Entries in the 'Dissemination' Category

Seven Billion Ants Connected To Each Other

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe can extract a force from nature that will change us so that we will not harm others. We will recognize the fact that we depend on one another and by that correct ourselves. This is how we can reach people and explain to them and suggest a way to establish new and better relations.

We have the power by which we can correct the bad relations between people and thus make our world a better place. If we manage to do that, our life will be good and beautiful.

This change will be done by the force of correction that we bring people, but in order to draw this force, we have to have a totally different intention, an intention of in order to bestow unto others.

The desire to live a good life in the connection between them will be enough for the mass of seven billion people. In order to do that, we have to organize workshops, roundtables, and meetings at homes for them. They will hear how connected we are to one another and how dependent we are on each other, and eventually they will understand that it is worthwhile to change our nature. Otherwise we will be like the scorpion that stung the frog that carried him on her back across the river, and so they both died. We will not be able to do anything good with our egoistic nature; we have to change it.

It isn’t enough to watch movies about how connected we are to one another. We have to change our nature practically. There is a huge gap between a movie and actual fulfillment. We know that we can use nice words during the friends‘ meeting and then go out into the street and behave like ordinary egoists. We have no choice, it is our nature.

But having good intentions are enough for seven billion people. We will reach them with the Light that Reforms by holding workshops, and then, through us, they will receive the power from Above that will change them and correct the relations between them.

But our desire to receive is much greater and we have to really change our intention so that it will be in order to bestow. The difference is that we have to stop being egoistic, and all the seven billion only receive the power not to sting one another because everyone begins to understand that if he stings the other they both drown in the stormy river, like the fool who sits in a boat and drills a hole in the boat underneath himself.

A person can guard himself so as not to harm others by the force of the Light that he receives. He knows that he mustn’t drill a hole in the boat because then they will both drown in the ocean of their ego.

As a result of integral education, a person begins to feel that all of humanity is one body, and that he has to treat everyone like one family. The Upper Light allows me to feel pain when I prick someone else. I feel it myself and say “ouch,” and it isn’t that he suffers, but I suffer since we are one body, like hitting your foot but feeling the pain in your head.

This is how all the people in the world will connect and will not need to work against their nature. Their work will only be in workshops, and by connecting, they will begin to feel that they are interdependent, like ants that live in one big family, billions of ants in one nest.

That is, they will not have to reach the recognition of their own evil nature. Nature is nature, but only the connection between us grows so strong that we will really feel it. We will see the system of connections between us so clearly that if I do something bad to someone, I will feel bad myself.

This is called love thy friend as thyself, and it is no wonder. It is only the revelation of the natural system in which we are connected to one another.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/14, Shamati #60

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What Is Better For Others Is Also Better For Me

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll of humanity is like one body and although our ego grows and forces us to make only egoistic calculations, the connection between us and our interdependence is increasingly revealed. There is no one in the world that doesn’t depend on everyone else, on the entire world. If we don’t reveal this connection today in its full intensity, in the full depth and width of the connection between us, it will be revealed in a couple of years. We are advancing toward this.

We see that there are two trends that bring us to a very unpleasant state. On the one hand, I depend on everyone, on all of humanity, and cannot provide even the basic necessities for myself if I am not connected to everyone

We see that this is actually how our life is managed, and we cannot stop that. If we observe the process that every piece of plastic, paper, wood, electric wire, or metal has been through, we will see that every product has been all over the world in some way and that this dependence grows every day, and the connection between us becomes more and more integral.

On the other hand, it is becoming more and more egoistic, sharp and aggressive, and thus we reach the crisis point, the special turning point. When we reach this point, we can decide that it is better to cut off the relations between us since they are not so good, like divorce in a family or when we cut off our relations with people who treat us badly.

However, if this disconnection is still possible when it comes to individuals or in the family, or in a greater dimension when we speak about countries, we reach a state of war. If we want to cut off our relations and establish a new world order, war is inevitable. The only option is to find a means, a kind of a candy to sweeten the connection between us and make it into a good one.

We see that the connection between us is multilateral and integral. So, we must correct ourselves according to the connection that is revealed to us. In that case, we will not only feel that we depend on one another, but that we want to be connected and are ready to connect willingly. Then, instead of fighting and trying to cut off a bad connection, we will establish a better connection instead.

We can perform the correction of the connection between us that grows stronger every day by using the method called the wisdom of Kabbalah or, more accurately, the method of integral education, the wisdom of connection.

To sum up, we end up with two options as a result of our study of the evolution of man and his nature: We either correct the connection between us, or we will reach great conflicts, violence, and terrible wars, as we already see in different places in the world.

This is the reason that the method of integral education, according to which man must change, is being revealed in the world. After all, as long as man operates according to his egoistic nature, he will act in his own favor. No matter what he says and how generous he tries to be, a person’s intentions always will be only for his own sake and to harm others.

We must explain to people that, today, it is impossible to act for my own sake and to harm others if we are connected. If I depend on you and you depend on me, I have no choice but to think about what is good for you and for you to think about what is good for me. This is how the connection between us will work so that, if I harm you, I harm myself through you. It is the same when it comes to doing good: If I do good to others, I do good to myself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/14, Shamati #60

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Woe To The One Who Asks For Himself

Dr. Michael LaitmanFirst, only one vessel was created that was shattered into many pieces, and we are these pieces. The fragments that must be collected first and then help all the other pieces gather are called Israel, Yashar El (straight to the Creator).

Baal HaSulam tells us about it in a very internal, emotional manner in his article, “Not the Time For Gathering the Herd,” in A Sage’s Fruit (Pri Hacham): In The Book of Zohar is a parable about two people who are floating in a boat, (since all of mankind are in one boat), and one of them drilled beneath himself. His friend reprimanded him, “Why are you drilling,” and the foolish one answered, “What do you care? After all, I am drilling under myself”—as if he weren’t part of the others and was harming only himself. How can he understand that he depends on everyone and that everyone depends on him if he doesn’t feel it?

All the parts of creation: the still, vegetative, and animate nature are connected to one another and sustain this connection instinctively, either by supporting one another or by eating one another. The forms they connect by make no difference, but there is harmony among them and the right, natural communication. However, among Israel it isn’t so, and neither is it among the rest of humanity. We don’t understand that at the moment, and it seems that everyone is drilling a hole only underneath himself. But, in fact, one person can destroy all goodness in general, and even because of one person, all of humanity can descend lower and lower.

In every generation, we feel that we are more and more divided and detached because our ego grows. We don’t care about others and we are even proud of being individualists, how special we are,  and how inconsiderate of others we are. By that, of course, we bring about the general deterioration.

This is the secret of the praying in the society: The individual cannot differ, but actually always feel himself as part of the general, as an inseparable part of the cogwheels in this machine, and it is impossible to ask for oneself, even if it is from a desire to delight the Creator, unless it is for the general.

By asking to be able to bestow unto the Creator by himself, he brings about the corruption of himself and of everyone else. It is impossible for the individual to raise a prayer, a request, a deficiency, even if it is in order to delight the Creator, since it is the wrong appeal, which is not only futile but actually corrupts the whole structure of the general vessel.

This means that it is impossible to ask to delight the Creator before you ask that you should be able to delight the general. It is only when you are incorporated in everyone and in the desires of the general that you can raise a deficiency and ask.

This is since one who separates from the society and asks for himself individually doesn’t build but actually brings about the destruction of his soul. A person really wants correction and wants to bestow unto everyone, but he asks for himself individually. He doesn’t ask for himself in contrast to others, but actually wants to help others and to serve them. However, as long as he feels that he is an individual and not part of the general, melting among them, his prayer is invalid and is even harmful for his soul.

It is only by complete incorporation in the society, when there is no difference between him and the collective, that he can raise a prayer to the Creator. It is clear since the Upper Light that fills the general is the Creator, and so you cannot be in contact with Him if you are not incorporated in the society by disappearing into it.

This is because he who is proud, says the Creator, cannot dwell with Me in the same place. Why be proud because you cannot be an exception without being dressed in pride. The Creator says that anyone who is proud cannot dwell with Him in the same place, and woe to the one who brings about the destruction of his soul.

If you are different from others in any way, you are already in a state of destruction, and, if you raise a prayer to the Creator from the state in which you are different from others, although you want to be incorporated in everyone, you bring about destruction through that. All the requests can be only by incorporation. Even if I ask, “Help me be incorporated in everyone,” it is also pride and a prayer of the individual. We may pray to the Creator only for the society wherever we are and in whichever state we are.

Also, during the work, when a person prays individually, he separates himself from the general unwillingly and destroys his soul. Therefore, no individual of the children of Israel should awaken and demand anything for himself as each individual lacks nothing since they should not feel themselves as individuals. The “children of Israel is the society in which no one feels himself, but only the general as a whole.

Therefore, there is the prayer of many, the prayer of the public, since there is only one soul, and there is no me or others, and this is their power to exit Egypt strong-handed, when everyone feels themselves as one asking to exit.

Every person should gather all his power in the society of Israel as a whole, in all the appeals to the Creator, in prayer and in the work, and should include himself in the root of Israel, and then all the herds shall drink from the well, from one source, since one receives from One. This is because the previous limit that was in the feeling of the individual will be removed from all the souls of Israel, both below it and above it, both in purifying and in attaining Aviut (thickness), and the general of holiness will greatly expand, even to parts that previously didn’t belong to Israel and are now connected to its unity. This is because the Light will be revealed from the Chazeh (chest) down where there were previously vessels of receiving that couldn’t connect into one, into bestowal that is the attribute of the vessels from the Chazeh (chest) up. This is because this is the nature of the general Light that dwells in the individual that is annulled with regard to the individual and doesn’t feel itself. This means that one is incorporated in the general Israel and ceases to feel his individuality.

Therefore, there is nothing that we can engage in but to learn and teach others how to attain the concept of Israel. This is the state that the created being must reach in order to get closer to adhesion with the Creator, to the goal of creation.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/14

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If There Is No Communication, There Is No Peace

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are accustomed to perceive everything through the mind, rational proof, and explanations. Even if we are still in concealment, but there are some fragments between which there is something still unclear, it is already possible to assemble a picture and live with it. However, the general public does not need such explanations. Its perception is more emotional.

You just need to build on our history. Israel is a people organized by Abraham and Moses as a special community of people, living as one man with one heart, according to the laws of love for one’s neighbor as oneself. It is the condition in which the nation of Israel exists. If we fall from this level to unfounded hatred, then we come to destruction of the people and go into exile.

Now, by performing all the necessary conditions, we need again to strengthen our unity and become one man with one heart. Then, we will be called the people of Israel in the land of Israel.

Everything that happens around us does not matter. It comes only in order to compel us to fulfill this condition. All this should be brought gradually to people in sensation, through the heart. In essence, we explain on what conditions we can continue to exist.

All this is strange, illogical, and irrational. The people of Israel are a strange phenomenon in this world, and everyone knows that. However, this irrational community is more robust and stable than all the other nations that ever existed in history.

All this must be announced immediately and completely openly, without any breaks. People are ready for this, and every day their conditions will worsen. The new trend is that, today, the main control is in the broad public. The main weapon is a broad world view that requires each country to act according to it, and not otherwise.

In this way, the Creator governs us through parts of humanity. The force of weapons solves nothing now. The war is going to another level: the confrontation of opinions. In fact, this is a media war. Everything is determined by who rules in the media and what type they are. As a result, we need to understand that if there is no communication between people, there is no peace!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/14, Shamati #68

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Is The War Against Terrorists Or Concealment?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If the current war is a struggle between different ideologies, what is the current war between ideologies in Israel?

Answer: First, we have to understand that we are managed by the upper force, by the thought of creation, and by that we can use the Light that Reforms in order to save ourselves and to win. But how should we win?

This whole war is not in order to defeat some hostile terrorist organization but in order to defeat the concealment that is all over the world.

We must remove it, at least to some extent, and then we will see what world we are living in, what is happening to us, to all of the created beings, and what the upper force wants of us. By the way, this is not contrary to the Islamic perspective at all. It requires explanation and nothing more.

War is a conflict between two opinions. The essence of this war is that every side wants to win by using its ego. But we should understand that today there is no room for this kind of war. This war has become something else: We are required to remove the concealment. We are sent an obstacle that forces us to think that we are seemingly fighting terrorists over some territory, some domination, or some political ideology.

But, in fact, it is a totally different battle that takes place only so that by this situation we will be able realize that it is the upper force that puts us in these acute situations so that we will be able to reveal it.

We can only reveal it by massive dissemination of the message that everything comes from this force in order to reveal it and reach equivalence of form with it. It is because this equivalence of form is the means to reveal it.

Equivalence of form with the upper force requires us to fulfill the condition of love thy friend as thyself and to turn one’s enemy into one’s lover, which means to turn the enemies into friends and the external enemies into internal ones.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In recent years the situation of a state of emergency and rocket attacks have repeated several times and we constantly speak about the need to connect and to unite, but no one wants to listen to us. What is the problem here? Is it that people aren’t ready yet or that we don’t know how to explain things?

Answer: I cannot blame our enemies for wanting to destroy us and I cannot blame the people of Israel for not understanding what is happening and why this situation reoccurs again and again. The only ones to blame are the people who know how to perform the correction but are too lazy to do their job and are in no rush to use all the means that they have to bring the method of correction to the people, not only to the nation of Israel but to the whole world too.

Since we are in the era of the end of correction, we can tell everyone about it, including our enemies. We will feel that they understand it and acknowledge it. They will find out what the source of their anti-Semitism is, their deadly hatred of the Jews, and why fate keeps us in a continuous conflict that also brings about great suffering and wars to the Arabs themselves.

They are also in a bad position, and although they are proud of their power, they actually suffer. So they should understand the reason for their suffering.

It is clear that nothing will help there. We can destroy all the terrorists, but the next day new ones will come along. Our enemies have enough people and missiles to bomb every centimeter of our territory. There isn’t a piece of land in Israel that would be safe from missiles and where people could live in peace.

Both we and the Arabs are well aware of this. But this confrontation is held on a certain border because the people of  Israel is obliged to fulfill  its mission and in the meantime, we are given some time to do so, in order to fulfill it in the good, right way of the Light, in the way of I will hasten it (Achishena). If we don’t do so, we are about to experience the terrible times described by the prophets.
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From KabTV’s “The Mission of the People of Israel,” 7/8/14

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Look For A Solution On A Different Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is said you should do everything in your power,” and then it says that we should expect help from Above, what kind of help could it be from Above if it said ,”He gave a law that cannot be broken,” which means that everything is already predetermined?

Answer: We are given great help from Above because we are in a new era. Everyone finds themselves in a state feeling that there is no solution or to be more accurate that there is no solution on the current level. But this is a positive revelation since it will force us to stop looking for the solution on the old level and to ascend to the next level where the solution actually is.

The solution is not to solve the old problem but to see the state from a new perspective. We will see a new goal, a new state, and a totally different encounter: not between one another but between us and the Creator.

Question: So it turns out that “He gave a law that cannot be broken,” has changed now.

Answer: The law has changed since the leadership that descends all the way to our world has changed, we find ourselves on a new, more revealed level.

Question: Can we expect mercy from Above then?

Answer: We will receive according to the way we act, but mercy from Above means that even if I don’t deserve anything on my current level but I ask for it and develop a new desire by the influence of the environment, by self annulment, by subduing myself, then the Light that Reforms comes and fulfills my request.

The mercy from Above is in accordance to my efforts, which means that I have earned it, but I don’t necessarily ask for what I receive since I don’t know what to ask for and what to focus on, and therefore it is called mercy.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A People Or A Bunch Of Refugees?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is to be done in this situation where missiles are flying and a siren is blaring all the time? How must I act so that a rocket will not hit me?

Answer: In order for missiles not to hit us, it is necessary to influence it somehow, and, first of all, it is necessary to scrutinize what kind of a force is sending it. Certainly, everything is sent by the upper force. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that only one system operates in the world, that is directing us toward correction.

From the days of ancient Babylon, from the days of our father Abraham who began this process, until our day, we are advancing toward correction, and the correction is to connect into a single whole.

Abraham began this correction from a small group of people who called themselves “Israel,” Yashar-El. He taught them how to reach unity, bestowal, and love. For some time, the people of Israel maintained a state of unity like this—during the Egyptian exile, the wandering in the wilderness, the First and Second Temples, until hatred toward each other was discovered in us.

From the level of brotherly love, we fell to unfounded hatred, and since then, we have been living within this hatred, separated in mutual loathing. This state is called “exile,” and we have lived in this state until today.

Close to a hundred years ago, we got the opportunity to return to the land of Israel and to begin living in it again as the people of Israel in its own nation. However, the people of Israel can exist in the land of Israel only on condition that love of others as yourself permeates there: All of Israel are friends connected with mutual guarantee, and it is impossible to do to another what is hateful to you.

However, we are not carrying out these conditions, and so we are not approaching a state in which it is possible to call us the people of Israel living in the land of Israel. In the meantime, this is just a gathering of exiles and refugees who settled in this place thanks to temporary conditions given to us by nature.

We have no merit to be living in this land like this. The Kabbalists wrote about this in every generation, and today we must understand that everything that was written by them truly is being realized in us in our day. Either we accept the conditions upon ourselves according to which the people of Israel must live in the land of Israel—in other words, connected and unified—or we will have no place, not only on the soil of Israel, but no place in the world at all.

For the nations of the world, suppose that, existing like this, we are causing damage to the entire world. We want missiles not to fall on us, that we should be respected all over the world and related to as all other peoples. However, it won’t happen this way, and it will never happen.

We cannot be like everyone else because we must be greater than everyone else because this is how nature is built, that specifically through us, the higher power reaches this world and calms it down, gives it fulfillment. If we become a Light to all the other peoples, the matchmaker that connects the upper force with the whole world, then we can be high and respected. However, if we don’t behave like this, then all kinds of unpleasantness can be expected for us which, in the end, will oblige us to carry out our mission.

Do you want a ceasefire? We have one solution: to be a conduit between the upper force, which is good and benevolent, and the whole world. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how to implement this. We must actively transform to become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”; in other words, to educate ourselves and teach the world how to be bestowers, connectors, loving each other.

No one is to blame, no person in the world, including our most terrible haters who blame us from all directions. We have no one to blame, except ourselves, for our negligence, our laziness, our delay in the correction that we must bring to the world. This is because, beginning from the time of the Ari and on, we are in an era of correction, and it is specifically we who must bring it to the world.

All of the Kabbalists, beginning from the Ari, wrote about our generation, about our day, as being about the revelation of the upper force in the world, and this revelation is done through a simple action: the unification of the people of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “The Mission of the People of Israel” 7/8/14

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The Creator Doesn’t Feel Individuals

Dr. Michael LaitmanWritings of Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam“, 1986, Article 15, “A Prayer of Many”: Therefore, he prays for the collective. This means that if there are a few people in the collective who can reach the goal of Dvekut with the Creator, and this will bring the Creator more contentment than if he himself were rewarded with nearing the Creator, he waives himself. Instead, he wishes for the Creator to help them because this will bring more contentment above than from his own work.

If a person doesn’t join the collective, he has nothing to turn to the Creator with. After all, the Creator doesn’t feel individuals, He only feels the collective.

This is why we have to go out to the public and why we have to connect. Everything belongs to one system, and it is impossible for one part to work when other parts do not.

During human evolution, our work was performed parallel to our waiting. Kabbalists who wrote The Book of Zohar concealed it for two thousand years until our days. All the parts of the Bible they wrote about, the Torah, the Prophets, and Scripture still had to be developed.

But we are a special generation, as Kabbalists say, and we have to perform a practical correction both inside the group and outside the group, among the public. The relationship between the members of the group, the group and society in general, between the individual and the collective, is the only framework where we can raise our request.

Even if every member in the group asks for it, we cannot advance unless our request is incorporated into society’s desires. This is the only way the Creator will listen and feel us. After all, the Creator is the general force, the Upper Light that has created the whole desire to receive. Therefore, it only feels all of its parts together. If we regard Him that way, as a whole desire, then we will be able to convey our deficiency to Him and ask Him for correction or for revelation. Only through the collective can we formulate the correct request that He connects.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/14, Writings of Rabash

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We Have To Solve The Problem From The Root

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean that our weapon is unity?

Answer: The point is that when we connect, we join the upper force. It isn’t some mystical upper force that religious people believe in, but the internal force of nature that we accumulate between us when we unite. Through us, this force begins to operate on all of humanity, on the whole world.

The reason for anti-Semitism is that we don’t convey this force to the world. Therefore this force is lacking in the world and the world becomes empty and deteriorates. People chase material acquisitions, which cannot fill anything, and thus they waste their lives.

They don’t know what they are living for and what the meaning of life is, and this is because they don’t receive filling from the upper force. It brings the meaning to life, which is to aspire to be filled with the upper force, feeling it, and then ascending to a different level of existence, to eternity and wholeness.

Every person in the world has this opportunity, and we turn off the tap that lets the Light flow. We don’t serve as the adaptor between the upper force and the world. People feel this subconsciously and therefore see the Jews as the source of all their problems and troubles.

They don’t understand how the whole system operates, which the wisdom of Kabbalah talks about and Kabbalists wrote about for ages, but they do understand instinctively where the root of the problem lies.

We should understand that we are the problem and that the solution is only in becoming a system that conveys the upper force so that it can fill all of humanity.
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From KabTV’s “The Mission of the People of Israel,” 7/8/14

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