Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

A Fragment Of An Ideal Dream

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Kabbalists say that it is not worthwhile to wait and tolerate the crisis; instead it is necessary to hasten time. It is not necessary to wait until nature itself will evolve for tens or hundreds of years and our life will end without anything, again to be replaced generation after generation. If we have already entered a state of crisis, we can hasten the time through efforts we invest in our development.

Instead of life forcing us to develop, learn, and change ourselves, we can change ourselves voluntarily by our own efforts. Everything depends upon the society I am in.

I must enter into a group that will nourish me energetically, push me forward, and hasten the process. I will take an example from a society that is developing in the right way to attain the goal and the discovery of the Creator, which gives awakening and stimulation and supplies great support.

Then I won’t have any difficulties, as I will also want to develop together with it, and so I will develop. The main thing is to enter into the right environment. So the Kabbalists determined rules for us according to which it is necessary to build this right environment and to exist in it in order to hasten the time.

We must develop from state to state all the time. This ladder has 125 levels. I stand below the bottom and want to rise to the first level, to the second, third, and every level above, growing more and more. For this, I must resemble a higher level, and this is possible by connecting with others more and more.

Ultimately I must return to a linked and unified picture in which all of us are connected as if assembling a puzzle together. Needless to say, connections like these are a pipe dream in the distant future. We can already take some fragment of this ideal dream and begin to work with it, building within it a corrected mini-world.

This world is called a mini-group. If we take ten people and build one complete connection between us, then this will be called a group. If we can connect as one, then we rise to the first spiritual level.

But to rise to the second level is more difficult. For this we need either to increase our quantity a hundredfold (x 100) or among those ten people, we need to attain a connection ten times more intense than the previous connection.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 3

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Practical Ascent On The Spiritual Ladder

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe practical ascent on the spiritual ladder from level to level is realized in this way. Suppose we gather ten people and a mutual rejection force of one kilo operates. If we overcome this rejection, then we rise to the first level.

On the first level we are ten people, as before, but the hatred between us has grown to minus ten kilograms instead of minus one kilogram. This means that it could be that with continued ascent, we will need to work with greater numbers of people. This could be in relation to quality and it could be both in quantity and quality.

A group is some quantity of people who take an obligation upon themselves to be connected as one person with one heart. If we are ready for this, then according to this goal, which we may not have yet achieved, we are already called a Kabbalistic group. The moment we reach the first degree of connection as one, immediately the upper Light is discovered and the Creator is revealed within our connection.

We have worked hard on our ego and have attained this first level, the weakest Light of Nefesh  (Ohr Ha Nefesh) (Light of Soul). After that an even greater egoistic desire is revealed to us that we must work on. Suddenly between us there is a blazing hatred and differences of opinion that we must overcome through even more difficult work. And when we connect, the Ohr Ha Ruach  (Light of Spirit) is revealed.

After this an even greater ego is awakened in us, which in order to overcome and connect, it is necessary to give even greater effort. That is how we discover the Ohr Ha Neshama (Light of Soul), and after this also Haya (the last correction of Malchut) and then Yechida.

The ego grows all the time and we overcome it by connecting more closely and we attain greater and greater revelation of the Creator. These levels are called: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida—NRNHY.

As the ego continues to grow, the work becomes more and more difficult, we are more and more detached from each other, and then we are able to connect to an even greater degree. This is what work in a group is like.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 3

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Delta

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we deal with pain that keeps us on the animal level?

Answer: The Surrounding Light, the Light that Reforms, operates on me, penetrates, and goes through the levels of Aviut (thickness) of my desire: the root phase, phases one, two, three, and four. If the Light reaches only the levels of the root phase, phase one, two, and three, then I am unable to feel any source of Light.

 

In the four phases of Direct Light, the feeling of shame awakened and there was a Tzimtzum (restriction) only on the fourth level of the fourth phase. So the Light has to penetrate all the way to the fourth phase of the desire. If it spreads only through three phases, then I feel pain, but in fourth phase, I feel the source of the pain.

I still feel the pain, but I understand where it comes from. Thus I begin to compare the pain with its source, with the reason. Why did the Creator cause me this pain? For what purpose?

Then I realize that it isn’t pain at all. It isn’t the Creator who causes my pain. I feel pain because I am not corrected; the Creator actually sends me wonderful presents, wanting to embrace and kiss me with love. The Light of love comes to me, but instead I feel pain.

It is like loving a parent who pressures his child and may even slap him, but who does it out of love. I have to change my perception and calculate this delta, the gap between the pain that I feel and its real essence.

I can only do that through the group; there I make this calculation as well as in its relation to the friends. All our relationships with people and especially with the group help us learn how to calculate our relationship with the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Group Is My Voice

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is my dialogue with the Creator connected to a group?

Answer: Through the group I learn the language by which the Creator speaks to me. What I receive through the world is conveyed to me in the language of Kabbalah. Yet I am not ready to answer the Creator by myself because I am not ready to create the world and influence it.

The Creator creates the reality within me, in my brain and emotions, and so I feel the world and myself. This is how the Creator created reality and speaks to me.

So that I will be able to answer Him, I need a different language, my private language. The speech is created with the help of the five parts of the lungs, and five articulations of the mouth, tongue, palate, and throat. There are also different groups of sounds depending on the pronunciation: teeth, palate, throat, lips, and tongue.

The mechanism of speech is a very unique system. It is not by chance that the level of Adam (man) is called the “speaking.” Our brain and our mechanism of speech are tightly connected. Through the throat, the lungs, and the mouth, I convey to others, the thoughts that I have in my brain. And others are able to hear them. This means that there are two separate mechanisms: one for speech and the other, which is completely different, for hearing. These are very profound matters.

I receive the entire picture of reality from the Creator through my five senses, which are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, and I then answer Him. But how am I ready to answer Him if all of my senses work on the basis of receiving information? How should I react to His turning towards me?

I cannot do this by myself, but only by means of a unique Kli (vessel) that I have built for myself called integral desire. This obliges me to bend my ego and connect with the friends, which is completely against my nature.

Even so, I try to do this, and in this way, I build an additional sense through which I can converse with the Creator. This will become my spiritual mouth, and then the Creator will hear me. He speaks with me by way of the entire world within which I am found. And I speak with Him through the integral sense, which is the group. I have no other mechanism through which I can convey information to the Creator.

When I am within the group and connected to it, I activate my inner senses. They begin to activate not my physical senses, like seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, but all of my desires and all of my thoughts. It follows that when I am included in a group, through it I fully activate all of myself and all of my inner aspirations.

Through the center of the group, I send my complete likeness to the Creator, just as He shows me a complete picture of the world and myself through the group in which are integrated all kinds of thoughts and various sensations. I speak with the Creator, “out loud.”

If I were to receive from the Creator the picture that I send to Him by way of the center of the group, I would see that this is also a picture of the world. Indeed this is my reaction to what He arranges for me in my life. The whole essence of the impressions and experiences of myself and the world, from all the experience that I have gathered, passes through the center of the group and is absorbed by the Creator.

That is how we begin to carry on a dialogue. The Creator turns to me in the form of the entire world, including the group and myself, and I turn to Him through the center of the group.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 2

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We Should Not Let Kabbalah Fall into Concealment Again

Dr. Michael LaitmanThroughout its entire history, humanity has advanced due to its egoism. It started 14 billion years ago at the time of the Big Bang after which inanimate matter began developing. Later, plants and animals appeared on the face of Earth. However, now in the 21st century, we are approaching the speaking level.

 

This is why we find ourselves in a major, integral crisis that involves all spheres of our life. We cannot live in peace with our spouses, children, bosses at work, friends, or neighbors, nobody! Even with ourselves!

Hence, we feel absolutely miserable. All the smart and super-complex systems that have been built won’t help us because human society is not balanced with the rest of nature.

There is a gap between humans and nature because the latter is integral, whereas we remain individualists. In other words, there is a “plus” on behalf of nature, and our part, on the contrary, is a “minus.” This difference is so huge that we cannot enjoy our lives. No matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to escape dramatic problems that eventually will unfold.

That’s why in the course of history, the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed from the people, waiting for the time when humanity developed its egoism to a certain level. Starting with ancient Babylon and up to our time (for approximately 3,500 years), Kabbalah was a hidden science.

Humanity progressed without having a clue about the wisdom of Kabbalah. Because humanity failed to implement Kabbalistic knowledge in ancient Babylon, we had to continue advancing our egoism up until this time. Currently, the wisdom is revealed. At this time, we are in the second point of the revelation of Kabbalah . We are the first ones who study it, thus we are receiving a chance to correct ourselves.

If we don’t succeed, our egoistic advancement will proceed for a little longer. Then, the wisdom of Kabbalah will again be concealed for a certain period of time during which terrible catastrophes will take place, such as a third world war, numerous disasters, etc. Afflictions will continue, unfolding until awful tragedies trigger a new revelation of Kabbalah. Complete desperation will eventually force humanity to implement this knowledge.

This is our current state. That’s why we have built a system that allows us to study, implement, and disseminate the methodology. Today, the entire humanity represents a new Babylon. It means that we have to work on our correction because it is the only way to change ourselves.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day One 5/09/14, Lesson 1

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How To Rise Above The Power Of Pain

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are various levels of concealment. Why is it that we sometimes go through states that are so painful that we cannot think of anything besides the pain and thus detach from the Creator?

Answer: At times, the work can be done in the state of concealment; sometimes it is not so. It depends on the type of concealment. It so happens that every now and then, all one is going through is just physical pain. The Light impacts this person’s desire and demonstrates a lack of health and tremendous physical suffering.

According to the physical affliction, one remains at the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels. One does not, as yet, ascend to a speaking level. In other words, the Light illuminates to this person only the first three stages but doesn’t reach the fourth level, since the fourth phase is a human state; i.e., a state when a person has already established a connection with the Creator.

If the Light embraces only the first three levels, one feels pain and nothing else. However, if the Light illuminates one additional level (the speaking level), one starts understanding that the origin of one’s pain is the Creator. In other words, this person stays in concealment because he senses affliction instead of benevolence. And yet, to some extent one attains some degree of revelation because one realizes that the Creator is the origin of one’s suffering. It means that one can already deal with one’s troubles.

Everything depends on the Light. When the Light stops working, people turn into animals. When the Light shines, even a little on us, we become just slightly similar to human beings, to the people that we will become in the future. At least we establish some connection with the upper governance.

Are we able to control this state? It is possible only within the group; nothing else will help. If one is used to being a part of the group, then even if one becomes subjected to this kind of the Creator’s impact and even if one doesn’t feel anything except pain that in one’s eyes is not connected with Him in any way, with the help of one’s friends, one can quickly wake up and connect with the Creator.

If one is not a part of a group, one will inevitably fall under the power of pain and severe problems, nor will one be able to advance until the Upper Force takes pity on him. This natural developmental program continues working and continuously modifies the states we go through.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Missing Element In The World Mosaic

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion:  Why is it said that the truth can be seen only from the opposite side, the darkness? Do we ever perceive anything except deceit?

Answer: All we see is the deficiency that has to be filled with our correct attitude to the Creator. In this context, the truth is a revelation of an empty space that has to be filled with our love of the Creator and our correct attitude to the absence of revelation.

The Creator discloses a fragment of the entire picture to us, and we have to figure out what form of bestowal we are supposed to discover in the piece of the puzzle we are given. We can do it through work in the group, dissemination, and the states we go through.

We can only guess what particular shape we have to choose to fill the empty space in the puzzle. We have to make a decision when we see a cloud above and the earth below the empty space or the grass and a small part of a tree on either side. So I imagine what’s in the middle of the puzzle , i.e., what form of bestowal it is. If we work with our deficiencies in this manner, we will eventually find out what’s missing.

The process of working with the deficiencies described above is called “a revelation.” The Creator shows us the place of the deficiency; He unveils and illuminates it for us. That’s why we begin sensing the deficiency. The Creator influences our will to receive by the Light of Hassadim (mercy). Our will to receive rejects the Light of Mercy. However, the lack of a desire “impresses” the will to receive and it manifests in various forms.

This is the way a negative picture is built in us. Our task is to flip it and transform it into a correct and positive form.

We can only guess what particular form of bestowal is missing in the world and in our relationships with others. In fact, the overall bestowal that dresses in this world is the Creator. We can only imagine what this form is, but we are unable to fill the empty spaces without the Creator, and therefore we need His assistance.

Thus, a need to disclose the Giver’s shape appears in us. We want the world in this missing fragment of the puzzle to be corrected, reaching the state of mutual bestowal. This is how we gradually complete the puzzle.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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Moving Towards The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says in The Book of Zohar that during the construction of the Tabernacle the world was given love, justice, peace and unity as a present.

Answer: The Tabernacle is a Divine patent of connection between two opposite forces that complement one another.

In our world there is only hatred, rivalry, dispute and disagreement. As they accumulate more and more, they turn into a war and then everything quiets down for a while. But peace and the tranquility are only a period of transition to the next level of hatred and competition.

Unfortunately, the Divine patent isn’t known to man, since we see that throughout our history people hate one another, no matter how hard they try to establish different frameworks of diplomacy, ethics, laws, etc., among themselves.

In the past, there were certain norms and codes of behavior that don’t exist today. No one is ashamed of anything, no one is ashamed of anyone, and competition is a natural thing.

In the past, man, not money, was in first place. The main values were a person’s cultural needs and his perspective. This is how he was brought up.

Today, however, everything is measured in terms of money. Young people don’t choose a profession according to their inclinations but because the pay is high.

We have simply ascended to the next level of opposition between two opposite forces and now we should reach a very serious and special state where we will not be able to live in hate, envy, competition, rivalry, conflicts and disputes.

Today everyone agrees that resistance is felt towards everyone else and everyone feels resistance towards certain individuals, but that doesn’t really worry anyone, “So what? That’s the way I am and that’s how I relate to others.” This is a very good state because it is here that the the truth is revealed.

This is how we live and this is our nature. The crisis is everywhere as we see part of humanity starving, while another part discards food, but people ignore this calmly, “So what if people are starving, we don’t care.” We feel no compassion but only rivalry and hatred towards everyone.

Thus we need to reach a state where this rivalry becomes unbearable because otherwise these two opposite forces will get so close to one another that there will be sparks between them that will burn us and bring us to the end of our existence.

We need to feel this threat directly, not with regard to all of humanity, but with regard to ourselves, because we don’t care about anyone but ourselves.

When this feeling reaches our internal “I,”people will realize and acknowledge the fact that there has to be a way out of here since there is a splitting point in nature that allows us to exit this state. Then, thanks to our great egoistic desire, we will begin to search and demand from inside ourselves the way to the opposite state. And we will find it because we have a method to create such a resistance between us by which we can change our work in mutual hatred  to love, justice, mutual understanding, and equality.

This is all our work. This is why we were given a head and knowledge, so that we will not advance in the dark like a mole, but along the path of the Light, seeing the goal before us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/06/13

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We Offer Connection To Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is unique about what we can offer to the world?

Answer: We can offer the world connection in which the Light is found. They will not actually discover the Light, but will feel above all that what we are doing is a blessing. Everything is working and advancing, there is some kind of grace that is attractive in this, there is success.

When others look at us and do the same thing, this will not work for them. There won’t be any success. They can organize wide, wonderful, and attractive publicity, but there won’t be any success with it. About this it is said, “An alien god bears no fruit.”

It cannot be otherwise. If there is no picture of the goal, a form of the coming state, then you don’t feel it and don’t know where to advance. Imagine a child who is not instinctively developing through nature, instead he is only developing according to external examples that he sees in front of him. If a two-year-old child doesn’t see the example of a three-year-old child in front of him, he cannot grow to the level of the age of three.

No matter how many blows they give him, he will not understand what they want from him. When we connect a person to the Upper Light and bring him an example, he gets an example of how he needs to be at the “age of three.” Now he understands this, is attracted to this, wants to grow, and activates his deficiency, the Reshimot.

And when he grows up to the age of three, he must develop further, and blows alone will not help here. He wants to grow, wants to avoid the blows, but he doesn’t know what to do. He now needs to see in front of him an example of a child of four. And without us, this will not happen.

Question: So are we offering connection to people as a goal or as a means?

Answer: Connection is a means for building the right form of humanity, that within this form it attains its source in order to connect to it. This is called humanity fulfilling itself. All of its desires are fulfilled with everything required, like some kind of completely filled container.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A Chain That Leads From Malchut To Bina

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we form our prayer? Should we start from a request to help the upper more, the fathers, the group, and mention myself only at the end?

Answer: This is exactly how we should form our prayer and we have to learn that. But at the moment, you can turn to the Creator any way you like, as long as it comes from the center of the group. We will gradually format our collective appeal correctly.

A prayer is not a simple appeal. You will have to place yourself in an increasingly more accurate manner that is established by several steps. Each appeal is a whole chain of adaptors, of connections, which at one end connects to you, then processes your request several times and makes it adaptable to the upper level.

It is a whole system. A prayer isn’t just words, but the order of two vessels (since a letter is a vessel), which on the one hand, are adaptable to you, and, on the other hand, to the Creator. You have to build this chain, starting from ZAT of Bina that takes care of you, until Malchut, in which you are incorporated when you rise from the system of the worlds of the shell.

In order to do that, you have to use the 22 letters of the (Hebrew) alphabet correctly and the five final letters “MNTZPCH”, so that your prayer in the form of the spiritual vessels, which means that is made of the letters that are correctly arranged, will attain the Creator (God), ZAT of Bina.

We don’t know how to do that, but we gradually form our prayer by our experience. Kabbalists who lived during the time of the Temple prepared the Siddur (book of prayers) for us. The time of the Temple was the time that the Holy vessels existed, in which Malchut and Bina were connected, which is called the house of Holiness, the Temple. A house is Malchut and a Temple is Bina.

The great Kabbalists of that time made up the great Knesset (assembly), which means that they were connected into one vessel and were on a level of greatness, in great spiritual attainment. They are the ones who wrote the Siddur for us.

We will attain these prayers some day, but Kabbalists wrote them for us in advance. If we express them, whether we understand them or not, thinking in this direction, we still advance. If we read the prayers correctly, which means that we perceive these appeals in a spiritual manner, we can see great things in them.

Kabbalists express their appeals in two ways: one through words, which means in a sequence of letters, and the other in the form of symbols, simply letters with a filling. The form of every letter is a whole HaVaYaH, which means ten Sefirot, with a special Reshimo (spiritual gene), in a special state, and this is why they wrote the prayers.

My work is how to adhere more to the group, to the Rav, to the books, to dissemination, to everything that is relevant to the Light. There are no other means, but these are enough.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/04/14, Writing of Rabash

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