Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

A Meeting With The Angel Raziel

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is easy to work on one line, either the left line or the right line. It is most difficult to be in the middle and to connect these two lines into one authority and to remain there, in the middle, between the shell and Holiness. To be in between means to draw as much as one can from the shell and to add it to Holiness. Thus you constantly remain under one authority and advance; you fulfill your authority and look for a new place where you can be free in order to once again prefer Holiness. Thus a line is created by these points of unity of one’s freewill.

On the one hand, everything is done by the Creator, by private Providence (HaVaYaH), that descends from Above, which means that takes place inside. The private supervision is the most inner supervision (the supervision of HaVaYaH), that is closest to bestowal. On the other hand, a person says: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me,” which means that he compliments the two lines by adding all his efforts to the upper providence and adhering to it internally. The middle line expresses adhesion and mutual bestowal between a person and the Creator.

A person understands that everything comes from Above, but still annuls the domination of the Creator and says that he will do the same according to his freewill. He doesn’t do so because he is under the domination of the upper providence, but of his own free will, by wanting to identify with the Creator. Although it’s clear to him that no one has a chance to avoid the upper providence and to do anything by one’s self, he still tries to fulfill the thought that the Creator has given him, as if of his own freewill, being totally independent. This is how he advances.

It isn’t a game since the Creator agrees with his decision to perform a specific action and provides him with an illusion of life and death. It isn’t a joke but actually a question of life or death, which is a very serious matter for him. But a person receives this freewill and can change his fate from great sufferings along the path of “in its time” to great joy along the path of “I shall hasten it.” This means that he can totally change his whole life from the worst state to the best state.

It’s by creating a space where he can be independent that a person establishes the form of Adam (a human being), since if he doesn’t create a space where he can have freewill and believes that everything is managed from Above and says “thank God” about everything, as orthodox people honestly say, then there is nothing one can add. He places everything under the Creator’s domination.

If a person is not religious, he operates according to his natural instincts and the Creator totally manages him without revealing Himself. But if a person doesn’t accept either of these options and wants to fulfill his freewill, he makes room for his own authority, according to his freewill. Then in this independent authority he discovers both the good and evil sides, and these two authorities clash and struggle with each other. A person’s role is to arrange them on the middle line so that they will complement one another.

The connection between this space of freewill and the forces that operate in it is that a person attains by his clarifications, analysis, and synthesis, and turns into an image of a human being, Adam, which means in Hebrew “resembles the Creator.” This human form is established from the bottom up and is gradually revealed. By attaining this adhesion with the Creator, a person discovers that the middle line was also managed by the upper force, and he calls this revelation “the Angel Raziel.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/13

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Living In A Stuffy Room Swarming With Mice

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach of us discovers that he exists in a very special state, which we call this world and which we divide into us and everything that is external to us. I feel and understand myself and what is around me to some extent. The development of my understanding and feeling is called my life. I feel that I am changing and that everything around me changes; the whole world is changing.

Then I discover that my perception of the world depends only on me, and that it is created in my feeling and understanding. When I begin to examine the factors that determine my perception more deeply, I discover that everything begins from the egoistic desire to receive pleasure. This means that I perceive the inner and external reality and assess it only with regard to my own benefit, whether it’s good for me or not.

I cannot perceive reality objectively, in its true form, but only relative to myself. If something doesn’t concern me directly, I don’t feel it at all. I even perceive that the world is sometimes big and wide and sometimes narrow and stuffy, as if I totally change my mind.

This changes according to what interests me, and so I see one thing and don’t pay attention to something else. I am like a cat that only sees the mouse in the room, but pays no attention to the beauty of the room and the pictures that are on the walls. If a person enters the room he immediately pays attention to the pictures and doesn’t see the mouse. Each one sees the world according to his desire. The world doesn’t exist by itself. It’s depicted in my desire.

When I become aware of the limitations of my perception that filters everything only with regard to me, I begin to want to see something outside this limited picture. I feel as if I am in prison, as if I have been locked in a dungeon, inside a grave, unable to come out.

I begin to feel claustrophobic, fearing closed places that suffocate me and pressure me on all sides. I have to know and feel more! Here I begin to feel that the desire to receive that takes everything for itself doesn’t let me see the real world, but only what interests the egoistic desire that I have at the moment.

I perceive all of reality only through my ego. Although reality may be huge and practically infinite, I cannot see it. This leaves me restless and totally poisons my life. I begin to call my state, the domination of my desire to receive, slavery and exile. Because it forces me to see only what interests the narrow primitive desire, I look at everything with regard to its benefit or what is harmful to it and don’t see anything that is beyond its boundaries. I begin to look for a way to develop it, and so I reach the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/13

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Dissemination For The Sake Of Unification

Dr. Michael LaitmanGoing out to dissemination, we need to set a specific task as quickly as possible to achieve the most effective unity among us. In this case, it has to meet all the spiritual conditions Rabash wrote about: annulling oneself, connection between us above our egoism, renunciation of egoism, ascent in unity with friends, etc.

These conditions become more understandable with each day, either from a positive point of view of what we already carry out, or from a negative point of view, what we have not done yet. Seeing as this begins to be manifested between us in the positive or even negative form, we become aware of evil that does not allow us to unite between ourselves. We are ashamed of it because, on the one hand, we cannot deal with it, but on the other hand, we do not want to tolerate it. That is why we really need to go out, but this is only a means for us to connect internally.

If there is no such unity inside us, we will achieve nothing and going out will be useless. We will become like various spiritual, mystical, psychological organizations that make businesses of their teachings and are engaged in all kinds of trainings. Nothing will come out of this because the result will be the same as theirs, and perhaps even worse because we still belong to a spiritual movement and thus should feel our wrong behavior more strongly.

All the other organizations slowly lose their positions; they are losing strength and opportunities, their influence on the masses is disappearing because humanity is changing. It requires more and more unity for overcoming all kinds and forms of crises, and no training can provide it. We cannot give them anything either if our activities do not come from the center of the group, from our unity.

Even those individuals who work freelance (who disseminate independently) must get the support of the group. This is the form of their personal existence that gives them the opportunity to disseminate as a profession, earning their living. But everyone’s success depends only on how much the person is connected with the group and how much he seeks precisely the goal of unity in all his dissemination activities.

We are connected. We perform all kinds of dissemination actions throughout the world and in that we depend on each other. If some groups or individual people do not feel or do not understand that they do it for the sake of unity, then they cause great harm to the rest, like a part of the body that does not work in unison with all the other organs.

That is why we must all pursue the same goal: unity. The most important thing for us is our group. The crisis and external conditions are created so that we empathize with the suffering of the surrounding world, and this forces us to unite even more and reach the first degree of ascent.
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From a Talk About the Dissemination 10/17/13

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You Woke Up – Awaken Others!

Dr. Michael LaitmanPicture this: Our world is divided into two parts. There are those kind of people, types of desires, who are able to connect with the upper force of nature, and therefore are called Yashar-Kel (Israel). Whether they carry out their mission or not, they are capable of doing so according to their nature. They already have this informational gene, Reshimo. In others, this gene is still hidden very deeply and lies dormant. That’s why they are incapable of establishing a connection with the upper force.

The part Israel has a chance, a readiness for contact with the upper force, and so they need to study the wisdom of Kabbalah and correct their broken Reshimot. These Reshimot wake up, clarify, connect with Malchut of the world of Atzilut, and turn into parts of the Shechina.

But, there are the types of desires that are unable wake up on their own and can only be awakened by those called Israel. These desires cannot attach to the nine lower Sefirot of Malchut of the world of Atzilut, so they are attached below. They have no active Galgalta ve Eynaim, so their job is to be ready to give up their material egoism, diminish their egos, and unite with each other so that they can live a good life. Also all the external conditions help them do this.

They do not need correction by going with faith above reason, as Israel who are required to reach a state of a complete nullification in front of the Upper who includes the lower and elevates it to a new level. As a result, when all connect, the Reforming Light will lift all on many levels. However, so far this is not required.

Israel is currently in a state that allows it to correct itself by connecting in a Kabbalistic group and adhering to the Upper. Thus, we find ourselves in the Upper and reveal it, whereas others cannot do so since they don’t feel a need for it, nor are their desires ready for that. And so they connect with each other solely to improve their current lives, each according to their needs. They achieve success because they become a bit like Galgalta ve Eynaim and cancel their AHP.

All Kabbalah writings divide into two categories. One part relates to the correction of a human being who has a predisposition, a point in the heart. The other part conveys to those who have a point in the heart or have reached spiritual attainment and have become Kabbalists about how to prepare the entire world for gradual revelation and attainment.

It is known that Baal HaSulam met with Ben Gurion, and visited Poland to address striking workers. Of course, he did not expect to find Kabbalists among them. In his article, “The Last Generation,” he described ways to provide mass education to the general public and stated that only then will the Light reveal the Creator to everyone: “For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.”
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot 

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Living Mind Or A Computer?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why did the Creator need such a complicated process of correction of creation so the creation itself acts on its own, unless it was impossible to correct everything at once from the beginning?

Answer: The Creator does not need our actions, He wants you to understand something and advance on your own until you attain the goal. The Creator made all of that right away; the entire distribution of worlds from above down and then the ascent back up, only you need this! The Creator cannot give you everything that you will receive in the end right away. You need to go through all the stages of development: 0-1-2-3-4, until you begin to perceive, understand, and become like Him.

Attainment means knowing the phenomenon “in its root” and its consequences. You must understand the whole of creation throughout the complex, and this can only be done gradually, learning from opposites every step of the way, initially and constantly revealing the lack and then the fulfillment, understanding and the lack of it, and good and bad sensations. This is the only way the strings of the soul develop in you.

I understand that you want everything right away, but this is impossible. Is it possible to take a child and turn him into a professor in one day? A sage is someone who throughout life has observed its arrangement, as one thing develops from another, as all things are connected with one another. He gradually became smarter until finally becoming wise!

But if he were crammed with all this information at once, he would simply have become a “computer” working according to the program embedded in it. But when this information is gradually and steadily imprinted on matter that can feel good and evil, truth and falsehood, emptiness and fulfillment, we will get a live “mind” instead of a computer.

This is the entire difference! Because he will find out the difference between Light and darkness, he will learn through this, he will acquire a desire; he himself will know what he wants to understand and feel! Every piece of data that you load into the computer must be preceded by your desire that you want to receive it, and you will know which empty fields and lack of understanding you need to fill. The computer itself should respond, and then it will turn into man…
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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How Do You Turn Enemies into Friends?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we imagine “impure forces” (Klipot)?

Answer: Imagine that there are “good” people who always praise you and give you presents and then there are “bad” people who always punish you and cause you problems.

Now the question is who really does good to you and who harms you? It all depends on the goal you are trying to achieve.

Those who hurt you reveal the truth to you, showing you that you have properties that they despise. By doing this, they show you the source of evil, the reason for their hatred of you. When you correct this reason, you will suddenly see these hostile forces become your friends!

So do you think they were good or bad initially? They must have been good!

And those people, who only gave you gifts and always praised you, never gave you a chance to correct anything in you. They only satisfied your egoism, so it turns out that they are your enemies. Right?

It is understandable that everyone only wants to be around “good” people who praise us, but these good people are ruining the world! And it is written in The Zohar: “All their mercy is egoistic, for their own sake.”

We need to love the Klipot, value the Pharaoh! All our haters show us our uncorrected parts. And if we see the corrections we can make with their help, we should be grateful to them.

Our entire work in upbringing and  education is to figure out the properties that can be corrected and to grow by doing this.

Hatred of Klipot is childhood, the “small state” (Katnut)! One needs to see their source, after all, the Upper Light goes through them, through our corrupt desires, and shows these defects to us from the side in the form of foreign, impure forces (Klipot). This is called the “visible flaw.”

Essentially, I am looking at myself in the mirror and seeing my face, which I do not like! So who do I blame, the mirror or myself? The Klipa is our mirror. All the faults that it shows us are inside us (just like the rest of the world we see around us).

All the catastrophes and problems that we encounter, from the smallest to the largest, are a projection of our inner properties.

This is why it is impossible to be without the Klipot! Without them we would not be able to attain anything, we would not feel or distinguish anything. Where would we begin the correction if not with the Klipot?

It is impossible to correct a defect without having revealed its cause. And the role of the Klipot is to show us our defects. This is the most necessary thing for us! We know that one can only reach the fruit through the peel.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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A Store With A Door That Never Closes

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestions: How can the groups all over the world be constantly connected to the center so that they can constantly receive their power from the center?

Answer: I don’t know what else we can do. If you feel that there is no connection, you have to try to find out how to renew it. My teacher Rabash used to say: “My store is always open,” just as the Creator’s store is, as it says “the store is open and the shopkeeper sells on credit, and the notepad is open and the hand is writing and whoever wants to borrow can come and borrow.”

The invisible hand writes everything down and then the landlord will ask you to repay your debt, but you can still enter. This means that the owner doesn’t go out and shout and call the customers. He only opens the door to his store and that’s all. Whoever wants to enter can do so.

This is an example of how we have to go out to the world. We have to be ready for the most massive sales everywhere, so that everyone will feel comfortable to enter our store. But it doesn’t mean that we have to jump on every passerby, to knock on people’s doors, to force them, or to impose on them hoping that they will buy our product.

So it is up to you whether you will be able to keep in touch with the center. Don’t wait for us do it. We are too busy and there is so much we have to do in dissemination, in processing and publishing the materials for integral education, in moving to our new home, and in preparing the international convention in February 2014.

We cannot follow everything that happens to individuals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, New York, or San Francisco in addition to what we are doing. We don’t have the powers for that and it would also be wrong if we began to operate this way. If you were ordinary people without a point in the heart, then we would have to take better care of you. But since you do yearn for spirituality and have a point in the heart, everything depends on its development.

You have to make your own efforts, using your own powers, and the connection with us depends on you. You have to exert yourself so that you will not lose contact with the center and constantly make sure that you keep it. The moment you lose this connection, the connection loses you.
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From the Talk during the Meal 10/25/13

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In The First Spiritual Degree

Dr. Michael LaitmanNow when we are engaged in special dissemination among the general public in all the countries in the world, I’d like to make a very serious comment.

The fact is that our movement in the wide circles of society must pursue the only goal—the unity between us—so that we feel close inner cohesion, the need for each other.

If this condition is met, then going outside is positive, necessary, and effective. If going outside divides us, cools us down, pulls us apart, then we need to stop it because the most important thing for us is to create such a center of the group where we begin to feel the Creator; otherwise, there is no point in dissemination. Indeed, we can reach the masses only if we organize the spiritual vessel, the spiritual Kli, the place where the Creator is revealed.

For years we have been studying, and as a result of these studies, working between ourselves and dissemination, moreover, quite passively, focused mainly on the dissemination of our material online, we worked within ourselves. Now, we have reached a certain point of saturation and cannot move further. We cannot compress ourselves so that mutual connection is formed within ourselves in which some resemblance to the Creator is manifested, that is, rising above our egoism.

The problem arises: How can we unite? That is why we go out to the masses. After all, our main goal is unity, achieving Arvut (mutual guarantee), such adhesion in the group that will lead us to the minimal similarity to the Creator on the first spiritual level.

We are still on the ground, raising our foot, wanting to go up to the first spiritual degree, but we cannot; we need a push. In order to be pushed from behind, we go out to the wide circles of society, libraries, schools, universities, numerous educational and other institutions and disseminate in breadth. We strive to get from the masses their desires to overcome all sorts of crises that now are so rapidly developing in the world.

So, we should not forget that the most important thing is to create the center of the group in which we expect the manifestation of the Creator. This is the first rung of the ladder; His first manifestation among us, in us.

Whatever we do, in whatever form we are engaged in external dissemination using various opportunities, we always have to sort out every action and analyze it in terms of its usefulness for overall unity. Only then can we make a decision as to whether it is worthwhile to do something or not. The inner unity should determine our going out to the world: its kind, style, opportunities, and the people who will be engaged in this or that activity.
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From a Talk About the Dissemination 10/17/13

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A Generation Of Mature Kids

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I expect unity if I don’t feel it and have no idea what it is?

Answer: We have to imagine the state of unity and play it, just like kids who make believe that they are grownups and grow by playing that game. You understand very little when it comes to spiritual states and so you have to play and to develop just like a baby.

We see a very interesting phenomenon in our generation: People are becoming more and more like little children. Everyone is playing games and is in no hurry to start real life. Everyone spends their life playing games, staying in their parents’ home until the age of 30 to 40, not wanting to get married and to grow up, not wanting to make a career, or to take any responsibility, but rather, they wish to pass their life comfortably free of any worries, as if playing a game.

This childish attitude towards life is typical of today’s generation. It is a very special attitude that actually indicates that they are ready to play! The serious attitude towards work is gone, and people pass the time playing games. The main thing is friends, entertainment in the evenings, football, and television.

People are becoming more childish; this is confirmed by sociological studies. And this is an accepted norm both by society and by parents, meaning by the older generation. Parents accept the fact that their 30-year-old son remains a child. Young people themselves also seem to want to remain as children.

This is because we are becoming more worthy of playing and it is by playing that we can succeed and advance in our spiritual development. In previous generations, we were busy fulfilling the ego, our big desire to receive. So we were so serious in order to be totally incorporated in it, to be assimilated in it, and to perform the most serious and difficult actions.

Now, however, it is over. This is an indication that it is in our times that we are ready and worthy of correction! It isn’t the disgrace of this generation that seems to lag behind the previous generations. On the contrary, it is an indication of despair and disappointment from the previous development and the readiness for correction, which we have to perform now. The correction is fulfilled by playing: workshops, connections, different games, activities, songs, and a little bit of work so that we can provide for ourselves. That’s it; this is what life will be like.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, The Zohar

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A Tree That Tastes Like Apples

Dr. Michael Laitman“Sanctity” (bestowal) hides behind the “impure forces” (Klipot). In order to attain it, one needs to overcome them, and in order to do this, one needs to become smart, understanding, sensitive, and strong.

If you have the instruments (Kelim) to work with whatever is hiding inside the skin (Klipa), then you will be able to reach the fruit through it.

There were no impure forces, “skin” (Klipot), before Adam’s lapse from virtue. It is said that the entire tree tasted like apples! You could bite the trunk, and it was sweet like an apple, tasted just the same… This is a sign that it was impossible to discover a defective place that needs correction!

This is why Adam had to sin, to reveal the sin. After all, the sin already existed; we do not create anything new, but merely discovering the difference between “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ayin) and “existence from existence” (Yesh Mi Yesh), the creation and the Creator, to the extent of the full depth of the last, fourth level.

This is the difference between being an animal and being a man! This is the only thing that shows us the Klipot.

This is called “help against you.” Just think, someone is standing right across from you and constantly helps you with absolutely everything!
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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