Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Material Problems Are The Reason For Spiritual Progress

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can one learn the language of the Creator and how should we respond to His message?

Answer: We must understand that everything that happens must be resolved in this life according to how things work in this world. All these physical laws are also determined by the Creator and people have determined that they need these laws. So it makes no difference if they seem good or bad to us; I must keep them. This is because they are all derived from one source; there is nothing other than that.

When I get some problem, I must determine that it was sent by the Creator. I must resolve it as is customary. But I arrange things such that I operate within the connection with the friends, with the group. Even though it is personal and is irrelevant to anyone else, it obligates me to connect more strongly with the group.

And actually, physically, I respond to this problem exactly as someone else in my place would. Only he would not think that with this the Creator is drawing his attention to Him, with this He is giving him  this work; rather he would simply solve it in the framework of this world.

I also solve the problem in the framework of this world, but actually, this world becomes the spiritual world. And that is how I advance. For me every event in the material world becomes a reason for spiritual advancement, for resemblance and greater equivalence to the Creator.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 4

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Evil Results In More Advancement Than Good

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it enough simply to recognize the fact that everything that happens is sent from Above, or must one do something else?

Answer: It is not enough just to say that everything comes from Above. There are many people who talk this way. But what is important is not what the person says but how he reacts.

Does this recognition that everything comes from Above obligate me to attain this source? Do I perceive everything that happens as the language of the Creator through which He speaks to me, and do I try to change so as to become like Him, or am I just saying that all of this is from Above?

If I understand that everything comes from Above, both pleasant and unpleasant events, to bring me closer to the Creator, then it makes no difference what kind of impact it has on me, because I want to get closer to Him. He can beat me, and I want to flee from Him and forget about Him. But I must rise above my ego and say that it is not important to me how He affects me: if it is good or bad for my ego.

I always want to draw nearer to Him so that good and evil will have relevance to my ego only and not to myself, not to my consciousness. And it could be that evil advances me towards the Creator more than the good. So He will send me more evil, and I will rise above it.

It is said that “Those who love the Creator hate evil,” because evil is considered to be not the trouble or the blows that I feel. If something distances me from the Creator, this is called evil, and if it brings me closer to the Creator, then this is called good.

And then this corrects me to some degree; I begin to feel pleasure that I advance towards the Creator, even through blows. And I suffer if something distances me from Him, even if it is pleasant. If I get some kind of physical pleasure and take it into account and understand that I am distanced from the Creator through this, then this makes me suffer.

That is how a person begins to change the corporeal, beastly, egoistic desires into desires that depend on closeness or distance from the Creator, which are called vessels of bestowal. We need to go through this process.

If a person moves from desires like these to others, this means he is crossing the Machsom and entering into work for the sake of bestowal, into Lishma. He now carries out all actions only for the sake of advancement and feels all advancement as pleasure and no longer feels the blows. He is already disengaged from his ego through which the blows pass, and has pleasure from advancement only.

This may seem difficult, complicated, and hard to comprehend from a psychological point of view, but don’t worry, this is possible and we will reach this. We are already prepared to absorb and understand and begin to realize it.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 4

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Investigating The Source Of All Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person who yearns to discover the true world, who wants to know for what and why he is living on the face of this earth and what is happening here in general, sees himself as an investigator who learns about the world in order to understand and to feel it. But in fact, this is not the right approach, because in the center of the world, the higher power is found and not us. It moves and determines everything. And if we want to investigate the world, then we must always adhere to that higher power.

In order to truly discover the picture of the world, it is necessary, first of all, to see this source of all of reality and all that happens within it. I must know that everything is derived from a single power. And all creatures, including myself, the still, vegetative, animate, and humans, everything that exists in this world, what we know and what is still unknown, is received from this higher source.

I must concentrate my attention specifically on that, on the Creator. This means that all the events that happen with me and with others, all of our feelings, all of the past, present, and future—everything comes from the Creator and for only one purpose, to bring us to Him.

But so all of us will come to Him, it is necessary to receive all kinds of observations from Him; it is not important whether they are negative or positive. We need to be always be between these experiences and observations, and so time after time we learn about Him more and more.

These stages of our advancement towards the Creator are called “five worlds” (Olamot), which comes from the word “Alama (concealment)”: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, after which comes the world of Infinity where we merge with the Creator as a single whole. So step after step we approach Him, let’s say 20% with every stage, until we reach one hundred percent resemblance and equivalence to, understanding and perception of the Creator.

If follows that I don’t ascribe all of the internal feelings of our body and personal experiences to those people around me who seemingly cause them, but instead to the Creator. All of the people, the whole world, including my body and myself, are moved by Him. So I only need to know how to relate correctly to all that is happening: First of all, remember that everything comes from the Creator; second, it comes to teach me to understand Him.

This means that I must draw conclusions from all these states through which I am passing and see a good sign in what I now feel. This is because the Creator didn’t create anything bad and if I am directed towards Him, then I cannot feel anything bad. But if I am directed in some other direction, then it will be bad for me. As I continually follow, like radar, this view of the world and everything that is happening, I absorb the attitude of the Creator, meaning that I see that everything is coming from Him to direct me towards Him and only with what is good.

So it is written: (Psalms 97:10), O ye that love the LORD, hate evil. We begin to discover that when we are aimed in the right direction, towards the Creator, then everything that opposes bestowal is discovered as evil. This is because being directed towards Him requires us to be like Him. This is what we must learn during every second of our lives.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 4

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A New Focus With The Eyes Of The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is impossible to direct myself towards the Creator alone because I am compelled to go out of my ego. And so I must be connected with other people. It is desirable that we have ten people.

If we unite together to find the Creator, then we begin to see that only through the disengagement of each one from himself and disappearance into our connection can we abandon our old vision and focus on the Creator. This is like stereo pictures that look like a chaotic drawing with lots of lines. But if we look at this picture with unfocused eyes, then we begin to see all kinds of images in the depth of the picture.

That is also how we need to disengage from our egoistic view of the world, which is typical of everyone’e nature. In this vision, we lock ourselves artificially in a very limited world, and to leave it, we need to open our senses.

This is possible only by creating a new focus. It is necessary to see the world, not with our egoistic eyes, but with the eyes of the group, and then a new focus appears in all directions. Thus we enter, not a three-dimensional world, but a world of infinite dimensions, where in every direction and passes some plane coordinate axes. If I want to advance correctly, first of all I need to act through the group. There is no other mechanism for nullifying the focus of my vision and directing it spiritually. Only through the group can I try to feel something spiritual.

If I feel the world through the group, this is a sign that I have focused on the spiritual world, similar to the efforts to see the stereo picture. The main thing is to discern that everything comes from the Creator to teach me to understand Him. The world is His language with which He speaks to me.

Someone screams at me and there’s a set of events that takes place at every moment, while I must try to understand what the Creator wants it to tell me, what kind of reaction is required from me towards Him.

This means that first of all I must understand that this comes from Him. After that, I decide how I must react to what is happening. The reaction must be such that through what the Creator said to me and my desire to answer Him from within, between us we become closer, meaning that I understood Him and I did what He expected from me.

And then with everyone, I will behave exactly in this form: with the children, in the family, with people near and far. The clarification of my attitude towards the Creator, the reception of information from Him and responding to it, is called intention. And after that there can be action. We must be involved with this at every moment in our lives.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 4

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If It Seems You Are Going Backward

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati #1 “There is None Else Besides Him”: It is written, “there is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the Higher Household, the solitary source, the reason is that this is His will.

The Creator wants to give us the feeling that supposedly there are other forces and sources of influence existing in the world: the person himself and many other people.

And it is deemed a correction, called the left rejects and the right adducts, two forms of higher supervision for teaching a person. Meaning that which the left rejects is considered correction. This means that there are things in the world, which, to begin with, aim to divert a person from the right way, and by which he is rejected from Sanctity, from connection with the Creator.

And the benefit from the rejections is that through them a person receives a need and a complete desire for the Creator to help him, because he sees that by himself he cannot hold the right picture of reality. Since he sees that otherwise he is lost, it will be gone, he is lost in this world.

Not only does he not progress in his work, but he sees that he regresses. It constantly becomes more and more difficult for us to keep the connection with the Creator. And so many abandon this way; they think that they may not be suitable for it or that the way itself is not right and leads to an unattainable goal.

We don’t understand that the difficulties are given to us intentionally. It is good that we don’t succeed! For then we feel a need for the Creator and begin to approach Him, and don’t just cleverly overcome some kind of task. The Creator intentionally gives us more and more difficult tasks that cannot be carried out so that we will ask for His help; we will want to approach Him and not struggle with the difficulties by ourselves.

Before we were able to adhere to the Creator, we try to understand and feel what is happening in life. In the beginning everyone burns with excitement and is full of energy. But after this, we gradually cool off and begin to see that it is not easy. And the main thing is to understand at the same time that this is a natural process.

We don’t advance egoistically from one success to a greater success. Specifically the lack of success in perceiving reality, in understanding the world, is a good sign. It shows that we see how much we are not ready to get along by ourselves and we need the help of the Creator.

The main thing here is not to flee but to continue to advance. If a person doesn’t judge what is happening according to his earthly intellect but perceives correctly, then he understands that disappointment, despair, confusion, and lack of success are sent by a higher power, that there is none else besides Him. Then he comes to the decision that no one can help him but the Creator Himself. This causes him to make a heartfelt demand that the Creator will open his eyes and heart, and truly bring him nearer to eternal adhesion with God.

This means that he demands to approach and adhere to the higher power itself and not the solution to his material problems. He doesn’t want to change and understand the world; rather, he wants to connect with the Creator through it. It thus follows, that all the rejections he had experienced had come from the Creator. This means that it was not because he was at fault.

Precisely because the Creator doesn’t give the possibility of advancing, apparently confuses, rejects, and creates disturbances, He presents help to a person by showing him his deficiencies in his present state by sending him thoughts and arguments that are against spiritual work. And this is all so that the person will see that what he lacks is union with the Creator, and not prosperity in this world.

And as much as he overcomes, he always sees how he is farther from holiness than others. He looks at the friends and sees that they all seemingly advance, while he doesn’t. But he, on the other hand, always has complaints and demands, and he cannot justify the Creator’s behavior, and how He behaves toward him. This pains him. Why is he not one with the Creator? Finally, he comes to feel that he has no part in holiness whatsoever… However, this is what causes him to come to realize that only God can help and really bring him closer.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 2

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A Request For The Light To Return

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to correct the negative connection between people into a positive connection?

Answer: The whole problem is in how to correct a negative connection between us into a positive one. If we were to succeed in arranging and determining a positive connection, then we would feel the higher power between us, and instead of the reality of today, we would see a reality that is completely full of Light, bestowal. This would be life in another, spiritual dimension.

But we are in a shattering with respect to this condition of wholeness, in a form which is its opposite. All of our work is to go from the broken state to the state of wholeness.

One vessel that was filled with Light was created at the beginning of creation. This state is called world of Infinity. But those who were in this world didn’t feel themselves as existing because the Light suppresses all differences and doesn’t permit feeling anything. For this reason the shattering was created, and everyone there discovers that there is no longer any Light. The Light disappeared from this world; it was removed and the world was left empty. And now all parts of creation have become egoistic; ego is revealed between them!

We need to bring the Light back so that it will again fill the world. This is our goal and this will indicate a state of the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun). But due to the difference between these two states, we pass from a negative state to such a positive level where we begin to understand and feel the higher power, the Creator.

In the first state we were suppressed and didn’t feel ourselves at all, we were completely filled with the Upper Light, like a drunkard who gets so drunk that he loses consciousness and doesn’t understand what is happening to him. We are now in the second state and are beginning to feel how much we lack the Light, how much we lack the right connection between us. This is the crisis that the world is experiencing today. The Light gradually disappeared and now we are beginning to feel that we are sinking into darkness.

And our next state is the beginning of the correction where we bring the Light back to a place to the degree that our souls will be ready to accept it and to attract it again, to the degree that we demand that the Creator be together with us. We need to vacate a place for Him, and for this we must remove our ego that takes up our entire living space. It is necessary to suppress it. So all of us together enter into the center of the group where we build relationships with each other that are like the Light. And according to this resemblance and equivalence, according to the law of equivalence of form between the Light and the vessel, the Light returns to our connection. All of this is very easy to understand and incredibly difficult to carry out.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 2

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We Must Give People Something

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person must be in a group preferably comprised of ten people. It is also possible to have three to ten people, but ten is the optimal number. It is necessary to try to organize a group of five to ten friends who are ready to connect, to attain the goal.

In addition to this, since we are living in a crisis, it is possible to advance upward only on the condition that we disseminate externally.

There are three levels: upper, middle, and lower. We are in the middle and must rise. At the upper (1) is Light; it is whole and perfect. This is the teacher, the Creator, everything that is above us.

The middle (2) is our group. And the lower (3) is the external public and society. To receive Light from above, from the Creator, through the teacher, there must be those who want to receive it below us. So we must disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah or the method of integral connection, which is basically the same thing except without teaching the physics of the upper worlds.

Without the lower one who wants to get out of the crisis, it is impossible. He doesn’t know what the wisdom of Kabbalah is and thoughts about the meaning of life do not concern him, but he has a large deficit at the bank, in the family, with his children, and his entire life, which has embittered him, depresses him, causing him to use drugs; things are bad for him.

And it is enough that we care about him, take care of him, and raise his desires up to us. And when we begin to care about people, we begin to be infused with their needs. They are waiting to get something from us. Then we are gripped with fear about how to provide them with what they need.

After all, we have nothing, and we feel a deficiency. But this awakens us and pushes us to rise even higher with this deficiency, to the teacher, and to the Creator, to demand that they will give the fulfillment that the lower ones need from us as fast as possible. We are ashamed that we are unable to provide it.

We internalize the desires of the general public, and this forces us to turn to the Creator. This is because we must indeed bring something to them. We must place ourselves in this narrow place (Tsar), bring troubles (Tsarot) upon ourselves, and the people will begin to blame and demand what was promised by us. But this is very necessary because then we will want to go to the teacher, demand it, and we will receive it from him.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 3

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Circles Of Spiritual Worlds

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen we begin to connect between us more and more strongly by contracting our circle, our connection becomes more and more dense. Within our very first connection we already discover the characteristic of the Creator, but it is revealed in a very weak form. This is called the world of Assiya.


By continuing to work on our connection, we discover the next level of connection within it, called the world of Yetzira. An even stronger connection is discovered as the world of Beria, and an even stronger connection is revealed as the world of Atzilut. This indicates the end of correction. We discover these spiritual worlds within the connection between us to the degree that we more closely approach each other.

From the first connection to the last connection there are 125 levels or five worlds, in each of which there are five spiritual Partzufim with five Sefirot in each of them. The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about all of this.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day One 5/9/14, Lesson 1

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The Rider Leads The Horse To His Destination

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before”: Hence, you should not think that you are drawing away from holiness, which means that the Creator doesn’t operate on you, doesn’t work on you or manage you, since He has forgotten you, “For he that is banished be not an outcast from him.” And every wheel turns to come to holiness, its root.

Therefore, although it seems that the horse leads the rider by its base desire, the truth is not so. It is the rider who leads the horse to his destination.

Because of the concealment, we forget, don’t understand, and don’t feel the leadership of the upper force. We think that we operate according to our own desire, and that we are the ones who make mistakes, but we mustn’t think that way. We don’t do anything and it is all the Creator’s doing. But because we haven’t made enough efforts prior to the revelation of the Creator, He has to give us more means in order to reveal Him, which means to increase the concealment on the next level.

The Creator wants us to reveal Him, and so he constantly pushes us towards this revelation according to our state. He increases the concealment in order to help us reveal Him. If we are ready for the revelation, for the understanding, and the feeling, the Creator diminishes the concealment a bit, seeing that in this way we will attain Him faster.

The rider leads the horse to his destination, in each and every case. If a person says that he has made a mistake and that he has caused harm, it is a naïve illusion. We have to say that everything in the past was done by the Creator, and only with regard to the future can we say: “If I am not for myself, who is for me?”

We mustn’t regret the past as something that we did. I should only regret the fact that the Creator has arranged things this way for me so that I couldn’t adhere to Him at that point.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Connection Above All

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe group is an organized group of people who are ready to connect and agree to maintain special rules for this. These laws are not determined by us but by great Kabbalists who passed through all the stages of ascent and know how it is necessary to assemble the Kli in order to discover the Creator.

The Kabbalists explain that there must be: “One for all and all for one,” “as one man with one heart.” Each one must rise above his ego for the welfare of the group. Nobody thinks about himself or about individual friends, rather only about the whole group. Everyone nullifies themselves in order to reach unity. The connection is above all, there is no other goal.

If all of a sudden something must be done, then we ask: Will this increase our connection or not? If our connection will become stronger, then we do it, and if not, then we don’t do it. This is the only criterion. There is nothing but one single goal, our unity, for the discovery of the Creator depends upon its intensity.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 3

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