Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

A New Game

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that we have to imagine ourselves in a corrected state. How can I be sure that I imagine it correctly?

Answer: It’s impossible to imagine a correct state. The Light will gradually create this picture for us. This can only be done by the Light!

Our attempts resemble those of a child who does something with persistence, and even though he’s unable to accomplish a task, he still continues trying. You’ve seen the persistence of a  child who is playing or trying to do something. As a result, he acquires sensations, thoughts, and experience and thereby becomes an experienced adult. This is the only way it can happen.

We don’t reveal anything new here. We utilize the same Light as we did when we were children when we were trying to become adults. We are utilizing the same principles that are instilled in nature. This is the same exact law and there isn’t anything else.

You make attempts, you play with building blocks, but they fall down. You try to assemble a construction set, but you can’t. You do something, jump, and run around like a little monkey. However, these efforts evoke the upper Light, the concealed force of nature, which is responsible for your development.

This force developed us on the animate level and we became adults. Right now we’re consciously playing the next degree so that the same force will develop us and elevate us to that degree. Whatever it is you play, that’s what you will become. This is the way it works.

Today we’re playing a game of “Becoming Similar to the Creator.” If we continue playing this game, we’ll succeed! People develop through playing. You have to imagine yourself there. Imagine yourself as an adult; this is most important. You may ask: “What does it mean to rise to the next degree? After all, this is what we want to accomplish.” Go ahead and realize your desire! Fantasize about what it means and play this game, but base it on the knowledge you’ve obtained.

You read lots of articles and listen to the lessons: What is the meaning of the upper degree, the quality of bestowal, above egoism, a screen, Reshimot, Partzufim, the Light of Hassadim, the Light of Hochma, and so on? How do transitions become actualized? Try to constantly imagine that you are there and you’ll achieve it! All of nature operates according to this principle. There’s nothing new to add if you compare it to the development of a child.
[75898]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

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Men’s Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The need for the women’s desire, without which men won’t come to the goal, was not felt at the seminars. Why is that?

Answer: In order for a man to feel a need for something, he has to realize that without that need or desire he won’t reach the goal. It means that they haven’t reached that state yet.

Assume I try doing something and see that it doesn’t work out. What do I miss? Aha, I need another tool. I start working with it and see that I lack some other device. Meaning, only to the extent I see myself not reaching the goal do I look for the ways to reach it.

Then I see the lack of a clear strong support. It must exist for sure! This is what is written in Kabbalistic sources and we see that in a real life as well.

Men have their own somewhat baseless pride. They forget their dependency on women due to their nature. That’s a man’s nature.

But by moving forward, they begin realizing how weak they are. And then feel a strong need for female support.

That is not a weakness, it’s just our nature; when we depend on each other with just the right combination, together we achieve the common goal.

By the way, I’m sure many men have this feeling—I see that in them. They really feel it.
[75941]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 1

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America: From South To North

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I will be connected to the North American convention virtually, together with other friends. How can we create a powerful unity on the path to the convention? How can we raise its importance so we all disconnect from corporeality and feel the single world Kli?

Answer: First of all, I would advise you to attend the New York convention after all. This is necessary without a doubt.

Secondly, I suggest you read all of Rabash’s and Baal HaSulam’s articles about the group. Unification, the change in a person’s attitude toward the group are what’s important.

Thirdly, dissemination also plays a big role in the preparation.

Thus, we are trying to help the Convention, to prepare and bring several more people to it who are in doubt as to whether or not they should attend. We should bring together as many people as possible to take part in it.

Besides, North America will be preparing with the help of South America, thanks to our meetings in Columbia, Chile, and Brazil. This will be real, practical preparation, including not only lessons and lectures, but also participation in seminars.
[75973]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/12, Writings of Rabash

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Striving Toward The Force Of Ascent

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe cannot be simultaneously in egoistic and altruistic intentions, desires, and goals. These are two opposite properties, which cancel each other out. So if I extol bestowal and Light, if I exalt the ability to step outside and ascend above myself, and with that, if I feel how my friends are supporting me, if I sense how much this protects, inspires, and fills me, if I feel enjoyment, love, and fulfillment, then no place remains where I can think about myself, I simply dissolve in their love and concern.

Therefore, when people are playing and enacting this state, through that they evoke the surrounding Light on themselves. It gradually develops them up and leads them to that state. And then a person’s self-concern involuntarily dies off. He or she exists on the earthly level only to the extent required to simply support his or her existence, and no more than that. And this condition is the most comfortable one for our body, for our egoism.

Then all the person’s efforts involuntarily take form and add up to just one intention—to bestow. And within it, in this intention to bestow, within the light of Hassadim, he now begins to sense the revelation of the Creator, fulfillment, and warmth. He discovers completely different properties and other possibilities. They suddenly appear out of nothing. Before, he simply didn’t feel them, and now he reveals them.

We need to try to combine our efforts, like children who are playing the same game together, not one against the other, but together, and to not forget about the fact that it’s specifically our collective impressions, our penetration into and connection with one another that supplies us with the force of ascent.
[75712]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 1

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Which Desires To Fulfill?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: From what I understand, when we speak of fulfilling desires at the “human” degree, we’re talking about fulfilling the desire for connection with the Creator. Should I also be fulfilling a person’s corporeal desires, like his desire to watch football?

Answer: The fact is that all unfulfilled desires of our world, meaning suffering, are aimed only at revealing the Creator to a human being. And only if we continue toward this goal will these desires be fulfilled.

We see that the world is full of pleasures, opportunities—anything you can think of—and still people suffer. We see that despite the fact that there’s an abundance of resources in the world, half of humanity is hungry. We see that despite the great advances made by medicine, people are sicker today than they were in the past. We see that although people are given all the means to lead a normal life, they still get divorced and don’t want to raise children, suicide rates are rising, and so on and so forth.

Why is this happening?! What is the problem?!

So you let a person watch some football. Then what? It is better to teach him something that will actually allow him to come closer to the source of fulfillment because any fulfillments that I can give him, besides whatever is necessary for our physical body, will only divert him from the goal, causing him to suffer in the end.

There is nothing else. There is only one goal. And all of humanity must aspire to it.

If we fulfill our physical body on the animate level with all it needs for survival, all our remaining motives, all our remaining desires must be aimed only at achieving the goal. Otherwise, if I use them in some other direction and not toward the goal, I receive feedback that will trigger suffering in me, to make me correct my direction.

Therefore, if I give a person anything other than his bare necessities, something additional, like letting him watch football, my actions indirectly cause him to suffer. I’ll buy him a ticket to see a game, and he will definitely receive some blow from fate because he’s not moving in the right direction. This will happen all the time. That is why humanity’s suffering only increases as we develop further.

And we have no other means of doing good to a person other than to give him a normal, sensible standard of living: food, shelter, family, health, and everything else, but only in order to achieve the goal. Herein lies the program of creation.

And If I lead him away from this path, I am to blame for him failing to achieve this program of creation. And both of us will suffer for it. I cannot act in any other way.

That is why all my work in this world amounts to helping people to feed and take care of themselves only so that they understand how they can truly achieve happiness. All other paths only lead to misery because the Light’s influence will be opposite in order to guide the person to itself thereby.
[75893]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

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Which Game To Play?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the workshop, the work was very intensive, but now I feel that I have lost the sensation that I acquired over the course of the workshop. So do I have to play this game my entire life?

Answer: You don’t have another choice. You play this game one way or the other!

You either play a game that the surrounding society presents to you, the society that doesn’t know itself what game it is playing. Or you play a real game offered to you by people who attained the upper layer of the universe. For you it is a game that tells you what you can attain. And so you choose. There is nothing else: You have two games to choose from.

One game is this life, and everybody plays it. They curse this game, not knowing by whose will they ended up here and when they will finish it, because they constantly lose in between.

Another game offers you an opportunity to attain a completely different level of nature, of the upper, spiritual matter, and do it in the course of your lifetime, even during its relatively short part. You only need to yearn for this revelation, to change your properties into bestowal and love: not to use others for your selfish interests, but to try to have a good, benevolent connection with them. That’s all. There is nothing else!

The theory is very simple. And practice depends on you. Choose which game to play. You either learn from people who want for you to do good and to create a world similar to the force of bestowal and love. Or you will learn from the examples of the surrounding world: mass media, TV, newspapers, and soap operas.

That’s the choice you have. The surrounding society shapes you anyway: either the group or the “street.” Only that! Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
[75890] 
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1 

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The Principle Of Connecting: Concern And Inspiration

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the convention in the Arava desert you said that our work is very serious, but at the same time joyful. How do these two things go together?

Answer: The main thing in spiritual work is the greatness of the goal. Rabash wrote that inspiration, the greatness of the goal, the yearning for it, it all stems from the fact that we feel that we are on a special mission, have a special responsibility, a big goal before us, and have to naturally perceive all this with gratitude and with joy. If it weren’t for the joy, we would have no power to do anything.

Therefore, we must constantly feel inspiration, which will be cultivated naturally within us if we begin to appreciate the cause we gathered for. Together with inspiration, with the feeling of joy and the greatness, we need to feel some concern that we might not be able to do it. Without this opposite part we will take our current actions lightly, while it is actually a very serious matter.

All our other studies: the structure of the worlds, the souls, the Lights that enter the vessels, and other processes that take place there, they are all theoretical. The realization of this theory takes place in the group, and this is the practical part. Here we can see and feel to what extent this method is working internally, if we really take it seriously: on one hand, in great inspiration (it is like Keter), and on the other, in fear and some concern regarding the success of the mission (it relates to Malchut).

The greater the gap between these attributes in us, the gap between the concern and the great inspiration, the stronger and bigger our vessel, in which we perceive the revelation of the upper Light. The capacity of the vessel depends on the gap between the two attributes.
[75317]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2

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How To Overcome Fear

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When I leave the group, good feelings remain in my memory. However, when I return to it, a certain fear appears within me that forces me to clarify what I am afraid of.

Answer: You are not sufficiently connected to the group. You don’t have anything to fear if you are small among them. If you are still afraid, you need to make yourself even smaller, up to the point of a fetus within a mother’s womb. Then, you will have nothing to fear.

The entire problem is that you trying to guard yourself, and fears appear along with all kinds of doubts, worries, and so on. To the extent of these fears, doubts, and worries, you need to understand that they are given to you so that you become more deeply integrated in the group. Then these fears, doubts, and worries will disappear. By annulling yourself before the group, you will find yourself within it under its protection. The group becomes a womb for you, as something big within which you exist.
[75502]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2 

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The Waves Of The Convention Are Washing Away All The Dirt

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we increase the importance of the goal before the coming conventions in South and North America? There are many serious interferences now; how can we rise above them?

Answer: It is good that there are many interruptions. A person needs two discernments. On the one hand, he feels the interruptions: how he disrespects everyone and how much he hates to be with them as his pride raises him above everyone else and he draws away from them.

This can happen both to an individual and to a whole group and by that actually destroys it. The question is whether a group can recover. The convention gives such a chance to groups that are in a difficult situation and that hardly have any positive forces that can connect them.

There are groups that connect only on a negative basis: against the teacher and against what he says, or against another part of the group. This is the only thing that keeps them together. The convention is an opportunity to enter a bigger and stronger environment that is above the individual group. In it the problematic group can be corrected, if they are ready to annul themselves: each member individually and the group as a whole.

They will come to the convention like to a Mikveh (ritual purifying pool), but in order to do that they have to “make a sacrifice,” to bring their ego as their sacrifice. If they are ready for that, the convention will heal that group.

If not, we will see how as a result of the convention, they will draw away even further and they may even go their own way. I believe that the convention should be strong enough, so that everyone will have clear discernments: that he either annuls himself and advances towards the goal with the help of the environment, which we build together as a factor in its development and as the representative of the Creator, or he leaves the way by clarifying that it is not for him.

Let’s hope that this is what will happen. Enough of the childish games and the struggles over control and honor that are tearing up the groups. It is time for serious advancement and time to stop acting like kids who are fighting in the sand box. It is time for important actions and the responsibility that humanity demands from us.

If you are ready for that, that’s great, let’s work. If not, it is better if you just disappear. It is one or the other. So the convention should help everyone clarify where he is and to what he is prepared to dedicate the rest of his life.

When the whole global group connects during the convention, it is a very strong environment, which is most efficient for advancement. Therefore, it is a good idea to be included in it these days and to take part fully in what is going on: both physically and internally with all of one’s soul. By that a person puts himself under the strongest possible influence for advancement in our world.
[75726]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/12, Writings of Rabash

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The Meaning Of The Morning Lesson

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Since the convention, I have developed a feeling that now we must concentrate on the morning lesson, on unity? Or should we do more dissemination? Something became unclear, it seems that everything we did until now is not enough; we need to add something else.

Answer: Everything we now add must be done at the morning lesson! It is impossible to continue advancing without the morning lesson! There is no movement without it! The morning lesson is everything—alpha and omega—there is nothing else to say.

But besides the morning lesson, everything else that we do must be done in the spirit of integration, which we constantly awaken at the morning lesson.

The main thing is to start the day with the lesson. Even if for some reason you were unable to do it, you still need to start your day with the lesson regardless of the time when you wake up: Dedicate at least half an hour to the lesson, otherwise, the entire day is a descent, a loss, and you will spend a very long time paying for it.
[75674]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/26/12

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