Audio Version Of The Blog – 2/9/23
Posted on February 9th, 2023
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Initial Takeaways from the Disastrous Earthquake”
As the scale of devastation from the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria becomes clearer and more horrifying by the minute, initial takeaways are already surfacing. But before I talk about what I believe needs to be done, I wish to extend once more my deepest sympathy and prayers to the people of Turkey, and especially to those who have been affected by the quake. May they recover quickly, and may they never know sorrow again.
Earthquakes are not uncommon in Turkey, including strong ones, though not as strong as the one that struck this past Monday, and its subsequent powerful aftershock. Therefore, it is surprising that Turkey did not take more extensive preventive measures against powerful tremors. Every country that is located in an area that is prone to earthquakes should take this into consideration. Just as Japan imposes strict construction standards that make its buildings much more quake-resistant than almost all other countries, so should every country do if it is located in an earthquake-prone region.
However, there is something that is just as important as imposing construction standards when it comes to saving lives: international cooperation. Member states of the NATO military alliance, for example, are required to meet certain military standards. Once a country becomes a member, the rest of the countries in the alliance are required to help it if it is attacked.
Similarly, there must be an international alliance that mandates all the member states to help one another in case of a significant seismic event. At the same time, members must meet minimum conditions that the alliance will determine as far as building and road construction standards, accessibility and durability of rescue routes, communication and energy infrastructure, and medical services.
Without such an alliance, each country will determine its priorities by itself, and usually, rare emergencies are at the bottom of the list. The problem is that emergencies do happen, and when they happen, the cost of years of neglect is horrendous in human lives, infrastructure, manufacturing, and money. By the time countries realize they should have prepared in advance, it is too late.
Therefore, by forcing its member states to take preventive measures, an international alliance can save thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives, as in the case of this week’s quake. Additionally, the mandatory mutual assistance will guarantee that affected countries do not have to face natural disasters on their own or rely on the generosity of other countries, which is never enough, and often comes with a political price tag attached to it. If neighboring countries are obligated to help because of their membership in an international alliance, such considerations as international relations and other political caveats will not impede the provision of assistance.
Moreover, maintaining an alliance against natural disasters can help foster better relationships that will reflect on other aspects of the countries’ relationships. Enemies do not talk; they fight. But once countries are engaged in an alliance, they communicate regularly and are no longer enemies. On the contrary, they are responsible for one another. Therefore, they can communicate with one another freely and directly, which can help resolve crises in other dimensions of their relationships.
Therefore, establishing an international alliance for dealing with natural disasters can have benefits far beyond the purpose for which it is established. If we leverage the cooperation established in order to save lives during earthquakes and the like, we can begin to foster better and more constructive relationships among all the countries in the world.
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A true connection with friends means that we feel one hundred percent connected and we understand each other.
The inner connection depends on the heart, on how much we want to open our heart toward the Creator and let Him into this heart so that inside this heart we feel the Creator, understand what He wants from us, and understand what we want to give Him.
The Creator wants us to appreciate internal life more than the external life. That is, the connection with the Creator should be first for us, and everything else should be secondary and temporary. If we manage to direct ourselves to that, it will already be a significant success and we will see that we are advancing.
If we fail to reach such an attitude, then gradually we will begin to move away from the spiritual path, return to the pursuits of this world, and spin in its wheel between shopping, work, and entertainment.
However the method of Kabbalah does not imply neglecting external life. It is based on increasing the importance of spiritual life, not on lowering the importance of the corporeal life. But the importance of spirituality should be higher than any corporeal fulfillment.
No matter how corporeal life puts pressure on me—family, work, and other needs—above all this I value spirituality. All my life I evaluate in terms of how much it can help my spiritual advancement or destroy it.
I raise spirituality high above everything, and I place corporeal life below under this umbrella. Then everything is suddenly easy to arrange. A person only has to agree that this should be his approach to corporeality and spirituality.
Corporeality is needed precisely in order to raise spirituality high above your head. It is like two parallel layers: spiritual life at the top and corporeal life at the bottom, and in any situation in life we maintain this attitude.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “On the Night of the Bride”
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At the Arava Convention our ten will be divided in three parts: some will come directly to the convention in the desert, some will participate in a local mirror congress, and some will connect to the convention virtually from home. Is it possible in such a situation to connect as one person with one heart?
If we really want to connect between us and with the Creator, we will be in one heart, which is the Creator. He is one and He rules over the entire world without any boundaries and separation. If I connect with Him, I connect with every friend who is also connected with the Creator. That is all. Let us try to implement it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “On the Night of the Bride”
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Question: What is the spiritual root of money?
Answer: Money, in Hebrew “Kesef” comes from the word “Kisufa (Lehasot)—to cover.” This means it is the equivalent of anything in the world that can cover almost everything. It had to be done. At first it was gold, bullion, whatever, until people came to coins.
Question: Can a Kabbalist be rich?
Answer: Undoubtedly. One has nothing to do with the other.
Question: Which is better, to have a business or to work in a company, in an institution?
Answer: It depends on the character of the person and why he needs it. If I can while owning business be more free and give my free time for the benefit of myself and others, then, of course, having a business is better.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Question: While reading The Book of Zohar, how can I feel that I am reading from a desire that comes from a general connection and not my personal desire?
Answer: You can read The Zohar separately, only it will not give you anything.
Question: What is the difference between when I am together with everyone and read based on my own desire, and when I go through a common desire?
Answer: When you read together, but at the same time you seem to be alone, then you are really alone.
And when you read together with others in one common desire and you have annulled your egoism in order to join together with them and attain the upper quality of bestowal and love to the extent of your equivalence of form to it, that is, you have prepared yourself by connecting with the group to connect with the upper force, then you really have its revelation in the quality that you have prepared in yourself in advance according to the law of equivalence of form.
Therefore, the difference is that you attain two different worlds. After all, when you study only for yourself, you just study wisdom or knowledge. And when you read and connect with others, you attain the upper world firsthand. It clothes on you because your qualities, which love with your friends has prepared, have become similar to it.
Question: If I’m not trying to understand what is written in The Book of Zohar, but I’m trying to catch the general wave, how do you direct your desire through the common mass?
Answer: Only with your love; there is nothing else. Only with your kind attitude! Only by incorporating in the friends! Like a mother through her children; in no other way. Don’t try to find anything else here. It’s very simple.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Read The Book of Zohar through Others” 3/11/12
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Comment: You say that a hero is someone who constantly makes efforts, and although he loses all the time, nevertheless, he remains a hero.
Answer: He is not losing! He treats his nature as purposely imposed on him and given to him for change and transformation! So what if he feels weak against this nature? And who is he?! He was made like this!
If a person is engaged in a higher purpose, then he has strength from the next stage. And if he does not do it, then he is just a small animal of our world that pollutes our poor small planet, and that is it. Look at what it looks like from the outside.
What should we be proud of?! What should a person be proud of?! The fact that he can lift 150 kilograms?! In proportional measures, a mosquito can lift more than a person can. Let us say you are smarter than everyone else, but what are you wasting your mind on?
Animals use it in order to survive, to exist, and to develop offspring. And you do just the opposite! You ruin yourself, your offspring, everyone, and everything. None of the animals defecate where they live. They do not destroy themselves. And a person acts absolutely unnaturally. We have absolutely nothing to be proud of!
People are creatures with such intelligence and capabilities! And they use them quite oppositely. So does it deserve praise?!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Is the Real Hero?” 1/28/12
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Question: You once said that even if a person were in a restaurant, for example, it is possible to go through the feeling of “desert” without having physically to be in one. How can this be reached and for what reason?
Answer: The fact of the matter is that when we are in a restaurant, we are not able to do this. After all, we consist of an animalistic body, of our own idea of our world; therefore, we also need external attributes.
We are at a level where our lowest desire feels like our world to us. But our world does not exist; this is how we feel inside a desire and is the lowest stratum of it. Imagine that you are cutting slices of bread and the very last of them is the lowest slice of your desires that you feel yourself in.
Afterward you will start to feel the next slice, the next level. And it will also be felt as an absolute reality. A huge reality will be added to you, suddenly it opens up before you like a computer. And then the next layer, and more, and more! Thus you attain ever wider spheres.
Then you begin to understand where you exist. Prior this, it is all just talk in order to somehow attract and keep you on the path of revelation.
But all this is only our desire. And no matter how it seems to us that it is outside, it is all inside. There are not my body, nor time, nor space; nothing exists as there is only a desire, and it has no dimensions and no volume.
Question: If we talk about the sensation of “restaurant,” it is a convenient, comfortable place. In this place you will never feel any deficiency. You are sitting, it is warm, and you are being served (all pleasant sensations). Where can we discover a scream or cry to exit? But if you are actually in the desert, then you feel it.
Answer: On the contrary, I wish for you to sit in the desert and feel like in a restaurant.
Question: But how?
Answer: It is necessary to try, to make an attempt.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Exit the Desert Without Ever Being There?”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a true hero?“
Heroes are those who, while immersed in their egoistic self-centered nature, build another person out of themselves, one that is in equal to the altruistic force of nature.
Imagine that you are in a closed dark space, like a worm inside a rotten apple.
You start slowly emerging from it.
You peek outside and see a wonderful bright new world filled with love and care, people happily enjoying their lives together.
You then exit yourself and enter into a completely different space with a blazing sunlight and a blue sky, out of the darkness that you were previously in.
After you exit the darkness, you need to process it—that following the dictates of your egoistic desires leads you to darkness, as the ego itself extinguishes pleasure in a self-aimed direction.
Is this transformation really doable?
Yes, it is—by building yourself, from your ego, in similarity to the altruistic force of nature.
You study the laws of nature.
You grow a demand for them to reveal themselves in their pure altruistic form, to show you an example like an adult to a child.
You then overcome your ego as much as possible.
You then use your ego not for yourself, but in order to resemble and reach balance with the altruistic laws of nature.
What does it mean to resemble the altruistic laws of nature?
It means that you develop love for all people.
You then gradually learn the laws of nature, bit by bit, making yourself more and more similar to nature.
As a result, you come to see that your ego—this mass of desire to enjoy that is your whole nature—exists in order to invert the intention upon it. By doing so, you gain the full altruistic quality—love and bestowal—for everyone, like the altruistic force of nature.
You then reach balance with nature: a new state, experiencing a special force of a great loving and giving connection with others and with nature—the opposite of how we currently use our desire to enjoy (selfishly, at the expense of others and nature).
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who is the Real Hero?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 28, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Second Commandment,” Item 203
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Selected Highlights
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
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