Audio Version Of The Blog – 2/23/22

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The Olympic Games

961.1Comment: The story of the founding of the ancient Olympic games includes the creation of the Ekecheiria, the Olympic Truce, which allowed the Games to be held without attack and its participants to travel unharmed through warring territories. The Greeks saw the the Olympics had potential for  promoting peace among their often warring city-states.

“This potential was especially important to Pierre, baron de Coubertin, and his predecessors in the modern Olympic revival who believed strongly that the Games were capable of advancing international understanding and the cause of world peace. The Olympics have played that role with marked success, especially among athletes and spectators, if not governments. Emphasis on a kind of Olympic peace has become a major feature of modern Olympic ideology. In the year 2000 Olympic officials established the International Olympic Truce Foundation to encourage the study of world peace and the creation of progress in its pursuit. The foundation is headquartered in Athens and has endeavoured to institute a new kind of official Olympic truce that would, unlike the ancient version, persuade countries not to wage war during the Olympic Games” (Britannica).

This means that at the time when the Olympic Games are held, no one is at war with anyone.

And for the first time in the 125-year history of the existence of the International Olympic Committee, 20 countries refused to sign the UN resolution for observing  the Olympic Truce during the Games.

My Response: This only shows what humanity is slipping into, that this is a terrible state of people and countries and how they treat each other, with such meanness, with such treachery.

This speaks of our time, of the huge egoism that has developed in humanity that we cannot curb in any way. We need only the special upper force for this.

Question: So you think it is going to get worse and worse? Will 30, 40, or more countries join?

Answer: Absolutely! Of course! This is all pure bluff.

Question: What does it take for a coup to happen suddenly at some point?

Answer: It will not happen. This will lead us to the fact that either we will bow our heads, accept the upper governance, and agree to be governed by an absolutely benevolent upper force, or we will not need the Olympic Games at all.

No one will escape. We will plunge into such wars… they say there have already been such periods on Earth.

But today is a special period because we have the opportunity to overcome this insane leap of egoism and rise above it.

Question: Is that why these crises occur?

Answer: Yes, of course, to show us in advance what can happen and to still push us to overcome these egoistic crises.

Question: Does it surprise you that, on one hand, athletes are sent to compete together, hug, shake hands, and on the other hand, these same countries refused to sign a peace agreement and say that it means nothing? They sent athletes, ok, they did that for peaceful sports, games, and we will wage war. Doesn’t this coup seem strange to you?

Answer: This is the duplicity of our world. Man is like that internally.

And according to the time, he is once like this, another time like that. I hope, again, that today’s state will lead to awareness and to the understanding of the cruelty and irrationality of our egoism.

Question: What will become of these Olympic Games if this turn you are talking about happens?

Answer: Then the games will turn into a festival, a celebration. And the celebration will consist not in someone defeating someone, but in friendship truly winning.

Truly! So that everyone in their sport demonstrates their desire to show friendship, connection, love, mutual understanding, and closeness to others through their sport.

Question: Without any duplicity?

Answer: Certainly! But I do not know how to do it. Let them search. We will give awards for this.

Question: Specifically for this? Not for those first places that were snatched in the fight?

Answer: Of course. Not for playing dirty tricks or using all kinds of drugs and means!

Comment: That is how it is today.

My Response: Yes, these are today’s games, and in this case, it is better to shut them down.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/31/22

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“Who Is A Jew?” (Times Of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who Is a Jew?

“Jew” is not a bad word. There is no need to be apologetic for using it, was the claim of the German Jewish community after the leading dictionary of German language Duden added an explanation to their standard definition stating that the term “Jew” (Jude) might often be perceived as derogatory. This clarification was later removed because German Jews decided that it would only “solidify the term as discriminatory.” However, such controversies over terminology will never erase Jew-hatred, but only highlight it.

In order to skirt the issue and avoid possible negative connotations, many Jewish communities around the world define themselves as “Hebrews” or “Israelites.” Similarly, the British football club Tottenham recently urged fans to stop calling themselves the “Yid Army” (from Yiddish, referring to their particular large number of Jewish followers), as they don’t want to identify with terms that could be considered offensive. But tiptoeing around words will never ease antisemitic views because hatred against Jews is not a problem of semantics, it is a human problem.

Antisemitism stems from the depths of the network of connections between all human beings in the world. These connections are invisible spiritual connections, but they are deeply felt in the subconscious of the human race. At the level of this network, Jews have a central role to play in humanity: to act as the connecting factor between the other peoples who feel natural separation from each other.

If the Jews do not fulfill this role by first becoming united between them in one heart so that the connecting force between them binds all of reality as organs in one body, then they arouse negative forces against them, inviting a hostile antisemitic response.

Therefore, instead of dealing with superficial explanations of whether or not the word “Jew” is derogatory, Jews should put into practice and enact the deeper meaning of the term which has prevailed throughout generations: “Jew” (from the Hebrew word Yehudi)–Yechudi means unique and unified.

The Jewish people are not a people like other nations, founded on the common denominators of residential area, family relations, origin or color. The followers of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, were instead a conglomeration of different people whose one common denominator was a shared ideological basis. This special group would later be called “Israel,” which is derived from the phrase Yashar-El (Straight to God), i.e. a desire directed straight to the power that manages reality.

Based on this principle, according to the sages a Jew is every person in the world, regardless of race, gender, language or nationality, who longs to be united with everyone above all differences. A Jew is one who strives to unite the whole of humanity and the whole of reality with the primary force of nature, the Upper Force.

Therefore, only a Jewish community that learns to unite, to transcend all the differences that grow and separate its members, will feel how prejudices and negative attitudes toward it are reversed for the better. Then, even without words and definitions, a new meaning of being Jews will be felt in the hearts of those who oppose them, and animosity will be transformed in appreciation.
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Find An Approach For Everyone

945Question: How do you manage to annul yourself in front of your students like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma?

Answer: What can I do? You see how you are forcing me to adapt myself to you. Unless it is in serious contradiction with the teachings of Kabbalah, with advancing, I annul myself before you. If you want to study something else—please. I may gradually correct this, but in general, I follow your requests and desires.

So it is written: “Train a child according to his way;” that is, as he wishes. You educate him, but in a way he can perceive. We must find an adequate approach to everyone so that they can get hold of the material. Do not present it by force but in a wrapping he can accept and swallow.

Even such a great Kabbalist as Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma could not do anything alone and was completely dependent on his students. They were small, but there were many of them, and they wanted to come together for the upper goal. And he was ready to always be with them because only together can people reach heaven. This is what we hope for.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4

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Deal With Obstacles Together!

962.2Question: How can we reach joy if there is an internal and external obstacle in the ten? You can understand this with your mind, but you cannot yet go above it and feel the joy of the obstacle in your heart. How can we relate to this in our work?

Answer: I understand that we cannot rejoice in obstacles on one hand. But this is precisely because we lack the support of the group.

As soon as we begin to feel the support of the group, this state turns from being an obstacle into something like a competition: how can I rise up and overcome it. And this obstacle becomes pleasure to me, like it is with athletes.

It all depends on the support of the group. If I am alone with some obstacle, then this is not good! I will spend a lot of time on this, the obstacle will return, and I will not know what to do with it. I will gnaw at myself.

We must deal with obstacles together! I must immediately plunge into the group, connect with my friends, and look at the obstacle from the point of connection with them. And maybe it will not exist at all because together with the group, I have already overcome it.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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The Tricks Of Egoism

509Question: How can one rise above hatred in faith above reason?

Answer: You must understand that all it is all what your egoism is building for you, it is deliberately playing with you, purposefully mocking you, and at the same time, in a friendly way telling you where to ask for help from the Creator.

Question: What can I do if hatred blinds me?

Answer: Do nothing! There are various tricks: wait for it to pass, sit with friends, disconnect from it, have a meal together, and so on.

Question: If a friend treats me as good that does good and I see everything the other way around, what should I do?

Answer: Correct yourself! But it is even better to ask the Creator to correct you. It is time for you to understand that all disturbances that we see in ourselves require an immediate plea to the Creator to correct us.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Going with Faith above Reason” Lesson 5

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“Why Do Some Like To Spy On Other People?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Why do some like to spy on other people?

The initial impulse of people who spy on others is to evaluate themselves as being above those on whom they spy. In short, it is an attitude of “they don’t see me, but I see them.” Secondly, it might give the ones spying an opportunity to gain an advantage over the ones they spy on, to command them in some way, or to defend themselves against them, depending on the situation.

In general, however, spying helps the human ego, i.e. our innate desire to enjoy at the expense of others. It expands the ego and makes us feel more in control, like rulers or masters.

Such a feeling is neither good nor bad. Rather, it should lead us to reassess our values so that we understand that the human ego—our desires to be better, stronger and smarter than others—is flawed.

Nature views us as a single whole, as one humanity. To position ourselves correctly, we need to aim at viewing ourselves in the same way, and positively connect to each other. We will then be able to accurately take control of our fate, ourselves and the world. Through positive connection to each other, we increase and expand altruism and lessen egoism. We can then rise above our egoistic nature, and we will then not abuse such actions as spying.

Based on “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Israel Shimshon on February 16, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash.

Can Thought Change Reality?

420.06In the News (Daily Mail): “A paralysed man in Australia has become the first person to tweet a message via direct thought thanks to a tiny brain implant the size of a paperclip. 

“Philip O’Keefe, 62, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) which has left him unable to move his upper limbs, tweeted: ‘No need for keystrokes or voices. I created this tweet just by thinking it.’ #helloworldbci

“He was diagnosed with ALS, a form of Motor Neurone Disease, in 2015, and successfully turned his direct thought to text using the Stentrode brain computer interface (BCI) on December 23.  …

“‘My hope is that I’m paving the way for people to tweet through thoughts,’ was his closing statement.”

My Comment: Thought is material.

Question: When you say that thought is material, what do you mean by it?

Answer: That we influence the world with it. That is, a person can learn to influence some external device—electrical, electronic, even mechanical, or some other—and put it into action at will.

Question: These are mechanical actions. Can we mentally connect or mentally convey: “I love you”?

Answer: You can. But this also requires very serious training.

Question: Do I need to do any exercises?

Answer: These are Kabbalistic exercises when a person begins to work on himself, on his desires, and thoughts until he begins to unite with others in these thoughts, desires, intentions, and goals. Then people perfectly feel each other, and they do not need any words or any external communication for this. They can be at a distance—literally like the two ends of the Earth—and feel close, and as if talking to each other.

Question: Must there be a certain purity of thought here?

Answer: Naturally. Only if everyone wants to communicate with each other only out of love.

Question: Can we pierce space with only the intention of love?

Answer: Only this!

Question: Does a mother maybe feel her child who is a thousand kilometers away? Do twins often feel each other too? There are many examples. Is it based on this?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: Is the future of mankind based on mental connection with each other?

Answer: I think that we will have such technology for the internal development of a person and the ability to connect him to some external devices or tools so that we will not have any problem of interaction between people and machines. And we will control them with the power of thought. It is also material like all other forces.

Question: Why is it not given to us now to understand this?

Answer: Just as we were not given electricity, x-rays, and chemistry, not anything was just given. It is revealed gradually to the extent that we can somewhat cope with it. You see today how bad relationships, weapons, threats, and all this overtake the correct inner human relationships.

Question: Here, on the contrary, there is no time for thought. Can a thought penetrate only from a position of love?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: By the time we get to this!

My Response: There are no problems on the part of nature; it would like to reveal everything to us. The problem is on our side. Nature reveals the maximum to us that we can handle so as not to destroy ourselves.

Question: So it is trying to protect itself because it knows that we will begin to think in terms of destruction and not in love?

Answer: Definitely! Certainly! What if such a weapon appear were to appear by the power of thought?! Then you and I would be sitting tomorrow on an empty globe. Birds, silence…and only us. A person is very dangerous. There is no greater evil in nature than man.

Question: But will we get there anyway? Will nature guide us?

Answer: Nature will not destroy us. It will still teach us. But learning will be long and possibly painful.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/30/21

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Why Is The Future Always Described In Black Colors?

294.4Question: It is said: do not tell fortunes and do not perform witchcraft. Why is it impossible for a person to know his future? Can’t it somehow improve his life?

Answer: This cannot help him in any way, he does not need to know this or even strive for it. Absolutely not!

Question: And if we are not talking about a personal future, but the future of all mankind? After all, Kabbalists write about this?

Answer: The future of humanity is described in several rather ugly scenes, and we should try to avoid them, to strive for a good future.

Question: Why is the future always described in black colors?

Answer: Because the last corrections are very difficult. We are constantly moving toward correcting the world from small, easy corrections to larger ones.

Therefore, all future corrections are much more serious. But we will be better prepared for them. Thus, what could not be corrected in previous generations, we will be able to realize.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/21/21

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 2/23/22

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 1

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 165

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Lesson on the Topic: “Everything Is Obtained by the Power of Prayer”

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Selected Highlights 

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