Entries in the 'Inner Work' Category

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Dr. Michael LaitmanIt’s high time for us to create the first version of our “declaration of intentions.” We will quote different scientists in it and explain humanity’s current affliction and the correction.

When I spoke about the crisis some five or seven years ago, no one agreed with me. Until recently, people laughed at “speculations” of that sort. A year ago it was “decided” that the crisis was over, but very soon it became clear it wasn’t true. The collapse continues, and even the US is beginning to sink.

And this is why we need to prepare a clear declaration of our world-view, to show that the essence of the affliction is human egoism, and the cure is unity and the mutual guarantee. Nature is forcing us to be together in one desire as it manifests itself in the current integrated reality.

We need to clearly spell out our steps along this path. We are building a proper society, starting with a small organization which expands more and more, turning into a giant world union, a very diverse one, but very united. This way we will cure ourselves of our affliction.

I’m asking all of our friends: If you have special skills or ideas, if you are able to express this message in writing, video clips, songs, art, and so on, please send us your work so that we’ll use the united force of the mutual guarantee to create the method.

Out of our love for humanity, we must try with all of our strength to present them with the remedy before the affliction fulminates. All of us need to work hard to help people understand what is happening.
[50723]
From Lesson 3, the Germany Convention 8/6/2011

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Calculation In The Corrected Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe instruments with which we work in our world are our corporeal mind and heart that are in conflict with one another. Developing one, we seem to prevent ourselves from advancing the other. Usually, we can see a person’s tendencies already in their childhood: whether they are scientifically or artistically inclined. It can be accurately determined based on a person’s preferences and characteristics.

We say: “Don’t succumb to the feelings, use reason.” On the other hand, we add: “You don’t feel it yet; when you do, you will understand.” In other words, feelings help to acquire reason, in order to assess one’s feelings. After all, thought derives from sensation. And yet, our mind and feelings constantly argue.

As to the spiritual world, there, feeling and the mind are one. Sensation is the key since it begets a thought and helps in understanding and attaining one’s feelings. The real spiritual vessel is the unification of a feeling and the mind along the phases from 0 to 4. And when we reach the final one, phase 4, we get to understand what we are feeling in full and make decisions accordingly. At this point, the conflict between mind and heart no longer exists.

This points to an enormous difference between the corporeal and the spiritual worlds. This is why spiritual existence is called perfection. After all, there, a person doesn’t get torn into two opposite directions as in our world when he has feelings and lives at the mercy of his sensations, acting like a fool, as if he has no brain. His mind says it is wrong, while he still follows the heart.

Hence, reason and feeling in this world are out of balance, which makes us suffer and causes us to err and fail. The problem is that in our world, we cannot unify our mind and heart since our egoism stands between them.

Mindful egoism and sensual egoism oppose each other. It happens ever so often when we understand that our action is unreasonable from the mind’s point of view, while we still succumb to the heart since we desire to receive pleasure, and so we act and suffer for it afterwards. In fact, in the end, we have to pay the price according to the mindful calculation for all that we have done while listening to the heart.

And there is one single solution to it: correction of man since only in the spiritual world feeling and the mind become one—“above reason.” It is written: “The heart understands” because the understanding derives specifically from a spiritual sensation. And then we stop making mistakes and make a right calculation!
[50657]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/11, Shamati #45

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Don’t Give Yourself A Guilt Trip Like A Trapped Thief

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we learn to hate our evil even more than we do now?

Answer: We will never be able to bring ourselves to hate our own evil or to love goodness. This attitude can only be created within us by the Light that reforms. This is exactly the action it performs.

We don’t need anything besides hatred of evil. We will build everything else above that. And if we come to feel real hatred for evil, which we acquire from the Light, then we relate to that hatred correctly and immediately use it to build our attitude to the Light, to goodness.

I won’t sit there giving myself a guilt trip, wondering why I am so evil. This is not necessary at all because in that case I am simply inside of my ego. This is the wrong approach to using the revelation of evil—like a thief who gives himself a guilt trip for stealing once he has been caught because now he has to suffer for it.

An indication of the right development (with the help of the study, the group, and dissemination) is when I accept the revelation of evil with joy because this enables me to advance. There is a story about Rabbi Akiva who laughed when he saw how the Temple was being destroyed because he perceived this as a sign that the final correction is approaching.

After all, nothing is required besides the revelation of evil. If evil becomes revealed with the help of the right preparation, and if it is used correctly, then we immediately attain goodness.

All goodness is built upon the revelation of evil. Therefore, if a person doesn’t reveal evil like a trapped thief who did not manage to steal for the sake of his egoism, but instead reveals evil in his attitude to the friends and the Creator, then in this revelation of evil he immediately feels opposition—the One who revealed the evil, the Light that reforms. He immediately adheres to the Light and, based on the revelation of that evil, builds the commandment, meaning goes from the consequence to the cause.
[50870]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/11, Shamati

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We Demand Our Own Correction!

Dr. Michael LaitmanPeople come out to the demonstrations because they don’t have anything. But all of the corrections can only come from the Light. Today we are already in a global, worldwide process where correction is impossible with the help of any government. They just don’t have any instruments to accomplish that.

The instruments of the new, global world come only with the Light that reforms. It is in our world that we have to realize all of the changes that Kabbalah talks about, and the world will feel and understand in practice how the upper Light influences it through us.

Without that Light, we won’t find a single solution to our problems. We will only draw ourselves into wars so that eventually this path would bring us to reveal the need for the Light. The first thing that the people holding strikes on the streets should be shouting is, “We demand the forces for our own correction!” That’s because uniting with one another is the only way we will receive everything we desire—whether you’re a mother with young children, a senior citizen, or a doctor.

The world has entered a crisis of such proportions that it has nothing to give you! For example, the demonstrators in Greece began with threats. But the government had nothing to give them, and it wasn’t hiding anything. The fact of the matter is that the developmental process is unfolding in order to convince people of the need to start the correction. That is why it is revealing the evil of our existence in this world to us. This is the essence of what is happening today.

The entire world must now understand several new principles. Firstly, we are all connected, and the crisis we are experiencing today is global. The world itself has become global, and we can only come out of the crisis by virtue of unity.

And there is nothing for us to demand from the government. We will receive everything only on the condition that we unite with one another. Just like being in a group, I can only receive its force if I lead it to unity.

The crisis has a higher cause: It is the Light influencing us and revealing the breaking between us. Therefore, not one person in our world has a solution to this crisis.

We solved all of the previous crises by finding a greater means to humor our growing egoistic desire. But today a completely different era has set in. Today the Light is revealing the lack of connection among us. And only be taking certain steps toward establishing that kind of connection will we be able to improve our state. Then every person will receive what he wished—but it will only happen through the attainment of connection, unification, integration, and mutuality.

Therefore, all of the forces that aspire to protectionism, division, and isolation, are aimed against correction, and there is nothing worse than that because by that they move humanity closer to war.

The only thing we need is the Light that reforms. A person who studies Kabbalah attracts the Light with his studies and work in the group, whereas a person who does not study has to attain some kind of understanding and awareness of the situation, the need for unity, mutual guarantee, and brotherhood. That is how we will bring ourselves to goodness.

Everyone has to achieve at least some kind of small understanding of this. But the primary work is incumbent upon those who actively attract the Light because the world receives it through them. Therefore, all of our students have to become even stronger and correct themselves even more so the Light we attract would influence everyone.

This is the predestination of a person called “Israel”—both those living in the state of Israel and all of our students all over the world. Every person whose point in the heart has awakened and who has joined our group, is obligated to think about this.
[50848]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/11, Writings of Rabash

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Long Live The Non-Indifferent!

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam writes that every phenomenon in the world is valid. That is why we mustn’t destroy or liquidate it, but correct it. However, on this path we must act in an organized manner, without fear and without hiding. The world has entered a phase of development where we must reveal all the cards: our goal, our creed, and our original sources upon which they are based.

It’s all right if people don’t accept it right away, but their hatred for us will compel them to get acquainted with our method. Their non-indifference will serve them well. In the meantime, the world is developing at such a rapid pace that in just a few months they will see that we are right, and they will gradually begin to draw closer to us.

We should make use of this period when they are set against us. Indeed, everyone who isn’t indifferent already has a connection to us. It may be negative, but a connection nonetheless. We know that conflict compels me to study my opponent so as to defeat him, but in the meantime, I’m connected and involved.

The problem lies with those who are indifferent, whereas those who are against us are actually our closest partners. We must relate to them as the revelation of ego in a specific form so that we could correct it.
[50727]
From Lesson 3, the Germany Convention 8/6/2011

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The Illness Is Clear: It’s Time to Treat It

Dr. Michael LaitmanSoon, we will encounter resistance around the world. So far, we are not very noticeable, but resistance is awaiting us in the future. After all, the world does not understand that evil becomes revealed so that we would rise above it.

The world simply wants to eliminate this evil, while we, conversely, have to correct it. As it is said: “The greatest hero is the one who turns his hater to a friend.” Then, the serpent, the angel of death, becomes a holy angel.

For this reason we must have a creative attitude toward all the difficulties and opposition, searching for an opportunity to use them to build bestowal and eternal life. The entire difference between a broken world and a corrected one lies in the way we use our desire. We only need to change the intention from egoistic to altruistic.

We have to explain this to everyone by showing the essence of the breaking or, speaking in the modern language, the essence of the crisis. It is exclusively about the revelation of the evil of our nature. It can only be corrected by rising above the egoistic use of desires toward love. This is the only place where we have freedom of will, whereas people are completely not free in all other aspects.

The more consistent we are, the more confident and serious we will be, and the quicker we will understand that we are in the war of the Creator and Amalek that happens in all generations. Amalek is the entire essence of evil, our egoism, its true essence. The war happens “in all generations,” which means that it happens on every stage of our existence, from one reincarnation to another.

This is why it is very important to collect scientific data about the crisis from around the world. Scientists have nothing to do with Kabbalah, and we present the results of their studies that state that the crisis is essentially the result of human egoism. Only unity can serve as a remedy for this illness, the unity of all of us above egoism.

We will use accessible language to explain to the world the Kabbalistic view of the state of the affliction and the healthy state. Then, the only thing left will be to “prescribe the medication,” to complete the intermediary link. Mark the illness with the minus sign and the corrected state with the plus sign.

The problem is that people do not know what the solution is. To them, the remedy is a big question mark.

Today, it already is clear that our ego is the cause of the illness and that our recovery is connected to bestowal. So, when will we be able to come out of the crisis? It will be once we unite. Thus, our objective is to attain a mutual guarantee so that all of us would be soldered into one.

However, the world is avoiding this solution because egoism does not desire unity. It will not leave us until we start suffocating. It must be like this in order to bring us directly to the goal: the need to unite. Egoism keeps revealing its evil to us until it really becomes unbearable to us. Only then will we be able to escape our ego toward the quality of bestowal and then turn actual egoism into bestowal.
[50510]
From Lesson 3, the Germany Convention 8/6/2011

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Egoism: A True Guide To Better Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe origins of our spiritual path lie in the breaking. We must regard our egoism, the alienation and hatred between us, as the right preliminary foundation for correction.

When Rabbi Akiva saw barren ground in place of the Temple, he laughed and rejoiced. He was the wisest man of his generation, a great Kabbalist. He was asked how he could rejoice at the collapse of sanctity as the aspiration for bestowal had been vanquished, and the principle of love thy neighbor as thyself had been desecrated. Could the collapse of all hopes really be a reason for joy?

He responded: “I have never believed, never known, and never felt that we will be able to attain the general correction. But now, once our spiritual structure has been destroyed, once the love that reigned among us has been broken, and the people have fallen into unfounded hatred, I am convinced that this final breaking will lead to our general correction, complete redemption.”

This is why everything that is being revealed to us every moment of our lives is the breaking we will need to correct. No matter what happens to me, from the core issues of life to insignificant things in the family or at work, in all that happens within me, with my well-being, relationships with relatives, friends, people, and the world, in all of reality, everything only becomes revealed for the purpose of correction.

Every time, a new image is sketched before me that delves deeper into my egoism. In this image, I must see the result of the constant influence of the Light that essentially, activates increasingly deeper layers within me.

We perceive the world in our ego, and this is why we need to correct it. So, what is this correction? It brings unity to people. Especially now, when the entire world is beginning to realize the evil of the current state, we help them feel and understand that “evil” is our evil inclination.

Our egoism is the cause of everything bad. We see this in the things that are happening. Unable to bring the world to order, people are destroying it, ruining themselves, breaking relationships, and destroying nature. We are unable to move toward goodness and make a good life with the evil that is concealed in us.

The crisis is becoming more acute every day. In other words, we are discovering that our egoism is destroying everything and is not letting us normalize, balance, and improve our lives. On the other hand, we must understand that it is guiding us forward the right way and helps us head toward correction and goodness. It’s similar to how a manifested illness shows us how to treat it.

As we realize this, we must be grateful to our egoism and love it for showing us the place that needs correction. It is written that Pharaoh brought the sons of Israel closer to the Creator. He began to pressure them, and at the end, they had to escape Egypt. Otherwise, they would have stayed there.

This is why it is written: “Come unto Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart.” There are two opposites here, and we must not forget about it. No matter the evil that you encounter, instead of destroying it, you need to correct it.
[50515]
From Lesson 3, the Germany Convention 8/6/2011

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Bringing The World To Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen reading The Zohar, we should try to keep in mind that all of the corrections amount to unity between us. We should see everything taking place in the world today as the revelation of disconnection. At the end of the day, hatred, disorders, and all of the problems that arise are being revealed so we, and then the whole world, will feel that we have to fix the connections between us.

To the extent we work on dissemination and speak about the connection between everyone above the separation and opposition between all parts of the nation and the world, to that extent we prepare and demand unity during the study.

Therefore, the more we exert an influence and disseminate this knowledge, the more we talk about unification, trying to bring the nation to unity, the more we will demand it during the study, and then we will merit conducting this Light to us, and from us—to the nation and the world.
[50862]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/11, The Zohar

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A Fire Extinguisher For Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe desires that are now emerging in all of humanity are being revealed by the common Surrounding Light. Therefore, humanity won’t find the answer to them inside of itself and will only break out in protests in different places. Nothing more than that will happen. No one has an answer or an understanding of how to extinguish this expanding fire that will envelop the whole world. And there won’t be any solution to it. Not one “fire extinguisher” will help, but only the Light that reforms and returns us to the source of good.

That’s because the Light is now being revealed in the form of harsh forces of restriction, judgment (Gevurot), and they will burn down all of humanity unless we sweeten them with the quality of mercy, bestowal (Hesed), by wishing for this quality to reign among us. We can extinguish this fire with our unity and turn the all-consuming fire of judgment into the flame of love.

This is possible only by virtue of our aspiration to unity. Therefore, everything depends on disseminating our knowledge about the solution, but even more than that—on our inner work, our desire to unite with one another in order to embrace the whole world and give them the Light that we attract for them. And all of this is for the sake of giving pleasure to the Creator by becoming similar to Him.
[50739]
From the lesson on 8/9/11, Writings of Rabash

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It’s Not Good To Be Ignorant Of Your Illness

Dr. Michael LaitmanSuffering, sorrow, the level of the breaking have to become revealed. However, it can either become revealed directly as is, without any sweetening from the Light’s end, or it can come together with the realization of its necessity, when you wait for it like a sick person going to a doctor’s visit. Even though he may be afraid that he will be diagnosed with an illness, he still wishes to reveal it in order to receive the remedy.

Yet there are people who do not want to know about their illness, although that does not liberate them from their problems later on.

Therefore, we must always aspire in the right direction—toward unification and love, toward the understanding of the goal and plan of creation. By doing that, we enable the evil to become revealed faster! This means that “Israel accelerates the times,” meaning that I run forward before the rod catches up with me to hit me.

However, this is possible only by continuously receiving the importance of the goal and of revealing the evil. I call it evil purposefully, and not because I feel suffering in it. I don’t care how I feel. The most important thing is for the evil to become revealed in relation to the goodness that awaits me up ahead that is called bestowal, love.

If I reveal layers of egoism, suffering in this form, then I will go through all of its phases (0,1,2,3) until the last stage—4, where I will understand that everything is built upon the revelation of the left side. After all, only by revealing our empty desires can we reveal the true reality, in which we already exist.
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From the lesson on 8/9/11/, Writings of Rabash

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