Entries in the 'Free Will' Category

My Self Is Actually Not Mine

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says in the Torah: “I am thy Lord,” what does it actually mean?

Answer: It means that the Creator controls everything. If you consider any thoughts, or desires that you have or actions that you perform as your own, it is only because you are confused and have the illusion that it is you. Actually “you” don’t exist at all.

Question: So when do I become myself?

Answer: If I become equal to Him, then He and I “sound” in unison. My self actually doesn’t exist. My free will, my independence, is only to perform consciously and willingly what the Creator does with me.

I am merely a “zombie,” but I was given the chance to grow a “head,” a mechanism, an understanding, and a recognition so that I will understand where I am, who created me and who performs all these actions. I am given that so that I will agree or disagree with His actions, so that I will accept Him and feel Him as good, will identify with Him and will only want His full control. Then I will see that He withdraws and doesn’t want to control me because now I want to control myself exactly as He controlled me and no other way.

This means that I am in adhesion with Him. He makes room for me to the extent that I agree with Him. He created me, I am totally under His control, and He only wants to build this “head” from me, the understanding and the recognition, so that I will resemble Him, and be like Him.

With this goal I can join the game—I constantly agree or disagree with Him alternately, in order to understand Him through these changes and eventually to want only His control over me with my heart and soul.

In any case, we are never detached from the Creator—He is the first and He is the last, and there is none else besides Him. The only thing missing is our recognition of the force that controls us.

Question: But doesn’t a father want his son to be independent? Doesn’t he leave his hand leave him alone for a moment? Can’t we operate on our own even in bestowal?

Answer: If the Creator left us we would disappear from HaVaYaH, from existing. He creates the illusion of whether I agree or disagree with His actions in order to allow the growth of a “head” in addition to the “stomach.” First you worried about filling your desires, and now you are given doubts, and a space is opened from which He seems to be absent. Thus the Creator raises you in small portions of imaginary independence, while you may be satisfied or dissatisfied with His control.

And so, in contrast to religions, we arrive at a critical clarification and examination and eventually reach an agreement, and from that we reach adhesion when the Creator’s control over us is felt as undividedly good and absolute. This actually stems from the initial disagreement and my rejection of His actions. “As the benefit of the Light from the darkness”—I constantly try to clarify things, have doubts and resent the Creator, disagree with Him and curse Him, until I reach adhesion with Him.

This is why it says that “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” A person who develops by the wisdom of Kabbalah seems like an actual “offender,” since he goes through such doubts and serious questions, but without this he cannot reach adhesion.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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Pharaoh’s Tricks

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Looking back on the way, I see how Pharaoh is constantly walking by me. Not long ago a new trend has emerged, systematic vector psychology, and many think it is very similar to Kabbalah. This means that Pharaoh is becoming more cunning.

Answer: The Kabbalistic method is very direct. It speaks about one thing only, but gradually it reveals more and more. A person discovers greater depth and motion in the Kabbalistic text ,and if he operates accordingly, he reaches a point of adhesion with the Creator, with the one force that manages everything. Everything else was invented by man.

But in order to direct us to Him, this force constantly formats us more accurately, more finely, until we become as sharp as the attribute of bestowal, in order to enter the “needle’s eye.”

Throughout history man has invented different methods. 3,800 different methods, beliefs, and religions have officially been counted, but there can be more or less since they disappear for lack of believers. New theories are constantly emerging. Since the middle of the 20th century there have been many new methods based on different scientific findings. In addition there have been many methods that are used by secret services, for example, the development of a person’s internal mental powers. People don’t even know about it.

All these methods are based only on the ego and its development. If it seems that it is a development above the ego, it is still altruistic egoism that characterizes 10% of the world’s population who want to do each other good, to preserve the ecology, to protect nature, the animals, etc. In other words they deal with the altruism of our world, yet it is still the same egoism.

There is a very thin border, a struggle, clarifications, and examinations: “So what is the pure method for attaining the upper Light?” It comes down to the constant internal clarification of our direction.

I believe that all the other methods are very helpful. Everything in the world was created in order to help “clean” people from different confusions and mistakes.

On this basis we have to clarify what the truth is. This means that you don’t clarify psychology, not different methods of intellectual training and not ESP, but rather resemblance to the Light, by drawing the Light upon you. This is the whole difference between the Kabbalsitic method and other methods.

All the new methods that seemingly resemble Kabbalah are given to us by Pharaoh or by the Creator through Pharaoh. It is written: “I have hardened his heart,” and this is in order to sift, to sort out, the people who may be a burden on our groups.

So we shouldn’t feel sorry about the many people who come and that later 90% of them leave. The wisdom of Kabbalah chooses only those who belong to the Creator, those who can really mediate between Him and the rest of humanity. The spiritual world is built on quality not on quantity.

We are happy about every person who arrives, but everyone is free to choose. We don’t underestimate anyone in any way, but if a person leaves, it is his free will. This means that he still has to work on himself on other levels and he isn’t ready to come yet. He received something from us; he will later process it, and after a while will return to us. If he doesn’t, then he has his own way and he will end it in his next life, while we want to finish it in this life.

The wisdom of Kabbalah spreads knowledge, like a farmer who plants seeds while walking in the plowed field, and if someone picks up what falls, that’s good. It doesn’t depend on our desire. We can only hope that as many people as possible will hear about it and then it is already the Creator’s work.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations Of The Integral Society” 4/08/12

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New Desires For The Old

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Alexander Timofeev, from Gidepark.ru): “Nowadays I occasionally think back to the Soviet times with nostalgia, but not for the repressive regime and perpetual shortages, but for the confidence in the future, soulfulness, and kindness of people that existed in those years. This is why I, an aging optimist living in an era of change, want to go forward into the past—so that the time would come when we would be just as cheerful and kind as in the ‘80s, while at the same time free, well-fed, and beautifully dressed like in the modern times. Perhaps this is Utopia, but it is for its sake that I want to live.”

My Comment: All kindness and fullness can be arranged only after our prior reasoned and conscious unification, which requires something that wasn’t present before in any attempt to create an anti-egoistic (counter-natural) society:

1. The presence of fully developed egoism and awareness of it as the carrier of destruction to our entire civilization—the condition of nature, and

2. The revelation of integral upbringing as the means for changing man and society from egoism to altruism by using the property of nature (Ohr Makif) and not through violence.

The sooner we reveal this opportunity to ourselves and to others, the more we’ll reduce the suffering and accelerate the creation of a single integral humanity. It’s programmed into our development as our next step, but how to come to it—whether involuntarily through suffering or through conscious aspiration—that is our choice, our freedom of will.
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Unity Is Like A Tight Fist

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn our world, the spark of spirituality, the point in the heart, has not awakened in very many people. They are in the minority as compared to the rest of humanity who are attracted only toward the corporeal delights of this world. However, people who yearn to reveal the Creator have qualitative strength, and if they unite, they can attain a force greater than the force of the rest of humanity.

It is possible to be great in terms of quantity and in terms of quality. Quality is more important than quantity. Thus, if ten people, who scrutinize the goal and want to attain it, unite, a force created by them is greater than the external force of humanity, of all the billions of people around the world.

It is so much more meaningful that they are unaffected by the influence of broad society and its quantitative strength. Thus, by creating a not-so-large group, they can advance. A person falls under the influence of the environment—and his only free choice is to choose a suitable environment for himself.

If he constantly annuls himself before this small group more and more, he can be sure that he will reach the goal this way. To the extent of his annulment and connection with the friends in greater and greater concentration, he will constantly come closer to the goal. After all, the goal is found in the center of this small group.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/2012, Writings of Rabash

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The Epoch Of Free Choice

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt’s difficult to speak about the Holocaust because this topic is closely tied to people’s feelings. It’s easier to discuss wars that went on thousands of years ago, even though they were often waged between our people, for example, between the Hellenistic Jews and those who adhered to the fundamental principles. And on the whole, the people of Israel have certainly led many wars with external enemies: the Romans and others.

We know that all the past wars were an outcome of Israel not fulfilling its purpose. We know from the Tanakh and Gemara that if the people of Israel acted correctly, then no nation would rule over us. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee).” Even earlier the Ari had said that had we remained as guarantors for one another, like it was at the period of the First Temple, and had we not fallen from it, the impure forces wouldn’t have gained power over us.

However, our fall was laid down in the program of creation so that in this world, as an analogy with the spiritual one, we would go through the breaking of the kings of DaHGaT (the destruction of the First Temple) and the breaking of the kings of TaNHYM (the destruction of the Second Temple). In our material world we also had to go through these two breakings, and this is why we fell from the spiritual degree to the very bottom.

At the time, Rabbi Akiva laughed when he saw the wasteland in place of the Temple. “I never believed that this would come to pass,” he said, “and since the Second Temple was destroyed, now there is no doubt that the Third one will rise up and that complete redemption will come.” So, these two destructions and the long exile were necessary. It can be said that then there was no free choice yet, all the states were determined by the interaction of the Light and the vessel on the way down.

And today, when we came to the lowest degree and achieved the greatest egoism, a new world is starting to rise. It’s already “rounding off,” already manifesting the breakage, and as Baal HaSulam says, we stand on the threshold of redemption.

As a consequence, new laws are now acting on us, not the “mechanical” principles that previously propelled us forward along with all humanity. In parallel with its development, we went through various states of ascents and descents all the way until the present time, but from this point on, a new epoch is starting, the era of free choice.

After the breaking, after the fall and mutual inclusion with the world, today everything is ready for correction. And we are the ones who realize this correction through good deeds and the request that comes from broken souls. However, these broken souls aren’t capable of the request and good deeds. What can we do?

We are trying to unite into one whole as it was before the breaking, before the destruction of the Temple. And even if we can’t realize it ourselves, it’s our efforts that are the “good deeds.” I keep on trying until the point when I beg for help, until I cry: “Save me!” Thereby I raise MAN, the request for correction, and in response help comes from Above, called MAD.

And in this we have free will: We can accelerate our history, the process which we need to go through. If we don’t carry out in every second everything that we’re capable of through our free choice, then the missed and unrealized state doesn’t arrive as a long-awaited dawn in the property of mercy (Hassadim), but turns to properties of overcoming (Gevurot). As a consequence, in place of “still waters” come “turbulent waters,” instead of waters of Bina come the waters of the flood, and so on. And instead of going forward on the path of Torah and the Light, in loving your friend as yourself, we wander, spurred by troubles that don’t advance us but simply force us to actualize the actions that we missed. After all, one way or another, we are obliged to complete them.

This brings up a question. At first I was able to produce a certain action aided by unification within the group, by understanding and feeling, by the mutual inclusion with friends, mutual support, and so on. I could reach for what didn’t seem to be a pressing need, even if it meant artificially raising the importance of this action in my eyes. But now, when I’m being spurred on by catastrophes and necessity, am I actually realizing my free will? No. Does it mean that I am heading toward the end of correction like an animal fleeing the blows of a whip? And this is spiritual development? Where is the free will in that?

The thing is that misfortunes will lead us to think and reflect, and through their help, we’ll begin to grope around and recognize evil. However, for this we will have to pay and in such case, our free choice will be a lot more complex and multi-layered. After all, there are no concessions here; a person still needs to go of their own free will through every step on the 125 degrees of ascent, from the lowest point back to the end of correction. Otherwise he will not be a human being.

Thus, we raise a request for correction (MAN) and receive an answer (MAD) from Bina. If this doesn’t happen, we transition to the properties of overcoming, Gevurot. And this means misery and disasters, both personal and collective, including the Holocaust. On the whole, this process ripples through all of mankind, but the people of Israel are affected several times stronger since they are not fulfilling their function.

At the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam writes about the fact that the world is divided into two parts: internal and external, “Israel” and “nations of the world.” “Israel” is also divided into two parts: the inner one includes those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to correct themselves, and the external one includes those who don’t care about correction. And in turn, the internal part of the “nations of the world” is their “righteous,” and the external part is their “wicked,” “those who cause harm.”

A connecting mechanism operates within this system: The way that the two parts relate within “Israel” is the same way that they relate within “nations of the world.” And therefore, when those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah rise above, then correspondingly, within the “nations” the people who yearn for unity and good coexistence also gain force. And conversely, if “Israel” disregards the inner Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah, in other words, if they disregard their purpose, then within the “nations” the pyramid inverts also: The external ones rise above and take power over the entire world. Of course, these events are far-reaching and they negatively impact “Israel,” whose message and purpose descend, giving way at the top for the wicked and casting to the very bottom those who study Kabbalah and who are close to spirituality. This is how the “hierarchy of power” is laid. 

This is what happened with us in Hitler’s times. Israel acted contrary to its role, preferring corporeality to spirituality, and in accordance with this, within the nations of the world the destructive part rose above the good one, until the pyramid flipped over. And at that point, “the one who brings harm” came along and did his job.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/2012 on Holocaust Memorial Day 

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Which Game To Play?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the workshop, the work was very intensive, but now I feel that I have lost the sensation that I acquired over the course of the workshop. So do I have to play this game my entire life?

Answer: You don’t have another choice. You play this game one way or the other!

You either play a game that the surrounding society presents to you, the society that doesn’t know itself what game it is playing. Or you play a real game offered to you by people who attained the upper layer of the universe. For you it is a game that tells you what you can attain. And so you choose. There is nothing else: You have two games to choose from.

One game is this life, and everybody plays it. They curse this game, not knowing by whose will they ended up here and when they will finish it, because they constantly lose in between.

Another game offers you an opportunity to attain a completely different level of nature, of the upper, spiritual matter, and do it in the course of your lifetime, even during its relatively short part. You only need to yearn for this revelation, to change your properties into bestowal and love: not to use others for your selfish interests, but to try to have a good, benevolent connection with them. That’s all. There is nothing else!

The theory is very simple. And practice depends on you. Choose which game to play. You either learn from people who want for you to do good and to create a world similar to the force of bestowal and love. Or you will learn from the examples of the surrounding world: mass media, TV, newspapers, and soap operas.

That’s the choice you have. The surrounding society shapes you anyway: either the group or the “street.” Only that! Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1 

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To Be Free In Your Own Land

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to make independent decisions and at the same time to annul oneself before nature?

Answer: It is the same thing. To annul yourself, meaning your egoistic intention, and to implement the Creator’s commands with all your heart and soul means to be independent.

A person needs to ponder about why this is so. This allows him to call himself “a free nation in its own land” since he ceases to be a slave to his desire (the word “land” or “Eretz” comes from the word “desire” or “Ratzon”).

He wants to be a slave of the altruistic intention and that is called to be a “slave of the Lord.” He sells himself to be a slave of bestowal since in the meantime, he is not able to bestow independently. But this is already his first step towards independence, and afterwards he will become completely independent.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, Shamati #9

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Teaching To Care About The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach of us has a predisposition for performing actions that are unpleasant to those around us. We can divide right or wrong acts into one’s actions in relation to oneself and actions in relation to society. Naturally, we have to teach a person not to cause self-harm, not to hurt himself physically, because while self-preservation mechanisms exist within us, destructive impulses are present as well.

In the same manner, we need to treat the environment with care and concern. The environment is primarily the still, vegetative, and animate nature in which we live and which we need to preserve. It’s necessary to teach a person the correct attitude towards ecology since our food, climate, and our entire existence depend on it. We live inside nature, and its vegetative, animate, and even the still parts are of great importance to us as we receive everything from them. This is why we need to teach a person how to treat their ecological environment with great care.

And second, we need to teach a person to relate correctly to human society, to exert a positive influence on it because in the end, it comes back to him and creates a good atmosphere around him.

Thus, man’s relationship to society and society’s relation to man are the most important aspects of upbringing. Everything else is just professional skills that we need to give a person so he or she will be useful to others and make an honest living for himself or herself.

What we lack in our development is mainly the ability to give a young person and even ourselves, adults, such an upbringing, such an outlook on life, whereby wanting to change our situation, we would take care of society that can change us for the better.

As we said before, a person isn’t capable of improving his life by himself. This can only be done by the environment, which obligates me, supports, and changes my system of values and priorities. Because of that, new desires appear in me and I set new goals for myself.

This is why a person’s future depends only on the choice and creation of his or her environment, especially in our global and integral generation that is entirely interconnected. Any person in the world determines what will happen with everybody else. If some country starts treating another badly, this changes the entire life of the latter, and it needs to defend itself and care for its safety.

This mutual interdependence will force us to build and shape a system of global upbringing. Above all, in the process of this upbringing we need to teach ourselves and others to understand that our future depends entirely on our environment.

A question arises whether a person has any free will and possibility of choice at all? Can he actually do, accomplish, and realize anything the way he wants? And we see that he doesn’t exactly succeed in that.

If so far I developed thanks to my intrinsic properties, the genes with which I was born and the surrounding environment that formed me (parents, kindergarten, and school), then going forward I, a grown up, can choose how I can change as well. But the realization of my transformation always occurs through the help of society due to the fact that I choose and structure my order of preferences and decide whether it’s worth to be under the influence of a given society. This is why I have freedom of choice, but this choice is only exercised in choosing the environment.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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The System Is In Need Of Intention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During one of the lessons you said that the intention for bestowal cannot be personal and individual. Isn’t it my personal relationship towards the society, to my neighbor?

Answer: We are in a system of mutual interconnection. It is also called the system of the worlds (Olamot), meaning concealments (Alamot). The upper force and the structure of the system itself are concealed from us. We don’t see that we are tightly connected to each other.

We are familiar with the “animate” relations: here are my parents, here are my relatives, these are the ones I love, these are the ones I hate, these love me, and those hate me. However, the finer, higher levels of the system are concealed from me. This is what my world is, my concealment.

By revealing the highest, the altruistic, system, of our interconnection, we will understand that whether we want it or not, we are tightly fused to each other. Now we are not active participants of this system; however, it already needs our active participation. The time has come to assimilate ourselves within it, to consciously join its flow, in order for each one to fulfill their function in it.

However, from our side, we don’t want it or understand it, and that’s why we feel ourselves to be in a bad condition. Of course, the general system continues to function, but due to our inactivity, we feel the defects of its work and we are puzzled. “What’s going on? What’s missing there?” This is reality and we call it the “crisis.”

Furthermore, the difference between what is desired and what is actual, between our initial state in the world of Infinity and the return back to Infinity from this world, is only in the intention. We change neither the system, nor the basis of our nature. Each one retains their characteristic traits, their connection to the reality, each one remains at their place.

The structure of our interconnection does not change as well. To someone you are a student, to someone you are a friend, and to someone you are close…Friends connect with the teacher, with each other and with the world. All of this doesn’t change, but is merely revealed to us. That’s why some extrasensory people know what’s going to happen in the future.

Freedom of will and all of our work is accompanied only by the conscious, sensible participation in the life of the system in order to become an active part in it by our own will, to “flow” with it as the Force (meaning the Creator), which controls it, wants it to flow. In essence, this is what our task consists of, to reveal the general flow and to merge into it. Let the rider and the horse move in sync. This is how we will move forward.

This way, our work is always done in intention: To what extent do I pull the system towards the Force, how much more do I understand it, how much more am I participating in its activity, how much more with its help do I reveal the Force instilled in it in order to flow together with it, and thus give pleasure to the Creator.

This is my task. This is what I participate in the life of the group for, among the partners, the friends, which I am given. Besides, I am carrying out the task for the world, I am awakening all of the parts of the system, building and activating it until it all completely assimilates to the inner force, until we flow together with it.

At the same time, of course, I have my own intention. However, it cannot be realized only inside of me. I will not make it come alive if I am not connected to others, if I am not working with them in harmony, if we are not cooperating in action, in understanding, in realization, in the maintenance and servicing of the system. Someone among us is a valve, someone is a piston, someone is a wheel, and so on. Everyone works in their own way; however, we are all aspiring towards the same goal.

It is said: “Israel, The Torah, and the Creator are One.” The Creator is the general program, which we aspire to implement. We are not simply uniting into a system, but we are keeping the course towards Him. We cannot find the connection without it, since it must lie on a certain formula, the goal of the program. It needs to be clear for us, for the sake of what and how we should be uniting. We discover the system in the aspiration towards the force acting within in, towards the general program. Without this, we cannot even make a step, including in the interrelationships between us.

So it turns out that my intention is related to the collective work with friends, the goal of which is to reveal the Creator.

In the end, I only add this intention, and not the action. In the same way, a government control system can be activated by the “stick” of a tyrant squeezing the last juices out of the population, or by the wisdom of a kind ruler pursuing happiness for the citizens. The structure is the same, the connection remains the same, nothing needs to be changed except the internal program installed into the system. Education, taxation, banks, hospitals and so on, all of these remain in their places. Only the intention completely re-builds the order of “energy flows,” changing their destination. In the end, intention changes everything.

This is what we are discovering today. “The world lives as stipulated,” “I have not changed Myself,” the system does not change, we only add our intention to it, the screen and the reflected Light. And then, everything flows in a new way according to our approach. Earlier, we pulled everything towards ourselves because of the tyrant who ruled within us, but now we are pursuing the wellbeing of a close one, and this already a different ruler.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/12, “Questions and Answers”

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An Addition Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur reality is one, and everything depends on a person who perceives or reveals it. First we reveal just a small part of reality, this world. Then, as our vessels expand and our sensitivity increases, we feel an increasingly more complex and rich reality, called the Upper World.

How can we rise to the perception of a higher reality? After all, we are always talking not just about it, but about the person who receives, feels, reveals, and attains it. So how can we rise from the level of a regular person to the level of an attaining person?

The difference between the two lies in how sensitive they are to their reality. If we perceive it by means of just the vessels, qualities, and senses that we were born with, then we are living in our world, and we perceive our existence inside of it. If, however, we develop an additional receptivity within us, we will feel “an addition of reality.”

Kabbalists say that we can feel this addition if we begin treating our reality more sensitively, in a special manner. This is a special attitude – essentially, the realization of the importance and respect for the quality of bestowal which exists in the upper reality.

And that means we should care about just one thing: how can we begin to respect the quality of bestowal, how can we raise its importance in our eyes? This is why Kabbalists write articles, books, and letters for us, giving us different exercises and explaining how we should unite so that by virtue of various efforts, the upper reality, meaning the quality of bestowal, will become very important to us.

However, the main objective is not even this, but for us to see importance in the Source of this quality, the Upper Force, the Creator, the Root. When a person attaches importance to the Root, he begins to feel new phenomena. And then he understands what was happening to him before, his history.

It turns out that throughout all of his life, at every moment the Creator built this process for him and a person always properly progressed towards spiritual attainment, toward the development of new sensations. This is the only thing he was doing, although he did not know about it.

And now, in the present point, I have to understand that until this moment, everything was carried out by the Creator, and I have to be grateful to Him for the proper course and the impulses to move forward. But from now on, everything is up to me.

We know that we aspire forward correctly when we actually see that in the past, the Creator constantly pushed us forward in the right direction. And now, at every moment, we are in the state of choice.
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From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #5, 2/24/12

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