Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

The New World Beyond Selfish Interests

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I try to feel others, if I only feel myself?

Answer: If a person discovers that he only feels himself, then that is already a big achievement. Now he has to only understand that with this feeling of himself he will always remain in this world. This perception is called this world.

If a person understands that, then that is already the achievement. When we discover that we only feel ourselves and via that we perceive the rest of what is within us, then that is called the feeling of this world. This is already not a simple state.

Now I need to listen to what is written in the books of Kabbalah, which claim that the spiritual world is found beyond this feeling, external to myself, in others, and think about how to feel others instead of myself.

Everything felt by me now exists only within me and not in reality. Externally are only images, pictures that are depicted in me. And the question that stands before me now is “How can I exit myself? “

For this I am given friends, the group, so that through mutual activities, we will stimulate the Light that will help us exit ourselves outwards to them. This is called the transition outside our “selfish interests.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Shamati #47

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The particular and the general are equal. If I connect with one person, then the general is incorporated in me. So why do I need so many friends?

Answer: It is said: “In the multitude of people is the King’s glory.” First it is easier for you to check yourself whether you are really connected to someone or just attracted to him egoistically. It may be that there is just a usual connection between you based on common attributes or interests.

Besides, don’t think that it is easier to connect with one person than with ten people for example. On the contrary, it is much easier to connect with ten, since you are impressed by the greatness of the self-annulment of each individual, of their mutual concern and their desire to achieve the goal together. By looking at them you are “ignited” and you burn with envy.

But if there were one person before you, how could you see his actions in relation to you and not in relation to other friends? You are a captive of your ego and so you cannot see the desired effect.

So it is desirable to be in a large environment. On the whole, the minimum of a majority is two, but still it is a minority, since it is very little and this case you will have to work very hard.

Actually, it isn’t a question of quantity. What’s important here is that you annul your ego, so that you will begin to see everything that is external to you as your own. You annul the boundaries and you are already outside your body. It is as if your desires are pouring outside and include the whole world inside.
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From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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A Cake With Cream

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says, “He who prays for his friend is answered first.” This is actual Lo Lishma (not for Her name); it is total egoism, simple absolute egoism.

Answer: Of course, in the meantime you advance egoistically and your ego grows, but you see that each time Pharaoh is getting tougher and tougher, “since I have hardened his heart,” and that is a good sign.

Question: How can I grow from hate to love and not to self-suppression?

Answer: It is impossible to build love without hate and envy. All the negative discernments are eventually implemented in love and you need each of them. After all, what is love? On what foundation is it firmly established? It is over the ego in the vessels of receiving, in perceiving others as close.

Annulment doesn’t mean that everything is annulled. Hate is never annulled, it is preserved in its full intensity, and it is exactly on top of it that you build love. It is as if you cover this whole “Mt. Sinai” (a mountain of hate) with cream and you get a cake called a “Mountain of Holiness.”

This means that the hate is inside. The gap between the Creator and the created being remains since otherwise the created being wouldn’t exist.
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From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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Envy Is Useful When It Increases Wisdom

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt all depends on how a person looks at life and what he wants from it. If he wants to attain the spiritual goal and that’s the most important thing for him in life, then all the means that help him reach this goal are good. It turns out that they are on the same upper spiritual level as the goal itself, since by them he builds the final state and through them fulfills the goal.

So in our daily life in the egoistic world, a person usually hates those who envy him and sometimes also hates the attribute that evokes the envy in him. On the plane of the spiritual work, however, we look for how to evoke the envy in us by ourselves. As it says: “The envy of writers will increase wisdom.”

Authors (Sofrim in Hebrew) refer to those who want to count (from the same root in Hebrew) their achievements and who advance by envying the advancement of others. Such a person, therefore, respects and values the friends and loves them; he loves the environment that allows him to constantly envy the success of others.

The greater others seem to him and the more he humbles himself, the more he sees that they are attracted to the goal, that they devote themselves to the work, that they try to overcome all the obstacles, and to what extent they are more connected to each other than he is connected to them. His whole perspective of the friends isn’t aimed at annulling them, but actually at raising and appreciating them even more.

By that he gains new powers and develops new attributes. All this existed in him from the start, of course, since everything is included in the point in the heart, which is the root of a person’s soul and which includes all the information about him, like in a drop of semen, Reshimot (reminiscences).

A person, however, has to develop this point. So when he envies the friends and sees their persistence and loyalty, the powers they exert despite their fatigue, the fact that they don’t allow themselves to waste time, the fact that they get up very early to come to the lesson—all this fills a person with new powers and develops the attributes in him, thus allowing him to advance.

We should reach great envy. As it says: “Envy, lust and honor take a person out of the world,” into the upper world. Let’s hope we will succeed in achieving the right great envy.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12

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Fine Tuning To The Elusive Frequency Of Happiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: On what does our sensitivity to awakening that is activated from Above depend?

Answer: We are constantly awakened from above, and if you only knew to what intensity! But this manipulation is done at a frequency that we don’t feel, like ultraviolet or infrared radiation.

In order to feel this wavelength, I need to calibrate my hearing via the group. Otherwise I won’t hear anything. If I correctly organize the group, thanks to this, I receive opportunities to listen, to feel the upper influence.

Everything depends on how I awaken and support the friends, how I treat them, and worry that they receive spiritual revelation. We need to help also on the corporeal level, but mainly to raise their spirits, to inspire them about the importance of the goal and the Creator. If I gently worry that everything will be for the other, I myself am impressed from them and advance together with them.

There is no other way to advance, only ”the detour,” the alternate route through the group and not directly.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Shamati #47

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Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Shlavey HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Article, “The Love of Friends”: And although a person receives some thought and desire that he should leave his self-love, which comes to him by hearing what writers and books say, but this is a very small power, that doesn’t always illuminate this opinion for him, so that he will be able to consider it or use it permanently…

Question: Is the power of Kabbalah books so small?

Answer: Of course. It doesn’t depend on the books but on the person himself, or what we call the “user.” A person will not succeed by himself even if he has the source of the whole Book of Zohar. Nothing will help him, because by himself he has no vessel. His success doesn’t depend on the books but on establishing an attitude to others.

There are two forces active in nature: the desire to enjoy (to receive) and the desire to bestow. The desire to receive is the created being and the desire to bestow is the Creator. The created being is in the desire to receive here in our world. If he wants to be in the Creator’s world, he has to acquire a desire to bestow, which means to switch to the second nature.

In order to do that, two factors must be activated:

1. Connection. In our world a person connects with others in order to reach the second nature.

2. The Light that Reforms. It illuminates only in response to the efforts of a person who wants to connect with others and to acquire the nature of bestowal.

Besides that, we should aspire to bestow upon the Creator, although at the beginning we are not required to have such pure intentions, which will come later on.

So there is the necessary means in our world: the group that enables us to build an “infrastructure” among us, the right relationships, a vessel, albeit still flawed, but that demonstrates our desire to be corrected. Of course we discover that we cannot and don’t want to connect, that we are repelled by one another. We reveal the evil inclination and not the blissful feeling of brotherhood and complete joy. Brotherhood: On the contrary, we have to connect, sobbing fiercely about the extent that we hate one another! Embracing although we shudder with repulsion.

It is very good since by that you discover the shattered vessel. Then you will have the reason for crying and calling for the help of the Light that Reforms. And it comes because you study from the books of Kabbalists and want to go through the states they go through.

Thus we move from the level of the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator. Rabbi Akiva said “Love thy friend as thyself, it is the great rule of the Torah.” But that isn’t the end of the road yet. When you reach the first level of love, you worry about the fear: “Will I manage to love more? Won’t I lose what I have already acquired?” You have to act “from the other side.” After all, there are always two lines in the spiritual work and you are in between. So make sure that your love is accompanied by fear. Evoke the attributes of judgment—it is impossible without them.

Then, when you reach fear, you will acquire the “middle line”—the wholeness called bestowal or faith. This is already the end of the work, the fulfillment of love.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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Internal Changes: High Frequency Range

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we fulfill the rule “Love thy friend as thyself?”

Answer: It is when I stop feeling the difference between me and the friend. This is the first rule, to which we have to add fear and faith.

A mother, for example, has an instinctive love for her child. Is that enough? No. Love operates her and it is expressed in caring for the child and in constantly worrying about him.

So love is not enough, there must also be fear, worry about the loved one, and incorporation with him, worrying about his desires and a true concern about their fulfillment. So when I feel the fear, I express my love and this expression is called “faith.”

Love is the right attitude to others, but the goal of creation isn’t only about that.

We incorporate with others, fill them, and create one vessel and from the love of others reach the love of the Creator.

Question: How can the love of others give us power and provide the fuel that we need? How can a person who is submerged in self-love feel the desires of others?

Answer: With the help of the Light that Reforms. Of course only with it.

Question: Does that mean that we have to constantly create a desire aimed at this direction so that the Light will reform us?

Answer: Yes. Our work is only in creating the deficiency for love, for mutual connection, for incorporation, to want to be within the other and to take on his desire instead of mine.

In these kinds of actions you summon the Light upon yourself.

First you have to know how you can resemble the Light, its nature. It is one, infinite, and simple; it bestows and it wants to do good to everyone. If you can acquire this inclination in some way, then to the extent that you do so, you will approach the Light and it will operate on you. The Light doesn’t change, but by your attraction to it you increase its impact—both on your evil inclination and on the good inclination.

In the laws of this world, it is reflected by the fact that the influence of the general field is inversely proportional to the distance squared. So if you decrease the distance by half, the Light operates on you four times more strongly.

Question: We draw the Light during the study. So what do I have to do during the day? How should I work with the friends in order to build the right desire for the next lesson?

Answer: During the day you also draw the Light since you are still in contact with the most important thing. Besides, you are connected to the world group that never ceases its efforts. For example, there are friends from Australia or from South America studying with us who are getting the same message. We are one vessel and it isn’t only about your individual study. Of course, you draw more Light during the lesson, but on the whole we work 24 hours a day all over the world.

Question: How can we draw the Light most efficiently? What should each friend do, no matter where he is?

Answer: We should want to correct love of others, to unite with them and thus create a place for the revelation of the Creator. By that, we bring Him great contentment, by that all our pleasure is the pleasure He wants to bring to His created beings.

Question: Can we check our efforts and get a response from the general system?

Answer: If each of us makes some efforts, he will begin to feel daily internal changes, whereas now he experiences something new once or twice a month. Later the changes will become an endless chain: entrance – exit, entrance – exit, every few seconds.

Of course, your attitude will also change and you will have a stable path and be able to sort out the ascents and descents along two lines, evaluating them from within the middle line.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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A Radar To The Upper Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You spoke about the fact that we are constantly awoken from Above, but that we don’t feel it because we lack equivalence of form. What happens Above when we read The Zohar, are we awoken more strongly or do we become more sensitive?

Answer: If you just read The Book nothing happens. You can either read it or not. It all depends on your intention. If your intention evokes an equivalence of form, then to the level that you are equal to a higher level, you are impressed by it. But if you are not inclined to be equivalent in form, if you don’t approach it, it doesn’t illuminate on you.

The upper level is in a fixed state and it is called Hafetz Hesed (which doesn’t want anything for itself). You can evoke it so that it will impress you if you exert yourself and increase your desire. Then it illuminates upon you. It isn’t that it illuminates especially for you, but you are impressed by it according to your vessels, your renewed desires.

But where can you get new vessels and desires? If you are connected to other friends then among you, you give birth to the spiritual vessel. None of us is a vessel that can absorb the Light. There must be at least several people who want to connect in order to nullify themselves before one another, and that is already becoming equal to the upper. According to such an equivalence of form, they can feel a more powerful illumination from the upper among them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, The Zohar

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Collecting The Splinters Of Perception

Dr. Michael LaitmanPresently, I am in a fragmented reality that is divided into two parts: my “I” and the external world. This separation explains exactly what Kabbalists wanted to tell us: “You have a chance to connect these two parts, internal and external, together into one entity. You have to do it; this is the program of creation. If you participate in reconnecting them, you’ll perceive the internal reality in which you were before the shattering occurred.”

Kabbalists tell us about the group, dissemination, and the significance of bowing our heads before our friends. The group is nothing but “externality” to us, but it’s already at the human (Adam) level. Those who have a point in the heart, the urge to become similar to the Creator, belong to this level. So, the Kabbalists tell us: “In your reality, there are people who are similar to you and who also strive to unite. They are special selected parts of your soul. One way or the other, everything is a part of your soul. So, you should use these parts, since they are designed to help you; they come to meet you.”

From there, I begin to understand what’s written in the articles that speak of the group, unity, the need to bow one’s head before the group, and of the relationships among friends. All of the above describes the auxiliary force, which stands out from this world, the one that is detached from our other parts that are spread throughout the Universe. The whole Universe is just me; it’s my current sensation. Even things that I can’t feel at this time are still me. It simply means that I haven’t collected the whole range of sensations within myself yet and that my perception of reality is not deep enough as of now.

So, at the highest (speaking) level, there are certain parts that really are helping me, since they encompass the same aspiration as I do. As a result if I happen to unite with them, I correct all other parts of my soul.

Where do I start? I begin with the most sensitive and developed part that is next to me, humankind. It’s still about one’s integrated soul, which we lead towards correction. If one regards everything from this angle, looks deeper, and realizes what Kabbalists write about, then one begins to better understand their texts, their world outlook, and the way they perceived reality and the whole process.

The main thing is to break the “ice” and “dissolve” the common routine self-perception as well as the way we regard the world. We should keep in mind that everything that exists is only our “I”, and that any externality in fact is still inside us. Everything is a picture that we imagine at a certain point in time. Although, we are also given a chance to realize and sense that another approach to this issue is also possible. In his  “Preface to The Book of Zohar” (Item 34), Baal HaSulam writes: …Even though we see everything as actually being in front of us, every reasonable person knows for certain that all that we see is only within our own brains. So are the souls: Although they see all the images in the Giver, they still have no doubt that all these are only in their own interior, and not at all in the Giver.

Another question is what level of “common sense” do we need for that? Of course, it’s not that easy and is not available to everybody. However, if we get ourselves acquainted with psychologists’ and quantum physicists’ opinion, we would discover that their understanding of reality is very similar. Baal HaSulam very much respected materialistic psychology since it’s built on common empiric sense: “A person can be governed only by what one sees.” Psychologists are still partially confused with their hypothesis, whereas physicists talk about these things very seriously: everything is within a person.

So, we have to overcome a gap in our perception. If we constantly apply effort, not physically but rather internally, in order to connect these two parts, internal and external, together, we’ll elicit the Reforming Light and correct our corrupt vessels. The vessel is damaged only inside of our perception, nowhere else. It splits the entire picture and shows some of my vessels as being outside, and the other part as inside. All this is only in our perception.

In order get a correct understanding of the above, we read the articles and letters written by Kabbalists. If we try to understand them from this point of view, they are not what they appear to us in the ordinary psychological approach. They open up much greater depth and clarity, and we’ll feel what Kabbalists had in mind. Because they see the world as a complete entity, united, for them it is concentrated in the point of unity that a person has to attain. They have no question about the need to unite into one group, nor why the “drop of unity” has to be everybody’s goal.

So, together with us now in selected parts of humanity are those who aspire to unite together. If we all think about it and wish to reveal unity, it will happen. In principle, it is sufficient for it to be ten people, and we are much more.

And again, our unity has to be built on the basis of equality. It’s said: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Equality will allow us to form a center of unity, the central point of Malchut.
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From the North Convention of Unity 9/20/12, Lesson 2

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The Practice Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanEstablishing the right mutual relations in the group is the most important thing we need to implement, since the wisdom of Kabbalah is a very practical wisdom. We can use other wisdoms even without understanding them. For example, I sit in the car and I am shown what is around me, which buttons to press and go. This is what actually happens in everything that we do. It is enough to know a few things in order to use different scientific developments. Sometimes all we need is some basic knowledge: For example, get in and sit down and the train or the bus will take you to your destination, although you have no idea how it is done. I move from place to place, eat, drink, and participate in different events knowing nothing about the technical basis of things, just like a newborn baby who is carried in the adults’ arms or pushed in a stroller.

In spirituality, however, it is different. There I can use certain things only if I know and understand them. I have no control over things that I have not attained and have not discovered. I cannot just sit in some “spiritual carriage” and go somewhere. No, I have to know who I am, what this “carriage” is, how it moves, how to operate it, from where to where I should ride it, what is the place I started from like and what is the nature of my final destination, etc. I have to know what is going on, to be in control of the situation and not just “press the buttons.” Only if I can really implement this fully, having mastered everything, can I perform a certain spiritual act. Otherwise, I simply don’t exist in the spiritual world.

Therefore, we have to immediately ask ourselves: Which means enable us to discover, to know and to understand the spiritual reality and to learn how to manage it? Kabbalists explain that everything in our world is prepared for that. It is fully ready only for this mission, so that from here I will learn how to work with the spiritual world, live in it, and fully control it.

From this world I learn about the upper world. The main tool here is to practice love. We can call it the practice of connection, concession, but on the whole it is about love.

Why? Because that’s what it’s all about. Now I love myself, my desire to receive. I enjoy by filling and satisfying it. This I how the Creator made me, He connected the filling with the pleasure. Love of others means that I don’t absorb the pleasure but rather feel it in Him and by that enjoy. This is how a mother also enjoys every spoonful she can put into her baby’s mouth…
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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