Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Every Ascent Starts With A Reboot

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The world group contains a great desire that we can work with, but how do we penetrate within?

Answer: We are still lacking mutual guarantee. That’s the problem. Everyone has a desire, but we still don’t feel total interconnection, when any hole in the common boat sinks it to the bottom. Obviously, the Creator is helping us with it since we can’t plug all the holes ourselves. It is written: “Turn to Me, and I will repay.” However, later on, He will pass this work down do us, and we will repay Him the debt.

Hence, we lack the sensation of interdependency, the necessity to care for everyone. I am supposed to feel concerned and worried about everyone staying unified, as a mother cares for her children’s health and well-being. Caring in a person’s heart will help others and return to him amplified manifold.

After all, the group is a very powerful amplifier. In response to my caring, the friends envelop me in it. The more I contribute to the group, the more the group enhances my attitude and returns it to me manifold. I aim my thoughts at the friends yet again, adding my contribution to what I have received from them.

How do I work on this desire? I fall half way. The Creator trips me, and all of the sudden, having the group back me up with such a wonderful and powerful desire, I start ignoring my wealth. After all, I received such a burning inspiration from the friends that there is no more room for my personal effort. Where am I then, if everything comes from them?

Therefore, in order for me to put my share in, I am given a descent. Out of necessity, I start climbing up as if I am trying to get out of a hole; I fall and keep climbing up again until I reach the surface. Once more, I put forth my effort into the friends.

It’s hard to keep trying since it’s all gone as if I hadn’t gotten anything from them in the first place. What has caused this “reboot?” The point is that I have ascended to a new degree. Now I start at a zero on it, but it’s the zero degree of the new level, a higher one than my previous state.

Obviously, it is first presented to me as an even greater darkness. There are even more obstacles and egoism at this new level since I rose higher, to my more powerful, uncorrected desires. Thus, I continue on my spiritual path.
[41137]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The Wind Of Change

Dr. Michael LaitmanWorking in the group, I receive from it a strong desire. I crave to break free from egoism, but what can I do? Desire in itself is capable of nothing. Even more than that, such a desire, however powerful, is selfish.

I don’t want bestowal per se, but the profit that it promises. That means that I am under the yoke of Pharaoh. I have a very strong desire to give within the desire to receive: I’m looking forward to profit from bestowal.

As a consequence, the discrepancy, the gap, the polarity, the conflict of interest, inside of me is growing. I want to bestow in order to fill my egoistic desire. After all, bestowal makes me eternal, perfect, boundless, unfettered, immune to any crisis. Forget about tsunamis and stock market crashes; everything is wonderful! Who wouldn’t want it? My ego wants it, voraciously.

Yet, it’s incapable of it. Then the upper force comes and breaks through my "black hole," allowing me to escape. In fact, although you can describe it as an escape, by and large, I am not running anywhere. I stay in the same place, but suddenly, I feel myself free from egoism, from the desire to receive. That’s it.

Suddenly, it turns out that the black hole no longer contains the light inside; it becomes transparent. Everything flows through it now, and it channels all sorts of influences from other dimensions, which I call by different names: the Light of Nefesh, the Light of Ruach, and so on. Thus, we advance.

What’s essential for us is to cross the boundary, to begin the renewal (Hidush). In Hebrew, it’s called Rosh Hódesh, the beginning of the month. Our renewal is to attain our first attribute of bestowal with the help of the upper force.

To do it, however, we need to invite action from the upper force, and for that, we first need to unite. Let it be an egoistic unity; it doesn’t matter whether it’s successful or not. Only when we build the right environment, the wind of spiritual change will blow among us.
[41143]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.08.11

Baal HaSulam, “All Who Suffer for the Public”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Mishpatim, ‘The Grandfather,’” Item 299
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Lesson 9
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Baal HaSulam, “The Nation,” “The Individual and the Nation”
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Actually, We Are Already Home!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is joy in the work?

Answer: I constantly experience certain obstacles, pricks, and thoughts that are sent to me, and I am still happy receiving them! After all, I am constantly studying myself with this help from the Creator, the Light, who evokes these sensations in me. He seems to be pricking me in one point here, another point there, with a thought, a desire, an attitude, and demonstrates to me what is wrong in me.

Question: But how do we bring the “earned income home,” to our source of existence, unless we know where we are supposed to go? A ship on the sea can navigate by stars, a car on the road by the road signs, but in spirituality, there aren’t any signs. So how do we find our way to it?

Answer: In the instant when you prepare the correct desire within yourself, you will suddenly feel that you already are in the right place! You will suddenly reveal that you don’t need to go anywhere. Just find the right desire and you will see that you are already home.
[42355]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Desire And You Shall Reveal

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhile reading The Book of Zohar, one has to understand that The Zohar is not supposed to be processed by the mind. And if a person wishes to figure it out by way of the intellect, he will get tangled in every word since no word in The Book of Zohar points to anything familiar to us.

All of them hint at the spiritual states and properties. If a person is in the same spiritual state or world, he reveals what they are talking about. So, he knows what spiritual properties and definitions are being described; he feels, recognizes within himself this inner, spiritual world. After all, a person reveals the spiritual world inside, rather than outside of himself, as he perceives the entire reality only within.

As to someone who doesn’t possess spiritual perception yet, he is simply reading an unusual text. What are we reading The Zohar for then? We do so in order to add to it an aspiration to reach a state when we will understand, feel, recognize, and even experience all the spiritual states and properties The Zohar is telling about. All that I presently read as an incomprehensible story, I wish to experience inside myself and live in it.

We must cultivate this desire in us. In order to see the spiritual world, we only lack a desire, a yearning for it, and not more. Therefore, now, as we read The Zohar, we must, all together, to the best of our ability strive to reveal this hidden world.

Even though we don’t have a special need for it (since we don’t know what we are reading), we are still reading this text together. Hence, from this very same concealed state, we draw upon ourselves the illumination regarded as “the Light that Reforms,” “the Surrounding Light,” which affects us.

It doesn’t reveal the concealed world, but rather it awakens in us the needs, desires, and properties of perception, new sensory organs, after which the revelation occurs. The Light functions so as to create in us the capacity for sensing the concealed. Hence, we yearn for the Surrounding Light to enable us to feel the hidden world.
[42345]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Don’t Look For The Painkillers, Go For The Treatment Instead

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Are we going to suffer till the end of correction?

Answer: Suffering is sensing uncorrected areas within. As soon as I start viewing them correctly, I won’t take it as suffering any longer; instead, I will feel immense gratitude to the Light for showing me something I can correct in myself.

Pain is a calling for action. If I have a wound that doesn’t hurt, it is quite dangerous since I will let the disease settle in. But if it does hurt, this illness (not the wound itself) obligates me to start looking for treatment.

Well then, is pain good or bad? It is possible to switch off a certain nerve center in your brain and you will stop feeling pain altogether. If you leg catches fire, you won’t even feel that you are burning. If your arm is stuck in a machine, you won’t notice it. Pain is the help that points out the flaw to us! Hence, we need to view it as the means of correction.
[42366]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Move Through The Stage Of Concealment Quickly

Dr. Michael LaitmanA beginner is prone to fighting with obstacles and trying to move them out of the way. He is unable to connect to the Creator through these obstacles yet and can’t see that all that is happening in his life comes from Him.

That is why he pushes the obstacles out of the way in his egoism and gets angry at others, while wanting to make a nice, easy life for himself, as it is customary among all those people in the world who don’t yet feel the connection with the Creator. These are the initial steps in our work.

But after a person has exerted effort in order to enter the group, connect with the teacher and the books, the Light starts affecting him stronger. And even though he doesn’t feel it, he does see how he changes internally. In fact, he starts noticing his connection with the governing force, the cause of all that is going on around, the force that exists somewhere in nature, inside of him, and evokes his desires and thoughts.

There is some inner governing factor in him, and a person begins to establish a connection with it, while trying to understand why He is doing all this, for what purpose, and how he is supposed to respond to it? A person lives for a very long time until he arrives at the sensation that everything around is triggered by some internal causes instilled by the Creator. And then, he understands that he must put quite an effort into the group, dissemination, and studying, in order to pass through this stage of concealment sooner.

And when he no longer forgets that everything comes from the internal force that awakens and guides him through, his work becomes more conscious, precise, and practical. Thereby, he gradually accumulates the necessary desire to reveal Him, who arranges the world around us, so that this hidden connection is finally revealed.

But there is more work after this, which continues till the very end of correction by way of obstacles. The only question is: How quickly will a person begin to recognize and use them as help to achieve a connection, adhesion, with the Creator?

After all, the Light illuminates our uncorrected desire, revealing its deeper and more inner layers with each new degree. This is the only thing that causes us to feel pain. But pain is the symptom of a disease, the unfolding egoism, corruption! Only then do we receive an opportunity to correct and sentence ourselves and the world to a scale of merit.

Therefore, it is necessary to work on oneself in order to justify any states that we start feeling deeper, stronger, and more irritating. The more a person advances, bigger and deeper obstacles are presented to him, and the more powerful the blows are. But at the same time, he begins to understand what is going on, even though the righteous one also falls and becomes a “sinner” so he may rise and become righteous yet again.
[42359]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Crawling Out Of The Black Hole

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalists advise us to practice in our little “game room,” in the “bubble” of this world, until we figure out that nothing works. Who will give us a sensation of it? It is the upper force residing outside of our perception, beyond our world.

That’s what “trips” us. That’s what leads us to failure instead of success. Why? It’s in order to vex, to awaken us. The Creator flirts with us so that we start to want Him even more and develop, to the best of our ability, a real need for bestowal that lies outside of our nature.

While forming this desire to step out of the familiar, egoistic corner, we begin to realize how small and finite it is. It’s similar to a black hole that doesn’t allow the light to break free due to the impassable force of gravity. We, too, reside in a “black hole,” unable to get out. On the other hand, we can cultivate the need to break free, “to desire without a desire.” That, we can do.

How so? That is because if we arrange it correctly, the group binds everyone. This is how it is in daily life. Everywhere I go, all sorts of things are offered to me that I would never choose to want. I’m told that headache pills are what I really need, but what if I feel good, and everything is okay in my life? Then I am told, “How come? You lack the most essential things! Look, your neighbor has already bought them. We have an assortment you won’t believe!”

Indeed, I have never thought of such pleasures, but I am relentlessly pushed to try them and see for myself. In other words, they form a desire in me, aimed at what I have no desire for. So it is, over and over again. Such is the impact of society.

We, too, should create an advertising agency of the spiritual world that would constantly work on us, forming a need for what we don’t need. In this agency, my work should be based on knowing that thereby, by way of external actions, I work on myself.

It doesn’t matter that I want to manipulate myself into buying the spiritual product. I put this desire through the group, through their desires, and it returns to me in an unrecognizable form. As a result, I become inspired and, literally out of necessity, strive toward spiritual fulfillment.

What is passed through the others is no longer mine. My initial message became saturated by the friends’ desire, and now the entire group gets hooked on this lie: “You know, it’s so cool there, in spirituality! Compared to our world, it’s like heaven on earth!”

They brainwash me with messages they don’t believe. They want to sell me a product and make a profit on being the advertisers for it, while I take their words seriously and exert great effort to purchase the spiritual world for myself.
[41149]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

 

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Living For The Sake Of The Moment

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe world as it is today is rapidly sinking. We are destroying nature by exhausting its resources and are ruining human society in all areas of its life. Moreover, we can’t stop. No matter what, we are still trying to move ahead in the same egoistic direction.

If you don’t have the point in the heart, if you don’t draw the upper Light, you don’t get a chance to compare yourself with it in order to find what is wrong with you. You function like a machine with only one electric cord plugged into it. A mechanical bunny keeps hopping in a similar manner, totally oblivious of the fact that every time it jumps, it falls down. If there is no force that can show me this evil, I won’t become aware of it: “It’s okay; it didn’t happen today, but maybe tomorrow it will.”

This is the problem of  the “world reformers” Baal HaSulam is writing about. We are talking about a spiritual concept that derives from the idea that pleasure, the Light, never stays in our egoistic desire. We constantly strive for it, making efforts, but nothing helps. And it won’t since we are opposite to the Light and don’t feel any of this.

Having barely touched a desire, the pleasure immediately disappears, and I have to start digging for it again, for a mere moment of contact between the Light and desire. I’m living solely for this moment. If only we could see this process from aside: desire, a drop of pleasure, desire, a drop of pleasure. In order to tap into it, I constantly keep “hitting the button,” like an experimental animal, with no free will. This is what our life is all about, which has taught us nothing over the course of thousands of years of evolution.

Thus, “world reformers” is a very deep philosophical notion. It is the correct, egoistic, and only form of development. It is a property implanted in our nature, and there is no place to hide from it. Only if the point in the heart emerges in a person and he or she starts developing correctly, led by their new desire, can one acquire a force that opposes the mechanics of desire and pleasure: the force of the Light. This Light makes a person feel that he or she is missing a third element: the new intention, calculation, the screen.

The point of this search is that it is aimed against the “world correctors” within a person. It turns out that there is someone else over you, and this someone creates the flaw in the first place and then corrects it.

This is the process we must undergo. And we are yet to see its effects on human development. As Baal HaSulam describes, everybody expects the others to admit that they are wrong and acknowledge that the former are right. But it will never happen, and everybody will keep insisting on their own opinion. Humanity will take this path: The arguing parties will keep fighting to the very end. And there is no way out of this; it will lead us to wars and self-destruction.

If we don’t counter this process with the dissemination of Kabbalah, fighting will never stop. The only question is this: Will they hear us before mass destruction begins or after it, when only a small part of humanity will remain?

Correction will still occur according to the method of Kabbalah, but will it come to catastrophes, demise of billions, and extreme survival conditions for the rest who will hear the method and start actualizing it, hurried by horrible pain? Or, will we manage to explain this method to the world before it runs to extremes?
[42196]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Unity As A Vessel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In our dissemination, can we describe the Creator as a force of unification and use the unity of our body’s organs as an example?

Answer: No, unification is a means, not the end. All of the body’s organs are soldered together, working in harmony, and complementing one another, and each annuls itself to unify and serve the others.

Due to this, the body becomes an integral system, which awakens a special force that pertains to the higher dimension: the force of life. It isn’t simply a material existence on the animate level, but a higher state of being, the attainment of the body’s wholeness and purpose.

Where does it come from? Initially, through the four phases of the Direct Light, everything descended from the root phase to the fourth phase. And then, by attaining unity, the fourth state ascends to the force that created this wholeness to begin with; that is, it goes back to the root phase.

This is a universal rule: By completing a lower degree, you reach the start of the next one. This is why when we unite, we attain a higher force. Wholeness is a vessel, and the force we reveal in it is the Creator.
[42084]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/2011, Importance of Kabbalah Dissemination

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