Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/9/21

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When There Is No Support Of The Society

559Question: How can you raise a person to be simply good? At school, they tried to instill ethics and morality in us, but we can see that this does not work.

Answer: Our social and educational systems do not work because they do not have the support of society. As society becomes more open, people move further away from each other. Let’s take the very vivid example of China. It was a closed society that lived according to its own laws, different from the whole world.

Now that Chinese society is opening, it is starting to spread. There is no connection. No matter how much they try, they cannot stay together for long. Even more so, it is such a diverse, multifaceted set of people.

You cannot associate yourself with a huge number of people who are so different, incomprehensible, and inconceivable to your feelings. When it is millions, it is impossible.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/25/21

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“Where Is Uncle Sam Going” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Where Is Uncle Sam Going

Last Sunday, Uncle Sam celebrated his 275th birthday, aka America’s 4th of July, or Independence Day. I received many questions about the “land of unlimited opportunities” and where it is headed considering the rapid social transformations and volatile political relations both internally and internationally. Many of the questions I received dealt with the stark discrepancy between the current state of American society and the Declaration of Independence. In a reality of violence, extensive drug abuse, and pervasive depression and despair, it feels almost uncanny to read the Declaration, which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Indeed, through no fault of its own, America has lost the race in the pursuit of happiness. Things can always change for the better, but it takes resolve and determination, and most of all, recognition of the problem, which, in the case of America, is social disintegration.

When the founders of the commonwealth envisioned life in the newly formed independent country, people were far more “community oriented” than they are today. Life was simpler, and people’s aspirations generally revolved around securing provision, housing, and child rearing. With these goals in mind, it was only natural to aspire that every American would have these “unalienable Rights.”

Yet, Americans in 1776 and Americans today have very, very little in common. Not only Americans, but all of humanity has changed dramatically during those years, and not for the better. These changes, which have accelerated approximately since the start of the 21st century, have made people far more egoistic, narcissistic, uncommunicative, irreverent toward social values and authorities, and irresponsible as far as considering the consequences of their actions. As a result, “the pursuit of Happiness” has become a very personal goal, which often entails the pursuit of other people’s unhappiness. Especially in America, there are many examples of people’s aspirations to achieve happiness by demeaning and disparaging other people or groups on the basis of ethnicity, religion, culture, or any other trait that can be used to vilify and demonize other people, and justify meanness toward them.

Yet, if every group, sect, or faction in society cares only for itself, society will collapse and all the groups, sects, and factions suffer. As vying groups strive to assert themselves at the expense of others, they deny others the “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” that they demand for themselves. Moreover, in doing so, they guarantee that other groups will treat them likewise. Such a social meltdown denies the country its future. This, today, is the state of America at the onset of its 275th year.

I am not saying this to reprimand anyone in particular, and certainly not to patronize. I am calling out what I see so that others can see it too and improve their lives. I believe that all people should enjoy the basic rights that the Declaration of Independence articulates, and the first step to achieving them is to see where they are not implemented so that people can build together a more just, united, and happy society.

If my wishes for America were heard, I would wish for them to take a break from gun violence, substance abuse, and other forms of personal and mutual destruction, and reflect on what they need to do in order to make their society more fair, united, and happy. And not by revenge, since that would only arouse more hatred, but by looking onward to the future and reimagining an American Dream where people achieve their goals, live happily with ample provision, housing, health, education, and, most of all, a community they care for, and which cares for them.
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“Who Benefits From Terrorism?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Who benefits from terrorism?

Terrorism benefits no one, including the terror organizations themselves. It elicits a negative reaction from humanity, and even though in a short-term perspective, it appears as if terror organizations can make some gains for their purposes, nonetheless the fear of their influence eventually works to their detriment, and thus by inflicting terror, they themselves end up suffering.

In addition, when considering terror organizations from the vantage point of nature’s and humanity’s oneness—where we are all globally interconnected and interdependent, and every person, group and nation carries out a certain role in humanity—then those who inflict harm on innocent people actually inflict harm on their own role in the world. For this reason, nature will punish them first.

No terror organization has ever achieved any lasting success. When viewing such organizations and their actions from a longer-term perspective, we see that they essentially invite fatal harm to themselves. I thus pity them. In a narrow short-term view, they fail to see this. They think that terrorism can save them and draw positive attention, but the longer timespan reveals terrorism as self-harming.

When the extent of our interconnectedness and interdependence becomes revealed, these organizations will understand how they inflict harm upon themselves.

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

“The Power Of Curses And The Power Of Love” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The Power of Curses and the Power of Love

A student asked me about a new TV series in Israel that tells the story of a family in Jerusalem where the women in the family were cursed with marrying men who do not love them. Apparently, generation after generation, these women are miserable in their marriages. The student wanted to know if there is indeed such a thing as a curse, and if curses can really inflict such harm.

A curse reflects someone’s ill-will about another person. Human nature, we know from the Bible, is evil from youth. This is why our world looks more and more like a curse. Ill-will can also be directed toward specific individuals, and might inflict personal harm on them. Over the years, I’ve known several people, most of whom women, by the way, who could make a person ill by simply looking at that person. Thankfully, today fewer people have such powers. However, since our intentions toward others are generally negative, then even without intending, we are constantly spewing arrows at other people, which make all of us unwell and unhappy.

Curses aren’t incurable; we can protect ourselves from them. Since curses reflect ill-will, the protection against them is good-will. If we try to spread good will to everyone, indiscriminately, we will protect ourselves from negative thoughts.

This is true not only when it comes to curses. Since the world is in the mess it is in due to ill-will, the way to remedy the world is by spreading good-will. If we change our attitudes from seeking others’ harm to seeking others’ benefit, the whole world will benefit from our thoughts, and first and foremost we.

This is not as simplistic an idea as it may sound to some. Since human nature is inherently evil, we will need to muster the support of many people to create a social environment that endorses and rewards good-will, and condemns and reprimands ill-will. Right now, we are doing the opposite. Just look at who we idolize and think of the values they represent, and you’ll understand the kind of revolution that our society needs to undergo.

But we can do this. If we change our values, we will also change our idols. If we change our idols, people who become famous will be those who represent caring and concern for others. When we create such an environment among ourselves and in the media that surrounds us, we will change the world. Nothing more is needed, just a change of heart from bad to good.
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Beyond Limited Knowledge

537Our knowledge is very limited. In fact, its boundaries should be much greater than we can imagine.

But we are in an egoistic state and try to receive everything in ourselves, and therefore we are very limited and feel only our small world. The universe seems to us as infinite and in its inanimate matter.

The still, vegetative, animate, and human parts of the universe exist only on our small planet. All levels are arranged as a pyramid: a huge inanimate universe, then the vegetative nature on earth, a smaller part is the animate, and even smaller one is man.

Imagine how limited all this is and that it is only a meager perception of the general universe. Moreover, we perceive this small part in our egoistic properties, i.e., opposite to the huge law of love and bestowal that exists in the world.

It turns out that the perceived world feels negative, flawed, temporary, that it always leads to death and requires huge efforts on our part to at least get something, to be fulfilled by something, to exist somehow.

But in fact, this world, the whole of nature, the whole universe exists according to another law—the law of love and bestowal. There, on the contrary, there is absolute energy, information, and the exchange of forces and properties where you act and at the same time no energy is required from you, no effort.

You do not act against this force, against internal friction, against your properties, you do not have to overcome anything. On the contrary, you enter a state of bestowal and love when everything flows in you by itself.

We cannot even imagine such a property, such a state. This is the single common law that exists in the universe.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Universal Law” 9/30/09

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Linked By A Single Goal

933The Book of Zohar, Ki Tisa, Item 54: All those friends who do not love each other depart the world before their time.

Friends are people who want to unite with each other, but in their joint impulse they discover that instead of connection, they have an inexplicable, unfounded hatred for each other.

And this hatred throws them down from the world where they were united. As a result, they die; they pass from that world to a lower level of existence. They lose their spiritual degree.

The loss of a spiritual degree is called “death” at the degree they were on.

Question: Who are those friends?

Answer: We are talking about people who are beginning to wonder about the meaning of life. This question comes from their serious inner need to feel the real source of life, not because they are bitter in this world or want something, but because they are obliged to understand the meaning of life, its highest goal.

The desire to attain the meaning of existence that appears in a person develops the need to find the root of life, its source. When this desire starts to work, one strives somewhere without knowing why and how. The person is drawn somewhere, and thus, one is brought to a Kabbalistic group.

A person begins to learn and adapt to the group. Here he is  told that there is a goal in life: to reach a spiritual degree above our world, above time, movement, place, space, in general, above everything that exists in the material world. The goal is to enter another dimension.

It is possible. But only when a person has, not the quality of reception like in this world, but the quality of bestowal, the opposite of the one we are in now.

We are all egoists, we want to receive for ourselves, absorb all and everything in ourselves.

The next level of the universe, the opposite of us, operates on the system of bestowal, not reception. Therefore, we do not relate to it in any way. It is beyond our senses because they are all based on reception, and the next world is based on the quality of bestowal.

People who are already in the spiritual world with their feelings describe it as a higher, boundless, infinite, perfect world. How do we get into this world hidden from us? To do this, we must unite in a group and, according to a certain method, start to develop the quality of bestowal and love in ourselves, to “Love Thy Friend as Thyself.”
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #21

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Ascents And Descents—Life And Death

528.01“Love your neighbor as yourself” is an ancient biblical slogan, a call with which in principle everyone agrees, but no one knows how to implement it.

Although we love to say it sometimes, we understand that in our world these are just beautiful words. But in the spiritual world, this is an indispensable rule under which you either exist or you do not.

Those friends who have united into one whole have found the right contact for bestowal and love among themselves. They have reached the highest spiritual level and feel the source of all forces, the source of creation. They have reached a supernatural level of existence and they remain in an eternal flow of information and energy, beyond time and space, and suddenly reveal the next layer of egoism that was previously hidden from them.

Instead of love and bestowal, they again begin to feed each other with egoistic attitudes, criticism, and rejection. At that time, they fall from the level that they had reached to the earthly level as if they dropped from the sky, and they again look at everyone in an absolutely egoistic way.

As it often happens during the lesson: you gleam with your friends as if you are already in bestowal and love with them, everything is so good, and then this state disappears and ordinary life begins. But with Kabbalists, of course, this is more sudden because the difference is between spiritual reality and earthly reality. And for ordinary people, it is still a little far-fetched.

Question: So what can be done?

Answer: Rise again, work on that egoism with which you found yourself under, and then work on it again and rise up. After you rise, you find even greater love, even greater bestowal, even greater connection, an even higher supernatural level, and then fall again. And it will happen 125 times.

Question: Are you talking about the reincarnation of souls?

Answer: You may call it the reincarnation of souls. Every time you fall there and rise back, it is called “life and death,” “life and death.”

Question: And inside this corporeal life we now exist in now, we study and want to unite and rise, is it the same story taking place?

Answer: If in this life a person has not reached a single spiritual level and has not even aspired to it, then how can it be considered at all? After all, he did not rise above it and did not fall. That is, he did not move.

In spirituality, movement is taken into account only upward and downward, at least on a minimal scale. If this were not the case, how long you lived in your body, that is your life: you drank so much, ate so much, excreted so much, and died. And then, another cycle.

Question: Suppose we want to make a breakthrough in this life, connect, and reveal the lowest spiritual level. Then will egoism unfold again?

Answer: You will either go through several such cycles in this life or there will be another physical birth between them, another body awaiting you. It does not matter, but this will already be a process.

Question: Have we already been through this?

Answer: Yes, we have. Only in such a process in which we practically managed to do nothing, we only carried out a certain preparation. Therefore, today we are already in motion.

Question: Were we friends?

Answer: We were somehow connected with each other and some of us were even friends.

Question: When was it?

Answer: Several hundred years ago.

Question: Where was it?

Answer: It could have taken place in different places on earth. It does not matter. Only spiritual ascents and descents are important, and all earthly conventions are just a theater.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #21

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Souls Conducting The Will Of The Creator

961.2Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) is a whole spiritual system, a very large soul, which includes many other souls tied to it. Thanks to him, they were able to rise, connect with each other, and merge.

The soul of Rabbi Shimon guides and leads us forward in the same way as the soul of Moses, the Ari, Baal HaSulam, and the soul of Abraham, who was the first to establish the Kabbalistic method.

Basically, Adam was the first. But he did not have a group with which he would develop this technique. In those days, it was not needed because egoism in humanity was still too small.

The next level of egoism was revealed by Abraham, but it also was small since it was enough for him and his disciples to just connect with each other. The most serious egoism was revealed during the period called the Egyptian exile.

Question: And the souls of such great Kabbalists as Adam HaRishon, Abraham, and Rashbi are somehow connected with each other?

Answer: Yes. These are souls that constantly manifest in humanity, as well as the main upper force that must manifest in us in order to spread the method of correction among us to organize us. These souls descend into our world as messengers to teach spiritual methods.

They don’t even correct themselves, they just teach others how to correct. Therefore, it cannot be said that they themselves have reached their level. But they are not like everyone else. These are special souls that are engaged in carrying out the “policy” of the Creator in this world.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #21

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 7/9/21

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic “Finding the Good in the Friend”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Item 25″

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Selected Highlights

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