Entries in the 'Inner Work' Category

Kabbalists Of All Nations Unite!

Kabbalists Of All Nations UniteQuestion: What should we actually do during the lesson in order to change our inner attributes?

Answer: Before the lesson we, all those who are in different places around the globe, should connect to each other so that we can be together during the lesson and try to absorb it into our collective vessel. It’s because many people attend these lectures, and we have to combine within ourselves all our desires for change, for our upper state where we are all incorporated in one another, where we are one whole, one soul.

Baal HaSulam writes that only one soul was created, the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), and it is gradually revealed to us in 125 levels, first on a small scale and then gradually on an increasingly larger scale. So we have to imagine the state that we enter. We enter it according to the level of our mutual connection, and to that extent that we are filled with the upper Light and begin to feel the world of Infinity. We have to feel all that in the spiritual world and to exist in it.
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From the Virtual Lesson 3/17/13

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How Should We Calculate The Spiritual Correction?

How Should We Calculate The Spiritual CorrectionQuestion: What can we do in order to correct all our 613 desires?

Answer: We don’t know in advance what we have to do. This becomes clear to the extent that we participate in the work of the group, and this group is incorporated in a big body, in a bigger group, according to the analogy of our body in which the cells are concentrated in a certain organ and the organ is incorporated and integrated in the other organs.

That is, a system of forces and desires that are connected and are in mutual bestowal and mutual help is gradually formed. The system that is forcefully formed between us is the bedding on which we feel the Light, the upper force that created us or the Creator, which is the same thing.

So we cannot calculate our movement forward. We simply have to move towards an increasingly more internal connection between us, not so much in words and actions, but in our intentions and desires, and in the internal manner try to feel that we are connected in one network.

This is actually what is being revealed to the world today: its interconnection. We don’t discover anything special here but simply try to implement this connection and to be part of it. The fact that it’s revealed to the world as a mutual integral action, as the mutual connection of all of humanity, is perceived by everyone as undesirable and compulsory. We want to discover it as desirable, as something that we have to enter and to exist in, in equivalence with nature, with the Creator.
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From the Virtual Lesson 3/17/13

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Make A Decision Regarding Our Readiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we move into high gear before the convention in Europe?

Answer: We simply need to make a decision. The two weeks of one big convention in which we want to come out of Egypt and to receive the Torah at the gathering at Mount Sinai have started.

If we want to do that, we have to see ourselves as one family, as one man in one heart. It is a precondition, and if we yearn for it, we will receive the “Torah” from Above, the Light that Reforms.

It doesn’t mean that we are already corrected but that we begin the correction then. So this isn’t some great leap upwards, but only the first step along the way. I am not exaggerating the importance of our convention and am not speaking about something unrealistic. I am very serious, with a small effort based on our understanding of what we are headed towards, we will receive the “Torah,” which means the mechanism, the tool, by which we will be able to summon the Light that Reforms time after time.

It is like a regulator, a tap, which you open and get powers. The more you open it, the more powers you receive. So how can we open it? By connecting. The more we tighten our lines, the stronger will be the flow of the Light. We learn how to come together, to connect to one another, and what it’s like to unite, and each time, the upper Light influences us in different ways. Gradually, we begin to feel how the upper Light fills us, we accept its importance, its greatness, and the process already takes on a different form…

The main thing is to pass the current point of the shattering. In it we discover our readiness for connection, and in response to that we receive the Light. It is because the Light is only meant for connection. So the only thing we have to do is to unite into one mechanism, into a vessel for the Lights of NRNHY.

Question: What does it mean to “make a decision?”

Answer: We don’t think about anything else; we simply don’t think about anything else, think only about connection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Spiritual Jack

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As much as a person is in more adhesion with the Rav, the group, and study, then his desire to receive grows more?

Answer: Of course, otherwise how would you grow? That’s why it is said: “The one that is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater than his.”

Question: So how do we restrict our desire?

Answer: I do not restrict the desire itself, but rather the use of the desire. I don’t want my desire to become smaller or to completely disappear. No, I relate to it with all the respect that it deserves, with love not hate, because it is help against it. I deliberately work on myself in this manner of recognition and try to guard the limits of my desire in all my discernments. They become a real treasure for me, and I give them high regard.

Then all my life becomes something very important, precious. In front of me, as if in a game, parts of this very complex mechanism are passing and I do not neutralize them, do not restrict them; I want to rise above them. This is the ascent, the rising in the spiritual ladder. The restriction itself is made by the Light and I do not do the work of the Light. That would be like asceticism and there is nothing good about that. We need to receive the things as they come, rise above them, and then use them in the correct form.

Question: How does it happen? It is very easy to drown inside a desire.

Answer: I ask all the time to be in faith above reason, in the middle line. My desire that I rise above is the left line; the bestowal that I achieve is the right line. And the order of the mutual relations between bestowal and receiving is called the middle line. This mechanism rises higher and higher as if by a jack.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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All For The Sake Of Similarity

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is only the desire to receive. The Creator created nothing but it. And the desire wants to become like the Creator.

In what could it become like Him? In bestowal. The desire is filled with a sensation of the Creator, and this is called his “soul,” the “Divine part from Above.” The sensation of correspondence, similarity to the Creator that the desire experiences performing actions of bestowal, is called its fulfillment. It is fulfilled by being similar to the Creator. If it needs to receive to do this, it receives, and if it needs to restrict itself to do this, it restricts itself. The action is not important, what is important is to become more and more like Him.

This is the Lights of NRNHY, which fulfill the desire. I enjoy not them themselves but the fact that I adhere to the Creator. That is why fulfillment could be a tiny spark of the Creator, which gives life to our world, and nothing else. Everything is in the realization of the importance of the Giver; this is what fulfills me. The similarity to Him is what I long for, and this is a spiritual fulfillment for me.

Initially, there is only a spark, which emerged as “something out of something,” and a desire, which emerged as “something out of nothing,” such a primary “elementary particle,” and nothing else. And the rest is being “spread out” from the Creator, from His actions.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Language Is Not An Obstacle To Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we rise above the language barriers and unite at the upcoming European Convention?

Answer: I do not think that the problem is with languages. The fact is that we do not have to talk to each other much, but we need to think about each other and try to feel each other; language is not to blame. For example, many of you have pets that cannot talk, but you feel them and they feel you. So, what kind of language can we speak here? It is sign language, body language. A language is not speech, but the transfer of emotions. So, I do not think the problem is in different languages.

The problem is that we do not think about each other because we do not feel the importance of this. We have not realized, yet, the need for each other for spiritual attainment and do not feel dependent on each other in the spiritual ascent.

There are hundreds of my friends in front of me. If I understood that just by approaching them an inch, I rise up an inch. If I felt this clearly inside of me, I definitely would try to do that and think about how to be closer to them. However, since I do not have this confidence—the feeling that moving upward means moving toward them, and not even upward, but just inside the group, in its consolidation, unity—then I do not do that. I still do not understand that it is precisely internal compression between us that will create that pressure in which the Light will kindle.
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From the Virtual Lesson 3/17/13

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The Obligation To Illuminate All Of Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can you contain it if you suddenly feel the Creator’s love for you?

Answer: It is indeed very difficult, there is no greater problem than to feel the Creator’s love; it simply breaks a person. So we have to be equipped in advance with the vessel for that attainment of fear by working with the friends in the group by developing mutual guarantee.

It’s for this reason that the vessel was shattered into many parts and we have to put them back together again against their will. They resist and don’t want to connect. Then as they adhere to one another we acquire the attribute of fear of the Creator. By working with the friends on the connection between us, we attain the fear of the Creator.

This is what we have to add to creation by ourselves and this is for what we live. All of creation already exists and the only thing missing in the king’s treasury is the fear of the Creator. This mission is recorded in our Reshimot (spiritual genes), and as we begin to fulfill it, we discover that it’s worthwhile to be in the attribute of bestowal and that we have to live in fear. I have to fear and to start enjoying my bestowal so that it will be completely external to me and so that nothing will return to me.

Even if I bestow and know upon whom I bestow and how much I bestow, by making an accurate calculation, I don’t need to feel any compensation. I don’t want to feel any pleasure in it, but only the actual action. Then I decide that I also want to feel pleasure and the action itself but I convey all that to the one I bestow upon. This continues until I reach phase four, which is the last phase—complete bestowal.

Everything is already complete in creation except for what a person has to add, which is fear. Imagine that you are in a big world now that is totally dark. You have to switch on the light that is made of your fear and by that you illuminate all of creation.

This fear is not to receive pleasure from my bestowal, of the fact that I manage reality instead of the Creator, of my closeness to Him, of the pleasures that He gives me, and of the fact that I suddenly discover that I am the most important person in the world.

The Creator comes to me and tells me, “I have chosen you of all the people! There is no one like you. You are the only human being in all of creation, in all of reality.” You have to be ready to accept this attitude that can make a person explode and you have to not be bought by it.

You have managed to bring the Creator contentment and feel what contentment you are bringing Him. Everyone will feel that he is special in his point and that there is no one except him out there. So we have to prepare for that in order to receive this revelation, the adhesion. Here it becomes clear that we will never receive anything in the vessels of receiving and that we have to annul them completely.

The vessel of fear annuls the vessels of receiving and is totally focused on the Creator, like a projector. Then you begin to work with the vessels of bestowal in which enormous Lights are revealed; you move to the other side and become the one who bestows instead of the one who receives: You bestow, bestow, bestow…

It’s as if the Creator appoints you to be the manager of his treasury so that you will bestow upon everyone. It turns out that now you appear before the created beings instead of the Creator. Imagine what pleasure there is in that on the part of the one who bestows that he has a chance to bestow goodness upon everyone. This is already the real work, and from this point the work with the real Masachim (screens) starts when you become like the Creator with regard to the whole world. The fear never disappears; it constantly accompanies you just like the basis of the desire to receive that remains.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/13, Shamati #38

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But The Vessel Was Shattered

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe shattering of the vessels isn’t just a shattering, but is the revelation of the places in which previously there were flaws that were concealed. Now, however, when the flaw has been revealed, it is possible to clarify it, to examine it to its full depth, and to correct it by completing what is missing in it.

So a much stronger and more sublime state is created after we put all the parts together again. It only looked whole before, but inside there were many cracks. It’s the illumination that is added in the final third phase of creation that was lacking in the vessel of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) in phase one.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/13, Shamati #38

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In Order To Grow In Spirituality…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In one of the lessons, you said that a student, according to his spiritual progress, starts to disregard the teacher more and more. You also gave an example of your relationship with your teacher. To what spiritual level do we have to rise so that this disregard for the teacher will disappear?

Answer: As in our world, when do we begin to appreciate our parents and understand them?  When we become parents ourselves! But this does not justify disregard. One who wants to grow up must understand his nature and grow in spite of it.
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A Child Who Grows To The Joy Of His Parent

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 53, “The Matter of Limitation”: This is called the main part of the degree, which is a discernment of Katnut. This discernment must be permanent, and the Gadlut is only an addition. Also, one should yearn for the main part, not for the additions.

The main thing is the state of Katnut (smallness), Hafetz Hesed, “to bestow in order to bestow,” being ready to settle for less. At the same time I don’t need to feel that I restrict myself or that I lack something, but rather the contrary, I should feel that I am totally satisfied.

A state of Katnut should become very dear and honorable for me. Then the question is why should there be a state of Katnut in the first place and not one point? I don’t want to have any volume at all. I want to take as little space as possible. In order to exist and to do good to everyone for the sake of the Creator, I am ready to shrink into a point and not have anything of my own.

The truth is that this is the right approach. It’s from such a state that we start to perceive and to attain spiritual reality, but the moment we begin to think about this and how we can bring contentment to the Creator, we understand that in order to do that we need to receive all the discernments and the desires from Him and to change them from in order to receive to in order to bestow. Thus we become a spiritual embryo that begins to grow in volume in order to yearn and to adhere to the Creator and thus bring Him contentment.

Without this we don’t grow like an embryo in his mother’s womb. Every second, every additional movement, every gram the embryo puts on is only in order to bring the Creator contentment. He has to feel that he is making the Creator happy.

During the time of birth, during the labor pains, and the stage in which the embryo turns with his head down before the birth, he examines every step he makes to see whether it’s in order to bring contentment to the one who gives him birth. After he is born, during the time of Yenika (suckling) he continues to develop like a baby who is in his mother’s arms; in the same way a person is in the arms of the Creator.

He already begins to work with his desires and partly limits himself, but every action he makes for the sake of limitation or for the sake of growing is only in order to bring the Creator contentment; this is how a person grows. Therefore, the point from which he begins to grow when he doesn’t want to have more than a point, remains his center. He stands on it, not wanting more than basic existence, and everything else he is forced to add to this point is only in order to bring the Creator contentment. This is the only thing that motivates him in all his actions: in every limitation and joy.

He is actually happy about this, not for his own sake, but for bringing the Creator contentment. By that he attains adhesion to the Creator like between two loving friends who feel one another.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/13, Shamati #53

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