Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

The Rapid Growth Of The Ego In Society

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Psychologists claim that 20 to 30 percent of the people living in our society are categorized as mentally ill. They are not a special threat to society and are not harmful, and so they can live among us. What does this phenomenon mean?

Answer: We all know that people who need to concentrate in order to solve difficult problems or to perform dangerous missions undergo special training. They practice under special conditions and according to a special program. When they have carried out their mission, they are allowed to rest so that they can restore their powers and get back to normal life.

We, on the other hand, are in a constant race for survival all our life. A worrisome reaction sinks into our subconscious and penetrates different systems, is processed and kept in our memory. This relates to everything that comes from the environment and thus our natural systems cannot cope with such so many problems that continue to get deeper and wider in scope.

Comment: At the same time, we claim that the society is more developed and more cultured.

Answer: Our society has become worse and more egoistic. It is especially evident among children. In kindergarten children are already competitive. At the age of three or four they are as mentally developed as eight or nine-year-old children were in the past. If in the past a child needed the company of his peers at the age of six or seven, today kids play with each other at the age of two or three.

They already have social skills and habits and they begin to compete and to adopt the desires of others, not to mention what goes on in school. In the classrooms, there is the class queen and the class hero and those who are popular and those who are rejected. This didn’t exist 40 or 50 years ago when kids were much more naive.

Such phenomena are a result of the influence of television and the movie industry. It seems that kids today are used to it, but in fact they are under great internal emotional pressure and monstrous feelings, starting from kindergarten.

Question: What can we do about it?

Answer: Look at what psychologists do. They gather people in small groups so that the participants will mutually support one another. By this mutual effect, they establish a protective wall behind which they exist. People come like frightened animals and unite into a group by holding on to one another. Then they feel that they are safer

We establish a society that serves as a wall for everyone who is incorporated in it by holding lectures, workshops, and discussions at roundtables. In this society, we not only find protection, but also a positive influence.

Question: Our whole life seems to be an endless competition, a continuous chase, that we cannot escape. Can there be positive competitions and how can we fulfill this?

Answer: The ego pushes us to compete, but society is dependent on how we fulfill these competitions. We don’t need to destroy any natural inclination that we have. Compete with one another as to who helps others more, who loves, smiles, and makes others feel good. Everything depends on the ability of society to see certain values as higher than others. Competitive sports are also a good idea.

We have to think of how to fill these inclinations and not just let a person manage them by himself. The whole game industry can still be relevant, but in a healthy manner. The inclination to gamble and look for adventures is natural and stems from our animate level to hunt and bring home prey.

Therefore, we should allow people to compete with each other and to participate in games, but these should be beneficial games. This is the essence.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/21/14

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The Principle Of Dissemination

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Midrash Gadol tells us that Moses passed on the Godly reproof and instructions to the people. First he taught his brother Aaron privately, taking into account his high level of understanding.

Then he invited the sons of Aaron, and in the presence of their father, began to explain the Torah to them on a level that they could grasp. The elders joined them, followed by the men, and finally the whole nation of Israel, including the women and the children.

How does the descent to the people, when it is already possible to tell all of them about the Kabbalistic method, take place?

Answer: Considering the organization of our group and our pace of advancement, we see that it has been many years before we began to actually understand and feel the inner material, to speak about the meaning of unity and connection, and how it should be fulfilled among us and how it should be fulfilled among the masses.

Now we begin to gradually organize discussion circles among the people and to explain why connection and unity are the answers to all our problems. This is the idea of our dissemination.

People who have a point in the heart, like Aaron, his sons, and the elders can reveal a relatively deep meaning of the spiritual method.

Men (Gever – from the Hebrew word to overcome), which means those who can overcome their ego, can be taught a bit less.

It is only afterward that the people can be approached: the women, the elderly, and the children (which are all spiritual categories of people on different levels of development), those who cannot seriously work on themselves. But thanks to their mass and by joining all the other levels of society that are already corrected, it can be explained them so that they will also receive the Light of correction and become holy.

This means that the spiritual advancement is from the top down according to a pyramid hierarchy. First Aaron is taught, then his children, the elders, the men, and the rest of the people. Then all the layers of society work together.

It is impossible to develop a broad range of training without an increasingly deeper and tighter connection with the previous inner circles. Therefore, Moses and Aaron need to constantly increase and intensify the connection. not only between themselves, but also with the elders and the men, so that they will have the power to work with the people.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/26/14

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Internality Or Externality?

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” section 71: The reason for their words is, as we have explained, that when all those who engage in the Torah degrade their own internality and the internality of the Torah, leaving it as though it were redundant in the world… by that, they intensify their own externality.

Also, the externality in the nations of the world—the destructors among them—intensify and revoke the internality among them, which are the righteous of the nations of the world.

Additionally, the externality of the entire world, being the nations of the world, intensify and revoke the children of Israel—the internality of the world.

In such a generation, all the destructors among the nations of the world raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the children of Israel.

Each of us remainders should take upon himself, heart and soul, to henceforth intensify the internality of the Torah, and give it its rightful place, according to its merit over the externality of the Torah. And then, each and every one of us will be rewarded with intensifying his own internality, meaning the Israel within us, which is the needs of the soul over our own externality, which is the nations of the world within us, that is, the needs of the body.

Also, the internality of the nations of the world, the righteous of the nations of the world, will overpower and submit their externality, which are the destructors. And the internality of the world, too, which are Israel, shall rise in all their merit and virtue over the externality of the world, which are the nations.

At the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam emphasizes only one thing, what do we learn: internality or externality?

Together with this, our study is connected directly to realization. If we learn externality, then we realize externality, and if we learn internality, then we realize internality. And in this way, we really transform the world from its feet to its head or from its head to its feet.

Everything depends only on this. Learning correctly makes it possible for us to attract the Light that Reforms, and so we begin to understand more and to organize ourselves and the whole world according to the higher power.

Here the explanations of Baal HaSulam leave us no possibility of evading the answer. He puts things very clearly. So each and every one, as much as he is prepared, must be involved with the internality of the Torah, its inner message and realization by using The Book of Zohar and all the books of Kabbalah that Baal HaSulam and Rabash wrote so that we will influence ourselves, the whole world, and all of us together found in a single system.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Secondary Growth Of Terror, Part 3

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today ISIS is attracting a great number of young people from different nations, including those who are not Muslims, but who have suddenly transformed their entire lives. What compels a young modern European to join such a strange organization having such absolutely different characteristics?

Could it be that its “power of attraction” is linked to the emptiness that encompasses the West? As far as it seems, ISIS is ready to provide a feeling of warmth, unity, brotherhood, family, purpose, and satisfaction.

By what means can we attract a young person to us? How could world unity in his eyes tip the balance towards our side instead of the ideas of these Eastern extremists?

Answer: It is necessary to recruit him to another army, an army in which he will fight for equality, a better life for all, and unity that includes a mutual basis for goodness. It is necessary to create special forces, which will be an organization that will overcome ISIS on an ideological front.

This is because we, in fact, are offering world revolution to a person, which is the transformation of the world into a garden of Eden where everyone is equal, happy, and provided with necessities and security for today and tomorrow. Everyone can be in a good mood and think of how to make things good and pleasant for others. There will be a line of balance among us where no one needs to be concerned about what will happen to himself at the present and in the future. Here, our health, children, and all aspects of our lives are okay.

Question: But for the young, sometimes something is required beyond the pastoral, a possibility of going wild, using force, pouring out their energy.

Answer: Well good, a person must fight, but instead of fighting enemies, he fights the ego itself that is not interested and doesn’t want any of this.

Basically I don’t want to unite and connect with others; I don’t feel a particular drive towards this. Yes, I am ready to receive the benefits that we outlined above, but to give something in return, no. So I must struggle with myself for this unity.

Question: Why does ISIS have such a power of attraction?

Answer: This is the power of security. Standing under a black flag, a person is sure that he has support and purpose. So he goes to conquer the world with his head raised proudly.

Question: How is it possible to create a similar positive pride about unity?

Answer: This is through an educational process that we must implement. It is possible to do this.

There is knowledge and there is education, and these two methods must be used here in parallel.

If terrorists are organizing tens of thousands for their own purposes, then we, with the help of various countries and international institutions, are able to reach billions, to hold `relevant conventions and get down to business everywhere in Europe, Africa, America, etc. After all, if we are open and our intentions are clear, we can mobilize enormous resources and support around the world for implementation.

In principle, we are saying to everyone: “There will be no more wars; there will be no more borders. This is one family, except for the terrorists, all of them. They are the only ones we have to rein in at this stage, until they disappear.”

Question: Is there some kind of significance to the fact that one force, one enemy, is threatening all of us, requiring us to unite against it? Will this be used to change global thinking?

Answer: I don’t think that the purpose of our unification must be a war with this force. Uniting against evil means learning some of its characteristics. Certainly the army must stand against the terrorists, but we don’t have any real possibility of stopping them once and for all through this.

So at the same time we, the citizens, must take care of ourselves and must unite with each other.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/7/14

 
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What Is The Consequence Of The Middle East Fire?

Laitman_079_01Question: How should we relate to the recent tragedy in Jerusalem—the terrorist attack at a synagogue that plunged the entire country into mourning?

Answer: We have to understand: All this is happening because we still do not complete creation.

Everywhere in the Kabbalistic books it is explained that we live in a unified system. The still, vegetative, animate, and human nature is one. And the first three levels, the still, vegetative, and animate, are engaged by nature instinctively.

People undergo the same process of development and as a result, they should become similar to the Creator, become as one man with one heart. It is written by the prophet Isaiah: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The people of Israel are at the head of this process. It leads the whole world. Therefore, it is obliged to study the inner part of the Torah, as well as to make it available to all of humanity, starting with itself and then to all people. As Baal HaSulam writes in the article “Messiah’s Shofar,” before deliverance, the nations of the world have to learn about the correction, which is entrusted to the people of Israel. So, we have to disseminate the news about our work everywhere, explaining to everyone what the general system is and what we have to do.

So there is an interaction: We help nations, they help us, and all together we want to revive, to establish the broken network of our mutual connections.

Consequently, our troubles and misfortunes are a sign that we still do not have time to make the method of correction public. Hence, we need to feel a sense of our own guilt.

Indeed, everything depends on us. The “seventy nations of the world,” the seven billion people, except those fifteen million who are called “the people of Israel,” have no free will. As much as we attract the Light, as much as we broadcast the method of correction, to that extent it influences the others.

After all, every second Reshimot continue to intensify and change, even from the time of the breaking, preceding the worlds of BYA and lying in the basis of the birth of Adam HaRishon (First Man). The breaking includes all the vessels. And now we must affect the part called “the nations of the world.” It is impossible to reach correction without the people of Israel working in the current situation. This work should be shown and become clear to everyone. And we must realize it with all our efforts.

Therefore, all our groups, all the friends around the world, have to understand, as much as it is possible, they need to make their contribution, to accept our program of dissemination and implement it. If we can succeed in doing what is entrusted to us, then misfortunes will not outpace the reception of the medication. In other words, we must give people the medicine before they feel the symptoms of the disease. This is our work, and this principle is immutable.

Otherwise, there is nothing we can do about it. After all, today the situation is the same as in Poland and Germany before World War II. Then Kabbalists called the Jews to leave for the land of Israel to escape the massacre. However, no one wanted to hear them; those who stayed were killed.

At present, similar conditions are forming around the world, and Baal HaSulam writes about this possibility of a new world war, and so on. Moreover, even simple logic indicates that WWIII will break out here. If someone really wants to ignite the world, there is no hotter region: On the one hand, there are nuclear weapons, and on the other, there is a powerful external threat, leaving no room for a conventional war.

So far we have managed to stave off our enemies with conventional weapons. But in the long term, we will not be able to overcome them with conventional weapons. And then we will have no other choice, which, in fact, the whole world is awaiting. The American and European elites believe that in this way they will be able to get out of the global crisis, the fatality and mortality of which is still hidden from the eye.

So now we have to go toward the right correction, spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah in the world, so that everyone knows its message. Not everyone should study it; some are responsible for study and implementation, and others will join them. However, at least, to all the Jews in the world and to everyone who wants this, we must reveal all our materials and put them on the right path of development.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Messiah Ben Joseph and Messiah Ben David

Laitman_043Question: Why must Messiah ben Joseph be killed?

Answer: Rav Kook wrote: Messiah ben Joseph reveals the importance of Israel alone, but the goal of Israel is to unite the whole world into one family and call the Lord. Therefore, “Messiah ben Joseph is destined to be killed and Messiah ben David will rule.”

This means that we are still in a period of Messiah ben Joseph, and the need to raise the value of Israel, Yashar- El (straight to the Creator) over all, and because of this, the time will come when we will unite the entire world, will work to Messiah ben David.
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From An Egoistic Connection To A Connection Of Bestowal

laitman_527_03Baal HaSulam, Shamati #19: He said that we must know that there is a matter of importance in the labor, when there is a contact between the individual and the Creator.

It means that one feels that he needs the Creator, since, in the state of labor, one sees that there is no one in the world who can save him from the state he is in but the Creator alone.

This feeling is thanks to the Light. A person feels that the main goal in life in this world is to attain contact with the Creator. Then an additional illumination helps him understand that only the Creator can help him. Then an additional illumination reveals to him that he depends on the environment and that it is the essential condition by which he can call the Creator to help him. Thus, he gradually advances thanks to a certain illumination on a new level that influences him and leads him.

We exit the state of exile and in it we also go through several phases. First a person doesn’t feel any connection with the upper force at all. He has no contact with Him, not even in the form of ordinary religion.

Then people begin to believe in religions and different faiths, miracles and mysticism. A person must go through all those phases. Each time there is a special illumination from Above that grants us with a certain connection with the upper force. This goes on until humanity reaches a stage where it loses any faith in the upper force and believes only in science and in actual facts.

Then we begin to look for a connection with the upper force as rational people and study the Creator as a force. This force governs us and we agree to act mutually in response to it. We only have to clarify the relationship that can connect us.

Eventually a person reached the wisdom of Kabbalah and begins to work. This raises him to a totally different level of connection with the upper force. It isn’t thanks to his faith or different rituals anymore, but thanks to the change of his internal desire.

Then he is in adhesion with the Creator, meaning that one’s entire thought is of the Creator, meaning that He will help him. Otherwise one sees that he is lost.

This is the same attitude when people were very religious and believed in the Creator ages ago. A person also felt that he was totally dependent on the Creator, on God’s will. If the Creator was merciful, a person would live, but if the Creator didn’t help him, his life would be over.

Now we have to reach the same attitude, that if the Creator helps us we will live and if the Creator doesn’t help us, it means death. We only give a different meaning to the concepts of life and death: life means adhesion with the Creator, mutual bestowal, while death means remaining in self-love.

We see how all of humanity goes through these phases, from the egoistic approach, from greedy dependence on the upper force, to an altruistic dependence of love of others, of yearning to resemble the Creator.

The Creator says about that, “My sons defeated Me.” That is, I gave you the will to receive, and you ask of Me to give you a will to bestow instead.

A person worries about being independent because otherwise he cannot bring the Creator contentment. Who else can bring the Creator contentment? Only a person who can remain independent and separate from the Creator by his ego. He keeps his desire to enjoy and only restricts it and doesn’t allow it to adhere to the Creator egoistically.

He adheres to the Creator with the desire to bestow that he develops above the restriction. Thus he remains independent and the same time reaches adhesion.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/14, Shamati #19

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The Main Thing Is Confidence That Everything Will Be Alright!

Laitman_514_02Shamati #72, “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”: However, when the Light of life leaves him, which is considered that he has descended from his previous level of vitality, then he becomes clever and inquisitive. He begins to calculate the profitability of everything, is it worthwhile to do it or not.

The Light of vitality is the Light of bestowal, life with love for others; this speaks about a person as a substance, which on one hand, the force of the desire to receive operates and influences. Because of this, he wants to get everything for himself. On the other hand, the force of the desire to bestow enters him and neutralizes the desire to receive and then he even wants to bestow.

So a person is found between two forces. As it is said about two holding a Tallit, this being the person, and each one pulls him to it. The two forces are holding the person: the evil inclination and the good inclination, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow.

And the person must see himself neutrally. This means that he is responsible for both the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, both of which speak within him.

The Torah also describes this as follows. It is as if there was an old and foolish king and a small and wise child. The old king is the desire to receive whose rule we are used to. And the little child is the desire to bestow that is born only after a person matures and only according to his request.

We are constantly found under the influence of these two forces operating in our substance. From the balance of these two forces, which of them wins depends on who I will be, how I think, and what side I want.

So this requires critical self-scrutiny, constant self-criticism, to find out what is acting in me at the present moment: Specifically why I am thinking, speaking, and doing this; in this way I discover myself in thought, speech, and action.

And everything is determined according to which force controls me now: the force of reception or the force of bestowal. This means that I imagine myself as being under a bilateral influence and now must ask what the Creator wants from me. I have already begun a spiritual dialog with Him by placing myself as a neutral observer: There is me, the Creator, and the two forces by means of which He activates me.

I scrutinize these two forces and from them try to bring myself to a neutral state, to attribute both of them to the Creator. In this form, I will begin to demand additional corrections from Him beyond these two forces. As a result of this, I will reach adhesion with the Creator by reaching equivalence of form with Him as much as it is possible in my present situation.

The main thing is to feel confident that I am ready to do and to realize this at every moment!  If a person understands that on the one hand, he is managed by the Creator, and on the other hand, he tries to use every means so that with all of his dependencies he will scrutinize and control his state, this means that he is involved in service to the Creator.

In this case, he will precisely scrutinize the actions of the Creator on him. And this is called “service of the Creator”: The Creator carries out all of the work on a person so that he will grow and know what the Creator is doing with him, will learn the actions of the Creator, and will want to behave like Him. So he wants to be like the Creator, become like Him and be called Adam (man), which means that he is similar (Domeh) to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/14, Shamati #72

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A Test On The Attribute Of Holiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “VaYikra,” Kedoshim, item 16: The chapter Kedoshim is the whole of the Torah and it is the seal ring of truth. In this chapter the upper secrets of the Torah are renewed in the Ten Commandments and in decrees and punishments and the upper commandments. And when the friends reached this chapter they rejoiced.

Holy refers to holiness, the attribute of Bina (complete bestowal).

And when the friends reached this chapter they rejoiced, since they reached a level on which all the attributes concealed in them are fully corrected in order to bestow and now they are facing a state of to receive in order to bestow. This isn’t some unstable state that is above the clouds but direct entrance and working within the land of Israel.

The chapter of Kedoshim is the whole of the Torah and it is the seal ring of truth, which means that the whole Torah is meant only to attain the attribute of bestowal. If you hold on to it, you can use it as a seal on different desires and use them correctly. Now you can be sure that you will not go wrong since you are led by bestowal.

Question: So why don’t we stop here?

Answer: No! You haven’t corrected yourself as yet, but have only reached a level on which you are ready to work with the desires that were shattered on purpose so you will be able to correct them in order to bestow.

Let’s suppose that the Creator created a car and shattered it to pieces and you can do whatever you want with those pieces now. There is a manual attached and the first part is theoretical, as usual, and only describes how a person should prepare himself for the work. In this part, you can find mathematics, physics, mechanics, electronics, in short everything you need to know in order to assemble a car.

Having learned that, you test yourself and ascend to the level of Kadosh. Now you can begin to put the car together properly. There will be problems along the way, of course, and you will make mistakes in one part or another, but on the whole you are ready to work.

Therefore, Rabbi Simon’s students, the authors of The Book of Zohar were so glad when they attained that level, since at that level, a person’s real work begins.

Until then, you are like a student who has graduated his studies but hasn’t yet  proven himself in any way. However, you already have a spiritual base with which to work.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/19/14

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The 600,000 Faces Of The Common Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Upper Light, the Creator, made a desire, “something out of nothing,” that is completely opposite to Him. This desire is the only creation that was ever made.

Later, the desire expanded under the influence of the Light and at some point started acting on its own. It aspired to become similar to the Light and considered the Light to be a remedy for achieving this goal through the act of accepting the Light for the sake of bestowal to the very best of the desire’s ability.

The desire is called the soul (Neshama). The maximum amount of Light that the desire can receive for the sake of bestowal is called Nefesh–Ruach–Neshama. The desire cannot receive other Lights, as yet. Only later, at the end of correction, the Lights of Haya and Yechida will enter the desire. Now, the desire is called Neshama, as it bears the name of the maximum Light that it can accommodate.

It means that all of us represent one soul, one desire. In order to make this single desire act independently and acquire similarity with the Creator, it was shattered into many pieces. In essence, it is still the same common desire, but now it perceives itself as being broken into 600,000 splinters. We regard ourselves as one of the fragments of the common desire.

The pieces of the desire continued to splinter to the extent that each creation in this world bears a tiny particle that once constituted a big vessel. Our goal is to get people voluntarily to reconnect all the elements.

When connected, each of the fragments, every single person, feels as one common soul. Each one merges with the rest of the 599,999 particles, thus the entire structure to a full 600,000 is obtained. Through our relations with the rest of the particles, each one of us builds one’s general soul out of 600,000 pieces.

It applies to everybody who merges with other pieces or splinters, followed by one more fragment and then another. So, when we all reconnect, we recreate our soul and together we constitute just one common desire.

By reattaching, we reach a state when we constitute one vessel. Each of us has to correct ourselves completely, i.e., merge with the rest of the pieces. So far, we are trying to connect in tens, but in fact. the same approach applies to the entire vessel, all souls, all of creation, every single person in this world, to those who lived before us and to those who are not yet born and who will show up later, after us. It doesn’t matter when.

All of them are parts of one soul because we connect to them in accordance with our personal qualities. If each of us connects to the rest of the 600,000 parts, we’ll recreate the original unique soul. Each one of us connects with others in a way that nobody else can and every person merges with others in a way that no other particle can do in the same fashion. This is why each one of us is so important!

During the process of linking with each other, we have to constantly keep in mind that even though at this time we merge with a small ten, we still are preparing to bond with the rest of creation through our tens. This is called one soul.

If we act within our group of ten with this intention, it will be sufficient for attaining the revelation of the common soul within this group.
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From the Convention In Los Angeles “Day Two” 11/01/14, lesson 4

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