Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

The Groundwork Of Prior Generations

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee): The Creator did not find a nation or a tongue qualified to receive the Torah, except for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose ancestral merit reflected upon them….

Question: I am the one who has to make all the corrections that are expected of me from the very beginning to the very end. How can our forefathers’ merits help me?

Answer: We all are in the unified system of Malchut of the world of Infinity that is filled with the Light of Infinity. It’s all that creation has, nothing but it.

As the system continued to develop, a restriction occurred and circumferences emerged. There appeared a line that stretched from the circumferences to the center of the circles. Later, the line was shattered. The black circle in the very middle represents a corrupt desire with the intention to bestow. It stands for the real egoism that we still haven’t yet revealed.

We have been developing through the still, vegetative, and animate levels to the speaking level at which we now discover our evil inclination: a slightly spoiled human ego. However, only when we join a group do we begin to reveal authentic evil. It’s at this time that we discover exactly where the intention to receive in its genuine form hides. It’s while in the group that the evil inclination is disclosed to us, thus allowing us to correct it.

Personal correction happens in five “layers” of the desire (in the five levels of Aviut): from a level zero to level four, from light to heavy, from bottom up.

Groundwork of Prior Generations
We all are included into a bigger system where the general process of correction is going on. We are very far from being the first link in this process. Our forefathers were corrected before everybody else, then it was their sons’ turn, and only at the end of this chain is it about me and my group.

In reality, our forefathers corrected the Aviut of level zero, their sons managed to correct the Aviut of the first and second levels, whereas we get to deal with Aviut of the third degree.

The Groundwork Of Prior Generations_2

So, there are souls that have fulfilled a part of the work, and their efforts were not in vain. Today, when we get to the point of correcting ourselves, we don’t start from scratch. Rather, we continue what they started and in our turn we continue building a foundation for those who are yet to come and follow us.

This is how the general process goes: It starts with correcting “Israel” (Galgalta ve Eynaim) and extends to correcting “the nations of the world” (AHP). The first stage, the correction of “Israel,” splits into several phases: forefathers, sons, etc. “Nations of the world” also divide into 70 parts that are to be corrected in a certain order. This is how different parts help each other on their path to correction.

This explains why today we live in a global society in which everybody depends upon others.
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The Circles Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe connection between us is where we will find everything. We begin to discover the idea of “connection” according to our advancement and we see that everything concentrates in it and depends only on it, including our private life, our health, our success, family welfare, the entire world, and our spiritual attainment. Everything depends only on the connection in the group that advances by the power of faith, by mutual bestowal.

There is no other means by which we can change anything in our reality except for making greater efforts to connect. Then, everyone receives everyone else’s power (of the whole group of ten) and thus acquires the general force of bestowal as one whole by which he can advance.

We must reinforce the connection in the spiritual cell that is made of ten people in order to ascend to the second level, and we need a greater connection with the external circle for that. Thanks to the connection with the external circle, you can “squeeze” the inner circle of friends even more and thus reach the second level, the Light of Ruach, in order to advance even further.

The quality and the quantity complement one another and allow a person to advance. Everything concentrates in the center of the group and depends only on it. The main thing is to reach the first feeling, and then you will not be able to break away from it anymore, but rather will be attracted to it like to a source of life.

In the meantime, however, we must act artificially as we play. Soon it actually will be revealed, and then you will see that it is really so. Then, you will discover that, instead of greater efforts to connect and to squeeze, you will have to do the opposite kind of work and try not to hurt or harm others.

The Creator will give us opposite exercises. When you are in the ego, you enjoy the fact that the others suffer a little and that they feel bad, and if it is your enemy, you actually enjoy the fact that you can harm him and beat him. However, now you are ready to give up everything for people that you didn’t love before and by whom you even were repulsed and hated, as long as they feel good. You are amazed at your previous attitude since everything turns the other way around.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/13

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Completing The Work Of The Present Level

Completing The Work Of The Present LevelQuestion: Would it be worthwhile for us to change the form of the conventions gradually and to do them not for those who have been learning the integral method but for those who don’t study and want to hear about it? Immense efforts and means are invested in preparation for conventions. Might it be preferable to invest in attracting people who are not familiar with the integral method?

Answer: Certainly, it would be nice to use all our means for world dissemination. However, it is impossible to turn to a person and say: “Let’s set up a virtual convention, and the effort and resources that could be invested in a physical convention, we will invest in dissemination.”

Question: Why not? It is certainly very nice to see like-minded people with whom you are familiar at the conventions. However, these events gather so many people now that it is more and more difficult to meet people whom we know. So, our experiment to create a big family where everyone knows everyone else essentially becomes a fantasy. Is it worthwhile to waste our resources and efforts on this?

Answer: You might be right. I feel that we are going in this direction, but every paradigm must finish its work. So, I hope that what is being conceived now will ultimately come into being: a virtual world system of integral education that will not require constant meetings.

However, today, when I come to Europe, for example, and hundreds of students arrive from thirty countries, for them, this is not just a meeting with me. This is an organization. They communicate with each other, regroup, and agree on how to disseminate, what must be done next, and so on. Along with this, I try to give them the opportunity to connect, to mold an organized center for information and publicity by themselves.

The power that is created through our communication is what is called the wisdom of the group that today already has been established through experiments.

We are dealing with physical values, not imaginary ones. When people gather and organize some kind of society among themselves, a great power and potential appears, which is greater than the mere sum. This is natural and scientifically proven.
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From KabTV’s “The Global Crisis” 3/19/13

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Learn About Permanence From The Light

Learn About Permanence From The LightThe first and primary rule is that the upper Light is at absolute rest. The influence of the Creator on us is constant, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him”; His manifestation, HaVaYaH, is invariable. Therefore, the reactions and changes within us need to reach stability and cease changing as well so that from our side also, there will be a permanent relationship existing at absolute rest, meaning in perfection.

In addition, if we still feel constant changes within us, if we feel physical or spiritual time, movement, or place, this is a sign that the creature has not yet reached perfection. We must yearn for a state where everything will be invariant, where adherence will be permanent.

All of our work is to act on those outside of us and help friends reach this kind of state. We cannot influence ourselves. Nobody works on himself since a person is not master over himself. However, since we are in a closed integral system, it follows that all the action is done only outside of the person and directed toward others and from the others, on the person himself. The person cannot act on himself.

Therefore, all the activities are done within a group, in a group of ten. Together with this, I need to desire that the action of the group on me will hold me in a perfect and permanent state. If I behave like this toward the friends and they behave like this toward me, then from this, we learn how to behave toward the Creator. To the degree that we connect to Him correctly, we discover His relationship with us, until we reach permanent connection and adherence.

All the changes are intended to show to us where we still lack permanence so that we can reach absolute rest. Therefore, one of the main rules of behavior in the group determines that a person cannot influence himself. Instead, he is activated and influenced only by the environment. To the degree that he influences others, he discovers himself, developing within himself sensitivity to the similar, external influences of the friends.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/13

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You Are Yourself Responsible For Your Own Birth

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person truly believe what the Kabbalists write if, in the meantime, he has no concept of what they are talking about?

Answer: No one can just believe like that. In the meantime, the upper Light is what holds us in the state in which we are found and doesn’t let us leave. Likewise, the person also needs to invest some effort in order to tie himself to a group in order to make it possible for his beastly body not to flee. However, at the end of the matter, we can expect and be supported only by the mercy of heaven.

Someone in whom the point in the heart is manifested needs little physical evidence, rather only to the degree of his link with this world. If we were not linked to this world, then, for us, we wouldn’t require any evidence at all. If the desire for spirituality is awakened in you, then it no longer concerns you that a crisis exists in the world. There exist good and bad events, and all kinds of predictions and their scientific explanations. No physical arguments are required for you.

However, if you are linked with the world and, in the meantime, share its opinion, then you need to answer for yourself all of these strange questions, and for this you need to receive explanations that all of these concerns of this world are just vanity. You need to place a protective barrier against the influence of the external world and against its values, and then you will be freed of this influence and your point in the heart will continue its movement toward the goal.

It is as if you bring yourself to a group but, essentially, everyone was dropped into it from above, as a drop of semen drops into the uterus. And, what can it know about this itself? It doesn’t choose anything; everything comes from above, from a father and a mother. The same thing happens with us. You have a higher Abba and Ima, a father and mother, who are responsible for you so that you will develop as a human being, and therefore, they bring you to a group.

However, when they bring you there, then this society needs to be ready to help you to neutralize all the external influences. If you love science and research, then they need to give you information that will neutralize this materialistic desire.

Therefore, our work within the group in absorbing the new friends is in order to free the point in the heart from the external influence of this world with all the temporary values and scientific authorities. In this it creates a neutral environment for you. The person needs to receive an explanation relevant to the circular integral system so that everything will be combined to that system within which we learn and work.

This spiritual drop of semen must be free in order to make a choice and be held within the new environment. Essentially, the person receives this drop and needs, himself, to insert it into the uterus, into the group. He, himself, is responsible for the absorption of his semen, how much he is absorbed within the group. They need to give him all the support possible in this in order to make something like this possible for him. Here, the influence of the environment and the family is very important.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/13, Writings of Rabash

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Tie Yourself To The Group Like A Ship To A Pier

Tie Yourself To The Group Like A Ship To A PierQuestion: What does it mean to open oneself to the impact of the environment?

Answer: Can Malchut influence itself? It changes only under impact from outside. Every quality affects other external characteristics, forces, and properties, and thus, it changes its state. It is impossible for any Sefira to be changed without changing the entire system of ten Sefirot in general.

For some reason, we think that we ourselves can do something with ourselves. If, for example, I want to stay on a diet, I need an external influence that will help me maintain it. I remove all the temptations around me so that there are no sweets nearby. I create a new schedule, and so forth. That is, I should organize all the external factors—still, vegetative, animate, and human—so that they have the desired effect on me. I think only about the surrounding conditions.

I make a contract in the event that I will change in a moment, and then the terms of the contract keep me in the same state. To do this, I make an agreement with the person who will influence me or support me on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. It doesn’t matter what these forces are. The main thing is that they keep me in the desired state.

I have reached a certain state and want it to become permanent, and from it, I was able to advance even further. So, I must strengthen this state, fix it like a ship that drops anchor to avoid drifting from the shore or ties itself to a pier. I always need external support of all the four types: still, vegetative, animate, and human.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/2013, Writings of Rabash

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We Have To Be In A State Of Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanAfter the recent convention in New Jersey, we feel a certain fogginess, a certain distraction, and an inability to concentrate. I understand that we have been through several days of very active clarifications and strong feelings, but we must transcend all that.

There is the person’s inner state, and there is the state of work, in which we must sustain ourselves by connecting above all the states we have been through in order to draw the Light that Reforms. If we wait for things to work out by themselves, we only will acquire an animal mind, but if we operate as a group and draw the Light that Reforms, the Light will come from Above and give us the upper, spiritual mind.

These are two different levels in which there is a totally different perspective. It is either an animal’s perspective or a perspective of man (Adam), similar to the Creator. We must choose now through whose eyes we want to look at reality. If we simply sit and wait without yearning for the inner group concentration, we will go back to the animal life, to the animal perspective.

We shouldn’t be afraid of leaving all our previous feelings and accounts and of expecting only the Light that Reforms, no matter which states it brings us. The main thing is to exert ourselves in drawing the Light. So, let’s make an effort and focus on that.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 05/14/13, The Book of Zohar 

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From The Bottom Of The Mountain To The Top

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, “What is the Preparation for the Receiving of the Torah”: As for the Lord, it says “and the Lord descended upon Mt. Sinai, at the top of the mountain.” And as for the people, it says “and they gathered at the bottom of the mountain.” And we should understand what a “mountain” means. A “mountain” (Har) originates from the word “doubts” (Hirurim), which is a person’s mind.

If we accept this message in our mind, it means that the Creator is at the top of the mountain, meaning that He operates that way and we feel and agree that we have no choice and that we must receive the Torah. It’s because after we understand that the evil inclination prepares us for burial, we must receive the Torah, to be saved from death, from this doomed life.

So where is our free will if we are naturally forced to receive the Torah? The evil inclination itself, which is our desire to enjoy this life, leaves us to this choice. But is this called receiving?

So when we gather at the foot of the mountain and discover our evil inclination, and opposite to it we reveal the Torah, it’s a start. We clearly understand that we begin to live under these conditions. Now as the evil inclination is revealed in every step we make, we have to decide: Why has it been revealed, why do I need it, and how can it be corrected by using the evil inclination and the Torah that was given for its correction correctly? Can we ascend to the Creator’s level, to the top of the mountain?

This is the preparation for the receiving of the Torah, but it’s only the preparation and not its fulfillment yet. Here we still act out of necessity: There is such a revelation that doesn’t leave us much choice. We see that we have an evil inclination and a means to correct it, the Torah, and if we refuse to accept it, this will be our burial place. Otherwise we have no chance of being saved from this life, which is worse than death, and so of course, a person accepts the condition he is given.

Free will appears later with every step a person makes along the way, when we begin to fulfill the Torah during the forty years in the desert. All these years of wandering are already the real levels of the receiving of the Torah, by which we rise higher and higher, until we reach the top of the mountain.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/13

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The Collective Wisdom Of The Group

Dr. Michael Laitman with StudentsQuestion: The system called the “wisdom of the group” now is being realized in a corrupt form. What or who will become its guide, director or leader, when it becomes corrected? How will this leadership appear?

Answer: The collective wisdom of the group will become their guiding leadership. There cannot be any leadership from within the group. It can only come from above them in the form of their educators who are one level above them. The group doesn’t create itself, it must be organized by someone from the outside.

So, a shared intelligence, shared thoughts and feelings, is now created within it, meaning the image of a unified group that advances as a unit by discussing, feeling, and being aware of its integrality. But nonetheless, there is a leader who stands above it. He directs the people, giving them new tasks, supervising everything.

This is because they cannot rise by themselves, they will stray to some side or be swept away somewhere. They might somehow still hold onto their position, but to rise above it, they still need a guide who is on the next level and therefore can give them advice about what to do next. In nature, everything is arranged like a pyramid.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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Leave The Donkey Out Of The Circle

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What inner action can I perform in order to help the friends and not just smile at them, but to actually bestow and give internally? I don’t want to just spend some time in the convention and then go home. I want to create and to perform this inner action, so how can I do that?

Answer: We are going to have workshops and you should try to listen to one another, and feel the circle that is formed by your ring. Everyone should lower his head before the others so that he can receive from them. At the same time, everyone can also add to the others, give to them. You should want a special force to appear in the circle, the force that will be shared by all the participants in the circle.

None of us has any feeling or mind of his own left since our own heart and mind belong to the animal, to the donkey, that is left outside the circle. In the circle, however, there are souls and not bodies. You don’t see physical people before you, but only their yearning to connect in order to reveal the Creator. This is for what this exercise is meant.

If we manage to connect correctly, we will begin to feel a certain closeness to something new that we haven’t felt as of yet. There will be a special feeling, a special force that is external to you, that pulls you out of your body. This is the experience we should attain.
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From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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