Question: Is the intention of Lo Lishma a necessary stage of spiritual development?

Answer: Of course. Each time it is revealed to us that we are acting with the intention of Lo Lishma, meaning for personal gain. Then we demand the reforming light so that it corrects Lo Lishma for the altruistic intention of Lishma.

I have 613 desires and if in any of them I act for my own benefit, this is called Lo Lishma. If, proceeding from this desire, I act for the sake of bestowal, this is already Lishma. We are talking about two necessary states, one of which results from the other. First the evil inclination is revealed, then the Torah, the spice, corrects it for a good one, and the egoistic intention becomes an altruistic one.

It is written, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and will not sin.” We must come from Lo Lishma to Lishma while correcting each of our 613 desires.

Well, if a person does not correct his evil inclination and does not use the reforming light according to the Kabbalistic method, then even his own evil is not revealed to him. The bad that you do in our world is not the evil we are talking about. It is when you do not discover in yourself the intention for the sake of receiving, and you have no connection with the matter of the desire that needs to be corrected. Well, stay an “angel” for now.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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All attention should be focused on our duty to connect, to go toward unity. This is the correction of the transgression of the tree of knowledge. We can’t hide from it. If we take a closer look, we will see that every person, all nations, and all of mankind generally revolve around this correction.

It will soon be revealed to us that every effort, every action, even of any individual, if he or she wants to succeed must contribute to the correction of the tree of knowledge.

We will inevitably come to the state of the end of correction. The only question is how we will travel this path. Will we be driven at every step by the whip? Will we figure out the right forms of progress in every step and in every detail? Will we ourselves move toward the same goal with the help of prayer and friends?

One may ask why we should create this alternative that is not wanted by the Creator. This is for us to have the freedom of choice to agree with the Creator and prefer to go this way, not under blows, but voluntarily, and to restrict our egoism and enter into work for the sake of bestowal (Lishma). We advance by putting our efforts and prayer into it and by trying not to escape every moment to return to the egoistic path.

Eventually we will achieve the same goal, but instead of making our way through a dark forest, through robbers, and in fear of being beaten and killed, we can drive along a beautiful highway in a Mercedes quickly and comfortably. We will perceive the goal differently if we are not driven to it from under the stick. When we move toward it along the road laid out for us, we are correcting ourselves more and more and getting closer to the goal.

At every meter of this good path, we gradually bring ourselves into line with the goal; that is, we change. While on a bad path, we increasingly resist moving until we come to such suffering that life becomes worse than death. And when we prefer this death, our egoistic desire is killed for us, which leads us to correction.

The quantity and quality of suffering on the path of acceleration of time (Achishena) is incomparable with the natural path of development in its time (Beito). After all, if I am ready to suffer in order to come to the truth, then this is no longer suffering!
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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Kabbalists wrote about the essence of the soul: “The soul is a part of God above and is not at all changed from the Whole, except in that the soul is a part and not the Whole” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Inner Observation, Item 3).

Question: How can we understand that the soul is a part of the Creator?

Answer: Basically, the soul is not a part of the Creator. The one who reveals the Creator, however, attains only some part. In fact, it is impossible to divide the Creator, to cut off a piece from Him, like a stone from a rock. One can only come to understand that this is how our attainment takes place.

Baal HaSulam wants to explain to us that there is no difference between the soul that is within a person and the Creator Himself. There is a difference in attainment; a person attains only some part, some manifestation, of the Creator, but nothing more.

Then, as he grows spiritually, he will attain a greater and greater part of the Creator within himself, until, as a result of his spiritual development, he reaches the feeling that the Creator fills him with absolutely everything.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 10/16/22

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We should therefore always distinguish two discernments in His bestowal: The first is the form of the essence of that upper abundance before it is received, when it is still an inclusive, simple light. The second is that after the abundance has been received, for by this it acquired one separate form according to the properties of the receiver (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Inner Observation, Item 2).

According to the similarity of my qualities and the qualities of the Creator’s bestowal, I feel only a certain influence. That is, the light before clothing into me is called “simple, uniform, single,” and when it is clothed in the receiver, it is as if it takes on my qualities.

Question: If my qualities are opposite to Him, do I feel myself opposite to the Creator?

Answer: There are a great number of possibilities here, depending on the similarity of the qualities of the Creator and the qualities of a person. This is how a person feels. The more his qualities will be similar to the qualities of the Creator, the more correctly he will feel Him.

Question: How clear is this feeling of the Creator?

Answer: It depends on the measure of similarity because practically we feel only the Creator, there is none else besides Him.

Therefore, our entire pursuit is to reveal Him in all His manifestations. Then we will see that everything around is just Him, His single force and a single fulfillment.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 10/16/22

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Question: If there is something successful in dissemination and the world takes it “with a bang,” how can we deal with it?

Answer: No. We should not experience constant problems, but if the world perceives the dissemination with a bang it does not mean that we have already reached something. We will begin to feel that we lack the Creator’s help in this, and then we will face other problems so we will find out.

By being in a state of constant contact with the world and with the Creator, a person sees the upper world in our world, and the Creator in it, and how all this is controlled by one unique unified force.

Comment: But all the same, in spirituality everything goes step by step: victory – defeat, victory – defeat.

My Response: Any victory then turns out to be a defeat for the next step. What you learn today is not enough tomorrow. We are moving on.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Victory Is a Sign of Defeat” 8/2/13

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Question: Did Adam make any real mistake?

Answer: Allegedly, a real mistake. Adam failed to reveal the universe correctly, which is represented by eating from the tree of knowledge. He ate it egoistically, and therefore he must come to the realization of the unfaithfulness of the egoistic path of development, the egoistic attitude to himself, to the environment, and change his attitude with his whole history.

This, in principle, is his sin; he tried to do the opposite but could not.

Question: Why was Adam shattered into small parts?

Answer: In order for everyone to solve their own little problem. And what do you do in our world when you face a big task? You break it into pieces, and into more pieces, and more, and give everyone a task, adjustments, and an implementation plan.

All of us in the world unconsciously solve this problem. We do not understand what we are doing, but in theory we are solving a very simple task: a person’s attitudes to the environment, to nature, and the universe, and understand what the Creator is, what the universe is.

In principle, the problem has been solved, the algorithm has been found, but it has not become the asset of all eight billion people so they are still unconsciously poking around and solving this problem through suffering.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Collective mind” 9/7/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “When do we consider that a person is criminal?“

Until we completely correct our ego, where we can position ourselves to the benefit of society—which is already a degree like we never saw before anywhere in this world—then we are always criminals of sorts.

We are criminals from birth. It is because we are each born with our ego, and so we each wish to benefit ourselves, and besides benefiting ourselves, we might also feel good by harming others, because we measure ourselves in relation to others.

Criminals, in essence, are those who breach “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is the general law of reality, and a crime is wishing to harm others for the sake of self-benefit. In short, we benefit by feeling better off than others, either by acquiring money or other possessions, or by obtaining some form of honor or control from the crime.

Based on the video “When Do We Consider That a Person Is Criminal?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on Topic “Intention Before Studying TES“

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 1

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Time for the UN to Live Up to Its Charter”
Last week was the 77th United Nations Day, marking the anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Charter in 1945. The day’s official web page states, “There is no other global organization with the legitimacy [and] impact of the United Nations. No other global organization gives hope to so many people for a better world and can deliver the future we want. Today, the urgency for all countries to come together, to fulfil (sic) the promise of the nations united, has rarely been greater.” The Secretary General also offered a message, stating that “The United Nations is the product of hope,” but today the UN “is being tested like never before.”

I would say that indeed it is time for the UN to live up to its charter. It is time for the UN to really bring countries together, not simply hope that they will “come together.” Hopes do not become a reality unless we exert to make them a reality. We should not only dare to dream; we must also dare to do!

I agree with the Secretary General’s words that today, the UN is being tested. It is requested to act, to bring people and nations together, and not settle for empty talk as though the UN is some café where people come to chat.

Humanity has a serious problem that it cannot ignore. The world around us operates according to one set of principles, while humanity insists on operating according to a different set of principles that collide with the world around us. As a result, everything around us is becoming inhospitable and dangerous. The climate is becoming erratic and extreme, the air, ground, and water are becoming toxic, animals are dying, the crops we live on are drying up, and people are becoming increasingly violent toward each other. It is as if we’re hanging on to dear life by a string that keeps us from falling off a precipice, but the string is getting tighter and tighter as humanity and reality move in opposite directions, and it is nearly at the point of snapping.

Reality will keep moving in its own direction. Things will become increasingly entangled; the systems that sustain our lives, the societies where we live, and our bodies, too, are complex systems whose complexity increases over time in the process of evolution. This process is irreversible, just as we cannot devolve life on Earth from humans back to unicellular creatures.

Therefore, the only way to stop the string from snapping is by changing our direction. If we stop seeking more and more isolation from others and begin to look for more connection with others, we will feel that nature and all of life are no longer hostile. We will find that they support us rather than struggle against us in a fight for the survival of the fittest.

“Giving peace a chance” and “safeguarding our planet,” as per the Secretary General’s statement, cannot succeed without a worldwide campaign to foster solidarity and mutual concern among all nations. Since today’s problems are global, solutions must be global, too.

My organization and I were involved in a UN initiative to promote education for connection and solidarity around the world back in 2012. The effort never materialized into concrete steps, but the need to carry out such endeavors has only increased since then.

We can wait passively and let nature take its course, but nature knows no mercy. If we insist on serving our narcissistic selves, while nature continues in its holistic trajectory, we will suffer the consequences of our incongruence with it. The current wars and climate crises are somewhat of a prelude to what is coming, but they pale in comparison to the upheaval ahead if we stall in our initiative.

I believe we should not wait. We should initiate the change; we must realize that the only way to make life on Earth safe and pleasant is by living according to the all-inclusive nature around us. I believe we have very little time left, and no choice whatsoever.t-align: center;”
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