Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Growing Interdependence

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we don’t truly adjust ourselves to the integral society correctly in our present stage, then will nature change and correct us?

Answer: It will happen gradually through self-education. This is a learning process similar in children; it is absolutely the same system. Moreover, humanity already has these developments, especially if we are talking about the wisdom of Kabbalah, which fully shows us how we should proceed.

How should a person arrange himself within the environment? He needs to place himself under the influence of the correct environment. Why is one’s free choice specifically in that? Which values should be elevated first? Moreover, they need to be elevated artificially, and then afterward, a person will grasp them and see them as truly basic and necessary.

Then it will be necessary to be included in this society, gradually dissolving within it, but together with this a person doesn’t lose his identity. By the way, we don’t go against our ego. We don’t oppress our ego by any means whatsoever!

We don’t oppress anything in a man. He doesn’t need to get rid of anything within him. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you were educated up until now, what your views are, what attributes you were born with, or the values and opinions that you received during your education process.

You will begin to be integrated into the group, which comprises a mini-society with which you will begin to work on this mutual interaction. The main thing is that it aims for a person to create a new vessel of connection with others, a communication system where he begins to see that he is completely dependent on others.

Question: A person already begins to see this dependency, although in principle it only irritates him.

Answer: Correct. But there is no place to escape it. We need to do something with it, since otherwise we simply will disappear! Even now there is talk about future famine, cold, drought, terrible problems in the economy and finances. People will be thrown out in the street; unemployment will grow. This means that everything is going in the direction of a complete breakdown. It specifically points to that, and we must find between us the correct point of balance.
[96034]
From KabTV’s “An Integral World” 11/26/12

Related Material:
The Transition To An Integral System
Humanity As An Integral System
The Secret Of The Integral System

Help A Person Rise Twice

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Who is to blame for the fact that a person stalls and advances slowly?

Answer: The main reason for that is laziness. He doesn’t make sure that the friends awaken him and obligate him. After several unsuccessful attempts, the society stops paying attention to him; it’s not obligated to deal with him forever.

It has to call on him twice, like in the example from the Talmud of the donkey that falls and that is helped to rise twice. If this doesn’t help then that’s it. He can’t ask the group to constantly pull him forward, since they have their own work among them.

They tried to revive him once, but he didn’t wake up, and they tried a second time, and again it didn’t work, so there is no third try. If he wants to leave, let him. We have to write our protocol and determine the attitude to the friends according to these conditions.
[96298]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
A Donkey That Didn’t Withstand A Heavy Load
Two Attempts
“If The Donkey Fell…”

Holy Envy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if I don’t envy the friends?

Answer: If you don’t envy the friends it means that you feel that you are better and higher than them or that you don’t pay any attention to them, as if they didn’t exist and you don’t measure yourself in comparison to them. You have your own Creator, your own way, and you come to the group as a free listener who comes to hear a lecture.

It turns out that you have the wrong approach, since you don’t understand that the spiritual world can be revealed only through the connection with the friends. The spiritual world is absolute bestowal, and it’s revealed only in bestowal. The Creator is the force of bestowal, and He can be revealed only according to the equivalence of form with the force of bestowal that a person develops internally towards the environment. But if you don’t work with the environment, there is no way you can advance.

The more you work with the environment, the more you feel that your friends are greater than you. It simply can’t be any other way, since you begin to see the group as one whole. You feel that through the friends, you receive Light, and you see that they are already corrected, that they have transcended the Machsom (barrier), and that you are left all alone here below.

But if you don’t feel that the friends have advanced much further than you, then it isn’t the right approach to correction. If you don’t envy everyone around you, seeing that they understand and feel more than you, it’s a sign that you are not on the right track.

This envy is intended to stimulate and to push a person as a result of his right attitude towards the group. God forbid that he should ever want to see them as inferior to him. When he sees that they are higher than him, he wants to adhere to them, to be in contact with them. His ego pushes him to connect with them, like a child who is impressed by adults asking them: “Take me with you! Help me be like you!”

With that, he turns to the Creator, since he discovers that the Creator is there within the friends, more than in him. It’s a very concrete and qualitative revelation, as it says: “I have learned from all my students.” You see that only if you incorporate in the group and annul yourself, it is there that you will find your spiritual state. If you don’t feel that, it’s a bad sign in the work.
[96295]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Taking Care Of The Spiritual Need
Envy That Helps Us Advance
Envy Is Useful When It Increases Wisdom

The Force To Maintain Union

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a “union” (Brit) in spiritual work? What should it be, in the direction of what efforts?

Answer: Forging a union is connection and agreement between us, that we will constantly maintain the unity we have achieved and apply joint efforts so as not to disrupt the union.

From where can we take the strength to support it? Only from above, not from anywhere or from anyone else.

You can listen to Kabbalistic songs and read Kabbalah books; it will not help. The Creator, nonetheless, will burden your heart to such an extent that the lessons, meetings, and gatherings will help; nothing will help other than addressing the Creator through all of this.

The burdening of the heart happens due to the addition of egoism, and now you must bring the Light into it. Then, it will become your next degree.

The Light is neither in you nor in those who surround you. You will be able to draw it to yourself only through the environment and, thus, rise. The burdening of the heart is given for this. This is a condition of ascent.

From this moment on, you need to accept this as a law: The left line is a constant weight that affects the feelings, heart, emotions, memory, and various external circumstances, which begin to flash before your eyes, breaking into you.

You need to control yourself all the time because this is the Creator who presents everything to you so that you will ask Him to give you the force to rise above His tricks, as it is written, “Come unto Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart.” If we have a problem, this is Pharaoh (our mutual egoism), and to fight him, we need the Creator.
[96275]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

Related Material:
Today We Have ALL Gathered Here
Fanning The Spark With Mutual Guarantee
The Spiritual World Isn’t Mysticism

Creating An Integral Image Of Man

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is the ego that is revealed between friends in the integral group different from the usual, beastly ego?

Answer: It is the ego of a completely different level. It appears to the extent that a person longs for integrality (for integration), and it appears only in those people. It’s like a new body that you intend to create now. By the way, specifically you create it and no one else. By attaching small egoistic cells to the new body, you begin to feel how those parts are in opposition to one another, in conflict, in contradiction, and this is really so in our body.

If we take an atom, then aren’t the plus and minus opposite and opposed to each other? However, without an alliance between them, there wouldn’t be a component from which all the material would be created. From within conflict and connection of opposites, we begin to obtain everything.

We ourselves, through our efforts and through the positive and negative attributes that appear in us equally, create, form this image, this integral system which is called “Adam” (man/human). We positively long for a connection between us, and instead of that, we receive negative influence, separation. And again with this separation, we yearn for connection at the next level, and again we repel each other with the new ego. And thus each time we rise to a new integration.

And who is the man here? “Adam” is what connects together the two opposing forces of nature. These two forces are not ours. We view them from afar: Now I hate others, yearn to love them, connect to them, and am repelled by them. Within me operate two forces of nature. I, myself, am a neutral component, but by using them like two reins or two opposing forces, plus and minus, I build a human spiritual body. This is the body that exists, like a dipole, egoistim and altruism, by which they mutually support each other.
[96272]
From KabTV’s “An Integral World,” 11/26/12

Related Material:
Egoism Is The Force That Opposes Unity
Building Material: Our Egoism
Purposeful Development Of Egoism

An Infinite “Zoom In” To The Created Being

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a whole Partzuf of ten Sefirot be created from one Sefira? Where is the power needed for that?

Answer: How do the ascents and descents take place, the birth of one Partzuf and of another Partzuf? How are new Sefirot added to it, and how does a “zoom in” or “zoom out” take place? How can a whole body develop from one point, from one sperm cell?

The body is already in it. We only need to add the material, which means to discover the desire that is concealed in phase one. In phase two, we already must discover it by our own efforts. It turns out that all the reality that is revealed is a reflection of our efforts.

So, the whole World of Atzilut is built only of the ten Sefirot that were in the world of Nekudim.

The world of Nekudim is only called a “world,” but in fact, it was one Partzuf. Now, a whole world stems from it, and what a world; it is so complex! It is thanks to the fact that the mutual participation of the upper and the lower are added here.

This cannot be explained mechanically. The Creator describes to us some concrete attribute, an event, a phenomenon, but in order to attain this phenomenon, we must build “ten whole Sefirot” with regard to it.

The Creator shows me this phenomenon as one point of Keter from Him. I must establish a desire for Him and discover different actions with regard to this desire, my reaction to this phenomenon, to know how I will attain it by myself so that I shall know Him. Thus, I will attain the Creator and understand what He wants to achieve in His attitude to me, when He draws this phenomenon for me. I must respond in the full “ten Sefirot.”

The world of Atzilut sets the first example of what the created being should look like. The created being cannot attain anything if he hasn’t been through the four phases, if he hasn’t built all the “ten Sefirot,” if he hasn’t attained the root of the phenomenon, knowing the Creator who has arranged all this. So, we must build ten Sefirot, a whole Partzuf, from every point the Creator describes to us.

This is the reason that we need to work so much for so long. After all, we must attain ourselves through the root of the whole phenomenon, to connect Malchut with Keter.
[96190]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
A City That Grows From A Point On The Map
The “Meatballs” Of The World Of Atzilut
A Simple Law

The Congress Is Here And Now

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We are now preparing for the upcoming congress in the desert, the place of our future spiritual unification. Is it possible that we will become so much more united during our preparation that there will be no need for a physical place, no need to go to the desert?

Answer: The place of spiritual unity is the state of the congress. Whether it is held in a desert or a backyard is irrelevant.

At every given moment, as we prepare for the congress, we need to expect to reach the unity that we want to achieve at the congress, and that will be our preparation for it.

Then, the extent to which we are able to reach it before the congress will determine our preparation for it. Let´s say that I intend to reach unity at the congress with an effort of 10 lbs. That means that I need to attune myself to this now. Possibly during the preparation for the congress we will achieve a unity that is worth 100,000 tons of effort, then let it be realized now. That is the correct preparation.

Action should not be postponed. Everything is now. In essence, the preparation is in fact the same action that we carry out practically, unlike preparation in our world where we only prepare all that is necessary and then begin to work. By preparing the desire (Kli), I work on the whole realization, and then it is formed.
[96288]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
United Towards The Light!
Getting Ready For The Congress: First Round Of Questions
The Attack Has Already Begun

I Want To Be Happy, But I Keep Forgetting About It.

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the popular book The Secret, author Rhonda Byrne outlined the methodology: The universe is joy and bliss, and in order to be acceptable to it, we have to be joyful and happy. We have to ask the universe to give us everything we want and behave “as if” we have already have it and are very happy about it.

Answer: It’s good comforting advice. Kozma Prutkov used to say: “If you want to be happy—be happy.” By the way, it’s very true.

As children, we imagine ourselves playing in our next developmental step; if we do so, then we are being pulled up to it. The question is: How do we envision our next phase? Is it a step of bestowal, love, and connection with the rest of the world? Is it about liaisons with everybody who are a part of one indivisible, integral whole? Or it is a stage of receiving overall energy, universal love, and mutual understanding? If we visualize our next step for the sake of uniting with and bestowing to others, then imagining this state is very beneficial for us.

Comment: The authors of The Secret do not explain this. They know nothing about it. So the people who try to live up to the advice given in the book complain that they constantly forget that they are happy, and they frequently become upset about minor things.

Answer: This happens because they don’t have a methodology, and they do not participate in group trainings.

If they had the correct group training, then they would naturally move in the right direction, not because of the guidance that is detailed in the book, but due to the correct training. Visualizing ourselves as happy through bestowal and love, by building a system of mutual connection among everybody is actually the correction of egoism.

Even if the authors of the book created groups that I just described, they wouldn’t be able to provide pertinent guidance to them since they have never experienced the sensation of the upper space, the next dimension, the level that is called “Man.” They simply won’t be able to direct these groups; they don’t know how to work with them. All they would do is provide them with a psychological practicum, nothing more.

Comment: They are trying to talk about absolute, unselfish love without having any idea of what that is.

Answer: They can copy us as much as they want. They are only helping us by gradually preparing people and setting up various types of analyses that will eventually facilitate people’s understanding of our methodology.

I wish them luck. Why not? They somehow “evoke” people to search for a way out of their animate state; at least they lead them somewhere. I don’t think that anything that occurs in the world is wrong. All that exists is a necessary step for something else…
[94835]
From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 11/3/12

Related Material:
Which Game To Play?
To Believe Or To Play
Don’t Be Ashamed To Play

In An Environment Of Different Forces

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we increase the feeling of mutual dependence in the group?

Answer: This also depends on the environment. If the environment convinces me that I depend on it, then I will be convinced. If it doesn’t convince me, I will not be convinced. There has to a massive impact upon a person in order to convince him that by himself he means nothing and will not be able to do anything, that the spiritual path is possible only by incorporating in others, only through connection.

We have to think about this daily, for many hours—that the spiritual feeling is only possible in a whole vessel. We know that there was the shattering of the worlds. The same matter that we feel now doesn’t actually exist; it is imaginary. Even modern physics has already reached this conclusion. There is only a desire, which means a force, and we have to discover this force as one as it was created by the Creator.

We have to aspire to discover it as one whole, by imagining it not in the form of corporeal bodies, but in the form of desires, forces, one collective general desire to enjoy. It doesn’t matter that this force is revealed to us in different manners and that they are constantly changing. These are all desires to enjoy that must be connected. The moment we connect them, we immediately receive a filling.

The connection is only possible through concessions, by “the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph)” of our ego, and after our self-annulment there should be a connection, which is already incorporating in others, an action that is opposite to the shattering, bestowal.

I have to receive from someone in order to bestow upon him.

We use words from this world to describe the connection, but in fact these are Kabbalistic terms that refer to the correction of the desires. Don’t look at people, at the corporeal bodies around you. It is space that is full of separate forces that have to find a way to connect. The connection between them already exists; they only need to reveal it!

By discovering this connection, they discover their inclination, which is considered their exertion: “I labored and I found.” But if you don’t discover this connection, it remains concealed from you. Everything that the Creator has created is concealed from us. He is waiting for us to discover this reality by ourselves, by our exertion, which means willingly.

The Creator created the initial desire and developed it to a whole reality. But then He concealed this reality and left you only a point. Now you need to develop a desire inside you by working with the group and to discover the reality that was created by the Creator. It turns out that it is as if you are creating it yourself, by the desire that you receive from the environment.
[96089]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The Group As A Spiritual Entity
Collecting The Splinters Of Perception
A Multidimensional System

Divide Yourself Correctly

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “Neso,” Item 99: “…and they shall stand at the foot of the mountain.” This is how they will be in the last redemption, under the sages of the Torah, as a slave who walks by the feet of his master’s horse.

Question: How can we bring the slave to walk by the feet of his master’s horse and not the other way around?

Answer: It is up to us. Baal HaSulam talks about it at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“,saying that if we divide our internality and externality correctly in the work, then accordingly things will be divided in our world. If, on the other hand, we don’t divide things correctly internally, then the world will not be divided correctly.

So all the attacks on the world indicate that you are not divided correctly internally; your inner spiritual concepts such as bestowal, love, Creator, group, are not above the corporeal ones. As a result, you turn the world “on its head” by lowering the internality and raising the externality as something that is important.

If you divide everything inside you correctly, no one in the world will be able to resist it. So let’s raise spirituality in our eyes, let’s raise it above us. Bestowal, love of others, connection—should all be placed above everything, and then there will be no resistance on the outside, since you are aiming according to the upper force.

Today you are denounced and rejected from every direction, only in order to evoke you to do this work so that you will raise the internality above the externality.

Question: How can I let “Israel” rule inside me?

Answer: It means placing bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason,” the group above myself. In fact it is actually the group above me, but in constant thought, in the daily care. The main struggle is here inside, in order to constantly raise bestowal above receiving, the Creator’s greatness above the created being’s greatness, the greatness of the group over my own greatness.

Question: How can we fight this war together?

Answer: By mutual help. This is all our work.

Yesterday, for example, you didn’t manage to hold on to an intention, and today? Are you holding on to one intention throughout the day? Are you filled with the Creator’s greatness, so that by the evening it will be your only concern? Does everyone worry about others, about the fact that you should all think about the same thing? The Creator’s greatness is the deepest, innermost point of our connection. It is there in that point that we meet Him.

In one word, if you don’t advance, you will not hear anything new…
[96056]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
The Fulcrum
We Should Prefer Internality
An Addition Of Reality