Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

A Self-Attack Forward Together With The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe were given a group in order to resemble the Creator and to live only in the pure attribute of bestowal without any movement in my direction and without looking backward at myself. In it we need to do all that, to speak about it, to get to know it, and to feel it. We have to experience this, to try all the possible options, and to find out that we cannot do that and still try. We have to grab each one “by the teeth” and not let go. Although I am indifferent to these faces and I am even repulsed by them, I want to give to them and feel my gladness, my outcome, only in them.

To this is extent they will evoke even greater hatred in me. It’s because I will feel how opposite it is from my ego: Working for someone else so that he will constantly profit, I have to enjoy his successes, his pleasures, his gladness, as I increasingly detach from myself and increasingly feel that I have to feel my gladness and my pleasure in him. Everything is for him!

It’s impossible to attain this alone. I need the examples that the friends set for me which clearly show me that they operate in the same way. We are all in an attack against ourselves, and we see the other as the object and the result of our actions of bestowal!

All our work and our attention focus on one point, on clarifying where and in whom I feel my pleasure: Is it inside me or in someone else? Do I enter the other and try to evoke pleasure in him by my actions and feel how he enjoys this and am happy and pleased about it? I have to constantly guard myself and check whether I am trying to do so.

I constantly do this work, this full inner surveillance, under pressure, and I want to feel the gladness in my friends. My gladness stems from the feeling that they feel good and that I have made them feel so. I am proud that I awaken this pleasure in them and that they are glad as a result of my intentions and my work.

I have the right to be proud since this is the attribute of bestowal. I can be glad since I didn’t do it for myself. This is what I have to do, to live in them. If I focus my work this way and constantly exit myself, enter the friends, transfer myself into them, and feel glad as my egoistic desire remains empty and all the pleasure is passed to the other, it’s called creating an external vessel, Returning Light.

Then I begin to discover the attribute of bestowal in the friends, which I actually create by myself, thus creating the Creator. It says that we create the Creator, we make Him. This means that we discover this common attribute in the efforts we make for one another. Thus, I gradually transfer all my ego from me to others, and when I am totally empty of my ego, I complete a certain measure called Seah (an ancient measure of volume).

When I complete the transfer of all the things I thought of enjoying by giving to them, by bringing them pleasure, and feel my pleasure in them, I enjoy this, as it says: “in Him our heart shall rejoice.” At the end of this process I begin to feel the first spiritual level, in them, in my friends, inside them, adhesion with the attribute of bestowal that was finally created in the measure that I have given. I feel the integral attribute of bestowal that was collected by all my attempts.

There are ten major attempts, although we cannot differentiate them and count them. On the whole they are divided into tens and even hundreds of other efforts, as a result of which I begin to feel the collective attribute of bestowal that I have evoked, when it becomes a single attribute that begins to exist independently: It is called “Creator.”

Of course, this attribute also existed before, we receive the understanding from the Creator that this attribute created us with our ego, so that now you will collect it and work on it and transfer yourself into others, and thus discover your spiritual vessels and leave your ego empty, restricted under the “first restriction.”

The attribute is called “Creator,” and so it says: “from the love of the created being to the love of Creator.” The method is in this whole explanation.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/16/13, Lesson 5

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I Accept The Rules Of The Game

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is nothing but giving yourself to the friends and finding the general attribute of bestowal or the Creator in what you have given. But you discover a new dimension, a new world in this attribute, the upper world that is based on the attribute of bestowal and therefore it’s not temporary but eternal, constantly developing and infinite. You feel that you are in this eternal world.

If it all ended here, we would remain in this eternal state and in fact feel detached from our body. After all, the body, which means our desire, would remain totally empty. We don’t identify with anything else but the desire, so people who feel total emptiness in this world commit suicide, since they don’t feel that there is any reason to go on.

But the point is that this is only a very small part of our ego compared to that. The Creator, the force of bestowal, wants us to fully attain Him, and so He immediately adds a new ego of a totally different type. This isn’t the corporeal ego anymore, like on the first level from which we had to rise, but a spiritual ego called a “shell.” In it we already begin to receive serious spiritual interruptions.

In this ego we begin to feel the negative spiritual world. It’s the real egoistic world on which we will have to work again, like in the past, with the friends. But among them I already understand (forget and then remember again) how I should fulfill myself according to the exact principle of the first level. But now my desires are much more egoistic. I begin to see them more deeply and understand my negative and positive attributes more deeply.

This means that the struggle becomes essentially different, but I have to act according to the same principle: to transfer myself into the friends, to feel myself in them, to be glad in them, and to totally cover myself from the implications of my good deeds of any kind. I must constantly invest only in them.

The feeling that they are my soul, which I have attained on the first level, disappears and once again I think, “Why on earth do these people who are so distant from me, and who irritate me, have to be part of my soul?” On the first level I was simply indifferent to them and they even seemed pleasant, but now I begin to hate them. Their actions and their words seem repulsive; their words seem a total lie and their actions seem proud. Everything that they do is a kind of performance.

In other words, new gigantic, very serious, deep and real interruptions come along, which are absolutely justified by my rational thinking. It’s much more difficult for me than it was on the first level which now seems like child’s play. Then we simply played together and now it’s as if they are transparent: I see their dishonesty, their pride, their terrible ego. Despite all this I have to rise, which means to find certain opportunities to act for their sake, to feel joy that I do something for them, for their success and their pleasures.

I have to see my success only in seeing them fulfilled, by me or by others. It doesn’t even matter who fills them as long as they are fulfilled. If on the first level I was glad that I fulfilled them and that I somehow managed to connect this to me, now it isn’t so anymore! I can work through others and thus fill the friends in a concealed way, as long as they feel good. This means that I feel that I am more detached from the outcomes of my work and that it isn’t so important for me anymore. The main thing is that they will enjoy and be full.

They can look at me with disrespect, not want to be connected to me, or think that I am an egoist and not advance, but I don’t care, as long as they feel good. Imagine how many mutual interruptions there are here, with regard to me and to them. The Creator plays with a person in an amazing way. But if a person can close his eyes tightly and not look into his ego, into his heart and mind, and act like a blind man, despite everything, he wins.

This is called “faith above reason,” which means that I tell the Creator: “I accept your game! You are laughing at me, but I accept the rules of the game and am playing against you.” It turns out that my opponent is the Creator! Or it’s my ego, which is the same thing, since “there is none else besides Him.” He is the only one who plays with me and fixes all these dirty tricks.

I have to hold on to the main point that is determined by whom I enjoy in: in others or in myself. Thus, gradually, we discover the Creator by working with the friends in the group.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/16/13, Lesson 5

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One Symphony For All!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we continue with the explanation of how a person reaches the Creator through the friends, then in fact those words are repeated, because we don’t have that many words to express these actions. This is even though they differ greatly in quality and diversity. Such a wide range of emotions that don’t exist in our world are opened, so our dictionary is not prepared to convey them.

During our ascent, we pass through 125 levels, an infinite number of small states. All of the states are absolutely different emotions but are expressed by the same word: for example, “happiness,” “disappointment,” “anger,” “insult,” and “jealousy.” It’s possible to count several dozen words of this type, but they are all identical, beginning from the smallest step to the greatest step. Therefore the Kabbalists rank everything by number: The depth of the desire to receive (density), the height of levels of attainment, and in this manner they understand what is being said.

If I express a spiritual coordinate, then another Kabbalist knows what I am talking about, because he recreates this within himself. This is precisely the way one musician says some note to another musician, and this note plays within him. For a regular person who didn’t study music, this note doesn’t say anything; whereas, the musician hears it within himself and understands. That is also the way that Kabbalists understand the language of Kabbalah.

I hope that in the near future, instead of expressing emotions in words, we will express them together with you through Kabbalistic terms, and we will transmit them to each other in a form like this, feeling them simultaneously. We will be united by our sensations and discover the emotions within this unity.

In our world something like this doesn’t exist. It only seems to us as if we feel each other, but in fact we don’t enter into one another because we don’t have the characteristic of bestowal. We simply more or less react appropriately and feel a similar picture because we were created as similar animals. But we are not prepared to compare our comprehensions and certainly we are not prepared to connect with our sensations and emotions.

But when we connect with the characteristic of bestowal, then an amazing phenomenon takes place: We no longer feel within us but within our shared unity. There the same symphony is played for everyone! By being united within it, we feel the emotions of all the listeners, even though, at the same time, each one is feeling this within himself. We still cannot understand this “duality” of spiritual comprehension now, but it’s like this.

In conclusion, without the group it’s not possible to realize any spiritual movement. And a group doesn’t mean that we are just found physically in one location. A group is those people who share a realization of what I am now trying to explain to you. Therefore, Kabbalists dedicate so much time and attention to creating the group.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk Day Three 6/16/13, Lesson 5

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The Light Will Tie Everything Together

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we say “one family” it’s fine with regard to the group. But when we speak about the other seven billion people, they are so far from the real unity that they can only unite in order to fight one another. What can be an axis that will tie the seven billion together as one family?

Answer: The moment we begin to unite, we will start working with the masses, and then as a result of our unity they will begin to receive and to perceive the Light that reaches them that goes through us. It will change them. They will feel great fear because of the great separation and attraction between them, as it is the only way to be saved. Therefore, we shouldn’t fear this. We simply need to do our work and the Light will tie everything together.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 1

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Do Not Withhold Spiritual Support From Yourselves!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do married Kabbalists need to help those who are not married to find a partner for themselves?

Answer: I think that it is desirable for both men and for women to establish a family, although it could be that this is not found in their program.  That a woman today who in the past always aspired to establish a family doesn’t want this, this is the result of a developed, or perhaps even an overly developed, ego.

The person doesn’t see any reason: “Well, I will bring a child into this world, and when ten or fifteen years have passed he will leave me; and then what?”  It is the same thing with the husband as well.  “I dedicated my whole life to him, and then what?”

No, this is not so.  We need to build the same relationships both within and between us, and in the whole world.  Therefore it is necessary to try to act in a family according to the same principle by which we learn the wisdom of Kabbalah and gradually let it take root.  Then the family will acquire meaning, for in spite of it all, this is the same cell from which the growth of the person begins.  The husband and wife need to be involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah together and participate in a group as a single cell.  Also the groups, by uniting, need to participate in our general world group as one cell, and the general world group in relation to all of humanity, until all of us will be locked into one family.  So everything begins from the family.

And never disparage this essential egoistic component, it is simply necessary to raise it to the next level.

Therefore, I think that a man and a woman can get married at any age, work together and participate in a group as a single whole.  With this they will feel how beneficial this cooperation between them is, because in spite of it all, it is doubtful that Kabbalistic obligations will hold you in a group the way they hold you at home.

It’s worth it, I am speaking seriously.  Therefore, all the bachelors should pay attention to not withhold serious, spiritual support from themselves.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 1

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Healing Something With Something That Resembles It

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it difficult for us to open our hearts even if we know that we are one family? The closer a person is the more difficult it is. We are ready to share and pour our heart out to anyone but those who are near to us. Why is that? Is it just my feeling, my illusion?

Answer: It’s actually so and it will get even more difficult. It says in The Zohar that the students of Rabbi Shimon, who were all great Kabbalists, felt such great hatred towards one another when they gathered that it seemed to burn them from the inside. They were ready to burn one another. So you are on the right track. We should understand this and know how to manage it.

The point is that all the negative attributes were given to us so that we would see how we have to focus our efforts on getting closer. So there is nothing to complain about, but rather to be glad about the revelation of evil and to understand that it shows you where you are ill.

Can you imagine what would happen to us if nothing hurt? How many illnesses we would ignore? Thanks to the pain we pay attention to the illness and heal it. We don’t calm ourselves by saying that “I hate the other, but now I will have a drink with him, eat something together, and everything will be fine…” No! This is wrong! It’s like taking a painkiller. A glass of vodka and everything is fine, and is he already your friend? No!

Question: So where can I purchase the remedy?

Answer: The remedy is revealed only when we reach the recognition of the illness itself, only then, is the remedy revealed inside the illness. After all, all the remedies that we use in this world were discovered by studying the illness itself. By studying the illness we discover what causes it and we begin to use the same material as an antidote, thus healing something with something “similar.”

This means that when we know for sure what the problem is, we heal it by using the same thing but in its opposite form. So this is yet to be revealed. The main thing is not to negate and not to perceive the ego that is revealed between us as something bad.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 1

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Strengthening Unity Or Hindering It?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it more important for us to strengthen unity or leave it as it is? Or is there an alternative?

Answer: I don’t think anything can hold with efforts without increasing them, for our ego is constantly growing.

We must always think about the basis on which everything rests. We live in a world that evolved egoistically, and we ourselves evolved egoistically; therefore we cannot avoid working on this.

And it is said, “Describe to yourself… , make it in your eyes… , …which is renewed all the time”. Which is to say, we need “to see” all the time, it is impossible otherwise.

Therefore we need to understand clearly that what existed a minute ago has finished its action already; we apparently were friends, we decided to work together, and a minute later all of our good intentions evaporated, that is how quickly everything changes in us. So we need to comprehend everything in the right way, meaning to get used to this, to support this with that.

We examine all this with constant effort. Nothing exists in spirituality at constant velocity. According to Einstein’s theory, something that moves in a straight line at constant velocity is the same as something that is at rest.

The spiritual world is beyond the speed of light. Even the great Kabbalist Maimonides wrote in the 12th century that spirituality is found beyond the speed of light.

The speed of light is a constant everywhere. So by the concept of “beyond the speed of light” we mean a change in velocity. If we have something that is growing all the time, this is spirituality. In spirituality we take into account the differential, which is to say, the change. If there is a change that is growing all the time, in spirituality this is considered to be a velocity, and not acceleration. Which is to say, everything is at a higher order of magnitude there; what is considered to be velocity in our world (for instance, movement at a velocity of 200 kilometers per second), in spirituality this would be considered to be standing still, since there is no change in this.

In other words, all of those states that don’t change in us don’t exist in spirituality. And only our positive additions, efforts above an ego that is growing for the needs of the goal, which is evolving all the time in us, only these are considered to exist spiritually.

Therefore maintaining an old state won’t work, for the ego is growing. Even in our world everything is found in constant movement: We age, go forward, something is always happening. It is only in our feelings that the ego is as if is slowing us down.

So if you don’t want to be stuck, you have one and only one possibility, that everything around you will be in an internal movement and you will be connected with it all. So how is it possible to be connected with it all? Only through establishing a covenant, when you reach an agreement that you will pull each other all the time, wake each other up, and support each other.

If you direct yourselves in this way, then you can assure yourself spiritual advancement, otherwise, not: The ego will grow and “pull” you wherever it goes. The friends must awaken you in the right way and then you can realize this precisely.

But it is impossible to remain in a single state; nature will not allow this. Then it will push you down, so that through the crisis you will be convinced that it is necessary rise up. This is the only way!

This problem exists everywhere, both in families and in groups; people suppose that they can preserve our state, and so we hold onto a position and maintain it.
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From the 2nd Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if the majority of the friends in my group of ten are very weak and pull me downwards?

Answer: One needs to struggle and try to pull them after you. And also to turn for help so that within this tens a few strong friends will be included, like yourself. But it is forbidden to leave the weak ones. You need to strengthen them. That’s the correction.

The correction is such that everyone becomes equal and unified, and not that a few outstanding friends are chosen and the rest are discarded.

If one goes from one group of ten to another, a stronger group, and succeeds there, and the others will fall even lower without him, then that is not a correction, but corruption. We are approaching the general correction of the entire world, thus today as we enter a greater area, not just growth in height, we will attain in this way greater success.

We think that we simply need to rise up the ladder, but the rise upwards on the rungs of the ladder depends on the spread across. This ladder grew in the form of the cone, like sand hills that children build. If you want your hill to be tall, you need to make its base wider. Identically, our development upward is built like this. It can’t be any other way. It is imperative.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/13, Writings of Rabash

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Ascent To A Higher Orbit

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the prerequisite for a desire to unite, is it my desire to understand and to feel everything within me?

Answer: During the process of spiritual work, our desire to understand and to feel everything within us does not contract; on the contrary, it goes and grows more and more.  And it must expand because it is becoming more and more integral.  I already begin to understand how my image of reality changes and that my body, by occupying a particular volume in physical space, gives me a feeling of distance, isolation from others, even opposition and difference from others.

I need to bring myself to a state where I feel myself freed from the body.  The body doesn’t exist.  Above my body, which is to say beyond the ego, there exists connection between me and others.  And the body doesn’t exist, it is some kind of egoistic image in my imagination, in our consciousness.  This is how I need to learn to describe my future state to myself.  What interests me is only the spiritual unity between us.  There is no significance to bodies.  Later we will see how they disappear.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn about the birth of the spiritual Kli, about its growth and about changes of state.  The same thing takes place with us in our world, the birth and growth of our beastly body, which in principle is that ego.  Our body is what exists in our imagination, in fact, it is formed within our ego.  After that it melts, disappears, dies, and in its place another body appears, and another, and so forth until we go out to the level of the completed correction.  We return into the bodies all the time because they are imperative for us for our independent attainment of every spiritual level.

Between every spiritual level there is a disconnect, a split.  In order to attain a particular level you need to fall from it to the level of this world.  At least for a moment you must feel that you exist only in this beastly state, and after this you will begin to attain the next higher spiritual level.  You fall to this level all the time, and then again you carry out an energetic leap to the next higher level.

And only with the completion of all the corrections when you carry out an action called (Shmuel II 23:20) “…a valiant man from Kabtziel who had done many acts” (which is to say, “I will gather together”), when you gather all of these levels and connect them integrally then the last state of the full completion of the correction appears.  And until then, we correct every value in a discrete (isolated) form, just as an electron leaps within the atom to the next levels.  But in general when it leaps it emits photons, whereas, we do the opposite because we are ascending spiritually; therefore, we apparently absorb energy from the surrounding energetic field called “Creator” or “Light,” and this obligates our ascent to a higher and higher orbit.
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From the 2nd Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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Difficult Spiritual Rules

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, Exodus 20:13, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

“Thy neighbor” is my friend, and together we work on mutual bestowal, and I have to be totally honest with him. To the same extent, thy neighbor is also the Creator and the teacher. This means that these three factors are essential for shaping my spiritual growth.

At the same time, they must always seem perfect to me and that I am the only one who is not perfect. This is how I always should see myself since this is the only way I will see what else needs to be corrected.

This is only psychological guidance. I reach a state where I see that everyone is corrected and that I am not, in an accurate, gradual manner through constant exercising. Everything that I see around me as negative is all inside me, and everything around me is the world of infinite wholeness. So, there is nothing to correct but myself.

Question: Should these exercises be from the easiest to the most difficult, from a close friend to a teacher and so on to the entire world? After all, it is impossible to deal with the entire world.

Answer: Yes, it is a complex system that is very different and very hard to work with. Only after a person goes through all the states with regard to the friend, the teacher, and the Creator can he work with the world. There, the relationships are more complicated but, in any case, they all add up to the same thing, except for one thing. If someone comes to “kill” you, which means that he totally cuts you off from being able to correct yourself, then you must kill him first. This is the law!

There is no time to think, “Is it good or bad; should I or shouldn’t I?” When someone comes to fight you, you must answer in the same way. These are very clear rules. In this case, “murder” is your collective correction, both for him and for you since it is very complicated to kill a person when you justify him.

It is a difficult action. It is the correction of a great psychological shattering, a tragic moment when, in order to kill him, you must kill yourself spiritually.

This means that it is a very serious problem! It is mutual correction since then you begin to accept every person as a replica of yourself, and it is as if you kill yourself. You must approach this gradually by experiencing everything while moving forward with the friends, the teacher, the Creator, and only then is it possible to approach this state.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/4/13

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