Audio Version Of The Blog – 12.31.14

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Restrained By Bestowal

laitman_527_03Until the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (temple), or until the fall from the spiritual level, the people of Israel understood that it was found “under treatment” by the Creator, the Higher Force. This is talking about a force that preceded our reality. This is the power of bestowal and love. And so it created the creatures with an opposite desire, reception.

We cannot be released from this desire. This is because we were created from it; it is our essential “substance.”

But to it we can add an intention to bestow. For this, the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to resemble the Higher Force, which is the bestower. And even though I am “woven” from the ego, from the desire to receive, I acquire a new form for it, a new external expression, an inclination towards bestowal.

In this manner I include within me two forces:

  • My natural receptive force, from which there is nowhere to flee.
  • The force of bestowal, an example of which I receive from the Creator.

I can acquire the power of bestowal from the Creator that will make it possible for me to limit my receptive power and not use it. It is impossible to nullify it because it is me. But I can decide that I won’t activate it on the “speaking” level and will use it only on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate, only to satisfy the essential needs. I will have food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge, but to a particular limit that I myself determine for myself.

And in everything else I act only according to the power of bestowal that I get from the Creator. I develop it more and more, so that next to my beastly body I grow the image of man, Adam, the one who resembles (Domeh) the Creator.

Actually, this power of bestowal, the power of the Creator, has been latent in the people of Israel from the start. It has remained in us since we received it, but now it is concealed. But we can revive it.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/25/14

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Burning The Bridges Behind Me

Laitman_514_04The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:31: You shall not turn to [the sorcery of] Ov or Yid’oni; you shall not seek [these and thereby] defile yourselves through them. I am the Lord your God.

You mustn’t turn back and draw the past towards you. You must actually burn the past behind you so that there would be no way of making one step backward, because there is a steep slope behind you. You should only move forward.

“The ghosts” refer to your previous dead desires and not to biological bodies that passed away. The Torah only speaks about desires that undergo changes from egoistic desires to altruistic desires. Therefore “turn ye not unto the ghosts” means that you shouldn’t turn to desires that have already been processed. You shouldn’t try to return to the previous pleasures that your desires brought you.

You shouldn’t feel sorry for the best times that are gone when you felt so good while now you feel bad. The only inclination should be forward! Even the current state is always better than the previous one, although in the meantime it may be felt as unpleasant.

A person who ascends the spiritual ladder very often has serious regrets. He begins to torture himself asking himself why he did something, to whom, how and for what reason. We should be very careful of such questions.

We must attribute everything to the Creator. He is the only one who evokes these states in you by managing you, and they are all necessary. You can correct each of them in your feeling only by yearning for Him. Therefore, you must first stabilize everything in you so that at a specific moment, in a specific case, you will attain the best possible state.

If this doesn’t happen, it means that the desires that you feel are not corrected, because if your desires are corrected, you should feel complete rest. Everything is locked on every point on the line we advance along in a very concrete manner.

Question: I am the moderator of the TV program called “The Point in the Heart” in which friends tell about their lives. Some say: “Thanks to the fact that I study Kabbalah, I suddenly realize how badly I have treated my wife and my relatives.”

Answer: This is the past and we shouldn’t think about the past. Memories actually bury a person in the ground and kill him. He begins to live the past. The main point is that he believes that he is the one who did everything that happened, whereas it is the Creator who did everything.

A person’s job is not to delve into such states but to accept them as good and perfect! You should look for what you do in order to somehow correct what belongs to you and how to correct yourself. This is where a person’s clarification with regard to his environment begins.

Question: Do you believe that a person can understand where this stems from?

Answer: It depends on the environment. Such an attitude towards what is happening should float in the air. Then a person will not be able to forget that everything comes from the Creator and will be constantly focused on Him.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/16/14

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Government With One Heart

Laitman_130Question: How must the nation behave when it exists according to the rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself”?

Answer: The entire government must be “as one person with one heart” so that all will be connected with one intention, with one understanding.

Question: How can there be a single opinion if all of us are different?

Answer: We will all remain different, but we see the truth, and about this truth we have no questions. We will not be far from each other. Both I and you and he will see the same thing, so we only complement each other, working for the sake of the same goal.

We reach discovery of the upper force, the general program of nature, the ways by which we must go, the forces of nature that help us with this. We see the truth, so we don’t have any problem reaching agreement between us, in spite of all of our differences.

All of us are different, but this doesn’t bother us; on the contrary, this helps. This is because each one, looking from his point of view, supports the implementation of the same program. We all complement each other, even those who don’t enter the government.

Question: And what is this single program?

Answer: This is a program elevating all of humanity to a higher level. For this we must understand why and for what we exist. All of our physical existence is required to discover in the connection between us the higher, eternal, and complete power, a happy life for us, for our children and grandchildren, a life without limits.

Question: From what will our lives become happier all of a sudden?

Answer: From this: that each will complement the other. We will no longer exist in a broken system in which there is no harmony between one another, but only conflicts. On the contrary, we are found in complete harmony in that we mutually complement each other, and so among us a new system of working will be discovered among us that we didn’t know about until now.

Imagine that we had a broken car that shakes, stalls, and gets stuck all the time. And suddenly instead of it we get a magnificent Rolls Royce; our whole family, all of us, sit inside, and we travel toward the goal light-hearted. The whole world will begin to live a completely different life.

All of this is thanks to our acting according to the law of nature that is discovered and the correct development of the law.

Question: So what is this law?

Answer: The law is that everyone must be parts of the integral system and complement each other through our mutual work, which is to adapt to the higher force. Then the higher force will be discovered within our engine, within the society, and all of humanity will be connected and will merge with the higher force that created us and will be brought to an eternal state.

Question: What do we mean by the term, the higher force?

Answer: The higher force is the life force, the essential power of nature, the power of bestowal and love.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/23/14

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A Proposal Beneficial For The Government And For Everyone

laitman_547_06Question: If politicians argue not only because they want to beat each other in the elections, but really disagree and have different programs, what will help them to come together to work for the good of society?

Answer: They will be able to unite only for the sake of a very high goal that can be achieved only through connection. Suppose that there are twenty of us who together formed the government, but everyone pulls toward himself. Suddenly, we find out that we could receive a hundred billion dollars that would allow us to implement all of our programs. However, in order to do this, we need to unite. Do you think it would be worth it?

Question: What do you mean “to unite”?

Answer: To unite means at least not to harm each other. Every politician has his program, but imagine that someone, a stranger, offers fabulous rewards, billions of dollars, under the condition that they would stop their disagreements and work together on implementing his program.

Question: Who is this rich man who can make such a proposal to the government?

Answer: This is the Creator, the upper force of nature, the program of creation that is above us. According to the program of nature, during our unity, we reach another level of life. However, this program is not compatible with any egoistic games and plans of politicians.

None of them is aware of this program, and everyone wants to pull everyone else to his side, as it usually happens. Therefore, no program will be successful, as with all the previous governments. The situation will only deteriorate further.

Thus, the Creator, the upper force of nature, appears and says, “It’s time to stop. I am buying this government! I am giving you a goal that can be achieved only on the condition of your unity, and I promise you a reward that covers all your needs. Just follow my program.”

Question: If we had different opinions, why would we reconcile suddenly with one another?

Answer: We examine nature and see from it that we must unite together into one integral, global mechanism, and get closer and complete each other. In other words, we all need to work together as parts of one body that work in total harmony, and then this body is healthy and lives. We need to behave in human society, connecting, not tripping each other. On the contrary, we need to step on our egoism and work on the connection with each other above it.

It is not easy, and for this we need new education to work on ourselves. However, the payoff is huge. Indeed, no government can make their people’s lives better, to improve the state and society during their reign. It always will get worse; the trend is quite clear.

It is possible to stop this slide only on condition that we begin getting a new education that would allow everyone to become a positive element of society, not as it is now when everyone strives to climb up, pushing and pressuring others.

Question: Are we talking about changing the relationships between people in society?

Answer: Yes, but a person does not do this for free. For this, he gets the revelation of the Creator, the world of infinity, eternal and perfect life that he begins to feel while still living in our world. He gradually rises to the degree of the spiritual world, feeling in the in the flow of eternal life.

This frees us from all problems. We ascend to the level, to such an essence, that we leave all our arguments in this kindergarten. We rise above this marketplace of buy-and-sell and come to a corrected society, to the corrected life even not in our world.

After all, the correction in our world is just a means by which the world, as we unite, would begin to rise to the level of the values of the spiritual world. The spiritual value is love for others as for oneself.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/23/14

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About Loyalty And Unfaithfulness In The Spiritual World

laitman_293The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:29: You shall not defile your daughter by making her a harlot, lest the Land fall into Harlotry and the land be filled with immorality.

Question: On the one hand, it says: “shall not defile your daughter,” and then it says: “lest the land fall into Harlotry.” What is the connection between the daughter and the land?

Answer: A person gives birth to the male and the female desire of the next level. Therefore, their work should be arranged so that they will be able to become the basis of the next upper level. The term “land” refers to a homeland, (earth, desire) which is a desire that shouldn’t be profaned or impure.

The female inclination (desire) is considered the basis of every level: it gives birth, brings up the offspring, and formats the next level. Therefore the desire should be guarded, “shall not defile your daughter by making her a harlot.”

Every level usually simultaneously produces the male and the female inclinations, but the Torah only speaks about giving birth to sons since the reference to a son always included the birth of a daughter. There cannot be one without the other according to spiritual laws: nine Sefirot and the tenth Sefira, which is Malchut (the female inclination).

Question: What does it mean to make your next level a harlot?

Answer: To make it a harlot refers to receiving for myself. There are only two states: you either work for the external ego of others according to the rule of “love thy friend as thyself” regardless of the fact that they may be egoists or not. When you fill them you correct yourself. At the same time when they receive the Light through you, they are also corrected by it.

On the other hand, if you don’t do that, then the earth, which means the general desire, becomes filled with prostitution, with receiving for myself.

Question: Is there a difference between a male or a female “making… a harlot?”

Answer: A female “making … a harlot” is much stronger than the male since the male is one phase while the female produces from the next generating levels because they immediately spread and multiply (procreate).

Comment: In our world a man takes his being unfaithful lightly, while for a woman it is considered a very deep state.

Answer: This happens because the tenth Sefira belongs to the first nine Sefirot. The male part (the first nine Sefirot) looks for the suitable Malchut and can have many, even a thousand.

If we speak about the power of the radiation energy, that which comes from a man can fill thousands of people. In order to receive this energy, a woman has to be like Malchut for Zeir Anpin to him, which means to belong to him. Therefore, the attribute of the female part should adhere to him and be loyal; it should be faithful to him.

If this attribute doesn’t exist in order to connect to Zeir Anpin, the next generations would not be born correctly. All the laws in our world stem from the physical laws of the spiritual world and are actually their replica, their reflection.

Comment: Even in our world, a baby that is born as a result of an affair is called a bastard…

Answer: It is a very difficult state since from the perspective of the spiritual connection, a bastard child is a person with a defected soul. He is not connected to the right general system and is considered waste, garbage, the slag of society. Therefore he is disparaged by society.

In our day, however, it is one thing in human society, whereas in the spiritual world it requires a very big correction, if it can be corrected at all, in order to bring him back into the general system to be equal to others.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/16/14

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Discovering The Force Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do our efforts along our spiritual development match the plan of creation?

Answer: Without  asking our permission, this plan helps us advance by the forces of nature, just like the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate.

But on the other hand, we were given the Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah, and we understand this process and know which phases and which states await us. Each of them is the essence of the revelation of the evil in human nature. It will eventually be revealed, but the question is how?

If it is revealed without my preparation, I become worse compared to everyone, and the same goes for everyone else.

But if I use the wisdom of Kabbalah and listen to and accept the help of the teachers, sages, and great Kabbalists who continue to teach us, I discover evil in a different manner.

I know that the evil will now rise up, and with the others, I prepare and focus myself for that in advance, so that the hatred will not erupt and be set free. It is boiling, but we are in control and we know why and for what purpose this is happening. We work on ourselves in order to restrain it.

Then the inevitable revelation of evil takes place in a different manner, and in contrast to it, we discover the force of love. It is written that “love will cover all the sins.”  Thus we correct all the evil within us in a good and positive manner.

This is possible if we understand what is happening and that each side keeps himself from falling into hatred. But in order to do that, we have to unite the nation, strengthen the good mutual connection between people, listen to the sages, and be well organized.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/25/14

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A Cage for Egoism

laitman_749_01Question: Israel’s reputation today in the international arena, mildly speaking, is lamentable and continues to deteriorate. Why is this happening? After all, the historical contribution of our people is enormous.

We gave mankind the Old Testament, the foundations of law, ethics, morality, and much more. In fact, we are talking about a huge impact on the world.

These days it seems that everything is finally over and cut off from us. Should we perhaps re-awaken their potential? Is it time to look back and take a closer look at our own history?

Where did we come from? What ancestral properties define our role among the nations? We have experienced a boom and then went into a long exile, but left with special “baggage” and began to affect the world. What is this “charge” which remains with us everywhere?

Answer: First of all, the period when we were the country and the people is radically different from subsequent events. We ourselves have caused the destruction of the Temple and therefore went into exile.

For generations, from the time of entry into the land of Israel, from the time of Joshua and before, the collapse of our people in varying degrees was in the revelation of the Creator, the Upper Force. Kabbalists were always among us, people knew about them, spoke to them, and they influenced people in their turn.

The era of the prophets, kings, and so on were replaced, but there was a gradual decline after the spiritual peaks of the First Temple. Sometimes there were bursts of “residual” rises, but the overall trend led us down.

In the framework of this process, the Babylonian exile, after the fall of the First Temple, in a spiritual sense, was above the era of the Second Temple. It was a higher comprehension and sensation of the meaning of life , for the disclosure of the Upper Force, which accompanies, took care of, and developed us to become “a Light to the nations.”

The rollback lasted a long time, but before the collapse of the Second Temple, the prominent milestones, people knew and understood that they were “under the care of” the higher power.

Only in the last exile did we begin to shut ourselves down, to be removed from it, but not right away. For another hundred years, people have been depressed by this loss. Memory of the past still lives in us, as evidenced by the Book of Lamentations.

Moreover, the people knew in advance that there was no alternative, and they would have to go into an exile. However, they still had to fight it by trying to take the development along the good way, the path of acceleration.

In general, we always have two paths in front of us: the timely and the accelerated ways. The timely way in which we go under the strict influence of the forces of nature, according to the terms laid down in the general program.

The path of acceleration is where we can speed up the time and sweeten the stages by developing faster than nature requires us to. We are drawn to the future state, mobilizing forces in our environment. It depends on our unity, how eager we are to return to unity despite the egoism that dissociates us.

In order to “stay ahead of time,” pleas, prayers, and invocations are necessary to leverage the Upper Force for help. And then we develop in a good way when united.

Thus, on the one hand, we must recognize that our fall was going to happen, and that it is directed from above, and on the other hand, we must admit that it is caused from above, that we below could not move our development to a different path, a more favorable one in our eyes and in the eyes of a Upper Force.

After all, there are laws according to which at each point of the historic axis we must go through a certain state, experience a certain revelation of egoism of the human nature. Such revelation can take both a positive and a negative form.

By “accelerating” on the right path, I manifest my egoism since it is necessary for the egoism’s correction. In this case, I am not afraid because I know beforehand that it will be unpleasant, and I store appropriate strength, certain details of perception, and connection with friends, so together we would control the revelation of this “monster.” We are not afraid of it as joint forces can keep it in check so that it will not attack us.

Question: It is said that the Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred. Does this mean that we were not able to cope with the egoism?

Answer: Yes, the egoism broke free and scattered us away from each other. This alienation is called hatred. The hatred is really causeless, and I find vitality in this for myself. I feel good and nice to hate everyone. Such hatred manifests differently in our relationships, taking such forms that have no justification, no reason. Egoism rages in everyone by causing the contention.

Today we see how the hostility covers the whole world. Strife and conflict multiply, and like all naughty children, we sink into the mire of conflict by finding nothing else to do while walking on the brink of a major war.

So, the people of Israel lost the ability to curb their egoism and to stay on top of it. “Love your neighbor as thyself, a great Torah rule!” Rabbi Akiva shouted, “Let’s go back to love! Otherwise as a result of our hatred we will end up with the collapse of the Temple, the collapse of the people, and the collapse of the country, the end of everything.” But he was not heard.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/25/14

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