Question: It is written in the articles of Rabash that faith is man’s intention to bestow to his neighbor, to think about him, etc., and self-love is the intention to receive for one’s own sake. Is this what we call within reason?

Answer: Naturally.

Question: We feel and understand this. We see some benefit from this. Is it possible to say that faith in Kabbalah is something in which I do not feel any obvious benefit to myself?

Answer: Of course. In order to bestow, you must feel not yourself, but a stranger, what he needs personally, and then you begin to accept fulfillment only to satisfy his desires. Thus your faith is realized.

And after its realization, a new desire appears and you must set another bar, and so on.

Remark: It is similar to science or sports: You set for yourself a bar, and the state that you have not yet achieved is called faith. And what you have already achieved is called knowledge, and then again, what is achieved also becomes knowledge and is added to the previous one.

This is the opposite of what we know in our world when I was told something, and I have to believe. Such faith is called faith below reason.

My Comment: In addition, in our world, I do everything for the sake of receiving. I am ready to believe anyone in order to fill myself.

Remark: For example, I was told: there is a certain upper force, the Creator. If I just believe in it and do not check, then this is faith below reason. And if I start checking, exploring: Who is He?, What is He?, What are His properties?, How can I achieve these properties?, this is called faith within reason.

My Comment: In this case, you believe to the extent of your reason. And if you do not check anymore and can do the act of bestowal, then this faith is above reason.

Thus, faith below reason is work for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of fulfillment, when you do not check but simply believe blindly.

Faith above reason is when you have checked dozens of times, saw that this is completely unrealistic, and you do it anyway.

Faith within reason is when you check and know, that is, when faith and knowledge support each other.
[262987]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/1/19

Related Material:
What Is Reason And What Is Faith?
The Three Parameters Of Faith
Advancement In Greater Faith

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Question: Do we have to live in a hurry in order to save time?

Answer: Time must be used wisely, which means to use it only on what Kabbalists advise us to, and then you will succeed in everything.

But at the same time, you do not need to rush. Instead, use your time seriously, correctly, and rationally. I recommend reading what Kabbalists say on this matter.
[262270]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/1/20

Related Material:
Reassessing The Desires
What Should You Spend Your Time On?
Kabbalah Knowledge And Corporeal Values

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Connecting the World in the Last Generation” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 15

Selected Highlights

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/3/20

The global decline in new COVID-19 confirmed cases shouldn’t mislead us. The coronavirus isn’t gone; it’s just preparing its next move. There is nothing medical that we can do to stop it from sending another wave, more vicious than the first. If we want to get rid of the germ, we have to tackle it at the level that created it: the level of human society.

Humanity has been operating on a paradigm that idolized unabashed selfishness. We admired people who were obnoxious to others and to nature, and turned those bullies into role models. It’s no wonder we couldn’t stop depleting and polluting our planet, since deep down we all wanted to be among those who were doing the most harm. They had all the money, power, prestige, and what they gave in return was lip service that we must curb emissions and guard free speech and democracy.

Nature exposed our hypocrisy and with a single whiff, shut down the world. Now it’s our choice to change how we treat one another and nature, build a new paradigm—of giving and mutual concern—and save ourselves, our planet, and our future. Nature is letting us choose, and the choice is very clear: heaven of friendship or hell of egoism.

[May 2, 2020, Concord, New Hampshire, USA: Children play at Reopen NH rally in Concord. Hundreds of protesters gather outside of the State House to protest New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu to end his stay-at-home emergency order at Reopen NH rally in Concord]

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Kabbalists who have attained the upper world say that it exists right here. We need not fly anywhere. The upper world is “here with us.” Only we don’t sense it, as we perceive reality according to one narrow parameter: does it make me feel good or bad?
Come out of yourself and you will sense the upper world.

I don’t want to feel what is or is not pleasant to me. I try to tear away from this dependency, to rise above it, to appraise reality relative to what’s good or bad for others. Thus I will begin to see what’s outside of me. In faith above reason.

The work should be in joy, as if I’ve merited the end of correction. So the light of correction is drawn. I rejoice, as if in revelation… I accept a black state as spiritual that shines with its blackness. The Creator offers connection in the darkness, above the ego. So I accept it with joy.

I can fall into a state of numbness, but falling into the ten, I can accept it as coming from the Creator, turn Malchut’s dark state into a radiant Keter. The world is beautiful!

The maw of the coronavirus opened. Sensing our lowliness, we’ve holed up in our homes. But we’ve also discovered how interconnected we are, and that we can help one another. That is why we must separate to a symbolic distance within which the evil ego operates so as to not infect each other with the ego.
#Covid_19
From Twitter, 5/3/20

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My Thoughts On Twitter 4/30/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the U.S. making a mistake by reopening the economy so soon?“
If anyone thinks that reopening the economy will start bringing back the same world we lived in before the coronavirus, then think again.

Letting many more businesses run will not mean that people will immediately go back to spending on all kinds of nonessential items again.

We will soon realize that society’s awareness of what is essential and nonessential in life has slightly risen, and thus many businesses dealing in nonessential goods and services will find themselves continuing to suffer even after being allowed to reopen.

We can expect a struggle, as the government will continue encouraging consumerism in order to oil the economy more and more against a generally growing distaste for it among society.

What I propose is that instead of fighting this losing battle of reigniting the consumerism we used to live in, governments will instead provide everyone involved in unsustainable businesses a new kind of work, one where they learn about human society’s growing interdependence, and how to realize this interdependence that drops down on us in a positive manner.

By doing so, they will receive an income that would cover their needs, and gradually grow into educators of how to enrich positive connection throughout society.

In other words, governments would do well to shift their focus away from reviving a consumerist economy, where wealth equates to success, to creating sustainable societies where people’s essential needs are covered in exchange for participating in the creation of a new society led by values of mutual consideration, responsibility and solidarity.

Success in the latter vision of society would be personal and social happiness, kindled through developing increasingly positive connections.

Above photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is one good outcome of the Coronavirus scare that we will become a society less driven by consumerism and more driven by saving precious resources and learning to get by with what we have?“

Some people point out how consumerism harms nature, and how it led to the emergence of COVID-19 and other negative phenomena.

They encourage putting a stop to our culture of shopping and returning to a past form of sustainable living.

I see such a motion of “getting by with what we have” as unnatural and unsustainable, because our very nature demands enjoyment.

Our desires have developed since the days we lived in caves, where we only lived according to our base animal needs for food, sex and family. Since then, we have developed desires for money, respect, control and knowledge, all kinds of real social needs that make us go shopping, travel the world and entertain ourselves in myriad ways.

Is there a problem with these desires?

The problem is not with the desires to enjoy ourselves, but in the intention we apply upon the desires.

As COVID-19 has increased awareness of our interdependence and interconnectedness, then we can say that anything we do in alignment with our interdependence acts positively, and anything we do against our interdependence acts negatively.

In other words, if we buy, sell or create goods and/or services that aim at bettering our increasingly tightening connections, then such acts are beneficial.

On the contrary, if we buy, sell or create goods and/or services with the intent to place ourselves on a higher pedestal than others, building our success on their ruin, then such acts are detrimental to society, and ultimately, also to ourselves.

Therefore, the problem is not with our consumerist habits of buying and selling, but of the intention that fuels these habits.

Above Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it possible that the recent China coronavirus outbreak is a bio attack?“

Whether the coronavirus is a bio-attack or some other artificial lab construction aimed at serving self-interests of certain people in power, either way, I do not relate to such theories.

More principally, the coronavirus is nature’s reaction to our overblown selfish attitudes to each other.

Before the coronavirus struck us, our mutually exploitative relations—where we each sought to gain at the expense of others—would have brought about much greater suffering than the pandemic. If we continued the way we were going unabated, then I would have expected us to run head-first into another world war.

So although the coronavirus has inflicted pains, inconvenience and fears around the world, I see it as saving us from much more intolerable agonies.

Therefore, rather than philosophize over whether the coronavirus was a bio-attack, we would do better to concentrate on how to improve the quality of our relationships.

The coronavirus has provided us with an example of how our negative relationships we previously held erupted in our faces, as positive or negative feedback from nature depends on whether our relationships are positive or negative.

If we develop more positive connections to each other, then we will see a world of balance and harmony open up to us, and on the contrary, if we fail to make any strides toward better human connection, nature will smack us more and more in order to awaken us to question the cause of such blows.

Negative phenomena in our lives, including the coronavirus, are due to our neglect in making moves to positively connect, to become like members of a big family.

So whether or not the coronavirus was created as a bioweapon is less important than seeing how the virus displays our smallness compared to nature. One tiny particle has shaken many of the foundations that we lived according to.

If we upgrade the quality of our relationships, then we will bear witness to the coronavirus’ disappearance.

Therefore, I advocate using our current period as an opportunity to depart from our pre-coronavirus world, where we each sought to build our successes on the ruin of others, and which brought about much depression, stress and anxiety, and enter a new world of positive relationships, where we will enter into balance and harmony with each other and with nature.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What lessons will the world learn from COVID-19?“

COVID-19 is nature’s way of teaching humanity serious lessons in mutual responsibility, equality and nature’s superiority to humans.

By forcing us into social distancing and stay-at-home conditions over a relatively long period of time, we have become freer to contemplate what is most important in life, how we relate to each other, what kind of world we have created for ourselves, and whether there is a better way to conduct our lives.

In such a situation, we can learn from COVID-19, that in the way it makes no discrimination between people of different status, equally infecting everybody from the average Joe to world leaders, we would also be wise to relate equally to each other.

 Ben Garratt on Unsplash.

We can also learn about our common smallness in the face of nature, where all it takes is a microscopic particle to bring about so much sickness, death and overturning of our socio-economic infrastructures around the world.

We are in a process toward increasing awakening to our interdependence and interconnectedness among each other and with nature.

In such a process, nature sends us various blows to spark more global awareness, so that we would develop more consideration and responsibility toward others.

Why? It is because by doing so, we resemble nature, which takes each and every detail into account.

Harmonizing our relations will balance us with nature, and we would then experience nature’s positive feedback.

Nature is connecting us more and more, and the sooner we become aware of how we’re being forced by nature to connect, and take our own active part in this connection to make it positive, then the sooner we’ll experience much better lives.

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