Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.31.14

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Nature Is Not A Resource For The Ego

Laitman_720Question: Let’s talk about trips to nature, including going abroad to nature preserves and all kinds of remote corners. The modern urban person at least somehow tries to connect with nature and receive pleasure from it. How do you relate to that?

Answer: I travel around the world a lot and always try to keep a few moments for myself to be in nature. My teacher Rabash and I would leave the city each day to talk while walking through the woods and fields. On the way to Jerusalem, far from highways and people, we would happen upon very beautiful places.

When I go out into nature I see there a world of reciprocal complementarity of all its parts. I see that everything in it is in balance except for humans. Even though there are animal species that eat each other, even though one exists at the expense of the other, all of this is out of necessity and not out of malice. The general form of existence and development is like this.

When I am in nature I feel the power of nature. It doesn’t elevate, It doesn’t raise us; on the contrary, it controls us. We humans don’t perceive this. The nature of the still, vegetative, and animate is the “envelope” of our existence: On the one hand, we move away from it, but, on the other hand, we must approach it by understanding that it is all a general system that must be unified.

Indeed the ego, the evil inclination, develops within us. It is specifically this that separates us from the animal world. As a result, we raise ourselves above it through the evil force of subjugation. We become distant from nature and want to control it to exploit it at any price. Worse than this, we value the damage that we cause nature through our activities; we are not concerned about it but only about our personal future. This is not at all the accounting that is required of us.

This is because our role is to maintain the harmony of nature, which is inherent in it from the start. But we fell from this because the egoistic desire grew in us, which invited all kinds of conflicts and compels us to engage in an incessant struggle between us.

And this is also how we relate to nature: “What can be stolen from it, what possible enjoyment can be had from it?” We don’t care what happens after that. The main thing is to get what we require at this very second. Even though in the next moment the coming damage will be maifested, we don’t pay attention to this.

So it follows that the growth of the evil inclination summons a destructive attitude in humans, which is harmful to us and all other parts of nature. As a result, humans must become aware of our evil and understand that our egoistic approach is damaging the entire system. The main conclusion is that a person grows within the evil inclination in order to correct it, to correct his relationship to the still, vegetative, and animate nature; and to complement the entire system, he must transform it into a single, unified, wonderful, harmonious, integral system.

And conversely, if together with the development of the mind and feelings, a person uses his resources incorrectly, ultimately he will certainly stumble into natural disasters.

This is what will continue to happen to us as long as we don’t see that our ego has grown to such a scale that it is no longer possible to rein it in. We have dropped the “reins” of the management of the world from our hands, losing control in all areas: family, work, and the relation to nature in general… .

And since we have become a bad global factor for nature and since we are a single system, in reaction, nature has begun to reveal an appropriate attitude to us.

This is the situation today.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/21/14

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All Together At The Point Of The Big Bang

laitman_933Question: What is the connection between relationships among people and relationships among viruses?

Answer: All of nature is like one soup in which all of us are cooking together, regardless of whether they are large bodies or tiny viruses. Everything that happens in the soup is transmitted to everything found within it: to stones, to plants, to animals, and to people.

This is a global, integral system. A global world means that there are an infinite number of mutual connections; everyone is connected to all the rest. They say that you communicate with all of humanity through five people you know. But the threads that connect them in every possible form, stretching from one to another, are not just between people, but are between all of the components of nature in general.

The entire universe emerged from the point of the “Big Bang,” from one source, and it began to expand and develop. And all of us have remained connected with each other since then. These are like spider webs in which there is not a single atom or elementary particle that isn’t connected with all of creation.

We must take this into account and inform the younger generation, specifically providing them with this view of the world. Otherwise we can’t expect a good life for them in this era of globalization.

Question: What does each person need to understand to be able to pass through this period successfully?

Answer: It is necessary to understand that I am living in a system in which I am linked with everyone and everyone is linked with me with such tight connections, like iron bars, that my slightest movement causes shifts throughout the system on all levels. A person doesn’t understand this and thinks that he is isolated from all the others. But that is impossible.

Everything came from a higher source where the universe came into existence, from the point of the Big Bang. After that it spread out, reaching every level. We must take this into account and understand that it is as if we are found in the very point itself of the Big Bang.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/19/14

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Laitman_709Question: Since the ‘30s of the previous century, the world has become one big village and from that time should we have related to humanity as one family, with one government, with one world “Ministry of Health”?

Answer: It should have been done even before then, from the ‘20s! World War I was a reaction to our disregard for the general system that connects everyone together.

It is not important that there are regions in South America, Africa, and Asia where they live as if it were a thousand years ago. In a family there are both adults and children, less developed and more developed according to age. But our attitude towards everyone must be equal.

Such unity should have been reached by humanity at the beginning of the 20th century, but was not. And so it got the first and second world wars and today’s Ebola epidemic.

Question: And if we relate to the whole world as one family, would the virus not spread? How is this connected, and how does the system work in relationships between people, countries, and nations? How does the Ebola virus know when it needs to spread and when not to?

Answer: A viral epidemic is the result of an imbalance. We violate the balance in the system, and on every one of its levels some kind of deviation from the balance that we must forcibly reconcile appears. In order to forcibly reconcile the lack of balance and restore the system to a state of balance, the Ebola epidemic has broken out.

The human level is above the entire system, this being the relationship between individual people, nations, and countries. And its highest stratum is determined by balance among the people of Israel.

Israel is found at the highest part of the human pyramid in the sense that it is inside of it and requires balance first; particularly in the State of Israel balance is required. And so the removal of imbalance and accordingly the Ebola plague is primarily dependent upon the people of Israel.

Question: What is not clear is what the relationship is between the upper level, where we communicate with each other as one family or as strangers, and somewhere below how it is infested with viruses?

Answer: Well, this is a unified system that includes within it all of the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. All of nature is a single system outside of which there is nothing.

Nature includes various levels of matter, beginning from the still, where atoms connect with each other and form the chemical elements: carbon, oxygen, copper, silver, gold and the like. After that comes the vegetative level with the myriad of different plants, then the animate level, and then the human level.

The human level does not refer to a bipedal mammal, rather it refers to human intelligence, knowledge, evolution, and consciousness that allows him to see that he belongs entirely to a single system. Man begins from his determining that he is found within a single unified system of nature and depends upon everything and everything depends upon him.

He sees that he perceives a higher level and through his behavior and relationship with people he determines everything that happens to all the rest of the levels of nature.

When he ascends and descends, the human raises and lowers the entire still, vegetative, and animate nature along with him.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/19/14

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The Transition To A Single Family

Dr. LaitmanWe are passing through a unique period. If in the past our nature was close to the animate level and life obliged a person to establish a family since it was very difficult for him to supply himself with the necessities without it, these days, with the help of various means and technological achievements, we are completely able to remain single. If we cohabitate, it is not under the terms of marriage, not as a complete family.

And in this era, I still recommend getting married, establishing a family, and organizing life according to what nature demands of us. Sometimes they look at me with suspicion, as if I were calling for something oppressive and undesirable.

Today it seems illogical to push a person into marriage. After all, through this you load a heavy and debilitating burden on him, something that he cannot endure.

And on the contrary, it is so easy to live alone surrounded by electronic home appliances that do the work that in the past required great power. A person turns on a vacuum cleaner that moves itself, puts his clothes in the washing machine, goes to the supermarket, buys prepared food, puts it in the refrigerator or directly into a microwave, moves the laundry to the dryer, and doesn’t even take out the iron; he doesn’t need it.

Daily life is now much easier than in the past, but this doesn’t help the institution of the family. It would seem it would be a great relief when all sorts of devices do most of the work at home for you, where you don’t need to wash the baby’s diapers or cook porridge for him… everything is so easy and simple, but in spite of all this, so complicated.

We are facing a serious problem here, and if we want to see a good future for humanity and to advance in a good way, it seems that we must first of all take care of the people themselves. They must go through a general, basic training and understand what it is to be a human, to be connected to others.

After all, in the past our connection with the family, with parents and children, with the workplace environment and the community was easier. People drove and flew less, didn’t change their employers and professions so often. Life was spent in separate “corners,” in a small place. It was more static, relaxed, and stable. In contrast to this, today, with the increased pace and the many changes in life, we feel that a family is very burdensome for us.

So first it is necessary to give a person the right education, to change him internally so that he will see what is really happening. And even though life has changed, we have become detached from nature that encouraged us to live as tribes, families, villages, cities, countries, the whole world is like a place for all to live, and in spite of all this, it is up to us to make up for what we have lost. We once had a system of natural relationships with family and friends, with the city, with the nation, and now we must supplement the deficiency ourselves.

Without this a person remains neglected, abandoned; he seems to be lost in the crowd. He can get away from his parents and hardly ever communicate with them; and he can be in connection with friends mostly through the Internet. Our environment has generally become a virtual one. On the Internet I find a temporary friend for myself and am often satisfied with this.

In general, this is a temporary stage, a passing stage that will continue until a person discovers the gap between himself and his environment that he must make up by himself….

I begin life in my mother’s womb, I continue it in her arms, after that I go to kindergarten, to school, and all of these stages add an environmental “envelope” to me in which I must develop to such a degree that I will feel that I am an inseparable part of it, connected to everyone as I was once connected to my mother through the umbilical cord.

Ideally, any expansion of this environment doesn’t need to cause detachment. When I go to kindergarten, I am not detached from anything; on the contrary, they teach me about an even tighter connection with the new environment, and in kindergarten I feel as if I am at home, and at home, as if I were within my mother.

Time passes and I build a connection with the school environment based upon such good and friendly relationships of giving and receiving that even here I feel as if I am in the bosom of the family, a caring environment, because we are soldered together so tightly with love and mutual fulfillment. When I finally enter into the wider world, I continue to work with the environment on a basis of the principle of mutual compensation of necessary connections, and all of us feel as one family.

In fact, the only thing missing for me is such compensatory efforts: on my part toward an expanding environment and from its side toward me. my

side a continuously expanding relationship with the environment – from the side of the environment to me.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/22/14

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Short Stories: The Intentional Shaking Up Of The Babylonians

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Babylonian civilization developed in a very comfortable location in the central part of Mesopotamia on the fertile soil between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia fished, grew onions, garlic, buckwheat, barley, and wheat. They lived a modest but comfortable life, enjoying nature’s abundance in that region.

Gardening and farming on the land was highly developed in Babylon due to the development of the first irrigation systems.

Although the country was ruled by a king, the people were relatively free, supplied all their needs themselves, and managed their own society and country. They had no enemies and lived a happy, friendly life as one family. This was all thanks to Noah’s group of Kabbalists, who brought the attribute of bestowal, mutual closeness, and kindness to the region.

But in order to continue their development. there was need for a shake up. If we want to explain the mechanism of a certain system so that another person will be able to use it, we usually build a model and use it to illustrate different malfunctions that may encounter within the system. The same thing happened in ancient Babylon.

In order to raise a group of Kabbalists and a whole society along with them to the next level, it was necessary to insert flaws into their mutual relations and demonstrate them. This is what happened.

The general managing force of nature created different obstacles that people encountered in the form of disputes, conflicts, and fights only in order to raise them to the next level.

This state, which the ancient Babylonians suddenly encountered puzzled Abraham, who was one of their spiritual leaders.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/15/14

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No Way Back

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person feel that “there is none else beside Him” if he hasn’t attain bestowal yet?

Answer: Before I reach bestowal, I try to arrange in my mind and heart the opinion that “there is none else beside Him.” It is easier to do this in the mind; in the heart this is relatively more difficult.

It depends on my relationship with the group and how I build the new Kli together with them in which I am ready to decide that “there is none else beside Him.”

To the degree of the connection between us, we build our collective we, the raspberry ball, the sum total of us all. Yet in this point of we, I am not found; rather, I nullify myself. This means that in the center of this circle, I am found above my ego.

It is possible to multiply one by one all of the nullifications of ourselves: 10 times, 100 times, 1,000 times; more and more as we unite. It follows that I acquire new spiritual feelings and thoughts through which I will discover the Creator.

And to be precise, I will discover the Creator not within the group of ten, but in the connection between the groups of ten. The group of ten is said to reveal the ego within it and to rise above it to connect with the others. Indeed, the group of ten is not yet the outer circle.

When we connect with the other groups of ten, we create among us all kinds of forms of connection that are able to reveal to us particular images of the Creator and make it somewhat possible for us to see Him.

This means that there is no other place to look for “there is none else beside Him” besides the general point of connection. This is a simple job in the consolidation of all people, and so it is written: “And all nations shall flow unto it”. (Isaiah 2:2)

The feeling that “there is none else beside Him” depends solely and only on the degree of our self-nullification, because we build this above the ego, like the roof of a Sukkah. From me, I create we, and from we, we create the Creator.

The ability to nullify yourself is determined by the environment and how much you bow your head towards it. At every moment, the Creator gives a person opportunities; the Upper Light works incessantly, but everything depends upon your agreement to be nullified, and whether or not you will use the opportunities given to you.

If you have not prepared yourself, you will receive the Light from the opposite side, meaning that instead of His approach, you will feel distance. That is how it happens in regular life. You are given some kind of unique opportunity to advance, and you accept it as a disturbance and an obstacle. You have not prepared for a leap like this, and so instead of a springboard, you see a high and impassable barrier.

There is freedom of choice in only one thing: nullifying before the environment, being included within it, and being like the friends in everything. Try to realize this potential. You are ready to do this! Your freedom of choice is only in this and you don’t need anything more. The Creator brings you to the good fortune,  and from this point, there is no way back, only forward.

Begin to enter the group, be included within it, and build a common Kli with the others in which you will discover the higher power. Our world is a world of action. We are found within in because it is possible to carry out actions within it without the agreement of the heart. In this is the entire foundation for our imaginary world, but this game makes it possible for us to advance and build our spiritual independence, and this is specifically thanks to our being deceivers.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/14, Writings of Rabash

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Convention In Los Angeles “Day One” – 10.31.14

Convention in Los Angeles “Day One,” “Preparatory Lesson”

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Convention in Los Angeles “Day One,” Lesson 1

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.30.14

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The Role Of The Nation Of Israel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the role of Israel today and of the Jewish people in particular?

Answer: The role of Israel was first discovered in ancient Babylon when one of the great sages of that generation, the Babylonian priest Abraham, provided an answer for what was happening there.

At that time, Babylon was undergoing the same processes that the world is undergoing today: a small society of three million people, which was almost the world civilization at the time, suddenly began to sink into mutual hatred because of the sudden eruption of the ego.

Until then, the Babylonians lived as a small society between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and everything was fine. But when the great ego erupted, it turned out that, on the one hand, they were integrally connected to one another, and on the other hand, they couldn’t exist together egoistically. Therefore the term the Tower of Babel symbolizes the ego that literally grew up to the sky.

This is what is happening today. On one hand, we discover that people are mutually connected to one another and on the other hand, they hate each other. The two forces that mutually operate inside us require a solution, since otherwise we will reach a dead end.

One of these two forces, the force of nature, ties us together and shows us the globalization and mutual connection between everyone to everyone. This force closes us integrally and shows us that we are one whole body. The second force is the egoistic human force that tears us apart from the inside, separates us, and doesn’t allow us to be one whole.

These two forces were first studied in ancient Babylon and there were two answers to the question of “what should we do?”

The first answer was given by Nimrod, the king of Babylon, who decided that the Babylonians had no choice but to break up and move away from one another. He disintegrated his kingdom fearing that his subjects would begin to destroy each other. This is where the concept of building the Tower of Babel comes from and its outcome was the dispersion of the people and the mixing of tongues, which was a sign that people ceased to understand one another.

That was one way of solving the problem, but today we, the modern Babylonians, have nowhere to go since we have no other planet. Therefore, we cope with the question that we have to answer.

The second solution was given by Abraham, one of the leading priests in ancient Babylon. Abraham understood that the ego separates us from the inside, while the external forces of nature, which bring us closer, were given to us on purpose so that we will ascend above them and resemble nature. This means that we will work against our ego on the connection between us.

How can this be done? How can person oppose his own nature? Abraham suggested organizing small groups of people that would begin to connect, and in their attempts to connect, they would draw the external force of nature that would be revealed internally among them and correct and raise them above themselves.

The main goal of nature is to bring humanity to a state of “love thy friend as thyself,” whether we like it or not. The problem of our separation should be solved immediately, and only in this manner.

About five thousand followers joined Abraham. The great 12th century philosopher, Rambam, writes about this and it is also contained in earlier writings like in Midrash Raba and other sources.

The Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation) is the only remaining book written by Abraham, and it tells us about the whole system of nature that affects all of human society.

Led by Abrahan, 5,000 people left Babylon and came to the land of Canaan, the modern land of Israel. Abraham taught them how to ascend above the ego in the connection between them according to the ancient Jewish commandments of “love thy friend as thyself,” “don’t do unto others what is hateful to you” and “be as one man in one heart,” etc. This group is known by the name Israel, which means Yashar-El, straight to the Creator, resembling nature. After all, the Creator is not a picture on the wall or a grandfather sitting on a cloud. The Creator is nature! All of nature is called the Creator.

The 5,000 people who left Babylon with Abraham were called the nation of Israel, stemming from the word “Yashar -El,” straight to the Creator. It is a nation that did not grow out of biological roots like all the other nations but according to an ideology, a purpose that defines where it is headed and how it is going to establish society.

Although we are the biological descendants of those people, unfortunately, we don’t resemble them at all because we have lost that ideology. Therefore our current state is called exile from the spiritual level they had achieved.

When the Jewish nation left Egypt and wandered in the desert, it constantly worked on its connection. Their ego kept on growing, just as the ego of humanity grows from one generation to the next (which is what makes us different from animals), and the people worked on it.

This continued until the ego suddenly erupted as it developed. It happened on the eve of the destruction of the Second Temple in the last year BC. People could not ascend above it in the good connection between them and they fell to the egoistic level.

A Temple refers to holiness, bestowal, love of others, and to the incorporation of everyone into one whole. When the Jewish nation fell from that level, it determined the rest of its history of 2,000 years of exile.
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From the interview with V. Kanevsky in Toronto, 8/5/14

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