Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

Don’t Play With The Ego; Be Involved With The Soul

Laitman_022Question: How should one work correctly with foreign desires since the more that you advance, the more they are revealed?

Which is better: to prohibit my weak points so that I won’t fall into egoistic fulfillments, or placate my “beast” when it says, “Get this for me,” thinking that I am doing this to get closer to spirituality?

Answer: You can never placate your beast! You cannot fulfill it in any form! No matter how much freedom you give it, no matter how much you fulfill it with all kinds of pleasures, it will not calm down. On the other hand, putting limits on it will not help.

Feed it, and it will want to double in size. Limit it, and it will still want twice as much. It will seem to you that there are inexhaustible possibilities for pleasure to be found.

How is it possible to overcome this? You don’t need to be involved with your beast. Don’t hit it, and don’t placate it. Be involved with the soul instead. Shut your eyes as if the beast didn’t exist, and be involved with spiritual work. Join a group to take functions and responsibilities upon yourself and drag them without deviating toward the beast because playing with the ego doesn’t bring anything good.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

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A Mother Who Is Concerned About The Entire World

Laitman_077Question: How does one transform from being a mother concerned only about her children to a mother who is concerned about the entire world?

Answer: It depends on how she feels the entire world. If she feels all of humanity as her children, then for her this is a natural state. Everything depends upon the influence of the Upper Light, how much it illuminates that circle that she accepts as hers.

Either this circle is locked only upon the family—meaning that the Light influences only the beastly state of the person, and then he feels himself as found only in this world—or the Light has a wider illumination, and, accordingly, the person begins to feel that he depends upon others and that all of the others depend upon him.

The Upper Light reveals everything. However, in principle, the whole world is a part of my soul. There is nothing that is not included in it. Ultimately, I discover it within me.

This is the condition of inclusive love. There is no person in the world that is not part of my interior. Everything is within me, and what I see outside of me, I see with my distorted vision, which on the first spiritual level is discovered as completely different, in a truly correct form.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

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Are We Ready For The Revelation Of The Creator?

laitman_942Question: If it is only the readiness to discover the Creator, then we are ready. So, why don’t we discover Him?

Answer: If you are ready, then what’s the problem! It does not need any action besides the united efforts of the world group.

Suppose that you have a leaky faucet. Put a cup or bowl under the faucet and fill it as much as you want. You will find, however, if your cup is broken or there is a hole in the bowl, then what can you do? After all, you aren’t even taking the trouble to glue the broken vessel together. What will you fill with water? With what will you discover the Light?

You are in an ocean of Light, but you don’t feel it because you don’t even have the tiniest capacity to contain, discern, measure, and feel this Light.

Question: Suppose that I am not ready for revelation, but everyone else in the group of ten are ready. How should I work?

Answer: Ask to be connected with the other nine friends of the circle such that a minimal level of spirituality will be revealed in you, and it doesn’t matter that you are still not ready. You ask until your request will become real, and then you will feel immediately that everything is realized.

Question: So why are we stopping? Why don’t we continue the discussion in a circle to attain this level?

Answer: We cannot be involved with the same thing for a long time because the sharp feeling disappears. Fatigue comes and people need to change the atmosphere. States like these are given to us intentionally to begin to restart like a computer.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

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Nine People Oblige The Tenth

laitman_938_03Question: If during the workshop someone becomes disengaged from the common direction, how is it possible to influence this friend gently?
Answer: First of all, if someone from the group of ten suddenly “floats off” somewhere, then the entire group of ten is to blame for it. That is what you must feel.

You must converge among yourselves strongly and try to influence him such that he will again enter into your connection and unity. First of all, it is possible to do this even without words through an exercise: Suggest everyone sing something together or change the subject to something closer to this person. In brief, it is necessary to wake him up somehow, join him to the discussion more and to connect the group of ten more.

If you have a serious group of ten, then this person, even with the most harmful habits, cannot leave it. You hold him as if with the help of a magnet. And conversely, if you let him go, even those who wanted to be in a permanent connection will not be able to hold on. Here the effort of all ten is compulsory.

You can, through your efforts, hold this person in such a state that he will not be able to break away anywhere, that this won’t interest him. He will be under your influence all the time.

Here a precise law of physics is operating. So remember: Don’t let yourselves relax, be like a single whole. Then he will not escape anywhere, for nine people oblige the tenth.

You must use one another’s desires directed towards the goal correctly: I want to receive them from the friends; I want to cling to them, to be in their desires. Moreover, they can be small or large this is unimportant. But if my friend has desires like these, I need them; they are compulsory for me. These are desires that my soul lacks in order to discover it.

In turn, I show the friend my yearning so that he will be linked to me. I am linked to him, he is linked to me and that way the connection is gradually created.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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With An Encounter Between Two Energies

laitman_939_02The spiritual method is built upon knowledge of the Shevirah (shattering) of the collective desire, of its fall and descent from the altruistic characteristic of reciprocity. From the start, this characteristic was a collective desire, but when the Upper Light entered into it, it was shattered.

But through its positive characteristics of love, connection, and yearning for unity, the Light granted completely opposite, egoistic desires to this desire. It follows that today we are completely contrary and opposed to the Light.

All of the characteristics that we have discovered and continue to discover within us will begin to be revealed in us as worse and worse. This is because when we advance forward, we will already have knowledge, skill, experience, power, unity, and mutual help, and so more and more egoistic and gross desires will be revealed to us.

Everything that is revealed in us is contrary to the power of the unifying Light, to what we need to be. Our best intentions, good impulses, everything that was and everything that is, is discovered to be opposite to our right and corrected state.

In the meantime we cannot say what the corrected state will be because we don’t have the appropriate feelings and the appropriate intelligence.

I cannot feel my corrected state from the uncorrected state because I need to connect myself with others to a particular degree, and then a spiritual intelligence and desire will appear within me, meaning, that my correct state will be revealed both in heart and mind, meaning both in desires and in intentions. I will be able to do something. But now I am not in it yet.

So the problem is this, a person can never correct himself by himself. No matter how much he tries, it is impossible to jump over his head! The only thing that is possible to do is to ask. When we yearn for the next state, our desire, our request to the Creator invites the influence of the Upper Light upon us. The negative energy that we awaken attracts the positive energy of the Light to us. In this way we are corrected.

Everything happens according to clear physical laws. There are no enchantments, magic, or prayers here that are accepted by society. A prayer is a desire that goes out from the heart so that the Higher Power will be revealed with the right intention toward others in connection and love.

When I seem to be asking for the others (for essentially I am an egoist and cannot ask for them, but I want to have a desire like this), then this preliminary request, meaning this negative desire, still invites the Upper Light, the positive energy.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

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The Decline Of Babylon, Part 7

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday it is becoming clear that on the level of our world. we don’t have anything more to do, and that we are meant to climb upward. And from the state of emptiness on this level, the next possible state for spiritual development is appearing at the same time.

And we, all of humanity, are found on this historical border. Certainly the group of Abraham must burst forth to show itself correctly before the whole world and begin the collective ascent to elevate all of the human Babylon to the level of the higher power to which all of humanity, all of creation must reach.

In other words, it is necessary to constantly search for and work on the balance between the positive and negative forces, altruism and egoism, in order to unite them together into the middle line and with it attain the higher power until really becoming adhered with it. This is the next level.

In his time, Abraham took the people out and showed them how to balance the two forces. In the same way now, a group of Abraham must show how to add the positive to the negative progress of the egoistic, physical development of humanity, in general.

Question: So there won’t be a return to the same Babylon?

Answer: No. Babylon is reaching correction, so all of humanity is rising to the next level. Our world is disappearing and we are beginning to feel the next state, the next level with our new senses, which we call spirituality or the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 8/28/14, Part 7

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From Absolute Ignorance To Another Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanBased upon the knowledge of the shattering of the general desire and through the method of its subsequent correction, we construct all of our work in a group, in conventions, in groups of ten, and more. Everything is built on the study of the material, how it was broken up during the Shevira (breaking) and in what manner it is connected under the influence of the power of the Light.

By accepting the guidance and advice of the Kabbalists, which was written in a psychological form that is closest to us, we learn how to behave, in what manner to connect in a group, to support friends, and to attain states in which we promise to support each other in our alliance.

The existence of this alliance, the precise intention found in it, is called Arvut, where each one of us is ready to be a guarantor for a friend.

Specifically through this work, we begin to see that we cannot correct ourselves. Before us is an immense world, but it turns out that it only seems as if it is huge to us because it is fragmented and expanded by our ego, and the moment we begin to put it together, we see that this is one single mass, one unified force.

We begin to understand that the world is not as we describe it to ourselves. Everything that we see around us is a reflection of our inner characteristics. And even though it seems to us that this is completely unrealistic and even imaginary, all people, buildings, the universe, and all there is in the universe is a reflection of my inner characteristics: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

The four levels of my inner characteristics (still, vegetative, animate, and speaking) are four different levels of Aviut (thickness of desire). Desires number one, two, three, and four work within me such that I imagine them in the form of matching images.

However, when a person works not only with the separating force, but also with the connecting and unifying force, he immediately begins to understand that this is truly so, that, essentially, our world is an illusionary universe (with which many physicists are already inclined to agree), and that there are a multitude of universes that interpenetrate each other, and the entirety of creation is only some kind of hologram or matrix. What the wisdom of Kabbalah wrote about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago—what the Adam HaRishon saw more than 5700 years ago—finally, the physicists are talking about today.

So, we need to reach our first level of spirituality as rapidly as possible, and then we will no longer have problems. We will begin to understand how everything is organized. The main thing is that the very first level is truly the most difficult. And after that we will already have skills; there will be an understanding of what is happening.

However, now, from absolute ignorance, we must enter into another reality. So the Kabbalists reduce everything to simple actions. They don’t speak about lofty matters because there is no one to talk to about this. They don’t speak about some kind of clever actions with inner intentions, with internal clarifications, because we don’t feel this yet.

None of us feel that we include all of the worlds within ourselves, that man is like Olam Ein Sof (the world of infinity). When a person attains Olam Ein Sof, he attains everything. In the end, a multi-faceted system of worlds emerges in which all of us and each one of us is the entire system included one within the other.

So, the Kabbalists don’t talk about this because all of this is very confusing and doesn’t provide anything. They simply advise us what to do, and based on this follow all the laws and general rules of behavior in a group that we study in order to gather and put the group together. This is the most important thing.
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From Preparatory Lesson 2 of the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14

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A Common Wavelength

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn The Study of the Ten Sefirot it explains from where came the Shevirah (shattering) of the collective desire and its correction—i.e., unification and connection—why they are like this, although in principle these laws are very logical, and in general we understand them with our physical nature. We must try to realize them in our workshops by immersing and being included in each other and agreeing with what a friend says. To agree means to go along with what he says. I sail on his wavelength and think like him. I don’t try to justify or judge his words, no!

I am together with him in his desires and thoughts. He says a sentence and I am within this sentence as if it were mine. This is so important that I try to guess his thought and desire such that if he were to stop, I could continue and come out with exactly what he would say. And so it is with each one of us.

We feel ourselves as completely equal, not higher and not lower than others. For only equals connect with each other and are found in mutual communication. So that is how we direct ourselves.

We try to help each other so much that from the beginning of the workshop to its end I follow myself every moment so that none of my thoughts and none of my desires will contradict the discussion, so they won’t be superfluous or foreign to what we are involved with now. It is necessary to try to be detached from the whole world, as much as possible, to be simmering only among us, to discuss everything that is happening with us and what else we can add to invite the revelation of the Upper Light upon ourselves.

The moment I see that someone is not engaged in the subject, is disconnected, is deviating from the direction—perhaps he has some personal problems—I invest effort to help him to return to our stream. Each one who departs from the common wavelength becomes a disturbance for everyone. This affects both women and men.

Someone who departs from the framework of the workshop in some way and is outside of our desires and thoughts disturbs everyone. But he disturbs himself much more. This is because he is in a unified system and is creating a disturbance within it; he is an organ that is not operating correctly and is inviting upon him a negative influence from the entire system. So we must try to be positive components of the one Kli of the collective soul.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Evolution Of The Method From Adam To Our Day

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe wisdom of Kabbalah works only in the realm of physical laws. There is no complexity, mysticism or religion in it. We study the most essential law of creation, which is the discovery of the higher power, the higher energy. It is highest because according to its category, it includes within it, all the rest of the forces.

Just as all of the sciences are engaged in discovering the characteristics of nature, the wisdom of Kabbalah is also involved with discovery, but only of its essential characteristic, which is this universal force.

We study in what manner it is revealed in our world and how the Kabbalists succeeded in discovering it through their yearning to understand that the world is fragmented and must be connected in complete harmony. Through their yearning for the harmony of the world, they began to understand that the power of unification is lacking in our world.

The first person who discovered this force 5774 years ago was Adam who understood that the world exists thanks to the one and only force that links all of the components of creation.

The next great Kabbalist was Abraham. He discovered not just the Higher Power and its revelation, like Adam and the ten generations of students that came after him, but the movement, the evolution of nature. Abraham understood the reason for evolution that necessarily led to Adam discovering the higher power, the revelation of the power within him to transform to become like it, meaning to rise to the highest level of attainment and development.

All of the levels, the still, vegetative, animate, and especially man, which exists within the previous three categories, are directed towards this in order to bring humanity to the necessity of uniting under the influence of two opposing forces.

One of them is the egoistic, negative force that distances people from each other. The second is the positive, altruistic force that can be revealed to help unite everyone.

When these two forces are gradually revealed more and more, a person begins to work. He locks them onto himself, changes, and understands their mutuality. In being found between them, he handles them like two reins by building himself, and he thus he rises higher and higher to the complete realization of the two forces within him.

This is the entire development of man, his evolution. This is specifically what Abraham discovered, and so his method is evolutionary. It was discovered during the crisis that humanity experienced in ancient Babylon.

The next generations of Kabbalists more deeply discovered the spiritual. First of all, the Shevirah (shattering) of one human desire into an immense number of particular desires that exist in each one of us, and the discovery of how to connect them, was discovered.

We still don’t feel this, don’t see the inner desire of each one, in what manner it is possible to use it, in what kind of combination, nor how to see that pattern within which we are connected by completing each other. Each one of us is versatile, and in every aspect of our multi-faceted nature and its features, its tastes, it is necessary to get along with others very accurately.

It turns out that an n-dimensional system was created in which each one completes everyone absolutely and nobody can be outside of this system. And only then, when all of the separated egoistic fragments begin to yearn for each other and to connect, will they begin to search for themselves within this system.

By moving towards each other, with difficulty, they find themselves by using the general higher power. We turn towards it so that it will perform these movements upon us. We want to get closer, but we don’t know how. Under the influence of the higher power, we begin to perceive and understand this. And what is required from us, in sum, is a desire that we can create together in each other by showing an example of how much we want this closeness and unity.

Other than a desire and yearning for unification, we don’t need anything. The higher power carries out the second half of the work, which is why it is called the half-Shekel. This means that I must give the first half, and the Creator gives the second half. From my side, only yearning and desire are required, and that this desire will be right to a particular degree. And it will be right if I will maintain the rules of communicating in the group. Then we will invite the power of unification and it will finish the work, will infect us, and be discovered within us.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Exile: On The Verge Of The Light And Darkness, Part 3

laitman_749_01Question: Did the Jews remain as people of Israel in the spiritual sense of the word after the destruction of the First Temple?

Answer: They were aware of their inability to resist the egoism that controlled them. This fact is documented in historical books and chronicles.

There are lots of materials that cover this topic. They were written in the remote past by immediate participants of the events, not by contemporary researchers.

The Jews were a highly literate nation. They conveyed their knowledge from generation to generation. Their writings were preserved, systematized, and classified. Thus, they were well-kept for centuries.

Hence, the people clearly realized: “There is no Creator among us!”

Question: Still, what did they take to the exile? What did they carry with them? Previously, they observed Abraham’s principles, but what did they have after the collapse took place?

Answer: They remembered their history quite well. It’s not that they were totally unaware of it, as if they were hit on the head. Moreover, the fall never happens immediately; it unfolds gradually; people slowly cool down, leave their prior states behind, and continue making unsuccessful attempts to return back to their previous states.

We exert holding on to our past, but we are unable to do so. At the same time, by making attempts to return back to it, even if we don’t achieve results, we still continue exploring and revising our prior states, thus retaining them in our memory.

It is similar to the distribution of the Light in a Partzuf and its further exit out of it—TANTA. At the very last stage, when everything else is already gone, all is left are recollections (Reshimot). However, at this stage, they are quite fresh and are called vessels (Kelim). These kind of vessels are correct. They reflect the right sensations, the definitions of what’s going on inside us, only at this point, one realizes what state one was in before. At the time we were in that state, we didn’t understand what it actually meant for us.

It happens in everyday life as well. Often, we tell someone: “You’ll remember this situation and understand it differently later.” So, something always stays when we lose our past situations and when it’s not in our power to discontinue the tendency of losses.
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today,” 9/3/2014

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