Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.09.11

Shamati #127 “Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled)” “The Firmament Over Malchut,” Item 339, Lesson 19
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Preface to the Book of Zohar, Item 4, Lesson 2
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation,” (Start with: “In order to discover…”), Lesson 16
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Consumption Is Not The Problem

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We have been discussing the fact that excessive consumption has brought humanity to a troubled state. However, some economists surmise that if we start consuming less, this will also have a negative effect….

Answer: Every phase of development has its own spiritual HaVaYaH sequence. It includes phases of bestowal and reception, idleness and a combination of different factors of interconnection. Therefore, we cannot draw a direct interconnection between the level of consumption and the solution to the problem.

Previously we might have been able to improve the situation by distributing goods among everyone because the egoistic desire was developed to a certain level where the gap between the layers of the population could really have been ameliorated in this way. However, today we have risen a level higher, and the methods that were suitable at the previous phase are no longer working. The accent is shifting from the receiving desire to the bestowing one, and you cannot attain real improvement through mere “hand-outs.” You have to understand that by giving out products, you are trying to block the path of the crisis and are thereby depriving yourself of the opportunity to get down to its causes, the bestowing force, the Creator. But in the meantime, our troubles are already acquiring a goal-oriented nature.

Analogously, at the second phase of the expansion of Direct Light, it is impossible to act the same way as at the first phase. That’s because the second phase derived from the first precisely because it was time to realize the primary cause of the Light. Even though it is entirely filled by the Light, this is no longer sufficient.

Likewise, today simple distribution does not solve the problems. The goal of creation is not to satiate our egoistic desires or for us to “stuff our bellies.” That is why we are discovering the second phase of development: by giving out goods to the poor, we will only accelerate the collapse.

So what should we do? After all, this is contrary to all logic. Previously egoism ruled the party: The more we received, the better we felt. But now consumption and restraint, selfishness and concessions in favor of the weak are equally destructive for the economy. Stated differently, we have no more effective methods left to work with the egoistic desire. It has depleted itself both in reception and bestowal.

This is the beginning of the two-sided realization of egoism’s evil—the total recognition of the fact that it cannot be used.

So how can man survive? Several million people in the world will manage to feed themselves with the fruits of the earth that they farm. And what will the others do? We will not be able to maintain the previous connections, and moreover, we will not be able to exchange goods and production the way we once did. The word is starting to reduce its circulation, to “freeze up.”

Under these conditions, the only thing that can really help humanity is a clear attitude to what is happening, the understanding of the need to change the nature of our connections. This is the only thing that will give us good results.

Therefore, first and foremost people need to study. Leave everything else. Provide everyone with the base minimum just above the poverty line, and use the rest of the efforts to improve our interpersonal relationships.

“Fair distribution” and “social justice” are pretty words, for the sake of which tens of millions of people were killed or killed others. Slogans such as these will only help on the condition that we change people’s consciousness. And for that we need upbringing. A person just needs the vital necessities and the willingness to listen, and that’s all.

However, he won’t be learning about “how to consume properly,” but about how to relate properly to others. Everything else will become a natural consequence. When people’s desire changes, they will understand how to manage life of their own accord. By virtue of upbringing, all the practical solutions will become obvious.

First of all, a person has to be educated and changed at least slightly. This is the only way we will avoid Nazi regimes of different kinds, by building an environment that changes people for the better.
[54057]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/11, “The Nation”

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Fair Distribution: Nothing For Anyone

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: People are unable to reach any agreement on what is fair distribution. Every person has his own “justice.” So how is it possible to establish it?

Answer: You’re right: How is it possible to understand what is fair distribution when one person needs one pound of bread a day and another person five pounds? This depends on one’s habits and inborn qualities. Some people are so fast and clever that in two hours they can earn as much as another person can’t earn in a week.

One person has such wonderful capabilities that he obtains an excellent profession and earns a lot of money, while another person remains a simple blue-collar worker. Everywhere we look, we see these big differences because we are different by our nature and that is why it is very unclear what should be considered fair distribution.

If we could “scan” a person and create a complete, precise map of him, showing what kind of fulfillment he requires, and then fulfill every person, if we had such a device and capabilities, then what could be better! Then everyone would be sure that they are being fulfilled equally. Even if they aren’t fulfilled in full, but only 50-80%, yet everyone would have the same degree of fulfillment.

However, we do not have this capability! So it turns out that we give one person more than another, but on what basis? Because he earned more? But maybe he was created talented by nature. We do not see or feel this justice.

If we are talking about equality, then we mean equal external conditions for everyone. But that is incorrect! So it turns out that it is impossible to establish equality and social justice. Social justice and equality can only be relative. But in order to assess this proportion, I have to be at the end of correction when I am included in everyone and know the concerns of every soul, experiencing it as my own.

Then I will be able to see all the souls before me, throughout all times and in all states, and give each of them fulfillment in the unique form it needs at this moment. That is, even a moment ago you received one thing, and the next moment—another, and the same happens with everyone else too. Inside of this system, everything constantly changes, like in a boiling pot. So is it possible to reach any fair distribution here?

But look at what the Creator is doing! First of all he closes the faucet and says, “None of you will receive anything! If you want, I will give you a small share, just enough for you to live, so you don’t die. And you will receive everything else only on the condition that you begin to love one another. That is, first of all you have to neutralize the differences that I created in you.”

Love will cover all sins, and then there won’t be any difference between us. If I love others, then I don’t care if they receive something instead of me. Let everyone be filled to infinity—I don’t feel bad about it! I am not checking how much every person has and I do not approach others with an egoistic yardstick, with envy and hatred.
[53935]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/11, “The Nation”

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Between The Desired And The Actual

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: While reading The Zohar, should we try to search for the connection between us in the mind or in the sensations?

Answer: We should search for it in our sensations. If we’re unable to find it, the mind should assist us. However, first and foremost we should try to find an emotional connection.

The Zohar describes the already existing connection between us. This connection will reveal itself as Malchut of the world of Infinity, full of the Light of Infinity, the presence and the revelation of the Creator. This is what we must aspire towards.

Hence, when reading The Zohar, we try to imagine the correct connection between us. Today the necessity for this type of connection between all of humanity is becoming apparent. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed to everyone. It demands from those of us who have received an awakening and have begun to study a bit before the rest to disseminate it in the entire world so that everyone could realize that we are in a crisis, that our current connection no longer works, and we must reveal a new connection between us.

This new connection cannot be discerned in the natural, egoistic way, as it was done before because this connection already exists in the global, integral system permeated by mutual guarantee, the system that is somewhat becoming revealed in the world. Therefore, a problem arises: A better type of connection manifests to us, but we still relate to it egoistically. The crisis is the gap between the desired state that is becoming revealed in the world and the actual state we are in. This is a crisis.

The reading of The Book of Zohar, the study of Kabbalah in its entirety, and all our efforts should lead us to a state where we become similar to the connection network that is being revealed between us. After all, it’s being revealed as far more corrected than we are in our broken state. When we analyze the situation, we ourselves say that the world has become interconnected, while we have not.
[53716]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/2011, The Zohar

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No One Will Help Us But Us!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn our days, there is no big difference between working in the group and all of humanity, individual and collective work since a common network has become revealed. In the past, groups of Kabbalists worked in hiding, separated from everyone else. They did not show themselves because it was forbidden to reveal Kabbalah and explain its purpose before the actual network of common connections becomes revealed and the need for a method of correction arises.

This is why Kabbalists kept quiet. But since the moment this network started revealing itself, the situation has become cardinally opposite, and we must divulge this wisdom.

Kabbalists predicted this even before this network became revealed to the world. Almost one hundred years ago, Baal HaSulam started telling the world about the need to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah. He thought that the world should prepare ahead of time for the revelation of connections to avoid going through wars and suffering we have experienced in the past century.

Humanity experienced more killings and suffering in the twentieth century than in the entire history of humankind. And of course it was possible to go through all these corrections in a different form. But so far, the corrections the upper one performs remain within Him, and we do not know about them or see them with our own eyes. We do not have the means to see the corrections we have attained at the cost of such great suffering.

Even though this was a correction, but its form was undesirable since it donned on us under the pressure from Above and against our own desire. In Kabbalah this relationship is called “Achor Be Achor” (back to back). But we need to come to a complete agreement and turn “face to face” with one another (Panim Be Panim).

After all, one way or another, we always advance, but it happens in an undesired way. But now, after Kabbalah has come out into light, humanity can prepare itself for the revelation of the network that connects us through an integrated, global upbringing and mutual guarantee, that is, through the proper connection between us.

And when we prepare for this revelation, we will welcome it as good, and we will perceive it as a common field blessed by the Creator, and not as a life full of danger and threats. Everything only depends on our vessel, which must precede the Light.

You will feel that this field of mutual connections is blessed by the Creator because you yourself will want to bless it! You will think that every new revelation benefits you because it brings you closer to general bestowal, mutual guarantee!

Whatever happened needed to happen. We neither erred nor made wrong moves—everything happened according to the Creator’s desire that became revealed this way. We should not regret anything in the past, even the most painful events that are very difficult to accept: “There is none else beside Him.”

But from today on, we need to see that everything depends on us, and “no one will help us but us!”
[53518]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/2011, Shamati #110

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We Live In The Non-Existent World

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll the upper worlds, the breaking and the descent from Above downward all the way until this world, and then the development in this world until our time, all of this cannot yet be called the creature. Only now, when we are finally beginning to reveal something and to supplement our previous development, it can be said that we are approaching the beginning of being the creature. The degrees we are now beginning to realize are turning into some sort of actual reality.

Everything that happened before: the four phases of the Direct Light, Malchut of the world of Infinity, the entire expansion of the worlds all the way until our world, the birth of our universe, the Earth, and humanity, its entire history until today, all this is like a grain that contains the entire program, the entire process in its potential. After all, none have yet realized their freedom of will! There is no creature yet! None have yet done anything by their own desire, their free choice, separate from the Creator.

This special process is starting only today. Until now everything came from Above. And even when we read about certain actions, such as screens, calculations, all of this refers to the future. In addition, people who have already attained this from below upward tell us about it. And only the upper program is realized from Above downward.
[53418]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.08.11

Shamati #127 “The Difference Between Kernel, Essence, and Added Abundance”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled)” “The Firmaments Over the Garden of Eden,” Item 321, Lesson 18
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 2, Chapter 2, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 8, Item 86a, Lesson 27
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 120, Lesson 52
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation,” (Start with: “Humanity is headed slowly and gradually upward…’”), Lesson 15
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The War Of Gog And Magog: In Or Outside The Soul?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn today’s complex situation in Israel and in the world, it becomes clear why Baal HaSulam insists that first of all, we have to sit down on the school bench and study. This is what we need; otherwise, we will not be able to relate correctly to what is happening.

This does not mean that I ought to love my enemies as “each will have to pay for his deeds,” but I have nothing to hate them for. I should know only one thing: How I can prepare myself for unity and in what forms. Only this can break hatred—only through this connection, inside of which the upper force is revealed.

If it is revealed, we will cure all these evil forces. We simply have no choice. The Creator pressures us so much because otherwise, we will never come to the point when the spiritual force, holiness reigns in us. Without this, we have no chance for salvation. I hope that we will manage to convey this to the nation, simultaneously with the pressure that is exerted on us as if from outside, that is, from Above, and we will be able to achieve unity.

In fact, this is called the war of Gog and Magog. Through all the nations and by using any instance and possibility, the Creator puts the pressure on us, and we must unite. It is like the exodus from Egypt: The pressure is growing and growing, until we have no alternative, and we flee. Otherwise, we do not want to leave the slavery of our egoism and are willing to stay and live in it forever.

Therefore, there is no way out; we will have to go through all the “Egyptian plagues” and pressure. The better we understand them, the less these blows will materialize. They will be more internal—with understanding, awareness, search, and scrutiny. They will be faster, at the other degree. If the blow is felt in matter, it is billion times harsher and longer.

The difference between the degrees is such that the entire still level is equivalent to one plant! Try to estimate this proportion: One side of the scales holds the entire still matter of the universe, and the other holds a blade of grass. Can you imagine what a huge difference it is, if we rise only one degree in our scrutiny and corrections, not to speak about ascending from the animate to the speaking degree! And we can do this instead of the blows that await us at the still level.

Imagine, how many blows and sufferings we will have to go through on the still level….Therefore, all our work now is only to rise and rise faster. To do this, we need to sit down on the school bench and to learn to understand a little what happens to us and to the world, and why. We have to explain this to ourselves and to the entire world. We have no other weapon, but explanations. And the situation simply obliges us.
[53725]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/2011, “The Nation”

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Break The Idols In Yourself

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur work is to imagine precisely what the upper force is. And we will have to do many discernments on this path. At first, a person imagines the upper force as a multitude of different forces, godly images, and deifies different natural phenomena that he discovers around himself. A person attributes human qualities to them because that’s the only example he has, and endows different images with the divine power, which is called idol worshiping.

That is an important stage of our development because we exist in our egoistic desire with an inverted perception of reality, sensation and analysis. This way, we scrutinize upper qualities to the point of reaching the correct perception.

An example of that is our forefather Abraham who was initially selling idols. In fact, his story tells us about ourselves. All of us begin our path from worshiping different forces of nature and considering them either good or evil, or partially good or evil. We attribute them to certain people, our surroundings, blind fate, or various incidents.

All our life cycles are filled with these discernments until the point in the heart awakens in us. But even already having it, we still have to discern numerous definitions that draw us closer to the first perception of spirituality.

We still don’t know what the spiritual reality or who the Creator are. But on our path to this discernment, we are prone to the influence of the environment that can turn us the other way, mislead, or confuse because we don’t feel the Creator yet and can’t hold onto Him.

In the end, we reach a state, when all our multiple ascents, descents, and confusions somehow get resolved, accumulate, and combine, and we divide reality into two parts: I, one who feels, and that which I feel. There is nothing else besides it!

But I sense myself as being either in egoism, reception, or in bestowal—there is no third option. Existing in egoism, I relate everything only to myself and my world, and this defines my state. But if I exist in the quality of bestowal, it fills me with something called the Creator (Bo-reh)—”come and see.”

I constantly perform clarifications between these two qualities. Finally, I come to a conclusion that everything comes from the Creator who plays with me either by concealing Himself or by giving me exercises so that I build in myself more fine and precise definitions of who He is.

Essentially, this constitutes our entire work.
[52299]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/2011, Shamati #62

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Economics Done By The Balance Formula

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We see that humanity is currently trying to fix and improve the world’s economic systems. But is there any point in changing anything just to become convinced that this doesn’t work and that first of all, we need inner changes?

Answer: We are already revealing the fact that our economic system is flawed. But we are still trying to correct it using the old instruments, and by doing that we only ruin it even more. Gradually it will become clear to people that they are powerless here and that the old way of thinking is no longer effective. The only problem is that we still don’t understand where to get a new mind.

And on their part, Kabbalists still do not know how to get through to humanity and how to transmit this new way of thinking to them in order for everyone to work together to create new systems. The economy is the foundation of our material life, of production and trade, and the provision of all goods. In the material realm there is nothing more important than the economy because this is the program of connection between us, which worked entirely egoistically until today, based on reception of the optimal benefit in every regard.

This is the simple economics formula that has to be realized in every place. Clearly, people are still trying to steal here and there if they can, but this approach no longer accords with the formula. In the ideal form, economics tells us about how to organize relationships in society so everyone would receive the optimal, maximum benefit. This is the economists’ dream.

However, now we need a completely different formula. We have to keep redefining the meaning of “the necessary living standard for a worthy life” and taking care to provide it for everyone. We have to educate people so every person will aspire to attain this level, with some people rising to it from below (meaning, those who are beneath this level) and others—descending to it from above.

This necessary level is not the minimal poverty line, but much higher, one that supposes a normal life. Some people rise to it, while others come down to it, but they do it by their own desire, which has to be achieved by upbringing. All of the remaining excesses should be distributed to the general needs of the government, which can include defense or anything else.

However, if we are talking about the world that is entirely moving toward correction and does not need to spend money on defense, then we can enormously reduce production. According to our similarity with nature, we have to reach the state where we exist like organs of a human body in which every person receives only to the degree it is necessary to live for the sake of bestowal to others. Therefore, we will approach life where production and trade will gradually become more and more restricted until reaching a level where everyone ends up on the level we decide on, and won’t grow from there anymore.

Thus, we will help nature restore itself and will not be sucking its last remaining resources. We will leave something to our children and grandchildren. We will use the natural resources in a way that lets us always be in balance, harmony, and circulation with nature.

This is our responsibility, and if we do not achieve this, nature will teach us by very harsh methods. There won’t be water or oil left around us, not any other resources. In a few decades we will be left with nil. Then, everything we have built will become useless and all production will come to a halt because it won’t have anything to work on. There won’t be lighting, heating, or refrigeration—nothing. That’s because we will have wasted all of the resources on ourselves, on unnecessary things that are beyond the necessities. And there will be no one to blame besides yourself for the fact that your children don’t have anything to exist by.

However, for now we are still trying to snatch as much as we can and suck as much as we can out of the earth. We are even starting to mine in the middle of the ocean in order to extract oil. We will exhaust everything, even reaching the North and South poles. But at some point these resources will have an end, and then we will finally understand….

However, I hope that we will nevertheless manage to develop new a formula of economics whose objective is not immediate egoistic gratification, but the attainment of balance. We have to discern what the new economy has to be within a nation that exists among other nations that have not corrected themselves yet. And then this formula will spread to the whole world.

I think it will be much easier to implement this formula than what is happening today because in essence, we have to simplify everything, achieve balance, and restore the normal circulation.
[53818]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/11, “The Nation”

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