Abraham Is The Property of Bestowal

Question: What was Abraham’s appeal to the Babylonians?

Answer: Abraham is the property of bestowal (Hesed), the quality of love at a small degree (level).

Abraham addressed the Babylonians and asked them to remember how successfully they cooperated when their egoism was smaller. He advised them to rise above their divisive ego and live in love and friendship.

However, this work was unfeasible for them since it implied that people had to help each other and trigger the Reforming Light by asking the Creator to grant it to them in order to actually live in accordance with the rule of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

It implied that each of them was a “different object” detached from each other by selfishness. Was it possible to build a bridge between them? It is a very difficult task! It can be achieved only with the help of Abraham’s property, Hesed (mercy, bestowal), when despite our alienating egos we still try to correct ourselves in order to reach a phase when our neighbor is as important and precious to us as we are to ourselves. This is how the principle of love thy neighbor as thyself is implemented in life.

Abraham gathered his adherents and led them out of Babylon to the land of Canaan. Today, it is almost impossible to imagine how they managed to withstand such a grueling, long walk through the desert. But it was not about a physical journey; rather, it signified that Abraham elevated his people from the egoistic degree called “Babylon” to the level of the “land of Canaan,” today’s the land of Israel.

In other words, it was an inner journey throughout which people gradually advanced from their prior desires and properties, and got farther and farther away from Babylon and closer to the land of Canaan. By moving forward, they elevated.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

Man In A Global World

Question: What is the global world?

Answer: This is our world in all the possible kinds of connections with itself. We must investigate it to feel its universal global nature, feeling ourselves as a part of it, becoming like it, and transforming into being its useful component.

Question: What does a simple person need this for?

Answer: It is to become part of the world. Without this, you will not carry out your mission, but, sooner or later the strict laws of nature will bring you to this by the way ofsuffering.

First and foremost, you need to be useful to society because you are a part of it, and you cannot escape it. In society must prevail the full understanding that it is integral and everyone within it absolutely depends on everyone. So, this obligates everyone to be involved in integral education, in the wisdom of connection, because otherwise you will not get anything from society.

In addition, if you don’t want to participate in this, then you will go outside of the framework of the society. You will do what you want, but no one will serve you and no one will help you with anything. Through your lack of participation, you are sticking a label of rejection on yourself.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 5/13/15

Why Did The Creator Make The Evil Inclination?

Question: How could the Creator, who is completely good, and doeth good, create the evil inclination that doesn’t bear His property? Why did He do it? Why aren’t we born to a world that is full of benevolence?

Answer: If we were born in a completely wonderful world, we would be like angels who have no evil inclination. That is, we would exist only in accordance with one singular force.

However, the purpose of the creation is to attain the Creator’s level, get smarter, perceive, and reach the same state as His, acquire similar power and parallel properties with the Creator, i.e., become totally like Him.

To achieve this level, we just have to bear the properties that are opposite to the Creator. However, we also should possess the qualities that are similar to His, i.e., we should be comprised of two parts. One part is the evil inclination, the properties that are adverse to the Creator, with which we are born to this world.

Whereas, the second part, the Creator’s qualities, should be acquired by us, on our own. This is how we are supposed to “build” ourselves by involving both parts more vigorously, thus becoming more and more like the Creator.

The process of achieving His level consists of 125 degrees. It continues until we reach the state called “The sons of the Creator returned to Him.” It happens when we reach equivalence of properties with the Creator. For that, we need to be comprised of two opposite parts.

Therefore, the Creator made the evil inclination, a selfish desire. However, He is the One who grants us benevolent desires when we ask Him. These two forces allow us to reach perfection.

Question: But how can I obtain properties that I know nothing about?

Answer: To make it happen you have to join a group that works on the same task. You should engage in it. You won’t be able to do it alone, on your own. Group connection elicits the Returning Light, and thus receive a second, positive force of nature that balances out the negativity in each of us.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/17/15

Egoism—Our Great Assistant

The left line helps us build the connection between us. Without the ego, we wouldn’t be able to acquire a form, so it isn’t destroyed. It is as if you place a sheet of copper or gold on it and begin to hammer it until a relief is formed.

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this is the reason for all our sins because our intentions are really good. You are sure that you can work with all the intentions in order to bestow, but there is a short-circuit and everything is burnt; suddenly you fall into darkness.

We undergo states of ups and downs during the preparation period, in the transition process from Lo Lishma (not For Her Name) to Lishma, the intention to bestow. However, since they are minor, they don’t lead to great mistakes. We need this period in order to balance the two attributes in a person properly so that both the Light and the darkness, the desire and the attribute of bestowal, will be seen as equal, and a person will understand that it is impossible to do without them. The attribute of darkness and the attribute of Light are equal in the attainment of the Creator, and you can’t have one without the other.

A person must properly ascend above his desire to break forward, and to bestow even more. It is as if we all say, for example, how wonderful and good you are because you have done someone a favor, and under the influence of these words, you burst with enthusiasm and bestow even more! Then, you begin to regret it. This regret rolls you down from all the levels just like in the kids’ game of Chutes and Ladders when you advance and suddenly are thrown backward. However, in order to guard ourselves from that, we are given a certain period of time during which these two forces must be balanced properly in us.

The attribute of receiving is the upper mind since it is only thanks to the ego that we begin to understand and perceive the way things really are. The right line, on the other hand, is bestowal and love, and there is no Din (Judgment) here, no limitations, no contrasts, no domination or control. The left line includes everything in it. It is impossible to discover the Creator’s Light without it. The ego is our great helper, but against us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

Maslow And Baal HaSulam’s Pyramids

In the News (postnauka.ru): “…The uniqueness of Maslow’s theory is that he treats each person in terms of a hierarchy (superordinate structures) of needs, the apex of which is the need for self-actualization. It defines self-actualization as a man’s desire for self-actualization, to actualize his potential. This desire to be what the person should be.

“Moreover, as noted by Maslow, self-actualization is not determined by social roles, status, position. For example, one person self-actualizing as the perfect parent, and the other as an athlete, and the third as an artist, and so on. Nevertheless, a significant role in the development of personality Maslow assigns social environment.

“The basis of the pyramid of needs are physiological needs: the need for food, sleep, etc. Above these is built the need for security, stability, freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos, a need for social structure and order. Above the need for security, Maslow puts the need for belonging and love, and above it – the need for respect and recognition. The top of the pyramid, as has been said, is the need for self-actualization.

“One of the most frequently asked questions: Why is it a pyramid? Maslow believed that only individuals reach the top of the pyramid and become self-actualized, i.e., reach their identity or self. Most people operate on the level of satisfying their physiological needs. Part of humanity meets the physiological needs and security needs, that is, feeling well-fed, clothed and sheltered, the other part, except those needs, meets the need for love and belonging. Then there is this group of people, which reaches the level of acceptance, confidence, a sense of the importance of private utility.”

My Comment: Baal HaSulam’s pyramid is a pyramid of corporeal desire— food, sex, family— bodily desires, and the needs for wealth, honor, knowledge—social desires—next, above these desires is the desire to attain the meaning of life, the source of life, that appears in a person from Above in the form of a Reshimo, an informational gene of his previous spiritual state. The Reshimo leads a person to a teacher, a Kabbalist, and under his guidance and instruction one discovers the 125 levels of the spiritual attainment, until he reaches the top of the ladder, the state of the complete correction of the ego and the resemblance to the upper force.
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The Revolution of the 21st Century: The Engine of Desires

(Continued from “Revolution of the 21^st Century: Rich Man, Poor Man”)

First of all, society should be viewed through the prism of its development “on the crest of” egoism, meaning the desire to enjoy, which is our nature. This desire is constantly growing, increasing in various forms and directions. As a consequence, the various historical stages alternate with each other, and we are witnessing their dynamics.

Once people were glad to be in slavery because it provided food and housing and they never dreamed of anything more. Later, slaves struggled with the once-coveted yoke, eager to become free people. Let it be more difficult, but the man could not remain in captivity. Thus, our desire to enjoy gradually undergoes internal transformations, changing the order of priorities.

In this way, freedom is not the final destination. Indeed, a person needs a job to support himself. And here he is again enslaved no longer as a slave but as a worker, not bound and free to move. Thus, by increasing both quantitatively and qualitatively, our egoismdrives the changes in our lives.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/14/15

Science And Consciousness

Opinion (David Chalmers, Australian Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist): “Consciousness is the most mysterious phenomenon in nature. Why do we have consciousness? The answer is unknown. Physics explains chemistry, chemistry explains biology and psychology. But consciousness is beyond the normal definition of our world.

“Consciousness is fundamental. Physicists accept particular aspects of nature as basic: space, time, and mass. They deduce and derive the basic laws that govern nature. These characteristics and laws are not explained in any other form, and upon them a model of the entire world is built. If it is impossible to explain consciousness by means of the basic existing elements (space, time, and mass), then that must also be included in this list, accepting consciousness as a basic element of nature.

“Consciousness is universal. Every system has consciousness to a particular degree: Not only people, flies, and bacteria, but also the elementary particles. Even a photon has consciousness. Does a photon have understanding or thought; is it tormented by worry about where it is being carried with the speed of light? No, but there are possibilities that photons have some kind of subjective feeling, something that precedes consciousness.

“It could be that the connection of consciousness to physical processes is a connection of consciousness with information. There, where information is being processed, is where consciousness is also found. The integrated processing of information, as with humans, is integrated consciousness. The simple processing of information, this is simple consciousness.”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah maintains that everything is only in the human. And everything that seems to us as outside of the human only seems that way to us, but essentially everything is found within us, and outside of us there are no other creatures. Consciousness is connected with information, which depends only on connections with the Upper Light, the characteristic of bestowal.

Only the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) and the Ohr Pnimi (Inner Light), in all the forms that are created (still, vegetative, animate, including humans) maintain consciousness, to the degree of the development of the ego within them and the ascent above it. SeeLesson Number 1 from April 5, 2015. We are “swimming” within the Upper Light, in the higher consciousness….
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Does The World Need Money?

Question: In what way is it possible to help the world other than with money?

Answer: The world has no need for money; instead it needs people who understand this world. There is no connection to money here.

Money is received for some potential, some possibilities, but if this doesn’t come along with intelligence, then it only harms the world. Money enslaves a person. The person who is most free is someone who has nothing, but also has no need for anything.

Suppose that a billion dollars “fell” on you now. You would sit from morning to night thinking about what to do with this and with that; your freedom would end So, truly great people, authors, artists, and musicians were always afraid of too much money, only enough so that there would be means for them to work.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 5/13/15