The will to bestow can be attained only by a plea to the Creator. Or even by a plea for a plea for the will to bestow, by feeling a need. Without sensing a desire for bestowal, one is in an unconscious state. Only a plea brings one to a conscious need to bestow.

Spiritual advancement requires the Creator to be great in one’s eyes.
It is important to attain even a small aspiration “for the Creator’s sake” when in a great descent…
From Twitter, 7/16/19

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Turning to the upper force, the Creator, is the most important thing we have. A worker of the Creator, that is, a person who wants to advance on the spiritual path faster than usual, is distinguished by the fact that he or she asks to advance. Everyone advances, every creature, everything is returning to its root, to the complete adhesion that already exists but is concealed from us and needs to be revealed. The natural course of development requires a lot of time, suffering, and blows along the way. However, a person has an opportunity to pursue the advancement by oneself.

Initially, he does not feel such a need in himself; otherwise, everybody would be asking and begging for this. We must look for the correct deficiency and if we discover this deficiency for the Creator, we will be advancing faster than by the usual path of suffering. This path of acceleration (Achishena) does not depend on time but only on our efforts, on our yearning to connect and reveal the next desired state, to want it to be revealed.

By raising our prayer, our request, we accelerate time, and that is why we are called Israel; otherwise, we are considered the nations of the world. This is the whole difference between Israel and the nations of the world. Israel is aiming straight to the Creator (Yashar-El), yearning to reveal Him and adhere to Him above time, that is, faster than it was set by nature. By accelerating time, we become workers of the Creator.

There are periods of such descents when we agree with everything that will happen, losing any hope. We fall to the state of an ordinary person, but then we wake up again by the influence from above. So we move through descents and ascents, that is, a relative disconnection from and connection to the Creator. In the descent, we come to terms with everything that we have, falling to the degree of a beast. Yet, during the ascent, as soon as the Creator awakens us, we are prepared to invest efforts, searching how to strengthen ourselves and to advance more.

States are constantly changing: a black band, then a white one. The Creator seemingly helps us more, then less, and we need to raise our prayer. In all the descents and ascents, our participation is minuscule, but it is precisely what is included in the correction and develops us. In spirituality, it does not matter how big or small you are but how much you have added to your desires and develop them.¹

The truth is not as we imagine it according to our mind and feelings. “They have eyes and see not; they have ears and hear not.” It turns out that we will never be able to discover the Creator directly but only through the concealment, by faith above reason.

In fact, the Creator is closest to us exactly when we feel His concealment. He comes closer to us and then we discover that we do not feel Him, do not understand, and do not know. After all, a certain force approaches, elusive to and unattainable by our perception.

But this is not a state of an ordinary person who simply feels and understands nothing. We feel the concealment before us and our inability to reveal it through our sensory organs. It is precisely because the Creator is coming closer that I discover that I am unable to reach Him. What we call concealment, descent, is the time of greatest closeness with the Creator.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/19, Prayer
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 11:00

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John Safran and Michael Laitman discuss the essence of Jewishness: the Jewish role to be a conduit for unity to spread globally.

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Remark: In Japan, any physical punishment of children will soon be banned. The ban on physical punishment of minors applies to parents, social workers, and teachers.

My Comment: How can I express my dissatisfaction with the child’s behavior if it goes beyond what everyone says is acceptable for society, the family, and so on?

Let them give me a full distribution of the influence on children in order to educate them. Because education implies limiting.

You must express your discontent so that the child understands. And he would understand that it is for his benefit. That is, you do it not because you are annoyed and full of nerves, but because you wish for his good. This is of utmost importance in education.

Question: How do you keep in mind that you are not unloading your emotions onto a child?

Answer: To do this, educators must be educated.

Question: That is, you can’t do anything with prohibitions?

Answer: You cannot do anything. So what if there will be the law? What, they will be fined, imprison the parents? It will make such a mess in society.

When the state introduces such a law, and in general any laws, it must necessarily teach how to comply with this law and give it appropriate reinforcement.

Question: What is a proper upbringing?

Answer: It is said: “Man is born to small animals.” Gradually, if we do not educate him, he will become a big animal. In order to educate him, it is necessary to apply a certain pressure—simultaneously with his development.

Letting him know that I am putting pressure on him regarding the animal in him and not about the man in him. I want to develop man, and I want to curb the animal… and the animal is wild.

A child should know that he consists of two parts: good and evil, and we must limit evil.

Remark: I anticipate outraged comments on Twitter …

My Comment: It doesn’t matter. What difference does it make whether or not there are outraged comments? Most importantly, say the truth, and then it will become realized after a while.

Question: So your conclusion is that you need to educate parents and educators?

Answer: Of course. It is necessary to raise parents before raising children. Otherwise, parents will raise their children even worse than themselves.
[247301]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 4/9/19

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New Life 1120 – Balancing Optimism And Pessimism
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

It is possible to advance with confidence when we combine optimism and pessimism. Various characteristics are distributed among humanity to create diversity, complementarity, and a rich blend. It is impossible to change an innate tendency. Instead, we must learn to use it correctly in connection with others. It is not easy to connect with people who have an opposite attitude, but if we succeed, we achieve a higher, more balanced, and whole view.
[248382]
From KabTV’s “New Life 1120 – Balancing Optimism And Pessimism,” 6/11/19

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 92

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Newspaper, “The Nation” 

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All the defects that we feel elicit their own corrections. Every good phenomenon is always a product of an evil one that preceded it. The correlation between them is not measured by our states, but by their common aim.
Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

The Creator elicits our attention to Him, and the right reaction lies in the common prayer when we turn to him together. Without seeking to sort out our differences, together we turn to the Force, the Root Cause, from which all of this stems. This is called “prayer of the public.”

Problems are empty space that we want to discover as being filled by the Creator. Thus He presents us with such an opportunity. This means the problem lies in correctly responding to His summons, when He evokes egoism in each of us and friction between us.

“We support the destruction of the State of Israel,” stated British socialist activist Gerry Downing on TV.
“Because it is a racist and genocidal endeavor that cannot be reformed. Israel’s laws are like apartheid South Africa’s laws. A single State of Palestine is the solution.”

-The Creator’s quality is bestowal, love. Is being the Creator’s slave a state of freedom or not?
-When you are in it, of course it is. Because you have chosen this state for yourself. You chose it yourself.

#Humanity became global, but it’s unable to integrate this format with its narrow egoism. This is the cause for degradation of all activity by people and countries, inability to acknowledge and solve problems. After all, global issues cannot be solved in a narrow nationalistic way.
From Twitter, 7/15/19

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There are people who are used to praying and there are those who have never prayed and are not accustomed to thinking of themselves as dependent on a higher power, on fate. However, for the one who studies the wisdom of Kabbalah, all these differences become insignificant. One no longer relates to prayer as to a habitual action familiar from childhood. The study takes a person through all kinds of states that cleanse one from all previous confusions. Now a person understands that he or she does not have any connection with the Creator and all requests were artificial.

It takes a long time until one begins to feel that nothing will help one advance, understand, feel, and connect with the system of creation. No matter how much effort one invests in the friends, in the study, nothing helps. A person understands with more and more clarity the complete hopelessness of one’s attempts and comes to the only conclusion: “Only if the Creator helps me, will I be able to do something and come out of this state.”

Only the Creator can help me, no one else, not even myself. With the help of all means, I managed to undergo different states, ascents and descents, to experience all kinds of sensations in order to eventually understand that nothing will help me but the Creator. Here I truly reach the need for prayer. If the Creator does not help, then nothing will.

So, what should one do to receive the help of the Creator? How can I convince myself that help will only come from above in order to reach this correct request that the Creator will answer? This is what Kabbalah teaches: how and what to ask and how to prepare myself so that the request will bring the help of the Creator.¹

Prayer is work in the heart. The heart determines all desires and the brain only helps to realize them, to prioritize them. Working in the heart means arranging desires such that they will be ready to change.

This is work above reason. If you pray for what you know, then it is a usual egoistic prayer of a person of this world and therefore does not cause any significant changes in you. Any animal prays because prayer is the feeling of lack in all the atoms, molecules, and organs, the whole body. The Creator initially created a deficiency; He Himself is complete, and therefore, He created a created being that feels a deficiency.

True prayer does not come from the deficiencies created in us by the Creator, that is, from the lack of money, health, and other problems that the Creator awakens in each of us. We see that the entire world is suffering from some kind of deficiency because the matter of creation is the will to receive, which lacks fulfillment.

However, by creating such a creature, the Creator wanted a person to ask to be elevated so that he will not remain inside the desire asking for its fulfillment, but to rise to a higher degree, above these deficiencies.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/19, Prayer
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 11:10

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Question: Can a thought of one person change the entire world?

Answer: Unfortunately, no, because then that person would change our whole world. This cannot happen. All of us together must connect our desires, then we will have the right thoughts that will change the world. The main thing is the desire.

Question: Does intention drive desire and thought?

Answer: Yes. It manages both desires and thoughts. But the intention appears only after the appearance of the desire itself. When the desire is processed through thought, an intention appears, and thanks to it, the action takes place.

Question: Is there a connection between thoughts and the reforming light?

Answer: Certainly. The reforming light influences you and awakens particular thoughts in you. But everything depends on how you react to them.

Question: What do I gain if I attribute all of my thoughts and desires to the Creator? What should the right response to these thoughts and desires be?

Answer: You will gain a connection with the true source of all your thoughts and desires. First you connect yourself correctly to the source and then everything depends on what you want from it, how, what you are giving back, what you are asking, and what kind of desire you are raising.

Question: How does the thought that “there is none else besides Him” translate into sensation?

Answer: Only through your efforts, your aspirations constantly to try to feel that “there is none else besides Him,” that the Creator manages you completely, and that your connection with Him is absolute and complete, passing through all the cells of your body.

Question: How can we make sure we are giving the Creator pleasure?

Answer: It is very simple. If I give pleasure to the friends, it means that I am giving pleasure to the Creator.

Question: What if we were to see how our thoughts work immediately?

Answer: No, that will never happen. I must only think about the fact that I am working in the right group where everyone will merge together into one single mass and how this mass will become homogeneous, merged without any identification, where our desires and intentions are subject to one thing: to attain the Creator, the one and only power.

Remark: At first, my mind gladly perceives the Creator as an ideal of all the good, without any flaws. But then immediately there is the contact with the ugly realities of this life.

My Comment: Correct. However, I must be ready to perceive these ugly realities of life as being directed at me in order to correct them. They are nothing more than that.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/3/19

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