Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Connection With The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are two steps in human development: the highest and the lowest. Moreover, we (WE) represent the higher one because we have the point in the heart (•). We worry about the development; we feel and understand its importance; we care; we are not indifferent; we have a connection with the Light, which we do not know about ourselves.

On the other hand, humanity has no direct connection with the Light, and people live in the framework of our civilization, taking care of common needs for food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge. They don’t need anything else.

However, today there is a special situation: The world is being plunged into crisis. Practically everyone feels this and can’t do anything. Here, we should understand that this crisis is caused by the steady approach of the Light, which is manifested in us, undermining the family institution, destroying children’s education, depriving us of empathy in relationships between people, and weakening us. In general, the many facets of the crisis bring us to a point when the former welfare and old hopes seem to “slip through our fingers like water.” This is happening because we are not able to enter in contact, in connection, with the Light that is being revealed more and more.

So, we have a reason to reach out to people and explain why they feel bad. Baal HaSulam writes about this, that we must become “a kingdom of priests,” to reach out to people and tell them how to correct the situation, how to deal with the crisis. After all, the exit of it is in unity (Σ) by the method of integral education (∫).

If we unite, the crisis will disappear because in our unity we will begin to reveal the Light. It’s us now, but we don’t match it; it’s concealed even more, and as a result, we feel the growing darkness. If we match the Light, then we manifest it in the original quality, illuminate life with goodness, which builds all the connections between us and fulfills us.

Thus, we have only two simple opportunities:

  • Either to unite, becoming similar to the Light so that it’s revealed in us;
  • or not to unite, and then it will be revealed anyway, but in its time, on the path of pain and suffering caused by our growing divergence between it and us.

However, humanity itself cannot understand the method of correction or feel something because it doesn’t have the most important thing, the point in the heart. Thus, it’s up to us: Due to the point in the heart, we have a connection with the Light. So, precisely we have to become a connecting link between it and the whole of humanity.

Moreover, if in all the generations since Adam until now, Kabbalists created only certain groups, today, it’s not enough. In the past, the spiritual power of the group was sufficient to reveal the Light. There were various times when groups were comprised of only a few men, or dozens, or hundreds, or thousands. However, we have to integrate our small groups into everyone else.

We, our group, cannot obtain connection with the Light if we don’t take into account all of humanity. We have a great desire and yet we are not able to realize it. Years pass and we are seemingly “idle.” Enclosed in our groups, we are like a dog that runs around trying to catch his own tail. There are plenty of efforts and little effect.

Why? It’s because we lack the need, the feeling of lack. We don’t have that big minus with which we could reach the Light. And we will not have it no matter how hard we work.

That’s why the groups “tread water” for years. They must have all of humanity connected to them, not billions people at once, but it’s necessary to begin to work in this direction. They need to “go to the masses” and connect them to us.

Then in response, we will get a great desire, a great need. Yes, it’s just a simple “earthly” natural need based on the ordinary necessities; however, we turn this into a spiritual impulse and ask the Creator for spiritual fulfillment. We raise their desire and ask: “Give us the Light! Give us unity!” This spiritual desire awakens the Light that affects us in response, is revealed in us, and we bring it to the people.

Thus, this Light resolves all problems. In our world we lack nothing but the connection between people. Through the correct interconnection, we will be able to arrange everything. The only thing is to build the relationships between us correctly.
[120770]
From One America “Virtual Convention” Day One 11/16/13, Lesson 1

Related Material:
The Turning Point Of Development
Fragmented Unity
All Of Us Are One Family

A Quantitative Hero And A Qualitative Hero

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe don’t need to demand that other people know and understand the method. They simply must understand that the crisis will continue for many years. Today many are writing about this, but in the meantime nobody comprehends that the fall will continue for years until the last drop of normal existence is squeezed out of us.

This is a law of nature that is understood by those who see a little more deeply than others; there are no miracles here. If we look at the future under the right light, then a terrible picture will open before us: the cruelty of people, spiritual and material emptiness, withdrawal and degeneration of the younger generation, deserted cities, and the complete indifference of human beings who are not ready for anything. The ego will begin to devour itself and will end its existence, like a cancerous tumor that kills the entire body and it itself dies afterward.

We must explain all this to the general public, arrange integral workshops for them, and not just speak about love and friendship, but solve our material problems together. Together with this, they are solved with great ease because within them a higher force participates. People don’t need to know this, it is not necessary to frighten and confuse them. It is enough for them to understand that within connection and unity is found a unique force of nature that helps us. And they will feel this through our workshops.

It is said that there is a quantitative hero and a qualitative hero. A quantitative hero extends in width while a qualitative hero extends in height. Therefore in order to be a quantitative hero, we must connect the masses, to ourselves. And then we can go upward.
[120751]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Three 11/3/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
Growth Is In Width And Not In Height
The Circles Of Life
There Is No Turning Back

Seeing The World In The Light Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanNothing can be changed in this world except our perception of the world. The world doesn’t change, but a person seeing himself inside it from a different angle, and the entire world appears completely different: positive, full of light, happiness, and absolute good.

Today our world looks defective, uncomfortable, uncertain and full of challenges and threats only because of our level of vision.

The only thing that really matters is our belonging to the group, including ourselves in it to the extent that there is nothing left of us, constantly submitting to its influence. It takes many years to convince ourselves that it is true; it takes a while before small portions of the Light begin influencing us. At the same time, it all depends solely on us.

We have to continue our efforts to connect at congresses and at the meetings of friends, seeing how we were before the meeting and how we’ve changed after it, as I was included in what the friends became. How can I do so, so that we can make a potential leap that will raise me to the next level and will allow us to see the world in the Light of the Creator, and then it will be absolute?

There is nothing we can change except our vision of the world, because the only thing that can be corrected is our vessels, Kelim, our bodies of sensation, and the world remains the same, the world of Infinity; we float only in it. Therefore, the only thing that we have to change is our perception of the world.

I would like you to feel the difference in the fulfillment that is a billion times stronger than the one we receive out of the best material states. In fact, it is the truth; it is not just another way to run away from numerous problems. All troubles and obstacles, everything that ever happens to us both internally and externally, will turn into the absolute Light. We will eventually achieve this state.

Again, I thank the entire world group for supporting this convention and particularly I would like to express my warmest gratitude to the central Israeli group that carries out a huge, dedicated work in the dissemination of our knowledge.

It’s not exactly the disclosure Kabbalah, but rather, a collective work that promotes human enlightenment in extremely complicated, critical conditions that are sent to us by the Creator. The Creator plays games with us by arranging extreme situations so that we go by “faith above reason” and advance with our eyes closed, above our calculations. This is what our Israeli group does. I am extremely grateful to the entire world group for their support. Thank you all.
[119881]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day One 11/1/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Clarifications And Examinations In A Group
Connecting The Entire World To The Creator
There Is No Turning Back

A Convention On Another Planet

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today the united Americas integral convention begins. There will be more than 500 new students participating, students of the Education Center who will be joining different groups from North America to South America. For many it will be their first encounter with the right environment; how should we receive them correctly?

Answer: We must rise above the differences of this world; ignore them. We have a spiritual point that we should reach, it is exactly what we need to depend on it, so let’s take a leap above this world, leave and forget all our daily activities and accounts and all the differences between us for the next couple of days. Let’s not talk or think about corporeality at all, as if we have reached another planet where the convention takes place.

We should detach ourselves from everything that is unnecessary and leave all the accounts behind. I don’t intend to clarify what is happening in my ordinary corporeal life during the convention, and not even about what happens in my daily spiritual life. It is as if I move to another interface, erasing everything there was and entering a new inter-planetary atmosphere. This is the only place I want to be in for the next three days or at least during the time of the convention.

I connect to it as if there is no tomorrow. The past until yesterday is erased. Otherwise I will constantly be confused between myself and others, between yesterday and today, and I will not understand anything.

We have to establish the next new level of existence that is totally new and which has nothing to do with what we had before, not personally and not group wise. The history of the relationship of the people who were once with us and have left, etc., is irrelevant; we don’t want to remember anything. Now we see everyone on a spiritual level only and that’s it.

Different languages and different cultures don’t matter. The people who have gathered here have only one burning desire, to connect in order to reveal the Creator. That’s all. I don’t want to know anything else about them, it is because the desire and the urge to connect with others and to reveal the Creator is a desire that has nothing to do with any differences on the level of this world. We simply need to detach ourselves and to reach something new, new relations that exist on the new planet. The old world remains far behind and disappears; we are in a new place, in new emotions and thoughts, only looking forward, disconnecting from everything there was yesterday. There is no yesterday. We are all totally detached from everything.

It says that a person should see himself as new every day, so let’s do it at least once.
[120560]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/13, A Talk About the American Convention

Related Material:
The Purpose Of The American Convention
The Convention In New Jersey: United Into The One
Sensibility Instead Of War

The Purpose Of The American Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the purpose of the united Americas integral convention?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that our only correction is to connect into one vessel. Its shattering has pulled us apart and so instead of the spiritual world, the spiritual dimension, everyone feels only the spark and the minimal vitality that is called this world. Now in order to return to the feeling of the real world and not the fictitious world, to return to this here and now without waiting for some illusionary existence in the next world, we have to connect. By that we reconstruct the vessel that existed before; we understand, feel, and love in it on a level that is 620 times higher than it was before the shattering.

Thus we attain the Creator and ourselves equivalent to Him, adhered to Him and so on. All this is attained only by connection.

Although we cannot connect, since we are all in an attribute that is opposite from connection, we can summon the Light that Reforms. The Light that used to fill us and that disappeared during the shattering can now come and illuminate on us and connect us. So if we perform actions that draw the Light that Reforms, we connect, and in the connection between us, we discover the upper world, the Creator. This is our work.

This is why we are so happy to be in this convention; understand how important it is, and pin great hopes on it.

We must be sure that no matter what happens, this step is very important. Later all of humanity will also have to go through these changes and today by doing it ourselves, we set an example for them. It is because we are in frameworks of one system together with all of humanity, so what we attain in the connection between us will be passed on to others, to all of humanity, and then suddenly all of humanity will also begin to think that way, without even knowing why.

This means that our work is very important for us and for the whole world.
[120574]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/13, A Talk About the American Convention

Related Material:
A Convention On Another Planet
A Convention That Leads Us To Eternity
What Lies Ahead?

A Long Way To The First Spiritual Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You have said many times that envy, hate, and honor help friends in a group advance towards unity.

Answer: If friends in a group yearn for unity and begin to feel all kinds of disturbances between them, jealousy, hatred, and rejection, then they must understand that this is given to them by the Creator intentionally in order to add additional forces, yearning for unity, which they require in order to exist on the first level.

Therefore, whenever we go forward, we always receive disturbances because our capacity is not enough to rise upward. I rise a little, but it is not enough, and I am thrown down. Again I rise a little and I am thrown down, but after this, all of these small disturbances are connected.

We cannot reach the first level in one jump. Suppose I am on level zero and I must rise to the first level, how can I do this? The Creator shatters this level into a multitude of states where I go up and down, up and down.


I cannot rise above a particular level, and I am elevated but not in a meaningful way.

But after that, a connection is made by the sum of all my previous states which are required to ascend to the first level.

Therefore it seems to a person that the same thing is happening all the time, it can even be much worse than it was before, but in fact, it is all connected into one sum. As it is said, one penny plus another gathers into a great sum until all the pennies are gathered into one treasure, which is revealed all at once.

Therefore, patience is the most important thing along the way. And someone whose arrogance speaks from his throat is left with his own interests; nothing will happen for him. The main thing is to adjust oneself patiently.

Every state we pass, each convention, lesson, workshop, every time we disseminate, and so forth, everything is gathered. These activities don’t disappear; they are entered into your “account book,” which establishes how much is left for you until the first level.

And after this is attained, then everything becomes clear and you proceed with open eyes. But the first level is the most difficult; therefore, it is called the “exodus from Egypt.” All the rest of the levels are also not simple, but we pass through them with understanding, with awareness, with real movement. Whereas this level is completely closed off from us.
[120257]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
The Friend And Emptiness
Envy Is Not A Flaw
I Envy Means I Grow

One America “Virtual Convention” Day Two – 11.17.13

One America “Virtual Convention,” Day 2, Lesson 3

[media 1] [media 2]

One America “Virtual Convention” Day One – 11.16.13

One America “Virtual Convention,” Day 1, Lesson 1

[media 1] [media 2]

One America “Virtual Convention,” Day 1, Workshop 1

[media 3] [media 4]

One America “Virtual Convention,” Day 1, Lesson 2

[media 5] [media 6]

One America “Virtual Convention,” Day 1, Workshop 2

[media 7] [media 8]

The Warmth Of The Soul And Spiritual Aspiration

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we are conducting integral workshops, people who are participating in them reach a special state of mind. What is the difference between a heartwarming state and a spiritual state?

Answer: The heartwarming state is the state when a person seeks to feel others closer to himself. This state can occur not only between the friends in a group, but also between strangers who are gathered in a company and reach heartfelt understanding, usual getting closer with each other, not pursuing any spiritual purpose.

The spiritual state is when your goal is to rise above your egoism, to unite with all the others in one whole, and desire to feel the Creator in it.

Question: We are really trying to get closer to the goal of delighting the Creator at the workshops, and thus feel a very nice, warm feeling. Can this be called a heartwarming state?

Answer: Sure, it can. Only it is not spiritual. The spiritual state is the highest goal to which we aspire. I cannot express this feeling in words, but it will be felt as something shared, as if I disappear in others. I do not exist, I am seemingly detached from myself and am inside my friends. Moreover, this “I” also does not seem like me but a new emerging spiritual substance which is my real “I.”
[120204]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
The Sparks That Float
Spirituality And Warm-Heartedness
The Workshops: Not Just Verbal Debates But An Ascent To Unity

Getting Charged Within The Field Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that during a workshop the power of the Creator works on a person. What does this mean?

Answer: As we connect, then certainly the Creator is revealed according to the law of equivalence of form. This power, the Creator, exists around us as a field. When we create a likeness to Him from our egoistic desires and then nullify them, trying to make efforts to connect above our ego; then according to our effort, this field is revealed in us. It is as if it is induced in us.

This is a law of physics without anything mystical. Our tension in mutual connection begins to be revealed according to the potential in the field; in other words, this movement toward each other summons its induction into us.

For example, if we take a piece of wire and move it in a magnetic field, it will be charged with an electric current. It is the same thing here as well, if we begin to move in the field of the Creator (in the field of love and bestowal) towards mutual bestowal and love between us, then to the degree we overcome our ego, the power of this field is induced in us.

Question: If I feel joy during the workshop, is this the sensation of the Creator?

Answer: No! In sum this is a preliminary feeling of a pleasant connection. This is not the Creator, not a state above the ego.

Question: So how can we discover the Creator in the center of the circle?

Answer: Try to unite so as to become a single drop; you become “we,” and then the Creator is revealed.

But in spite of all this you will not succeed in this because a person is unable to do anything by himself. We can only attain an awareness that it is not in our power to get closer and connect by ourselves. Only when we come to complete desperation, we finally reveal the understanding of how to turn towards the Creator, how to cry out to Him, to demand, and He will answer immediately.
[120201]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
The Workshops: Not Just Verbal Debates But An Ascent To Unity
Attack On The Fineness Of Feelings
The Sparks That Float