Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

The Reward Is Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A very famous actress asked for an explanation of the meaning of connection so that it would not become a “collection of clowns.” She and her whole family watch Channel 66, but this concept still remains unclear for them.

Answer: The “people of Israel” are the first part of humanity to receive an additional need and are not willing to live only in the service of its ego on the physical, beastly, earthly level. In “Israel” there is an additional spark that connects it with the Creator, with the origin of the Light. So it cannot be satisfied with physical life on the earthly plane; it must connect with the higher source.

In order to attain spiritual fulfillment, connection with the upper source, we are compelled to be connected among us, meaning to connect our sparks. Thus, our work is on two planes. Work on the physical plane is directed at satisfying a reasonable existence, without excesses, but also without deprivation.

All other efforts must be directed at spiritual elevation that depends fully on acquiring a need for connection, not the attainment of the connection itself but for a desire for it. The connection itself will come later, thanks to the Upper Light.

“Israel” is also divided into two parts. One part feels an attraction towards attaining the spiritual world and includes various people, not only from among the physical people of Israel, but also from other nations. This is due to the mutual integration of souls after the destruction of the Temple and the exile that followed.

In the meantime, these are egoistic desires to attain the Creator, and these desires are clothed in our ego. So we want to reach the Creator in order to enjoy that, to be filled, to feel Him, to discover Olam HaBa (the world to come), to rise above death.

But after that. we begin to understand that all of this is achieved with the desire to bestow. Therefore, all the questions that we ask in the beginning about attaining the spiritual world become invalid. So a person passes through a very serious internal crisis, endures descents and disappointments in his ego.

This is because he suddenly understands that he doesn’t get egoistic fulfillment, but specifically the opposite; he must have self-realization in an opposite form, in bestowal. Thus, step by step, we begin to approach the truth, which is not easy. In the end, we must be ready to abandon our ego in order to attain the Creator. “To attain” doesn’t mean to catch or grab Him, rather the opposite, to sacrifice yourself, to give yourself over to Him, to be devoted to the Creator.

And here it will be clear that it is not in our ability to do this at all because we are absolute egoists. The only thing we can do is to understand that such an action is carried out by  the Light that Reforms, which transforms our understanding, consciousness, and values.

We begin to appreciate bestowal more than reception and prefer it, and that is how bestowal becomes a reward for us. We want to be bestowers, to be freed from all egoistic gain and be devoted to the service of everyone, and through them, the Creator, in order to give Him contentment. This is what is specifically called connection.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/14

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The Fragments Of The Shattered Vessel

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach of us is a particle, a fragment of the shattered vessel. If we could connect, we would become Malchut of the world of Infinity and we would feel ourselves as one soul filled with infinite Light.

But there was a shattering when the Light of Ein Sof entered the desire it had created and blew it up from the inside by filling it with the intensity of the Creator, of the Emanator. Thus the Creator inserted His desire to do good into the created beings.

It turns out that our small desire expanded all at once by 620 times than it was before, and with all this intensity, the desire drew the Light into it in order to receive, but it wasn’t protected by the conditions of the first restriction or by a Masach (screen).

As a result, there was an explosion and the desire was shattered into many fragments. Even before that it was made of many pieces: five types of desire , meaning the levels of the root phase, phase one, two, three and four ,which are different in quantity and in quality, although it had never previously felt that it was divided.

Every level is divided into five other parts and then into five other parts, etc., and the result is a huge number of particles. In every particle there is a desire that is different from the others both in quality and in quantity. The distance between the desires is the difference between the parts, and this is the reason that no one understands each other.

Because everyone is separated from the others, no one can feel his own reality since reality is felt in the whole vessel, or at least in the connection between two, when each one feels his reality in the other. The more parts one can connect to himself, the more strongly he can feel the reality. In order to reach this correction, we are in a state called this world, and by actions of connection, we draw back the great Light that left us, so that it will influence us and correct things.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/14

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The Light Will Illuminate The Next Step

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we do in order to not miss any opportunity to act independently?

Answer: You can identify such opportunities only in the environment. I constantly look for how to improve and be useful to the environment, to the world. If I yearn for that, I get the opportunities.

If a person is passive and thinks that there is nothing he can do, he will not identify the opportunities he is given. But if he pressures himself and looks for how to do good and be helpful, he finds the opportunities. It is just as we disseminate now in many countries, participate in book fairs, and organize workshops in workplaces and in people’s homes.

We are on a constant search and we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I emphasize this on purpose, so that you will learn to feel that way. It is the Upper Light that has to illuminate everything and show us the right way for today and for tomorrow.

I don’t know what will happen in the future and I don’t want to know. Such a desire is already a sign of the ego. If you want to bestow, you should do it right now and right here. Do your utmost wherever you can. This is called bestowal. If you calculate things and think that perhaps not now, perhaps later, it isn’t bestowal anymore.

Do everything today and then the Upper Light will arrive according to your state and will give you the mind and the heart to understand what your next step should be. This is how it is.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Commitment To The Spiritual Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we regard the position of a person who thinks that, even if he doesn’t attain the spiritual level, he is at least advancing toward it?

Answer: This is also praiseworthy. Every person can show signs of weakness, “I probably don’t have the strength. It seems like it’s not for me, but for strong-willed people.” But eventually everyone understands that there is no weaker person than himself and there is no more successful person than himself.

Question: What did you feel when you had just begun your spiritual path, and when you progressed along the path?

Answer: When I began, I was absolutely sure that I would tear everything to pieces and attain the goal! Then, there were short periods, but many, when I felt total despair.

I remember going with my teacher to Tiberias. He slept at night while I sat on the balcony every night looking at the lake, listening to crickets and smoking entire packs of cigarettes. I felt that I was incapable of anything and that nothing would become of me.

These are terrible states—absolute physical, moral, and spiritual weakness. However, everyone goes through this, even if he is with a teacher or in a group. You cannot escape this. However, each of us should have the support of the group. We need the group. It works for me and I work for it, and so we help one another.

Question: Have you ever felt like throwing everything away and leaving?

Answer: Never. Once, when I was in Canada, I was taken to different places and shown places where I was offered a house to buy with a private lake and a forest nearby. I could do it and, as I was told, could live in peace, without thinking about anything.

However, never for a moment did the thought of accepting to leave cross my mind. I understood that the Creator was only playing with me, and, so, I pretended to agree, but never thought of leaving the spiritual path.

In such cases, you must let go and wait, and engage in some daily work, write something and process material. When I feel that I have no more power, I take an article by Baal HaSulam or Rabash and begin to edit it and rewrite it. It is pointless to copy it since you will only ruin everything, but, at the same time, you digest it internally. I think this kind of work is very beneficial.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/14

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In The Thick Force Field Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe should be trying to decipher the Creator’s game and get closer to the real picture. And then we will feel that we are in the force field of bestowal, like in a cloud. As it says: “His glory fills the world.”

We are all in this force field. The Upper Light fills all of reality and is in a state of absolute rest. We need to develop our vessel so that we begin feeling the upper Light.

In order to do so, we were given our broken nature so that to the extent that we make efforts to connect, we will begin to reveal ourselves in the force field. This field is unified and whole, but we discover it to the extent that the attribute of bestowal develops in us. The more attributes of bestowal inside me, the stronger the feeling of the force field becomes.

This is how the law of equivalence of form works, like in every physical force field, whether it is electric, magnetic, or radioactive. The only difference is that we can identify the forces that operate on the corporeal level naturally or by instruments that we have built.

However, there are forces and attributes that belong to the speaking level, so in order to perceive them, we have to change and to improve. No instrument can help us here. We have to create our own internal instruments by working on our connection and establishing the attribute of bestowal in us in which we feel and discover this field.

The main thing is not to leave, for even a moment, the thought that we are in a field of bestowal, as in a dense medium. It surrounds all our movements, our body, and our feelings, and fills everything,

There is nothing a person cannot feel, we just have to make efforts and practice. Our job is to develop the  sense, the vessel for feeling that field of bestowal, of the Upper Light we are immersed in.

The exercise of “stay away from evil” that we have just begun is also intended to reach this goal. On the whole and in every lesson, we need only to take the Light into account, to what extent we can somehow evoke desires inside us that will help us approach, feel, and touch the upper force. This is the goal of the lesson.

The exercise of staying away from evil is intended to develop the sense of perceiving bestowal in us, by which we will discover that we are in the force field of the upper.

In one of my first books, I describe the feeling of this field with the example of a person who suddenly felt this spontaneously, as a result of great sufferings that he had experienced in a Siberian prison. Later he read my book and came to meet me. It was very interesting to meet him, but I didn’t feel that he have the spiritual life anymore. This is because the revelation wasn’t the consequence of his purposeful work.
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/06/14

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The Last Phase Of The Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanNimrod, the king of Babylon symbolizes the general Malchut. It is the force of receiving about which Pharaoh the king of Egypt says: “The Creator will serve me!” At the same time, Abraham says: “We will serve the Creator.”

This is the reason for the split between Nimrod and Abraham and later between Moses and Pharaoh. The whole dispute is about who will rule, who is the boss. The point of connection between them is created when Israel takes all the gold and silver vessels of Egypt and gradually corrects them during the forty years in the desert, and then even raises them to a level called the land of Israel, and builds the Temple.

This is the point of connection between Bina and Malchut, where the gold and silver vessels that were taken from Egypt ascend to bestowal to the Creator. Then the shattering begins because these vessels are not sufficient for the end of correction. All these vessels belong to GE and in order to perform the correction, there is a need for vessels of AHP, which is why Israel is exiled.

Today, after the exile, we begin to correct the vessels. First we correct the vessels of GE, but in them have collected all the vessels from the depths of AHP, which are all our friends all over the world. It doesn’t matter where they come from and what nationality they are, since now they begin to join GE. Later the AHP that belong to GE will be revealed in us and then the real AHP too.

But the correction is performed differently, not like during the exodus from Babylon and from Egypt. Then GE were corrected separately and later were incorporated in AHP;  they became free of the control of the general AHP and corrected AHP of ascent.

But now the Israeli nation, which corrects itself as GE, already includes the vessels of AHP in it, and so these vessels of GE are enough to correct the real general AHP. The moment the Israeli nation is corrected, the incorporation, the correction, and the filling of the vessels of receiving and of the general AHP will be done through their AHP.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Conception Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Leviticus” (Ki Tazria), 12:1-12:2: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a woman conceives and gives birth to a male, she will be unclean for seven days; as [in] the days of her menstrual flow, she shall be unclean.'”

The section Ki Tazria begins with the story of man and doesn’t tell us about any animals or plants. Man (Adam) is a desire that we can correct to resemble the Creator. Although at first he is egoistic in all his aspirations, motives, thoughts, and actions, in the corrected state, he has to be fully focused on love and bestowal for others.

We have to constantly work on the desires that are invoked in us and correct them with the help of the Upper Light. Then to the extent that we resemble the Creator, He is revealed to us.

The desire is called female since the next level develops from it. “If a woman conceives” means that the desire is focused on working with the inclination of love and bestowal.

First, we have to examine it and to understand whether it is suitable for our advancement towards resembling the Creator and what the elements of the right advancement in this body should be, which means, in this main desire so that its intentions will be changed into love and bestowal. If our advancement is wrong, it is better to stop it and to remain on the previous level.

Thus Tazria means that you shouldn’t simply participate in the process of the conception of the soul, but rather understand how it grows in you and of what attributes it is made. This is called conception.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/14

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Get Rid Of Illusions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I have often heard the friends say: “I will do my best, and if I don’t achieve anything in this life, at least I will follow this path.” Is this the right approach or not? Or should a person say that: “I will attain spirituality in this life !”?

Answer: In this life means on this level. After all, whatever we don’t feel seems to be beyond this life. It also exists, but in another dimension.

Suppose I live in a body and feel my life through it. However, if I work on myself, I bring myself to a state in which I begin to experience additional feelings in life: new attributes, new desires, and new relations on a higher level; the attributes of bestowal  are due to my connection with others. These attributes have nothing to do with my initial desire (not the body but the desire).

Therefore, I simply fulfill myself on the next level by making myself a more sublime creature. If I can do that, the desires of my current level gradually change into more sublime desires.

Why were we given a body that actually has nothing to do with our desires? After all, we could have desires that are external to our body and fulfill them outside the body.

Comment: It is difficult to picture that.

Answer: Why? Is it difficult for you to imagine that I enjoy a cup of coffee without preparing it, pouring it into a cup, and then pouring it down my throat, and feeling some pleasure in it? It is all about sensors, which are attached external factors! It isn’t the drink.

We can insert electrodes into the brain or put on a helmet with electrodes and feel the same sensations. So where am I actually?

The point is that we are impressed by different things, that there are forces that manage us and it seems that we actually move our hands, and speak to one another, but in fact it isn’t so. The matter, that we feel, doesn’t really exist.

Therefore, our first task is to get rid of this illusion and  rise above it. Then our movements will be rational and not silly like a baby who jerks his hands and legs in every direction and cannot control them.

We will begin to work directly with the forces that invoke us and will know how to respond to them. We will be in bilateral relations with them and will see the goal.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/14

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The Right Spiritual Intention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If in going out to people we want to convey a feeling of connection to them, do we need to relate to them in a particular way, let’s say, like parents to their children, with love?

Answer: We need to relate to them as to unique people among all of humanity. Since the Creator brought you into contact specifically with them, you need to open yourself emotionally with regard to them. The emotional intention determines everything.

Question: We are scheduled to go meet with the upper management of the city. But I have personally felt an internal prejudice against them. Can I  go out to people in such a state?

Answer: Absolutely not. The Creator arranges all of this; He constructs all kinds of distortions and contorted faces for you. And you must relate to Him with love. You stand before others as if you are standing before the Creator. This experience has been prepared for you so that you will see that if you don’t love someone and cannot make him love you, it is a sign that you don’t have the right spiritual intention.

Question: The Light carries out all of the actions with the external public. I don’t feel Him, but only see the positive result, which according to my calculations shouldn’t have happened. How does the work of the Light begin and what depends on me so this work will begin?

Answer: In truth, sometimes you feel internal insensitivity, arrogance, and contempt for everyone. Externally you also speak with difficulty. And suddenly you see that people are really excited and  fired up, even though you weren’t quite configured for this.

But the Light operates according to its own laws. This has happened with me more than once, even in the lessons. The Creator arranges all of this to show you that it makes no difference how you perceive everything. He does His work and in order to provide you with an example of this, He gives you states of contempt, arrogance, and so on, while you must rise above them.
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From a conversation at the Sochi Convention 6/9/14

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How One Develops The Sixth Sense

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: With what method can I begin to develop the sixth sense within me that will make it possible for me to see the true world outside of me?

Answer: Within me is my ego through which I feel everything right now. Within it I always perceive everything the way I want to, and in this manner I see this world. And I need to develop an opposite sense that is directed outward not inward.

For this I must connect with some other people and build a shared vessel of perception between us that will be the result of our desire to go out of ourselves and unite. Through our yearning for unity, we build a new altruistic sense between us, common to all of us.

Through our building such a mutual sense,  I begin to see what is happening outside of me and call the picture that I see the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “The Meeting of Worlds” 6/20/14

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