Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

In The Spiritual World There Is No Fatigue!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that there is no such thing as “lethargy.” How can we focus ourselves on the goal in order to become an eternal engine?

Answer: It only depends on the importance of the goal. In fact, there is no tiredness. Suppose you have a small child and you are busy with him 24 hours a day with feeding, diapers, and all the rest. This, of course, is very hard work, but it is the physical fatigue in our world.

In the spiritual world, if a person advances, he is nourished by the Light and doesn’t get tired. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t sleep or eat, and so on. He needs to do all that, but the detachment, the mental fatigue, doesn’t exist. Of course, he sleeps physiologically, but only because it is essential for his body.

That is, if we are charged by the upper Light, constantly looking for a way to be fully focused straight on it, then we always fulfill our normal physiological needs: the basic amount of calories, sleep, and so forth. It will always be on a normal level, and this will be no problem. But it must be observed! Kabbalists say that a person needs 60 breaths while he sleeps.

We are in a field of forces. You may think that it is mysticism, but actually it is a science, physics, and vectors. How do I focus myself on that field, in the inverse square of the distance between us, that is, direction, the direction of the angle so that I catch the energy from it? Everything follows the same laws operating in our world with some form of energy like radiation, for example.

However, once again, we encounter the problem of mutual guarantee: Will you support your friends? Because a person in an instant may lose the direction, and then nothing works. In an instant, he may find himself in some incomprehensible space! And then any external, silly, narrow-minded, external interruptions begin to influence him.

So, the most important thing is to create the need in the group to constantly support each of its members. Afterward, there is nothing to worry about. You will always succeed.
[85963]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

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The End Of The Familiar World

Dr. Michael LaitmanA very important period is starting now; I would say a crucial one. The world is in great turmoil; it is becoming increasingly clearer that we are helpless before the blows of nature: human or environmental. People have no way of understanding their real reason or how to cope with them. The upper force generates all of these events, but we cannot tell people that.

So the convention in Kharkov should show us the level of unity we need to reach in order to overcome the crisis.  The world, in any case, should understand how to move forward.

After all, we are on the verge of difficult, critical states, and they will be disclosed at an accelerating pace. Each day we will face a new world, opposite from the one we knew the day before, and that requires a new understanding, and a new approach.

The familiar feeling will disappear, and I will feel that we are living in an unknown world that reveals a new, unexpected face to me each time. I try to hold on, to bring things back to the way they used to be, but those are futile attempts. It evades me and comes to me in an unfamiliar angle, in different relationships, in strange news that I cannot understand or digest. People’s behavior changes and so does their reaction to what is happening. I begin to sense a feeling of uncertainty.

What can we say about the experts in economics, politics, education, etc.? They will encounter even greater helplessness and confusion in their fields.

So we are the only system versed in all of humanity, which is in the forefront and can lead everyone in the right direction. Actually, this direction is not less logical than different speculations that stem from the crisis, confusion, and the total lack of understanding of the problem. We already understand the spiritual logic here; we’ve already felt the changes ourselves.

How can we present the message to the world? How can we make it common knowledge? It is a problem. But the moment our message is spread among the masses, their desire will become much softer and more flexible, and we will feel a greater responsibility that will be conveyed by those around us. Then we will raise “the prayer of many” together with them.

So, we need to disseminate, but in order to fulfill our dissemination we have to unite and to be strongly connected. In order to take care of people, we have to be strong in quality, not in quantity like they are. We have to acquire the same qualitative intensity as their quantitative intensity. This is the whole problem.

Question: How can we explain to people the essence of today’s changing chaotic states?

Answer: Everyone already feels it but cannot digest it. After all, people are living their daily lives; they are “putting out fires,” spinning in a wheel hoping for the better. This is their life, and the future depends on us to the extent that we disseminate the method of correction.

My concern is not whether they will receive it, but whether I will be ready. What’s more, we have to act very quickly.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Burning With Spiritual Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You recounted many obstacles that a person meets when he begins to work in the group. One of them is that they can appear as opportunities to a person; they can appear very tempting and attractive, able to improve his life and not interfere with his engagement in spiritual work.

Answer: They all interfere with spiritual work. Otherwise, they are not obstacles. It only seems to you that if something breaks, if something happens, then you have to fix it, and then you can return to spiritual work, but actually it is an obstacle that is specifically against your spiritual work. Each kind!

Question: If a person wants to deal with some of his regular corporeal desires so that they don’t distract him, then would that also be an obstacle?

Answer: As it is written, “If there is no flour, there is no Torah.” We must create all the needed conditions for existence, necessary and sufficient, like in mathematics. This means to conduct a regular life. Today, also, that might not be so simple. Everything depends on what I consider sufficient. for myself

Once I asked Rabash about this, and he gave me a very interesting answer, “The essential level of self-sufficiency is such a degree that you would be happy if there was no need to deal with it.” This means that you would be happy if you didn’t need to eat, drink, sleep, purchase a Chevrolet, or go on vacation to the Caribbean Islands. The essential level is what you really are forced to deal with—forced—and you are not at all happy about it since you must maintain the life of this body in order to rise to the next level. What do you need for that?

If a person’s mind is in the right place, he simply doesn’t pay attention to what is essential to him. Take any musician or writer who “lives” in their work. For any creative person, creativity is everything. He doesn’t need anything else!

It doesn’t matter to him how he looks and what he eats. He “burns” with his work. Thus, when you burn with your work, then there wouldn’t be such a question.
[85955]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

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In The Mirror Of My Own Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The friends in the group told me what I need my ego for. What do I need the ego that I feel on the outside on the street for?

Answer: This is all part of your soul! Malchut, the soul, or humanity call it what you will, all are actually you. So, who are all the rest? They are all parts of you, only about you.

This means that it is a multi-layer structure of seven billion where all the individual souls connect, and instead of one plane, the outcome is a sphere. So, you absolutely need everything. Therefore, a cynical, disrespectful attitude toward anyone in this world seriously hinders your spiritual advancement.

In fact, you must reach a state where you perceive all the people in the world, the totally negative ones and the totally positive ones, as close to you, as inseparable parts of yourself. They are actually nobody. With regard to you, they are puppets, and they operate only in order to provide the right background for you to get closer to the Creator.

Question: I can’t stand my ego. I have no choice; it is an inherent part of me, but I can escape anothers’ ego or drive them away.

Answer: Where do you see someone else’s ego? If you feel it within your ego, what do you actually feel? It is your own ego. It seems that the world is divided into a multitude of people, but, even now, you are speaking with yourself.
[85949]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

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The Most Important Thing Is An Internal Aspiration

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that we have to play actively in front of each other that we are at the next degree, so that others envy and follow us. How can this be expressed? Should we simply be good, kind, helpful, smiling and this will excite and draw the friends? Or should we be firm in relation to the goal? How should I show this in order to cause maximum envy?

Answer: We are in the world of Infinity, the full connection with each other. The only problem is that we do not perceive it. We are like blind kittens. We need to begin to feel where we are in reality through our properties.

That is why the 125 spiritual degrees are called the rungs of revelation, the revelation of what you exist in. But you are underdeveloped and don’t feel that. Here now, as if in the same space (although not actually in the same space, but in other dimensions), there are plenty of various phenomena, objects, relationships, and actions. We feel none of this; it is outside of our senses.

Some people, including psychics, sense this a little. In fact, it is so. Bedouins living in Israel feel what’s going on 100 miles from them according to various manifestations of nature. But all this is at the level of our world. Psychics like Wolf Messing feel a little higher of course, outside of time, because the next degree raises man above time, etc.

That is, we play the next higher level, thus wanting to attract the forces of nature to ourselves so that they pull us towards it. We do the same thing in our lives; people play: I want to be like someone, for example, like scientists or musicians, I play this, do exercises, and thus come closer to them.

Why do the exercises pull me towards this? Because I’m attracting the same upper Light, only at our egoistic level. This is a physical law: If I aspire to something, these forces of aspiration realize everything. Therefore, we must become inspired to play.

But most importantly, we have to desire this inside ourselves because initially we are connected with each other, and if I want something, our desires concentrated together and directed at the same state will lead us to it.

That is why there are people who are dancing in front of you with a harmonica and inspiring others, and there are those who are standing modestly on the side and cannot even join the circle or sing along with everyone else; there are different people, it doesn’t matter. Externally, we must also show this for our friends in order to be inspired together. But the most important thing is an internal aspiration.
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From Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

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What Is Beyond The Boundaries Between The Worlds?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we imagine our first shared spiritual degree correctly?

Answer: This is when you are fully united with each other and the full property of bestowal is manifested between you. That’s all! You have united with everyone and feel that you are at the next degree, the upper world.

You see the entire history of humanity, its foundation, the root cause, and its future higher state in which we ascended together. We exist there on all 125 degrees, and you simply reveal them. When you enter the spiritual world, you reveal 1/125th of the perfect state.

The upper force is revealed inside of it, and you begin to feel to a certain degree, its properties, the laws of exchange between souls, laws of behavior, where it all leads, and all the mechanics. This is a huge attainment of upper wisdom. It is called the science of Kabbalah. This is what fills us, the so-called “Light of wisdom” (Ohr Hochma), which gives us the maximum fulfillment.

It is natural that you feel yourself already existing in the body since the body exists next to you in order for you to correct yourself through it. But your entire existence is already associated with that level of information, the fulfillment that you have just revealed. You are in it. This is your “I.”
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From Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

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Only Love Remains

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is fulfilling the principles that Rabash conveys in his articles essential in order to attain spirituality, or is it sufficient to keep the group’s statute? For example, can I criticize a friend if I think it is for his own good, that I would be doing it out of love for him?

Answer: You have no right to teach anyone since you will always find a justification for your actions. You have to see the friend as great in “faith above reason.” This means to accept the fact that he is great and that only your egoistic eyes cannot see it. But! There are two buts here.

The first but is whether he is a real friend: Does he participate in the connection and unity in the group? This is the important condition and actually the only one. Does he yearn to participate in the connection and unity in the group? If he does, he is a friend, if he doesn’t he isn’t one.

Second, the criticism should be only regarding his participation in the group or in the work that he does. Suppose he works here as an electrician or in dissemination and he does something wrong, here we criticize him, which means that we try to correct his slips. But this doesn’t affect my love for him as a friend in any way. In such a case, I treat him as a performer of some physical work and that’s all. The two aspects have nothing to do with one another.

If he is a real friend, that is, he works for connection and unity, then I must simply accept him as absolute, as the Creator. “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.” It is the same thing! Rabash writes beautifully about it saying that eventually the group is corrected only by love among all its members, which becomes the Creator.

So we don’t criticize a friend, but express our love to him openly. It is an essential condition. Thus we work correctly against our ego.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/16/12, Preliminary Lesson

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Close Your Eyes And Stay Connected!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After experiencing the tremendous closeness and unity with friends at the convention, how can we avoid sinking in the regular routine and remain in the same exalted intention towards the path and the friends?

Answer: You have to close your eyes and stay connected!

1. First of all, you must take part together in all the lessons, seminars and as many events as possible. You can’t manage without that.

2. Second, don’t trust your mind! I saw some very smart students, who have a good analytical approach, yet who are unable to analyze and research themselves, and that’s a problem. Even if they can place themselves under critical analysis, they still can’t analyze that criticism. Thus, they advance in the direction of reason rather than devotion and self-sacrifice. And without that a person immerses into impure, egoistic forces (Klipa) rather than bestowal and spiritual forces.

This is exactly what one should fear, of taking the path of reason instead of selfless devotion of the soul. We have already seen many friends who have fallen on this path, and many will fall. The goal will be reached only by those who are devoted to it with all of their soul and are willing to go forward with their eyes closed.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/12, Writings of Rabash

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The Invisible Man Who Passed The Machsom

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If one person in the group reaches the Machsom, how can we make better use of him in the group?

Answer: It cannot be. One person in the group cannot reach the Machsom! A few people can, but not just one.

Question: What if this happens? What would be a better way to make use of this person in the group?

Answer: You should continue in the same way as before, to be included in each other. In this case, he will help you more intensely. But he will not tell you about what he has revealed! To the extent that he feels this, he will keep silent.

The person who really begins to feel the spiritual world does not talk much about this topic. The Tzimtzum, restriction, screen will work in him, and he does not need to advertise. For him, it is so dear and so internal that he just does not let it out. If he begins to teach, he will explain it clearly in certain portions. He will never show any miracles as they don’t exist, and he will know how to explain the method in portions. There are such people among us who are more or less in the feeling of this state. Of course, it must be still strengthened. But they will say nothing to you.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

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Head To Head With The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to precede the acts of the Creator each time and to become more rigid in relation to the ego so as not to surrender to its treacherous schemes, and on the other hand, to be sensitive to the hints of the Creator?

Answer: Don’t think about the ego under any circumstances, not of how to surrender to it or the opposite. All of these games with the ego won’t help. It is more cunning than you and everyone else.

Egoism is a very strong nature that is completely opposed to the Creator and is equal to Him in its intensity. The entire egoistic system was created by the Light entering into the desire, which made its nature and all its attributes in all of its forms. Thus, the struggle against the ego won’t help at all! It is only rising above it and having the desire become similar to the Light that will help! But to face the ego head on is hopeless.

You don’t need to pay attention to it! Only yearn to move ahead! Don’t wait until it pushes us from behind.

Question: What should you do if you constantly think about this, and at the last moment forget about the ego and also about the Creator?

Answer: That is because there is no connection with the group and the environment doesn’t help you go forward.

Here there is a very simple system of forces. From the beginning you are given a point to lean on, you are given direction, pushes. It is said that the Creator puts your hand on good fate and tells you: “Choose this.” And then you choose.

Baal HaSulam writes, for this person it is constantly said to choose an environment for yourself that is stronger and stronger, one that will strengthen you, and in which you will not fall and not forget the goal.

The choice of a strong environment depends only on your investing in it. You don’t need to change people, you need to invest in them more, and then you will feel a greater influence from them. This is the point of choice of the new environment. It is not a matter of faces of people, but to what extent you can take from them that same upper energy that is in them, but they themselves don’t even know about it.

If it doesn’t succeed, then it’s a sign that you need to yearn to attain this. There is nothing to do. The work is only in that.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/16/12, Preliminary Lesson

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