Entries in the 'Workshops' Category

A Common Reserve Of Spiritual Energy

Dr. Michael LaitmanNo matter how difficult spiritual attainment appears to be, in reality, there is nothing simpler. Imagine a system that is completely unified, wholesome, connected between all its parts, all minor details. Everything operates in absolute harmony and aspires towards a single goal—everything is aimed towards connection, making a common analysis, in other words, the Creator, which exists between us.

We reveal Him as a consequence of the harmony that arises between us through our constant efforts to connect between us harmoniously. As a result of finding harmony inside our desires, we reveal the Light that fulfills them.

The Creator is in us! We are in the world of Infinity, so let us reveal at least the very first, the easiest and smallest degree of this perfect state. To reveal it means to make yourself correspond to it, become equal in qualities, attain balance with the Light that fills it at least on the very first degree—Nefesh de-Nefesh de-Nefesh of the world of Assiya.

For this it is necessary to achieve equality of all parts of the common vessel. But how can it be achieved when equality cannot be measured? The only thing that can be measured is the difference between one and the other, Delta. But when things are identical, we cannot appraise them because we lose the scale for measuring them. How can two absolutely black colors be compared, or how can one compare white to white? We need a certain difference to appraise things.

However, we must verify our equality, because if I am not completely equal to another I cannot consider him my friend—I am not connected to him by a mutual open connection. And this is why we need two qualities: reception and bestowal. I must bestow to the group as someone big in relation to those who are small, giving them the greatness of the goal, the recognition of importance of the Creator and friends. And on the other hand, I must lower myself to the same extent in relation to them in order to receive influence and support from them, as I perceive them as the greatest people of the generation.

In other words, I achieve maximum bestowal and maximum lowering of myself. And these two maximums lead to my equality. I cannot build equality on its own, just by considering myself equal—this equality is not worth anything. Equality is only revealed as a consequence of two extreme states: the highest and the lowest.

And when everyone in the group works this way: in the maximum and the minimum, giving everything to the group and receiving strength, awakening, and inspiration from them, then it is as if they were becoming connected by a single open pipe. Before, we all used to connect to each other through pipes, through which the energy flowed, but now, they all merge together and we get one big lake, one common reservoir is being discovered.
[77934]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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Three Conditions For The Revelation Of The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Under what condition can we demand, draw, and reveal the force of the Surrounding Light, the Reforming Light that will connect us in mutual guarantee so that we will reveal the Creator, the spiritual world? How can we demand this force so that it will correct us? What is needed in order to do so?

Answer: Three conditions must be met:

1) the greatness of the goal,
2) despair from one’s own powers,
3) connection with all the friends.

Then, all together, we will reach the feeling called “the payer of many” after having done everything we can in order to connect.

The Light comes and reforms us. What does it mean to reform? It means a true request. It is the Surrounding Light that brings us the true request.

Therefore, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is the clarifying Light called the Light of AB-SAG, and there is the correcting Light. Here, too, everything takes part in two phases.

First, we do everything that we can. We hold conventions, work in a group, and try to connect, thus summoning the Light that clarifies where we actually are. It lets us feel the greatness of the goal.

At the same time, it shows us how low we are, in a state where we don’t take even one step toward it. However, these two points, the greatness of the goal and the despair from our own powers, create two poles between which there are ten Sefirot.

Then, the potential between them activates the Light of correction. This state is called “prayer” since, in a prayer, there are the two points, the greatness of the goal and the recognition of our lowliness. This internal cry brings us the Light of correction that connects these two points through the ten Sefirot and presents us with the whole vessel.
[77627]
From the One Convention in New Jersey 5/12/12, Workshop 3

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The Builders Of A New Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If the Creator is revealed between us and not in every person individually, how does each person feel this field of a single force?

Answer: The spiritual is bestowal. Bestowal is something that is revealed outside of every person rather than inside one. Inside of us we can only feel what we feel now: the picture that we call this world.

Therefore, if I wish to reveal something above my corporeal existence, something outside of what happens in my animal body, I need to build a new, different body. This body is called unification between people. Since they also are created from animal bodies, we build a new body between us, which arises between us, and feel our out-of-body reality there. That reality is called the spiritual world or higher reality, since it contains all the forces and qualities, the program of creation, and its goal. Everything is situated there, between us. That field, the upper force, controls us. It’s called Light, Creator, Elokim, and many other names.

Thus we have no choice but to build unity between us. By striving toward this unity, even egoistically, we rouse a certain influence from it onto us and begin to sense it on the degree called Lo Lishma. Then it affects us more and more, and we begin to feel it on the first spiritual degree, and then with greater and greater intensity. The power of our unification determines the power of the Light that Reforms, the sensation of bestowal that is being revealed. However, all of this is revealed between us.

Such is our work. We just need to try to constantly imagine this state in a more authentic and real manner, and adjoin to it everything we know from science, psychology, and the relationships between us. And then you will see how true it is. Suddenly everything will unite.
[77445]
From a Lesson in New Jersey 5/10/12, Shamati

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Turning Good To Evil

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Creator made the evil inclination and the good one. It is written, “I created the evil inclination.” So where does the good inclination come from?

Answer: In reality, there is no good inclination. There is just the evil inclination, which was initially created by the Creator. That is why He informs us that He created the evil inclination. But we correct it with the help of the Torah and turn it into the good inclination.

“Inclination” is desire. The desire remains. But “evil” means that I constantly want to receive for my own sake, and then it harms me because I close myself off in this world like a small animal, living out the years I have to live. This is the most miserable kind of life that is possible in reality.

The good inclination means that we try to unite in the group and see that we are incapable of it, and begin to scream in a common prayer. Then the Light that reforms comes and creates unity between us, and inside of that unity the intention to bestow, the Light becomes revealed. Then, instead of the evil inclination, we have the good one, the same desire, but with the intention to unite with the neighbor.
[77693]
From the 3rd seminar at the New Jersey Convention, 5/12/12

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A Screen Is Very Simple…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can one person acquire an anti-egoistic screen if it can only be acquired through the group? Or is the Creator the only one who can give us a screen?

Answer: The Light comes through the group in response to my request and builds a screen within me, which helps me rise above my ego and connect to the group. A screen is a connecting link between myself and the group, or between myself and the Creator, which is the same thing. It helps me rise above egoism and, once I rise above myself, to connect with the Light, with the Creator, with the essence of the group that is revealed at the group’s center.

We don’t need anything other than the screen. There is my desire and there is the group within which the Light and the Creator are found, and the screen helps me connect with them. That is how I enter the spiritual world: at the center of the group.
[77696]
From the 4th seminar at the New Jersey Convention, 5/13/12

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A Seminar With The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During seminars in the group, some people talk more and some less, some are more expressive and others less. What is the right way to relate to this?

Answer: When I sit in a circle together with other people, I must see every one of them as a puppet through which the Creator speaks. This is not a person, but the way in which the Creator presents Himself to me in various forms. No matter how silly the things they say are, that doesn’t matter to me; I bow down before them. No matter how unpleasant they may suddenly seem to me, how repulsive and unattractive, I must counterbalance this by understanding that He is awakening this outlook, this antipathy in me. And this is the place of work.

It is written about the great sage Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma that he had a group of students who were total beginners, stupid and with no merits, but he placed himself even lower in relation to them, and then they suddenly became great in his eyes and he was able to receive all attainment through them from the Creator.

No one is higher or lower; all of that exists according to our evaluation. Therefore, I can sit with a group that came “from the street” – that doesn’t matter. Everything depends on how I position myself in relation to them.
[77448]
From the lesson in America on 5/10/12, Shamati

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Solving Problems

Dr. Michael LaitmanWomen ask the same questions as men during the seminar, they try to experience these things together with men, to quietly, internally participate in the solution of these problems, and at the same time push men towards the solving them. 

There are problems that pertain to women. And there are problems that they cannot solve because the solution lies in the connection between people. And this kind of problem can only be solved on the level of feelings between the men.
[76820]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 4

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The Function of the Mind

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I do not understand the function of the mind. How do you cancel it and what do you do with it?

Answer: You only need the mind to properly express feelings, different relations, draw conclusions, and then once again activate feelings. The mind works between the feelings: feelings – mind, feelings – mind. The mind expresses what I am feeling, the conclusion I am supposed to draw from this and how to connect to new feelings. The alternation of mind and feelings happens the same way as the alternation of ascents and descents. You can control it, we will get used to it.

Question: We know that the mind serves the feelings. How do you understand whether you are speaking from your mind or your feelings? What is the difference?

Answer: If you need to express feelings after experiencing them, you express them with your mind, generalize them, differentiate between them, and only after that do you express the prepared thought.
[76817]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 4

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Should We Bring the Light to Our Families?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We, the men, understand how to interact in the group and what to aspire to. The question is how do we, to bring the Light that we attract to them at home in our families?

Answer: Free your wife of this suffering. I understand that you quickly want to tell everything all the good things that you learn. Take a break. I am serious, do not do it. All these things can only be realized in the group, and not outside of it.
[76814]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 4

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The Creator – The Teacher

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I would like you to be with us as long as possible.

Answer: First, when people treat each other nicely, they think that it’s good to be near each other. I don’t know whether this is a better place—to be next to you.

Second, if you talk about me, the teacher stays with his students as long as they need. As soon as this need disappears, there is other work, he is transferred to another place.

So, there is nothing terrible here. You have to think only about how to realize what’s written in the primary sources and that’s all. Whether there is a teacher, no teacher, it doesn’t depend on us. And the most important is what we are doing now. If there are such groups, if women actively help them, support, directing towards the center of the group the desires to reveal the Creator, then everything will be fine.

There is no need for a teacher: The Creator, the Light will teach you. In reality, this is what we are trying to “catch” here—the method of working with the Light.
[76894]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Workshop 4

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