Entries in the 'egoist' Category

New Scientific Studies On Old Methods Of Happiness

Where to Send Logistical QuestionsNews Report (from Los Angeles Times): “Write letters, be happy” Steven Toepfer, an assistant professor of family and consumer studies at Kent State University, conducted a study to determine what would make people feel happier. He had students write one letter every two weeks for a six-week period… After each letter was written, the students took a survey that gauged their mood, their satisfaction with life and their feelings of gratitude and happiness. According to Toepfer, the students’ levels of happiness increased after each letter…

My Comment: Coming out of oneself and connecting to others is an old, time tested method of changing one’s life under the influence of the environment. By sending a kind letter, one not only receives the corresponding response on the level of this world, but also subconsciously receives an illumination of the Surrounding Light from above, because his action makes him similar to the Creator. So write letters!

News Report (translated from lady.mail.ru): “Want to feel better? Wash your hands!” Psychologists noticed that there is a connection between a person’s hygiene and his “clean conscience.” Many people wash their hands to get rid of bad thoughts. So it’s not a coincidence that physical cleanliness has been an important part of religious rituals throughout millennia.

My Comment: This works only on the level of our egoistic world. It doesn’t correct egoism, but only makes it more agreeable for interacting with oneself and others. The only thing that can correct egoism (from the intention “for one’s own sake” to “for others’ sake”) is the Upper Light, which created it in the first place.

Related Material:
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The Black Hole

My Comment: “Don’t take more than you need.” Our absolute egoism begets an extreme phenomenon in nature: egoism’s development leads to its own demise.

In the beginning of creation, a spark of the Upper Light gave birth to an infinitely tiny point of infinitely dense matter. However, this point contained the Upper, spiritual energy, and therefore it began to expand. The energy of this spark animates our entire world.

Today we have developed to reach the global egoism at its highest level, called “speaking” or “human.” We must now bring it to equivalence with the Upper Nature, with the spark of Light and the Upper World.

The Kabbalistic Definition Of Zion And “The Mixed Multitude”

Why Are There So Many Different Words In the Torah?Two questions I received on Zionism and “the Mixed Multitude”:

Question: What is Zionism? What does this have to do with Kabbalah and Bnei Baruch?

My Answer: “Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to man in this world” (Baal HaSulam, article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”). Zionism is a social movement in favor of returning to Zion (Israel). The Kabbalistic definition is as follows: the Land of Israel is also called “Zion,” from the word Yetzia – “exit” in Hebrew. Any person who exits the limits of our egoistic world and enters the Upper, Altruistic World, enters “Zion.” Mi Tzion Tize Tora (the Torah will come from Zion), means that when a person exits his egoistic state, he comes to the Light.

Question: During the last two lessons, you mentioned “the Mixed Multitude.” Who is this?

My Answer: “The Mixed Multitude” (Erev Rav) are the opponents of Kabbalah who prevent people from coming out of spiritual exile and revealing the Creator. And even after a person aspires toward bestowal and love, Erev Rav prevents him from advancing by any means possible. They came in Moses’s way when he was trying to lead the people out of Egypt (the spiritual exile) toward the revelation of the Creator. They also placed all kinds of obstacles in his way during the 40-year passage through the desert.

Today they also spread all kinds of rumors. They can no longer speak against Kabbalah, because this is no longer possible, but against the people who disseminate it, including our organization. It is written that they are Irei Hashem Ovdei Paroh – those who fear the Creator, but desire to remain inside their egoism.

The Gaon of Vilna (Agra) wrote in The Light of the Zohar, 3: 28 “Adam Ve Ishto”: “In the future Moses will reveal everything to us, unlike the way it is now hidden in the Torah in the form of stories intended for Erev Rav, who do not study the inner meaning.”

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Baal HaSulam Article:” A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion of The Zohar”

Kabbalah’s Solution To The Financial Crisis Differs From The Common Sense Solution

I participated in two conversations for the TV Series “The Butterfly Effect.” One was on the social economy, and the second – on the global solution to the economic crisis.

Speaking with me was Shlomo Maoz, the chief economist at Excellence Nessuah Investment House.

Shlomo Maoz is a famous international economist, who predicted a number of trends in the global economy, and whose forecasts and advice are valued in the financial market. In this case he again expressed the most correct solution from the perspective of common (egoistic) sense! However, Kabbalah’s point of view is different.

His advice on how to overcome the financial crisis is the following:
1. We have to return to “life at home,” work less, restrict the high-tech industry and the Internet, spend more time with our families and maintain a small community. The Internet is the source of the crisis because it has connected the whole civilization on earth into a “small village” (see my comment #1 below).

2. More women should be appointed to management positions because women make business less egoistic, more sensible and flexible, and less arrogant.

This advice clearly echoes the history of Ancient Babylon:
4500 years ago, the ancient Babylonian civilization – which included all of humanity within a closed area – began to experience a global crisis of a “small village”:

  • People discovered that everyone depends on everyone.
  • Every person’s egoism was exposed to the maximum (allegorically speaking, they wanted to rise up to the heavens).
  • Everyone’s hatred for everyone was revealed; people stopped understanding each other (allegorically speaking, their languages became confused).

Then two propositions emerged:
Abraham proposed for everyone to unite “as one family,” which is what Nature compelled them to do. This union could be achieved by using the science of Kabbalah that he revealed.

Others, led by Nimrod, were against this, and since the other path was egoistically clear to everyone, the majority of the people accepted it. Hence they scattered all over the earth, destroying the connections of a “small village” among each other and annulling the globalization.

This is what Shlomo Maoz proposes we do today. The proposition is correct and addresses the problem. However, in our time it cannot be the solution. It is similar to other “solutions,” such as how to break our relationships by means of another world war, or to discontinue our communication artificially. However, there is no going back because today our egoism embraces the entire civilization on earth.

The science of Kabbalah says that we cannot go our separate ways peacefully a second time. Instead, mankind will all but destroy itself by engaging in the Third and Fourth nuclear World Wars. Then only a few people will remain on the Earth, and they will nevertheless correct themselves (our souls) and will attain the goal of  creation – similarity to Nature (the Creator).

In the past, only a few people heeded Abraham’s advice. They later became known as Israel, which means “straight to the Creator.” Today, just like Kabbalah had predicted for thousand years, we find ourselves in the same situation. However, the solution isn’t to disconnect, as this will bring about Nazism and cause us to annihilate each other. The solution lies in creating an even greater connection with each other!

Therefore:

  • Mankind must resolutely restrain all extremists and people who aim to disconnect us, even if it will have to resort to physical coercion.
  • For the sake of survival, every person has to be satisfied with the necessities (see my comment #2 below) and contribute all the excess of his labor to the well-being of the entire society.
  • All mass media and educational systems must provide a global education for mankind.

My Comment #1: Today humanity is experiencing a period that’s similar to the mid-life crisis of an individual. The inertia to move forward that started at birth is running out. Now we have to progress consciously, by our own efforts. We have to understand where we are moving and why: what is the goal? When a person doesn’t understand his goal at mid-life, he starts resorting to extremes: earning a bundle of money,  remarrying someone younger, and so on. His greatest fear is to remain alone with his own thoughts and the ultimate question: “What is this all for?”

This is why now, as strange as it may seem, society is somewhat happy to encounter the financial crisis, because it can hold it accountable for all the incomprehensible negative phenomena it has been facing over the recent years, such as the lack of a clear direction for further development, a dead end in international relations, and geopolitical changes. Now there is an understandable common problem that has to be combated. All the rest can be put aside for the time being.

My Comment #2: Let’s recall an example of the right attitude to the world as told by the Biblical story about the heavenly manna. The people were instructed to gather exactly as much as they needed to eat in one day. All the excess would spoil overnight, because it didn’t belong to them! So, the current crisis is teaching us to get rid of the excess. When the crisis deepens and spreads even more, people will start thinking that it’s useless to make such great efforts to gather something that will spoil anyway.

For more on this, see the newspaper “The Nation“, the book From Chaos to Harmony, and my lecture in Arosa.

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Will America Turn Socialist?


News Report (translated from K2Kapital.com): “The word ‘Socialism’ is no longer looked down on in the USA” The crisis on Wall Street, loss of savings and pension funds, the real estate market collapse and unemployment have raised the issue of economic survival. The crisis calls for an increase of government regulation and a rejection of liberal methods in the financial sector. The word “socialism,” terrifying to the American ear just a short time ago, no longer seems so scary. What’s so bad about socialism, anyway? Let the government care for its citizens instead of protecting the interests of billionaires.

My Comment: For the time being, the aspiration toward socialism is selfish and egoistic, but it cannot be otherwise. People are gradually starting to realize that globalization is the new reality in which we need to live, that the world is like a small village, like one family.

This concept is readily talked about, but not yet fully grasped. We haven’t yet accepted it as a fact, as a phenomenon that has suddenly manifested in our world, which we cannot escape, and which obliges us to completely change our lives.

It is similar to the feeling of a person who has been sentenced to life imprisonment: he gradually realizes that his life now has to undergo a major change, and how such a change requires him to adopt an attitude and behavior different from before.

Hence, a natural consequence of feeling the effects of globalization, global interconnection and interdependence, is the perception of socialism as desired and superior. However, we will need to correct the way we think about socialism. When we will feel that everyone in the world is one family, we will reveal the Upper Light, the sensation of harmony, delight and eternal life. But before this happens, people will have to go through the path of rejecting egoism. And in order to desire this, they will have to realize that egoism is evil. This can happen through:

  • Actual suffering due to egoism (known as “the ten plagues of Egypt,” where the first plague is the financial crisis that is starting to develop as we speak), or
  • Through theoretical recognition and the study of Kabbalah.

Either way, mankind will have to consciously arrive at the understanding that “everyone is one family,” where every person takes every family member into consideration. For more on this, see the article, “The Freedom,” and the newspaper, “The Nation.”

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The Financial Crisis May Trigger A World War

Neither Side Is Right In This WarNews Report: As the crisis develops, scientists are trying to predict whether a third World War will take place at the end of the “Second Great Depression,” as it happened after the First Great Depression. In the International Security Report 2008, researchers from the Oxford Research Group (ORG) assert that war is inevitable unless immediate economic changes are made. The social unrest will erupt in a violent, armed struggle for survival. Experts say it is necessary to institute social justice and fair commerce, to write off debts and reduce toxic emissions into the atmosphere.

My Comment: Everyone agrees with the scientists that this is better than a nuclear war, but who’s going to establish this new order? For that to happen we would have to have a different nature, and such a nature can only appear in man under the influence of the Upper Light. All heads of governments without exception are afraid of unleashing a war. They understand that it’s possible to “accidentally” trigger a process through a terrorist attack or provocation by a third party, which will sweep all countries involuntarily and uncontrollably toward World War III.

Kabbalah states that there is only one alternative to war: to use all the mass media channels to provide a universal explanation of the new global interdependence and the need to create new global relationships of kindness. Then the social opinion will influence every individual, because man was created such that he is fully controlled by the social opinion. And if any regime will disagree with this global agreement, it will have to be isolated from the entire world.

By undertaking this, mankind will become similar to Nature (the Creator) and will immediately discover Nature’s good influence on all levels of our existence, from ecology to finance. For more on this, see item 155 of the “Introduction to Talmud Esser Sefirot.”

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The Truth Can Only Be Discerned From Within

Dr. Michael LaitmanTwo questions I received on how to be sure that one is following the right path:

Question: I want to find out the Truth with a capital T, but everything I see looks like lies. How can I prove to myself and to others that Kabbalah is true? It’s not enough to say that everything is evil, and only “our Torah” is the truth.

My Answer: Progress and growth always come with the sensation of a mistake and its correction, just like in any tracking system that’s aimed at a particular goal. The feeling of uncertainty, the sensation that things are lies and are false, are all necessary, and you should be glad you feel them.

Only animals don’t make mistakes because they’re governed by nature, whereas man must develop of his own accord. Moreover, we mustn’t suppress these qualities in others; on the contrary, we should encourage them, even if these people end up leaving us. Let them verify and find their own path. Otherwise they won’t become human, but will remain “animals,” as it is written: “All are like animals” – all except those who draw the Light of growth and correction.

Question: There are many groups and schools that study Kabbalah. In your opinion, is every group that studies the authentic sources suitable to study Kabbalah with?

My Answer: Only you can tell which group and manner of study are best for you. Some people still need to go through various mysticisms, religions, and Kabbalah as knowledge (Baal HaSulam describes this when he writes about the “Kabbalists of Jerusalem”). After trying all of these (perhaps even in the next life cycle), they will come to the authentic study of Kabbalah, which is a reception of Light for the correction of one’s egoism. Indeed, this is the only reason for Kabbalah’s existence in this world, the only reason that the Torah (Kabbalah) was given. The Creator said: “I have created egoism and I have created the Torah for its correction,” or in other words: in order for people to attain the quality of “Love for one’s neighbor” – the principal law of the entire Torah and of the entire world.

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The Path Of Light Versus The Path Of Suffering

What Do Villains and Prophets Have to Do With Bnei Baruch's Virtual Group?A question I received: Is it correct to say that the Path of Light does not take away the problems in a person’s life, and it’s just that someone following the Path of Light perceives them differently? Since that person is on a higher level, he doesn’t have the same problems as in the past because his attitude to them has changed, or rather, his attitude to the source of the problems. However, when a person following the Path of Suffering receives the same problem, he feels bad.

My Answer: That’s absolutely correct! We exist in a field of Upper Light (the quality of bestowal and love). This field consists of concentric spheres, and the closer a sphere is to the center, the more intense its quality of bestowal and love is. Everything is static; only we move through this field and change our perception by changing our qualities.

A desire, or the single soul, was created in the center of all the spheres. It then moved away from the center, losing its quality of bestowal and love, and then broke into pieces (the particular souls). Thus it acquired the opposite quality – reception (egoism). Because of this, it now exists in the most remote sphere of the field of Light.

The souls have “positions” relative the Light just like a charge has a position in an electric or magnetic field. A soul’s connection with the Light (a charge’s connection with the field) happens through balance (similarity) of their qualities. If the qualities of the Light (field) and the soul (charge) are the same, then the soul (desire) feels that it is at equilibrium. In other words, there’s a balance of the soul’s forces or qualities with the Light’s. They’re in a state of homeostasis.

When the souls move away from the center to the periphery (when they descend through their qualities), they retain a Reshimo (record) about every state they go through. When the souls reach the maximum distance from the the center (from the Creator, because their qualities are opposite to Him), a recording of the whole chain of separation (descent) remains embedded in them. The souls (egoistic desires) perceive the most remote state as a person (soul) in this world (field).

From this moment on, the souls begin their way back. At first they advance toward the goal of creation unconsciously, under pressure that emerges due to the nonconformity of their qualities to the qualities of the spheres of Light that they pass. The souls feel suffering, which is a feeling that comes from the opposition of their egoistic qualities and the qualities of the Light. The greater are the Reshimot that become expressed in a soul, the more the soul is pushed to the inner spheres in the field of Light. Or stated differently, the greater the nonconformity between the uncorrected Reshimo and the corrected Light, the worse a person feels (and the same can be said for the society as a whole).

Starting from a certain sphere in the field of Light, the Light’s influence on the Reshimo elicits a recognition of the cause of the suffering. This is expressed as the question about the meaning of the suffering, about its reason and purpose. It is a question about the meaning of life. A person is then brought to the group (the environment) where he can start correcting himself to become similar to the Light (bestowal).

“It always seems that we are loved because we are good. But what we don’t realize is that we are loved because those who love us are good.”
Leo Tolstoy

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One Must Feel That He Is The Only Created Creature


Questions I received on interpreting Baal HaSulam’s words and visiting graves of the righteous:

Question: In Shamati, Baal HaSulam mentions several times the “Masach de Hirik.” Would you please explain this phenomenon or concept?

My Answer: It is the correction of the soul in the middle line. One uses the egoism from the left line and the force of Light that corrects it from the right line, thereby building himself with the help of these two forces.

Question: What is the meaning of the word Yuli (יולי)?

My Answer: It is the initial material, from which everything developed.

Question: Why is the expression that Rav Ashlag uses, “What’s the meaning of my life?” and not for example: “What’s the meaning of life?”

My Answer: It’s because a person has to feel this question personally, to feel that his life depends on it completely. He has to feel that he is the only created creature (see the materials on Perception of Reality), and because of this, the purpose of life in general, of everyone’s lives, depends on his life.

Question: Where is the place in which the creature realizes his “I,” and on the other hand, realizes that there is none else beside Him?

My Answer: The place of realizing his “I” is in Malchut, and of realizing the Creator – in Keter.

Question: Does it help visiting the graves of the righteous and lighting a candle to sanctify the soul?

My Answer: Only psychologically!

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There Are No Images In The Spiritual World


A question I received: How do followers of Kabbalah explain the origin and usage of Kabbalsitic amulets and cameos with names of angels or demons, such as Lilith for protecting babies, Ashmodai for protecting a warrior, Velzevul and many others? (References: Hebrew Amulets p. 20, 51, 125; Jewish Tradition In Art p. 20). I always thought that it was harmful to have “relationships” with these creatures through their names, such as by placing their names (Lilith, for example) next to unprotected children. A name is an essence, and when a demon sees its name written he or she allegedly can’t harm the person who’s “protected.” But how correct is this assumption, and what is it based on? I think that it’s the opposite, that when a person uses these “methods,” he falls under their power.

My Answer: You have to air out your head completely. In the spiritual world there are only forces. They can be good – altruistic (the force of bestowal and love) or evil – egoistic. However, there are no images there! And there are none in our world either.

In general, there is no difference between our world and the spiritual world. Everything depends on a person and what kind of forces he discerns. Cameos, talismans, lucky charms, and other uses of names don’t have any power besides a person’s psychological belief in them. All of this was invented by ignorant people who took the names of the forces from Kabbalah. This is also how the religions originated.

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