thing, is if, together with this understanding, the possibility of acquiring the positive force is revealed to him. Because the path consists of two points and a vector between them, a second point is required so that, at least a bit, the Light will illuminate you from wherever it is. It is impossible to live without this illumination, “I cannot stay here. So, what else is there to do, commit suicide?”  However, if something illuminates me from a distance, if, through the clouds, a small ray of Light breaks through, I have no need for anything more.
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 8/27/14

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The Merging Of The Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanDuring the descent of the desire from the point of the shattering downwards, it is divided into smaller and smaller parts which are constantly mixed according to the intensity and the type of the shattering. It isn’t only about the Aviut (thickness) but it also depends on the level that belonged to the Aviut of Keter, Hochma or Bina.

A correction begins only after the end of the incorporation of all the shattered parts into each other, just like different vegetables, such as tomato, cucumber, or onion that are put into a blender and ground together. First the vegetables are cut into big pieces and then into smaller and smaller pieces, until they become a homogeneous mixture in which it is impossible to identify the different vegetables that were put into the blender.

In the blender there is what used to be a tomato, a cucumber, and an onion, but you cannot see them since there is only a brown mass. We must now correct this mixture and raise all its components from the bottom up. What should we do? Do we have to separate the vegetables again? What is incorporation?

Suddenly we understand that this blender, the shattering, has taken us out of a special state, mixed us together in a such way that we could have never been able to be incorporated into one another if we had remained corrected.

In the initial corrected state, we were connected by the Light that created us. Thanks to the Light, we were a tomato, a cucumber, garlic, or onion. Each of us was another vegetable and although we were all connected, no one was incorporated in the others because the Upper Light connected us. As a result of the shattering, we have reached the state in which we are totally shattered, and whether we like it or not, we are incorporated into everyone else. I want what the others have and I feel what they have in my ego. The altruistic connections between us were maintained by the Light since the beginning of creation but were shattered when we began to feel egoistic impulses, such as, “ the neighbor’s grass is greener,” “what a big car he has!” “What a nice dress!”

This is how we began to absorb each others’ desires. The shattering left a merging of desires in each of us. It turns out that the shattering caused something that we could not have done by ourselves in any way. It forced us to be incorporated in one another.

Today everyone is connected to the whole world through five people he knows. I am not even aware that I am incorporated in the desires of an Eskimo that lives somewhere in the Arctic or of a person living in South America, Australia, or India, because I have never been there. How does that happen? I don’t know, but it is a result of the shattering.

We think that the shattering was a disaster, but it was essential in order to bring us to correction. Now that we have been mixed together the only thing left for us to do is to correct ourselves with the help of the upper Light. What does the Light have to do in order to correct our vegetable mixture? Does it have to separate us into a tomato and a cucumber again; does it have to sort us out? Or should it perhaps take this whole mass and glue it into one vegetable, one vessel?

The mixture is beginning to take on a form according to the levels of the Aviut of the desire under the influence of the Upper Light. There are parts that belong to upper or lower layers. How do we know which layer each one in this mixture belongs to?

In our world there is the force of gravity that builds certain layers in a certain way and there are differences between them. In the human mixture there are also differences between the layers of the desire, yet they are not created by the force of gravity of the earth, but by the force of gravity from above, by the Upper Light.

The Upper Light enters the shattered vessels, which it shattered. But now it begins to correct them and to reform them. The mixture of vegetables is made of the shattered desires that were mixed and shattered infinitely by the Upper Light. Now the Light that Reforms arrives and all the components gradually appear according to their reaction to the Light and thus they feel that they have something in common, whether closer or further away from the Light and from each other.

They clarify whether they belong more to the tomatoes and less to the cucumbers, more to the onion, etc., according to the perception of the Light and according to the feeling of its influence on them. Although they have all been mixed, changes begin to take place in this mass.

There are special parts among all the shattered desires: the Jews. In the past they drew the Light that Reforms but did not live up to its correction and were shattered and fell. They were the reason for the shattering of the whole desire and for the mixing. Now they have to be revealed, which means that a special action is taking place in the world today. We have to see how everyone is incorporated in everyone else. There are the ten lost tribes among us who were incorporated in the general shattering. This is a very complex, varied and deep action, but we don’t correct it by simply returning to the initial state in order to have the tomatoes and the cucumbers that were there before, but rather we correct all the layers together and reach a connection that is 620 times greater. The previous unity was by the Upper Light and now it is attained by the Light that Reforms according to the request of the lower who wants this adhesion.

If the initial adhesion that was sustained by the upper was one unit, the new adhesion is 620 units, 620 times stronger, and it is all thanks to the work of the lower.

The lower asks to remain in the form that was created after the shattering and only wants to correct its attitude. Therefore the general soul is corrected layer by layer according to its awakening; the first layer, the second and the third. Otherwise, there would be no ascent but a simple restoration of the tomatoes and the cucumbers.

We want to keep the mutual incorporation since it is actually by merging that we reach a more powerful adhesion, 620 times stronger, in which everyone is incorporated in everyone else. Therefore we have to be thankful for the shattering and for the opportunity to be incorporated into one another. The Jews were mixed with the rest of the Babylonians and now we can finally start our collective correction!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/01/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Flight Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We know that a spiritual action is performed by the intention. How should we approach the performance of the music of the upper worlds correctly in order to attain the goal in the shortest possible time so that, together with that, we will keep on advancing spiritually?

Answer: I think that the main thing is the constant guidance of the upper providence with joy.

About 20 years ago, I conducted an experiment in a retirement home, and I gave out the tunes of “Who is the Secret of Life” to the residents there. Then, I conducted a survey. People over 65 told me that they cried when they listened to the music.

I understand them. First, an elderly person who hears this tune immediately delves into his memories and the life he has lived, but these experiences are basically different from what this kind of music should convey.

It is about joy, about the upper Light, about a very clear state. It is a feeling of awe, inspiration, an ascent and flight of the soul! It swims in the white Light, and such a glorious state is embodied in our world when a bride is dressed in a white dress.

Therefore, the main thing is to at least understand and feel as much as possible what the tune is by focusing on joy and trying to resemble the person who wrote it. It is because he wrote it out of his attainment of the upper worlds, the upper state, and the upper force. There, one discovers only the joy of the eternal attainment, wholeness and harmony that excites and fills everything!

We should try to detach from our ego, from what it does with us in our world, from its distortion, and by ascending above the ego, we should try to live in a the totally different dimension of love, bestowal, and good mutual connection. Then, the melodies of the spiritual worlds would be felt in a totally different manner.

This is a little revelation for every student. I think that if he constantly remembers this, he will be able to begin to feel the spiritual world without studying anything else of all the enormous method of attaining the spiritual worlds of which Baal HaSulam wrote. There is no need for words! If a person opens himself to these sounds and to their internal sources, he will begin to understand everything.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 2/09/14

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Science Has Placed Us On The Path Of Suffering

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”, section 41: The Zohar writes about the text “and those that seek Me shall find Me,” and asks, “Where does one find the Creator? They said that the Creator is found only in the Torah.”

We must thoroughly understand their words. It seems that the Creator is hidden only in corporeal things and conducts all the futilities of this world, which are outside the Torah. Thus, how can you say the opposite, that He hides Himself only in the Torah?

This means that we can never discover the right system, the true forces in nature that manage us, the higher management and oversight, nor the higher power that is at work in an action if we are not engaged in the inner Torah, which is the wisdom of Kabbalah, the correct  way. Even the science of the physical world cannot bring us closer to this.

By being involved with scientific development, a person inserts himself into the way of suffering; since he hopes and wants to reach a good life through scientific achievements, the opposite situation is created, and he only harms himself. And this is clear, for in this manner he doesn’t develop his Kelim (vessels) for discovery of the higher power which is good and beneficent.

It follows that science brings us to failure and diverts us from the right way. As much as we value and respect modern science, ultimately it must be understood and acknowledged that it leads us to the way of suffering. Certainly everything was planned from the start, for without discovering the evil it is impossible to reach the good. This is because the human intellect must discover its empty powerlessness.

But if from the days of the first Adam (man), from the first discovery of the wisdom of Kabbalah, humanity had accepted it as the solitary means for discovering the good and beneficent power, then it would have gone by the ideal way directly towards the goal of creation.

Then there would have been no need for scientific progress and the evolution of human society. A person would have been involved in his spiritual development, whereas the compulsory physical work would have been only for meeting the requirements of bestial existence, to feed his “beast.” And all the remaining developments would have been only for the need of developing the Adam within us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Unity On The Basis Of Love Or Hatred

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can unity possibly defend us from external enemies? After all, we are surrounded by fanatical terrorist groups. Some of them suddenly appear on our horizon and their cruelty has overwhelmed the world. Their threat seems very convincing. How can the force of love that we are trying to create among us oppose it? Can love protect us from rockets or aggression?

Answer: It is natural that terrorists behave with such brutality. Any stable union is founded either on authentic love or on genuine hatred, one of the two.

Animosity that exists in terrorist groups in relation to their external foes connects them. That’s why they kindle hatred towards us. They also seek connection. However, there is an alternative way of attaining unity, through loving our friends.

Both groups are pursuing unity and aspiring to succeed with its help. Those who connect on the basis of hatred need an external enemy that they can continue abhorring and despising. They chose Israel and the Jews as the best object for their hostility because the entire world traditionally hates the Jews. Besides, the Jews are really guilty (at least the nations of the world subconsciously feel this way, even those who have never had any relations with the Jews).

Moreover, Israel took the territories that were previously occupied by Arabs who called themselves Palestinians. In other words, Arabs have a reason to hate us. Moreover, they have a common goal to spread Islam throughout the entire world that unites them. Nowadays, this idea attracts many young people since they are fascinated by strength and admire those who are armed.

People seek unity and commonality; they are trying to understand the goal of their lives. Today, Islam is the only religion that offers a concrete purpose of existence, which is so powerful that people are ready to commit suicide because they are persuaded that this act is the very best way to realize themselves and that they will receive an immediate reward right after they die.

These ideas attract young Europeans who are ready to join an Islamic army. They consider it “romantic”: “We are together! We have a goal! This guy is for us, he is our friend; the other guy is against us, he is our enemy!” People acquire something they can live for, they obtain a goal and become aware of the milestones on their path to achieve it. They think they now know how to live.

The rest of the world has nothing to offer to them. At some point, everybody was fascinated by the American dream. Everybody looked up to America and envisaged becoming like America. Today, this dream disappeared like a soap bubble. Similar things took place in Europe: What happened to the European unity? Where is the promised paradise? Where did the hope that a united Europe would be an example for the rest of the world go?

Question: Why can’t Europeans live in unity with their own native peoples?

Answer: A human being is a creature that constantly changes values. So, today we are not satisfied with what we considered to be great yesterday. The day before, we thought that things were good enough, but a day later we already think of them as insufficient or wrong. Tomorrow, something new will emerge on our horizons. Our egoistic desires and aspirations constantly change, increase, and expand.

Islam is attractive to many because it offers people concrete goals. It proclaims: “All Muslims must unite to have Islam conquer the entire world! If we bring knowledge about Allah who governs everything and everybody, if we spread the information about what exactly we must do to follow His will, the entire world will be ours, including the future world. Even if you die in a minute, you will immediately rise to heaven.”

Their ideology is rooted in both worlds: this material realm and the future dimension. Muslims call for unity in this world among everybody who shares their ideology. They point at their enemy very distinctly. Gradually, they will penetrate all nations without exception: China, India, and Russia… They are not in a hurry, nor do they feel any time restrictions: “If not we, then our children; if not them, then our grandchildren… Eventually, we’ll attain the goal. What’s important is that we advance to our goal and will impose Islamic ‘jurisdiction’ over the entire world. We must partake in this movement so that we merit being in the future worlds.”

They already sense their unity; they are confident that they follow a great, lofty, eternal goal. Therefore, this kind of enemy is impossible to conquer. There is nobody to talk or make peace with since our opponents have a powerful ideology. As a result of the last military operation in Gaza, more than two thousand Palestinians perished. There are numerous ruins on their territories, but they still celebrate this situation as if it were their victory. They don’t count their losses.

Muslims have an internal confidence that they are doing the right thing. They consider their struggle to be a sacred war. It’s impossible to fight this kind of enemy. Peace treaties with them are worth nothing. Of course, it is utterly clear to our government and everybody around.

The question is how can we sustain this threat as a people of Israel? We can pack our suitcases and leave (which they will gladly let us do and even will allow us time for that). However, if we have decided to stay in our land, we will have to find an alternative solution. This problem can be resolved! There is something that can make us stronger than them: our unity.

Through attaining unity, we will trigger the general power of nature, the upper force, which Israel possessed at the time of Abraham and during the first two thousand years of its history, meaning during the First and Second Temples. If we unite “as one man with one heart” by loving our neighbors, if we achieve a state where “all of Israel is friends,” and if we set an example to the entire world, then everybody will start treating us in a good way, including Arabs. As soon as we initiate our unity and reconnect with each other, the whole world will change their attitude to us adequately.

In any case, we have no other choice. We must unite since it is the only solution to the situation. We have a chance to check this doctrine here and now.

I am deeply sorry for those soldiers and civilians who lost their lives during the last ground operation. However, the current situation is different from prior battles because this time we have a chance to change the direction of the Israelis’ thoughts, and make the Israelis understand that stability and safety can be achieved only as a result of our connection.

We have a teaching that talks about these issues: the wisdom of Kabbalah. This science was hidden from us during the exile, but nowadays it reveals itself to us, and our duty is to make it known. This science explains how to attain the right connection that will then attract the upper force.

If the upper force is among us, we are covered by a “dome” that no enemy can break. Our foes will simply disappear. It depends only on our ability to implement the wisdom of Kabbalah for the sake of connection among us.

Kabbalah speaks about unity and love of Israel. It was Jewish heritage during the first two thousand years of our existence from the time we exited Babylon to the destruction of the Second Temple. During the next two thousand years of exile, Kabbalah was hidden from its people. However, nowadays it reveals itself again so that we can use it to recreate unity.

This explains why we have to disclose the wisdom of Kabbalah and demonstrate to others that it is not about “red threads.” It is a methodology of achieving unity that is meant to help us become “the people of Israel in the land of Israel.” It will teach us how to lead a stable and safe life. Then, the entire world will treat Israel as we deserve according to our roots: unity that is based on the authentic Torah, the teaching of the truth.
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From Kab TV’s “A New Life” 8/27/14

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Perfect Society of Abraham, Part 5

Dr. Michael Laitman

Together with his sons, Jacob entered Egypt, where he later died. It happened because not only the original point was “revived” from Egypt, but the entire system emerged from it. The system originated in Egypt, i.e., appeared from the terrible fragmented state that was thousands of times worse than Babylon.

In essence, it is the same Babylon, only more terribly disconnected. Instead of Nimrod, there appears the Pharaoh, instead of Abraham, Moses shows up.

History repeats itself, but in a new spiral. Correction of a huge, constantly growing egoism (“Egypt”) begins from there.

Question: So, instead of just being a family or a tribe, they became a nation, right?

Answer: Yes. This power is called “the nation” even though they all are one soul. It’s always about one soul. There is nothing in the world except one unified soul, i.e., one desire that emerged in Babylon and that was split into two major segments:

  • Those who joined Abraham and were willing to combine all desires in one.
  • Those who didn’t want to reconnect and become as one whole. The latter were spread throughout the world.

The part that left with Abraham gradually re-connected at the first level, then at the second level, and then the third: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then, they received a bigger, additional egoism: Egypt and the Pharaoh, i.e., the governing forces that rule over the people. They managed to overcome the tremendous egoism that internally tore them apart. Please use your imagination to draw a picture in which you feel mutual detachment called “Egypt.”  A much bigger, obvious, reciprocal detachment whose source is “the Pharaoh.” Both of them are appellations of brand new layers of egoism.

Thus, by overcoming the levels of disconnection named “Egypt” and the “Pharaoh,” despite all the Egyptian plagues that this group had to go through, they turned into a strong nation after they exited from Egypt. They absorbed a new coil of egoism and transformed it into a mutual connection. As a result, they became ready to ascend to the methodology of correction of their egos called “the Torah.”

Here we are talking about a new type of connection that is different from Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob’s, or even Moses’. It’s a novel type of unity that is called a “nation,” and that can be attained only if people not only use the natural joining powers, but also when they induce them from nature with awareness.

This is the difference between all the previous stages (from Babylon to Mount Sinai) and the subsequent stage of correction that started from Mount Sinai and continues further on: from that point on, people made efforts to attain the force that connects them. Not only do they aspire to be with each other and congregate, but they come to a stage when their cognitive attainment of the connecting force (the Creator) is activated.

Question: Wasn’t their prior advancement also based on the principle of “loving their neighbor as themselves”?

Answer: They had never attained the Creator. Only a few of them, their leaders, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moshe, and Aaron accomplished this task to the extent that it was “as if” they had spoken with Him directly. The rest of the nation failed to attain this goal. That’s why Moshe announced to his people what exactly the Creator had told him. There was no direct or apparent perception of the Creator at that time.

However, they managed to ascend to a new level at which they altogether started to reach out for the Creator. At the time of the exodus from Egypt, they witnessed many “signs,” slowly and gradually the Creator started to manifest Himself among them: He spoke from the Tabernacle, walked ahead of them, etc. In general, step-by-step, people began realizing that they saw “miracles.” Essentially, the Creator manifested Himself bit by bit.
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 8/27/14

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Who Are We Really?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it so hard for us to hear that our nation is special and that it has a special mission?

Answer: Because it is obliging and people want to be lost among others and be like everyone else. He thinks to himself: “There are more than two hundred countries in the world, so why can’t Israel just be one of them? Why do we have to stand out? What is the benefit in that?” But we will not be able to hide from our mission.

Question: People say that this is the reason that Jews are not liked because they stand out and consider themselves special.

Answer: I don’t think that we want to stand out, but that’s how it turns out. The Jews take part in all important undertakings and are very successful in what they do. You cannot hide the fact that some thirteen million people have a decisive influence on the world and stand out in science and in every field you can think of.

What is thirteen million people compared to all of humanity, considering the fact that only half of them are adults? It is even less than the population of a large city, but see what an impact they have on all of humanity. Of course, humanity finds it hard to accept this phenomenon.

This is especially true since there is a spiritual root here that obliges the world to see the Jews as strangers. Every nation intuitively feels something against us, but even among the Jews themselves there is a negative attitude towards Israel, because, after all, we have come together as Abraham’s group from all the nations then living in Babylon. In every Jew there is the root of the nation he comes from in addition to the spiritual root, called Israel, that he received.

While this spiritual root stood and operated actively, we were the Israeli nation. But after we fell from the height of this root, we became like all the other nations and even much worse. If Israel falls, it descends lower than all the other nations.

It is for this reason that the main roots of the nations of the world are being revealed in us now more than the spiritual root. Therefore, we want to learn from the nations of the world, to be like them and accept their criticism. It is a natural phenomenon that is typical of everyone more or less.

We only need to understand who we really are and why this is happening to us, what is concealed in us, what process we have been through and still have to go through, what our mission in this world is, and why all the nations accuse us, thus actually admitting that they depend on us.

If they claim that Israel is responsible for all the problems in the world, it is a sign that Israel is so strong, special, high, and powerful that it can affect the whole world for the worse. How can some 13 million people, which is the population of a small state, have such an impact on the whole world? How does that happen?

This is their way of telling us that we are the source, the pipe through which they receive either the good or bad energy. If we behave differently, we will become the source of goodness for the world.

The goodness is not in bringing the world new discoveries and Nobel prizes but in bringing the world Light and peace. This isn’t some technical invention but a force that reaches people and calms them, a force that connects them correctly and makes them into one whole. Then they will begin to live in peace and harmony by caring about one another. Everyone will be guaranteed a safe and peaceful life in this world.
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From Kab TV’s “A New Life” 8/14/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.15.14

Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

[media 1] [media 2]

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts “Introduction” “Two Points,” Item 120

[media 3] [media 4]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 43

[media 5] [media 6]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings,”

[media 7] [media 8]