Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

The Beginning Of Correction In Three Lines

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What symbolizes the correction in three lines?

Answer: Correction in three lines is the ability to differentiate the influence of the Light, the desire to bestow (right line), from the influence of the desire to receive (left line), and the ability to be in the middle between them, in order to couple them and connect them together in the middle line.

If a person works in above reason in order to connect his vessels of reception with the force of bestowal that exists in him, this means that he is the middle line, in his middle point and is doing corrections in three lines.

In this case, he does not use his real Malchut, but only Malchut that rises to Yesod. It means that he scrutinizes the vessels, which will be in the correct connection and participation of Malchut and Bina. Correction in three lines is possible only after the second restriction (Tzimtzum Bet) when it is clear to us that Malchut is not capable of receiving any Light in herself, but only under the condition that she rises to the level of Bina. (Rising in spirituality symbolizes correction.)

At the time that Malchut rises to Bina, they partially connect. Malchut clarifies which of its qualities it can use in order to be in contact with the Light, with the Keter.

In order to be similar to Keter and to be bestowing like the Keter, it must connect with Bina and become similar to her, the same as Bina. At the time of Bina expanding from top to bottom, she wanted to be similar to Keter with all the depth of her coarseness (Aviut). A correct joining between Malchut and Bina brings Malchut to the calculation in the middle line.

It cannot be a prayer (MAN) without correction of three lines. However, the upper receives our prayer the first time when we request the first contact and are ready to turn into a spiritual fetus that annuls and restricts itself completely. Meanwhile, we don’t have correction of three lines. But later we start the period of the “three days of the absorption of semen” in which the three lines: right, left, and middle are created. From here onward begins the development of these three lines.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Equal And Different

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Hence, those with attainment can compose books and put their attainments to writing in intimations and allegories. They will be understood by all who have been rewarded with the degrees that the books describe, and they will have common attainment with them. But those who have not been rewarded with the full measure of the degree as the authors will not be able to understand their intimations. It is even more so with those who have not been rewarded with any attainment; they will not understand a thing about them, as they have no common attainments.

If a person attains something, then according to his understanding he can imagine and clarify, at least a little, what Kabbalists on other levels feel. But of course, a person who has not been through the levels that the books speak about cannot understand what they are like. Of course, if a person is only in this world and has not acquired any spiritual attainment on any level, he will certainly not be able to imagine correctly anything that is said in Kabbalah books.

Question: Can we say that two people who are in the same spiritual world attain the same level of annulment?

Answer: But each one does only in his own way and according to his specific measure.

Question: So in what way is their annulment equal and in what way are they different?

Answer: Suppose I started studying in a university together with my clever talented friend; he is clever and I am not so clever, and so we are each required to make different efforts. He, along with his study, manages to have fun and to look for work; everything is easy for him, while poor me, I have to sweat over my books from morning to night and don’t see the light of day. Eventually we both graduate: He has a diploma and I have a diploma. This is what usually happens in our world.

But in spirituality it’s different; the whole point is the efforts a person makes. I feel the level that I acquire to the full depth of NRNHY, while he attains the minimal level of Nefesh. Therefore it says, “The reward is according to one’s sorrow.” The sorrow in this case is a person’s exertion. This is the way the opposite value between Lights and vessels is arranged.

Question: So what does it mean to be in the same world with someone?

Answer: We are on the same level, but the depth, the recognition, the understanding, the reasons, and the outcomes are different for each of us. On every level there are the Lights of NRNHY, the Sefirot KHB-ZON, the levels of the still nature, the vegetative, the animate and the speaking. A cat lives in our world just like us, but what does it understand compared to us? It’s the same in spirituality: What will a desire on the level of a “cat” understand and feel?

Question: If two people worry about one another and each one does his best, how can their effort be compatible?

Answer: Each one’s specific personal force doesn’t change, just like stem cells. It is rather the efforts and the exertion that change: to what extent each one has made efforts and is incorporated in everyone. If I am incorporated in everyone at my root point, at the end of correction I attain what you attain and we are totally adhered. But each of us can reach this adhesion from this root point.

Thus we differ in the initial “root” point in which there is no thickness (no “thickness” of the desire), but only the difference, the root, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha. We take everything else from the whole general vessel, eventually, we become equal in our attainment, in our understanding, in everything, but each one still sees it from his initial point. We remain different, the root disparity that comes from the Creator remains, and from it we begin to see and to discover His richness and variedness.

Question: The picture at the end of correction is clear, but what happens along the way?

Answer: All the friends are in the same world, but each one thinks and understands differently. Each one has his own abilities and skills: one is more talented in music or in painting, another writes books, and another makes movies, and still another only knows how to fix a flat tire. It’s the same in spirituality: At the end of correction there are no differences, but in the intermediate levels during the ascent, everyone attains the world in his own way, of course.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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How To Set Priorities

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can a woman do if dissemination takes 5-6 hours a day and there is no time left for group work, in particular, to participate in workshops? How can we prioritize our time?

Answer: I think that one must necessarily devote a certain amount of time to their inner work. Although dissemination to the general public is very important because without it we will not advance, but if you do not pay attention to internal spiritual advancement, it’s not good.

You will fall behind in the material; you will not be with everyone as in one team, etc. We must still prioritize so that the inner work, meaning participation in women’s workshops, in general lessons and workshops, does not suffer because of external dissemination. You should tighten the schedule and not miss our general activities, especially workshops.

But without dissemination, it’s impossible as well, not because someone calls us to it, but rather because we reveal internally those gaps that will be filled with the upper Light. If we study without passing it to others, we remain just empty smart alecks because only mechanical knowledge will enter us, but not spiritual.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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A Gift Of Fate

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we combine the work in unity and dissemination correctly?

Answer: Work in dissemination unites by itself. Precisely in the process of dissemination, many people are brought closer together, stay in the group, do not leave it, unite with each other, and find their closest friends.

I believe that dissemination is a huge gift that fate has given us because it was impossible to disseminate in the past, and you can do it now. In addition to Kabbalah, there is integral education, which is a great place where we can unite.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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Coming Of Age

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it typical in the formation of the group to have periods when the need for unity arises from lessons, workshops, conventions, or from participation in dissemination?

Answer: I know for myself that I was involved in one or another. All of a sudden I wanted to further explore the material, or to disseminate more, or to be engaged precisely in spiritual ascent, or in some “mundane” things like making the layout for books or preparing them for publication. A person always has these swings in different directions. We have to go through all of them. This is a natural period of our growing up, and then everything gradually comes into balance.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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How Can I Stop Thinking About Myself?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what vessel does a person discover spirituality?

Answer: In the Returning Light, which means in bestowal, when he worries about the other more than about himself, when the other is more important to him than he is.

Question: What does a person have to annul in order to acquire the spiritual vessel?

Answer: Thoughts about himself. How can I, who can only think about myself, switch to a state in which I will totally change myself for the good of others? Where can I get such a desire? Where can I find the powers to make such an effort?

Here the Light that Reforms helps me. It’s called the “miracle of the exodus from Egypt:” I take my feelings (heart) and mind out of the control of my desire, of the caring for myself and put them into the other. Of course, I can’t do this by myself. A prisoner can’t release himself from prison, and you can’t pull yourself by the hair out of a swamp. After all, the desire and worrying about myself are all that I have.

But the Light comes and takes this concern out of the desire and puts it into someone else. Then I begin to care about him like a mother worries about her baby. After all, the same thing happens with her, but on an egoistic level: It’s as if she is hypnotized in her concern for her baby, looking at him all the time and worrying about him. If we didn’t know about such processes in this world we might think that she had lost her mind.

This is also the work of the Light, but a mother is not required to ask to be able to love her baby, she is simply given this love from Above. In our case, however, it’s different. A person is given a choice, “Do you want to remain on the “animal” level? Go ahead. But if you want to rise to the spiritual level, then you need to activate this force.”

You need to constantly improve, become wiser, and, in short, you need to acquire the Creator’s mind in order to activate Him. This is the difference between the two levels—the fact that you activate Him. It’s about this that it says: “My sons have defeated me.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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When Bestowal Is Beyond My Powers

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a “prayer of an individual?”

Answer: A “prayer of an individual” is a person’s clarification. On the whole, one can pray a “prayer of an individual” or a “prayer of many.” A “prayer” is a deficiency that I discover in my heart. But I discover it intentionally by first clarifying the prayer, which is called “a prayer before a prayer.” On this preliminary level I make many corrections in order to reach the special inner deficiency that will be compatible with the amount of Light that is before me and which I want to acquire.

I acquire it; purchase it by paying with my exertion, my power, my deficiency, by my “appetite.” It’s as if I enter a bakery shop and “freeze” in front of a marvelous cake. But I am put on a scale, my deficiency is measured, and I am told:

– You have deficiency of only 150 grams and this cake is worth half a kilogram so you can’t buy it.

Then my taste buds are examined by a special sensor, and I am told:

– Your taste buds don’t work. You actually want fish and not a cake. The two can’t even be compared, come back another time when you have the right quantity and quality for a cake, and then you will receive it.

So I need a deficiency for bestowal. Where can I purchase this deficiency in our world in order to come to the Creator’s “store” with it and buy that “cake”? Where can I get the money to buy the ticket with which I can enter bestowal? This is already “a prayer before a prayer”; I constantly think about the deficiency in quantity and in quality that I must have, since otherwise I don’t have a real vessel.

If I understand this whole process, then there is a “prayer of an individual” and a “prayer of many” in it. But these are only names. In fact, I always pray by myself, I am always one, and there is nothing but me. But I want to attach and connect those who are seemingly external to me: all my desires and thoughts that were thrown outside by the ego and that seem to be scattered according to the corruption in my vessel. I want to work above this “thickness” of the desire, and thus I am drawn to “a prayer of many,” by wanting to see them as one whole unit…
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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The Point Of “No I”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I have to totally annul myself by remaining as one point while everything else comes from the Creator, where is the volume in which I feel my existence, my spiritual reality?

Answer: This is called the “spiritual world.” Think only about how to penetrate it. Your existence there begins after you cease to exist. When you cease to exist in your current form, you will appear there.

Now it seems unclear, but from this negative form you already begin to move towards the Light; you have the feeling that this place may actually exist and is real, but that it’s beyond the Machsom (barrier), beyond the border after which the “I” אוי(: aleph – nun- yod) becomes “no I” (אין: aleph – yod – nun).

This point of “no I” is in the new space that is felt by this negative form as a very solid, strong field, that fills it and that is essential. But with regard to the previous state, with regards to my egoistic “I,” it is called “no I” and this fills me with joy.

In our world joy is felt as a filling in the desire to receive, but in spirituality joy is felt as “in Him our heart shall rejoice.” I am very happy that you have such thoughts and that they make you suffer since you feel disoriented. Later you will feel the joy when you attain the goal. Now you have to be happy that you are on the way to it and that you have at least risen above your ego a little. The stronger the Light shines and the more the group strengthens you, the more you can rejoice that you have transcended yourself.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Losing Yourself In Others

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the process of integral games, a new kind of social relationship is practiced. What does it mean to be “integrated in others”?

Answer: It means that I don’t aspire to “enter “into another person, but I seek our integrated, mutual component.

I am interested in the group as an exit from the egoistic feeling of “I” to the altruistic “we,” where my ego gets lost, where I stop thinking about myself, and think about us, where I solve problems only according to our relations.

It is only an exercise and training to create the pre-conditions of these feelings, desires and mutual intellect within me.

During the discussions I am not involved in criticism of others or in analyzing their answers, but in trying to rise above my ego and above my understanding, and grasping everyone as “we,” which means, as if being integrated in everyone, so in this way to create an exit from myself.

It is not their opinion that interests me, but my exit from myself, achieved through practice in working in the group.

I listen to the opinion of everyone in the circle that is composed of ten people and try to connect with each person’s opinion, to grasp it as mine own. And the nine answers, except for my answer on some question, allow me to constantly be outside myself. During my turn, I give an answer according to the other opinions, just adding to them.

In principle, it isn’t important what questions are asked and what answers are given. This technique was designed to begin to feel how a person can rise above himself. I try to accept each opinion as my own, above my own personal opinion, and try to calibrate, to annul my analytical device.

It doesn’t matter what conclusion we arrive at. What is important is that each one of us rises above himself.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12

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How Can We Get To Know The Creator?

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion for The Zohar“: The soul is like that, too: After it has acquired equivalence with Him, it knows His Thoughts once more, as it knew prior to the separation from Him due to the will-to-receive’s disparity of form.

Question: What are the Creator’s thoughts?

Answer: As it is written, “By Your actions, we shall know You” or, in other words, from my actions, I will get to know the Creator.

I try to act “in order to bestow,” to perform actions of bestowal, but I cannot. I ask for help and I get it. There are changes in me whose essence and root I don’t understand. I exert myself and become like the Creator according to my understanding of the sources and the examples that the group presents to me. Thus, I study the Torah, which means the method, the system, the actions of the Creator who is concealed in the Torah. By imitating His actions, I begin to know Him, to know His attributes of love and bestowal.

Today, I interpret the words according to my understanding, not knowing their real meaning. Then, through my corrected desires, I really will get to know the Creator. It is because the corrected desire feels a kind of an awakening inside called “Light.” Generally speaking, such desires create the Creator’s image for me in a way. It isn’t a figure and not a drawing, not a form, but I simply understand what the attribute of bestowal is, the attribute of love. I understand it as a result of my corrected actions.

Therefore, it is written, “By Your actions, we know You.” By my corrected actions aimed at bestowal, I perceive the concept of “the Creator.” In that system, I am connected and, later, adhere to Him; thus, “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.” “Israel” refers to the person who yearns for bestowal. ”The Torah” refers to my inner system of connection, the system of the soul, its 613 corrupt desires that I must correct by the Lights that evoke it. Then, the vessels and the Lights work together. When the vessel and the Light equalize in the direction of bestowal, it means that the Torah is revealed in me.

I work systematically on the five levels of Aviut (the “thickness” of the desire) and go through stages of attaining the Torah, by starting from Sod and ending in Pshat when everything is revealed and I have not only the Lights of NRNHY, but also the Light of Yechida, not different kinds of vessels, but the vessel of Keter. By that, I return to complete adhesion, but I return by myself with a Light that is 620 times greater than the initial Light, and, by that, I correct my vessels. I increase them 620-fold, and, by that, I know the Creator. First, I was in Him in the form of a point that He created as “something from nothing,” and now, with His help that comes as a result of my asking, I develop this point by myself from the “drop,” and stand in His place, equal to Him on the level of Adam (a human being).

Question: The Creator has one thought, which means that I must be incorporated in everyone and insert in them the one thought that is directed at Him.

Answer: Otherwise, I will not be able to put my soul together. It includes all the other souls in it. I am just a point, and, in order to build my soul, I need to attach everyone to it.

Question: What is hidden in my soul that is aimed at the Creator?

Answer: For the time being, I have a shattered Reshimo (spiritual gene), a spark, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha, which means a beneficial desire. The beginning of the previous connection with the Creator was revealed to me in a shattered form. I want to gain at His expense, to use Him.

Thus, the spiritual awakening appears in a person. I want to gain something, and, at a certain point, I cannot find anything satisfying in the entire world. How long can you play in this “sand box?” I want to grow and do real stuff, and then I search egoistically for a partnership with the Creator on equal terms. “You are for me and I am for You. I know that I must pay. Oh well, I agree, but what will I get in return?” This is already a state of Lo Lishma (not for His sake).

Question: So, what is our general corrected thought?

Answer: It is total identification with the Creator, an “embrace,” a “kiss,” “coupling,” which, on the whole, is called adhesion.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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