Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.17.16

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A Swiss Paradise

Laitman_414Question: The Swiss government is about to vote on monthly payments to the citizens of the nation in the sum of 2,500 Swiss Francs, which is about 2,500 Euros. If the proposal is approved, Switzerland will be the first nation in the world to provide its citizens with a monthly income without any conditions. Furthermore, there is an intention to allocate 625 Francs to every child.

This nation has the opportunity to ensure the well-being of its citizenry. Now they can work, not work, or work less. Is this a good decision?

Answer: The decision is good when everyone without exception has an identical income, and everyone will work according to their ability without concern about their position, investing maximally in the development of the society and nation. For example,it is possible to work, let’s say, for half an hour in the morning in their workplace if they are not needed there anymore, and then they can volunteer somewhere for another two hours. The idea is not about how to occupy a person but his aspiration to give what he can to society.

After instituting monthly payments, the Swiss will not have such aspirations like. They will profit from banking securities and interest. Their banks have accumulated a fortune since the days of the Second World War and all of those investments have never been opened or returned to anyone. The nation became fabulously wealthy and that is how it has existed, in the best image in the world of egoistic existence.

Comment: But nevertheless they will distribute money to their residents; they are concerned about the welfare of the citizens.

Answer: I cannot say that this is bad, but in our world today such a situation in a nation like Switzerland cannot be used as an example because they have something to distribute whereas others don’t. So there is nothing to talk about; we must strive for all people on the face of the Earth to have the same normal level of well-being. and to educate people so that every person in the world will understand that he must give maximally to society.

Question: Nevertheless, everyone has different needs. What does equal to the level needed mean?

Answer: There are no different levels of needs. Suppose that they chose a standard of 2,500 Francs in Switzerland, making it possible for a person to be engaged in a normal and relaxed manner with home economics, himself, his family, children, and so forth. But along with this, the main thing is what he gives to society. The main thing is not just to receive minimally but to give maximally as well.

Comment: But one can be involved with giving for 12-14 hours per day; they would have no energy after that.

Answer: Everything depends on education. Each one will want to give maximally because when he is paid for maximal giving, he will feel his connection with eternity, with wholeness. Then the world will truly become different.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/2/16

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Helplessness During The Collapse Of The Old World

Laitman_089Opinion (The Guardian): “There has always been a tension at the heart of capitalism. Although it is the best wealth-creating mechanism we’ve made, it can’t be left to its own devices. Its self-regulating properties, contrary to the efforts of generations of economists trying to prove otherwise, are weak.

“It needs embedded countervailing power – effective trade unions, law and public action – to keep it honest and sustain the demand off which it feeds. Above all, it needs an ordered international framework of law, finance and trade in which it can do deals and business. It certainly can’t invent one itself. The mayhem in the financial markets over the last fortnight is the result of confronting this tension. The oil price collapse should be good news. It makes everything cheaper. It puts purchasing power in the hands of business and consumers elsewhere in the world who have a greater propensity to spend than most oil-producing countries. A low oil price historically presages economic good times. Instead, the markets are panicking.

“They are panicking because what is driving the lower oil price is global disorder, which capitalism is powerless to correct. Indeed, it is capitalism running amok that is one of the reasons for the disorder. Profits as a share of national income in Britain and the US touch all-time highs; wages touch an all-time low as the power of organised labour diminishes and the gig economy of short-term contracts takes hold. The excesses of the rich, digging underground basements to house swimming pools, cinemas and lavish gyms, sit alongside the travails of the new middle-class poor. These are no longer able to secure themselves decent pensions and their gig-economy children defer starting families because of the financial pressures.

“It’s clear what needs to happen. There needs to be wholesale change in economic thinking. Forces in world labour markets – new forms of 21st-century trade unionism – need to be strengthened. The power of financial markets needs to be constrained. Credit growth needs to be managed by direct controls on the growth of bank balance sheets and banks need to be weaned off the financial casino they have built. Great companies need to be allowed to purpose themselves around creating value rather than dancing to the interests of disengaged shareholders.”

My Comment: Capitalism cannot restrict itself—we see it in the way it is destroys the middle class, from which it is powered. Human greed has no limit because instinctively inherent in his nature, a person wants to exploit others down to nothing. He can stop himself only when everyone will become his slaves; their number will be reduced to a minimum, and he will annihilate the rest. After all with the technology of today there is no reason for the existence of 6 out of 7 billion people. That’s what he will seek.

Salvation will come only with the education of the population in a manner that doesn’t arouse antagonism and prohibitions, but awakens a higher positive power that will influence the human mind and will transform it into inclusion of two forces, the “old” negative egoistic force and a “new” positive altruistic force, the power of bestowal and love. Otherwise we can expect the first scenario.
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The Spiritual Meaning Of Virginity

laitman_559Question: Is there a spiritual meaning of virginity?

Answer: Yes, because the female part of the spiritual vessel (Kli) is embodied by desire. The desire that begins to work with the Light goes through certain phases of preparation, and it is called the disruption of the hymen.

There are many laws of ritual purity regarding this issue. You can go into Judaism sites and find detailed explanations on this matter: what it is, how to behave, how should a virgin prepare herself, how long she is regarded as impure, and so forth. All of this stems from spiritual laws that should relate to the spiritual roots. Thus, the correct interaction between the Light and the vessel are fulfilled, and in our world, it is coined in expressions and images such as the male and female bodies.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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The Perception Of Reality: Body And Soul

Laitman_712_03Question: What is body and soul?

Answer: Before we begin to speak about body and soul, we must understand how we perceive ourselves and our reality. We feel everything in the same way that a television set operates. There are electric forces that operate inside it, and vectors appear on the screen and create a picture that we perceive.

The same thing happens inside our head. As Baal HaSulam said, there is a screen inside our head in which there are vectors of forces in motion that depict different pictures for us. However, these vectors are our own internal forces that depict the picture of this world on the background of the white Light.

This principle of the perception of reality is also characteristic of the spiritual world. After all, if we consider the relations of altruistic vectors instead of egoistic vectors, we will receive a picture of the spiritual world, which means that everything I perceive in my egoistic desires depicts the picture of our world for me, and everything that I begin to perceive with my altruistic desires, if I acquire them, is called the picture of the upper, spiritual world and nothing more than that. This is the whole difference.

There are corporeal bodies in our world that we feel as our own and as independent forces, although they are also vectors, forces that give us a feeling in our senses of something warm and alive. We call the soul a virtual force that revives the corporeal body, and both are merely forces that depict pictures and images of this world for us.

As for the spiritual world, if we depict everything by altruistic forces and not by egoistic ones, our spiritual body will be a desire to bestow that is opposite to my current desire to receive, and the reviving force that now fills it (which means the soul) will be a force of love and bestowal, not a force of receiving for myself the way it is now. But a person who has not acquired this force and is in the intermediate phase now cannot see that.

The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t prove anything. This method teaches a person how to see that reality is fuller and more perfect, that the way one feels today is only a small part of the whole. A person who implements the method of Kabbalah develops his senses until he can depict the picture of the spiritual world on the background of the Upper Light (the attribute of general bestowal) through the help of the force of bestowal. Then, he can exist both in our world and in the upper world at the same time.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/20/15

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New Life #510 – Meditation And Contemplation, Part 2

NewLife510

New Life #510 – Meditation And Contemplation, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

The Eastern methods stem from Abraham who gave presents to the concubines and sent them eastward. Abraham wanted them to have something that would enable them to manage with the ego until the time for them to correct it came.

Those who were ready for correction became his student and he taught them Kabbalah, the way of fulfilling “Love thy friend as thyself.”

Through the connection between us, we return to the state before the shattering of the general soul and become as one. When our internal particles connect again into one system, the force of the Creator is revealed in it. This is the reason that there should be a group of people, a Minyan.

We don’t annul the ego, but rise above it. Nature develops us toward perfect connection and unity, whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not. This is evolution. The connection is actually built by using the ego in a new manner opposite from the natural manner.

Kabbalistic meditation, if you call it, a person can be kept with the feeling of a full life.

A person feels a new dimension in his corrected connection with others; the Light, the force of bestowal, is revealed in him. There are upper worlds that exist above time, space, and motion, the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon and Ein Sof (Infinity). A person can constantly have the feeling of a full through Kabbalistic meditation, if you call it that. When you study the wisdom of Kabbalah, you don’t resign from ordinary life, but work on connection with others and discover the upper force.

In connection workshops according to Kabbalah, we discuss questions related to the connection between us and connect in the center of the circle. In a connection workshop we should think about how I can help everyone connect and feel the upper force in this connection.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #510 – Meditation And Contemplation, Part 2,” 1/25/15

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 02.17.16

Preparation for the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Good and Evil,” “Expecting the Light”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar” 

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