Audio Version Of The Blog – 09.21.14

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Losing Oneself In Friends

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe started preparing for the convention a long time ago, a few months ago. Now, we need to try to make it so that the goal of the convention is primarily right before our eyes.

The goal is simple. There is nothing in the world except the assembly of desires into one whole. This is what we need to see before us: We do this or compel the Upper Light to do this.

If we seek to experience this state so that it is truly realized between us, then it will really happen. It depends on our desire, and only on it. Then, in the whole world, there will be a feeling, spreading like waves from us.

Everyone already knows that everything depends only on him. We repeatedly studied during the lessons that our perception of the world, the feeling of the world, is the result of our internal view of the world. Baal HaSulam calls it “inner reflection.”

So, we need to direct our inner contemplation, aspiration, so as to see one whole from all of us, and it depends on everyone.

After all, each of us is a separate universe. If we imagine ourselves in this way and support each other, then, naturally, there will be a correct superimposition of one on the other, and, together, we will gather that necessary power of aspiration that will produce a clear manifestation of this state. This is what I want to wish you.

Many of our friends from different countries and regions have gathered here. It is very good because this makes a diverse Kli. This gives power to our mutual aspirations.

To be lost in this society is the real happiness. If a person aspires to this, he feels that he loses himself and that he begins to dance in the joy of connection with friends as Rabash writes in his letter. He disappeared so much that he felt nothing, but them. If we lose ourselves in this our common society, we will begin to feel, through it, the state that we wish to feel: this unity, this Malchut.

I think we can do this. I do not see any obstacles. We just must connect what exists in us.
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From the Congress in St. Petersburg, Preparatory Lesson 1

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The People Based On Ideology

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: At present, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the US. In institutions of higher learning, there were campaigns to evict Jewish students from hostels. What kind of future can we expect in the US with respect to this issue that, unfortunately, we must raise?

Answer: We only can say that, as our world becomes increasingly global and interconnected, the attitude toward Jews will deteriorate.

The fact is that the Jewish people appeared on Earth because a small group from Babylon that experienced a similar crisis 3,800 years ago decided to unite and reach a state of mutual responsibility, mutual connection, as it is written, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Abraham, a priest of ancient Babylon, united a group of people on this basis, and from this the people of Israel originated. In other words, according to our biological data, we are not a people like other nations. We are a people based on an idea because the principle of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the foundation of our formation.

We existed in this state from the time of the exit from Babylon to the destruction of the Second Temple, which occurred 2,000 years ago. During this time, we always were trying to be a single entity, as one man with one heart.

All the beautiful statements of “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” “That which you hate, do not do to your friend,” “All of Israel are brothers,” etc. speak about the essence of our community, which is called the “people.” However, basically, we are a people based on ideology and not because we were born in one tribe that gradually grew like the rest of the nations.

Therefore, our existence can be justified only if we are interconnected. However, the problem is that when we fell 2,000 years ago from the level of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” to unfounded hatred—which is, in principle, the “destruction of the Temple,” the Temple in the heart, the Temple in us—we went “into exile” from this state. In other words, we became as egoistic as all the other nations. Therefore, since then we have lived in such a pitiful state, in exile.

The first time, anti-Semitism appeared in ancient Rome, and then in Greece, because we had ceased to be as one whole.
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From Dr. Laitman’s  interview with Ashaya Films, US,  8/6/14

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Life Behind The Walls Of An Aquarium

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe perception of reality is a unique subject because we don’t understand it at all. If we were allowed to have several forms of perceiving reality, we could understand it by comparing them. But we live in one reality so it is difficult for us to evaluate it. What we see and feel is our only reality.

How can we discover where we truly are? Fish in an aquarium also don’t know what exists outside of it; they swim in some kind of limited space and don’t know anything more. This is how all animals and humans live in this world; how are we different from them?

But humans very much want to know where they are. Also of importance is can we change reality if we know more about it? Of course not, humanity has produced a multitude of theories about the nature of our reality, but nobody knows how correct they are. We need an objective scientific approach.

After all, no matter how much we are talking about a perception of reality; it is based only on our feelings and sensations. And who knows what exists outside of them? If I change the range of my vision, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching, then reality would be different.

It is known that even a dog that lives with a person perceives the world completely differently, through scents. Other animals perceive through warmth or cold, or by hearing. It follows that reality is our impressions of the world that surrounds us. Our senses perceive some kind of information about it and convey this through a multitude of filters. They convey it to us after many restrictions and changes. That is how we perceive the world in which we live.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that essentially we are found in an ocean of the Upper Light; outside of it there is nothing. But in each one of us there is a desire to receive, a desire to enjoy, that imprints its impressions on a background of the white Light. And this impression is what we feel.

The desire to receive has a particular range of absorption, limited to five areas— seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching—in which it absorbs the Light and conveys impressions to us. So we feel the world just like that.

But it is possible to change this perception. It is not about just extending the range of perception for every sense: wearing glasses, putting on absorptive plates, sharpening smells or tastes through some chemical or physical influences. The wisdom of Kabbalah is not involved with the development of our physical senses; rather, it brings us closer to the true form of the perception of reality.

It is possible to approach the truth if we receive impressions not through the five corporeal senses, but through constructing senses from our desire to receive that are similar to the Light. This means that they have the characteristics of Light, the characteristics of bestowal, love, that are beyond us, beyond our ego. If we can rise above the ego that is given to us, then we can create characteristics that are like the Light from ourselves.

It follows that the ego was given to us so that we would build characteristics above it that are adapted to the Light. And then we will begin to feel a reality in which the Light is in control. We will feel it in those new characteristics that are created within us.

Kabbalah is involved with developing such characteristics within a person, helping him to build a new perception of reality. And when a person acquires it, he begins to feel how much his previous perception of reality was limited, temporary, and distorted.

To the degree that he changes his perception of reality, the person is himself changed. In fact the perception of reality is what defines the person.
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From the Convention In Chile “Day One” 7/30/14, Lesson 2

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A Mature World View

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Sometimes an uncontrollable hatred against outsiders pops up in me, especially doctors. You teach that we need to look at everyone through the prism of the Creator, especially regular people. 

But the thought that the Creator is standing behind them is really erased by my ego that wants to “kill” them. How must one work with this?

Answer: This is a childish view; it is an immature, incomplete, and narrow view of the world.

When you say that “the Creator is standing behind them,” you imagine some kind of omnipotent person. You don’t perceive this in the form of a natural law, the accommodation of two natural forces.

In fact, the Creator doesn’t exist. There are two forces of nature that portray all of creation for us. We must find such a form in mutual relationships, a formula within us in which we feel mutually connected and in absolutely harmony with others. This state is called the “Creator.”

If we don’t attain the characteristic of these two forces, don’t connect them, and don’t accept harmony between them, we don’t know what the Creator is. In this case He doesn’t exist.

So it is necessary to look at the world as something that the two forces portray for us. Then the hatred will not appear within you.

Do I have hatred for our neighbors around Israel who are bombing us? On the contrary, I say that we are guilty since we have not taken advantage of the possibilities that have been given to us. But I don’t have hatred towards them. Well, who are they anyway? In principle they are performers and have no other function.

This is how it is necessary to look at doctors who deliberately destroy their patients. That is how the egoistic force is revealed in them and they have no freedom here at all here. I have seen doctors who sacrificed patients who still could have been saved, only because it was profitable to do so. It’s all egoistic manifestations.

So, you simply need to grow up a bit.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, lesson 6

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The Secret Of The Ten Tribes, Part 5

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What was happening in the days of the Temples? Why did they have to be destroyed?

Answer: First of all, why do the Jews unite? Through their correction, they establish relationships among themselves which will allow them to fulfill the condition of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

To achieve the state in which the Creator will be fully revealed, they must create a single soul and a single desire.

Through  their internal unity, they built the first Temple within themselves. However, this state exists only for a moment and then immediately begins to break down, step by step.

The process is that at first, there is a slow ascent to the “bar” of the desired state, and once it has been reached and becomes manifested, the descent begins immediately.

Question: So, the method of Abraham has achieved its own result and raised people to the desired height?

Answer: Yes. There was contact between the entire nation and the Creator, based on mutual love, during which the nation reached the state of complete individual correction. This is the building of the first Temple.

When a state is realized, the people have nothing to do and no reason to exist at this level, since it exists for only a moment. The Light comes, fills the vessel, and that is all.

Then this state must disappear. Indeed, the process goes on until this handful of people, that has become the nation of Israel, corrects the whole of humanity. Therefore, an entirely new perspective is revealed before them.

The ultimate goal is not the construction of the First Temple, but in the complete correction of all of humanity. This is what Abraham said in Babylon even when he was the only one who knew about this.

But today the Jews say: “Please, leave us alone! What chosen people!? We want to be like everyone else!”

However, they will be compelled. We see that they will be forced,  just as they were then.
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 8/27/14

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A New Abraham

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Leviticus,” 18:1-5: And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: I am the LORD your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their statutes. Mine ordinances shall ye do, and My statutes shall ye keep, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. Ye shall therefore keep My statutes, and Mine ordinances, which if a man do, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.”

Under no circumstances should we use the egoistic desires that we took out of Babylon, Egypt, or from the land of Canaan, to which we soon must return. If we use all our desires properly by gradually correcting them and ascending to the previous level of Canaan, we will begin to turn this land into the land of Israel, which means focusing all our desires on the Creator, on bestowal.

Question: The modern corporeal world lives mainly by the laws of Egypt, Babylon, and Canaan but not according to the spiritual laws of Israel. Why is the spiritual revelation in Israel intended only for individuals and not for all of humanity?

Answer: No! Humanity does reveal the egoistic abyss we are all in as well as the inability of returning to the good times we had in the past. But the condition for this good life was that the ego was smaller. Therefore we say “the good old times” when we think nostalgically about the past.

Indeed, if we go fifty years back, we will see that people were less egoistic then. They were satisfied with much less and lived much more happily. They communicated with each other more and didn’t sit behind their computer screens or have the problems or the poisonous vapor of rot that are typical of our times. Everything was much simpler.

But there is no going back to those times and there is no need to do so! We have to advance. The main thing is to learn to attain the reason for the problems that we feel and to understand that they stem from a person’s ego and not from any other source. Therefore, we have to recognize that the ego is evil.

Comment: But the world has turned around when it came out of Babylon and Egypt and went back there, as today we are living by the same laws.

Answer: The world didn’t go anywhere. Humanity dispersed from Babylon all over the world and created the same Babylon everywhere. Today we are back to the small Babylon but on a global scale. Once again we are facing the huge egoistic Tower of Babel that pressures, kills, and destroys us, and we don’t know what to do.

It is now that a new Abraham should appear and call everyone to him: “Everyone who doesn’t agree with the new state, come to me! Let’s leave this state. We are not going anywhere, but we are going to ascend morally and spiritually above this terrible hateful state and start building a totally new land with a new heaven above.”

I hope that such person will appear. We have to prepare the ground for him as much as we can. We are in a very interesting historical point in which it is as if we are tangled and trapped. In this state, we have to fertilize the soil for the next generation. I see this as my mission and without that, there is no point in living.

Question: Indeed, in every egoistic leap in history there was always a leader who emerged and led the nations. Does he also have to appear now?

Answer: I think so. I hope that my students will be able to reveal themselves together as one leader. I don’t think that it will be one person. It may be in some way, but on the whole, it has to be something bigger and collective. I see the new leader as a group of people, and I think it will be the group of my students.

The situation is changing and the world is changing, including its attitude towards itself and to how to live. We see to what extent everything today is the result of advertising. Everyone understands that this world is based on a lie and that it is impossible to find the truth in it. No one is right and no one is to blame, since our nature simply manipulates us in such a way that we drown in this “vanity fair.”

When we finally acknowledge that under the pressure of external circumstances, which we actually summon, the Upper Light will reveal in us real internal, egoistic problems from which we will see that there is no way out. Then we will start to run around and will not be able to find ourselves in any way, as it says: “in the evening you will wait for the morning to come and in the morning you will wait for the evening to come.” But this will probably come after us, and now we have to work on it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/6/14

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The Majority Of Us Are Hidden Racists

 Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Psychological Science): “The social world is stratified. Social hierarchies are known but often disavowed as anachronisms or unjust. Nonetheless, hierarchies may persist in social memory. In three studies (total N > 200,000), we found evidence of social hierarchies in implicit evaluation by race, religion, and age. Participants implicitly evaluated their own racial group most positively and the remaining racial groups in accordance with the following hierarchy: Whites > Asians > Blacks > Hispanics. Similarly, participants implicitly evaluated their own religion most positively and the remaining religions in accordance with the following hierarchy: Christianity > Judaism > Hinduism or Buddhism > Islam. In a final study, participants of all ages implicitly evaluated age groups following this rule: children > young adults > middle-age adults > older adults. These results suggest that the rules of social evaluation are pervasively embedded in culture and mind.”

My Comment: Only  correction by the Upper Light (Ohr Makif) through the method of Kabbalah will elevate us above all subjective assessments and make us independent, free, and ready for equality and unity.
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Abraham’s Method—The Wisdom Of Kabbalah

From “Who Are You, People of Israel”:

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how to unearth nature’s positive force and balance our egos.  It argues that it is predefined in nature’s plan that in the end, all parts of nature, including human society, will achieve unity.

Israel Means Straight to the Creator

Abraham’s disciples called themselves Yisrael (Israel) after their desire to go Yashar El (straight to God, the Creator). That is, they wished to discover nature’s force of unity so as to balance the ego that stood between them. Through their unity, they found themselves immersed in the force of unity, the upper force.

Israel called the state of connection to nature’s upper force that they had discovered “the upper world.” They also learned that in the process of human development, the rest of the Babylonians—who followed Nimrod’s advice, dispersed throughout the world, and have become today’s humanity—would also have to achieve unity. That contradiction between the people of Israel, which formed through unity, and the rest of humanity, which formed as a result of separation, is felt even today.

The complete text of the brochure is here
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Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Three” – 09.21.14

Convention in St. Petersburg, “Day Three,” “From We to Unified,” Lesson 5

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Convention in St. Petersburg, “Day Three,” Workshop 5

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Convention in St. Petersburg, “Day Three,” “Summary of the Convention,” Lesson 6

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Convention in St. Petersburg, “Day Three,” Workshop 6

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