Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

Loving Caregivers

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to overcome the sensation of the lack of equality between new students and great and experienced friends?

Answer: I don’t understand where the sensation of a lack of equality appears. The person does all that he can exactly like everyone else. He tries to work on himself all the time so that through nullification of the self he will be connected with the others.

What is the difference if he is great, small, a beginner, or experienced with some special characteristics? It doesn’t matter. If everyone around me is greater, then it is better for me because from them I get good examples and am eager to advance. When I think about my spiritual realization, I help the entire world, for each one of us is not like the others!

In my time, I was like a baby in the hands of five or six Kabbalists who had studied with Baal HaSulam. What was I then? Who was I for them? Nothing, but they treated me supportively and kindly.

I saw that they didn’t tell me everything. They were quiet about many things. However, gradually it became more and more clear to me what was happening, and I had no complaints about them. When I was in a spiritual descent and went into a low mood, they encouraged me by promising me that, in a number of weeks, everything would be revealed to me, and, even though this was a lie, an impression remained with me that they were like loving caregivers.
This is how a group must relate to each of its members.
[140901]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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Work Given By The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We are shaping a unified field between us. However, one way or another, each one invests his own thoughts. How does one determine the right choice toward the group, toward the unified field?

Answer: A person within himself cannot determine anything, only if the influence of the friends directs him can anything be determined. Otherwise, he will be only in continuous contradictions and oppositions.

He must constantly be under the influence of the group, in other words, participating in all of its events. We must methodically renew and increase our influence on each one of the members of the group.

We must place a goal before ourselves: create the right field around us so that it will get to the friends, will arouse them with the right work, and they will feel the kindness, the serenity and tranquility, and confidence in our work.

If one falls, the others help him up. The Creator constantly makes adjustments so that each one of us will come to his place and carry out his work. The concern about this must hang in the air.

Once, in the conventions in Israel, we threw big balloons into the air, and each one made an`effort to let no balloon fall to the floor. Specifically in this way, the unity, the Arvut, the mutual support, is revealed when you are not only not “drilling a hole in the boat,” but also are concerned all the time that the others won’t do this.

The main thing is to support the elevation of spirit and the excitement of the friends. The Creator gave us work, “Friend, this is your part, and, as long as you have not glued all of the pieces together, you will not get a soul, for it is one. It is because none of us has a soul, rather only its shattered parts.”

It is necessary to understand that the Creator gives us a place for work. So, be involved with it. Yearn to attain connection with the fragments of the soul of the friends and make it so that they will love you.
[141000]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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Within A Single Spiritual Force Field

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe must build a system of active connection between all people in the world. However, this is not the Internet, virtual or physical system, rather it’s an internal system. We must yearn to create a feeling between us like a mother regarding her infant whom she can feel, even across great distances.

They say that with animals, this instinct is even stronger. This is demonstrated in the movie about the little dinosaur that was taken far from its parents by humans. The adult dinosaurs went wild looking for the baby, crossed an ocean, and found him through instinct.

Specifically, a connection like this has to be among us. At a distance of thousands of kilometers from each other, despite the distance, we have to feel ourselves as existing in a single spiritual force field. All kinds of changes in each must necessarily be felt by all the rest. We must try to attain contact like this and feel inner changes at every moment, which then becomes our inner life.
[140904]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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The Source Of Strength

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Suppose that I understand that in order to add the feeling of the importance of unity in a group, it is necessary to make additional efforts, but I don’t have the strength for this. Where can I find it?

Answer: It’s only with the friends! It is possible to receive strength only if you bow your head before your friends, see them as more important, stronger, and more understanding, as connected more strongly with each other than you with them. Then you can receive something from them.

The group has to help a person so that he will feel its sympathetic and good attitude toward him, the love.

It only seems to us that it is impossible to get strength from the group. So from their side, there has to be methodical work directed toward this, only it shouldn’t become routine for routine eats all emotions. In the spiritual world, there is no habit. It disappears because there, only changes are considered, only consequences and not speed. Therefore, one has to be in constant movement.

Question: But can a person take the first step? He understands that now the group is in such a state that he can exert effort. However, he has no strength to do something to elevate the group, to integrate himself into it, and rise. The understanding is there, but not the strength.

Answer: There is no energy. This means that there is no true need. Some kind of detachment, apathy, is holding us: I could help, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

How should one act in a case like this? I would conduct a workshop, sit everyone in a circle, give a subject, and gradually try to introduce special questions that bring people back to their senses a little bit, awaken them.
[140949]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 4

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Picking Up The Signs Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When differences of opinion appear in a group, this extends over everyone all at once. To resolve the problem of confrontation, representatives of both sides gather into a small group and reach agreement and unification. How is it possible to extend this unity to everyone?

Answer: I think that it is necessary to organize a shared circle in which everyone sits together, and the initiator group appears as the force of peace that tries to unite them all.

Even with different people, among large family clans, it is customary to gather together with former foes who understand that it is necessary to unite. They reconcile, reach agreement, and after that, invite everyone to a large circle, where they discuss all of this and prove the necessity to rise above all the previous differences in opinion. This is the right position.

We said that the Creator wants to establish connection with us. He places between us and Him this whole world and portrays in our emotions and thoughts all kinds of symbols and images so that we begin to understand His language. We shouldn’t forget this!

The group has to perceive everything that is outside the framework of the common connection, the shared love, the common agreement, the unity, all that from the side of the Light could be called spirituality, we can relate to all of that, to all lack of focus that He gives us, as to the signs of the Creator given to us so that we will come again to the single whole in which we dissolve completely: emotionally, mentally, and intellectually, complementing each other all the time.

In this manner, ultimately, we will find a common language with Him, and impressions and understandings will constantly accumulate in us.

Imagine how a child perceives the world that is totally unfamiliar to him: without knowing anything, without understanding, without having any feelings and emotions! He grasps it, grasps it, and gradually the world accumulates within him: ground, mixed, and constantly renewed all the time, and the child begins to understand it. This means that his mind formats itself in the right way.

The heart and the mind begin to understand how to work with the reality in which he finds himself. After all, he can find himself in a reality that was two or three thousand years ago, or the reality of today, or it can be the reality that will exist in another one or two hundred years.

So, the child only has to yearn to perceive the real world in a form like this: with an open mouth! We also need to do the same thing in regard to the spiritual world, according to the laws that the Kabbalists described for us. In other words, we discover ourselves in it, and that’s it!

I have to be in unity and mutual love all the time. This means that I discover my spiritual senses. However, if my senses are not like these, this means that they are not spiritual. I don’t perceive this world. I have to change myself so that I relate creatively to all the problems that arise.
[140945]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 4

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The World Is A Means For Adhesion With The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can one feel love toward the friends all the time? Should this be apparent to them?

Answer: I have to be in a constant dialogue with the Creator and the whole group. All of the friends, all of humanity, the entire world is the basis given for my contact with the Creator that I have to gradually arrange.

This is because the world is what exists between Him and me. If I correct all of my attributes, this world will disappear from my senses. It will not exist. It will dissolve, and only the Creator and I will be left in adhesion between us. So, our world is used as a means for our mutual understanding. With its help, we come to adhesion, to unity.
[140942]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 4

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The Fog Of Uncertainty At The Beginning Of The Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we measure and make sure that we are uniting correctly?

Answer: The truth is that spirituality is concealed from us and is only revealed in the right connection between us, in mutual guarantee, when we become as one man in one heart, according to the principles that describe unity, such as “love thy friend as thyself,” “don’t do unto others what is hateful to you,” ” all of Israel are friends,” and so on.

So how can we check if we act properly? We have to make efforts according to what Kabbalists tell us. By that we summon the Light that Reforms.

Yes, I don’t know what the right correction is. I have no idea what it means to unite but I yearn for that like a child who doesn’t know but who tries and makes an effort. Even if he does everything wrong, such efforts also draw the Light that Reforms, the force of nature that also influences us. This is how children learn, when they know nothing and have no initial understanding.

If we act the same way, if we follow the advice of Kabbalists, even if we don’t understand it but hope to advance, the Light that Reforms operates and guides us to the right unity. When we attain it, we discover that it is actually the real unity.

There is no other way. This is the spiritual path from absolute uncertainty until the gradual acquisition of knowledge. It is impossible to know in advance what you are about to reach. This is only possible in our egoistic world, the only picture that the ego reveals to a person.
[140972]
From the Convention In Toronto. Lesson 2, 8/06/14

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Dissolve Into The Friends

Dissolve Into the FriendsQuestion: When I direct myself toward dissolving into the friends, into the group, and I have the desire for this, I feel that I am higher than they are to some degree.

After that, I perform an action. I take a turn in the kitchen, wash the floor, or wash the dishes. I begin so see other friends who are more influential, and I feel myself as lower than they are. Is this tension between what is desirable and what I understand that I get in comparison to others a prayer? Is this the right work?

Answer: If I serve the group and feel myself lower than them all the time, ready to help them in everything and to serve them, this means that I completely yearn to nullify myself before them. After the nullification comes the next stage: Can I be integrated with them? When I nullify my ego, I am included with them like a drop of semen in the uterus of the mother. This is already an Ibur (the beginning of the creation of the Partzuf).

The readiness to be integrated into the group and dissolve in it completely symbolizes that all of my thoughts, desires, and yearnings exist only to perceive the desires and characteristics of the friends, and, through carrying out their desires, give contentment to the Creator who gives me this possibility for creating a system of communication between me and Him, which is called a “group.”

If I dissolve into this matrix and accept it completely as my field of work, then I find the Creator in it. He fills all the friends in the group, and I begin to feel Him in everyone. They don’t feel this, as in the example of Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma, whereas I feel it. We have to reach a state like this.

After that, the connection with the Creator on the basis of the group must become mutual where He and I already begin to speak with each other. I begin to understand His plans in the group, and according to this, I answer them by dissolving even more actively in it.

That is how I grow. This means that I begin to understand and perceive what the Creator is doing with the friends, and, through my actions, I do the same thing. I am included in greater and greater communication with them, and in this way, I become like Him, and this is my spiritual growth. That is how my state called Ubar (fetus) begins to develop, and after that, already come the next stages of spiritual growth: birth and development.

Question: What is active nullification?

Answer: You don’t need to think or be concerned about this. You don’t understand in what manner to do it. With time, all of this will appear with you. Just begin to act, and our method will lead you forward. It will be revealed in the person, and, here, there is no need for any teacher. As it is written, “One’s soul shall teach one.”
[140699]
From lesson 3 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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We Are The Point Of Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe current situation in Israel, the current war and the entire global circle of anti-Semitism are ultimately designed to ensure that we are united. If it does not encourage us to unite, then we will wait for more serious misfortunes.

It is necessary to invest efforts, again and again. And most importantly is to be worried so much that the heart skips a beat. Because this situation is for us and we cannot escape from it. So let’s show a serious, mature attitude to what is happening. We now have an opportunity not to be missed.

After all, we are the point of connection between the upper Light and all of reality. I personally feel sick since the beginning of the military operations; I just “cringe” inside. It is the time for all of us to feel, to whom and to what the current events are addressed. Indeed, our relationships with the Creator run through the whole picture of this world. And concealment is in front of us so that we are able to remove it and must work to overcome it.

Today, we are the point of connection with the Source and the stumbling block, an obstacle to the Lights that have to be provided to the entire humanity. We have to awaken the nation, and the only means of this is to bring the Light to it.

So, what are we disseminating? Reading materials or the Light? Do we unite in advance before any activities? Do we unite in one whole? Do we come from a feeling in the heart, where there is unity of friends in it, the Creator?

If not, then we give just papers and not the message which is the most important.

Think about it. I wish you much force and good luck. I am hugging you all. You are now making history with the help of the Creator.
[140871]
From “A Talk about the Importance of Dissemination” 8/3/14

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Invest Effort!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Having gained some experience in Sochi we will disperse to our homes. How should we build the workshops better and continue to improve the way of conducting them?

Answer: The idea is that I cannot hasten events and talk about what is still too early for you to hear. To the degree that you invest effort, you will gradually be changed.

As you change, I am allowed to reveal to you newer and newer aspects of reality, the creation, and its correction. But if you don’t invest effort, I cannot convey anything to you.

I understand that you are eager to get the entire method, the general overview of approach, of description of how to work with the population. But only according to your efforts can I say a little about the general program, about the general infrastructure, and no more. And you will have to try to struggle further so as not to drown.

These efforts create conditions for me to be able to tell you something more. That’s the only way. It is not because I am cruel and want you to suffer, rather it is because you will not have enough sensations to absorb, to take in this material into yourselves so that you will feel it in your desires, sensations, so that you will taste it a little bit. Otherwise, you will not feel it. This is why I act like this. So invest effort!
[140310]
From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day Two” 7/12/14, Lesson 3

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