Entries in the 'Egoism' Category

Don’t Run Away From The Recognition Of Evil

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf someone points out the smallest defect within me, I begin to hate him to the extent to which I feel how negatively he affects me, gets to me, and invades me. Instantly I distance myself from this person. We instinctively run away from accusations.

What can help me reach such a state where I fully reveal my evil and I am glad that it is becoming revealed within me, and at the same time I feel it as enormous evil, which needs to be cut out of me? Then I achieve the maximum sensation of evil from which I involuntarily cry out to the Creator. What will help me to stay on the path the whole way and not run away from the recognition of evil?
[76696]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 4

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Every Action Leaves A Mark

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt’s said: “Every action leaves a mark.” Our advancement happens due to the Returning Light. It impacts us to the degree to which our desires are ready to accept It. Thus, their structure is gradually clarified.

The structure of a desire that is equivalent to the Light is in fact a connection through which we eventually start sensing the Light. It’s a permanent construction that constantly expands. Together it includes four (4) stages of HaVaYaH; that’s why it’s called the “revelation of the Creator’s names.” Numerous combinations of desires denote qualities of the Light. Within our desires we perceive the Light as if we’ve placed a screen before It; that is how we recognize what the Light is.

If we look through the tinted glass, we see that the Light acquires the color of the glass. This is how we get to know that the Light can have various colors. We need special tools to discover a new phenomenon. We also have to use additional remedies that will allow us to determine some qualities that are a part of the phenomenon that was just discovered.

This is what our work is about. The difference between regular scientific research and spiritual practice is that material scientific exploration involves using an external device, whereas in the spiritual search we use ourselves as a tool. We alter ourselves and try to apply the actions of creation to us to the extent of the level we have attained.

We do not develop our old properties, but rather reveal new ones; that’s why our work is called “spiritual.” Our effort should be oriented towards forming new properties that are similar to the Creator’s qualities; this is how we reveal His personality.

In the material realm, we tend to acquire practical knowledge about what’s going on around us and who we are. For that purpose we widen our existing natural characteristics through the development of science and technological progress. This is a basic difference: When we achieve a final stage of development on this plane, we will eventually see that we haven’t gotten anywhere. Moreover, we see that we have reached a dead-end. Our growth led us only to enormous egoism; we managed to reveal our evil nature to the extent that it became unbearable.

We have fallen to the very bottom of jealousy, ambition, hatred, and all sorts of evil conditions that we go through in relation to our neighbors. Previously, we at least had the illusion that we would get kinder and build a better society for everybody. At this time, we see that only fear of punishment stops us from using others selfishly and unsparingly.

The difference is that while working spiritually, we discover new properties, thus we get closer to the Creator; whereas when we work materialistically, we only get to explore the tangible nature of this realm. However, at this material plane, as well as during our elevation from here to the Creator, we still go through the same four stages of HaVaYaH, as it is said “I, HaVaYaH, do not change Myself.” This is why every action of ours brings us closer to the goal.
[75258]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/12, Shamati #190

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A Bridge Over The Eternal Conflict

From the lesson dedicated to Israel’s Independence Day

On a day like today, we usually don’t speak about deficiencies, meaning the unfulfilled desires, but we always measure everything with regard to the vessels.

First we have to understand that the term “Israel” symbolizes the intention of “Yashar El,” (straight to the Creator). We will actually celebrate the real independence day of Israel when we are freed from the domination of our ego, when we unite above self love, when we keep this connection at least on a minimal level, and when it prevails over the separated desire that rages inside us as the evil inclination. Then the power of unity will rule over the power of separation. This is the exodus from exile to independence.

Are we free on the corporeal level? Is our group free in the spiritual world? This is what we should ask ourselves and measure. After all, everything is relative, and as we ascend the spiritual levels, we will discover the powerful size of the separation over and over again, according to the new Reshimot, (reminiscences). Then we will acquire the power of unity with the help of the Reforming Light.

This is the way—the unity and the separation alternately replace each other. So where is our independence? It narrows down to our supervision over the process. Even when we fall and seem to lose our independence under the rule of evil desires, we still know how to rise. Therefore, we are called independent.

Today we are still dominated by our egoistic needs and desires. In this world we are not united as a nation yet, we still reject one another and do not want brotherly love, we don’t accept it as our goal yet, but see it as an option: It is desirable, it’s possible but “there is no rush.” And we feel pain since this fire isn’t burning in us.

We are in a state of exile and not in a state of freedom and independence. After all, independence means that at least we make the efforts to attain it. We have received all the necessary means from Above in order to determine our independence, rising above our ego in general unity. We haven’t attained it yet in order to immediately pass it on to the people and to the world.

All our friends throughout the world need to feel this, both in corporeality and in spirituality, and we must fulfill our mission and reach the independence of the desire to bestow over the desire to receive. This is called “faith above reason.” This is what we are facing.

The uniqueness of our times is in the fact that everything is ready for correction. The world is approaching this and we understand this better and have what it takes. No one is standing in our way, not physically, not morally, and not mentally. We don’t have fierce enemies that stop us from carrying out our mission.

So the problem is only in us. We have to actually feel that we are under the domination of Pharaoh that reigns within us, an alien force, and it alone does not allow us to wage war for independence.

Question: There is a growing need for a change. Everyone understands the reason for all our problems already, we understand that it is all about the environment, about the separation and the lack of mutual trust… how can people reach a common perspective?

Answer: “Love will cover all sins.” This is the whole secret. We don’t correct anything directly, but we simply build our unity above all the problems and the disagreements.

By being in a labyrinth of opposites we will not achieve anything. If you start clarifying this swamp, Egypt will simply “swallow” you, and bury you under its massive pyramids. This is the exile in Egypt from which we will not be able to rise if we work directly with the defects that are revealed among the friends. We mustn’t do it. This is why Pharaoh, the ego, forces us and seems to logically be showing us the problems that need to be solved first. He is saying: “Bravo, keep on dealing with the spiritual advancement, but only in my territory, in the corrupt mutual relations among us.” We mustn’t listen to him!

Leave the ego, you are not correcting it, you want to build a bridge of love over it. Only then will you succeed, in “faith above reason.” After all, spirituality is above corporeality. The Creator has arranged things this way, and so I only have to escape Pharaoh, or in other words, to rise above him. We don’t have to destroy or to correct him. When I begin to build something above him, the “angel of death” will turn into “the holy angel.” This is what Moses is asking for: “Let my people go!”
[76325]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/12, “The Israeli Nation (Independence Day)”

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Training On Demand

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Initially we assumed that the psychological training would last three hours. At the convention, we dedicate one hour. And now you say that it is possible to implement it during a quarter of an hour before the lesson. What is the difference?

Answer: These classes constitute a person’s intention, which he needs to formulate; he must spend so much time per day in order to remain in that spirit throughout the day.

There are people who are constantly in this state, those who return to this state, and those who are not able to stand it. Their ego is still so large that even though they make a small effort, they already need to exit this state, they are not able to remain in it.

Everything depends on what state the person is in as he advances. You gradually develop within the bestowal of the upper Light. Only this gives results and nothing else.

When you yearn to go forward, the Light influences you. It changes you and next time you will enter it with more sensitivity and will do so more easily. You are already very close to these attributes, and you will be immediately included in them. Let’s suppose that in the morning you awake like beasts, exist in “separation,” and immediately enter this world, the world in which the force directs everything.

You begin to grasp your day in a completely different way, to see what is happening everywhere. The more you receive information from the sensations or from anything else, you see how the Creator plays with his creatures, and how he wants to bring them to independence and simultaneously to also resemble Him.
[76446]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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A Person’s Pure Benefit

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe ones who are given the chance to slip are those who have attained the specific degree and must reveal their evil inclination that can be corrected. But when we are shown a bit of our ego, we immediately want to run away and hide. Your heart is being hardened, your energy and inspiration are taken away, and you accept it. You are no longer in the right kind of spirit; you walk around all beat with a sour expression on your face.

I understand that people experience different states. But the group is able to create an atmosphere, where a person can easily overcome these descents within a blink of an eye—overcome them on the spot and begin to value bestowal over his attitude.

You must be grateful for having your spirit taken away from you, and that your ego is no longer participating in your spiritual action. Indeed, in this case your actions most definitely will be for the purpose of bestowing.

I do not want to do anything, I am not in the right mood, and I don’t feel the importance, but with my mind, I understand that if I were to do this, it would be an action of bestowal. I do not have any energy or desire to do this, but I can ask for it. And when I am not even able to ask for it, I can come to a group that will awaken me and give me a little inspiration.

But I do not ask for fuel, for the right spirit! After all, if I were in the right kind of spirit, my ego would immediately want to do these actions. The thief will run in front of everyone shouting: “Catch the thief.” This is why I want to keep my bad mood! Of course, I do not try to remain in despair, but I do not ask to have it corrected. I want for my egoism to stay distant from what I am doing now.

And then, whenever I do something—it will be an action of bestowal. After all, this bestowal did not happen out of my desire to enjoy, but only because I received strength from Above: the sense of importance and the ability. The Creator did all this through me: He robed in me and carried this action out. This is pure benefit called similarity to Him and adhesion.

And let the feeling remain as bad as it was. I do not ask to have it corrected. This will protect me from adding my egoism to a spiritual action. For this reason, as you continue going forward, the animal inside you will keep feeling worse, but at the same time, the man in you will keep feeling better because you are able to do actions of bestowal over all these unpleasant feelings. So you divide in two parts.
[76523]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The First Meeting

Dr. Michael LaitmanNow we desire only one thing: We wish that all of creation, meaning us, will not present any obstacles for the manifestation of the upper Light, so it will fill us without any resistance on our part. We want to make such a restriction on ourselves to give Him all the space for His revelation. At the same time we don’t exist, we are just transparent so that one single force would be passing through us and would fill us.

This is the first condition, restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), from which to begin our meeting with the Creator when for the first time we really feel for real that “There is None Else Beside Him.”

We are transparent; we don’t exist because we have annulled our “I,” our egoism, and so now the Creator can fill everything.
[76353]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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The Spiritual Reference Point

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt’s said: “Those who love the Creator, hate evil.” `That is, we are given a reference point: If you are in the state of love for the Creator, then you hate evil, hate egoism, and this should be felt simultaneously; otherwise, you are straying from the direction. You will think that you love the Creator, but if you don’t feel the hate for egoism at the same time, then, you have no direction, it vanishes. In order to align it, to make it a straight line, on the one hand, you have to strengthen it in the hatred for evil, and then the second point will be precisely aimed at the love for the Creator. We don’t know what the Creator and the love for Him is. But if we start with the hatred for egoism, this is already a direction.

It’s said in this case: “Those who love the Creator, hate evil,” and they are whom the Creator saves from this evil. Therefore, our work is to reject and repel egoism and to attract good, bestowal, and love.
[76120]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Lesson 5

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Am I Righteous Or Am I A Sinner?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhat is the connection between the hatred of evil and the salvation from evil? On one hand, simply by being human, we understand that when I hate something I distance myself from it. This guards and protects me, helps me to be safe from evil. But this does not work in the spiritual. There it must evoke the upper Light in order to correct me.

There is another instruction for understanding this, which states the world is only created for two states, either the state, perception, and comprehension of absolute evil or the state of absolute goodness. There is no other option. In other words, the world is created either for absolute sinners or the absolute righteous; it is one or the other, there is no third option. This is why it is worse to be an incomplete righteous than an absolute sinner. How can this be? This is what is written. So what are the teachers showing us?

The fact is, they write, that from the Creator’s perspective there is nothing in the world that might have dual meaning, a little bit of goodness and a bit of evil. From the Creator’s perspective there is only absoluteness—either absolute goodness or absolute evil, either absolute bestowal or absolute reception.

And for this reason, when a person wishes to advance toward the goal, he has no right to accept that there is a bit of this and a bit of that in him! This is the worst quality, the worst state!

Accepting it is a bad quality. Being in this and consoling yourself that there is nothing horrible about this is a bad state: There is a bit of this and a bit of that in me, I am no worse or better than others, there are these and those. When I console myself with these kinds of thoughts I will neither be able to reach the state of absolute sinner or absolute righteous. When I fail to reach these states, I stay suspended somewhere and I lack the point of reference for advancement.

From the Creator’s perspective, there is no difference between good and evil. There is no double meaning from His point of view: absolutely everything is good.

In our state, in our world, when a person begins to perceive that everything comes from the Creator, then he is already analyzing his attitude towards the world. If everything comes from the Creator, I either perceive that the world comes from a good, eternal, perfect source or that the world is full of suffering, contradictions, and meaninglessness. And if so then I do not believe, feel, and acknowledge that the world is really eternal, perfect, and good as the One Who created it and fills it.

Why do we need this? When, from the beginning, we perceive the world as perfect, good, eternal, and full of Light, then the problem is in us, in our perception of the world, in our sensations. When I feel that it is opposite to this absoluteness that I am able to imagine, then I evaluate myself, my qualities, as opposite and egoistic. However, when I do not see anything good in the world, then I am a sinner—I am not justifying the Creator, I accuse Him of creating this. And if I do not feel either thing, then I do not even acknowledge the fact that He exists and that He has created and maintains all of this; in other words, I deny the presence of the upper force.

A person must clearly understand his attitude toward the world from which he comes, and what it is like in relation to the Creator.
[76117]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Lesson 5

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How Much Am I Uncorrected?

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe world around us is in absolute calm, all filled with the upper Light. We must correct our feelings, our organ of perception. There is none else besides Him. What else do you want?! Here He is—in front of you, around you, within you.

Remove your “I,” and you begin to feel what kind of world is around us, in the form of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), and what kind of the world is within us, in the form of the Inner Light (Ohr Pnimi). Just remove the partition, and everything will be fine.

The separation is cancelled by restriction and then by the screen. In the beginning, egoism is annulled, and the Light passes through you freely. This state is called “Ibur” (conception), the state of being inside the mother’s vessel, when you are completely surrounded and exist inside Mother Nature, the Creator.

And then you start to grow like an embryo inside your mother, are born, and develop further. When you begin to convert your egoism into bestowal, in the likeness of the Creator, then something that exists independently, in the likeness to the Light, comes out from you. You don’t obstruct the Light that passes through you, but amplify it.

Only from the initial setting to “There is none else besides Him” do we continue to tune ourselves to the fact that the world is filled with absolute good. If I don’t feel this in the heart, desires, and don’t fully understand it in the mind, I am not corrected. Then, I find out how much I am not corrected.

These states are typically intermediate and require further development. It takes place in the group. When I make an effort and explicitly go establish harmonious relations with the friends, then I immediately see how much I don’t want that! My egoism is manifested instantly, pushing me away from the friends. This occurs naturally. And I reveal that I am a sinner, and a serious one. Then, I have an opportunity to go further to request correction. This is the next stumbling block and the next reference point.

The first reference point is “There is none else besides Him.”

The second reference point is to see that everything is absolute good through this focus, like through a telescope.

The third reference point is the group, through which I must see everything, in order to come to a clear understanding whether I am a sinner or a righteous one.

There are no in-between states. We should avoid them. This is appeasement that will lead us nowhere. We just lose time!
[76111]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Lesson 5

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The Torah Tells About My Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe need to try to imagine that all of reality is within one person and that the Torah tells us about him. Thus, all advancement takes place within one desire, one man, starting from that same moment that he begins to know himself until he attaches himself to the Creator, to the path that leads to the revelation of the upper force. On the way, he goes through all kinds of states. He needs to try to categorize these states, to define them as “Babylon,” “Canaan,” the levels of “Abraham,” “Isaac,” and “Jacob,” the entrance into Egypt, and slavery in Egypt.

All of this happens inside one desire, within one man, and only the attitude of the states in which he finds himself changes. He begins at the level of Jacob in which he begins to discover the evil inclination, the work of the “left line.” Against it, he begins to work with the “right line.”

This means that the preparation made from Above that is called “fathers” has ended, and the period of the “sons” begins when the person begins to develop himself. He becomes acquainted with his ego more and more until he reaches the sensation and the recognition that he is in slavery to the ego.

Then, he begins to work against it, and he asks the Light for correction. A person undergoes these two forms of development, the work with the two lines and the stage that precedes that even before entering the spiritual world, before beginning to work for the sake of bestowal (Lishma). 
[76047]
From the first part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, April 23, 2012, Writings of Rabash 

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