Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

In A Blender Of Desires And Thoughts

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What state must a person reach when the convention opens? What must he experience?

Answer: He must feel that it is as if he has entered into a blender within which he wants to mix his thoughts and feelings with the thoughts and feelings of others, so that he has nothing left.

From this mixture of desires in the heart and thoughts in the mind, something emerges that can be called a “spiritual Kli,” a “spiritual Partzuf.” This is because a desire is the “body” of the “Partzuf,” and the thoughts are its “head.” In this way we create a pattern (model) of an Adam (one person), a single image of all of humanity.

The role of each one is to mix with everyone so there is nothing left of him, neither in the head nor in the heart. And what results will fill his heart and mind.
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From the Convention Preparation Webinar, 9/9/14

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A Group Of Ten Is A Whole Spiritual Unit

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We will be conducting work in groups of ten in the upcoming St. Petersburg convention. Should a group of ten be together all the time including mealtime, the friends’ meetings, the workshops, and the lessons?

Answer: I don’t see the point in walking around in groups of ten holding hands.

A group of ten is considered a whole spiritual unit. In Hebrew it is called a Minyan. There is a condition that you cannot pray if you don’t gather in a group of ten. This means that you cannot appeal to the Creator if you are not in a group of ten. Therefore, the groups of ten are essential in all our events.

During the friends’ meetings everyone is present: the men in an inside circle and the women on the outside. We have to constantly emphasize that we are together with all of humanity, with the whole world group.

The groups of ten don’t have to show their excessive individualism. Their main role is to cultivate the intention: We have gathered here in order to merge into one, so that units identical to ours will connect into one huge unit that is equal to the Creator.

A group of ten is what raises you to the next level; it is a derivative. Those who have studied higher mathematics know that the breaking down of a derivative is shattering and death. If a group of ten breaks down, you cannot raise yourself to the next level any more.

Therefore, we should do everything we can so that the groups of ten will remain intact even while performing different duties in the kitchen or any service. This is important.
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From the Convention Preparation Webinar, 9/9/14

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What Is Equality?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is equality? A person is born, comes into this world, and everything that he sees, everything, is absolutely divided and separate beginning with what he feels inside and ending with what he sees outside. But in spite of it all, for individual people there is a particular desire for equality. Where does this come from?

Answer: All of our characteristics, observations, situations, and laws come from only one state, a state of unity, the state of the analog, integral system in which we are found.

The integral system is built on the principle of our full dependence upon each other. This means that all of us are absolutely equal. Perhaps for one, particular parameters are a thousand times greater than for another, but if the system is completely connected, then for this great person, somehow his greatness depends upon a very small person. This is because the entire system is integral, and if some kind of minimal disruption happens in it, it completely fails! This is the principle of equality.

This principle is not based upon who you were and who I was from the start. It is based upon what we must reach to bring the system to an integral state under our influence. In other words, nature created an integral system and created us completely opposite to this state.

Our role is to reach the ideal state, without connection to which of us is someone great, small, wise, foolish, weak, or strong. All of us must reach mutual dependence upon each other. Only in such a case will we discover ourselves to be completely equal.

Everything is derived from the principle of the wholeness of the system in its initial and final state. And we, in the middle, must bring it to its planned ideal through our efforts. From here are derived all of the laws of mutual cooperation in a group, in a collective, in a society, in humanity.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About the Integral Method” 9/7/14

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In An External Wrapping And Without It

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I increase my sensitivity in the group in order to feel my friends more and more. Do I have to do the same in the outside world?

Answer: No, under no circumstances! You have to connect with the outside world through a kind of a partition and to show that you are also coarse and insensitive and indifferent like everyone else. Otherwise people would think that you are an eccentric, a person not from this world.

You will be mocked and used. At work, your colleagues will not understand you. That is why I emphasize that you should consist of two layers and your exterior clothes should be identical to the outside world. You have to learn how to do that!

Rabash used to give a very good example. He used to work in paving roads from Jerusalem and Hebron. The workers worked from sunrise to sunset and in the evening when everyone used to sit down to eat and have tea they started long talks about politics and other matters until midnight and then went to sleep.

But when everyone fell asleep, he used to get up and study the wisdom of Kabbalah. If they came complaining to him: “Are you our friend or not?!”, he would answer that he had nothing to talk them about; that is, he showed some indifference and then they would leave him alone.

Even on the bus when someone sat next to Rabash and tried to speak to him, he would pretend to be asleep. But he behaved exactly like everyone else in every other sense.

Therefore, we should constantly put on this external shirt so as not to differ from others.

Question: But how can we feel the people more when we go out to disseminate? How do we attain this sensitivity? By increasing it among us and then feeling the public more?

Answer: This is a totally different matter. When you go out to disseminate, you meet people who are ready to be in contact with you. In that case you can use your spiritual figure in order to connect to them, in order to give them some spiritual filling, to fulfill the contact and the inner connection. This isn’t the external world anymore but people who are advancing towards an internal connection with you.

It is for them that you create different external faces by adapting yourselves to them, like working with children, for example. How do you usually speak to kids, how do you give them examples, how do you play with them? You constantly try to be like them by coming down to their age and to their level of understanding a little. It is the same here, but by that you begin to open up. This is the natural way of every teacher.
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From the Convention in Sochi, Lesson 2

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Quality Is What’s Important

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe wholeness of the group depends on its adhesion to those who advance and not on those who advance looking backward at the rearguard, at those who are at the end, thinking: “How can we slow down so that the others can catch up with us?” That isn’t right. We should only yearn to advance!

Many are still against integral education and against dissemination: “We study the wisdom of Kabbalah and everything else doesn’t concern us.” Of course, this is their own business, but they should know that they have no connection with me. How do they intend to keep on engaging in spiritual work? If their goal is to know what the books say, they can even learn it by heart, but they will never be able to attain and reveal spirituality!

If they are against our method, then actually they have nothing to look for in the group. I am very serious. All the smart-alecks, all those who only want to study but not to disseminate, can leave. They are not my students and I don’t see them as students.

Let there be a small group but a qualitative one. In spirituality quality is what’s important and not the quantity.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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Instead Of Civil Marriage

Dr. Michael LaitmanComment: It seems that our next level is serving people. There are for example so many lonely people that it is really terrible. But despite the fact that there are so many online dating sites, it doesn’t result in people starting a family. Having accumulated a lot of experience in working in circles, I see the exact picture of how to speak about this issue with people and how to teach them.

Answer: I don’t think that bringing people together and helping them start a family is the solution to the problem. We are in a phase in human history in which people cannot see themselves connected to a family. They connect quickly, have children, and begin to regret it: “What have we done?! This limits us so much, it is suffocating!”

I am beginning to understand them better lately. What is suffocating them is the ego that has evolved to its maximum size. We have to ascend to the need of having a family, so that it will become part of our spiritual vessel (Kli). Only then will we be able to speak about getting married. Otherwise it will lead to nothing.

The more we advance, the more we will see this situation. So people will start a family only when they can be sure that this is their way upward and not because they were suddenly inspired in the group or in some workshop. Only when they reach a certain spiritual state and grow up spiritually will they understand the meaning of a family.

The idea of civil marriage will practically disappear and instead there will be spiritual families. It is the need for the creation of a family cell that will become the reason for starting a family.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/24/14, Lesson 1

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On The Path To Enlightenment

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is said: “Buy faith from the Rav (Teacher) and follow him. And you pray that you have the spirit like the Rav does. This is how spirituality is bought.” What does this mean?

Answer: The belief in the teacher means believing in what he says and performing his recommendations without questions.

Everything I say, I say for you. Anyone who hears and accepts this is advancing.

I do not have any claims to those who refuse to listen to me; it is their own business. But if you want to be tied to me and follow me, you must listen to what I say.

Because on the spiritual path your eyes will always be closed, you will always follow me. They will be opened when you ascend to your next degree, and you will be rising to your next degree with the eyes closed again. This is called “faith above reason.”
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From the Convention in Sochi, Lesson 4

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The Rigid Law Of Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We have to take the deficiency of the masses and bring it to the group so we can direct it to unity. How do we reconcile this with the situation in the Ukraine where there is a war now?

Answer: You cannot do anything about it. It is the general egoistic state of the world that is now being revealed in different places. We cannot even imagine how many wars are going on now. Nobody writes or speaks about them. Is everything quiet in Afghanistan? No. In Africa people are killing each other and everyone keeps quiet, and there are other hot locations in the world!

There is the general ego that we cannot balance at the moment. We cannot hasten our altruistic evolution to match the pace that the ego develops. Therefore, the negative events in the world develop much more quickly than the positive ones. We try to change things, but we cannot catch up with it yet. I hope that this year we will begin a routine of normal balance.

What we see are normal, rigid, accurate laws without any interference on the Creator’s part. Stop imagining some upper will. There is a force that is one constant law in itself; there is nothing but that!

There are no regrets and no sensitivities. The point is that we formulate everything through our feelings in a corporeal language, but in fact the Creator, nature has no feelings! We only depict Him by using this world’s words in order to somehow convey the spiritual method.

Therefore, everything that involves the state of the Ukraine and other places on the globe is the result of imbalance between the right and the left forces. There is nothing we can do, we have to act and try to balance them.

Question: But how should we relate to them?

Answer: Only by disseminating the goal of creation, unity, connection, and nothing but that. Everything else will lead to nothing. We have reached the point in history where the correction has to be fulfilled in either a good way or a bad way. So there is nothing we can do because there is a very rigid, accurate law that operates here.
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From the Convention In Sochi 7/14/14, Lesson 6

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Rise Above The Oppositions

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll of the confrontations, conflicts, and wars in the world are initiated from above so that we will require the Light of the Creator, so that we will understand that we cannot do anything by ourselves. We must simply lift up our hands and scream. What is happening in the world is unbelievable. Suddenly everywhere in the world intense hatred has flared up that is derived from all kinds of sources and for various reasons.

Moreover, this is a kind of confrontation and conflict that we couldn’t even conceive of before, nor could we even suppose that it was possible. It is awful to look at such a vast country like the Ukraine, which is being torn apart.

I don’t think that it is necessary to blame America or the European Union. The Creator has arranged all of this for us. There is one reason; we must rise above our oppositions. We must rise above them so much that they stop. This is very serious work.

The Creator is playing with us from above and we must focus entirely on connection and unity. Our worldly ways will not result in anything.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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Working Joyfully

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We are passing through various states. First, when we encounter the ego, we ask for them to raise us above it, meaning that we work with the “left line.”

Then there is a miraculous transformation; we reach the “right line,” we unite and connect, the Light floods us, we are well, we have a gleam in our eyes, and we look like fanatics. And here we understand that we can’t go out to the public like this because they will not respond to us. And the moment we begin to extinguish this, they ask us: “Where is your joy?” So what is working joyfully?

Answer: We must have calm confidence: “Please hand me the scalpel, I am going to operate on my ego.” This means that we have full confidence in the fact that we are all doing the right thing together.

Question: So where is the joy discovered?

Answer: Isn’t this joy? There are various levels of joy: the joy of a little child, the joy of an adult, and the joy of a wise person.

In this case, during the convention we are in our circles and how we seem from a distance doesn’t interest us at all. We can hug each other joyfully or express our joy differently. That is not important to us.

It is not important how we convey joy and confidence to each other. Be honest! You are in your collective, in your family.

All spiritual work is built upon infinite joy! We are happy about what we have received, about the time we are living in, what the incarnation of our soul is, and how we were chosen by the Creator to help humanity and be a conduit for its development. Whatever we touch, everything must be built on joy, on the confidence that we can attain the goal.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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