Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

Resonating With The Upper Force

laitman_232_03Question: Why does Rabash say that a person who follows the Creator’s path creates the Creator?

Answer: It is indeed very strange that a person creates the Creator, but it is actually so both externally and internally.

There are 3,800 religions and beliefs in this world, and they all were invented by human beings out of their imaginations and their fantasies. They have created their own “godliness” and they depend on it.

Even today we see different fortune-tellers and astrologers in the newspapers, on the radio, and on TV. These people certainly create their own creator, their own god, and it is true for every nation according to its characteristics and what is typical of it.

But according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is possible to imagine the upper force only according to the vessel, since it actually has no form or image. If the form of my vessel resembles the abstract upper force in any way, I feel that I have fulfilled the law of equivalence of form inside me and feel the attributes and the essence of the Creator.

Consequently, I create the Creator by myself since I build a vessel in which I can feel the attributes of the upper. It is possible to feel ZA inside Malchut according to their equivalence of form, according to their adhesion and adaptation.

This means that I create the Creator by myself but not in anyway I feel like, like in the external religions, where every nation has created its own image of god or has made a certain human being a god.

We create this image opposite our own nature, which means that it can never be simply created in our imagination or in our desire. What is more, we yearn for the equivalence of form and only when we adapt our attributes to some extent, will we be able to feel that we have created the Creator inside us. This is the reason that we are called man (Adam), stemming from the Hebrew word “Domeh” to resemble the Creator.

The Creator, Bore (Bo-Re) means come and see, but we have to come from inside our desires and our feelings. The Creator doesn’t exist outside my desire. I feel and discover Him to the extent that I understand and perceive and can imagine inside the desire that He has created.

I cannot speak about Him as such, but only about what I perceive and attribute to Him. This is a huge difference. I correct my vessel until it resonates with the upper force. Then I perceive something in my attributes that I believe to be the Creator. This image actually exists only with regard to me.

This is the reason that the Creator is called come and see: come and change yourself until you can see. But what do you see? Your corrected attributes that resemble Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Closest Particles Of The Immense Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is preferable, to develop each friend individually or to magnify the image of the ideal group?

Answer: It is also necessary to develop each friend. But if you have a large group, this could be complicated because you know some and with some you do not. It is not important. Their participation in the general common work already testifies that you accept them as the people closest to you.

Imagine that every person sitting here, both men and women, are the closest particles in the huge collective soul; so we have gathered like this. I am from the previous level, you are from the next level, but all of us are connected. Imagine all the generations and incarnations, an immense soul, billions of billions of particles.

After all, each one of us is changing rapidly every second. And each time he is a new person with a new soul. The body remains the same, whereas inside of us we pass through states much faster than an electron orbits an atom. Every state is new.

From all of the states, from all of the souls, the billions of particles that there are in all the generations, we have each other—the closest. That is what we need to think about the group and that is how to relate to the friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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A Centaur Becomes A Man

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible to explain the Wisdom of Kabbalah in the language of modern sociology?

Answer: What else is the wisdom of Kabbalah involved with if not sociology? Sociology is a science about the structure of society. But the wisdom of Kabbalah also talks about how to raise the society to the next level.

We, like the rest of nature, develop from inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and reach the level of a beast that looks like a man, like a centaur with the head of man and the body of a horse. We exist in a form like this. But today our head works for the body.

And we must transform the situation so that the body will work for the head, for the sake of an idea. This is already another level—the level of Adam (Man), which doesn’t exist in our world. In other words, the body, all of our beastly life, must be directed towards elevating the head, the ideals and the goals of the next level.

We have reached a state where the power of nature that moves us (the Creator) has stopped pushing humanity forward. It no longer forces us to advance because we must now advance through our own powers—rising to the next stage, to the next level. And at the level we are on now there is only one problem: the more we dwell on it, the worse it will be.

As we have developed, we have always preferred some new form of social system. Throughout the history of humanity, creating new forms of this system, we gradually discover its deficiencies, and then start feeling it as intolerable, and so we make revolutions: either peaceful, a psychological revolution, or by force, and that is how we have advanced, giving birth to the next level.

We did all of this involuntarily, driven by the force of nature (the Creator) that pushes us forward. It always showed us the next stage. But this is not happening now. The next stage stands before us, but it is not clear to us at all because it is completely different; it is an altruistic stage. It is discovered as a need for complete connection, mutual collective dependence among us, and we don’t understand how to do this.

Now we are gradually beginning to understand the insignificance, the destructiveness of how much our miserable and destructive situation—it is overripe. And if we continue to remain in it, we will only increase the suffering. And the next stage must be revealed in any case. But how much suffering is required to reach it?! Therefore, we need to disseminate, otherwise humanity will sink into terrible suffering.

It is possible to reach the next state only from a general desire, and not from some decision. Therefore unlike the previous stages, we must continue to develop consciously. It is up to us to understand this clearly.

So we must disseminate, otherwise the world will plunge into great problems. We must do everything that is in our ability, and we will see that this works despite the fact that we are few.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Recharged By The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we come to Israel for conventions and holidays, we feel a unique connection and happiness. And when we return home, everything becomes exactly the opposite. Why does that happen?

Answer: When I go abroad, I am not affected by the change of location and society. I can enjoy the beautiful views, but all the time I am inside myself. My personal micro-climate does not change.

But your problem is that when you go somewhere, you immerse into the local atmosphere and fall under a strong influence from the outside that knocks you off track.

It is necessary to get less caught up with the influence of the surrounding society. Suppose that around you someone is spinning, running, doing something while you need to remain one step higher and live within completely different thoughts and expectations. You must learn to do this.

If you want to reach this as fast as possible, then you must be recharged by the group, and when you leave the lesson in the morning, you need to be afraid of losing that warmth, that group feeling that appears in you as a result of the lesson. After all, our classes are required only to invite the Upper Light onto the desire to connect.

The yearning for unity comes before everything. After that the Light must arrive according to your prayer. And after that, in the connection between you, we begin to feel the Creator. You must be in this work all the time.

But if you fall under the influence of the external egoistic field, this indicates that you have not advanced. Throughout the day you must return to the need for feeling the center of the group at least several times.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Does Sin Exist?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf the anointed Cohen [priest] sins, bringing guilt to the people, then he shall bring for his sin which he has committed, an unblemished young bull as a sin offering to the Lord.

If a leader [of Israel] sins and unintentionally commits one of all the commandments of the Lord, which may not be committed, incurring guilt;

If one person of the people of the land commits a sin unintentionally, by his committing one of the commandments of the Lord which may not be committed, incurring guilt;

if his sin that he committed is made known to him, he shall bring his sacrifice: an unblemished female goat, for his sin that he committed. (Leviticus 4:3, 22, 27, 28)

Question: What is this chain that begins with the priest and ends with the common man?

Answer: This is the gradation of desires in a person according to the ego that is revealed in him.

The fact is there is no sin. Nobody is guilty because all sins derive from our original state. As it is written: “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice for it; for the Light in it will return him to the good” (Kiddushin 30b).

If we study the Torah correctly, in a circle, in friendship, under special conditions, then through this we awaken the influence of the unique power of the characteristic of bestowal on ourselves. The Light of the Torah influences us and helps to change the property of reception to bestowal, passing from an individual nature to altruism.

So if a person puts himself into a particular society and works on himself in a circle of friends, all of our sins are gradually revealed in us. At the time of receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai, it became clear that the Light of Torah acts on people only on condition that they yearn for connection, for mutual Arvut (guarantee).  “Torah” is derived from the word “Ohr” (Light).

The circle in which we clarify things symbolizes the position around our immense ego and our work with it. And if we want to rise above the ego, then the point of connection between us, called “Moses,” goes up the mountain and enters into contact with the Creator. This point is our spiritual guide.

All of the egoistic desires are called Egypt. First we exit them, receive instructions, the Torah, on Mount Sinai, which is the means for their correction, and begin to connect. And when we want to connect more, we discover the Sinai desert, “mutual hatred” (“Sina” – hatred), and along with this we yearn for connection. And yet, the more that we aspire to connection, the stronger is the rejection that we discover.

All of Egypt (our ego) begins to be discovered in us again. This is what we call the “sins” that are discovered in us. And they were all prepared from the start; so everything that is revealed in a person is what was prepared for him. And we ourselves don’t commit any sin.

In the Torah is written all the laws of purity, correction, of our internal “sins” that were prepared for us from the start. As has been said, “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice.” This evil inclination is gradually discovered in us and we correct it for the good through yearning for connection and approaching the Upper Light.
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From KabTV’s Secrets of the Eternal Book 11/27/15

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Carry The Good For The People

Laitman_931-01The Zohar, “Sulam Commentary,” Chapter “BaHar”: “Live in the country…” “Live in the country” refers to the highest country, Malchut, for there is no man in the world who can live in Malchut until the good awakes in it, Yesod of Zeir Anpin, since Malchut without Yesod is full of harsh courts.

When a man awoke him with his good deeds, it seemed that he had “created it” on his own. Then, they say, “live in the country,” live within it, that is in Malchut, and eat its fruits and be happy with it.

Malchut of Atzilut is this common, single, and only soul. If, by rushing for the goodness and love, and wishing them to all the rest, I can connect myself with all the creatures (inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature) into a single entity, then I will be included in Malchut.

It is entirely possible that, at first, I could join it with some of my egoism, perhaps with its tenth part. This means that it is how much I will be able to connect to Malchut, causing it to move toward the next level, Zeir Anpin, where there is the highest Light. Zeir Anpin will fulfill the part that I have made in Malchut by its good intention.

The purpose of our correction is a one hundred percent arrival into the whole soul, into Malchut. Therefore, if I awake the common desire in the soul for goodness and love, then I take my own little place in it, my point. Then, my motivation rises above and manifests the higher Light upon this point, the Light that accumulates inside Malchut.

That is, we rise up to it from below, and the Upper Light descends into it from above, and then it is filled with our good wishes and the Upper Light. This ends our earthly existence, and we become inhabitants of the world of Infinity.

The goal of each and every one of us is to correct ourselves up to this state and rise to the world of Infinity. We are on the way to the goal, connecting to Malchut with all of the feelings, thoughts, desires, and gradually going through the 125 spiritual degrees because there are 125 egoistic thresholds within us.

Question: In order to rise up, we need to manifest a state of love and kindness. How does this relate to the unity between us?

Answer: Only a unity with all of the others and striving to connect to the world, to carry the good for the people through myself, will I get the opportunity to enter Malchut. Only in this way will I be able to contact my soul. Otherwise, I do not have a soul. Otherwise, I am just an egoist, an animal.

Through the love of my neighbor I move toward the love for the Creator, and, in the desire to carry the good for others, I rush to receive the higher Light in order to pass it through me onto them. Only in this case do I conquer a part of my soul.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/14

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An Oath That Cannot Be Broken

laitman_528_02The Torah, “Leviticus,” 23:24 – 23:25: …In the seventh month, on the first of the month, it shall be a Sabbath for you, a remembrance of [Israel through] the shofar blast a holy occasion. You shall not perform any work of labor, and you shall offer up a fire offering to the Lord.

A person is a desire to receive, to enjoy. There is nothing in him but an egoistic desire. This means that he has to limit himself in some way and to sacrifice his ego. I, for example, stopped smoking, if it can count as a sacrifice of certain pleasures.

Actually it isn’t a sacrifice, but a simple calculation: I want to be healthier, which means that under the influence of the environment a person calculates what is more beneficial and the environment increases the benefits of this specific action. That is what happened when I stopped smoking. I got together with a couple of friends and we swore to each other that we would stop smoking. Everyone threw his pack of cigarettes into the center of the circle and then we swore that we were committed to keep the oath.

In other words, if I promised my friends in the circle, I have to keep my promise since it was a spiritual action that I was about to perform with the friends I came to this unified decision with. I wanted to establish an even greater connection with them through that action, which is the preparation for the feeling of the revelation of the Creator, and so I see it as a spiritual action.

There is no greater treason than breaking a promise because it is exchanging one state with another when we raise the earthly decision to the spiritual level. Generally speaking with such a yearning for unity, we can commit ourselves to anything and it will be achieved. This already depends on the people.

Question: Why do people sometimes break their promise?

Answer: A person tears himself from the circle. There are two approaches that he should constantly renew internally and even cultivate: First, he holds on to the point of view that now he is much more than whole, perfect, purer, and higher compared to the state he was in previously when he smoked, for example, and thus reaches a new level. Second, he has to constantly feel that he is in front of his friends and that he cannot betray them since the Creator is a witness to this oath.

If I keep cheering myself that I am on a higher level than I was previously, or that I am facing the friends and promise them (actually not to them, but to myself) that I will never have another cigarette, it gives me power and then I feel that nothing is too difficult. I know that I could suffer terribly if it weren’t for the friends, since a person’s physiology doesn’tchange. But it is actually because I imagine that I am committed to them that I have no problem.

For us it was a remembrance of Israel. We realized that we had gathered not simply in order to stop smoking but that we could also use this means (the group) in order to purify ourselves or to even realize that it was possible, with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah and our advancement forward.

Question: What does the Shofar blast refer to in this case?

Answer: The Shofar blast refers to something that cannot be expressed, which stems from the heart, not of an individual but of everyone together. The Shofar blast symbolizes this state, which stems from Malchut that wants the Creator to appear in order to perform a spiritual connection and to give birth to the next level.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/11/14

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A Deficiency Worthy Of Our Effort

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have to try hard and do our best in order to advance towards the goal of creation. After all, this road is much more than our natural development.

A Hard Nut

Nature pushes us forward and develops different desires and deficiencies in us, and we, of course, chase after and search for what we lack. What we lack are pleasures that are associated with food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge,

This is also how monkeys constantly take care of their needs, and their list of needs  similar to ours. In fact, we have a common lifestyle: We establish the same social hierarchy in human society; we love power, and in addition to that we love money. Nature obliges us to do so and this is how we advance.

But we haven’t advanced in any significant manner in this natural way and haven’t changed human society in any meaningful way in the last five to fifty thousand years.

If we speak about the goal of creation, however, it is about becoming similar and equal to the Creator, about adhering to Him. The Creator is a force that is opposite to our nature. We have a slight inclination to it that is tightly wrapped in a variety of “robes,” which is very subtle, covered by a shell like a nut.

To reach the goal of creation, we have to be equipped with a new deficiency not provided for by nature. This deficiency, the yearning for the goal of creation, will not grow in us by itself; we need to develop it inside us by our own efforts, of course with the help of the means we were given: a society, a method (the Torah), and the teacher.

The problem is that very few people want that, even less tend to the real search, and even less attain what is desired.

Coming Out of the Jungle

The truth is that today things are changing because we are facing global blows that threaten all of humanity. These blows have forced us to think about a new society that is not arranged according to a hierarchy or social classes that always raise those who are richer and more powerful.

Things are similarly arranged in the animate world. Generally speaking, this is the natural structure of a group, a nation, a society, humanity: the biggest baboon beats his chest and demands submission and obedience from others. We are the same: living in a general jungle divided into packs.

But the new nature, the goal of creation, demands a new organization and reformation from us; it demands that we become a circle, connected, one society. It demands new values based not even on desires for knowledge, which also give a little force, but on love and bestowal, on general mutual care.

It requires everyone to be on par with each other rather than seeking to dominate one another. In contrast to the old paradigm, the more a person exits himself further toward care for others, he can become more adapted to the real goal of our evolution, which is what we should reach.

It is time to be equipped with a new deficiency that becomes a circle, connection outside myself where I have no self interests.

The Birth of Man

But for me to flourish, something called Adam (man) needs to be revealed; there is a need for a different environment that provides me with the right examples of the new values. Where can I get the need for that? Nature doesn’t equip me with it because otherwise I would remain a baboon albeit of another kind.

However, a human being is not only a different social structure and not only equality with others. No, it is an attitude, an inclination; this relationship, mutual connection, must be conscious on my part so that I should want bestowal because of its special value. Moreover, I have no inclination for it, no power that awakens me and obliges me to want it.

Here we should somehow be equipped with a desire, with a new direction, for which we have no desire. In order to do so, there is the upper force, nature, the plan of creation that prepares an aid for me in an opposite manner so that during the process of the recognition of evil, I will still be able to understand who and what I am. And gradually, through quite difficult phases in the order of cause and effect, I will understand what deficiency I have to develop inside me in order to continue my advancement above it.

When I understand the problem I am facing in constructing a human being from the state of a baboon, I regard this new deficiency as a very valuable thing. If it is revealed in me, at least to some extent, I am very happy because this is how a human being is born that is ready to ascend above the creation.

The Exact Opposite

We have to relate to the deficiency that appears in us through the evil inclination that the Creator has created. It is called by different names: Pharaoh, Bilam, Balak, and Amalek. There are 70 names for the evil inclination, and on every level and in every state, they serve as help against opposition to the goal and enable me to advance towards it.

This help invokes an inclination, an urge in me, that is focused precisely on the goal. It helps me in a qualitative manner so that I will gradually understand how different this new goal is from my current feelings and mind. Therefore, we have to relate to all the disruptions that are invoked in us with great sensitivity.

Red Days on the Calendar

The same thing refers to all the Jewish holidays and the red days on the calendar. Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Tu Bishvat, Purim, Pesach, Lag Ba’omer, Shavuot, and the 9th of Av are all states along the way in which a new deficiency is revealed, a revelation of new evil that allows us to use it correctly, intentionally, and consciously.

It is revealed within us in this manner so that we will be free in our advancement towards our goal in a conscious manner, like human beings and not like baboons that nature pushes and who run ahead only by the force of the ego. We discover several forces and the balance between them.

The main thing we learn from these holidays is which special deficiencies we need to discover in order to ascend to every level that the holidays and special days represent. They require a deficiency that is focused on attaining the goal.

This deficiency stems from the human level that is external to us. If we look correctly at the problems that arise, we will discern the help against the creative force within them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/02/15, Writings of Rabash

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Dissemination Action Is Not Easy

laitman_254_02Question: Why do many Kabbalah groups not study Baal HaSulam’s articles such as the “Giving of the Torah,” “Arvut,” etc., but  concentrate on Talmud Eser Sefirot (TES) and The Book of Zohar?

Answer: It is because it does not force them to do anything. By studying TES or The Book of Zohar, they don’t think about the main commandment which is “Love Thy Friend as Thyself,” which has to spread throughout all of Israel. This is because the nation of Israel, and later the whole world, needs to return to general unity, to the Creator.

Question: Do we see at least some movement and progress towards it from them? If, for example, I am occupied with my most corrected thoughts in doing some physical commandment, do I by that correct my relation with the friends or my attitude towards the world?

Answer: With my being occupied only in self-correction, I become a bigger egoist because I feel as if I am doing something. And remember, when a man is pulled to dissemination, he initially feels a huge resistance to it until he begins to feel that precisely in this action lies the foundation of correction. We don’t have any other way than to disseminate to large audiences, which is for us the main thing. As it is written: “When will the Messiah come? When the Torah will be disseminated in the whole nation.”

If we put ourselves into the action of strict commandments with intentions without understanding their inner meanings, then we narrow and restrict ourselves so much that we would never be able to go out to the people with this method. They would not receive or understand us; rather, they would perceive us as a cult or as just religious people that in addition to all the rest also study the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/14/15

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A Deficiency For The Image Of The One Who Bestows

laitman_236_01Question: What is a deficiency for resembling the Creator? What should I yearn for?

Answer: I have to find out what form of the one who bestows should be revealed under the conditions of each and every concealment when I feel that something hurts or when something goes wrong. If a certain deficiency, meaning that I feel that I lack something, is revealed in this world, which is all my desire, it means that I lack only one thing: the revelation of the Creator.

But I have to determine in exactly what way. I don’t simply cry out that I feel bad. This is totally wrong. I am even glad that I feel a deficiency and am thankful for the mind and feelings that I was given that allow me to understand that it is a deficiency for the Creator. It was done on purpose so that I will pay attention to Him.

Thus, I develop a deficiency for the image of the one who bestows, not in order to feel good in my ego, but in order to have the opportunity to discover the Creator and to delight Him. I don’t even want to feel that; I don’t want to receive a reward this way.
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From 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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