Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/7/21

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What Does Habit Mean?

630.2A habit is influencing oneself by a voluntary effort of will, internal and also external, for example, by an educator. At that time, in every case, a certain general reaction of nature, what is called the upper light is activated, and it changes us no matter what level we are at.

We are not talking about some cosmic, spiritual levels and changes. Even ordinary earthly changes that occur to us under the influence of targeted learning still presuppose the presence of a special force in nature that we must evoke. This force changes us and gives us a different habit.

Habits are divided into two levels: earthly and spiritual. The earthly level involves replacing certain attachments with others when we change our habits. There are whole systems for this in human society. There are a lot of them and we see that they work.

But there is also the Kabbalistic system when, due to a special goal, we attract such forces of nature to us that change us and make us opposite to our original nature.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/25/21

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“Home Jobs – From Compulsory To Appealing” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Home Jobs – From Compulsory to Appealing

Even though many offices have reopened and most high-tech companies have called in their employees, many people prefer, or even ask to keep working from home. Many of them are willing to cut down their wages or other benefits in return for the comfort of staying home, spending less time on the road, and alleviating some of the stress of a full-time job. In general, it seems as though people lost much of the drive they’d had to achieve. Instead, they seem content with getting by and leading a comfortable, easy going lifestyle.

It is interesting to see how the culture of excessive workaholism that the West had so struggled to cultivate for nearly a century, and which began toward the end of the Great Depression, can evaporate so quickly. We used to think of young people as ambitious and motivated, but it turns out that that mindset is gone, “cleared out” by the virus.

Today, people seem content with simply living. And indeed, why not? Until the beginning of consumerism, people weren’t so troubled with achievements; they wanted to support themselves and their families, and if they succeeded, they were happy. What was wrong with it? Are people with successful careers happier than others? I’m not at all certain that they are.

What does make people happy is inner development, when they realize their personal potential and feel that their lives have a meaning and a purpose. If we can secure our physical existence, then our happiness depends on realizing our inner potential. And especially today, realizing that potential is related to our social ties.

When people develop positive social connections, when they support each other and help each other grow, they feel happy, content, and safe. They are happy to contribute their skills and abilities to society, and the rest of the members of society happily do likewise. Together, they maximize their personal potential, lift society to new heights, enable others to benefit from their achievements, and make it easier on others to realize their own potential, too.

And what is most important, they achieve this without the strain of a demanding, competitive job that exhausts them to the point where they have no energy to socialize. The time when jobs and careers forced people to become lonely and sad is coming to an end. Now that we’ve been impelled to work less, travel less, and think more, we are ready to realize what a gift it is to care about others rather than be concerned only with ourselves.
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“What Is The Difference Between A Just War And A Holy War?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What is the difference between a just war and a holy war?

I would put it this way: A just war is an individual, a group or a country fighting to defend its existence and territory. If certain forces attack with the intent to eliminate or overthrow the individual, group or nation, then the subject in defense of itself has the justification to battle in order to save its own life, the lives of its people and its borders. About this principle it is written, “If he has come to kill you—kill him first” (Tractate Sanhedrin, 72:1, Gemarah).

Countries should not attack other countries, even in certain “humanitarian” forms. They should only use the aid of international forces when they try to achieve peace or some kind of a dialogue. However, they should not wage war and employ military force.

This is why the only just war is if outside forces attack with the intent to kill, and in response, the individual/group/nation in defense of itself has the right to rise up against the aggressor and kill them, and even to be the first to start the war. If, however, outside forces have not risen up against an individual, group or nation with the intent to kill them, then no war can be waged, no matter what the excuse.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

The Failure Of Modern Science

263Question: More than ten years ago I came to the conclusion that economics should be integrated with psychology and work with economic psychology. After all, there is a gap between them that really hinders consumer society. What do you think about this?

Answer: It is hard to say how to work with psychology nowadays because people are changing very rapidly and, in general, psychology is a reflection of what we understand, think, and feel. Economics is also tied to our egoistic desires: do we interpret them correctly and how do we connect all the parameters.

I think that the idea by itself is correct and the direction, naturally, correct. But I do not think that today economics and psychology can be tied because neither of them is a science, but are what a person imagines as it seems to him. It is impossible to build a third something on this to connect them together because these areas of knowledge are in a rather unstable state today.

I nonetheless come to the conclusion that without changing human nature, there is no escape, nothing can be done. All our sciences and management systems will gradually reveal their failure. Once in the time of Newton, this was all good and right. But we have passed this phase already.

Today, humanity is entering a completely different world, and we will have to feel it as a whole. Only in such a way, we will be able to manage it.
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From KabTV’s: “The Science of Management”

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Learning Integral Relationships

528.04The most important thing in our work in regards to society is simply to educate people. Those people who will be able to reveal integral qualities within themselves, that is, to connect in the ten with the others in order to exit the individual egoistic perception of the world into integral interaction, when they rise above their egoism and begin to feel not themselves, but their collective as themselves, and through it perceive the entire universe as integral—these people will continue to engage in education and management. We need to prepare them for this.

However, in principle, all of humanity is necessary for this. Every person today has a question about the meaning of existence, about the way we can restructure our lives. Nature itself says that we must change ourselves in accordance with it.

We have completed the egoistic path of development. In recent decades, it has been in crisis, and is beginning to devour itself. Like in the saying: the revolution devours its children. It is the same here. Humanity must begin to feel this.

I think that if we really created small experimental groups that would solve managerial tasks and give their recommendations based on the integrality of nature, meaning from the correct relationship of a person with nature, then we could not make mistakes in our decisions and would turn a society with such managers into the society of the future.
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From KabTV’s “The Science of Management”

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Connecting In The Common Root

232.08Baal HaSulam, “The Acting Mind”: “There is great diversity even within the same teaching, for if one exceeds another in even one element, it separates the spirituals from one another. But when two sages contemplate the same teaching and have the same measure of knowledge, they are in fact united, for what separates them?”

Each one experiences and perceives unity in his individual way. Two people cannot compare their feelings in any way because each one perceives within his own vessel.

If you and I say that something is sweet, it does not mean that we both feel the same sweetness. But when both of us aspire for the same goal to attain the Creator, then due to the fact that we unite not in the object but in the Creator, in our common root, we will be able to attain the state in which He will make us equal and connect us. Then we will attain absolute unity!

Question: What do Kabbalists feel? Where do they connect

Answer: Only in the root. There is no other way.

Question: We say that each one includes the other inside him. Is this true?

Answer: Yes. As in a closed, integral system.

Hence, when one contemplates another’s action and attains the mind of the sage who performed it, they have the same mind and power. Now they are completely united…

But although they are united, each one still has his own personal attainment.

“…like a man who met his beloved friend on the street, he embraces him and kisses him, and because of their great unity, it is impossible to separate them.”

Because they are united by what they have attained. They attain the great upper spiritual essence, and it connects them into one whole although they are different and the source is different, which means that the Creator is one, but each of them in their individual root holds Him as something personal.

“Hence, the rule is that in speaking, the mind is the best-adjusted force between the Creator and His creatures. It is considered the medium, meaning He emanated a spark of that force, and through that spark, everything returns to Him.”

Eventually, if people unite in order to attain the Creator, they do actually attain Him by attaining the state in which the Creator becomes their common whole, their home, the common connection between them, their common root, the beginning and the end of every state.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/21/19

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How Can You Learn To Be Happy?

284.03Comment: We see that people are not doing very well in the world today. They suffer, this world drowns them.

There is a letter from a program viewer about such a state.
Dear Michael Laitman, you say that everything that happens should bring joy. Teach us joy, I beg you very much!  There is complete chaos all over, and everything happening to me, to my family, loved ones, to the world is a nightmare! Only a year ago, it was impossible to imagine that it would be so.

My Response: The whole problem is in good and bad states—how we perceive them. This is a purely subjective perception. If we knew for sure that this state was good, directed toward good, toward our good future, then we would also endure this state in a different way.

When you treat a dog or other animal and hurt it, it understands that you are doing something right and good for it and it will endure your treatment calmly.

In the same way, we must understand that this is how we should relate to what we are going through. We must raise ourselves a little to the level of being aware of our common goal and look at all our changes as something that we need to go through in order to learn! Learning to understand nature or the Creator is one and the same. It is the same nature that guides us, gradually leads and teaches us.

Question: It must be painful?

Answer: It hurts because you disagree with it. As soon as you start to agree with it, there is no pain but, on the contrary, there is joy.

Comment: The goal must be very high then.

My Response: We are trying to explain this to people. Those who can be filled with this goal, they relate to life in a completely different way.

Comment: If the goal used to be, as it was said before, to build a house and start a family, now there are tons of obstacles on the way to it. A person understands that he is really being rammed.

My Response: You can do it. You are simply reminded that you must also take care of the burial place.

And therefore, when you build a house, start a family, and give birth to children, there is this place in front of you which you must also prepare for yourself. And you see the uselessness, the futility. It kills the person.

We are becoming more developed so we can no longer close our eyes to all this or take a philosophical attitude as it was treated for a while: “You cannot do anything. Such is life.”

No, it does not apply today. If “such is life,” then why should I have children, why should I learn a trade? Why all this? And then it turns out that day to day I do not serve myself but others, and such,  or children who do nothing afterward and have no gratitude. Our entire existence emphasizes our uselessness. The lack of purpose is such that there is simply nothing, and thus, apathy appears.

The time has come to realize that there is no meaning in our life. Where is it?

The meaning of life means that there is this enormous nature and there is a thought that controls this nature, launches it, creates it.

It is this thought, this design, the great design of nature, that we must reveal. And then we will know the meaning of life. Because life is everything. What do we mean by “everything?” It is still nature: vegetative, animate, and human. It all has a meaning that is above this life.

And this meaning, it twists, it organizes, it rotates everything. So we need to rise above our life.

We just need to open our eyes and understand why nature created it all. This is what nature drives us to. This is what we must reveal.

And the idea is to rise above our world because it is actually the worst of the worlds, and this is not a poetic expression. To rise above it means to reveal this plan, this force, this thought, this idea. And when we understand it, this thought, then we begin to see beyond time, beyond space, beyond everything. Then a person begins to feel himself at the level of the Creator.

Question: And still, what is this thought?

Answer: Harmony! The absolute harmony of all parts of creation! Something which is not in us. And therefore, acting in this way toward us, nature pushes us to understand this harmony.

We must reveal this. We are not going anywhere! We cannot simply destroy ourselves, we cannot refuse it, forget ourselves. We must discover and attain this harmony.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/11/21

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The Meaning Of Reincarnation

631.1Question from Facebook: What is the meaning of reincarnation for us if we do not remember our previous lives?

Answer: The meaning of reincarnation for us is the gradual accumulation of feelings and sensations that will make it possible for us to reach a new level of consciousness, knowledge, and feeling of all of creation, of the Creator, of the power that fills everything.

Thus we can truly become a person of the highest state and not remain as we live today, as an animal that perceives the world only through our physiological body, i.e., through the property of reception. Rather, we will feel the world through a new, spiritual body, through the property of bestowal and love.

This is the meaning of reincarnation: the accumulation of a sufficient quantity of sensations in order to exit our world for the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “Questions about Kabbalistic Books” 3/10/19

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 7/7/21

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic “Working in Ascents and Descents”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 2, ‘Histaklut Pnimit,’ Chapter 3, Item 27″

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Selected Highlights

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