Entries in the 'Prayer and Intention' Category

Concern About Necessities

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to ask only for necessities?

Answer: If a person is concerned about bestowal to others, he doesn’t have to be concerned about his necessities because they will always come to fill his desires to a sufficient degree. But there are unique situations where a person must take a look at himself to clarify what is essential and where its fulfillment is found. And he sees that this degree of the necessities is found in the desires of bestowal that are directed towards the Creator.

On the level of Bina, a person doesn’t ask for necessities because that is taken care of by itself. He doesn’t have to be concerned about it. This is because the level of Bina is absolute bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, a state of Katnut (smallness) from the side of the vessels, the states of “embryo” and “nursing.”

But when a person goes through greater and higher states and begins to work with the receiving vessels, then he must become active and turn with a unique prayer for the necessities to determine what his work will be for the purpose of bestowal. This is even though he doesn’t have any need for this himself. But he determines that he is a creature, exists, and must exist in order to work to bestow and to serve the people, and therefore he asks for what is essential for himself.

This means that praying for the essentials is an effort for him. He would prefer not to do this, but he must do it as part of his work. This is like the Cohen (High Priest) who had to have special clothing, even though he didn’t need this himself. But in order to serve the people, he had to have special ceremonial priestly garments tailored for him.

This means that the request for the essentials also requires an effort from the person and is not felt as necessary. But this is a part of his work, and he asks for this through overcoming his reluctance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14, Shamati #35 “Concerning the Vitality of Kedusha”

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Connection, Connection, And More Connection!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is an inner voice? Is it the Creator speaking to a person?

Answer: Stop dreaming and imagining. It is said, “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” The wisdom of Kabbalah is a science like physics. If you are on the same frequency as the Creator, you hear Him. You convey your message to Him, and He responds.

However, if you don’t meet by the exact adaptability of attributes, in equivalence of form like a plug and a socket, you can cry out until you lose your voice—the Creator will not hear you.

Does He respond to people crying in this world or to our complaints about our suffering? He knows how you feel even before something happens to you since He is the one who causes this.

What can we ask of Him if He is the cause of everything? If you turn to Him, you should give Him something new of your own. Otherwise, there is no point in crying out. He pokes you a little in order to spur you, and you already cry out as if the entire world is falling apart.

Question: So, how should I respond when the Creator pokes me? What does He want to tell me by that?

Answer: The Creator wants to awaken us to work to connect with the group. Through this connection, you can make a demand to Him: “I did my part. I want to connect with the friends. Help me!” If you manage to carry this load on your back but it falls, you can cry out: “Help! Help me!” Then, the Creator helps out.

Question: Do I have to connect to the friends if the Creator sends me a certain illness?

Answer: Yes! You can turn to the Creator only with the right deficiency and the right request for correction, which means for connection. There is nothing but connection. You can feel endless troubles and problems, but they are all an outcome of the manifestation of the shattering since there is no other action.

We can say that every complaint, even without hearing it through, is:”This is the shattering, the shattering! And this is also the shattering!” So the remedy for every illness is connection, connection, connection.

Question: Is the Creator forced to arrange such a minus in the bank for me so that I will connect to the friends?

Answer: The upper Light operates on the vessel that it has to correct and evokes different deficiencies in it. It created the vessel so that we have banks, police, spouse and children, all sorts of illnesses, problems, and events, and it constantly evokes something in them. The upper Light is at absolute rest, but the Reshimot (spiritual genes) are constantly revealed. Every new Reshimo that is revealed makes you feel a new reality and thus moves you from one picture in the movie to the next.

However, if you yearn to connect with the Creator before something happens, it is called hastening time, Achishena. Then, you have no problems.

If you run ahead in order to connect with the Creator and to avoid problems, it is called Lo Lishma (not for Her sake). However, if you do it in order to delight Him, it is called Lishma (for Her sake).
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Main Thing Is Not To Divert From The Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Letter 22: Therefore, if you write that you live a life of sorrow, it is a sign that you are following the path of the Torah. This means that you have black and white, since the Torah is written in black on top of white. But you have to try to have a black fire on top of a white fire, which means that everything that you feel will be as flaming fire.

We should feel constant tension, be under pressure, and inclined with all our might to yearn for the goal. It makes no difference what happens to a person as long as he is focused in the right direction. Whatever happens on the way depends on the way itself, and I only need to adjust myself according to it,

The road itself, how many twists and turns are on it and how many failures we have, is not up to us, but rather depends on the structure of our soul.

Since the Creator wants us to receive the Torah, we must feel the deficiency for the Torah ourselves, since one is not given luxuries from Above, but only necessities.

I will not receive what I ask for from Above unless my request is solely for necessities without which I cannot exist. Otherwise these are merely powerless requests.

Of course, it takes a long time until a person comes close to a real prayer. First there should be the intensity of the request by which it can be heard. Second, it has to be for the right thing that is exactly on the path.

A person should grasp onto a real part of the string on the path each time. If I ask for something now, my outcry may be correct, but perhaps it isn’t mine, and is instead arranged by the Creator.

I attribute everything to myself, and this is totally wrong. I have to search myself more deeply and find out who directs me, who arranges a good action, my prayer, or the desire to connect to society. If all this comes from Above, then what do I ask for?

And the greatest reward is that a person needs the Creator, which means the giver of the Torah. Therefore, when a person feels his lowliness, it is a reason for him to need the Creator. However, if he feels that he can help himself and that he doesn’t need the Creator, then he is separated from Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/14, Writings of Rabash

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Help That We Seek In Concealment

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What kind of help must be sought in concealment?

Answer: If the final goal is adherence, which is possible only with equivalence of form, then it is good that darkness is revealed to me now. All my ego, all desire to receive, is taken from me and the egoistic joy from one of its parts is taken. Now, it is from this part that I can carry out some kind of altruistic movement directed towards bestowal, closeness to the Creator.

It follows that concealment comes specifically to make it possible for me to do something, to take a step forward, to determine in what form I want to be. Of course, I must work together with the Light that Reforms, yet I can use it as a means that is at my disposal all the time, like a vehicle that travels in any direction that I want. If my request is for the right thing, then the Light will carry it out fully, both quantitatively and qualitatively, meaning that the Light will do everything that I want.

Question: In what is my independence expressed at the time of concealment?

Answer: My independence is to act in a group and with dissemination in order to connect with the friends as strongly as possible in the state of concealment, and this is due to previous preparation. I don’t know what the right form for me should be. I only know that I want to build contact with the higher power together with the friends and the group in order to feel how I give pleasure for the Creator. I want to discover the happiness from His side; this is disclosure.

And this is not to make myself happy but to discover connection with the Creator beyond concealment. This will be called my future “head of the Partzuf,” meaning the beginning of the soul.

Question: How is a request in a state of concealment different, indeed in any state where I am asking for power?

Answer: In a state of ascent, I ask for for the force that will allow my mind and heart to justify and praise the Creator. In every state we are searching for clarification of adhesion, so that I will have signs, clear sensations, in order to know in which impressions, desires, and thoughts I am in connection with the Creator, adherent with Him, where He embraces me and I embrace Him.

Spiritual adhesion is like adhesion between physical bodies where there is protrusion and indentation, bestowal and reception, matched one to the other. Yet what is unique about spiritual adhesion is that with every desire I both receive and bestow. All of the desires that bestow are like protrusions and receptions are like indentations. That is how we connect absolutely and reach a shared sensation.

I seek full adhesion and want my partner to feel pleasure from me. He is good and benevolent and I want to be like Him. This is my goal.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/14

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Not Without Help

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why does the Creator want to bring a person to an understanding and awareness that we are not able to reach the goal ourselves? If I knew this when I began to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, I would not continue!

Answer: You can attain the goal, but you need help! In regular life did you know how to get along without help when you were an infant, a little child, or when you arrived in a new place?

A person cannot do anything by himself: other people give birth to him, teach him, and bury him. A person is not able to help himself and, even more so, to change his inner nature.

Question: So why does the Creator abuse me so much by sending me troubles?

Answer: The Creator gives you these exercises so that ultimately you will turn to Him and so that this turning will be for equivalence of form, for adherence, equivalence with Him. And instead, you are turning to the Creator and asking Him to give you success in this world: health, money, respect, and as much as possible, and, in addition, for the next world. And you complain that you don’t get all of this. This is to teach you not to be so materially egoistic but to be a man, Adam, resembling the Creator. You need to be scrubbed and polished many times until you understand what you must ask for. The main thing is that you must ask with the understanding and awareness that you don’t need anything more than to be like the Creator and separated from yourself.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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What Is Seen In The Next Photograph?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is a person’s work, which attributes everything to the principle, there is none else beside Him, linked to a group?

Answer: All of the work is with intention. It is not important what I do: sell watermelons or give a class somewhere. At that moment I have some kind of intention of what I want to accomplish with this activity. For the Shevirah (breaking of the vessel) was intentional and the destruction was intentionally concealed.

The desires, activities, events, and circumstances are not important in and of themselves. Rather, what is important is with what intention I am including in that circumstance, in that picture from the film. What do I want from the picture of the world that is now revealed in me and what do I do with my attitude towards the present state?

The states arrive by themselves; I don’t determine nor choose them. It is as if I pass from one picture to another in a film, one after another, and the question is only what I want from all of this. Here is all of my work. I cannot change these pictures, but my intention determines what I will see in those pictures through which I must pass;  peace or war, jealousy or hatred, or everything good and pleasurable.

All of this depends only on my intention, since  through that I change each picture in the film, the entire film and the entire picture of reality from end to end. I must return this picture to the Creator at all times, since all that comes to me in the form of the world, through adhering to Him.

To support this I have a group that is operating worldwide. I want the whole world to connect to the same idea and everyone to adhere to the Creator. This is what I am trying to attain at each and every moment.

And it makes no difference what actions are required for this. It could be that I am working as a mechanic in a garage, but this is not important. What is important is my intention through which I gather and connect all moments for correction.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A Chain That Leads From Malchut To Bina

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we form our prayer? Should we start from a request to help the upper more, the fathers, the group, and mention myself only at the end?

Answer: This is exactly how we should form our prayer and we have to learn that. But at the moment, you can turn to the Creator any way you like, as long as it comes from the center of the group. We will gradually format our collective appeal correctly.

A prayer is not a simple appeal. You will have to place yourself in an increasingly more accurate manner that is established by several steps. Each appeal is a whole chain of adaptors, of connections, which at one end connects to you, then processes your request several times and makes it adaptable to the upper level.

It is a whole system. A prayer isn’t just words, but the order of two vessels (since a letter is a vessel), which on the one hand, are adaptable to you, and, on the other hand, to the Creator. You have to build this chain, starting from ZAT of Bina that takes care of you, until Malchut, in which you are incorporated when you rise from the system of the worlds of the shell.

In order to do that, you have to use the 22 letters of the (Hebrew) alphabet correctly and the five final letters “MNTZPCH”, so that your prayer in the form of the spiritual vessels, which means that is made of the letters that are correctly arranged, will attain the Creator (God), ZAT of Bina.

We don’t know how to do that, but we gradually form our prayer by our experience. Kabbalists who lived during the time of the Temple prepared the Siddur (book of prayers) for us. The time of the Temple was the time that the Holy vessels existed, in which Malchut and Bina were connected, which is called the house of Holiness, the Temple. A house is Malchut and a Temple is Bina.

The great Kabbalists of that time made up the great Knesset (assembly), which means that they were connected into one vessel and were on a level of greatness, in great spiritual attainment. They are the ones who wrote the Siddur for us.

We will attain these prayers some day, but Kabbalists wrote them for us in advance. If we express them, whether we understand them or not, thinking in this direction, we still advance. If we read the prayers correctly, which means that we perceive these appeals in a spiritual manner, we can see great things in them.

Kabbalists express their appeals in two ways: one through words, which means in a sequence of letters, and the other in the form of symbols, simply letters with a filling. The form of every letter is a whole HaVaYaH, which means ten Sefirot, with a special Reshimo (spiritual gene), in a special state, and this is why they wrote the prayers.

My work is how to adhere more to the group, to the Rav, to the books, to dissemination, to everything that is relevant to the Light. There are no other means, but these are enough.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/04/14, Writing of Rabash

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Why Doesn’t The Creator Answer Our Cries?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have no other way to turn to the upper force that depicts all of creation, all of reality to us, except for speaking to Him through the center of the group. I cannot turn to Him by myself and my appeal doesn’t reach Him. We see that people have been crying out to the Creator for ages, praying to Him, but no matter what they request, it leads to nothing; there is no answer and no response.

The Creator doesn’t answer since we don’t speak to Him correctly. The Creator is a fixed rigid system, the unchanging law of nature. It is like the laws of this world. Everyone understands that we can cry and complain if we fall from the tenth floor, but these tears won’t help since a person will still fall down and crash.

The same thing happens with the Creator. We try to attribute human frailties to Him, hoping that He will forgive us, have mercy on us, show His generosity, just like a person who wants to seem nice and polite, but this cannot be! The Creator is the general law of nature and nature knows no mercy.

If we don’t know how to relate to nature, to the Creator, nothing will help us; this is the way it has been so far. Kabbalah, however, teaches us exactly how we should act. Then we can know how to manage in the framework of these laws and how to use them.

So you shouldn’t feel sorry for yourselves and for the friends, but rather should understand that we intend to keep the general law and use it correctly. But in order to do that, we have to adapt ourselves to this law first. No matter if we want to or not, we will still be bent so that we will want to.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 2

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A Correction Agreement

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe method of spiritual transformation is given to us when we are undergoing the worst afflictions, when we finally agree to end our horrible mutual relationships and wish to unite.

We agree to change ourselves and we realize that we cannot do it by ourselves, that only the force that created us can operate here and give us birth anew. It turns out that having been corrupted by our own ego, we have to undergo a serious correction.

We agree to that and confirm it, and wish to annul all the repulsion that we feel between us. Of course, we cannot object in the state we are, but at the same time, we don’t want to be merely neutral, but also to participate in the process, although we cannot do so.

Therefore we ask: “Help us agree to participate in the creation, not only in our intention but also in our actions, so that we will totally convert our attributes.” When humanity feels this prayer everyone will feel that this option exists.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/6/13

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How To Rise At Once With Little Effort

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you pray through the center of the group if you don’t feel this center?

Answer: Pray as much as you can for the time being. A person is born lacking any understanding, like an animal, three kilos that come out of the mother and begin to develop. Gradually he grows and becomes wiser as he understands and feels more.

Everything always starts from zero. The main thing is the quality and the exertion. “One may acquire his world in an hour.” This means that a person restricts and focuses his small exertion in the right place, and creates a lever. Although he has little power and cannot lift a heavy load, he can lift it if he increases the handle length of the lever.

This means that a wise approach can shorten the time and help one gain power. In the past, loads were lifted onto ships by a system of chains and a pulley block. Many chains had to be pulled, but they were able to lift tons of cargo.

It is the same in the spiritual work. I cannot directly approach Pharaoh and this whole confusion. But I am given a chance to organize a circle of physical bodies in this world, in a state where I am totally detached from spirituality and don’t belong to it. Then I am able to start thinking about physical connections with my corporeal brain, practically from zero, but not yet from a mental or spiritual perspective.

I am given such an opportunity on every level. If I focus on the center of the group, by mutual guarantee, mutual responsibility, care, and support of others, in the connection between us, together with the teacher and the Kabbalah books, I can focus the relatively small effort I can make on one small point and thus break through.

But if I disperse my efforts, it will lead to nothing; the outcome will be a serpent. This small point determines what the outcome will be, whether a serpent or a rod. This point is the focus on the center of the group, where we want to delight the Creator.

Dissemination is based on being one man in one heart. The center of the group is our one common heart. We have to think about this option, about this form. But if I wander in endless directions, nothing will work. I will perform many actions, which will also eventually accumulate, but very slowly. I don’t gain anything and don’t shorten time.

Question: What does our concentration on one action depend on?

Answer: It depends on mutual work, on focusing, and on mutual support when everyone focuses in the heart and mind in our center and in our mutual connection.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/14, Shamati #59

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