Entries in the 'Workshops' Category

There Is No Advancement Without Conclusions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the workshop should we stress the point that we want to achieve in the beginning and the conclusion we have reached in the end?

Answer: In general, we should always draw a conclusion. The fact is that we don’t have enough time to ask everyone what conclusion he has come to and to give him an opportunity to share his impressions and what he has accomplished. But in any case, everyone should be making a conclusion.

It would be good if everybody would write about their impressions and wishes and would send them to our general email address. It doesn’t matter if you don’t receive a response. The fact that you are writing to our single general email address and are trying to add it to our common bank, and you reacted to this somehow this will receive a reaction.

At the end of the workshop it is desirable to hear impressions from each group, but if many groups participate in a workshop we at least need to hear impressions from a few of them.

The workshop ends with a common song, a melody. Those who have an opportunity can signify the end of the workshop with a small festive meal.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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The Union Of Plus And Minus

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if during the seminar I’m thinking a lot about unity, but it’s difficult for me to feel it?

Answer: Our work is happening between the feelings and the mind, in the middle line. One needs to keep to this middle line in one’s thoughts, desires, intentions, and relationships, in everything. A one-way bias in any direction is not acceptable. Since all of this is being revealed in creation opposite to the Creator, it must be revealed in the middle line.

The whole of the nature exists only thanks to the fact that it is in some medium, the intermediate states between the absolute plus and minus, in a balance between extreme states.

However, on the human level, balance is not reached by averaging, like it is on the still, vegetative, or animate levels, but by the means that the minus and the plus are uniting together! The left and the right lines do not balance themselves out in the middle, but are united at the center, and that is why this middle line turns out to be on a higher level than their simple sum. This is the difference between the middle line in our world and in the spiritual.

It needs to be understood that all of these concepts, which we are studying on ourselves, will arrive at a balance and will provide the right approach for us towards the solution of any kind of problems.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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I Manage Myself With The Help Of Two Reins

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person needs to see himself as a point that receives everything from the outside. The friends and the world in general, and even the inanimate, the vegetative and the animate, are all parts of my soul. All of this is one Malchut (kingdom), one Kli (desire/vessel), one man who stands across from the Creator.

Therefore, to the extent that I try to connect the enthusiasm and impressions that reach me now from the friends, not to cancel them, to that extent they become real, since I join the parts of my soul to myself. And then I acquire a new intellect and emotions as a result of the connection of the broken Kli.

It’s forbidden to extinguish any state. We need to rise above and examine it from a higher level; this is the correct approach. And therefore, it doesn’t matter how I feel during the workshop: good or bad, since in any case I must rise above everything, and clarify where the feelings come from and why, and then continue. We need to gather and accumulate the most positive and negative impressions in order to advance onward above them.

I must, in advance, agree to every state that comes, since my self – annulment will be built above all of these states. Everything that I go through is necessary in order to teach me to take control of all my states and above them to connect with the friends in spite of my rejection. The most important thing for me must be the connection that I will manage seemingly via two reins, and all my feelings and experiences will be in the background. The end of the act is in the initial thought. If a person behaves in this way, then he correctly uses all of his discernments.

It’s forbidden to allow your horse to run away, not to the left or right. There’s a goal in front of you and you need to constantly examine yourself according to it: if you deviate to the left, then you need to add from the right line, and if you deviate to the right, you need to add from the left line. Everything is determined only by the direction to the goal, and the goal is unity. We don’t see any other goal in spirituality other than the point of unity, Arvut (mutual guarantee).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Shortage Of Time: Good Or Bad?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The human psyche is designed so that it allows a person to accurately estimate the time of speaking: If he is given three minutes, he will talk for three minutes; if he is given an hour, he will talk for an hour.

What time allotment is better: a little shortage of time or should it be sufficient for everyone to speak?

Answer: Certainly there should be a little lack of time, but it should be just a little. It is not good when people feel that they only just started talking.

Usually each question winds in a spiral: becoming deeper, and better, and more. Therefore, there is never enough time.

However, we have to understand that in general this is given to us only with a purpose to “kick off” the unity between us, but then all of it should be passed into the daily lesson. There we realize everything that we created, that we begot during the workshop.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Growing Inward And Upward

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the elevator by which we rise to the center of the group?

Answer: I rise by absorbing the desires and aspirations of all the friends. I subdue myself and raise the others by seeing them as more important than me, and thanks to that, I receive power from them.

This power pushes me and enables me to adhere to the center of the group correctly. First, it helps me imagine this center, because I am always confused and keep losing this concept. I have to hold on to it like to a gun sight and constantly correct myself.

We started from this central point because we will deal with it all the time. We grow only on its basis, starting from this point and rising higher and higher. The growth doesn’t simply represent a physical height, but an increasingly growing concentration of the inner connection.

Therefore, in the future workshops, we have to clarify what a desire, a feeling, and an attainment are, how they are connected and to what extent, so that we can attain our root in them, the Creator.

This is practical work which we have to perform all our life and not only in the workshops. I am constantly in a workshop with myself: before the lesson, after the lesson, 24 hours a day, in order to connect “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.” I have to listen to the friends, not just when they say certain words, and hear what their hearts say. I receive all these impressions through the center of the group, through everyone.

The Creator treats us as a corrected system, but I can’t see it this way. Instead I judge it according to my deficiencies. If I correct my egoistic defect just a little, I will join the corrected concept of the group, as the Creator sees it. In order to do that there is no need to wait for the specific time of the workshop: Our whole life is a workshop called internal work, the work of the Creator!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, ”Talk About the Workshop”

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What Is Born In The Center Of The Group?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do we give birth to together in the common center of the group?

Answer: Every time in the center of the group, we give birth to the force of connection, unity, guarantee, bestowal, and love above our egoism, on its foundation, but rising above it. And so, we create the condition for the revelation of the upper Light, a place for the revelation of the Creator. It is called Shechina, because Shochen, the Creator, ascends the throne in it.

The center of the group, from the perspective of desires, is a sensation of the extent to which we want to connect all these desires together. Man sees that the whole world depends on him, and on the other hand, he sees the extent to which he depends on the whole world. It is a twofold feeling. One moment, I feel myself standing in front of a perfect system; the next moment, I see that the system is all broken because of lack of my participation in it.

We always reveal two polar opposite qualities. But by reconciling them by compensating with the upper Light, we reach the middle line. This middle line includes in itself a multitude of components; it is not necessarily a direct path but something in the middle between the right line and the left line. It is not simply their averaging-out but their compensation of each other to 100%. A 100% thief and a 100% altruist-philanthropist connect in the middle point and use both qualities in all their force, not by half.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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Connecting Through The Central Control

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does our collective reality exist, or does each one build his own individual reality?

Answer: Our collective reality exists similarly to the way we feel ourselves living in one world, but everyone feels it differently. We cannot even measure in what way our feeling of this world is different. In our superficiality, we cannot be included in each other’s desires, I can’t enter your desire and you can’t enter my desire. Each one has his elementary point, which determines the uniqueness of his personality, which he received from the Creator.

The Creator is our common denominator, the factor that unifies us. Only through Him can we connect. Therefore, the center of the group is the starting point of that place, which is called the Creator, or a desire in which He is revealed.

Only in this central point can we understand one another, and at the same time, we discover that we will never be able to feel what is actually happening in the desire of the friend and what he feels. We connect with each other only through the Creator, and even then it is unconsciously!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, ”Talk About the Workshop”

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A Profusion Of Questions About The Workshops

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does a feeling of irritation and hatred towards each other appear during the workshops?

Answer: Not necessarily. We shouldn’t wait for it. But if it appears, it means that we can rise above it. But, in general, we can be in such a good field that it will not appear.

Question: Once, I came to the workshop downhearted and left it full of happiness. Now, I am always looking for this sadness before the workshop. Is it correct?

Answer: No! Why should I look for something, especially something bad? You shouldn’t! I rise from good to better.

Question: Is it desirable that there is no walking around during the workshop?

Answer: No! Only if a person has problems with the functions of the body, then there is nothing you can do; it’s above nature. There are no other excuses!

Naturally, all the phones must be turned off; everything is absolutely quiet: Now, we are working on the ascent to the spiritual world, to the next degree. It is possible that this will happen during one of the workshops, or between them; it doesn’t matter, but in general this action is the ascent to a spiritual degree.

Question: How should you respond if the group suggests that you should leave the workshop because they think that you are disturbing them?

Answer: If the group thinks so, a person must obey. Later, he may require an explanation, but at the moment he has to leave the room, and most importantly quickly, without arguments, to let others continue to unite.

Question: Sometimes pauses occur during the workshops.

Answer: They arise because you don’t want to empathize! You don’t include what the friend says into yourself. Then you would just get a complete picture.

The same is true in the classroom, unless it’s a lesson that is perceived solely by the mind.

Question: Does one need just to hold this center of the group within himself?

Answer: You do not need to hold this center. If you are always trying to be included in the others, you inevitably find yourself at the center.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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A High-Quality Action

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Some friends cannot stand the intensity during the workshop because it is physically difficult for a person.

Answer: It’s not only physical but also mental stress because you have to hear, respond to, and evaluate everything. You are pulled into and held there, and it is a high-quality action.

Question: How important is it to stay and make this effort, rather than release tension by taking a smoke break?

Answer: No, not in any case. No smoke breaks! A person must overcome himself and not be worried about his heart or head. Nothing will happen to him. The tension is really strong, but it happens under the influence of the upper Light, so there can be no unpleasant side effects.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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The Renewal Of Feelings

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After several workshops a feeling emerges that everything has been said, and there is nothing more to talk about, and only the same words are repeated. Is this normal?

Answer: It’s not normal. We should try to see always entirely new feelings, a new meaning in the same words.

The fact is that the ten Sefirot are constantly repeated, but by changing the conditions, we experience completely new levels, that is, new fulfillment, experiences, events, and internal connections between all this. It cannot be the same even if I speak constantly about the same topic. It must be completely different because I am constantly changing. If it seems to me unchanging, the problem is in me. If a person doesn’t change, he should ask himself, what’s the matter?
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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