Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Profitable Investments In The Spiritual Bank

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will I feel less physical pain if I follow the path of “I shall hasten it?”

Answer: A person tries not to think about whether he will be personally hurt or not while following the path of “I shall hasten it.” He only thinks about how much he can bestow. Still, the path of “I shall hasten it” is better and much more comfortable than the path of “in its time,” and we should follow it, although such thoughts about profit cannot be considered being on the path of “I shall hasten it.”

It’s as if you are asking: “In which bank can I get a greater profit for my investment? In the egoistic bank or the altruistic bank?” In the altruistic bank you make a billion dollars for each dollar that you invest, but when you want to receive your 100 billion dollars after a year, you are told: “Sorry,  this is an altruistic bank! All the money that you have invested has already gone to new contruction, to helping the poor, for classes for children, for repairing the homes of those who need it.”

You begin to shout, “But I invested my last dollar!” That’s true, but you invested it in the altruistic bank, so what do you expect? It’s true that the bank made a great profit for you and that you have earned billions of dollars, but you receive it all as an altruistic profit.

If you are not happy that your dollar yielded a 100 billion dollars after a year and that the whole sum was transferred to all of humanity, then it’s your problem that you don’t feel happy. If you perceived all of humanity as your children, then just imagine how happy you would feel that you managed to give your children such a huge sum of money.

Question: But if we still have to suffer, why should we study Kabbalah?

Answer: Why suffer? If I advance, then every obstacle along the way is not considered a hindrance but a springboard. It’s as if I encounter it and by using it I leap onto it as a springboard to go a great distance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/13, Shamati #70 “With A Mighty Hand and with Fury Poured Out”

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The Trend Of Our Time

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If people are forced to sit at desks as a necessity in order to make ends meet, then how will they be able to come to the Creator? Under pressure?

Answer: Of course! Didn’t we come to Him under pressure?

Look at everyone who is sitting next to you. Do you see joyful, happy faces? Take a look at these sour faces. What holds them here and compels them to come to class at night? Only what creates a desire in them, a need, a lack, no matter what.

People will either intoxicate themselves with drugs, or they will have to be engaged in unification.

We must understand that the trend will remain. People will suffer blows that can only be cured by unity. The growing egoism will manifest in us more and more clearly as a guiding force against itself. We will feel more and more its “suicide” by which the ego shows us that it cannot be used.

In the end, we will realize that the most important thing is to get rid of egoism, and it helps us in this process. Gradually it becomes more and more opposite to the Light; it turns out that, on the one hand we are developing, and on the other hand we are constantly feeling the negativity of our development.

Moreover, the negativity of our development does not remain at the same level, but qualitatively increases all the time; we become smarter, wiser, more experienced, and that is why we begin to perceive and analyze our development from a completely different point of view.

When experiencing blows twenty years ago, we did not understand where they came from. We thought that the most important thing was developing the economy, how much interest goes to this or that, and according to this  we considered our lives to be more or less successful; today we have stopped calculating the interest. Nowadays many already know that egoism forces us to “eat” ourselves; we have come to the realization of evil.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 10/17/13

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The Connection Between The Teacher And The Student

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what way should the connection with you be expressed by those behind the screen?

Answer: Your connection with me should be expressed in that you write me specific, serious questions about the lessons, not made-up, but thoughtful. I will be answering them in writing or verbally.

Indeed, communication occurs when we do something together. A portion of knowledge that you get from me every day is not considered connection. Connection is when we make, create, something new together. If I teach the wisdom of Kabbalah or integral education and upbringing and you study this, then there is a connection between us.

Connection is possible only when you are similar to me. We know that unification between the two objects happens only to the extent of the similarity of their properties. And what similarity can be between us if I am a teacher and you are a student? What similarity can be between the created being and the Creator if the Creator only gives and the created being only receives? What can you give in return? Unity with me. And what can it be? If you act the same way I do. Only that! And how else can you act? To teach me as I teach you? No, teach others as I teach you.

Therefore, there can be no more effective state than that of dissemination; otherwise, you do not process material. In the spiritual world, the one who does not pass information through himself closes himself and does not perceive anything. You cannot imagine what a tiny dead fraction of what I give you, you perceive, precisely because you do not pass this along further in any form.

Those people who are engaged in translation or processing the lessons are the happiest people because what they hear or process eventually reaches someone. And those who do not do this have no other way out of themselves; they are a dead end.
[119229]
From a Talk About the Dissemination 10/17/13

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The Ego: Friend Or Foe?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we work as one group, we make great efforts, but the ego is revealed each time anew and separates us. What should we do? After all, it disturbs us from disseminating efficiently.

Answer: I don’t understand how the ego can stand in your way. What would you do without it? You exist thanks to it and it’s only thanks to it that you can rise as it continuously grows and swells inside you. It’s by rising above the ego that you can keep on growing and without it you will attain nothing. Its growing is a clear sign of your growing.

How can you see the ego negatively?! It’s the force that develops us and without which it would be impossible to be shaken. After all, you can only be shaken or pricked by your ego. It’s very simple.

We mustn’t relate to the ego this way since it’s our nature. Everything that the Creator has created was created in total harmony. When all the inner and external envies are revealed, we should understand that it’s impossible to make even one step forward without them! What’s more, you can change them into the opposite attributes on the spot. It is possible.

The ego increasingly grows on the way to our spiritual attainment. At the same time, it’s gradually revealed through terrible states, in the form of scary forces that are opposite from the Creator.

Today very little of it is revealed in the form of different positive or negative impressions, even without any specific reference. However, when you have a more accurate goal, you will reveal your ego in ways that may seem like your beloved or your dear child being kidnapped before your very eyes and their lives being threatened. What would you feel then?! What would you do?!

When your ego is revealed that way, as it kills your slight movement towards the Creator, it will take on different forms. Now it is only the prologue.
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From a Talk About the Dissemination 10/17/13

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Tapping Into Hidden Resources

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can we do if everyone in the group agrees with the importance of dissemination, but no one does anything?

Answer: Dissemination is necessary not for those to whom you disseminate, but so that they give you an additional Kli, vessel, additional suffering, and an additional opportunity to unite. If you begin to disseminate, you start feeling the pain of people you go out to, their terrible state, even if they live behind a metal door in a lovely apartment with all the amenities, and there is a limousine by their house.

After all, when you talk to them, you feel their emptiness. And if you dig deeper, you will find that they themselves feel it, only they hide it from themselves; nothing is okay for them, the whole world is not nice. You must empathize with their suffering in the absence of food, family, normal life, shelter, work, and interaction with other people, some warmth, health, and proper child education: everything that people lack in a normal human life.

If you feel this, and you are sure to feel this no matter how selfish you are, this will start to affect you and will force to unite with each other. And when you promise them that you can bring them out of this state by means of joint participation in workshops, meetings, common activities, and begin to organize this in practice, you will begin to really implement what Kabbalah says, for yourself and for them.

How else will you be able to reveal the Creator, if you do not organize practical training? Everyone who studied at a college, a university, and knows that practical training is crucial. What is the purpose of you listening to the lectures all the time? This is only confuses your mind, blocks you, and does not go anywhere, either in the feelings, or practical thoughts that are already becoming yours. If you do not go out to the masses, you will fade.

At all times, bloodletting was considered the most effective treatment, not infusions, but bloodletting. This triggers the work of the entire body. You have to go outside! You must disseminate! Letting the theory flow out, like bloodletting, you engage those hidden resources that do not work in you yet. Now, you are full of theory; there is nothing in your hands. That’s a pity.
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From a Talk About the Dissemination 10/17/13

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Who Would Refuse the Mutual Guarantee?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn order for man to feel that “six hundred thousand loyal lovers, are standing ready to provide for him,” he must be theoretically ready to provide for them in the same manner.

One cannot exist without the other. In mutual guarantee we use the force of the Creator, the force of the Light. This force manifests according to our connection in mutual bestowal.

When I am not prepared to give to you and you are not prepared to give to me, there is a gap between us. A connection forms when both of us are ready for this and we are able to give to one another, because there is a third participant, the Light, the Creator.

It is He who establishes a connection between us regardless of our opposite properties and gives everyone the things they lack. The Light provides for us and this is why we can connect and mutually supplement each other—with Light!

But if I am waiting for the “six hundred thousand loyal lovers” to come to me, then I will never see them. It is written that everyone is asked at the same time because the mutual guarantee comes from the connection of everyone, also with the Creator. He is the guarantor of our entire connection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Watch Your Step Carefully

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why do we have to work on the acceleration of time and advance in the path of the Light if suffering awaits us on it as well?

Answer: I do not feel suffering on the path of the Light, but I see suffering as a means of advancement. I view all the problems as help on the way. Thus, my internal flaws are manifested, although I see them as evils of the external world.

Someone attacks me, and I see this resistance as an opportunity to advance further. If I prepare myself correctly, then I will have no fear only joy. As Baal HaSulam writes, “I rejoice at the revealed flaws” because it means that they can be corrected.

You can always prepare yourself for any challenges. But if you have not prepared yourself by means of the group, your unity, the Surrounding Light that embraces you from all sides, then you will find yourself helpless because you will have neither the Light nor the force of the group. You will just want to run away from troubles because you will lack the means of resisting them.

You will have to restart work to mobilize strengths and fulfill all the conditions in order to overcome these obstacles. Perhaps, this will teach you for the future that you need to prepare in advance.

Question: Thus, on the path of the Light, I get blows, but they are qualitative rather than on the flesh?

Answer: You get not blows, but a good opportunity to advance! If an athlete is going to the Olympic games, he is not going there to relax and spend time idly at the bar, drinking a beer. He goes there to work hard, to exert himself both internally and externally. But, then he receives a medal.

The difference between the path of hastening and natural development is that on the path of the Light we prepare ourselves by all the available means to reach the goal faster. Even if currently I feel no pressure and I could rest, enjoy the peace, and relax a bit, but instead I am still intense. I ask myself, “Am I bringing the Creator pleasure now?” If not, then I suffer because I don’t bring Him joy.

I am like an old man, who walks bent and in advance looks for something he has not yet lost. I am constantly seeking: Where is my group, dissemination, studies, adhesion with the Creator? This is called the path of the Light and hastening, when I am preparing myself all the time. Then, I get small obstacles on the way: a stone lying on the road, a stick thrown, a pile of garbage. But I watch my step carefully and thus see these disturbances and step over them. It is not a problem for me. And if I had walked, with my nose up, I would have stumbled and fallen.
[119147]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/13, Shamati #70 “With A Mighty Hand and Fury Poured Out”

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Religion Is A System Of Relations With The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhat is the essence of religion? Is it given for the benefit of the created beings or for the benefit of the Creator? Where is the reward that it promises, in this world or in the next world?

As Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” no one knows the right answers to these questions. In their delusions, people do not understand what is called “religion.”

Religion is the human attitude to the upper force that controls all of nature. It would appear that since it controls everything and I am here against my will, that there is nothing we can do about it. However, apparently our relationship with it is such that I can do something myself: to escape the evil or to seek good. In short, if I develop the correct attitude to its influence on me, then I can change something in my life.

So a certain connection extended by the human being to the upper force, and accordingly, by the upper force to the human, is called “religion.” Thus, “religion” is a system of bilateral relations between the Creator and created beings.

The problem is that no one is familiar with this system; everyone is mystified about it. Some take one wrong direction, some take another. Some assert that the Creator is one thing, and some another. Everyone is confused in his own way, and no one knows where the truth lies, where a reward is, and what kind of reward. On the contrary, we do not see in our world that someone has a good life, and in the end, everyone suffers. And the future world is hidden in the fog; this is what they “sell” us…

As a result, we have one big mess with religion. The fact is that this confusion has encompassed all the modern generation. If religion had given us answers to the questions that affects our existence, if it had explained how to live in the world, earning and achieving success in this world and the future world, how to get along with each other, of course we would have observed religious canons. But since religion does not give answers, people leave it. A person becomes weaker and leaves its framework, even if he continues to follow it as a formality.

This is an internal disagreement; a departure from religion is called the “fall of generations” and it is given, and you cannot argue with it. The reason is that we have not received correct answers to the age-old questions from religion and do not know what it represents in reality.

Of course, no one is to blame, and no one can be reproached. This is the process; the program of creation should be realized in us in this way, bringing us to the moment when we finally ask ourselves the three questions listed above. If we answer them correctly, we will know what “religion” is; in other words, how we can build the right relationship with the upper force. And as a result, we may be able to get pleasures in this world and in the future world, for our own benefit and for the benefit of the Creator.

Either way, we should clarify, resolve, this problem. In any case, we are under some higher power, and we need to find out what the proper relationship with it is. This promises benefits, and that is why we need to achieve this in a simple and practical way.

This is the way we offer to a wide audience, “Let’s find out what nature is in this world we live in.” In  Gematria, the meaning of nature (הטבע) is the same as the word “God” (אלה – ים). We all live in this “bubble,” and day by day it threatens us more and more: on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, as well as in human relationships. It is enough that scientists today predict all kinds of natural disasters. Who knows what lies ahead? In general, we see that nature, that is, the Creator, shows us not the friendliest attitude. There is something to improve upon. Let’s see whether we are able to do it. Obviously, it is in our hands.

This check is certainly worthwhile. We need to find out what our attitude toward God, or toward nature,  should be . It will definitely benefit us.
[119132]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Setting An Example Of Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen we go out to the public we encounter different problems. People can be against us, behave rudely, and resent our actions, and even try to use physical force against us.

We have to prevent all this in advance and to set an example of unity. The force of unity and togetherness has to stem from us.

We have one desire: to unite and to connect with everyone. So if we encounter extreme reactions or different problems when we come out to the public, we still have to avoid them. We cannot be involved in any incidents, since no matter whether you win or lose, it is undesirable when people attribute acts of violence to you.

Even if you are 100% right, you shouldn’t show your power, since unity by such forceful actions sullies us no matter what. It isn’t worth it! When you pass by someone who smells bad, the smell also sticks to you.

So we should under no circumstances act rudely or get involved in any confrontations. We have to try to have people on our side, as it says: “The words of the wise are heard calmly.” Only then will people begin to listen to what you say.

But if it involves rude actions, even if you are forced to be involved in them (and you will be given such situations on purpose), try to avoid them, and to step away from them. Don’t think that you seem weak by that. On the contrary, you are showing how tasteless and pointless these actions are.

Effective actions are actions that provide me with the right formation of the field in which the Creator can dwell, and this field is good and friendly; it is love and inner guidance. This, of course, doesn’t mean that we have to agree with all those who confront us on purpose and who are against us. But we don’t have to reach such a level of resistance when we confront them in order to use their tricks and to be like them.

So every action has to be examined from the perspective of how helpful it is to our unity and connection. We have to place ourselves exactly on the opposite side of the actions that are meant to provoke us.

I hope that we will be able to find the right way, the right stream, when all our actions are aimed through each of us, through our unity and connection, to the center of the group and concentrate there in expectation for the revelation of the Creator in order to delight Him. Good luck to all of you!
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From a Talk About Dissemination 10/17/13

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One’s Location Determines His Work Conditions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The massive dissemination action in Israel makes us feel jealous and there is a feeling that we are doing something wrong in Russia. This leads to arguments in the groups.

Answer: I am asking you all not to take Israel as an example since there are unique conditions here: We have a TV channel that enables us to reach many people, and it is a relatively free country so we can actually do whatever we want to.

But there is also a massive force here that opposes us and we have to accept it according to the condition that the force of the action equals the force of resistance. If we can print newspapers freely and give them out, appear on our private TV channel and broadcast live shows, it is given to us according to the force and the efficiency that we have to attain here in order to penetrate the shell, the interruptions. This is fulfilled in a different manner in every country.

I am sure that the conditions that were created all over the world match the force of action and the resistance precisely. The Creator always creates such optimal conditions so that you will be able to do whatever you can and whatever can be done in a specific place. These are the efforts that create the vessel in which you will be able to feel the Creator.

We shouldn’t think that it could be easier and better in one place and that you could be more successful there. Absolutely not! As it says: “He who changes his location, changes his luck.” It is because when you change your location the upper Providence operates on you in a totally different manner, according to the specific conditions you are in.

So you shouldn’t envy one another in this sense. You should learn from one another and help one another, but not envy one another! It is impossible to change certain given conditions to different conditions.

When I visit the U.S., I see that the conditions there are totally different than in our country, but if our friends choose the work style correctly, they still have the same opportunities to discover the Creator just like in any other place on the globe.

We are all under the supervision of the upper Providence, so you should under no circumstances put yourself in someone else’s place. This is very wrong. It all depends on the upper Providence that operates that way on each of us and we shouldn’t envy one another. Every person has his own soul, his own fate, his own place, and his own inner and external conditions, and we should just give him a chance to implement them correctly. We must remember and care about that.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 10/17/13

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