Unity Only Among Equals

Opinion: (Alan Greenspan, a former Chairman of the U.S. Fed):“The euro zone is doomed to fail because the divide between the northern and southern countries is just too great, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC in a recent interview.

‘“At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn’t…’ ‘Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe’s excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits.’

‘“The only way to have several currencies from divergent nations lumped together is if they are culturally close, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria. If they aren’t, it simply can’t continue to work.’”

My Comment: This will happen under pressure and only if we reach mutual guarantee, when all will receive education about and the understanding of how dependent we are on each other, and public opinion will keep everyone in this sensation. Nature will force us to it through suffering, but it is desirable to strive for this earlier by a good way.

Who I Am Is Who I Will Be

According to the laws of interaction between the Light and the vessel, we have to go through the gravest misfortunes on the path toward the goal. And that’s where the science of Kabbalah comes to our rescue, helping us avoid having these blows come down on our animate flesh and instead transferring them to the human level, to the height we should be on.

Today I am receiving blows from three levels: still, vegetative, and animate. They are whipping me along on the human level. Stated differently, I am being pushed from behind by a bad force, evil, suffering. And I can only obtain one means to help me, a yearning, an attraction forward, coming from the wonderful goal that illuminates my path like the sun. In that case, I will still experience suffering, but it will be the sweet suffering of love.

It is easier to bear this kind of sorrow because it is caused by a longing for the good future. I feel disappointed and fall into despair, but I do not run away because I understand that these pains have to reach a specific, total measure (Σ), similar to how penny after penny eventually adds up to a big sum.

I accumulate great pressure within, a great desire to make a leap toward the goal. I need a gap between me today and the corrected me. And this gap has to be felt as suffering, caused by the difference between who I am and who I should be. This is unavoidable. This abyss has to open up inside of me, but there is absolutely no need for it to be created by wars, diseases, and other disasters.

The real correction is just starting now, when humanity is starting to come together, to merge as one man with one heart, either unwillingly, under a torrent of negative forces from behind, or with the help of the Light that flows ahead. It is impossible to describe how these two paths differ. After all, we have to open up Malchut of the world of Infinity, either in the darkness of inconceivable suffering which purifies our egoism, or in the Light that reforms.

Thus, everything comes down to how we will experience the abyss separating us from correction. We can overcome the path willingly, by agreeing with it, by building an environment that supports us; or we can ignore the solution as long as possible until the pressure from behind forces us to understand from where, why, and for what the disasters are happening, which we cannot escape no matter how much we try.

A person may need decades to get smarter and reveal the Light. And that is why the science of Kabbalah was given to us. But one way or another, this gap between the Creator and creation, between the receiver and the Giver, has to be felt inside of us to the fullest.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/11, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

Let Us Awaken Ourselves By The Light

Question: To what extent can the convention awaken the dormant informational genes (Reshimot) in a person?

Answer: We can only awaken our informational genes (Reshimot) due to the influence of the environment. Without the influence of the environment, the Reshimot awaken according to the driving force of natural development, which pushes us from behind through suffering, according to nature’s evolution. Everything arrives, as they say, “in its time (Beito).”

However, if instead of evolving at a natural pace we want to accelerate time (Achishena) and hasten our development through our efforts, then we need to draw the Light upon us. The stronger the Light, the faster our Reshimot awaken. And thus we advance faster.

The Light illuminates us from Above, and the Reshimot react to it and awaken from below. We can influence the Light by arousing it, and then it also awakens our Reshimotfaster. This is our entire work; we are able to do anything else.

From this we can understand that the convention can be a very effective means to awaken the Surrounding Light that reforms. If all of us want to reach our future state, the state of mutual guarantee and bestowal, then the great Light that is attracted by this desire will awaken the Reshimot in us. In this way we will accelerate our development.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/6/2011, TES

http://www.laitman.com/2011/11/how-to-perceive-the-material-through-the-heart-or-mind/

Question: There are a lot of things that I don’t understand. When will the overall picture of the whole system finally become a little bit clearer?

Answer: I have been studying this material for years. I am a person who is accustomed to studying, and for me all the diagrams, drawings, and systems are like bread for the hungry: I “swallow” them with great pleasure. I like systems analysis because my profession is biocybernetics. But when I started to learn this system, it was absolutely incomprehensible to me and raised a lot of questions.

All the questions are resolved only to the extent that you feel the material. If you study it without going into this material with your feelings, you will understand nothing. Moreover, even if you understand something today, it will evaporate tomorrow because you are constantly changing. What you remembered yesterday disappears from your memory today because your desires are changing.

The only way to understand this system is to attain it. And attainment is possible only when one’s qualities match those of the system. That is why you should think not about how to absorb this material in your mind, but how to feel it with your heart. The heart understands, not the mind.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 10/30/2011

The Keys To Life That We Pass On To Our Children

It is an adult’s obligation to teach a child and to give him all of the necessary preparation for adult life during childhood. And the same thing happens in the spiritual world: The upper level gives the lower level all of the “keys,” all of the means for continuing to build itself.

The lower level just has to figure all of this out and make a free choice to keep going. There is nothing else to do but this. All the forces are already at our disposal.

Therefore, the small state (Katnut) is considered fundamental, while the great state (Gadlut) is an addition that sometimes appears and sometimes disappears, depending on the efforts of the lower one. But he always keeps the small state, which serves as a good, healthy foundation for creating the next great state, which is new every time.

Therefore, the small degree, called Hafetz Hesed (one who desires mercy), fear of theCreator, the level of Bina, “artistry,” or faith, is what has to be transmitted to the next state, from the fathers to the sons, from the upper level of the spiritual ladder to the lower level.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/08/11, Writings of Rabash

Yearning To Meet The Light

It is written that we need to yearn to know what we are studying.To know is to connect, as it is written: “And Adam knew his wife Eve.” We want to discover, to establish connection with the forces and states that The Zohar talks about. We want to be in them.

We don’t know what they are in and of themselves, but we want to discover ourselves within them since they are the advanced states of our connection, of the formation of the general Kli (vessel or desire).

And then, out of the desire to connect to these forces and states, according to the measure of the collective aspiration, we discover the Light that Reforms. It comes closer to us to the extent that we yearn for it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/2011, The Zohar

Egoism And Pleasure Are Incompatible

It is impossible to enjoy egoistically. The moment a pleasure wants to enter the desire, we feel their contact for just a short moment, and then the desire immediately dwindles.

With small pleasures we don’t experience a very intense sensation that during the contact between the desire and the pleasure, the two immediately put each other out. They both disappear and are annulled. But in great pleasures, when a person aspires very strongly and dreams about them for a long time, or in special pleasures such as sex or sophisticated artistry, a person immediately feels that the pleasure comes for a fraction of a second and then disappears.

And we ask: Why?! It’s because the egoistic desire and pleasure are initially not intended to exist one inside the other. The will to enjoy cannot hold pleasure inside of itself. The two are opposite by nature and therefore, don’t wait for them to ever be able to be together!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/11, Writings of Rabash

Through The Machsom – By The Diagram Or Not?

Question: Is it possible to cross the Machsom without the knowledge of diagrams and the general system of the Universe?

Answer: Yes, it is if your work with friends is directed at true unity. However, you still need to study something to attract the Upper Light to yourself. You should work together with the group, virtually or physically, and study the material, which describes how we are connected.

By assembling a Lego set, a child builds his future states, that is, he creates something. We, too, need to create something, and at the same time we need to attract the force that will pull us towards the next level.

That is why by trying to unite in the group through studies, we attract the upper Light that unites us, and we begin to understand this scheme namely from connecting. We could not know it, but we should study it together in the group; otherwise, the upper Light will not be manifested. It manifests from those forms in which it exists.
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Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/11

This Is Not Emptiness, But A New Blank Sheet

Question: Why does it say that when man makes an eternal union with the Creator, there is no more work, ascents or descents, for him?

Answer: Why would a person have ascents and descents once he completes his correction? The purpose of descents is to reveal another uncorrected desire to you—to make you dig more deeply into your egoism, to discover there something that needs to be brought to the surface.

It’s similar to the way the ground is plowed before planting seeds. These are all consequences of our spiritual work.

Once a person reveals his entire uncorrected desire and corrects it, there is no reason for descents or ascents. But he will continue to ascend and descend until he reaches the end of correction, Gmar Tikkun.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/2011, Writings of Rabash

Pride, Forcing You To Bang Your Head Against The Wall

Question: We see terrible examples of hatred and hostility in history. What kind of hatred do we have to reveal in order to unite above it and rise to the spiritual world?

Answer: We cannot evaluate the past with its dreadful catastrophes and fratricidal wars. Jews fought one another more fiercely than the Romans or Greeks who attacked them. This is how the scrutiny of the shattering takes place. Good and evil blend together, desires intermix with intentions; all the catastrophes and problems happen on earth only to clarify all this.

This is part of the correction! Throughout the history of humankind, we see how much blood has been spilt and how many people have been killed—billions! Wars have been waged constantly; in all places, people have inflicted terrible harm upon one another! To the present day, every day, constant disputes and arguments happen all over the world, and all of that is the clarification of the desire to receive pleasure that has to reveal itself and come to the conclusion that it needs correction.

As a result, it discovers that it needs to correct itself and become one common desire. And when it realizes that it is incapable of doing this with its own power, it starts thinking: What kind of force can help it with this?

At first, a person, by his or her naivety, tries to correct everything with his or her own powers, and it takes a lot of effort and time. And regardless of how much it is explained to one that it is not he who makes corrections, it doesn’t help. One has to get desperate and bang one’s head against the wall a thousand times in order to finally say: “Oh, now I understand that I’m incapable of doing this alone! I need an external force, the Creator, the Light that Reforms!”

Now a person understands and feels from within, in the desire that he has clarified after having banged his head ten times against the wall, that redemption will come only from outside. And then he starts working in this direction and looks for the Light of correction.

But he searches for the Light alone at first, banging his head ten more times, until he suddenly realizes that the Light gets revealed only in a connection with others.

We have to go through all of that. There is nothing we can do about it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/2011, The Zohar

Love Will Cover All Debts

It is said in the Talmud that all in Israel guarantee for one another. But why is it only in Israel? Indeed, according to the purpose of creation, the entire world must come to mutual guarantee.

The fact is that Israel should do this first, as Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.” The sons of Israel receive a special state in their development: They stand at Mount Sinai, meaning they discover evil between themselves, the abyss, rejection, true hatred, caused by the shattering that occurred at the root of our soul.

And then, rising above all this, they can achieve unity, mutual guarantee. It is said: “Love will cover all sins.” This force of love will be revealed in them above hatred.

And then, it will be poured to all others, who cannot reveal hatred and love so much. These souls belong to the category of the “nations of the world”: Their desires are less strong, and the force of breaking is weaker in them. The chasm that has opened within them is not as deep, and the passions raging in them are not as cruel, although they are the carriers of the receiving desire.

Of course, at the end of correction, everyone is united in one vessel, without any distinctions. However, on the way, there is a category of souls that carry out correction first. This category is called “Israel” (ישראל), which also means “my head” (לי ראש). And the others get everything ready and are called the “nations of the world.”

Today, we are standing at the threshold of the final ascent. So everyone who feels the pull towards correction and the need to unite for the sake of this are called “Israel.” They stand at the head according to the mission that they must carry out in the process of correction. “Israel” also means “straight to the Creator” (ישר-אל) since the purpose of correction is to come to the upper force, to attain complete bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/2011, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

The Difference Between The Animate And The Human Desire

The only desires that can be corrected are desires that have an addition, a special form of an attitude towards desire called an intention. There are instinctive desires for fulfillment on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, which are simply enrooted in us by nature. And there are desires that operate through an intention, which assume a special attitude towards the source of pleasure, and not the pleasure itself.

The reason I want to be rich is not because I receive pleasure from buying things with money, but because I am envious of my rich neighbor. I want to be big, beautiful, and slender, always comparing myself to the others. A certain attitude towards others is part of this, and it gives me an additional pleasure. If the attitude towards my neighbor disappears, I will have no reason for this pleasure.

Egoistic desire appears from the fact that we were once connected and then became distanced from one another. And this distance, breaking, affects our desire, increases it, and gives it the form of an attitude towards other, foreign, desires, and ultimately the Creator. In other words, it defines my attitude toward something that exists outside of me.

When it comes to a simple instinctive desire, I only want to fulfill it. And the others do not concern me at all—it is only my desire. But the desires of the “human” level are not my inherent desires, but acquired ones. I have acquired them by being connected with others some time ago or by being in an environment that rouses this kind of desires in me.

The desires that get corrected have an intention that appeared from the past connection into a single desire. This is why this intention is present in us and constantly awakens, demanding correction.

We attain the understanding of the creature, the Creator, and a 620 times greater fulfillment and connection specifically through the correction of this intention.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/2011, Writings of Rabash