Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

Like Clay In The Hands Of The Master

Dr. Michael LaitmanDo not imagine the Creator to be somewhere far, in some far-off  worlds, existing separately from you. Everything only exists within our desire; everything becomes revealed within us.

It only seems to us that the entire reality, beside for us, exists somewhere on the outside and is divided into the layers of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature, which are either closer to or distant from us. But all of this exists within our desire.

It only seems to a person as if it were not his, as if it were foreign, and this confusion is given to him intentionally, as a consequence of the breaking. But as he begins to work on attaining bestowal, he gradually, to the extent of his readiness to bestow and sacrifice his egoism, starts to sense these parts of the universe that appeared to be foreign and external to him: the still nature, plants, animals, and people.

Evidently, everything belongs to him, and it only appeared to be foreign to him due to his ruined perception.

This way the Creator awakens a person with His invitations and stings at any opportunity, and the person becomes more sensitive to responding to bestowal. He only needs to carry out the instructions with more precision. This is why the Torah is called an “instruction” (Oraa) so we could use all the means given to us in this world (the teacher, the study, and the group) and transcend it.

It doesn’t matter that one does not understand what he is doing or that he just tries like a small child playing a game. If he really desires to attain spirituality and is prepared to cancel himself before the teacher, the group, and the study in order to change with their help and become manageable clay in their hands, he will begin to feel the changes happening within him.

A person does not know where they come from. Kabbalists say that they come from the Surrounding Light. But we do not perceive the Surrounding Light because it does not become the Inner one, and we only notice its influence by the results. We suddenly begin to understand and feel more; we become prepared to be closer to bestowal, the teacher, and the group.

This is how the Surrounding Light operates, and everything depends on our sensitivity to the changes we must receive. I must desire for them to happen directly within me, within my desire, for the Creator’s image, the image of the giver to dress itself in me, and for my desire to receive pleasure to acquire the form of bestowal.

And so I will attain adhesion: I will sense how I merge with the Creator inside of myself. But I connect with the Creator and exist within Him, and the Creator exists within me. This is why He is called the Creator (Bo-Reh) or “come and see.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The New Definition Of Sanctity And Impurity

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe do not need anything else but trepidation, which is the proper attitude towards the Creator. One’s work begins when one becomes able to distinguish between “sanctity” (bestowal) and “impurity” (Klipa, egoism).

To be in sanctity means to constantly worry about the Creator supporting us and allowing us to keep the correct attitude towards His revelation, towards the expression of His love towards us. This concern must constantly dominate a person because if he was to break and leave this concern for a certain second, during a certain state on this path, he would immediately fall into egoism, Klipa.

He would begin to use the Creator’s kind and loving attitude towards him for the sake of his own benefit. When he desires to enjoy the Creator’s love for his own sake even for a second, this already is Klipa.

But when he fears whether he will be able to turn the entire revelation of the Giver’s love into a reciprocal attitude towards Him in order to return the same kind of love and bestowal to Him, this is “sanctity.” This way a person raises himself to a level of “sanctity and impurity” determined by his ability to accept the Creator’s love. When he only does this out of fear for returning the same attitude, this is called bestowal, “sanctity.” But when he himself wants to enjoy the Creator’s love, he considers this an “impure desire,” Klipa.

This is called the “screen,” which he always must preserve over him and concern himself with accepting the revelation of Light, the Creator, only in the “Reflected Light.” This Reflected Light determines the degree of “fear.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/2011, Shamati No.38

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I Want To See Myself In Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard) No.5, “Lishma Is an Awakening From Above, And Why Do We Need an Awakening From Below”: When one has already accustomed oneself to work in order to bestow, and not examine oneself—if he is feeling a good taste in the work—but believes that he is working to bring contentment to his Maker through his work, one should believe that the Creator accepts the labor of the lower ones regardless of how and how much is the form of their work….

Question: How can one bring contentment to the Creator? What does this mean?

Answer: Our reality has not changed, is not changing, and will not change; it remains the same. Right now it looks to us as darkness and concealment, yet we nevertheless need to imagine ourselves in adhesion with the Creator.

The only one thing that hinders me from this is that I don’t relate to Him in the way that He relates to me. This is the gap which plunges me into the darkness and causes me to not feel that I am with the Creator and filled with the Light. Instead, I perceive my reality in the form of our world.

That is why I constantly need, like a baby, to imagine for myself that I want to be in attainment, meaning in bestowal to the Creator. Am I really thinking about this? If I take my thoughts to Him through the group, through the friends, so that all of the 613 desires of my heart are corrected towards bestowal, if I am ready to implement all of these 613 commandments, then I am preparing the vessel for the attainment of the Creator.

This is what the whole of the Kabbalistic method is about. We need the efforts; we have nothing else to do.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/2011, Shamati #5

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Good Environment – 07.07.11

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The Problem Is Who We Forget

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe problem is that we constantly forget about the Creator! It is clear that we work in the group. After all, it is written that everything depends upon it, and only there do we have freedom of will. Only in the group can I do what depends on me.

Dissemination is another way. We understand that if we disseminate widely, we will absorb the aspirations of everyone else and pass desires to one another. But behind all these actions of study, dissemination, and the group, we forget that we only do them to please the Creator. We lose this notion. We do not perceive Him and therefore, it’s as if He doesn’t exist for us.

Sometimes we remember Him and think: “Fine, I will get to this sometime later.” But this is not right as I am no longer aiming straight at the target like an arrow! Even the smallest personal effort must be accompanied by an intention, when “the end result is in its initial thought.” I do everything solely in order to please the Creator, even though I neither know who He is nor feel Him at first.

But as it is written in Psalms, I am always “by night on my bed,” which means that I lie flat in the state when the “head” and the “feet” (all the Sefirot) are on the same level, and there is nothing, neither mind nor sensations; I’m in absolute darkness. And still, I “seek him whom my soul loves.”

And even though I do not know where to look and what this is, I still artificially tune myself into this search over and over again, and I gradually begin to receive some kind of impressions. It begins to work.

We need to attract the Surrounding Light specifically by directing all the actions to giving contentment to the Creator. Otherwise it will be considered that you have started an action but have not completed it. It will not give you the necessary result.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/2011, Shamati #5

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An Attack Inside The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Lately it’s felt that the world Kli is working in a single desire. At one time Rabash advised you to make an attack from this state. What exactly are we attacking?

Answer: Ourselves, our heart, our laziness, our pride, our past habits. I have to ascend above all of these calculations.

The most important thing is to dissolve among the friends, to intentionally push yourself into the group. I want to be there all the time. I want to lose my personal mind and feeling and to acquire the mind and feeling of all the friends. It’s as if I lose myself in them by my own desire.

This means acquiring the vessel of the mutual guarantee.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/11, Matan Torah

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Good Environment – 07.06.11

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It’s Better On A Helicopter…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where is my freedom of choice? How can I decide between two choices?

Answer: Man does not face two choices, but only one. We are not standing at a crossroads, needing to decide whether to go right or left. There is no such thing! I am on a straight highway, and my only choice is whether or not to accelerate my advancement.

If I’m moving very slowly, then every moment I receive blows from every bump on this rough, broken highway that’s full of potholes, where wild beasts can attack me at every turn, and a host of other problems and even wars await me.

Or I can take a helicopter and fly over the highway. That depends on me.

However, the direction remains the same and the goal we achieve is the same. And although it says that we can fall off the path, that doesn’t refer to deviating from the highway itself, but to a refusal to travel at a high speed of our own accord.

In that case I advance in accordance with the engine of the program of creation, which is called “in its time” (Beito), and at every step I receive problems, blows, wars, hardships, diseases, and crises, everything that transpires in our lives, in all possible manifestations of the desire to enjoy.

Indeed, it has to demonstrate to me all of these problems so that the despair and problems compel me to “refine” it and cease to desire pleasure in such states. That is sufficient to correct the desire to enjoy at this first degree: the animate level.

Question: How can I check if I fell out of the helicopter onto the highway again?

Answer: First of all, I sense it in accordance with my degree of awakening, inspiration, and aspiration toward the goal. I must check whether I’m “burning” with the importance of the connection with the group, which is the only means of advancement. Am I working toward it, am I making use of all the means at my disposal? These means are the teacher, the group, and the books.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The World Through The Prism Of Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do our efforts to unify during our reading of The Book of Zohar impact the world? What changes does it instill?

Answer: There is no world per se. Your efforts build this reality for you. Right now, it seems to you as you see it. To the degree of your exerted efforts, you create another reality, a different world. What you make is what you get.

Spirituality has no image. It doesn’t have any specific picture unless a person forms it within himself, within his desires that he collected and linked in one.

We should reflect on this as much as possible in order to get accustomed to this view of reality. This isn’t about spiritual attainment. I am saying that every person in our world, who hasn’t attained any spirituality yet, can still choose to view reality as suggested and in so doing begin experiencing certain sensory impressions.

Question: But how do our efforts to unify affect the desires of the most coarse level within us, where there is no yearning to unite? It seems that at the deepest level, I don’t have the slightest aspiration or desire to unite with the others….

Answer: I am made of desires of all kinds and forms, of all levels of Aviut (thickness, coarseness), including desires that don’t change until the final correction. These desires unfold in me in all possible combinations which I am not the one to set up.

I must, to the best of my ability, mold them into a spiritual form, meaning to bring them to unification with the desires that seem alien to me and which I reject, despise, and wish to have nothing to do with: “Who are they, anyway?! Why do I need to unite with them?”

I must overcome this resentment and try to unite with them if they have a desire for spirituality similar to mine. For now, it’s only with them. And if we try to rise above our mutual resentment and unify, we build the “place” for revelation of a more inner degree.

Question: Sometimes, I feel as if I am standing against the wall, trying to push through it with all that I”ve got, but it won’t move. What do I do in this state?

Answer: Ask the friends for help….
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, The Zohar

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An Electronic Circuit Of The Collective Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything becomes revealed in the connection between myself and others. Once we were in the world of Infinity where I or other souls did not exist: Everyone was one whole.

Then I developed the sensation that there exist me and others, the outside world: the still, vegetative, animate nature, and people, a multitude of different objects that connect, interact, and create the vanity of this world.

But why am I given this sensation instead of the peace and perfection of Malchut of Infinity? It is so I would start figuring out this mess that I am feeling and connect everything into one, as it is written: “He and His name are one,” like in Malchut of Infinity. This connection can only be realized through the quality of bestowal and love, which connects all of these different things back into one. After all, love unites!

The force of bestowal cancels our evil egoistic inclination which becomes revealed between the scattered and distanced parts, separated by the force of evil, the force of destruction. But I need to overcome this force of hatred and separation and its limitations specifically by opposing it and to build a connection between us. And then I will build a system that connects all these parts.

At first there was no system. They were simply united into one solid whole. And suddenly we get many parts, connected through a variety of different ties. It is like an electronic circuit filled with resistors, induction coils, capacitors, and transistors, which create different connection conditions.

I need to put together this kind of system on my own! Right now my ego is painting all these elements that interfere with connection: resistors, induction coils, and so on. They do not short circuit my circuit, but introduce a sort of resistance: sometimes “magnetic,” sometimes in the form of a “capacitor,” and sometimes with completely different conditions. And a circuit is made out of all this.

All the systems—human, electronic, and biological—operate according to this principle. In this circuit, I examine the creating force which operates within the one being created. I reveal the Creator within all these systematic connections! I do not have another opportunity to reveal Him, only by beginning to build this system within my egoistic desire.

I turn it on and make it work because the Light will be revealed in it if I have connected all the parts correctly. This Light begins to flow through this system like electricity, and then the mutual work of its elements, their program, and interaction become revealed The Creator becomes revealed!

And made all this happen? I did! And of course now I understand who and what He is. This is our work.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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