Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Breakthrough From Virtual To Spiritual

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: “I, the group, the world.” As long as this picture exists in our imagination, the world endures much, exactly as you said many years ago. But of course, this shouldn’t make us happy. It’s necessary to help people, to support them, especially in our European Convention

Answer: I agree absolutely. First of all, we are commanded, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If I must relate to people with love, how can I be happy about their suffering? Certainly, something like this simply cannot be.

And on the other hand, when we look at what’s happening, we need to hurry and dedicate as much power and time as possible to dissemination. I hope that we will speak about this at the convention. For it’s very important for us to bring the understanding to humanity that a very clear, very concrete, simple, and practical method exists. Already today it’s possible to implement it and to see wondrous results in a number of days.

We know how rapidly people are changed within the framework of integral education beginning from the first lecture, from the first workshop. If we can only give them the method, they will open their eyes and see how simple everything is. We are preparing ourselves for this, and we already have a few hundred people in various countries that are ready to be teachers and educators.

One way or another, the world will not work it out without suffering, but these will already be sufferings of love, when together with the force that pushes people from behind, a force also draws them forward. This is our obligation, our mission, to show them the way.

In truth, I already spoke about this state many years ago, and frankly, every day I expect that they will begin to hear us. Otherwise, undoubtedly the suffering will grow more and more. And in spite of all this, I have great hopes. Due to the communications media, due to the reactions of scientists and politicians, I see that the world has changed. They are already beginning to grasp the idea and understand that today we require a breakthrough, a new way.

Question: The better that the understanding of the world is connected to the manner in which the group learns, it unites internally. And in spite of all this our ego demands a payoff in the form of conventions, and in general, endless meetings. Has the time not come for a new level? For in a form like this we cannot continue to gather the entire world. Someone will always remain on the sidelines and will feel himself deprived. Has the time not arrived when every one of us, within himself, and simultaneously in another, will come to the thought that we are one whole, not only through mutual physical activity, but also with inner activity? We need to be together internally.

Answer: The world develops from simple “mechanics,” to electronics, to radio and to television, to computers, to a virtual network, and after this, to a spiritual network. Our mutual connection is coming closer and closer to its spiritual form.

Today the world is making a transition to virtual connection, to conference calls, to telephones and chats. And now we need to go out to such a level of connection so that the whole world will know our coordinates in all segments of the network and will have the possibility of connecting with us, easily and correctly.

We need to be accessible to everyone in this virtual form so that the person can find a group, a society, a new image of humanity, a correct connection between everyone. It’s necessary for everyone to understand how to go inward, how to be included in this collective, how to live in it, how to feel included in a mutual connection. The moment that a person will take a cell phone into his hands or turn on a computer, this virtual atmosphere will then embrace him, will draw him inward and begin to work on him, will attract him more and more towards new stages of development.

And in the end, artificial channels and lines of communication will no longer be required, for we will stretch wires from heart to heart. This will be the coming level, yet we cannot rise to it without preliminary communications through these networks.
[103236]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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The Body Is Temporary, The Point In The Heart Is Eternal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I connect with this gigantic European family if I am not acquainted with anyone personally? On what level is this connection realized?

Answer: I also do not know anyone here, except for 10 – 15 people that I came across personally, and I don’t even want to know. What does it matter to me what their names are?! I never remember names and don’t know whether it is this person or another. This isn’t important at all! What is important is that he has that same desire as you, and therefore you are both attracted to it, and together you have already become some kind of whole. From this connection is the whole of our method.

What is the connection to the bodies of people here, where they are from, what language they speak, what their characters are, or if it is a man or a woman? It doesn’t matter. We need only the connection of our points in the heart and nothing more. In any case, ultimately, in another few decades these bodies will no longer exist in our world, and only the points in the heart will be left. And those we need to connect in order to feel eternal existence in them.

All matter gradually disappears; nothing is left from it. The main thing is our eternal point! When you begin to pay attention to only this point in the heart, you will begin to relate to a person completely differently. I often scold my students, you know how I am, but I very much love this point in them.
[103499]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we work with the next degree correctly? What is this next degree? How can we approach it, find it, see it, discover it? What is the difference between the degree itself and what is discovered in it?

Answer: Our world is the feeling of our egoistic division, of mutual repulsion. We comprehend everything in this state of mutual distancing: from one another, from the still, vegetative, and animate nature. And this state is called “our world.” In other words, since we draw everything towards us in an egoistic manner for the sake of personal pleasure, we separate the one spiritual Light into negligible portions and comprehend these as objects of the still, the vegetative, the animate, and the human nature of our world.

And on the contrary, if we begin to connect these objects together and relate to them as to a single whole, then we begin to feel the next degree, the upper world.

The group has been given to us so that we can find how to comprehend the space that surrounds us in another, correct form. Ultimately it follows that when we connect with each other, trying to unite emotionally, imagining the integration of our desires and thoughts, as one heart and as one mind, then we portray the spiritual world before us, and yearn for it. In the same manner, a child desires to be an adult.

Through this desire we summon upon ourselves the upper Light (Ohr Makif), which corrects the ego that separates us and in this manner forms the next degree, the connection between us, the AHP of the upper degree.

Thus we connect to the upper level, only through mutual cooperation between us. And then we begin to feel the field, the energy, the wave, that streams between us.

Problems between us will grow more and more, forces of repulsion will be discovered more and more, while we need the opposite: To rise above them and to connect ourselves all the time until the negative and rejecting forces of opposition, on the one hand, and the forces of our mutual connection, on the other hand, will attain the position of our first spiritual degree. And then it will be discovered in the middle line.

Thus, the spiritual world will be discovered through the connection between us provided that we rise above the repulsive forces, working patiently and steadily on the connection until we rise to the position of the first spiritual degree.

These accumulated degrees, when we tirelessly try to connect despite the incessant problems between us in a group, are simultaneously the internal development of the embryo through which we need to pass. And then we are born.

What do they say when a newborn arrives in the world? “Congratulations!”
[103439]
From the Meal before the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13

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Europe Is The Center Of The World And The Modern Babylon

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe wisdom of Kabbalah says that all of nature is a desire for pleasure, a desire to receive fulfillment. This desire developed over billions of years from the still, to the vegetative, to the animate, to the level of the speaking. In the course of development, a person passes through the same stages of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Throughout all these stages, humanity passed from one stage to another, from one area to another. Life was created somewhere in Africa and from there wandered somewhere in the east, and after that moved to Europe…

And today, we have reached a particularly unique stage. Now Europe is found at the center of the world, and according to its mixture and integration, it has become a kind of modern Babylon. It sets the tone for the world: culturally, scientifically, and technologically. Despite the fact that America seems separate from Europe, it is in fact the same civilization. Thus, we need to speak about Europe as the center of the world. In a general way, what happens in Europe influences the entire world.

There was a time when humanity spread from ancient Babylon over the face of the earth. It existed there as a community of an immense number of different tribes who were united by a common area by means of a relatively common culture and level of existence. Today, the same thing is happening in Europe.

This is a huge number of people, a nation, if it is possible to say this, which is composed of a large number of tribes, peoples, and nations who as a whole are united by a particular culture, uniform level, comprehension of the world and mentality. Even though they are different from each other, they have, generally, the same common pattern. And this pattern has gradually spread throughout the world.

Europe is the origin and the spirit of modern existence. But it is itself passing through very painful changes, for our whole world is changing, and not only in a technological sense, but also because the desires found at the base of our system have changed lately in a particular, qualitatively acute form.

Throughout millennia, humanity was developing in a simple way through increasing desire. People wanted more: to earn more, to get more, to expand more, to enjoy. They simply wanted to fulfill these desires. In general, they developed quantitatively and, practically, very little qualitatively.

But today a very complicated transition is taking place towards new desires. We have gradually drifted from the traditional direction of development that leads to wealth, fame, power, and knowledge. Humanity no longer searches for these things that formerly interested and fulfilled it. Today it is passing through a passive, “amorphous” existence, because it is found in a transitional stage.

In our spiritual changes, sometimes we are found in great ascent and after that find ourselves in descent, indifference and even despair. And so we cannot do anything, we don’t want anything. And after that again something “explodes” from within, and again we are drawn in some kind of direction, and again we are filled with energy. With us these states transform very rapidly, and in humanity, in its development, they change very slowly.

And today we are passing through that stage. We have been found in it for quite some time: It is expressed in nihilism, denial, apathy; it originated in the years after the Second World War, in the fifties and the sixties. From that time, these phenomena received new forms: an increase in the number of divorces, people not wanting to establish families or to give birth to children, wanting to be alone, and abandoning their parents. There is no sense of a community that once provided for the family, a group of people who were connected by a feeling of family. This also is lost.

As a result of this, a person is found in a state of confusion. And this is felt in particular in Europe as the most developed part of humanity.

But in a fundamental manner, this process is only a transition to a state in which we search for meaning. People have lost pleasure, lost desires, lost the urge for the former fulfillments. There is nothing to do here. There is simply no urge! It is difficult to compel people.

You yourselves at work, at home, at various events, probably meet people like this: a little disappointed, empty, and indifferent. Various communications media, advertisements, try to arouse them all the time for something: sports, soccer, shopping, and so forth. All this looks exciting, but in fact it is not. A person is attracted to this only because he needs to fill himself with something.

Moreover, this process in Europe has added to other processes. You see, in principle, the unified force of the Light influences all of us. To the same degree it influences the mental and moral level, all the levels. And as a result of this, we feel a collective descent.

However, the crisis has influenced not only the family, education, and culture. The most important thing for us at the moment is the economic, financial crisis. You see, the economy, finances, have always connected people. If people were not dependent upon each other economically with the need to earn money in order to exist, they would not have organized into cities, peoples, nations, and all kinds of associations; they would not have had the incentive to do so.

What, in principle, stimulates connection between us? We need to make a living, to exist, to enjoy, and to develop in a shared form. And when there is a crisis, the financial, economic gap between us already becomes a basic, fundamental separation, and it represents the most significant transition to the next stage.

And here, the role of Europe is very important: Europe is found at the focal point of events today and can show the whole world the right approach to a solution to problems, with which, sooner or later, everyone will need to contend.
[103443]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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You Won’t Receive Anything For Yourself…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we come to feel the necessity of carrying out our mission and being united?

Answer: We learn about connection and unity in a group from all the essays by Baal HaSulam and the Rabash, why this is needed and for what. This touches upon both a person regarding the group and a group regarding all the others.

Today the world demands this. The world crisis obliges us. For if it didn’t exist, we would not think about it.

Our group once numbered 30 – 40 people. We learned in a small apartment, and that was fine for us. This was only 15 years ago; and I thought that this was how it would always be.

But at the end of the ‘90s of the last century, the world suddenly began to change. Many new people began to come to us, and we were compelled to move to another building. After that people began to feel a need for us, they began to appear in various countries around the world, and I arranged a lecture tour in 11 major cities in America. This is to say the world had changed.

So from the start, we planned to learn only in a small group, as it had always been customary among the Kabbalists. But when there began to be a move towards us from the world, and it began to show its need for us, we were compelled to change. So today, you have found us. But if it had been up to us, we would not have shown ourselves to anyone, we would not have gone onto the internet, we would not have been occupied with dissemination, for the Kabbalists had always been closed. But the world began to demand; its state had changed.

It is also the same thing now; the crisis obliges us. It is as if this were a condition: If you don’t correct it, why are you receiving the upper Light? Is it for yourself? There is nothing like this “for yourself” in the wisdom of Kabbalah, in spirituality. You don’t receive anything in the spiritual world for yourself. And so a prerequisite appeared for us—to connect between us, and along with this, to disseminate.
[103401]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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The Peculiarity Of Our Time

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Lately, we are seeing growing confrontation between the two opposing forces in Europe and in the world. Is this not a prerequisite for us to find an opportunity to move forward correctly?

Answer: The science of Kabbalah, along with other sciences, says that everything in the world is made up of the two opposing forces: plus-minus, north-south, pressure-vacuum, hot-cold, etc. All this is based on the two fundamental opposing forces: reception and bestowal. Perfection, life, consists of these two forces forming the third force, the middle line, where, in principle, all that exists is there. We see this in living organisms, in plants and animals. Before our time, we were also developing like animals, meaning instinctively, under the rule of the middle line.

But now we are reaching the next level of management when these two opposing forces emerge in us and we have to balance them on our own. This is the peculiarity of our time, of our development. Therefore, we have to see the world in harmony and have to bring this harmony into it by correctly combining the two opposing forces in ourselves: the force of reception (Aviut) and the property of bestowal (screen). We have to act in this manner.
[103351]
From the Meal before the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13

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Beyond Time

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Who created the Creator?

Answer: We exist in a world that has a beginning, an end, time, limits, and expansion, that is to say, changes. And the spiritual world, even its lowest level, is wholeness. Wholeness cannot be changed; it cannot be that something whole has a beginning and an end. Therefore, the question about what happens in the spiritual world, to say nothing of the Creator, is illogical. For you see, nothing changes there.

Everything changes in our world only, and it is changed only from the first point to the last point, from the infinite state in which we are like an embryo, to that state in the infinite world in which we are completely corrected. In the entire spiritual transformation only the smallest fragment on this way—our world—undergoes changes. And there are no changes in all the rest; there reigns eternity and wholeness, time is absent.

Physicists and psychologists have already spoken about this. Therefore, there is no reason to discuss who created the Creator, was there something before Him or not.

I hope that in the near future we will make the necessary effort and you will feel what “beyond time” is that we learn about in The Book of Zohar in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”. This was described more than two thousand years ago. Already then, the Kabbalists wrote openly that time doesn’t exist, that the spiritual world is found beyond time, and that the current comprehension of our reality is false. Essentially, the world is found within a “matrix,” in a completely different dimension, where there is no time, space and movement.

That which seems to me as outside of me is essentially found within me. We will grow and will see all this.
[103340]
From the Meal before the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13

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In Order To Become A Grownup

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You spoke about our responsibility to the world.

Answer: In order to rise to the next level, we have to connect to pass on this model to the world. We cannot exist only for ourselves. It would mean that we are detached from the other levels. If we act only for ourselves, then we will stay in a state of smallness. There will be nothing more in it except what we understand and feel now.


In order to move on to the next state, we have to become grownups. We can become grownups in spirituality only in order to give birth to another and to fulfill the other. So if we unite in order to fulfill others, in order to pass on something from us to others, then we will receive the upper Light.

It isn’t just our obligation to the world. We need it, so that we will receive the revelation of the Creator, the revelation of the upper force, the system of the upper Providence, the entrance to the next level, to the next dimension. We will not receive and will not reveal anything if we don’t do it for others. We are a transfer system, each of us, the whole group, all of us together.
[103404]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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To Ask Means To Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do you mean by the word “to ask” when you say that “we need to ask to rise to the next level?” Is it a request that pragmatic requests stem from?

Answer: To ask means to desire.

Of course, we are all pragmatic, and we all want everything only for ourselves. I want to connect with everyone only for myself. I want to connect with Europe, and then with the whole world, only for myself. I want to enter the upper world. Even if the inclination that everyone should feel good awakens in us, it is also egoistic.

When the Light comes, it will correct us and show us in the united desire that we have to be different. It will make us like that, something which we cannot do by ourselves. Unless the Light corrects me, I remain the way I am, and I don’t need to conceal this from myself.
[103397]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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Who Is Destroying The Global Economy?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 10 -12 years ago, when we started dealing with the wisdom of Kabbalah, there were very few groups, and there were very few problems in the world. Now there are many groups and many more problems. Are they interconnected? Or is it because we are uniting that we destroy the global economy?

Answer: No, we are not destroying the global economy. The point is that the economy is being destroyed specifically because the world doesn’t know how to act, and we see it now.

We see how people who have studied so much, who know so much about our world, about the economy, about finances, who control everything, have simply raised their hands and do nothing. They cannot do anything because the system has changed! The world is moving on to another network of connections and the previous network in which they knew which strings to pull and what to do doesn’t work anymore.

They don’t know what to do next so everything remains the way it is. No one is fighting the crisis! Everything goes on the way it has been. If we need to print money, we print it. We have a debt of 15 billion euro, let it be 30 or 100 billion. So what? There is nowhere to run to. Now the rate of unemployment is 10%, it will be 50%. How will we feed the unemployed? Never mind, we will feed them because it is easy to feed the whole world today. This is how everything is solved.

Why? Because no one has any solution to the problems. The family is falling apart, let it be destroyed, what can we do? The number of senior citizens is growing more rapidly than the number of people who work, so what, never mind. This means that everything is neglected, and no one is fighting anything. The fact that different leaders appear before us is simply a game, a theater. In any case, everyone knows that we don’t know what to do, and so we sit idly, not even intending to do anything! This is the best possible solution.

So we are not destroying the economy. On the contrary, we have to show the world that we have to connect, but not economically. Economically we are also connected in a terrible way. See what is happening is Cyprus now! This is only a small example of how mutually connected we are.

We have to show the world how to start our mutual cooperation correctly. It is not on the economic level, but only on the level of the integral education and nothing more than that! So let’s get started.
[103394]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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