In the News (from AFP): Japan’s Sony Corp. said Tuesday that it was cutting more than 8,000 jobs worldwide and shutting plants as part of an overhaul of its business to cope with the global economic downturn. The electronics giant said it would axe about 10 percent of its manufacturing sites, cut investment in its electronics business by about 30 percent.

My Comment: Only the necessities will remain!

In the News (from The Daily Telegraph): Pubs are closing at a record rate, with six closing every day because of the economic downturn. The British Beer & Pub Association says that 39 pubs a week are closing in Britain, a rate 20 times faster than three years ago. It is estimated that 44,000 jobs in pubs and bars have been lost in the past couple of years and that 60,000 more jobs will go shortly.

My Comment: Could anyone imagine this happening?! Truly, the world will be different…

In the News (translated from Newsland.ru): “Will the crisis turn women into wives and mothers?” Being mother and wife is the only worthwhile way for a woman to realize herself. Most women toil in order to earn a salary, but not for self-actualization. Meanwhile their children grow up lacking a mother’s attention and develop inferiority complexes. However, the crisis is forcing women to return home.

My Comment: Kabbalah views the crisis as correction. The disappearance of excess will help us to better prioritize life and its values.

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Three questions I received on the spiritual desire:

Question: First of all, thanks for a great Congress at Blackpool which I thoroughly enjoyed. Which prayers should we be saying as potential Kabbalists? I have watched the children’s lesson on prayer but cannot find the answer. Is there a particular prayer book we should use?

My Answer: A prayer is the heart’s desire. One should do all that one can to make his heart desire the goal of creation – the revelation of the Creator.

Question: Why does the Creator want us to need Him?

My Answer: Because He is the quality of “bestowal and love” within us. And this quality creates a sensation – within us – of an eternal and perfect life.

Question: You say that a person needs to feel a “deficiency.” What kind of deficiency are you talking about: spiritual or corporeal?

My Answer: This means that you must reveal that you don’t love others, and reveal it in such a way that it will suppress your self-love. It is as though you ascend on top of the mountain of your egoism through love for others, and to this degree, the Creator will be revealed to you, or rather, in you.

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Camp Mt. Sinai
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Filed under: Spirituality - 1 Comment →

The global education system should include the theory and practice of attaining the concealed world. It should teach humanity “the attainment or perception of reality.” Scientists already admit this, but are yet to fully comprehend the fact that we cognize the surrounding reality only in our consciousness, and we cannot perceive the “objective” reality, or what lies beyond the limits of our consciousness.

We must cast aside theories that view the universe as existing outside the limits of our consciousness. Reality is composed of our general experience, including scientific experiments, as well as our thoughts, feelings, and intuition. In addition, to the extent we correct our egoism, we reveal a new world inside our corrected consciousness. However, this new world does not exist until we reveal it within.

Actually, our consciousness is a fundamental concept, and modern science already acknowledges this. We never attain anything outside of our consciousness. This is what the principle of “perception’s self-sufficiency” (autopoiesis) says: everything we perceive as our surroundings, the whole universe as it is perceived by man, exists only in the form that we reveal it.

Self-sufficiency does not come from the nature of the universe, but rather from the nature of our attainment, perception. We cannot suffer from lacking a sixth finger, because the sensation of a desire is the preliminary state, preceding the revelation. The Upper Level is first expressed in us in the form of a desire for it, and then It’s revealed in this desire.

Astrophysicists create new models of a “self-sufficient” universe and describe its structure and functionality as being similar to a living system. They are finding more and more evidence for the fact that the universe is alive and connected into one whole on all its levels. Scientists who study evolution agree that the Earth is similar to a huge living cell because of its global, interconnected system on all its levels of life and development.

However, we are still left with the problem of correction: simply studying and accepting the facts does not mean that you are being corrected and becoming similar to Nature. For this, it is necessary to study the next level of our existence, which is explained only in Kabbalah. It turns out that we are left with the same problem of disseminating Kabbalah in the world. At first this should be done without specifying “Kabbalah,” and only gradually, as Rambam suggests, we should reveal the Source of true wisdom.

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Perception - No Comments →

In the News (from Science Daily): “Making The Most Of It: Study Reveals Motivating Factor For Enjoying The Present” According to a new study, thinking that we have a limited amount of time remaining to participate in an activity makes us appreciate the activity that much more and motivates us to make the most of it. These findings support the idea that “thinking about an experience’s future ending can enhance one’s present experience of it” and that “focusing on the fact that an experience is fleeting enhances enjoyment by creating a ‘now or never’ type of motivation.”

My Comment: At every moment in time, one has the opportunity to change oneself and the world for the better. If one has this attitude to life, then he is always enthusiastic about life. After all, “the world” is what you build and perceive within!

Question: I don’t understand: if everything is driven by thought, which begets the mind, then what’s the end result of it all? Is it to achieve the goal of absolute harmony and attainment of the Creator? But what for? And what’s going to happen once this is achieved? And what’s the point of creating the primitive creature that is man in the first place – to revel in our ego?

My Answer: The goal of developing our desire is to attain the sensation of the state of perfection inside this desire. The most rational, quick and easy method to bring oneself to perfection (to correct oneself) is demonstrated to us by the Creator through His work (Avodat HaShem).

Just as adults teach children how to live in our world by showing them examples of the proper behavior, so the Creator shows us examples of the behavior that’s necessary in order to start perceiving the concealed part of the world. However, if we act of our own accord, then we are like children who don’t have parents or the right environment, and are trying to grow from a primitive stage to a level of being able to understand life in the modern world. How can they possibly do it without being educated at home, in kindergarten, school, and so on!?

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Question: In one of the lessons you said that America is built egoistically to unite more than other nations because it is comprised of different nations (is ethnically and culturally diverse), and that it is going to be okay in this crisis if the people unite. My question is: doesn’t this speak to some space in me? Some space inside me that egoistically would like to get along with the other people in my life?

My Comment: Of course, this is how we start correcting our nature: by searching for a better egoistic life. However, while studying Kabbalah we begin to feel the value of having a direct altruistic attitude to others; its independence, greatness, and the infinite, eternal sensations that become revealed in it. And then we discover how to attain this, and consciously aspire to come out of egoism.

In the News (translated from SvobodaNews): The Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Science (IERAS) reports that Russians are faced with a decline in income. They will have to take any job, save money, raise their professional qualifications, and support each other. At this time it is important to stay connected with family and friends, because people will have to come out of this difficult situation together.

My Comment: Indeed, this prolonged suffering will force people to unite – and not just within each nation, but all the nations together. Kabbalah enables us to understand what is happening, and then people will also be able to quickly understand what to do in order to attain equivalence with Nature, with the quality of bestowal and love. This quality is the basis for survival in the unified system of humanity.

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News Report (from The Wall Street Journal): Israelis have to discard Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s famous maxim: “War’s objective is victory – not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.” They will have to settle for a substitute because from their standpoint “prolonged indecision” is better than the alternatives – the annihilation of themselves, which would be unthinkable, or of their enemies, which would be unconscionable.

My Comment: We have to let time do its job, in order to bring the nation of Israel to its senses, so it will realize that precisely by correcting itself, it can amend the situation, both for themselves and for the whole world.

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”: If people use the science of Kabbalah – the method of correction, they raise the whole world and then suffering disappears. It is precisely through the use of Kabbalah that the world will come out of its crisis, toward the Light.”

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News Report (from University of Miami News): Self-control is critical for success in life, and a new study by University of Miami professor of Psychology Michael McCullough finds that religious people have more self-control than do their less religious counterparts. Among the most interesting conclusions that the research team drew were the following:

• Religious rituals such as prayer and meditation affect the parts of the human brain that are most important for self-regulation and self-control;
• When people view their goals as “sacred,” they put more energy and effort into pursuing those goals, and therefore, are probably more effective at attaining them;
• Religious lifestyles may contribute to self-control by providing people with clear standards for their behavior, by causing people to monitor their own behavior more closely, and by giving people the sense that God is watching their behavior.

My Comment: In our times, all of this is coming to an end because egoism is growing in every person. People no longer have “naive faith” like they did in previous centuries. Only those who are egoistically underdeveloped still have this kind of faith, to some degree. And whether directly or through their contact with the rest of the world (the other souls), these people will also reach a point where their egoism will develop.

Hence, faith is disappearing, and religion remains in the capacity of a custom, a culture, or a framework for domestic life. Religiosity is gradually disappearing, and the only thing that can help us stand up against the global egoism and mutual hatred emerging in us, is what Kabbalah reveals to us: the vision of our global interdependence and the need to observe the commandment, “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

This is what we must do in order to survive, instead of any other, egoistic, commandments of any religion! Religion won’t help us cope with the modern uncertainty, suffering, and crises, despite the fact that people are still coming to religion in the hope of being saved from their misfortunes. Everyone has to go through this and become convinced that religion’s psychological effect no longer works to counter our developing global egoism.

The reason for this is that religion pertains to the level of “Domem de Kdusha,” where a person in society is obedient in a natural way, like a good child. This is the level of the still, vegetative, and animate egoism in us. But today, humanity is rising to the “human” (Adam) level of egoism, where egoism compels us to become individual egoists, and then to conquer this individual egoism and unite in order to attain the Creator.

This is why Kabbalah states that religion will be reduced to just the cultural traditions and customs of every nation, but it will no longer be able to provide psychological support for the people. Faith will be replaced by the knowledge of the Creator, as it is written, “For all will know Me, from the smallest to the greatest!” However, Kabbalah is not against religion, but is there to supplement it – to fill the void that is forming inside the growing, modern egoism, and which is impossible to fulfill by religion.

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A question I received: I just read how you were able to defend your dissertation on Kabbalah by writing against something you believe, which is an interesting strategy. I am pursuing my PhD in Education at Walden University and after four years now, I have finally come in contact with a mentor who understands my goal in obtaining this doctoral; I can now approach my research in Education by designing a program of “Metaphysical Education: an Emphasis on Kabbalah Studies.” It is good to know you are so willing to assist those of us on this educational attainment path and should I need your help, I hope you will be there for assistance as well. I must say, your books, the articles, website links, etc., are a tremendous help.

My Answer: In this case, the goal justifies the means. The PhD title gives one the opportunity to give lectures at universities about authentic Kabbalah.

It also took me a long time to find someone who would supervise my dissertation, and I still had to “fix” things according to his instructions. It’s possible that you will also have to make certain “corrections” that your academic director will insist on. But there’s no sense prolonging it, since the dissertation materials will be buried in an archive anyway. Kabbalah is probably the only field where the student pursuing a degree may understand more than his academic director.

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News Report (from PloS One): New Japanese research concludes that greater interpersonal trust is strongly associated with a better quality of life, including physical, psychological, social, and environmental quality of life.

My Comment: Small egoism or an artificial suppression of egoism creates a sense of comfort, because “One who increases his knowledge, increases his grief.” This is why an animal’s life is easier than a human’s. But of course, reducing one’s egoism is no solution to a problem because you can’t fool nature. According to the Creator’s plan, egoism must continue growing until it demonstrates its own incompetence to its possessor, or in other words, until it shows us that it is the source of evil.

This is egoism’s primary mission, as it says in the Torah, “I created a helper against you” (Ezer Ke Negdo). One way or another, the growing egoism will force “its master” (as man thinks at first) or more correctly – “its slave” (as man later realizes) to use it. There is just one solution: comfort can only be achieved by correcting egoism. This not only enables a person to rise above egoism, but because one uses it to bestow, one senses the life of the general soul (Adam). In other words, one perceives his next level – beyond the existence of his animate body, the state of Adam, an existence that’s equivalent to the Creator. He reveals the Creator inside him.

There is so little separating us from happiness!

Related Material:
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Filed under: Egoism - 1 Comment →

News Report (from The Daily Galaxy): “DNA Found to Have ‘Impossible’ Telepathic Properties” Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA.

The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

My Comment: The forces of unity (bestowal, love, and mutual responsibility) come from the next, higher “intellectual” level than the level of the egoistic elements that unite. For example, every cell and organ in our bodies is egoistic, but by uniting together, each one annuls its egoism and they acquire the quality of complete bestowal and mutual interaction. This way they rise to the next degree of existence: a living and developing body.

The nature of attraction lies in recognizing those who are similar to you, according to the law of balance (homeostasis), or the law of similarity. Two opposite elements – whether cells or other structures – are drawn to each other according to the program of creating a higher mutual existence. This is the connection between all parts of the universe, including all the spiritual worlds. Any connection leads to the assimilation of the following level of existence.

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