Report (World Health Organization, Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders): In the report, love seems to fall under the category of “F63 Habit and impulse disorders” defined as follows: “This category includes certain behavioral disorders that are not classifiable under other rubrics. They are characterized by repeated acts that have no clear rational motivation and that generally harm the patient’s own interests and those of other people. The patient reports that the behavior is associated with impulses to action that cannot be controlled.

The causes of these conditions are not understood; the disorders are grouped together because of broad descriptive similarities, not because they are known to share any other important features.”

My Comment: There is no love, but only a desire to enjoy the other, and if it suppresses other desires, it is a real mental disorder. Love is not when you want to enjoy someone, but when you desire to please him or her, without any connection to you.

In this case, you have to first free yourself completely from thoughts about yourself, feel the desires of the other objectively, and fill them absolutely selflessly, that is, without any result for yourself. The test of a genuine feeling of selfless love is that you completely distance yourself from the fulfillment of another person and grant it to a stranger, so much so that nobody even knows about you.
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In the News (from cbc.ca): “About 38 per cent of Europeans, or 165 million people, have some type of mental illness and that most are going untreated, a new study estimates.

“The experts surveyed more than 90 different problems, from attention deficit disorders in children to dementia in Alzheimer’s patients. Rates of mental disorders didn’t appear to be rising, compared to a similar study in 2005.

“The most common problems included anxiety disorders, insomnia, depression, alcohol and drug dependence, and dementia. Experts estimated only one-third of people receive treatment.

“The study was published Tuesday by the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.”
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Report (From time.com): “A healthy social life may be as good for your long-term health as avoiding cigarettes, according to a massive research review released Tuesday by the journal PLoS Medicine.

“Researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill … found that those with poor social connections had on average 50% higher odds of death in the study’s follow-up period (an average of 7.5 years) than people with more robust social ties.

“That boost in longevity is about as large as the mortality difference observed between smokers and nonsmokers, the study’s authors say. And it’s larger than differences in the risk of death associated with many other well-known lifestyle factors, including lack of exercise and obesity.”

My Comment: This is just one of the egoistic aspects of the benefit of a connection with others, while the real gain is found above the body, on the spiritual plane, in the attainment of the feeling of eternal life, here and now.
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In the News (from The Independent): The Office of National Statistics (ONS) of Britain attempted to “quantify a phenomenon that has until now been the preserve of poets and songwriters rather than statisticians….a happiness (or more accurately a wellbeing) index….

“All ages …seem to agree that, fleeting pleasures aside, there is a holy trinity when it comes to how positive we feel about ourselves and where we live: good health, functioning relationships and a satisfying job.”

My comment: For all the people in the world happiness comes down to satisfying the following:

• Three bodily desires rooted in the “animate” body (food, sex, and family (friends));
• Three “social” desires, arising under the influence of society (wealth, power or fame, and knowledge).

Surveys in each country can identify how its citizens view happiness because everybody has the above mentioned six desires. But in each individual, they are expressed in a particular proportion, while in every nation, in a proportion specific for a given nation.

There is another kind of people who, beside these six desires, have a higher desire to reveal the meaning of life—its root, the Creator. Satisfying all other desires interests them only to the extent necessary for their existence.
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Baal HaSulam, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”: …as corporeal things are separated from one another by an axe and a hammer, the spirituals are separated from one another by the disparity of form between them. And when the disparity of form increases to the point of oppositeness, from one extreme to the other, complete separation is created between them.

From the perspective of the Creator, who created the will to enjoy, there is no opposition between this desire and the desire of bestowal. It’s like a baby who receives from a mother—there is no division between them. They are inseparably connected and enjoy one another.

We see how in nature, a foreign organism consisting of someone else’s flesh receives the opportunity to grow inside the mother’s body and is not perceived by her as foreign! How is this phenomenon, a fetus inside a mother’s womb, even possible considering that when we get a tiny splinter, the body immediately begins to reject the alien object? An infection immediately forms around it and the body tries to push it out and separate it.

It’s known how during an organ transplant it is very difficult to overcome this barrier, the body’s incompatibility with and rejection of an alien body. But here the opposite happens: One body grows inside of the other, and the big body is always taking care of the small body, doing everything only for its benefit!

This is an example of the will to enjoy (the fetus) and the will to bestow (the mother) not being in conflict with one another. And the same thing happens in relation to the Creator, who created the will to enjoy. This desire does not contradict or oppose bestowal.

However, if the goal is to bring this will to enjoy to the form of bestowal, then they do become opposite to one another according to their intentions. In the initial state there is a bestowing desire and a receiving one: the Creator and the creation. But there is no discrepancy between them and they are united together. But then, creation develops and acquires an egoistic intention, and now according to their intentions, they become opposite: The intention of bestowal is opposite to the intention for oneself from beginning to the end, from zero until infinity.

What we have to correct is the egoistic intention and not the desire! The desire remains in us. We always keep the will to enjoy. But the intention has to be “for the sake of bestowal.”

However, we usually get confused about this, thinking that we have to fight with our desires. Religions and different spiritual practices try to destroy the desire or decrease it. But Kabbalah says the opposite: “Increase your desire and the intention of bestowal together with it!” Then you will be able to bestow more with your actions.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/11, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: When a person tries to come out of Egypt, meaning self-love, he receives blows which he can overcome only by asking the Creator for help. But besides that there is also the material, earthly egoism which receives blows at its level, such as problems with one’s family, health, income, and so on. How should we relate to these problems?

Answer: No matter what kind of problem emerges in my life, first and foremost I must see it as a disturbance that came from the Creator. Even if I am in pain, I must still rise above that disturbance through faith above reason. Despite it all, I know that I have to make calculations above the disturbance and not under its weight. I must stay in touch with its “sender,” the Creator.

As for responsible actions, in the realm of this world I have to resolve all the problems by the commonly accepted methods. When it comes to the bank, work, family, and health, I have to take care of everything just like any person in our world.

Thus, you build up a two-sided attitude to the problems:

– First of all, they come from the Creator and you are dealing only with Him. You want to have these disturbances because they give you the opportunity to rise above knowledge and stay in touch with the Creator. Then you are correctly treating the disturbances and you even begin to love and respect them. After all, no matter how much they bother you, no matter how much salt they put on your wounds, and no matter how nerve-wracking they are, this is exactly what helps you rise above them.

– Secondly, you resolve the incoming problems the way it’s customary in the material world.

Both of these dimensions must be present in your attitude. You attribute the problems to the Creator, and at the same time you want to work with them. We do not throw Pharaoh out of our lives, but we enjoy his troubles. After all, only through them can we reject him and separate from him, and thus ascend higher and higher.

Pharaoh is my most precious flesh, my core, my most sensitive point, my child, the most important and finest string inside of me.

Question: But Pharaoh resists the unity of friends. What do the material troubles have to do with it?

Answer: They also distract you from the inner work. It’s not accidental that so many Kabbalists experienced material problems. The Creator deliberately caused them to be sick and despised by the people around them. It was in order to give them a place where they could overcome.

At the end of the day, all of this is a result of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. The desire gradually becomes revealed inside of you and in conformity to it you experience various problems, both in others and in yourself.

Question: Do I have to ask for help in these cases? After all, the Creator helps us in only one respect—unification.

Answer: That’s right, and the problems obstruct you from doing this. When you are sick, it’s difficult for you to focus on love for friends. Most likely, you forget all about it. And that means you have to ask for help. There is none else besides Him. Everything comes from the Creator, but it happens through different channels.

You have to attain the goal, but your body, your “little donkey” is sick and cannot carry you. So what should you do? Leave him to die? But you need him on the path.

Why do you perceive this world separately from the spiritual work? Even small disturbances can be helpful if you work with them correctly. No matter what happens to us, it’s important to remember that this comes from a single Source, until we really come to feel that we are in spiritual exile.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/11, Shamati

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The “Globes” newspaper has published a comprehensive article about the “happiness industry,” which is making us more and more unhappy. The rate of depression in the West is constantly on the rise, while the average age of its victims is decreasing. According to data from the World Health Organization, by 2020 depression will be the second cause of disability and death in the world, surpassed only by cardiovascular diseases.

The modern person is sinking in loneliness, but society does not throw him a life-buoy. With the exception of Islam, the role of religion as a source of support is dwindling to nothingness. Communities are falling apart and the concept of a big, happy family in the Western countries is becoming nonsensical. As people shift to the space of virtual communications, they mistakenly suppose that from now on they can manage without a real, caring environment. As a result, a person looks for the solution to all the problems one on one with himself, inside his shell, perched by a computer screen.

The life of a society that suffers from attention deficit flies by at lightning speed. People twitter short trills hoping to have the time to express something that won’t be heard by anyone a moment later. Anything requiring inner efforts, persistence, and time is rejected at the root. When a person is empty, having no true goal, then worry and depression settle in. So where can he get that goal? Where can he find meaning?

Today all serious researchers assert that happiness lies inside contact with others, in bestowal, and that real meaning can only be revealed in the interconnection between us. Viktor Frankl, the famous Austrian psychologist, says that a person sitting at home and trying to find meaning on his own is like someone trying to break into an open door, not understanding that it opens inwards instead of out.

“You won’t find happiness in a shell,” says one of the interviewed experts to the “Globes” newspaper. By focusing on himself instead of extending a hand out to others, a person only increases his narcissism and depression.

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Question: How can we acquire confidence on the material level, including the economic, medical, and social realms?

Answer: These problems can only be solved by bestowal, with the help of the Light. If you want to be healthy and if you want to acquire immunity from the impending problems, then you have to live in a society that has the power of mutual guarantee.

If would seem: What is so special about these friends? What do they have? Bank accounts in Switzerland? Their own companies? A successful business? Or maybe they are all doctors, lawyers, bankers, and big experts in general? The fact is that they are nothing of the sort. But if they have the right, good connection, then you cannot beat them. They have total confidence. They receive such a “charge” from above that no one can use them selfishly or succeed more than them. That’s because they have fulfillment, unlike everyone else. Confidence is expressed only inside unity.

We even see this in our world: What is one person able to do? Even if you bring Schwarzenegger, and even if you have two people, or three, or a thousand, even if you dress them up in metal arms, will you be confident then? Today we do not have confidence in anything, including power. How many weapons can we keep producing? How much means do we have to protect ourselves? In the end, no matter how much we arm ourselves, this does not give us any confidence. The population only feels calmer.

For example, in Israel the people are periodically given out gas masks, although I heard that this time people do not even want to receive them so much. Everyone is already tired of this. People need confidence of a different sort.

What’s the use of having billions in a bank? Today this still means something, but the society of the future will have to take care of itself on different foundations, by the law of bestowal. Total bestowal among all its members will turn material worry about tomorrow into the calling of spiritual laws because people will not have any actual desire for this on the inside. Worry about the vital necessities will become an obligation for a person that is incumbent on him from above, like “observing a commandment.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/11 on Confidence

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Question: What role does asceticism play in human development?

Answer: Kabbalah has a very negative opinion of various restrictions. It does not demand anything from a person with regard to his earthly life. In principle, you can do anything you want.

It’s a different matter when you become engrossed in all sorts of fetishes in this earthly life by introducing some kind of special customs, habits, and exercises to it. Live normally. If you like doing yoga, then do it. If you like running in the morning, then run. If there’s a certain diet that is healthier for you and another that’s less healthy, then eat accordingly. None of this matters. The most important thing is not to turn anything into a cult.

Kabbalah treats every person absolutely normally. It doesn’t care about how a person lives, what habits he has, and what his customs, religious convictions, and inclinations are. Who he is in the earthly life doesn’t matter one bit.

We are once again returning to the essence: Egoism rises in us in order for us to compensate for it above ourselves. That is why it doesn’t matter one bit what I am like. Limiting yourself in food or applying any kind of methods—none of this will help. Nothing will help.

On the contrary, a person who does some kind of physical exercises or keeps some kind of strict boundaries thinks that he has already advanced forward, has achieved some kind of level, that he is righteous and so on.

This can only confuse people. Therefore, live normally, calmly, eat well, and think about your health and profession. Take part in all the things that your surrounding society does.

And together with this, study Kabbalah. This balance or normal state is the most preferable one. Fate has placed you in this environment so go with its flow. Then you will see that in reality, everything around you is in the ideal state, besides yourself.

A minus is compensated by the right plus.
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From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: What is the root of man’s psychological and physical illnesses? And how can a person not studying Kabbalah influence these processes? Can you recommend some actions a person can make to solve these problems?

Answer: The root of all illnesses is egoism’s mutation due to an incorrect or incomplete combination of egoistic qualities inside of us. Each of us contains 613 main egoistic desires. Their incorrect combination with each other evokes flaws that are the sources of all the psychological and other illnesses on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature in man. That is, our illnesses also divide into these four levels.

Kabbalah is not a means for improving something specific in this world. But if you study it and advance along the path according to the root of your soul, going precisely from the point in our world where you are now until the point in the upper world that you must reach, you will thereby gradually enter states that will change your fate. But only you personally can influence it and no one else.

This is not some kind of magic, hypnosis, or other influence on one another. None of this exists in the slightest! A person changes only when he changes himself. By studying Kabbalah, you change yourself; there is no other way. For example, I have children and grandchildren, but I cannot influence them in any way. Anything I attain is what I have attained. What happens inside of me happens only in me. And it’s the same for every person.
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From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11

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