Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Do I Feel Good With Friends, Or With Friends Among Whom The Creator Resides?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: At the convention we felt life, but now descents are depicting a completely different picture for me. I want to return to the basis, the middle line, to that which I have to rely on. Or should we tread forward blindly until we come out to the Light? Do we have any source of support?

Answer: Besides the group, all other details of perception, qualities, and foundations disappear and do not provide support for a person.

Moreover, by delving into the group, a person also sees that he cannot really rely on the friends’ mutual guarantee either because they are also part of the conditions that bring him to a greater need for support. Gradually he loses firm ground in the group as well, until a person’s searches bring him to the need to reveal the Creator. Only in Him will a person find the true support, the root, and the answer to all his problems, failures, questions, and troubles.

We have to go through many steps on this path, and we begin with what is realistic for us. A person always stops in the place that seems safe to him. And therefore, the best thing is when all the hopes come from him through the group to the Creator, when he understands that the solution, fulfillment, and correct analysis will come only from there. And everything else are intermediate phases.

For example, today our hopes end with the group, “We are together! That’s great! How wonderful my friends are!” We still don’t discover the need for something higher, we still don’t demand a higher force to be revealed in the group more than simply a circle of friends. But this will gradually come.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes about how easy it is to control our desire with two reins: pleasure and pain. Then why is it so difficult for us to direct our desire in the spiritual direction in the group? What are we missing?

Answer: You cannot connect to the friends. Your pleasure lies in suppressing others and holding your ground. But others are also holding their ground, so how can you unite? Envy, passion, and pride—all of these initial qualities separate us from one another.

You suppose that you can unite, but I don’t think so. This is possible only with the help of the Light that reforms, by means of very difficult work. This requires the force of the Torah, the Kabbalistic method.

By uniting, we will reach Malchut of Infinity. Besides unity, there is nothing. Unite the friends in the group and you will get the world of Infinity. Everything begins and ends there.

You think this is simple. You are asking why we aren’t succeeding, what is wrong? But it can’t be any other way because you don’t demand for the Creator to dwell among you. You don’t even see that you are incapable of unity by yourself, and you even suppose that you are capable of it. You still haven’t revealed the truth.

Question: So how can we help each other do this?

Answer: There can be many external actions. The question is: How much do they incite a person to inner effort? This is our problem. So keep trying.

We still don’t have the need to connect ourselves, the group, the world and the Creator into one whole. We have to reveal this need faster since otherwise it will expire and the world will be in trouble.

The Reshimo of Malchut of Infinity, which becomes revealed in the group, is the result of many efforts that we make. And this work has to be done precisely in the group. It is the field where all fruits grow. It contains everything necessary, and our efforts determine how quickly we will be able to connect everything into one. The faster we do this, the easier and more pleasant our path will be.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/11, “The Freedom”

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The Point Of Unity: Why Not And When Yes?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why wasn’t I able to connect to the feeling of the point of unity at this convention? Why is this sensation still hidden? How can I support it if I don’t feel it?

Answer: Certainly, many of our friends have not been able to feel this point of unity yet. In any case, this first of all depends on time. There is a category of time in our world, and nothing can be done about it. A person can’t come today and enter this feeling tomorrow. He has to go through various states, to experience them. A person has to be inside of our group for some time and advance the same way we did some time ago. This is first.

Second, a person has to be properly prepared for the convention. We were getting ready by uniting in the desert as well as working hard preparing for the convention technically. We began the work in August in order to prepare all the necessary technical equipment, events, study materials, and programs.

Everything depends on a person. If he was interested in participating with us, even as a “little one,” he would reach the state where he would feel the same as we to some extent. The majority of the participants, including women who joined this sensation, felt it. This is the first convention where we were able to reach the point of unity.

What should a person who didn’t feel it do? Read, study, and disseminate. It’s desirable to go over the convention materials a few times: lectures, all activities, gatherings, discussions, the opening ceremony, and dancing. There are about 100 hours of video recordings; we need to continue taking little tastes of it, watching little bits of it each day.

In addition, starting from today and on, it’s necessary to start preparation for the next convention in the desert that will take place in a couple of months. It doesn’t matter where a person is located and where he will be physically at that time. The main thing is to prepare oneself for the connection with others. This connection is a virtual one; it’s not located in some physical place that one would have to watch from afar.

I didn’t dance in the convention hall, but that didn’t prevent me from being connected to those who were. Certainly, contact helps, but the time will come when we won’t need it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, The Zohar

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The Point Of Unity Is On The Machsom

Convention at the Arava DesertQuestion: What is the point of unity that we reached at the convention? Could you describe it in more detail? Where is it with respect to the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality)? How is it felt? How do people recognize feeling it? How do they determine that they hold on to it?

Answer: This point is located on the Machsom itself. This point is the unity between our world group consisting of thousands of people who are interconnected, want to be tied together, and try to connect with each other in all possible kinds of relations. The goal of our connection is to reach mutual bestowal called “mutual guarantee.”

We are ready to support and think about each other and to take care of the common Kli among us. That is, we are ready to strengthen each other and want everyone to awaken. There is no competition or rivalry here, when I would want to become stronger at the expense of others and not think about them. On the contrary, I want for all of us to become stronger, and for my friends, who in this case become as my children to me, to feel the result of my efforts first.

With respect to the group, I have to feel myself in the following three states:

  1. I take care of them as if they were the lower ones, like a mother takes care of her children or the Creator takes care of the creatures.
  2. I relate to them as to the greater ones, considering them the greatest people of the generation. I’m ready to serve them and do everything for them in order to get the greatness of the goal and strength from them.
  3. I want to be their friend, their equal, neither higher nor lower, and for all of us to unite in one “embrace.”

In this “embrace,” we reach a fusion of our desires. From these three relations toward the other, each of us and all of us together reach one desire, one thought, and want the Creator to fill us.

But here, we then discover that we’re not connected enough. There is still something with which we need to connect. Then we demand  for the Light that reforms to unite and then fill us. This is what our work is about.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, The Zohar

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the lesson you said that right now the main thing for your students is to grow the feeling born between them (the common desire towards the quality of mutual bestowal), which already exists independently from them on its own, like a newborn who has separated from his mother. What should our next actions be like?

Answer: Now we only need to strive to grow the newborn desire by using the egoism that has appeared in us. We should add it to our common connection and thereby strengthen it, like an athlete who becomes stronger through using the resistance of sports equipment.

Question: Since the connection is realized by the male part of our world group, how does the female part participate in it?

Answer: The female part supports the men in this, obligates, reinforces, and reassures them. It also actively engages in the dissemination of the idea of mutual guarantee, the integrated connection of all of humanity, for the 99%, meaning the general public.
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Separated Under A Stream Of Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we speak about love of others, it seems trivial to most people. How can we convey our message to them?

Answer: Don’t talk to them about love of others. Instead, explain the laws of the integral system that demand a stronger mutual connection between us. The separation in humanity is growing and so is the need for connection. This is why we feel worse and worse.

These are simple things that can be presented by a linear diagram. Every day, we need to increase the connection between us. By 6,000 years, we will have to unite all of our desires. Today, we are being required to connect at a certain level, let’s say, X2. In the year 2012, the requirement will rise to the level of X3. If we don’t reach this level, we will experience suffering according to our incompatibility with nature.

 

Today, we experience a crisis, a fall, and it is perfectly natural. However, we can reverse the trend if we raise our level of unity. If we do that, we will feel a rise instead of a fall. It all depends on us.

We have the wisdom of Kabbalah that was meant to develop the recognition of evil in us. Indeed, the more we lag behind, the more separated we become. The Light increases, while we are more detached and disconnected, and this makes us feel worse and worse.

The Light lets us feel the global and integral world that is mutually connected in all of its parts. Accordingly, we gradually feel that we are becoming more and more opposite to the integral world. So, we are not speaking about love, but about the laws of nature, about its development.

After the December convention, we will see that the world will be deteriorating much faster. On our part, we will be able to hasten the development in a positive way, and we must make every effort to achieve that.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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One Bestowal For All

Dr. Michael LaitmanMan’s essence is the desire to be filled. His mind develops alongside this desire to help him attain that which is desired. Man’s big desires develop a big mind, while his small desires limit the mind. The mind is secondary; the desire is primary. This is why the desire commands us, whether we like it or not.

The aspiration to experience the world on a greater scale than it really is, in its full matrix, depends on the development of our desire. This is why we study the wisdom of Kabbalah. It helps develop the desire to the point where it is possible to perceive the upper world, the higher matter, the higher qualities.

Since our world only exists in the desire to receive, it is confined and limited. How much information, sensation, feeling, color, sound, and so forth can I absorb? It turns out it is not much at all since I immediately become filled and tired. I even try to limit myself from extreme reception and suffice myself with small pleasures.

Kabbalists tell us that there is an enormous world beyond the limits of our sensations, which exists outside of us, outside our egoistic sensations. We can only experience it according to the law of similarity of properties. If we acquire the same qualities like in that world, we will see, hear, and feel it.

How do we acquire the qualities of this external world that is a billion times greater than ours? First of all, this world goes beyond the limits of our physical body. This is why it is eternal, perfect, and infinite. It is not even like our finite, imperfect, and egoistic universe.

The world that exists in the quality of bestowal, and which we absolutely do not perceive, basically exists around us. In order to perceive it, we need to begin coming closer to the quality of bestowal, the foundation of the upper world. This is the purpose of the exercises and advice of the Kabbalists who have already completed this path.

These are group exercises because one gradually develops the quality of bestowal only in a group of like-minded people. I begin to feel how deeply I exist in egoism and my inability to come out of it. Then, under the influence of the group, I get the feeling that I simply am in a prison I can’t escape. Then I understand that only the group, only the upper force, can help me.

In this way, I reach the need for mutual guarantee. I am in need of the support of my friends who simply force me to rise above myself, and on my behalf, I also try to help them with this. We reach mutual guarantee when we mutually help each other to rise above ourselves and connect into the common quality of bestowal.

Then we will perceive the upper world in this new, common quality, a sensor, a sense. We can only perceive it if we create something mutual with our desires and aspirations because the quality of bestowal cannot be individual. It is necessarily connected with all the rest, and this is why it is one for all. This quality in which we will perceive our higher existence is called the “soul.”

This is why the convention in the Arava desert was directed toward preparing oneself for a preliminary sensation of the quality of bestowal that is being conceived in us. We must bring this to all the participants of the big upcoming convention where it will be necessary for everyone to strengthen it together. We must develop this embryo to the point where we will perceive the presence of the upper world, the presence of the Creator.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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From A Point To The First Spiritual Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After the convention, I feel enormous separation and repulsion, which I never felt before. Can this be a result of my working incorrectly at the convention?

Answer: After the kind of unity and ascent that we felt at the convention, if a person feels separation, repulsion, and confusion, these are correct states. Resistance from our egoistic nature has to mount, and to counterbalance it, we have to fight these states.

If we maintain ourselves in that same point of unity that we attained, then by virtue of egoism which becomes attached to it, this point will start to grow. We received an example, and we must live in that same inspiration. We already contain a state called “unity,” which we attained at the convention in the clearest, most vivid form. I must preserve this state, trying to remain in it at every moment of my life.

True, now I will immediately receive all kinds of disturbances, but they are all intended for me to strengthen myself more in the same point that I attained at the convention. Then this point will grow based on all of these disturbances. They will enter it and will support it with the help of my efforts. And then this point will expand. That is how I grow this point to the size of the first spiritual level. I don’t have any other opportunity to grow in spirituality, but only by virtue of the disturbances, “help against me.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/11, Writings of Rabash

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Don’t Hide Behind A Computer Screen

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After the unity we felt at the convention, should a person studying with us virtually or online go look for a physical group to be in?

Answer: Going to look for a group today is not the same it was 200 years ago, when a person would leave his home with a staff in hand and go off to search. Today a person enters the Internet and is already together with us, in the common group. He already attended the convention and understands what this is.

Should he look for a physical group? I don’t know if he has that opportunity. The closest group might be several hours away from him.

Yet one should try to stay connected to people nevertheless. Sometimes you have to feel how much you don’t want that connection. Maybe by connecting to others virtually, you idealize the situation, thinking that you are already united with them completely, while in fact you are hiding behind the computer screen. So come out from behind the monitor and connect with them in reality. Go and see whether this is possible….

Obviously, now, after our unification at the convention, we are starting to feel confusion, repulsion, and separation—states that are opposite to unity, one against the other. That’s because in order to grow, we must always advance on two legs. Therefore, don’t be surprised that we are suddenly finding ourselves in opposite states. We must finally get used to the fact that these states have to alternate and follow one another.

Therefore, if a person does not have a close connection with a certain group, then he doesn’t go through these states dramatically, quickly, and intensely. All of this gets drawn out and “smudged” for him. He must nevertheless have some sort of physical connection with others. After all, we are in this world and cannot annul it completely. We cannot turn this world into a virtual world. We are here in our bodies and all sorts of connections between us because this is important. We accelerate time by having a physical connection between us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/11, Writings of Rabash

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Wrapped In A Cloud Of Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to direct all our thoughts and desires toward the Creator? How can we incorporate the Creator into this entire process?

Answer: First, we have to do everything in our power to connect in order to feel unity. We should constantly feel this unity above all the disturbances we experience in our thoughts and desires. No matter what I do, I do it feeling that the group is inside me. If you can, try to imagine that the Creator also fills us and is inside us.

I warn you: We will not be able to hold on to the state of unity felt during the convention much longer. More serious obstacles will arise, and I won’t be able to connect to the friends and will surely forget about the Creator.

These problems are given to me on purpose so that I will try to attach myself to the group and ask the Creator for help, demand that He carries out our connection. The Creator is the attribute of bestowal and love, and I want the attribute of bestowal to dwell among us.

If we don’t see ourselves as corporeal bodies, but rather close our eyes and feel the field in which we share a common sensation, then the one who stabilizes, fills, and sustains this feeling, the main force that arranges, creates, and maintains all this is called “the Creator.”

The force of bestowal existing in creation is the Creator, His front side, and the force of reception in creation is His back side. And I am the black point of “existence from absence (Yesh Mi Ain)” situated in this force field of bestowal and reception.
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From the st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Dr. Michael LaitmanStarting now we must strengthen that which we have attained; we must grow the unity that was born between us at the convention. This point must multiply. Even though it appears to be overwhelming and never-ending in the beginning of the journey, in reality it is not so. The spiritual stages are much shorter that the first, preliminary stage.

When we rise from Malchut and merge with Zeir Anpin, the spiritual power intensifies sixty times, and when Zeir Anpin rises to YESHSUT, it creates six hundred times stronger intensity. Every new degree includes the ten Sefirot and adds a position, increases our might by a power of ten: six thousand, sixty thousand, and so on.

Moreover, we must not forget that the entire world needs the spiritual ascent. We must convey the method of correction to humanity, the method of universal unity. We must correct the crisis in this world, which will be expanding, seizing everyone without exception, to the very last village, the very last corner of the world. It will manifest in every family and in every person. This multi-crisis will touch on every area of human activity.

And this is why all of us will have to work in the role of mentors, disseminators of the method. The crisis will not stop until the entire world enters a mutual interconnection, until everyone becomes like we are now. We assume that this is impossible, but in reality, it will be much easier for the world to do than for us. Desires and ideas are easier to spread in large masses, down the threads of the inner interconnection. The collective soul did not go anywhere: We are separated only in our sensations. People will understand us very quickly, come closer, and connect with us.

The main thing right now is to strengthen the feeling of unity which appeared at the convention. These are the actual spiritual gates. There are new people among us who have simply enjoyed being with their friends. There are people who feel something greater, people who already manifest this feeling of a spiritual revelation, the first attainment and not just a union. And there are some who have advanced even further. We represent a full spectrum, and I am very happy about these variations in the collective vessel. This means that it lives and develops.

Now you just need to strengthen it, and you’ll see that it will be relatively easy. We need to protect our unity at least a little bit, despite the disturbances. We will return back home, and most important is to keep what was attained.

I stay close to my friends despite the distance and watch the world from aside. I sit on a plane or a train, and the entire world is outside my window. Everything flows by me on the outside, but what matters to me is what is happening on the inside. This inner flame is more important than anything else, more important than life. I put all things in their places, distribute them according to the scale of values, and then the key is to remain on top, at the tip of the pyramid, in the feeling I have attained. I am even prepared to die with it because eternity is concealed in it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/2011, “600,000 Souls”

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