Entries in the 'Love' Category

The Reason For Which We Gathered Here

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe goal of the society is to raise us to the human level. This is possible only by the greatness of the Creator, which we don’t see in our darkness. But it is in the dark that we can establish new values among us that have no egoistic foundations.

We know that these values are totally unjustified, since otherwise they would stem from our ego. But the spiritual foundation is above the ego, like the Sefira of Yesod that is above the Sefira of Malchut. So everything depends on the foundation we choose: Is it just dust that is totally inanimate or dust from the ground (Adamah) that already resembles (Domeh) the upper, as a man (Adam), similar to the Creator?

It all depends on our priorities and on what we consider to be important. We begin to play with the importance of the Creator, the teacher, the group, the study, and the goal and it becomes a most important and serious game in the group. It is because in our ego, in our desire, we only see darkness. The ego constantly grows, thus increasing the darkness. But if on top of this darkness we develop the greatness of our common goal, everyone in the group receives fuel and energy to advance through the darkness.

This means that instead of advancing by the stick that pushes us from behind, we choose by ourselves to be drawn forward to the greatness of the upper, to the greatness of the attribute of bestowal, mutual help, connection, love, and all the supreme values that are specific to the Creator’s nature.

It is for this purpose that the Kabbalistic group is based, and as such it must keep itself by constantly clarifying its goal, its basis, more and more accurately. The members of the Kabbalistic group are heroes in quality not in quantity. Only people who can really advance this way should join it. Therein lies our strength, because we want to achieve the greatest possible similarity to the Light, to grow in height and not in width.

And this is why we gather here—to establish a society where each of us follows the spirit of bestowing upon the Creator. And to achieve bestowal upon the Creator, we must begin with bestowal upon man, which is called “love of others.” (From “The Purpose of the Society,” Rabash)
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/09/12, Writings of Rabash

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Every Lesson Is A Contact With Ein Sof (Infinity)

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf during the lesson you hold on to the right intention, you would feel a great spiritual filling during this time. It is all according to the customer’s desire: What you want is what you get. A great Light is revealed during the lesson and it is a pity if you don’t use it.

A spiritual filling indicates that your previous raw desire is being attracted to spirituality, like GE. Then it connects with the desires of others, with AHP, that portray the Creator for me so that I will fill Him. This is what fills me; I am filled by bestowal. Just like a mother who is happy when her baby eats, wiping his round cheeks with pleasure. The fact that she filled him is her filling.

It is the same with me; I have no other goal in life but to fill the friends. By filling them, I fill the Creator. I use my vessels to fill their needs, to provide them with what they want. They want to advance towards the goal, to feel its greatness, and I provide them with that. I only evoke them positively: increasing the greatness of the goal and of the Creator by acting like the Light with regards to the vessels.

You should leave the lesson with great joy for having been in contact with the eternal infinite system, in contact with the Creator. Even though, in the meantime, this contact is unclear and unexamined, I still come out with a plan of what I am going to do from this moment onward. We should renew the fixed plan each time so that it will be relevant for each specific day. I have to decide what I am going to do every day until the next lesson.

I change my plan according to the new awakening, the new attitude, both the physical and the internal. Try it and you will see that it is a varied change, which takes place in a different manner each time. Every day is different from the next and not like it seems today. We will be impressed by every point in our advancement, each time as if it is the whole world.

I must pass all the personal awakening I received during the lesson to the society so that it will grow to the size of the whole society. I want to pass all this in the form of my gratitude and love to the Creator. If I do that, it will return to me and will increase my desire even more, the awakening will be greater in order to bestow upon the friends again.

This work is in the thoughts and our desire. I don’t need to run after every friend trying to wake him up physically. Internally I must simply explode and externally I must work very calmly so as not to harm the friends. Externally I have to dress in the state of the friend, in his desire, in order to do what is good for him and not what I want.

Even internally you will later relate to yourself and work with the vessels of the others because you will treat yourself only as a machine that serves others. You will have no other interest in yourself.

How can you check if you are working correctly? If you want to awaken the greatness of the goal in the group—general bestowal and love in the group, in all of humanity and love of the Creator in order to delight in it yourself and to make others happy—this is enough to test.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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A Premonition Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe try to perform mutual acts of bestowal and we speak about the love between us although it isn’t there. Yet we still speak about bestowal, about the love of the Creator, about adhesion to Him, about adhesion among us, about connection and unity, in short about the corrected vessel. After the shattering of the general vessel, we speak about its correction. Once there was one soul, and we speak about the reconnection of the individual souls into one.

These talks enable us to be impressed by one another both qualitatively and quantitatively, and gradually all our efforts come together into one whole. Eventually we will create a state from which we will be able to cry out, which means to raise a collective prayer. When people get together, even though they are few, they have many vessels and discernments and so they raise a “prayer of many.”

But this prayer should be aimed at one Source, one goal, to be one. They want to receive the attribute of mutual bestowal, which they imagine as a supreme value, as part of their environment. This attribute, the force that gives birth to and revives everything, is called the Creator, and they want it to be revealed among them according to the efforts they have made.

The attribute of bestowal is not somewhere on the outside. So if the friends try, it will be revealed inside, among them. It is as if it comes to us from two directions: On the one hand there is no vessel, and on the other hand there is no Light, but when the friends try to be together as much as they can, at a certain point both the vessel and the Light are created simultaneously. They cannot exist separately.

We work by requesting, by a common prayer, and so we approach this revelation, the revelation inside us of the attribute of bestowal and love, which is the Creator.

Here it is important to remember that during the preparation phase we don’t discover the actual attribute, but the necessity for it. We don’t know in advance what this attribute is. It is as if we want to acquire it and then when it is revealed, it turns out to be a real surprise and far from what we have thought it would be. It is because it is about something that isn’t part of our nature.

We only need the feeling of necessity, so that we will anticipate and have a premonition of it. Even if it doesn’t reflect the future reality, a person still has to imagine the next state by this game.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, Writings of Rabash

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Five Seconds Of Life A Day

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe friends should make sure that I don’t fall and they should constantly think about me. I have to repay them for that because they also need this kind of support. Only if we mutually worry about one another, will no one fall or forget the goal. We will hold on to one another.

We have no chance of achieving anything if we don’t all support one another. If we don’t do that, we won’t exit the ego. This is mutual guarantee.

If I cannot think about others, it means that they don’t think about me. It is both the cause and the result that exist simultaneously under the condition of our mutual collective covenant. Then the Creator resides in it and thus fulfills our covenant. Without this we will undoubtedly forget about Him and start having foreign calculations by supposing that we advance and years may go by leading to nothing.

A person cannot keep on the right track by himself. Do you know how many moments we can count during a whole day in which we really advance: 3-5 seconds at the most! They are so few because each of us lacks the external support.

The vessel of my desire is external to me and I have to make efforts to attach it to me. If we don’t operate this way with regard to others, we do not operate correctly and therefore we don’t draw the Light that Reforms, because the Light operates only within our mutual work. It comes in response to our yearning.

If there are no such yearnings, the Light around us waits passively. “His honor fills the world,” but we have to activate it. We have to keep this main condition: mutual guarantee that is made of our collective interdependence on one another and of the obligation to everyone. Without it no one can succeed, even if we assess it from an egoistic point of view and what is more if it is about high intentions.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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Annulling Yourself Before The Power Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Writings of Rabash, Volume II, Letter 40: And when one begins to feel the love of his friend, joy and pleasure immediately begin to awaken in him, for the rule is that a novelty entertains. His friend’s love for him is a new thing for him because he always knew that he was the only one who cared for his own wellbeing. But the minute he discovers that his friend cares for him, it evokes within him immeasurable joy, and he can no longer care for himself, since man can toil only where he feels pleasure. And since he is beginning to feel pleasure in caring for his friend, he naturally cannot think of himself.

We see that in nature, there is love until the yearning becomes unbearable…

There are Reshimot (reminiscences) in us, memories from the general vessel of the soul. All the reality that we feel and even the parts that we don’t feel are in us and are part of the vessel, just as it was before the shattering of the vessels. So the moment a person feels the love someone feels towards him, not the egoistic love we know in our world, but a love that comes from the height of the corrected general soul, from the corrected source, the Reshimo of the general vessel, which is perceived as external at the moment, is immediately evoked in him.

Thus a person immediately feels that this force comes from another world, from an upper state, and his self-love is annulled. He cannot remain in the state of self-love and is ready to give his soul to the new inclination, to the connection that is external to him. It takes place this way, because it is the external vessel that is the real, general, upper vessel compared to the individual egoistic self-love that dominates him now.

A person annuls himself before this power. If a person feels that he is loved and that the inclination to spiritually love someone who is external to him is suddenly evoked, then the corporeal animal self-love disappears. It is because a person feels that the large, general vessel is much higher than the small individual vessel, and so he annuls himself before this love.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/12

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An Intensive Inquiry

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I manage my states? Do they develop automatically or can I evoke them?

Answer: I manage my states when I am with the friends sitting in a circle with them and discussing different problems and options regarding the connections between us: When does the ego help us and when does it distract us? How can we attract the attributes of bestowal and love, connection, mutual guarantee, and so on?

When we discuss these issues, I am involuntarily in different contrasting states, such as “I don’t want to listen to a friend, but I have to listen to him, “he is higher or lower than me,” “I agree with his answer or disagree,” and so on. Why do I agree with him? It may be because I simply like him, but someone else not, so I don’t want to listen to him and I didn’t even hear what he had to say.

So, it isn’t just the process, but the issue itself, the words, and the interactions, everywhere at every level, when I overcome the egoism and the altruism. Eventually there is a revelation, an intensive clarification of these two opposing attributes inside me.

What is more, when I am in a discussion with all the friends, I first intensify my attributes and, second, I expand myself by absorbing them. Thus, a person develops in many aspects by the integration of and communication between the two opposing forces.
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From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/23/12

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Finding The Force That Evokes Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the integral society there is a kind of “abstract” goal which is beautiful and perfect and that everyone loves. Won’t we be stepping on the same rakes the utopians once stepped on?

Answer: What does the whole problem come down to? Only a change in human nature.

If that is possible, the integral society will change from utopia to reality. If it is impossible, then it will remain a utopia and it is better to stay away from such a society.

First we have to find out whether we can evoke a certain force upon us, a certain attribute that will create certain conditions so that every person’s nature will change from an egoistic one to an altruistic one. This can be fulfilled by consistent, gradual change of small groups of people and then of increasingly larger groups. But on the whole this process should include all of humanity.

Can a person who was created as a total egoist who only thinks about himself and nothing else (this is the way we are programmed) change his program? And what is more, can he change it so that the object who receives the pleasure is not me thanks to everything that surrounds me, but rather that my pleasure will be the wellbeing of all those around me, brought about by me.

The pleasure remains. It has to be since it is part of our nature, only the character of the filling changes. On the account of what? A mother, for example, is filled thanks to the fact that she gives her child everything—this is natural love. Can we attain this state when we feel natural love for people who are total strangers, who are opposite to us and distant, when I feel that they are an inseparable part of me just like a child is for his mother? Can we find such a force?

If we find it, we will be able to conduct such an experiment and see that it is so.
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From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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In The Era Of Globalization The Crisis Is A Contagious Disease

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from TD Waterhouse): “World trade will grow by a mere 2.5 percent this year, dragged down by Europe to less than half of the previous 20-year average, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Friday [September 21, 2012]…

“‘I see the risk more on the downside than the upside,’ WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said at a news conference in Singapore. ‘What could be surprising is that you have a volume of trade that is lower than world (economic) growth.’ …

“‘The main reason for the growth slowdown is of course Europe,’ said Lamy… ‘We also know U.S. growth is lower than expected, (and) Japan is not in great shape.’”

My Comment: It is left only to discover how much we are connected not only economically and politically, but also spiritually. We, all of humanity, are a single whole in nature and completely dependent on each other in everything. The development of nature and human evolution are intended for us to reveal this fact in the near future, either through suffering or awareness, and thus evoke in us the need to unite as one family, contrary to and above all our contradictions “by love above hatred.”
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Love Isn’t What We Thought

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: It is because, indeed, with respect to a person who is still within the nature of Creation, there is no difference between the love of God and the love of his fellow person. This is because anything that is not him is unreal to him.

I cannot feel others. I feel them to the extent that I depend on them. In other words, I don’t actually feel others, but I feel my dependence on them, how much I can lose if something happens to them.

This is the only way we calculate everything. Even a mother feels how much she can lose if her baby has any problems. This is the scale we call “love.”

“I love you” means that I depend on you. So, it is by no means spiritual love, but corporeal love. I enjoy someone and the fear that something might happen to him since otherwise I will suffer. I love someone with whom I feel good. He may be my son who gives me pleasure.

We, however, are talking about something that is totally different: about how, from the love of the created beings, we reach the love of the Creator. Although we use the example of a mother’s love in our world, we don’t know actually what love means on a “human” level.

We must develop a totally new type of love. The word itself is misleading, and we have to be careful of making mistakes. It is about a totally different relationship and discernment, about bestowal that comes from me outward to someone who is outside my feelings.

Today, I feel everyone. I feel what is going on in the world, and it is only according to the calculation of gaining or the fear of losing. The desire to receive is looking for sources of pleasure and stays away from what can harm it.

These are the only things that enter me, but I don’t feel anything that is not part of my pleasure or suffering. This is because my “sensitive material” is a desire to enjoy. It is the Masach (screen) on which the pictures of my reality are reflected. In such a display, I only can see things that are within the range of my interest, which might bring me self-benefit or pain and suffering.

There are things that I don’t feel because they don’t cause me pleasure or pain, like different fields, waves, X-rays, and so forth. As we develop, we recognize more things to which we should pay attention because they can be either beneficial or harmful.

It is the same when it comes to love of friends. We don’t know what it means and we don’t feel it in our senses. What can we compare it to? Is it bad when you are loved? It isn’t the love of the friends toward me, but my love toward them when I totally give myself to them, take care of them, worry about them, help them, and bestow upon them.

Who needs such love in our world? If they loved me and served me, it would be another issue: “I am ready to receive your love. Go ahead; who is first?”

However, we are speaking about a transition to the level of the love of the Creator, about mutual guarantee. The goal of creation is to love thy friend. Through that, we enjoy bestowal, but only the bestowal not in order to enjoy. We are bestowing against the desire, by overcoming it.

So, we must pay a little more attention to the right meaning of our work in the group. It is impossible to interpret it according to the images in our world. Closeness, love, and connection are all concepts that exist above the overcoming, above the Machsom (barrier). Until then, I won’t overcome anything, but am simply going through the period of preparation.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, “Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah)”

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An Emotional Outburst

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I have noticed that there is a lot of laughter and jokes during the discussions in integral groups. How serious should these classes be? Should we somehow fight the laughter?

Answer: No. We need to give the emotions an opportunity to come out, rise above us, laugh at ourselves, and understand where they come from. We are dealing with the origin of the second level “Man” above the “animal” level in us. And this is why these two levels have an equal right to exist. Under no circumstances should we suppress the animal level. The egoistic level remains, it flows beneath us, and it’s always in the process of growth. And accordingly, we grow and rise above it. We’re not able to grow without the growth of egoism in us.

It’s hard to determine how much people are developing egoistically during the first encounters in an integral group. However, later, different excesses and contradictions will start appearing in them. And working with it now becomes very interesting, since the purpose is to develop our integral interaction through this. This will happen later.

But for now, laughter, exclamations, a variety of very deep inner outbursts, represent the inability to express our sensations. All of this is the need to ascend: either a negative one, which comes from egoism, or a not yet resolved or realized altruistic level. But this is a good thing. The main thing is to let it all come out.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/5/12

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