Entries in the 'Unity' Category

The Congress Is Here And Now

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We are now preparing for the upcoming congress in the desert, the place of our future spiritual unification. Is it possible that we will become so much more united during our preparation that there will be no need for a physical place, no need to go to the desert?

Answer: The place of spiritual unity is the state of the congress. Whether it is held in a desert or a backyard is irrelevant.

At every given moment, as we prepare for the congress, we need to expect to reach the unity that we want to achieve at the congress, and that will be our preparation for it.

Then, the extent to which we are able to reach it before the congress will determine our preparation for it. Let´s say that I intend to reach unity at the congress with an effort of 10 lbs. That means that I need to attune myself to this now. Possibly during the preparation for the congress we will achieve a unity that is worth 100,000 tons of effort, then let it be realized now. That is the correct preparation.

Action should not be postponed. Everything is now. In essence, the preparation is in fact the same action that we carry out practically, unlike preparation in our world where we only prepare all that is necessary and then begin to work. By preparing the desire (Kli), I work on the whole realization, and then it is formed.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, The Zohar

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In The Home Stretch

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are definitely approaching the home stretch before the end of the preparation period, and I say this with pride. It is not easy, and of course, it is not us but the upper force that affects us, doing all these “exercises” with us and leading us to the finish. He who is worthy, will pass it, and he who is not worthy… Only by all of us adhering together, will we be able to pass.

Everyone passes the Machsom: “babies,” “children,” “elderly,” “women,” as well as those who have the force to overcome (Gevurah), men (Gvarim). It all depends on adhesion: how much everyone is able to stay together with everyone. I hope very much that we will accomplish this.

A special year awaits us. I think that we are given it as “extra time.” In the past we did not have time to finish a few things, and we have to correct them now. It seems to me that we really can do this. We can try to make the last steps to convince ourselves finally that everything depends only on our unity. May it develop and become realized.

I urge everyone not to lose the moment; do not let the “wheel” continue spinning, catch it and realize what we are responsible for. This is truly a unique opportunity.

After all, we are cared for with unprecedented, unlimited, boundless mercy: “If you couldn’t do it once, then try again and again…” The upper management operates kindly; the current period is far from extreme: There is no deprivation, no war; everything seems not so serious. We sometimes teach small children in this way, enough to threaten them a little bit, to make them pay attention to what is required. Our modern attitude cannot be compared to the Holocaust, expulsions from various countries, murders, “pogroms,” etc. In front of us a “red carpet is rolled out,” do a little bit, and that will be enough.

I hope very much that you will understand this, and we do not cause the attitude from above to change, that we are considerate, receptive, and sensitive to what is happening, that we are “good children” and understand how the Creator treats us. Hence, we will understand what to do, and will do it.

We are going through a special transition period that covers the whole world. Today, everywhere there is a feeling of uncertainty, helplessness, and confusion. Just imagine what those who “have power” feel: impotence, fog, and confusion. No one understands what is happening; no one has any real plans or ideas.

We must become organized between us, just inside for the time being, not trying to shout to the world. The main thing now is to unite our inner strength, unite before The Flame in the Desert Convention. Then, our sparks will break out into a big fire and light the entire “desert” of this world.

We can do this. This is our mission; we are directed from above. We are required to do only a small effort, and then of course we can bring the Light to the desert. Good Luck!
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From a Talk During the Meal 12/21/12

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In An Environment Of Different Forces

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we increase the feeling of mutual dependence in the group?

Answer: This also depends on the environment. If the environment convinces me that I depend on it, then I will be convinced. If it doesn’t convince me, I will not be convinced. There has to a massive impact upon a person in order to convince him that by himself he means nothing and will not be able to do anything, that the spiritual path is possible only by incorporating in others, only through connection.

We have to think about this daily, for many hours—that the spiritual feeling is only possible in a whole vessel. We know that there was the shattering of the worlds. The same matter that we feel now doesn’t actually exist; it is imaginary. Even modern physics has already reached this conclusion. There is only a desire, which means a force, and we have to discover this force as one as it was created by the Creator.

We have to aspire to discover it as one whole, by imagining it not in the form of corporeal bodies, but in the form of desires, forces, one collective general desire to enjoy. It doesn’t matter that this force is revealed to us in different manners and that they are constantly changing. These are all desires to enjoy that must be connected. The moment we connect them, we immediately receive a filling.

The connection is only possible through concessions, by “the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph)” of our ego, and after our self-annulment there should be a connection, which is already incorporating in others, an action that is opposite to the shattering, bestowal.

I have to receive from someone in order to bestow upon him.

We use words from this world to describe the connection, but in fact these are Kabbalistic terms that refer to the correction of the desires. Don’t look at people, at the corporeal bodies around you. It is space that is full of separate forces that have to find a way to connect. The connection between them already exists; they only need to reveal it!

By discovering this connection, they discover their inclination, which is considered their exertion: “I labored and I found.” But if you don’t discover this connection, it remains concealed from you. Everything that the Creator has created is concealed from us. He is waiting for us to discover this reality by ourselves, by our exertion, which means willingly.

The Creator created the initial desire and developed it to a whole reality. But then He concealed this reality and left you only a point. Now you need to develop a desire inside you by working with the group and to discover the reality that was created by the Creator. It turns out that it is as if you are creating it yourself, by the desire that you receive from the environment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Divide Yourself Correctly

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “Neso,” Item 99: “…and they shall stand at the foot of the mountain.” This is how they will be in the last redemption, under the sages of the Torah, as a slave who walks by the feet of his master’s horse.

Question: How can we bring the slave to walk by the feet of his master’s horse and not the other way around?

Answer: It is up to us. Baal HaSulam talks about it at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,saying that if we divide our internality and externality correctly in the work, then accordingly things will be divided in our world. If, on the other hand, we don’t divide things correctly internally, then the world will not be divided correctly.

So all the attacks on the world indicate that you are not divided correctly internally; your inner spiritual concepts such as bestowal, love, Creator, group, are not above the corporeal ones. As a result, you turn the world “on its head” by lowering the internality and raising the externality as something that is important.

If you divide everything inside you correctly, no one in the world will be able to resist it. So let’s raise spirituality in our eyes, let’s raise it above us. Bestowal, love of others, connection—should all be placed above everything, and then there will be no resistance on the outside, since you are aiming according to the upper force.

Today you are denounced and rejected from every direction, only in order to evoke you to do this work so that you will raise the internality above the externality.

Question: How can I let “Israel” rule inside me?

Answer: It means placing bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason,” the group above myself. In fact it is actually the group above me, but in constant thought, in the daily care. The main struggle is here inside, in order to constantly raise bestowal above receiving, the Creator’s greatness above the created being’s greatness, the greatness of the group over my own greatness.

Question: How can we fight this war together?

Answer: By mutual help. This is all our work.

Yesterday, for example, you didn’t manage to hold on to an intention, and today? Are you holding on to one intention throughout the day? Are you filled with the Creator’s greatness, so that by the evening it will be your only concern? Does everyone worry about others, about the fact that you should all think about the same thing? The Creator’s greatness is the deepest, innermost point of our connection. It is there in that point that we meet Him.

In one word, if you don’t advance, you will not hear anything new…
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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A Raspberry Ball Will Light Up The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How are the right amount and the right quality of the exertion determined?

Answer: Now our efforts should be aimed at trying to see that everything is fulfilled and revealed within the connection among us, in the center of the group.

A person should feel this center of the general connection as an actual reality. After all, it is our first spiritual level. We should try to imagine this connection as hard as we can, in the form of a “crimson sphere,” or as some kind of a collective plate—as a place where all our hopes and expectations should be fulfilled.

It should become the most important and precious place in all of reality. Later we will discover that it is really the most important place, and that everything else are only meaningless results of what we discover in the center of our connection. What will happen in this center at any given moment will bring about an effect that will spread in every direction and influence the whole world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Aquarium

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah is the means by which we can attain the spiritual goal. “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” This means that the Torah is part of creation, the whole system of worlds by which we can draw upon ourselves the force that will correct us and gradually raise us up the levels of the spiritual worlds until we reach the end of correction.

But the corrections are necessary so that by performing them we will get to know the Creator who intentionally made this flaw. I can only know Him and become like Him in my corrected desires. All this comes together as in one skein of yarn. We must constantly yearn to see this world as one whole. If we don’t see the unity, it means that we are not focusing on the goal correctly.

When you look at all of creation, at people, at the group, at the study, at humanity, at politics, at all the events, at the upper worlds, at Kabbalists, at history from different perspectives, no matter how you study it and from which perspective, you have to see the same thing. If all this doesn’t come together, it means that you still have to correct something in your perception. Eventually, you will see how it connects to one ideal skein of yarn, and all you have to do is just arrange some masses on both ends in order to connect them and to receive one perfectly smooth sphere that is built like a hologram.

There was a physicist David Bohm who gave a very clear example for this: There are two cameras focused on an aquarium from different sides. First it seems to the viewer that he sees different fish in different places. But when he begins to relate one picture to the other, he sees the connection between them, the mutual dependence, and then he begins to understand that it is the same fish in the same place.

In the same way, we also perceive everything separately as disconnected images: our fears, love, the group, the study, this world, politics, and history. But the truth is that we are simply looking at the same “aquarium full of fish,” at the same situation, from different angles.

Try to practice this in order to reach a unified picture. When we reach such an attitude, everything becomes simple.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Everything That Exists Is Connected In Full Interaction

 Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Epoch Times): “Through a joint effort among scientists at Tohoku Institute of Technology and Kyoto University in Japan, researchers have discovered that humans are actually bioluminescent organisms … to a point.

“Naturally, the light that humans emit is not very bright. In fact, the glow that our bodies give off is a thousand times less than what our eyes can detect. However, scientists have discovered that this dim fluorescence can be captured by ultrasensitive equipment known as a cryogenic charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera.”

“Dr. Fritz-Albert Popp. A German physicist and founder of the International Institute of Biophysics in Neuss, Germany, credited with the discovery of biophoton. …

“Biophotons, or ultraweak photon emissions of biological systems, are weak electromagnetic waves in the optical range of the spectrum – in other words: light. All living cells of plants, animals and human beings emit biophotons, which cannot be seen by the naked eye but can be measured by special equipment developed by German researchers. …

“According to the biophoton theory developed on the base of these discoveries, the biophoton light is stored in the cells of the organism – more precisely, in the DNA molecules of their nuclei – and a dynamic web of light constantly released and absorbed by the DNA may connect cell organelles, cells, tissues, and organs within the body and serve as the organism’s main communication network and as the principal regulating instance for all life processes.” Source: http://transpersonal.de/mbischof/englisch/webbookeng.htm

My Comment: Here is another proof of the complete connection of everything existing through biophoton radiation of cells; this is one of the ways of communication.
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The Creator As The Common Denominator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We need to connect in an inner form, in our desires. But how can I approach the desire of the friend?

Answer: For you, your inclination to the Creator is enough. Only with this inclination, without trying to dig deeper, do you connect. Both of you do not understand this desire that the Creator “planted” in each of you. But precisely this desire in the friend, and only it, is important for you. This is a subtle inclination from the refinement of the soul. You love the friend’s spiritual spark, his inclination to the Creator. His character and his customs are not important to you; it is only the Creator who connects you, because “in Him our heart will rejoice.” It is in Him. You want to meet in the Creator.

The other desires are connected in a different way; they remain in you and simply are searching for fulfillment together. But practically this is not unity with the other, but it is taking advantage of the other.

And we on the other hand, do not connect only between us. Light comes to us that bestows upon our desires, connects us, and dwells in us, in our connection. And then all of us together are glad that we gave the Creator the possibility and the ability to be revealed.

Therefore, for you, it is enough for you to have the inclination for the truth, for the Creator, for the goal. You yourself still do not know where you are going to, but the yearning exists already, and you need to always raise and care for it. How? By connecting with the friends. As a result of it, enough yearning will appear in you that the Light will correct you, will connect to a big single desire that in it you will reveal the Creator and will rejoice in it.

From day to day it will be clearer to you how to use all kinds of means in order to prepare yourself for the new state. You will not succeed in understanding it in advance, and you don’t need to demand understanding but the force of bestowal in “above reason.” Precisely by this yearning for bestowal above reason,” the knowledge will be revealed you and you will know.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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Our Interconnectedness At The Cellular Level

In the News (from Scientific American): “It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person. We are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, and these foreign cells seem to belie that notion, and suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals. As remarkable as this may be, stunning results from a new study show that cells from other individuals are also found in the brain. In this study, male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades. …
“We all consider our bodies to be our own unique being, so the notion that we may harbor cells from other people in our bodies seems strange. Even stranger is the thought that, although we certainly consider our actions and decisions as originating in the activity of our own individual brains, cells from other individuals are living and functioning in that complex structure. However, the mixing of cells from genetically distinct individuals is not at all uncommon. This condition is called chimerism after the fire-breathing Chimera from Greek mythology. …
“Microchimerism most commonly results from the exchange of cells across the placenta during pregnancy, however there is also evidence that cells may be transferred from mother to infant through nursing. In addition to exchange between mother and fetus, there may be exchange of cells between twins in utero, and there is also the possibility that cells from an older sibling residing in the mother may find their way back across the placenta to a younger sibling during the latter’s gestation. Women may have microchimeric cells both from their mother as well as from their own pregnancies, and there is even evidence for competition between cells from grandmother and infant within the mother. …
“This is a burgeoning new field of inquiry with tremendous potential for novel findings as well as for practical applications. But it is also a reminder of our interconnectedness.”
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How To Light The Fire In My Soul?

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend 1”: If a person is very tired and goes to sleep at around 11 pm, if he is awakened at 3 am, of course he will say that he has no energy to get up to study because he is very tired. And if he feels a little weak or has a slight temperature, the body will certainly have no power to rise at the time he is accustomed to rising.

But if a person is very tired, feeling sick, and goes to sleep at midnight, but is awakened at 1 am and is told, “There is a fire in the yard; it’s about to come into your room. Quick, get up and you’ll save your life in return for the effort you are making,” he will not make any excuses about being tired, mindless, or sick. Rather, even if he is very sick, he will make every effort to save his life. Evidently, because he will obtain an important thing, the body has the energy to do what it can to get what he wants.

Therefore, while working on “Make for yourself a rav,” a person believes that it is, “For they are our lives and the length of our days.” To the extent that he feels that this is his life, the body has enough strength to overcome all the obstacles, as written in the allegory. For this reason, in all of man’s works, in studying or in praying, he should focus all his work on obtaining the greatness and importance of the rav. Much work and many prayers should be made on that alone.

In the words of The Zohar, this is called “Raising Divinity from the dust”

…It follows that all we lack is, “Make for yourself a rav, to sense the greatness of the Creator. Then, everyone will be able to achieve the goal, which is to adhere to Him.”

We see how in our groups around the world there are sometimes many people who arrive at the lesson and sometimes very few. It is hard to judge them, since it says: “Do not judge a friend until you are in his place.” But no matter what the hardships are, the reason for being absent from a lesson is still the same—the lack of feeling its importance.

The feeling of importance depends on the group and not on the person himself. We see different groups on the screen during the lesson: Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and many other groups. Sometimes we see that the place is full of people, but usually there are just a few. The reason for all that is the lack of feeling the importance of the goal, which we don’t develop in us. From Above, the feeling of the importance is intentionally lowered, so that a person will need the group and feel that he depends on the environment that should increase the feeling of importance. To the extent that he adheres to the group, the importance of the goal increases in him, and he is attracted to the group and advances.

But if he doesn’t feel the importance of the group and doesn’t adhere to it, then accordingly he doesn’t feel the importance of the goal. Therefore, he will not be able to advance and eventually will leave.

It all depends only on feeling the importance of the goal: to what extent a person yearns for it, studies, and demands the awareness of this importance during the study. It serves him as the fuel necessary for his advancement.

Our main concern should be that we lack the feeling of the importance of the goal, the fuel, the Creator’s greatness, that it should be enough for our advancement, so that I won’t stop thinking about Him, and will constantly worry that the feeling of importance will draw me to the center of the group in which I will find the entrance to the spiritual world.

“Rav” (big, great) is the Creator. “Make yourself a Rav” means to raise the Creator above all the other values a person has, so that nothing compares to it. According to such priorities, a person will determine his daily schedule and his attitude to everything.

“Buy yourself a friend” is required in order to increase the importance of the Rav. Therefore, you should buy yourself friends; pay them by your attitude, by your efforts, by serving them, so that they will help you acknowledge the greatness of the Rav, the greatness of the Creator.

Then during the study, we will have the right prayer for the one thing that we need—the Creator’s greatness. Everything is focused only around this greatness: the prayer, the illumination, and the love. Only the environment can help us by that, if a person evokes it by himself.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12

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