Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

Bestowal Above The Open Emptiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Should we imagine the future state of the world group as an ascent above all contradictions, or as a state of harmony and wellbeing?

Answer: There will be no harmony!

Egoism will never get a single fulfillment. Malchut of the World of Infinity will remain dark and empty. Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction) doesn’t disappear, change, or return; it remains. Above this black emptiness, a new Kli, a new vessel, a new desire, is formed that functions only for bestowal. I never will receive any fulfillment with my egoistic desires. They all will remain empty and dark, and I will receive fulfillment above them in the quality of bestowal.

This is why our game differs from all other methods. Right now, we are playing the future world. Like the quote of Kozma Prutkov, “If you want to be happy, be so,” and do it all now.

Draw the picture of the upper world, and be in it. When you imagine everything this way, which is called “faith above reason,” you begin to need it to actualize. This action constitutes a prayer, when you wish for what you imagine to become reality, and, then, it happens.
[94028]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/11/12

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We Need The Upper Light So Much!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A person who studies Kabbalah should hold on to the group. How is each group included in the world group? How does this happen?

Answer: Each group should hold onto itself and try to create a group within themselves. The group should be based only on mutual support. We demand nothing of each other! First of all, we just support each other. Requirements are afterward. If a person does not want to participate in anything, but still comes, let him come! He gradually will feel shame and begin to take part in everything.

We must try as much as possible to attract people and give them an opportunity to draw the upper Light to themselves at least a little bit. We all need it so much today! Then, we will connect groups.

I don’t even know how to say this, but, out of all the people who sit in front of me, I know by name only 20-30% of them. A person’s name does not exist for me; I feel his inner image, like a cloud. I do not remember people’s faces and do not know their names; all this is completely confused for me. I feel their internal structure.

I think that we have a bright future ahead of us. I ask you, to the very last moment, attempt to squeeze out of our unity events the best efforts, all the juice, so that the Light affects you the most.
[93850]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/18/12

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Abandoning Outdated Paradigms

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Our friend who was in New York during the hurricane told us that never before was there an atmosphere in the New York group such as during this difficult time, how they are all focused on studying and on close relations.

Answer: We have to thank the Creator for the hurricane!

But is this what we need? All a smart person needs is a small needle prick and he’s ready to be good. However, the stubborn ones need serious blows, and this is called “I hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Everything depends on the person.

I hope that with the help of our method of developing connection, our public relations in the Internet, and all that we’ve reached, we’ll be able to quickly and painlessly explain to people and to ourselves that all these blows simply disappear if we begin to look at them as a means for an ascent.

Baal HaSulam writes in one of his letters that all of this is an illusion. Just look at these blows from aside, as a reason to appeal to the Creator, and they will disappear instantly. Appeal to the Creator and the problems are gone.

We must understand that in our world there’s nothing that really exists. All we see is being drawn in our organs of perception. All of this will disappear as soon as we reformat our organs of perception toward the Creator.

Therefore, let’s act more rationally and give up our old paradigms because they’ve outlived themselves.
[93947]
From the Virtual Lesson 11/11/12

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Taking Care Of The Spiritual Need

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I keep myself in a state of constant need for spiritual fulfillment?

Answer: This is a problem that comes and goes, comes and goes, and does so constantly and alternately.

What can I do with it? It depends on the friends.

If they promote the greatness of the goal, greatness of the Creator, greatness of the group, greatness of oneself, if I suddenly start seeing how much they advance and I do not and I begin to stir myself with pride, envy, etc, then I acquire new Kelim (vessels), new voids. And then I advance. It is very important to be envious: “Why not me?” It is important for advancing. This drives a person.

That is why a group should as if tease everyone. It should flirt with him all the time, constantly stimulating the desire to move in him.

He has to see his friends as people who advance: “They are ahead of me, they are more sympathetic to each other, they understand each other, are more direct with each other; look how they are already getting closer. Spiritual substance is beginning to emerge between them, and I’m somewhere on the side; I cannot, I am not like them.” These states are very useful for a person.
[93940]
From  a Virtual Lesson 11/11/12

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Sensitivity To The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I become more sensitive to the Creator?

Answer: I’ve brought this kind of an example many times—that we acquire the sensitivity to a certain phenomenon the moment we start working with it, even if we didn’t have it before. We acquire sensitivity to everything: to stones, trees, or other people. First we don’t pay attention to a person and then we begin to feel him more and more and discover everything in him. This is called: “a habit becomes a second nature.”

So I must aim the work I do with the friends at the Creator. I work on discovering the friends’ attributes, for which I have no need and am not interested in at all, in order to increase my sensitivity to them, by discovering as many attributes as I can. Not the friend’s corporeal nature, but his attitude to the Creator. Then at the point that I am in contact with him and want to be in contact with him, I discover a sensitivity to the Creator.

The Creator Himself doesn’t exist. He is revealed only in our connections. So increasing the sensitivity to the connection with the friends is equal to increasing the sensitivity to the Creator.
[93777]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Workshop 2

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The Concealment Isn’t In The Creator, It’s In Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we affect all the groups in the world now so that they will feel what we feel? How are we able to transfer our feelings to them? What kind of intensity, relationships, and connection is required from us?

Answer: We really are in connection with everyone. If they grasp us or not, is not, by the way, our problem since everything happens in relation to the Creator.

He affects us, He is completely disclosed to us. The Creator doesn’t conceal Himself. When we say that the Creator is concealed, He isn’t. It is we who conceal Him through our uncorrected attributes. He has nothing to conceal from us. We simply express it this way. But actually the concealment is in us and not in the Creator.

It is also this way in relation to other groups. When we study, hold workshops, in anything we do, it includes all the world’s groups. When we try to include it in us, even if we don’t think about it each moment (because we also don’t think about it now each moment), we can’t include it within us. We still have only a small desire, a small Kli (vessel/desire).

But when we begin to connect between us, we can simultaneously grasp a billion thoughts, a billion feelings, and they don’t annul each other. It is as if we are now very small, like one byte of information, and on it, for example, it is possible to write 0 or 1 and nothing more. But when we have a huge connection of 0s and these 1s, which means of all kinds of units of information, then we will be able to list and to include in us all of humanity, and then we will try to do that .
[93773]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Workshop 2

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A Man With A Gun

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we stayed at the still, vegetative, or animate level of nature, we would follow all the laws of nature instinctively. But there are desires on a higher level within us and in them we don’t feel an obligation to act in a certain way. Things become unclear.

This is felt especially in our times. Throughout history men in society rose according to the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature; we developed gradually, in stages, not thinking about who or what we are, or where we’re headed. We were pushed forward by different urges and they all brought us to one simple clarification: How do we make the most of the current state? In other words a person keeps the laws of nature in a more or less organized way relative to animals because of conditions that are much more complicated. Accordingly, there are wise men who know how to take advantage of these conditions for the benefit of their ego and others have to “settle for less.”

But today we are losing the ability to advance this way. I would like to advance as I used to, to choose what’s best for me, but these attempts never succeed. It’s as if another element has appeared in my perspective which is concealed for the time being, as if someone who is invisible constantly puts sticks in my wheels. I want to fix the financial system, the economy, education, the family, but nothing works out. I’m very logical, I have scientific data, I have experts and advisors, but I can’t arrive at anything. So, what’s going on?

A new dominion is revealed here, a new law that has been unknown until now. We have to learn it, but it’s obscure and incomprehensible. What’s more, that which is gradually being revealed about this law is something that we don’t want to accept. We want to carry on like before and to succeed in everything that we do, and instead we have to agree to a condition that will turn our egoistic nature around. The condition is that we are connected and that if we make a decision it has to be in everyone’s favor. Here we stop, not knowing what to do, throwing our hands up in despair.

This is the state we are in today, like slaves in Egypt who “have a new king,” we feel that there is a new dominion. Previously the ego helped us advance in spite of obstacles; we conquered nature and space, we took care of ourselves in different ways and suddenly we despair of everything. It has been several years now that we don’t find the old goals attractive anymore. Why? Because our instincts tell us: There will be no compensation for our egoistic desire here.

It’s as if I am going to make a million dollars now, but there is man with a gun in my way. “You are going to make a million,” he tells me. “But you will leave yourself only a thousand and bring all the rest of the money to me.”

I have to make an effort worth a million dollars and I only receive a small part “to cover expenses.” But my desire doesn’t provide me with enough fuel for this work. So what can we do?

It’s either fear that will force me to do it or I need to see that the man with the gun is my best friend, my dearest friend, my closest friend. Then I’ll be ready to receive only a thousand dollars to cover my basic needs and I will gladly leave him all the rest. What’s more, I will thank him, since without his gun I would have continued to take for myself. Thus I reach something new and am happy to give you what I have made, since by that I get closer to you and to the new goals that are revealed to me.

How much does a person have to go through until he reaches the recognition of this state…?
[93715]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The Point Of Manifestation Of Freewill

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why should the states of unity, love, and cooperation be particularly important to us?

Answer: They are indispensable to us because we have to “advertise” them to each other by playing a game that allows us to enhance these states before afflictions hit us from behind. We draw a bright and happy picture on purpose. We don’t see this picture as of yet, but we can make the group influence each of us in a way so that we all want it. With the help of envy, jealousy, and pride, one can be forced to advance before afflictions strike him from behind. We really want to be stimulated this way.

It’s bad when suffering pushes us “from behind”; we prefer conscious advancement. We should build a group in which every member expresses and shares an opinion that unity and interconnection are wonderful, so we are the ones who deliberately approach the Creator by advancing towards Him consciously.

Question: So, where is the “freewill” here? Even if we run away from the blows that hit us from behind, even if we consciously move ahead and pursue our connection with the Creator, we still act out of our animate egoistic nature. How can we really detach from it and act differently (not egoistically), and manage to rise to the Creator’s level irrespective of our egoism? Where is the elevation over our animal nature here?

What does “voluntary participation” mean? How can we escape blows and afflictions, avoid pleasures and rise above them? Why is the state at which we are either “whipped” or “motivated by a candy” considered animate? How can we rise above the animate developmental level and grow sensibly?

Answer: Finally, we begin to realize that the Creator has prepared a perfect condition for us: the group. The group is not only a method of transitioning from love of friends to love of the Creator, but it’s a concrete place where we can implement freewill, a place where we “don’t depend” on our friends. We depend on the Creator; thus, we relate to Him in a good way, whereas, we “don’t depend” on our friends in the group, so this is the point at which we get an opportunity to advance. It’s based on the right attitude to the unity among friends—the kind of relationships in which we don’t get anything in return!

This is the point at which we finally realize the special condition that the Creator prepared for us at the time of the shattering of the whole, the complete creation into many fragments, granting them a chance to reunite. Only after they regain unity can they express free will without any kinds of sensations, either bad or good. Only then will they obtain a chance to rise above their nature. Only then!
[92981]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1

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The Harmony Of Opposites

The Harmony Of OppositesYou know why I like a Georgian choir so much? It’s because of the accord. The singers have to share the same feelings, the hearts of all participants have to be like one heart. They should work as a team and feel each other. There has to be internal balance and complete integration.

Each singer performs his part without interfering with others and simultaneously is in accord with them. Their voices go in innumerable directions and unite, then divide, split, and come back together over and over again. This internal flow of the connection of the opposites is what grants such strength to this art.

It’s exactly how a Kabbalistic group has to act internally.
[92986]
From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/5/12

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