Baal HaSulam, Shamati #3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”: Ein Sof pertains to the thought of creation, which is “His desire to do good to His creations.” This is considered Ein Sof, and it is the connection existing between Atzmuto and the souls. We perceive this connection as a “desire to delight the creatures.”

Ein Sof is determined as the Creator’s attitude to the created beings. The Creator is infinite in His desire to bring His creatures contentment and to give them eternal, whole, and absolute pleasure.

The created being can understand this only to the extent that one has a desire to enjoy in quality and quantity. A person receives from the Creator and determines His attitude to him and his attitude to the Creator.

Thus, “By Your actions we know You,” which means that we cannot say anything about the Creator but only something about His actions inside us. It is from these actions that we establish our impression of Him.

People who are in the spiritual world feel the Creator as the good that does good, and so they call Him the source of everything that is good. We, on the other hand, who have not reached the right attainment yet do not know how to define Him. Each one defines Him differently each moment.

Question: You say that the Creator is good. Is this already the Creator’s name for those who attain Him?

Answer: For those who attain Him it is. “The good that does good” is the Creator’s real name. It is an impression of the Creator, and this is how we reveal Him by yearning for Him.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/8/19

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Question: Is the Creator a closed and therefore limited system?

Answer: Yes. The Creator or nature is a closed limited system that is felt as such in our egoism, in our desire.

Question: Does it mean that a person himself limits nature, the Creator?

Answer: Naturally. If I grow, then I will allow nature to grow and manifest itself more and more to some limits. And to what limits, we will see later. Practically, this is an infinite limit, but it feels like the one that has the boundaries of infinity. This is a definition that negates itself.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/10/20

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”:

Hence, with respect to spiritual attainment, reality in general is divided into three discernments:

1. Atzmuto [His Self]
2. Ein Sof [infinity]
3. The Souls

1) We do not speak of Atzmuto at all since the root and the place of the creatures begin in the thought of creation, where they are incorporated in the manner, “The end of an act is in the preliminary thought.”

The essence of the Creator is the most unknown, the most elusive substance from us. We don’t speak about it because we cannot attain it.

To the extent that we change, we can speak about the Creator and about His impact on us, as a result of our changes. Therefore, we determine that the result of an action is inherent in its original plan: “By Your actions we know You.” We always call the Creator according to the action that He performs on us, and this relates to His essence.

But we do not comprehend His essence just as we don’t comprehend the force of gravity, for example. We all experience it, we can measure it, we are inside it, and we work with it, but we don’t understand the essence of the force of gravity. Why does a certain body draw other bodies toward it? What is the essence of this phenomenon?

In the same way, there is a Creator whom we can somehow feel but not comprehend. It is said that the essence of the Creator is absolutely hidden from us.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/8/19

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New Life 1243 – The Place Of Humanity In Ecological Balance
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

Humanity must control all of nature like a wise, good-hearted mother. According to our potential, we are the highest creatures, but all of the bad phenomena we see in the world today are a result of the human ego. Every phenomenon in nature, whether good or bad, is the result of the thoughts and attitudes of people. Evil is expressed when we take more for ourselves than what we need in order to dominate everyone. If we learned to relate well to other people, the still, vegetative, and animate levels in nature would also be balanced.

Humans must understand that nature is global and integral and that they have the power to bring everything to correction. Balance means taking from nature only what our bodies need to live and turning toward spiritual development. Spiritual life means learning how to connect with love and concern to one another until we will all be like one person with one heart. This will lead us to an awareness of an eternal and perfect life on the level of a global, infinite, and divine nature.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1243 – The Place Of Humanity In Ecological Balance,” 5/20/20

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 7/12/20

With COVID-19 on one hand, and swarms of locusts on the other, nature seems to have served us a double whammy this year, and we’ve only gone through half of it. As though ground by millstones, nature has stripped humanity of its wealth. We knew we were exploiting nature; we knew we were destroying our own planet, and we knew that we have been abusive and exploitative toward each other. We knew, but we didn’t really do much to stop it, so nature tumbled civilization like a deck of cards.

Now, just over six months into the year, nothing is left standing but Amazon. But as jobs vanish, so will online retail, and we’ll be left with nothing but the basics.

And this is the whole purpose. Call it nature, call it God, or call it life; whatever the title, reality is teaching us that we must build a society that tends to everyone’s needs. There is enough food and water for everyone, and there will enough be in the future, too, but civilization will survive only if it sees that everyone has access to these basics.

We have built a civilization based on exploitation, where nations, races, religions, and rulers vie for hegemony, and the winner takes all. We justified our depravity by saying that nature’s way is the survival of the fittest. But we have misunderstood the concept. It is not those who are the most fit who survive; it is those who most fit into their environment. To fit into the environment means to contribute to it, strengthen it, enrich and sustain it, rather than exploit it. We didn’t only misunderstand; we completely reversed the meaning of the term “to fit.”

Now nature will force us to start over. It will leave nothing of the old economy, the capitalism we so idealized. Nature will teach us how to build a society based on caring, sharing, and tending to each other. It will teach us to treat strangers like family, to give of ourselves not because we must, or because we want others’ to be indebted to us. We will give because giving will feel like living, and taking will be an embarrassment. Once our self-entitlement is ground thin, a new humanity will rise.

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The economy really does need to crash, as it is built on limitless consumption. So when governments try to force the preservation of the consumption economy that speaks to their ties to business, compelling them to artificially prop up consumption for the sake of profit.
The link between governments and money is evident!

The Creator is beating us, and healing us with His blows! The countries that are suffering more today, being forced to shut down the economic ties of yesterday, are going to have an easier time entering a new format of self-sufficient economy and lifestyle by producing only essential products.

Rather than try and annul the non-essential industries and companies, governments are trying to keep them afloat. And yet, it is these efforts that will surely hasten the demise of business and the mad #economy, which is on its last legs.

Hordes of viruses are coming our way. This is for my own good. Everything that happens in the world is for humanity’s sake—for us to grow up and change a bit…
From Twitter, 7/12/20

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My new article on Israel Hayom “Coronavirus reprogramming us”

We may not notice it because it’s who we are, but the way we think about life, the things we want, value, prefer, our aspirations, manners, fears, reactions, all those are “programmed” into our psyche through the social environment we live in. When COVID-19 forced itself into our lives and locked them down, it affected all of us.

To some, its impact was physical, but to everyone, it is emotional. The social and behavioral implications that the coronavirus has wrought are just beginning, but they will be far-reaching and enduring. We have entered a new era. The sooner we adapt, the better for all of us.

Even if we want to return to our previous way of life, the presence of the virus will make it very difficult. Wherever we go, there is a chance we might catch the virus or transmit it to another person, even if we wear a mask and keep our distance. Gradually, the virus is forcing us to reconsider things we used to take for granted, such as going out to bars and restaurants, hopping a plane to go on vacation, buying new gadgets just because they’re new or because our friends have them, etc.

By forcing us to behave differently, the virus is actually “reprograming us.” Who would have thought just a few months ago that we could envision a life that’s not an endless pursuit of immediate (yet dissatisfying) pleasures? But now, if we only had our basic sustenance guaranteed, many would gladly opt-out of the bandwagon and say, “Stop the world, I want to get off it,” to paraphrase on Leslie Bricusse’s musical.

The coronavirus is not “just” another epidemic. Just like a computer virus, it is reprogramming our operating system and changes our very essence. But not in a bad way; on the contrary, it is slowing down our lives so we may discover hidden pleasures that we’d missed before. By forcing us to rely on one another for our health, the virus is teaching us that we can trust one another, that we can build supportive communities, and that we can find pleasure in people more than in stuff.

The coronavirus will not let us return to unbridled consumerism, to unchecked exploitation of the planet and each other. It will teach us how to build a good, sustainable life for ourselves and for our children. If we follow its directives willingly, we will complete the transition quickly and easily.

If we remain obstinate, we will complete it painfully and slowly. Either way, COVID-19 will win. It will force us to lock up what’s not essential for life, and open up what’s essential for happiness.
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My new article on BIZCATALYST “Time For The Woman Power”

Reality consists of two forces, feminine and masculine. The balanced complementary interaction between them has created all that we see around us, the entire universe. But people are different. In us, the masculine force has been dominant for millennia, and the grim results are patent. The feminine force, the one that creates life and nurtures it, has largely been missing from human society until only a few decades ago.

But things are changing. In just a few dozen years, women have moved from having virtually no impact on society to being heads of states, heads of the most prominent monetary institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Federal Reserve, and other prominent positions.

It is no coincidence.

Just as in nature, the masculine and feminine forces are equally strong yet distinctly different, and each contributes its own vital addition to the whole, human society must now learn how to incorporate women into society in a positive and constructive manner.

At the moment, many women who have reached management positions have done so, in many cases, by adopting masculine attitudes. This is counterproductive because it’s precisely the nurturing and caring feminine quality that we need.

Society is still in a learning process; we have yet to discover what it means to add the feminine element to public life. That said, we already have an example: our own families. In the family, the man is traditionally regarded as the head of the family, but every man who’s ever been married will confess that the real boss in the family is the woman. Because a woman has a natural ability to see the whole family as one unit, and because she can multitask far better than any man, she can prioritize correctly what needs to be done and when.

The situation is much better today than it was several decades ago, but there is still much room for improvement.

As in the household, so in business and public life, women’s inherent capabilities should receive their due respect. The situation is much better today than it was several decades ago, but there is still much room for improvement. We still need to learn how to give women their rightful place in leadership without forcing them to behave like men—since then we miss out precisely on the quality that only they can contribute—and without intimidating men by the presence of women in leadership, since the masculine quality is just as required, and only when the two work together harmoniously is lasting prosperity possible.

Indeed, the world is moving toward an era where more and more women take leading roles, and humanity can only gain by this. However, as in everything, we must transition into it properly and see that we are gaining feminine qualities rather than losing masculine ones, so that together, the two build a family-like world for humanity, and for all of life.
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Filed under: Man and Woman, New Publications, Women | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I learn to remain calm in any situation?“

It is impossible to remain calm in any situation. Also, we do not have to always be calm.

Nature develops us by constantly growing our ego. If we look at eons of human development, we can see development from basic survival desires for food, sex, family and shelter—desires we had as cave dwellers—through the egoistic desires that appear when we develop as civilizations: money, honor, control and knowledge.

The more the ego grows, the less calm we become.

Aggravation, agitation and stress are all states that nature urges us to feel in order to reach the recognition of our human ego as the cause of the turbulence, and by doing so, develop a sincere new desire to rise above the ego.

At this juncture, we need a supportive environment where we feel encouragement and confidence in order to rise above the ego.

One aspect of such an environment is regular learning and activity aimed at elevating us above the human ego, which shields us against any aggravations that come to unbalance us.

In other words, by regularly calibrating ourselves in order to recognize the ego as the source of our imbalance with our surroundings, and to rise above the ego, we would need to strengthen our supportive environment, which would in turn help us through any states we experience faster than if we were left to our own devices.

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