Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

The Ego Blocks The Brain

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the right way to approach the public today in our generation, is it through the mind or through the heart?

Answer: It should be both ways but more through the heart.

Most people are underdeveloped, which means that their ego blocks their mind. We are all like that. The ego blocks a person’s brain, his mind, and he cannot see more than his ego. It turns out that he is wretched and limited. He may have great, wonderful abilities, but the ego stops him and doesn’t let them be expressed.

If for example you want control, the ego blocks everything else. Although you could prosper, the strong desire for control obliges you to engage only in that. This is an example of how limited we are in our ability to work with our brain. But by working with the heart, we can open the way to the brain. This means that we have to turn to the heart and to work on it, but it is possible only by mutual incorporation with the friends and through them with the public.

People have to penetrate our heart this way, so that we will not be able to abandon our concern for them. Then it means that we have incorporated them in us like the upper level with regard to the lower level.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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A Filter Of Zero Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If several people decide to do something, but each one is in his own ego, in his own perception of reality, and cannot concede to others, will the decision be right?

Answer: First we have to reach general equality. It is impossible to advance without that.

Each one has to do his best to annul himself and his own opinion in order to do what the book says, and what the author of the book and the teacher say. Otherwise a person doesn’t learn.

Only a person who feels that he is less than the teacher can learn: from me, from Rabash, from Baal HaSulam and all the great Kabbalists who stand behind us and who teach us. If a person doesn’t humble himself before everyone else, by seeing himself last on this chain and that he is not even part of this system.

If we could strain all the students here through a special filter, we could see who does and does not pass this test: his humbling himself to others, to the group, to the teacher, to the opinions of the authors of the books. So how many people would be left? As it says: “I have arrived and there is no one.” There are many bodies, but internally there isn’t even a Minyan (ten people). So we must first fulfill this condition.

Everyone thinks that he is the one who knows how to do things right, but he should not “think,” our role is not to think but to fulfill. After a person reaches certain spiritual discernments, he realizes that it requires annulling himself towards the group and he begins to incorporate in it, to see everything that happens through it from the perspective of the group’s benefit and not of his own, for the goal that Kabbalists write about. He receives this as if from the outside, as if he is a third party who isn’t related to it; that it, he makes a total zero of himself.

The main problem which stops us from reaching spirituality, from feeling it, and from starting to live in it is that we see everything through our ego, through the intention of in order to receive. We have to annul it a little bit, to set it aside, and then we get closer to the real perception and will be able to see everything the way it actually is. So we should constantly try to lower ourselves until absolute zero.

When a person reaches this level, he begins to perceive the goal independent of his ego, objectively, he should take it and run. No matter if he is capable of that or not, or whether he acts within reason or above reason, he will see the truth.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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Spiritual Аctions In Daily Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I have been studying for over five years and I feel like my entire life is in the group. In the past five months, however, it has been progressively harder for me to unite with the friends. Even in my corporeal life I have lost all desire for anything; there is nothing that I can do. If I am not physically with the friends, I cannot move even for my own sake in my everyday life.

Answer: This is because you do not feel that your entire daily life outside the group also belongs to your spiritual path.

Suppose you work in some factory or corporation. You need to understand that working in this business is your spiritual work. If you keep the necessity of spiritual advancement in mind while working at this office or factory, then through any of your movements and actions, you pass along your personal spiritual energy. This is how you should act in this world in order for it to become corrected.

Our entire work in this world is intended so that we would influence each other with our spiritual forces. Thus, if, while working in the office or alongside one hundred complete strangers who are far from spirituality, but you come there with spiritual filling, then you, through your work, like an undercover agent, channel spiritual content that they feel this, and through them, the entire world.

This is our work at the level of the spiritual still. In such manner we are connected to each other and we imbue the entire world with spirituality. This is necessary for us! Therefore, our world is created so  that we have to work in it, and this is why Kabbalists obligate every one of us to work at an external job.

Try to work with this intention. You will see how much you will succeed at work, how your coworkers will start relating to you differently, and what advancements you will reach spiritually.

You must combine your spiritual actions and your job correctly. It is not easy, but at the same time, this is actually your correction. This is the most important thing an individual can do in our world rather than having your head in the clouds when listening to The Book of Zohar. That is not a correction.

We are intentionally created in such a way that we spend 10-12 hours a day being occupied with our home and work. Today, many people think like this: ”Marriage, kids – who needs that? I will keep living with my mom, she will feed me and clothe me, while I contemplate philosophical matters.” This is what modern men want.

You must get married, have children, work, study, and see in all of that the realization of your spiritual potential, so that one activity would not be different from the other, so that in the group, at work, at the lesson, at a workshop, with your spouse and children, in all of those things, you will be internally connected to the Upper energy through the group and pass it through yourself downward to everyone else: your family, workplace, and to the entire world, wherever you may be.
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From a lesson in Russian, 2/07/14

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Quantity Is The Determinant In Our World

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf Baal HaSulam were surrounded by allies, he would not have been afraid of informers, he would have continued his work by writing another fifty articles and continuing on the way that he determined for himself. And so instead he had to leave Jerusalem and go to Jaffa to some hovel to be involved in construction.

He really suffered from a lack of power. For in our world quantity and not quality is the determinant. And this is particularly significant in our day when we are coming to the general correction.

Baal HaSulam wrote that from the end of the twentieth century the correction would be done thanks to the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone. Therefore, dissemination is imperative for us not simply to increase our groups; rather, it is imperative because without this we cannot build a vessel for revealing spirituality. Therefore, dissemination is essentially the private correction of everyone by going and expanding the boundaries of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

For if we don’t reach those six hundred thousand people who in all kinds of ways will belong to the study of Kabbalah, we cannot reach the minimal intensity through which it is possible to reveal the Creator. These conditions don’t depend upon us but match the structure of the system about which we are learning in The Study of the Ten Sefirot and in the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. Therefore our task is to expand.

In order to expand and go out full force in all directions, it is also up to us to be strong against all of those factions who really want to annihilate us because this is against their ideology, their ability to profit more, to succeed more in the material program. And in general this happens everywhere in this egoistic world; each has pleasure from someone else being less than he is so much so that it would be better if the other didn’t exist at all.

Therefore, we need to understand that our activity in dissemination is not just some kind of hobby. Someone who wants to reach the feeling of opening the spiritual world between us must understand that this requires a vessel that is appropriate in the quantitative and qualitative sense for that Light that must be revealed in it. This is the condition of the law of equivalence of form.

We only need to become stronger so nobody can rise up against us and try to divert us from the way. We need to become so strong that we can openly disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah and not quietly where we hide ourselves. For this we also need to become internally strong, and this depends upon our intensity throughout the world. And likewise, we need to become strong in the outer circle, where we have many fans and supporters, people who understand and recognize us more. And through expansion of the circles more and more widely, we must bring the people of Israel to correction.
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From the Lesson 3/19/14, Conversation About Importance of Dissemination

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Trainers Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does it follow that humility is not a single action; rather, a person must humble himself all the time? If so, when will a sufficient degree of such actions be gathered and a person will begin to live in two dimensions?

Answer: After a number of acts of humility like these, this breakthrough happens. But nobody knows exactly after how many actions. If a person is weak, they give him small actions to carry out, but their number will be greater. And a strong person can do this more rapidly, like a hammer that hews stone. But nevertheless, this has never been done with one blow.

Rabash described this as shots at the “heart of stone,” where every bullet leaves more and more new and larger grooves in the stone until an opening is created. How many shots this takes depends upon the intensity of the work of the person, on the power of the blows for which he is ready.

If the group supports a person, then he is ready to endure more and not run away immediately. In this case he can contend and even “give his teeth to the ego” in response to what is happening, this is a very unique intensification already. For you strike your ego “in your teeth” and not someone who stands in front of you, but someone inside of you. A person learns this gradually, if not from the advice of his teacher, then from his own suffering.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Sons Of The King’s Palace

Dr. Michael Laitman“The Bride” is the connection in the group, Malchut is at least ten men (Minyan). The purpose of the exile was actually to collect all the shattered parts and build the vessel of the bride. Then we reach the night of the bride (eve of Shavuot), in which all the parts come together, and it is also the darkest time.

Although we are happy that we can already connect, it is still a state of darkness. Then the next morning the groom arrives and the light of day is revealed in the bride. Our world is what we feel in Malchut, in the bride, and so we need to collect all the pieces of the vessels, all the parts of the bride.

We are all parts of the bride, which is all of humanity. But there are people who collect all these parts together; who work like ants that carry all these parts of the soul into the bride. They are called the sons of the king’s palace.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Insurance For The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I raise my awareness in order to relate to the Creator at every moment, and not just ten out of a thousand?

Answer: Everything depends upon external support from the Creator, from the group, from the teacher, or from all of them together.

If I am in a prosperous state now, how can I make sure that I will be fine again tomorrow? You have a refrigerator at home for this, and you know that there are groceries there that you can get any time you are hungry.

Do you have the same insurance for the future in spiritual work? Have you prepared it? Your refrigerator is the group. You don’t have any place for saving the Light, but you can accumulate it within the group.

This works like a wire and a coil through which a current flows. If you want to be active all the time, in this dynamic, then you need to build such relationships with the group. Invest in the group when you can, and then when you can’t, you will get energy back from it.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Amalek Is Arrogance, Condescension and Pride

Dr. Michael LaitmanExodus (Tetzaveh), “Light and Sun”: It says in the Midrash and Rashi says (about Amalek), whom you met on your way, which stems from the word “coldness,” which means that they put out the fire of their love and cooled it, since initially they were warm and enthusiastic in their love for one another.

And how did they cool them? By arrogance and pride, because Amalek in means arrogance, condescension, and pride. The main thing that brings one to love his friend is when each one sees that he is low and despised, always finding flaws in everything that he does and seeing the righteousness of his friend and of his actions and that he is great in his eyes, and so he loves his friend and is united with him.

But if he thinks that he is great and feels proud, he sees the flaws of his friend by that and thus hates him, since his friend seems very low to him. Amalek cooled the warmth and the enthusiasm Israel felt before, in loving one another.

The outstanding characteristic of the desire to receive that is immediately revealed is pride. Anger and arrogance are additional attributes. But pride is special because it can even be revealed in an opposite manner, when a person is proud that he has humiliated himself. So pride is the main sign of the desire to receive.

Pride is not feeling that I am greater, higher, and stronger than others, but thinking that in any of the states that I encounter in life, it’s someone else who has to change and not me, which means that something that is external to me has to change not myself. It turns out that if I see something negative, I attribute this deficiency to the Creator since only He exists except for me.

If a person has an urge or an inclination to change something on the outside, it’s called pride and it signifies the desire to receive. We can learn a lot from this since there is something to filter and to clarify on every level.

It’s a split perception: The way it seems to me and the way it seems to others, as if I exist and they exist and around me there is a big world full of people. But in fact I communicate with my own attributes and not with others. This is where there is an opening to another level of perception. So the illumination of Amalek, which is in order to receive, that is most clearly revealed as Haman, on its ultimate level, is a great holiday for the Jews, meaning for those who want to reach unity, to unite as one nation, because it’s the last obstacle in reaching unity of all the shattered parts of the soul.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14

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Thou Shall Not Make Molten Gods!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:17-34:18: You shall not make molten gods for yourself. The Festival of Unleavened Bread you shall keep—eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you—at the set time of the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you went forth from Egypt.

In a state called “The land of Israel” a person has to keep and to observe all the corrections that he has already attained, which means that even on the highest level they cannot be annulled. The spiritual attributes that we have acquired along the spiritual path, the attributes of love and bestowal towards those around us now turn to the Creator.

Question: Why does it say “molten gods?” Does this refer to some form?

Answer: A molten god is the strongest state. It’s when everything is merged into one unified picture, into one single equivalence of form, into a desire, a yearning.

When we carve something from a natural material, some of the material is left over in the form of debris and loose material. When we cast a form by using our materials, it as if spews out in one unified form that actually takes on an egoistic form.

This means that a person knows exactly what he wants to achieve and applies all ones skills to create an idol. He collects all his desires and connects them so that they become one whole, but in an opposite form that is in absolute contrast to what he should do. He does have to collect them but with the attribute of bestowal and not the opposite attribute. Therefore, it’s the most insidious point of change in a person’s behavior when he has the opportunity to turn to one side or the other.

Question: So there is no main installation that is done to connect to others in order to resemble the Creator? And it isn’t injected by the Creator?

Answer: No. In this state a person receives great help since he thinks that what he does will help everyone and that it’s in order to please the Creator. He has to hold on to only one small point so he won’t cast an idol for himself, and it is to raise his faith above reason. This is the only thing that can protect him and save him.

It’s a very delicate matter since a person thinks that by molding an idol he acts for the good of others. He finds infinite confirmations, proof and evidence that he is spreading the Light while he is actually spreading darkness.

It’s only in faith above reason that one can work on this thin line; it is when a person uses the connection with the upper tools, with the earlier corrected souls, when he has contact with the group, the books, and the teacher who is in contact with his teachers. One cannot start inventing things. A person’s nature will not allow him to do anything. There are no such cases in history. A person has to study with his teachers and through them to connect and to constantly guard this connection so that he can advance. It cannot be any other way!

Question: Can a person who has certain talents use them?

Answer: Certainly not. There is no need for corporeal talent along the spiritual path. On the contrary, all you need is a pure heart and mind, this pure inner state is the best.

When we fill ourselves with information and with everything about the method, we have to be careful of different philosophies, logical conclusions, etc. We have to rely only on the sources by constantly trying to clarify them and understand them anew each time.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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The Meter Is Ticking

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is nothing more important than dissemination. Besides this you don’t have anything more to do; nothing will help, not our beautiful intentions, not the dances with the friends. There is no other activity besides dissemination that will remain after your death and will be recorded in your account. So choose what you are doing now.

Life is going by every day, every second, every moment; the meter is ticking. If you don’t direct it towards disseminating knowledge about the Creator in the world, the revelation of the Creator to the creatures, which is the foundation of the wisdom of Kabbalah and is the goal of creation, then you are not in spirituality. There is some kind of physical protein body to which they gave the opportunity to develop a personality and it didn’t take the opportunity.

And don’t think that even the activities that you do for the sake of dissemination are your personal actions. All this is on account of the environment, the external conditions that attract and obligate you. After all the great work you invest in, what percentage is left there to be recorded on your account?

There is no other opportunity similar to revealing the deeds of the Creator to the creatures besides dissemination work. And it’s not important that this can be in a covert form like integral education, connection between people and so forth. All of this is working in the right direction and the right form through which it’s possible to turn and to reach the community. Therefore, I recommend doing this.

Otherwise, why would I need to connect all kinds of events in this world with the phenomena of the upper world and to explain this as one would to little children on their level? It’s clear in this way that all of these problems are those of the human ego. What difference does it make how this small human acts? But it’s the accommodation from above for the sake of this small human that is actually the revelation of divinity.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/14, The Zohar

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