Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

A New Coefficient Is The Catalyst Of Advancement

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe start to develop correctly when we finally understand that we have to provide a new desire for our development. That is why we need a group for studying. The group awakens us and gives us a desire, and by studying, we draw the Light that Reforms.

The Light turns the desire obtained from the group, the environment, to bestowal. Thus, we start to grow spiritually. From now on, the reins guiding our development are in our hands, and we have to begin to manage them with the help of the environment and the Surrounding Light.

The person who has received an invitation to rise must see that his desire is constantly renewed. We are given the usual, initial desire, “substance,” but we ourselves need to add the spiritual aspiration for the form for which we want to use our natural desire: for reception or bestowal.

Therefore, we must always aspire to be in ascent, in a state of searching and demand help from the group and the Surrounding Light. If a person feels that he has no desire and no demand for the Light, this means that he has not received this additional desire from the group and does not feel the need to ask about his correction.

Not only are certain people actively seeking correction and studying Kabbalah, but today, all of humanity is at this turning point, and it is called a crisis. This is a real crisis because we have to review our entire attitude toward life.

Until now, we were advancing in the compulsory order, involuntarily, driven by our growing egoism. The Light worked on the desire to enjoy and developed it linearly, progressively. However, suddenly, a new coefficient, “the catalyst of advancement,” has been added to this function.

Due to this coefficient, we are changing our development both qualitatively and quantitatively. From now on, we are not developing along a gently sloping, straight line—we rise qualitatively toward the Creator. Thus, we begin to grow as people called Adam, man.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/2011, Shamati #21

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Humanity’s Global Problems

Opinion: (M. Delyagin, Director of Research, Institute of Globalization Studies (IPROG), kapital-rus.ru): The world financial crisis is merely an external manifestation of humanity’s integral transformation toward a radically new structure of human society.

Information processing technologies gave rise to a small group of managing elite. Consequently, 70% of the population are unneeded and have to be utilized either physically or socially. Global communication has created the most profitable business: shaping public opinion. This qualitatively changes the character of human development: While previously, over the entire course of human history, humanity grew by reforming the natural environment, today it is beginning to feel the necessity to change itself in order to survive.

Therefore, all previously developed sciences existing up to this day not only will be unable to assist us in our subsequent evolvement, but rather will hamper it, as pertains to the whole humanity. In fact, today it isn’t the world that needs to be changed but man himself, which signifies dismissal of science and technical revolution.

Simplified communications erode the system of government. The world’s civil society is called to constrain the world’s government. Global advertisement has imposed on humankind the desire to strive for high-grade consumption, which resulted in tension, terror, and migration.

The depth of the world financial crisis is underestimated due to the lack of understanding that the old paradigm of global evolution has run its course. A qualitatively new world financial system is due. Humanity’s integration has surpassed the capacity for controlling it and it demands to be stepped back and restored to manageability by simplifying the process of its development.

We are called to intellectual revolution, to form a new type of consciousness, which will bring humanity out of stalemate not by extinguishing its part, but rather by facilitating collective progress.

In the new era of human development it is necessary to do the following:

  1. Comprehend the essence of the new stage of humanity’s evolution;
  2. Define the model of the forth-coming human development;
  3. Identify major issues (challenges) requiring a solution, which will shape the progress of human society within the parameters of this model;
  4. Work out specific guidelines and rules for international organizations, governments, and businesses;
  5. Form and aim public opinion and that of the elite toward harmonizing human development in the new evolutionary setting.

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A Universal Recipe For Success

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can a person do when he is unable to overcome himself when there is gossip and insinuations in the group?

Answer: This is a problem. If we are connected at least with one letter of the wisdom of Kabbalah, then everything that happens with us from now on is only connected to the friends and the attainment of the Creator in the group. There is no other cause for the events in our life. No matter what happens to you, all the good and the bad goes in line with the goal. You have entered a spiritual highway.

People around the world are still at the stage when their egoistic desire is growing. This will continue until they reach a point where the problem will become revealed to them: either a worldwide crisis of the integrated interconnection or the point in the heart.

However, our failures only come from careless work in the environment. And once again, you can correct all the problems only in the environment, only in a mutual connection with the friends. Why is it so? It’s because this way you awaken the Light which does all the work. It is the Light that organizes and determines everything in your life from physical health to spiritual well-being. Everything depends on its presence or lack thereof.

This way, the work in the group is a universal method that allows you to attain success in everything.

Question: How do we make sure that the group is the only territory of our work? How do we stay on this track?

Answer: For every person to remember it and feel its importance, we need a common opinion and mutual guarantee. I must make sure I do not forget that my life on all its levels and in all details depends only on the well-being of the group, its perfection.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Daybreak In The Depth Of Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why do I reveal hatred toward the friend within myself? Is it so that I would not receive personal, individual pleasure from the Creator?

Answer: What you feel toward the friend is not so much hatred, but rather rejection or antagonism for various reasons. You certainly reject, hate, and refuse to accept the Creator to the same extent. And this presents you with an opportunity for correction. After all, you reveal a space for work, your own “construction zone.” This is the only way we advance; we have no other area for work.

This is what differentiates the science of Kabbalah from all other methods. One would think that it tells us about some lofty matters, some empyreal spheres, while in truth there is nothing in Kabbalah except work in the group with friends, a very simple and real work.

Humanity as a whole is also approaching this need. All nations will need to become one “group”; otherwise, they will have no right to exist. The upper Light constantly affected us and led us to this point, and today it illuminates the desire to such depth that we must understand: We will not survive without unity. From now on our life does not depend on the economy and trade, like during the past 50 years. We depend more and more on human interconnection; we need to unite our souls.

In this manner, Lights affect the vessels, penetrating them deeper and deeper and illuminating this need. Whether we want it or not is irrelevant. The engine of the generator picks up speed, the illuminator amplifies the brightness of the projectors, and their glow protrudes into the depths of our desires.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Turning Yourself Into A Point In The Sky

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to become “ready for correction”?

Answer: A person ready for correction is the one who has reached this state and, according to his properties and the law of the equivalence of form, is able to sense some new, special phenomenon. It’s when he sees that it could not come naturally, but only as a result of the relationship between the two, the upper one and the lower one.

We need to understand that there are the Creator and the creature, and an abyss separates them! There is no connection between them. And only to the extent to which the creature shows its readiness to become like the Creator, to that extent will it sense the Creator within itself.

This readiness is given as special good luck, good fortune, to the extent of one’s willingness to cancel oneself and bow, if he is willing to continue on this path no matter what might happen. He can check whether he is still on the correct path, whether he fits this group (although, how much the group fits him depends on him as well), and if he does not abandon his efforts and continues, he will attain spiritual revelation.

But a person does not know from where it will be revealed. Our earthly minds and hearts can never know about the next states. They are always revealed so suddenly and in such an unpredictable form that it is impossible to expect them in advance. After all, we acquire a new nature. That is why if one continues faithfully and with perseverance, if he goes, bowing his head and valuing the greatness of spirituality, he will reach the goal.

Now, you have neither the feeling nor the mind to understand what was said, but you will acquire the feeling and the mind by virtue of going like “an ox under the yoke and a donkey carrying the load.” Nothing more is required from us! We will receive everything else, the whole vessel, from Above.

The whole difficulty of our work is that we have to work as if in one place, and revelation is received in the other. I will not get the next stage in my egoistic desires of today, or my earthly feelings and mind, or even in my spiritual attainment with which I am already at some step of the spiritual ladder.

I reach it only because I cleave to it and nullify myself so that big and strong as I am, I turn into a tiny drop of semen and become included in the upper degree. That is why, if you ask how you can reach spiritual revelation, the answer is: “By turning yourself into a point….”

“Good fortune” does not mean winning it like  with the lottery, but what is called: “I have labored and I found!” It happens in every moment; I put effort and “find” something in a totally different place. It really falls on me from Above like a gift. This is called “good fortune” that you do not expect in advance. You may wait for something, but not in the form that you will receive it.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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When Everyone Is Responsible For Everyone Else

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is said: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice since the Light in it reforms.” Thus, first of all, we have to reveal the evil inclination, and then, to the extent that we feel it, we we will want to find a “spice,” a “remedy” that will turn it into the good inclination.

How can we reveal the evil inclination? To do that, a person must find the right environment. If he wants to be included in this environment so that all of them become like one man with one heart; if he wants mutual guarantee and integral unity with everyone, without any distinction, when everyone is responsible for everyone else, similar to the cells of a living body; if he does not judge others but cares about them so they can awaken him; if the main thing for him is his personal internal work; if he tries to be among the friends and bow his head before them only to receive from them the realization of the importance of the goal and cancel himself again so that the importance of his friends charges him with even greater recognition of the goal and the environment; if he is constantly in this circle and works in it, then he receives from his friends their collective, integral awareness of the importance of the goal.

This is no longer his vessel, his desires, but the desire of the collective. This is already Malchut. A single person who strove to raise his request to the group, to Malchut of the world of Atzilut, is now in it, if only he connects with his friends, awakens them, and works together with them. In response, they awaken him, and altogether they become one whole, one desire. Their personal requests become united and turn into Malchut of the world of Atzilut, which is close to us.

If there is unity between them, at least in something, it influences the higher degrees, to which we do not relate. Our feeling, perception, and our reality is only in Malchut.

Thus, our work should be aimed at Malchut of the world of Atzilut, at the connection with everyone else and together, at the unity with the source of the Light: the Creator. This work is divided into two components which, in fact, have to be welded with each other:

  • One’s relationship with the group;
  • One’s relationship with the Creator.

If we act correctly, we reach the first revelation. It depends only on the degree to which we unite our requests into a single prayer. And then everyone with his personal desire will find out that he is included into Malchut. In and of itself, Malchut is a point, but we “expand,” build it by our desires. The nine lower Sefirot are in the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya), in a broken state.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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The Entire Path Is The Search

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Could you describe all the states that we have to go through from our present condition to the true request for bestowal?

Answer: These are not some kind of clear, sequential steps that we can understand. These states are changing: coming and going.

But it is clear that at the very beginning, when a person comes, it seems to him that he can achieve everything himself, alone, and that he is not dependent on anything, neither on the teacher nor the group. He thinks that books are enough for him to advance.

Then, he has a revelation, and the only question is how much time it would take. Sometimes, egoism plugs his eyes and ears so much that he sees and hears nothing, and thus, it may take years. Sometimes, this happens sooner.

However, all theses stages that we have to experience are the levels of our awareness of our inability to reach the goal and of our dependence on the teacher, the books, the group, and applied efforts of one kind or another. Thus, we rise step after step until we come to the understanding that we depend only on the Creator, the notion that incorporates all previous factors: when I couldn’t manage without the teacher, the books, and the group.

Now, I reveal that everything is included in Him, in the concept I call the “Creator.” And then I really see that everything around me, except me, is He alone, and there is no one else. I understand that I am not able to and cannot, but nevertheless have to persuade myself  to seek Him all the time.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/2011, Shamati #5

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