Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Seven Billion Included Universes

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach one of us is created with his special qualities. And as a part of the entire enormous common desire, he represents a certain unique form of development, which contradicts all the other forms.

Every soul that exists differs from the others in every way. We do not even understand how different or opposite we are to one another. There is an infinite abyss separating one from another.

There are no souls that are closer or further from one another—we are all absolutely different in the spiritual space. We are so different that we share absolutely nothing in common.

We think that we are able to find certain similarities between some of us—but we are similar in our material, corporeal, animal qualities, not the spiritual ones. Not one soul’s spiritual qualities are similar to the qualities of another soul.

You think that some of your friends are closer to you, and another one repulses you, and you are unable to understand him, or you cannot even tolerate him because of his mentality, personality, appearance, or behavior. But all this pertains to our animal body. In the spiritual world, not one person is similar to another person even in one of their qualities, and no one can be closer or further from me!

It is a miracle, how completely opposite we are from one another. We cannot even imagine this, because in our world this does not exist—we still find certain similarities within certain groups of people: a common mentality, an accepted behavior, certain things that come from our parents’ homes, and common tastes.

But there is no similarity in the spiritual world. We are able to find polar differences between us in all our qualities to the extent of our ability to list everyone’s spiritual qualities.

The thing is that spiritual space is multidimensional. There are three coordinates in our world—but in the spiritual world there is an infinite amount of them. And in this multidimensional space, everyone has his multidimensional system.

This is why in the spiritual world, every one of us exists with his multidimensional coordinate system. Astrophysicists are now discovering the same phenomena in the cosmos: one universe is included inside another, and both of them are included inside a third one, and so on. In other words, they are somehow coming closer to a form, where it is possible to imagine the spiritual.

Sages have written about this: “Their opinions differ as much as their faces.” In other words, we do not even share opinions, but since we do not know ourselves very deeply, we think that we can be somewhat similar and close to one another.

Do not think that you resemble anyone at all in any way! None of you correspond to anyone else. You are all so far from each other, that you do not even share a single quality. There is nothing that can be done about this—this is a given.

The only thing that can be done in this case is to rise above all the differences. We will never connect without this! In this plane it is absolutely impossible to connect the multidimensional coordinate system of one with the multidimensional system of another.

We will never be able to connect on the level of our qualities. Every one is a separate universe, with its structure full of wealth inside him. This is how every one of us is infinitely wealthy and versatile on the inside, and absolutely differs from the other in every way. They have nothing in common.

This is why we must understand that we have no other choice but to rise above us!
[61601]
From The Arvut Convention Lesson 2, 11/18/11

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A Narrow Bridge Into The Creator’s Domain

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Letter #42: “Their opinions differ as much as their faces”—so how can they become “like one man with one heart?” The matter is that when everyone cares for himself, it is impossible to be “like one man,” because they are not alike. However, if everyone cancels his own domain (all the egoistic interests of man), and everyone only cares about the Creator’s benefit (everyone’s point in the heart), then they no longer have private opinions, everyone’s separate opinion becomes eliminated, and everyone enters into the domain of the One.

In other words, we can only connect under the condition that everyone cancels himself. But am I really capable of giving something up and doing something with myself in general? We see that we remain as we were.

But we need to begin to connect our points in the heart. This point does not pertain to everyone’s personal universe and all his special qualities, which are different from the qualities of others. The connection between us is only possible through these points in the heart, because they do not belong to us—they are a “Divine particle from the Above” in every one of us! And if we were to connect these points, we would be able to unite through them.

Hence the condition: ascend in faith above reason—it’s the only way to connect. When we connect the points in the heart, we reveal their source—the Creator!

If everyone cancels himself, “his domain,” then our spiritual points reveal the reality where they exist to us—and they exist in the Creator. And we enter Him through them. The moment I cancel myself, my point immediately connects with the points of my friends, and together they take me and bring me inside the Creator.

And then we reveal that instead of existing inside the vessel, inside the desire—we exist inside the Light that fills this vessel! My entire perception flips upside down: I was inside my desire and I thought that this was what I am—everyone on his own, in his domain.

But the moment we cancel ourselves, our points reveal fulfillment to us in the same place, the same state, where we just were. Only, instead of perceiving the vessel—we perceive the Light, which exists inside the vessel.

The change is only in our perception and nothing else. We have gone from perceiving the desire to perceiving the Light. We have canceled our egoism, and started feeling the source of the point in the heart, the Creator, through the points.

These points were merely a little way to hold on to Him while we existed in our domains. And now we have used them to transition into His domain.
[61597]
From The Arvut Convention Lesson 2, 11/18/11

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Pouring The Light Onto The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I read the book The Kabbalist, which among other things talks about how Baal HaSulam tried to reach the world. He told people everything but they didn’t listen. Why should the world listen to us today?

Answer: Baal HaSulam lived at the beginning of the present era and really wanted to hasten time. Before WWII he tried to arrange for 300 Jewish families from Poland to come to Israel. He wanted to establish a special group in Jerusalem, whose members would work in a small factory in order to make a living and be together all the time, connect all the time. He wanted to unite the people with his newspaper “The Nation.” He went back to Poland when the workers’ uprising began, hoping to direct them all to unity….

Baal HaSulam saw that the next level, the next state, is global unity. There are no intermediate levels. We have to rise from here straight to connection. But in his time there weren’t the right conditions for that. People ridiculed the Soviet Union in which a new society was formed by oppression. As a whole, the world has advanced the American way, towards attaining the “American Dream,” and it was impossible to talk about correction according to the method of Kabbalah.

However, today things have changed. I would like to emphasize that we are not talking about our accomplishments. On the contrary, we are small compared to all the groups that preceded us. However, considering the state of the world, we have to succeed. After all, today the world is helplessly facing all the emerging problems. The world has never been in this situation which seems like a dead end. It’s now clear that we are sinking into a total economic crisis and that we can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing to hope for and there’s no way out.

This is why the method for correction is being revealed now. It turns to the world not by calling it to bestow upon the Creator, but by a message of mutual guarantee that’s being revealed very clearly on the part of nature itself. Everyone sees it, but they don’t know how to reach compatibility with the Creator; they don’t know that it’s by equivalence of form with Him that we can have all the abundance in the corporeal world.

We are working together on our level, aspiring for the upper force to be revealed in the point of unity between us. For us mutual guarantee is unification at the higher, spiritual level of Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), thanks to which we, Israel, will pour the upper Light onto the world. All of humanity is actually one system, and hence, if the Light will be in us, it will certainly flow onto others.

 

This is exactly what our convention is for: We draw the Light from the Source so that it will be revealed between us. Then after the convention we’ll see great changes in the world. People will feel a special force: “Perhaps we can connect after all?” Suddenly this will be the real solution for them. There is no need to “escape,” there is no need to break up the common market and international relationships. On the contrary, with the help of all the present institutions, we have to change the approach and to aspire for unity and not for anything else.

The previous mechanisms are being destroyed and we have to provide everyone with a minimal reasonable standard of living and a sense of security. Everyone should receive the basic necessities. Humanity that feels so helpless now should adopt this approach. The developed countries are in a state of economic, industrial, and financial decline.

According to what is written in Kabbalah books, today, considering our investment in the world’s needs, we have a very good chance to reveal the upper force in order to correct ourselves. We only have to use our intentions as much as we can.

Clearly we are all egoists, and each of us thinks about his own well-being. Even in the group each one looks for his gain and not for bestowal upon the Creator. If we are lucky, we remember Him occasionally. But this doesn’t matter. All our efforts are accompanied by an egoistic desire “Lo Lishma” (not for Her Name), and we aren’t demanded to do more, just like babies. We try, we really make great efforts, and so the convention can really unite us.

Then we’ll be able to reveal the upper force for the first time, in order to correct ourselves and to pass on the correction to the whole world. All the signs and Kabbalistic writings indicate that it’s possible, and we simply mustn’t doubt that.
[62272]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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A Measuring Device From The Three Lines

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I awaken myself from hibernation and not wait for the awakening to come by itself? After all, you said after the convention that we have to make sure our friends don’t fall?

Answer: If we look at ourselves and at the states we go through objectively, from the side, we’ll acquire experience for all the future “generations,” meaning future states. Then we’ll know that after an ascent there is a descent, and satiation is followed by the fog and the dullness of senses.

It’s okay, this way you will learn the process. You will get to know it gradually, in a balanced way. The wisdom of Kabbalah is self-attainment, nothing more. Indeed, there is no one besides me. The more I know myself from within, the more I will reveal the Creator who created me.

There is no humanity, this world, or upper worlds.… Allow me to know myself and the states I experience! This is a hazy state, but it’s all right. And before that there was some other state, and it is great too. Meanwhile, we immediately want to shade, correct, turn, and break it, but what for?

First of all, we have to perform a clarification. The Light that clarifies comes separately, and so does the Light that reforms, and you cannot instantly reject it by saying that you don’t want this state. First you should examine what you are rejecting!

If you still are at the state of the convention, try not to fall out of it. But if you nevertheless fell, look how you are falling. By examining this state you will later know how to use it in a right way.

If I don’t experience these states, don’t know their pros and cons, why and where they come from, how will I know myself? Have I ever said that I should wipe off the state before examining it? To overcome a descent and to accelerate time means to end the clarification rapidly, to allow the correction, meaning the ascent, come straight away.

Still, this is another type of ascent. We know that Malchut of the upper one transforms into Keter of the lower one. It means that what I regarded as the ascent in the previous state becomes a descent currently, in my present state.

I have to rise qualitatively, by conscious decision and deep analysis so that my previous ascent would now be regarded as a descent. What I used to see as bestowal, after the clarification proves to be reception! Earlier it was for me Keter, but now I see that this is Malchut.

Yet, I will not be able to do that if I don’t perform a clear analysis of my ascent and descent, the haze. I analyze how I satiated myself, how tired I became, and how unwilling I am to do anything, and I do it like a scientist who is observing and testing his dog or experimental rabbit.

I have a precise scientific method, and the only thing I have to know is what it means to me “to bestow” and “to receive,” who I and my society are—and the Creator above. I use my feeling and reason as measuring devices, working with them to reveal every state.

To be in the middle line, I analyze: What comes from the side of reception and what from the side of bestowal, what comes from me and what from the environment, as well as where all these factors are in relation to the goal. Our measuring device is the three lines.
[63305]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, TES

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The Development Of A Spiritual Embryo

Dr. Michael LaitmanAfter experiencing the point of unity during the convention, we must strive towards that same state, towards that strong general unity above all the disturbances of the outside world. It’s as if during the convention a cloud of our united desires, intentions, aspirations, and brotherhood hovered over us.

And although each one of us is now experiencing a different state and we are all thrown in our own directions, we must still try to maintain the same state of unity. If we are able to maintain this point of unity despite all of the disturbances, we grow.

A parent gives you a drop of semen. It is said that the father gives “white semen” (Loven), the mother gives the “red” (Odem), and the Creator gives the soul. You have nothing but a single point, and that is enough. And now you have to grow to the level of Infinity, but how?

This is why you receive additional egoism that serves as the means for your growth. The egoism becomes the “meat” that we have to grow over our point, or the drop of semen. Each time egoism confuses us, kills, and tears us apart. However, we mustn’t pay attention to it and nevertheless must remain in our point of unity. Then, the egoism will become included in this unity, and with our efforts we’ll connect it to the point of unity.

Due to the egoism, this point will begin to grow. At first there is a point in the center of the egoism, and it’s completely surrounded by it. Then it starts to expand and take over the egoism. This is how we grow.

The moment that we overcome all the disturbances of this world and are able to maintain the point of unity attained at the convention, then after few such attempts, we’ll obtain the first full measure called a Partzuf of the full ten Sefirot, or the spiritual birth.

I ask you to continuously re-watch all the convention lessons and events. After all, if a person in his current state goes back to those events, he obtains that previous state along with his new egoism, thereby correcting himself.

Nothing else is needed! Now, through our egoism and through all that’s happening to us, we must grow the spiritual drop of semen that we received at the convention.
[64102]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/2011, “Introduction to TES

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Purification Of The Heart In A Boiling Cauldron

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we think about during our silent internal convention?

Answer: It isn’t simply our silence and the stillness, but serious internal work. I feel this silence in such a way that it’s as if everyone is speaking! Everyone is performing clarifications, “stewing” together in a large raging cauldron that is boiling on an open fire—in a hurricane of all possible thoughts and sensations.

But we do all this together, simultaneously discerning the meaning of our life, its purpose, and what will happen to us and to me personally? And because of this, the thoughts of each person flow to the rest, get transferred from one to another, mingle together, and cause chaos and confusion.

This requires tremendous efforts, and a habit for this kind of work is necessary here. Kabbalists often used such a method, which allows one to perform a very deep analysis. In the end, you come out of this with a very well-purified head and heart.

The big convention allowed us to ripen for this work. You see that the lessons became different, the discernments are much deeper, and new words have been added. I feel as if a new dictionary has been revealed to me.

It’s like being in some country where my knowledge of the language was limited to only one hundred words that I could use to communicate, and then suddenly I learn one thousand words! Can you imagine how much easier it is for me to communicate and make contact with the others now. This is the kind of change that I feel after the convention, and much more powerful even.
[63812]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/2011, “Introduction to TES

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The Virtual Connection: Wherever You Are

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is love of friends in the Internet era?

Answer: The Internet is a wonderful means. Really, what prevents me from being impressed when I see and hear you on the virtual network? In what other way can you convey that you are impressed if not by hearing and seeing? Do I have to smell you, or are the eyes and ears enough? Actually I can be moved to tears, even if I only hear something without seeing. It all depends on my ability to use the contact in order to be impressed.

For example, people who viewed the convention we held in the Arava desert really felt that something was going on there. This is what obliged them to later come to the convention in Tel Aviv, and it even made some of them stay for several weeks. It’s all thanks to the ascent we achieved in the Arava.

I see that it works. If we can raise our intention, our connection, our desire, our focused yearning for the goal, just as we did then, then no matter where a person is, he will be lit by that fire. There’s no doubt.

We have friends in Europe and even in America who want us to inform them when we intend to go out again so that they can book flights. I don’t think that they should come. If they stay where they are in front of the screen worrying about missing even a moment, it’s much better than being here and missing the opportunities, not even paying attention to it. A person, who didn’t want to come to the big convention, but was impressed by our ascent in the desert and then nevertheless came, profited more than anyone else. This is because he received a strong spiritual charge.
[64313]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, “The Freedom”

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Burning The Bridges

Convention in the Arava DesertQuestion: What are the best means to help each other at any given moment to make the right choice?

Answer: If we speak about the mutual connection between us, there is nothing more efficient than a thought. Everything is revealed in it and only in it. If we were strong in this, we could disseminate only by our thoughts.

We will reach that, and then, we won’t need so many materials. If we were strong, if we were united, we undoubtedly could fill the entire network with our force.

We have to create a powerful field around us, but we cannot do that yet. The moment this happens, we will leave all of externality. After all, even without that, everyone will begin to “sniff” around, trying to find out from where this spirit is coming. One web page would be enough, and they would come to us.

In the meantime, our spirit is weak. So, we need many materials.

Question: What is that thought?

Answer: It is the correction, the corrected state. We are all connected, the Creator is among us, and we are connected to Him: We fill Him, and He fills us. It is unity.

Question: What prevents us from holding on to this thought?

Answer: We can’t even reach the first level. In this force field, there are 125 levels of intensity, unity. This is a good environment. It begins to draw all the points in the heart to it, no matter under what material “trash” they are buried in. Its radiation penetrates the thickness of the desires to such a depth that the person himself doesn’t feel it; yet, there, behind the iron armor, it finds the hidden point.

However, we haven’t reached the necessary intensity yet. We are not generating this force field between us yet.

Question: What is preventing each of us? What is stopping us?

Answer: I don’t perceive the importance of the environment as a factor, as a place where I correct and discover my spiritual world, where I reveal the Light that reforms. I don’t see the group as our mutual system of connection that manifests as the system of the worlds.

In short, I don’t connect to the group everything that I really need on my way to spirituality. I am prepared to study, to make efforts, but I still ignore the place in which I can realize my efforts. I constantly forget that it is the group and nothing but that. I cannot convince myself that all the reasons and all the outcomes, all the spiritual discernments, including the Creator and the goal, are revealed in the group. There is simply no other place.

Our work is to constantly penetrate through the fog, through the 125 levels. Rabbi Shimon’s students also hated one another, even on the last level before the end of correction. Meanwhile, we haven’t risen to our first level yet. Our entire path is a search for the environment. It is the factor for our development.

Question: What exercise would you recommend for us in order to perceive this point?

Answer: The Arava convention and the convention that followed it were the best exercise. However, I am afraid to repeat it because a new experience can “erase” the previous, unique taste. We need to prepare ourselves, to decide that we have to break through to the next level and not return to the previous state.

If we go out to the desert, it should be different from the last time. First, everything must be new. We shouldn’t repeat the format we already used. We need a new breakthrough that will not remind us of the past in any way. After all, if we return to the past, it is already a Klipa (shell).

We need the necessity, the desire, the resolution, the challenge. It must be something that you desperately want to reach, but cannot for some reason. It must be a true yearning for the goal.
[64317]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, “The Freedom”

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Focus In Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanHere is an inner exercise: We are far from each other in our qualities and thoughts—foreign and different ones; we are separated by everyone’s individual egoism. There are so many of us, and we differ so much from each other in order to reveal the Creator through our connection.

Our differences, distance, and rejection show the distance to the Creator. I see how far I am from the people who study with me, who are my closest people in the world in spirit, purpose, aspiration, and understanding of life. And we are still so far from each other. I am even more distant from all the other people in the world. If I test myself in relation to every person, then this entire cumulative difference will be the distance between me and the Creator.

Now the meaning of the group becomes clearer. This is why we unite between us: We want to be able to achieve some kind of correspondence at least between us and become closer to each other, which means to be closer to the Creator. We aspire to at least overcome the difference between us. We push our egoism away, rise above it, and wish to connect only with our higher thoughts and desires, to become closer to the Creator in one form or another.

This way we begin the journey. And then we will see that there are no people here, there are no individual souls, there is nothing—only a blurry vision, which causes me to see people instead of the Creator. It is as if I am not able to focus; everything is blurry, and instead of one person, I see two, three, or four. And now I see billions of bodies before me. But if I manage to combine them all, I’ll get the Creator.

This is what I need the group for: to start this process one way or another. All our unity exercises must be directed towards the revelation of the Creator! After all, they are a means for revealing Him. There is no meaning in a group on its own, but only from the point of view expressed as: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Baal HaSulam writes that there was a horrible crime done in the socialist Russia in starting to build an altruistic society and having completely deformed the principle of being one man with one heart, one desire, one purpose. Everyone was together; fair distribution, mutual guarantee, everything was wonderful, except for one thing: They have turned a means for attaining the goal into their goal. And this made them lose big time.

It is the same as focusing and combining blurry images in order to see them themselves, and not what stands behind them. And I will naturally miss because my focus is not on the image concealed behind these illusions, but on the illusions. And this is why Russia has failed.

We cannot allow for this to happen to us, and this is why there must always be three components present: I, the group (the place and the means for revelation), and the Creator, that is, the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.
[62147]
From Lesson 2 at Arava Convention 10/28/2011

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Join The Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today we are holding a Unity Day in the World Kli, which includes a special lesson, a seminar, and a friends’ assembly. On this day, how can we maintain the place of unity that we created at the Convention?

Answer: We have to renew this sensation on the background of the new conditions. We have to imagine the net of our interconnection, the state of unity we are in. We have to feel that this unity is working. I want to live it, and this sensation has to become constant for me. By being in it, I want to discern the feeling and the mind in it: how much we unite in feelings and intentions. I want to feel mutual guarantee from within, mutual support among everyone.

When being inside this net, I don’t have to yell to be heard. I demand from it that the friends, whom I imagine as its parts, won’t forget about me. After all, in essence, I am the one who needs help. Therefore, I want to join them, who are already united into one.

And let the Singular one be revealed in our unity, besides whom nothing exists. He created this system, formed and activated it so that in the end, by making our efforts we would reveal Him and reach unity with Him.

These thoughts must occupy a person constantly, until he sees this system with his own eyes.
[64217]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/11, “The Freedom”

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