A Brilliant Solution For All Kinds Of Problems

laitman_530Question: Suppose that a task is imposed upon a group of three people. Each one has his own calculations, knowledge, task, and experience. They can carry out the work however it will go, but they can also create group intelligence. All the time, by increasing the emotional connections, they increase their ability to think. Is there any limit to this process?

Answer: Yes. And here it is very important to check what the obstacles are above which people connect. If it is difficult for them to get closer to each other because of unpleasant behavior among the members of the group, internal conflicts, and rejections, but in spite of it all they succeed in connecting above this, then the difference between the level in which the ego is in control and the height that they rise above it to reach unity gives them an intense emotional connection.

Question: And so in order to get a brilliant solution, I must gather the most egoistic workers into a single collective. What must they do in order to unite?

Answer: Yearn for a single mutual feeling. This means that each one thinks positively about the others, submits and contracts himself, rises above his personal feelings, and begins to love the other as if this other is the closest person to him.

He sees the most wonderful and ideal person in the other and wants to do good for him in any way possible. At the same time, he doesn’t obliterate the feeling of hatred; rather, he consciously builds a connection of love above it.

For this we conduct a series of special meetings in which we clarify how each one must rise above himself, contract his ego without obliterating it, but only contracting its activity. It is how we need to nullify ourselves in order to be included with others and to feel them as they are and not as it seems to me that they are. I want to be included with another person as if I don’t feel anything in regard to him, not love and not hatred. What does he want? What does he love, what does he hate, what is he attracted to? What are his tendencies, preferences, and plans? I want to appreciate him; this is the main thing.

Question: Learning about a colleague or two at work is not difficult. And if we are ten, does this mean that I must appreciate each one of them?

Answer: That’s right! Each one nullifies himself to feel the others. And in the next exercise I don’t need to nullify myself, rather I feel myself greater than all of you, ready to fulfill all of you.

From here it follows that to check what the other is missing, I must reduce myself and be included with him without my ego. I must be like an undetectable sensor, creating no interference. And in order to fulfill him, I must use all of my ability. This means that in my ability to fulfill, I am already greater than all. I am not the smallest in a group, rather the greatest. And then I have a positive influence on them.

Question: How is it that thanks to the atmosphere of good attitudes between us we attain the best solutions?

Answer: The idea is not in the atmosphere. The ability to build a new integral feeling and new integral intelligence above the nature that separates each of us, this is what is important! Create something similar to the collective nature that makes it possible for me to find a solution on a higher level than the level where each of us is found, even if he is Einstein.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/26/14

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Reinstall Yourself

laitman_537Question: You say that the Maccabees were fighting for a spiritual, altruistic approach for the sake of the world and for the sake of the place of the person within it. How exactly is the spiritual reality connected to relationships between me and other people?

Answer: It determines the principle of, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The person comes to a perception of the external reality in that he begins to place the other above himself. And this is the difference between the Jewish approach and the Greek approach. That is what the Maccabees were fighting for.

Well today, the egoistic approach is typical of everyone, including the Jews.

Question: How are these two approaches connected to a relationship with the Creator if in principle this is talking about relationships between people?

Answer: I try to go out of my ego, out from my personal interests, towards others. We build relationships like these in a group where the friends become more important in my eyes than I am to myself.

Everyone in our group wants to attain the perception of a higher reality, but for this we must go beyond the limits of our five corporeal senses, rising above them. And we rise when we place a new sense based on bestowal above our egoistic perception, on love of others.

The Kabbalists described this work in a very precise and clear form. And if we act in a form like this, then among us we discover that some kind of altruistic force surrounds and envelops us. Previously it evaded our perception, whereas now we feel that we must discover and feel it.

For this I must become like it, acquiring a similar power of bestowal and love. Only to the degree of inner changes like these can I feel the upper force that dwells outside. Otherwise, I simply cannot absorb it, I am blind to it.

But first we are born as “Greeks,” each one focuses on himself. This is absolutely natural, also it cannot be otherwise. It is said: “…the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21) and further, it is said: “I created the evil inclination” (Kiddushin 30b). In other words, it is specifically the creature, the ego, the evil inclination, which dominates every person.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that it is necessary to rise above this essence, to transform the ego, and instead of hating the other, loving him.

Question: For whom is this “operating system upgrade” designed? Is it just for Jews or for everyone?

Answer: It is for everyone. Each one is ready for this if he has the appropriate inclination and drive for this. And gradually, with the general development of humanity, we will reach a time when this inclination will be awakened among many. Everyone can, and ultimately each one will be obliged to “upgrade.” Starting from the current stage, over several generations, everyone will come to this.

Question: Suppose that a person, in his work on himself succeeds in creating an inner change like this. What does he get from this?

Answer: He acquires life in another world where only the power of the Light dwells, meaning the power of bestowal and not the power of reception. The person identifies with it and finds himself in a world that is all good. There is no more competition; there is no evil, but only eternity and perfection.

This is what we acquire when we change ourselves, rising above life and death, above evil towards the good.

This “upgrade” is not realized by someone outside, it is not through a “click” on some super-computer; rather, we ourselves carry this out. I do everything by myself, consciously and deliberately, and so I feel and acquire the entire reality of the creation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/14/14

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Don’t Regret A Corrected Level!

laitman_238_02The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:28: Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh…

It is forbidden to regret your egoistic losses in the spiritual work.

In the past you wanted to conquer the world and to take it all: wealth, domination, honor, and knowledge; to control everything, to enjoy everything, and that everything should be yours.

Now, however, when you cross the point of no return in the opposite direction, towards the upper attributes of love and bestowal, when all the forces, desires, aspirations, and hopes turn to bestowal unto others, you should under no circumstances regret the dead desires in the state where you left them, this is called “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh.”

Very often we hear a person complaining: “What a pity that I have suffered so many years…” He regrets his dear dead desires and the years that were wasted in vain: “I have invested all my life in them!” This is how our ego works.

Therefore, at each new stage we must not remember the past. The past doesn’t exist! You have corrected the given level, like a stage in a spaceship, and you should yearn to move forward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/16/14

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 12.26.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2014-12-26_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’26.12.14′]

Integral Intelligence

laitman_940Question: A study was conducted among people who were divided into groups of five people. Some of the groups were composed of people with a high degree of intelligence, and the rest of the groups were people on an average level but with a high capacity for empathy and connection with other people.

All of them received the same task. Surprisingly, in the groups with emotional potential, the results were higher than in the groups with high intelligence. How is this possible, that with an emotional connection we are working with a higher intelligence?

Answer: Our substance is the desire to receive, and what happens within it is called “feeling.” First of all, we are based on desire, emotion, and with our emotion we are ready to absorb more, to feel more deeply and expansively, so this requires our intellect to develop.

Suppose that I lack the sense of hearing. My brain doesn’t need to absorb sounds, identify them, connect into a single image, create all kinds of sounds, and learn with them part of reality. As a result, my intellectual ability is reduced.

In the study that you mentioned before, in the group that was connected better, there was attainment of a higher and deeper general feeling. The members of this group developed a higher group intelligence with their connection. So they could solve problems and understand the situation better than people with separated intelligence who were not connected.

It follows that the main thing is not the amount of participants and not personal attainments, but the power of connection. Specifically this is what awakens the mind to a new form and new intensity of development. The mind becomes integral. Because it absorbs all kinds of feelings from people who want to connect with a shared emotion, so it must also be shared.

So a single image is created from them, “as one person with one heart” and one intelligence. This is an absolutely different qualitative level in comparison to wise people of separated intelligence with scientific diplomas. They can be great psychologists, but if there is no connection between them, they are not ready to attain a quality like this.

Question: From my experience I know that if different components connect, the result will be a particular amount. Whereas here I feel that there exists one further component that is unknown. What is this component?

Answer: This is the integral component. We don’t connect units to build ten, but from ten we build a single whole.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/26/14

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A Stormy Desire Towards The Light

laitman_276_01The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:27: Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.

Hair symbolizes the ways the Light of Hochma spreads from a special unit of the world of Atzilut, from the Partzuf of Arich Anpin. We should constantly add a desire to ascend to this system.

The word “Se’arot” (hair) stems from the Hebrew word “Sauer” (stormy), which means thrilled and excited in one’s desire. Therefore we must constantly try to keep a certain level of tension, of yearning for the current of the Light of Hochma, and then it will descend.

It says: “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard” especially the hair that descends from above the beard. The point is that we distinguish between 13 parts of the beard in the spiritual work, each of which needs a special correction since it is a gradual descent of the Upper Light to the lower consumers, to our souls.

The Light of Hochma, which seemingly flows in a weakening system, is like a power station and different substations of transformers in our world, which gradually change the high voltage from let’s say 50,000 volts to 220 volts or to 115 volts. Thus, you need to constantly control this process in order to maintain your desire in suspense since the descent of the Light depends on that.

There are many back link systems today like counters that determine the consumption of electricity during different hours along the day. A small computer is installed that calculates the consumption of electricity, and in the power station they know how many kilowatts you consume at a certain time during the day or the night. This means that you are linked to the power station.

In the spiritual work there is a similar back link with the source of Light. You need to focus your desires so that thanks to them the Light will be extracted from the source and will descend downwards. Unless your desires for the Light reach the source, it will not begin to generate energy and be focused on you.

This is an action called “Se’arot” when you suffer wanting that the Light of correction should descend on you and allow you to work in order to bestow.

Comment: Despite his lack of understanding of these internal processes, a person still yearns to keep them on a corporeal level. Religious people, for example, keep these commandments at least externally.

Answer: We shouldn’t make analogies between the two worlds. We are the way we are and we should be just the way we are born.

First, we have to think about how to resemble our spiritual figure, while externality is a relative concept.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/9/14

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Kabbalah For “General Use”

laitman_254_03Question: How is it possible to discover and know that a person is ready to study the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: How do we determine that a child is allowed to read a particular book? The parents are on one level above the child and so they understand that it is possible to give him a book appropriate for his age. And in another few years he will grow to such a level that he can read even more serious books.

The same thing happens with the wisdom of Kabbalah as well. It is possible to see according to the present generation and according to what is happening in the world that the world is ready for the discovery of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The term “Kabbalah” also means “transmission” because it was transmitted from generation to generation until it reached us.

The last great Kabbalist in this chain was Baal HaSulam who opened the wisdom of Kabbalah for general use. And he writes in his books that from this time on it is possible to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone. As it is said, “…and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2).

I accepted this mission from the oldest son of Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag, and so I must carry it out. I no longer have a choice and I cannot decide if it is worthwhile to do this or not, or whom to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to and whom not to. If this mission was given to me to transmit this knowledge of the wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone, I must reveal it to the whole world as much as it is in my power.

In the kind of situation that we are in today, a great deal of multifaceted work is waiting for us. First of all, it is necessary to “clean” the wisdom of Kabbalah of all the false labels and opinions, to detach and separate it completely from all kinds of “pseudo Kabbalah.” Tarot cards, ceremonial dances, meditations according to a book, stones, writings, red strings, holy water, and so forth.

Second, we must explain that the wisdom of Kabbalah is intended for the correction of a person, and the correction is in his connection with others. Only through the right connection between us can we carry out the conditions for the discovery of the spiritual force, the Upper Light, among us.

When we discover this higher force among us, it will begin to work within us by raising us to another level of existence. The Light that fills us will elevate us to a sensation of a new reality.

And meanwhile the image of this world will gradually disappear. First, it will simply lose its importance; in this way it will vacate a place for the image of a higher world that reflects the connections between the inner forces that manage all of creation.

And with time humanity will advance and begin to work with these forces. And then we will gradually stop feeling this world; it will be as if it evaporates; it will disappear from our feelings. After all, this world is imaginary and exists only in our five senses. We are already beginning to exist only in the spiritual world.

We need to reach a situation like this, and there is even a marker for the inevitable end of this process: 6,000 years from the first spiritual discovery of Adam to the end of all the corrections. With the “completion of correction” all of humanity, with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, will have to connect as one person with one heart. And then all of us will be found on a higher level only.

But all of the confusion that accompanied the wisdom of Kabbalah for so many years was necessary. For without this, the child cannot grow. Complication, confusion, this is a part of our development.

Question: So essentially what is the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah is the discovery of a system of forces within which the one upper force, called the “Creator,” operates, which is equivalent to the higher nature, that includes within it all of our forms of existence. And the discovery of this higher nature, the Creator, happens through attaining equivalence with Him. To discover this higher nature, to connect with it, and to identify yourself with it, this is the goal of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

We hope that we will soon attain this. This raises a person to the level of the Creator. But if we don’t go in this good way, then other forces will appear in nature, which will push us towards this by way of a crisis, and they will nevertheless obligate us to reach this.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/18/14

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Winning The Game Against The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe whole Torah is only about a person’s inner states. Jacob’s family of only seventy people reaches Egypt and settle among the Egyptians. The seventy representatives of the Israeli nation are the seventy major altruistic attributes that go down into the desire to receive, into their ego.

First they reach high positions in Egypt and become managers, but gradually the Egyptians, meaning a person’s egoistic desires, begin to enslave their altruistic attributes and subdue them.

Question: Why does the Israeli nation go down to Egypt?

Answer: The point is that it is impossible to develop spiritually in this world and advance to the spiritual world if you don’t ascend to new levels on the spiritual ladder, which is supported by your ego. The levels of the spiritual ladder are built from the material of the human ego, and the more the ego grows, the higher a person ascends by increasingly overcoming it. This is the only way to ascend from this world to the level of the upper world, from Malchut to Bina.

Therefore, it is impossible to manage without the slavery in Egypt, without Pharaoh, and without all the wicked figures that are revealed that the Torah tells us about. They are all in your heart.

The children of Israel go down to Egypt since there is famine is the land of Israel, meaning that there is nowhere to advance spirituality if you don’t attach your ego to it each time, correct it, and then ascend. This is the only way the spiritual levels are built. Therefore Jacob’s family has no choice but to go down into the ego.

However, they didn’t take into account that a new king rises in Egypt, “a new king that didn’t know Joseph.” The new Pharaoh is the same desire to receive that suddenly begins to grow sharply in a person. A person wants to develop the attribute of bestowal within him, dreams about ascending this life to a more sublime form of existence. Suddenly, arising in him, he sees only thoughts and desires that pull him away from this and which hold him by his arms and legs..

He feels as though a heavy load has been placed upon his shoulders. This means that a new king rises in Egypt that does not know Joseph. The new ego does not want to play games with a person, has no accounts with him, and only wants one thing: that you should work for him like a slave.

It obliges you to live like everyone else in this world, like all the Egyptians, and to be even more egoistic than them. Unfortunately, the Israeli nation today manages to be loyal slaves of the ego.

The Jews win Nobel prizes and are very successful the world over and even take pride in the fact that they are more successful corporeally than everyone else. We have taken the greatest pride in being the European basketball champions, have learned the Greeks’ games and began to play these corporeal games even better than they did..

Our ego is ready to work for its own benefit and this is called Pharaoh. If the desires for bestowal, spirituality, connection, and unity, which should be an example for everyone, are revealed within us, Pharaoh which is the force of the ego that manages us, immediately kills them.
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From KabTV’s “The Torah Chapters with Shmuel Vilozni” 12/15/14

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Miracles That Slow Down The Advancement Of Humanity

laitman_629_4The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:26: …neither shall ye practice divination nor soothsaying.

Question: Why is it forbidden to practice divination or soothsaying?

Answer: The point is that divination or soothsaying can provide a person with answers to questions that trouble him, but he has no right to use that since such actions are not aimed at bestowal but actually at satisfying his ego. It doesn’t mean that he closes his eyes and advances like a blind man. There is no such thing in our spiritual advancement at all.

“Neither shall ye practice divination or soothsaying” means that all the actions you perform in your mind and heart should be aimed at bestowal, that such actions aren’t focused on you, like in the case of divination or soothsaying. Here you should simply determine the way you act in complete bestowal unto the Creator, unto those around you, and move forward. Then you don’t feel the need for divination or soothsaying. You should ascend above your ego without seeing your future since the next level has to be in complete concealment.

Imagine that a certain airline’s plane disappeared and no one knows what happened to it and whether it was hijacked, sank, or exploded. Suddenly I appear on the radio or hold a press conference and say that I can find it. My announcement causes a stir all over the world and they do actually find the lost plane. At the same time I explain to everyone that I managed to do it because I engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah and that the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about the next world etc.

Comment: This is where the powerful popularity of the wisdom of Kabbalah stems from…

Answer: Yes, but it is forbidden to do so. Everyone will immediately run to Kabbalists spurred by their ego, all the people in the world would want to become Kabbalists, but what’s the point?

Comment: But the Creator actually operates that way! When Moses said that the people wouldn’t believe him, the Creator answered him, “Throw your rod to the ground,” and the rod turned into a snake. This means that Moses performed miracles on behalf of the Creator.

Answer: The Creator did that in order to harden Pharaoh’s heart even more and to give the people the chance to escape from him, so that they would have no chance of thinking that he was actually right and that he had certain powers. You can imagine that if I really did say something about the plane the human ego would rise to such a level that we wouldn’t be able to explain anything to people. The ego would also leap in us and how?! Since they would all begin to bow to Kabbalists.

By performing that action, I would bury everyone in their ego and we would have to wait a few more centuries until all this will sink and then start anew from scratch. The upper system of connection is very meticulous with regard to any spiritual matter that can enter a person since by such things he may not hear us and therefore it says: “…neither shall ye practice divination nor soothsaying.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/9/14

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The Maccabees And The Greek Ideology, Part 2

laitman_276_02We should understand that the Jews didn’t enjoy the Greek culture, as contemporary authors try to portray. They simply don’t understand the inner essence of the Jewish people and what it meant to be a Jew in the land of Israel, the people of Israel in the country of Israel in those days.

The Greek and the Jewish ideologies are two basically opposite perspectives. All the other ideologies, such as the Greek ideology or other ideologies stemmed from man, who is a corporeal creature, an animal, an egoist. A person can only come up with an ideology that is aimed at his own corporeal, physical benefit.

The ancient Greeks, by the way, loved athletics and sports. They built stadiums, held Olympic games, and on the whole were inclined to hedonism. Basically anything that helps a person advance towards the goal of creation is good, but if I simply enjoy strength, agility, and stamina as long as the body is alive, I live for it.

This is also true with regard to other philosophical, esthetic concepts. They are all corporeal and they all stem from the five senses of our body and do not exceed their narrow perception.

The problem is that this limitation is evasive and cannot be noticed unless a person ascends above his five senses and says goodbye to his body and rises to a higher level, not after his death but rather here in this life.

The idea is to perceive reality above the five corporeal senses that are a desire to understand, to know, and to feel what is around us. All of a person’s senses perceive everything in an egoistic manner, internally, according to the principle of absorbing into one’s self. In such a state they cannot perceive more that what is dictated to them by the limitation of time, motion, and place as well as by the tolerance of each sense organ.

It is on the basis of this perception that the Greeks established their science and the realm of myths, which includes earthly fairytales regarding the relationships between their gods. This is how they imagined the laws of nature, in the form of an Olympic pantheon where the gods flirt with one another, get married, get divorced, live in peace or quarrel…

This is a very primitive picture, which of course is totally wrong. Therefore only children’s books remain of it for the next generations and I don’t recommend them because they establish a wrong conception of nature in a person.

Consequently only the basics of nature and scientific terminology are left of all of the ancient Greek culture.

As for the traditional Jewish perspective, it is actually inclined outward. In its framework we don’t need to absorb data from nature and to process it by our feelings and our mind, no. We need to exit ourselves and be incorporated in others outside ourselves. Thus we improve our tools of perception and make them unlimited and infinite.

After all, I exit myself, leaving my body, not wanting to remain in it. It only limits me and doesn’t allow me to understand things the way they really are. I cannot even really feel anything since I am imprisoned in the narrow limits of my senses.

What is more, when I perceive information through my five senses I process it by calculating my personal gain. It is inevitable because this is how my body operates due to its egoistic force. Therefore, out of the whole world that surrounds me, no matter what it may be, I only perceive what can enter my five egoistic senses, which is surely in my benefit or may bring me harm in the limits of a certain sense.

We don’t distinguish all the other phenomena around us. At the same time we can use instruments that do expand our boundaries a little, but we also perceive this information through the prism of our personal gain.

It turns out that if I want to be a real researcher I have to be independent of everything. Is that possible? After all, I was born an egoist, and by definition I only see what is good or bad for me, what is pleasant or unpleasant, beneficial or harmful.

I filter the flow of external data automatically and subconsciously, isolating only what my ego regards as worthwhile and ignore everything else. This is the reason that we all see the world and assess it differently.

At the same time, there is a different perception that is opposite from the natural Greek perception. According to that perception, I have to transcend what happens to me here on this planet, exit my ego, and ascend above myself with my self, if I want to be a true, independent, objective scientist, which cannot be found in the ordinary format of this world.

There is a method, which by a series of exercises and with the help of the environment and the friends, allows an ordinary person to perform such changes in him: to expand his natural perception and add a super natural perception to it, which means a perception that operates beyond a person’s natural ego.

Thus I can develop additional senses inside me that are not based on absorption internally but on bestowal, when I am ready to give, to love, to bestow, and am ready to be above myself. Love and bestowal are opposite from the perception of receiving, self-enjoyment, and hatred.

It is by such an approach that I begin to notice the reality that is beyond my egoistic vessels of perception. These vessels perceive merely two miserable percent of the whole spectrum and also distort the picture by presenting it to me in the form of this world to me.

Even physicists today say that they have reached a certain limit and that they cannot transcend it. Although there is undoubtedly something beyond that, they don’t know how to touch what is hidden on the other side…
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/14/14

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