New Jersey World Kabbalah Convention starting today!!!

New Jersey World Kabbalah Convention

The Daily Direction 8.6.2014

Selected Excerpts from Rav Laitman's Words, Daily Lesson

“If I’m concerned inside, in my heart, that everyone would be concerned for the same special unified state that is how I operate in everyone”

We should demand in each and every moment that such a network would be built between us, so the property of bestowal would be revealed in it.
We have to think of our friends who want to achieve spirituality, who want to bestow and love each other so much, and my negligence is what is keeping them from it. I’m not helping, not putting in my grain that would have tilted everything to credit instead of debt.
I have to think of the Kabalists who wrote, and worked so hard to build the path for us, aimed at our world, our situation, our time, especially for us, and how much as a result of all their actions during thousands of years we can now realize what they prepared for us with their blood, and we need to take it a bit more seriously and take responsibility.
We have to think of our friends and ourselves, and above it all – think of the creator, although it’s hard for us to imagine what exactly he is, what this power is, and what it means to bring contentment to him, but overall we need to ask for an impression that would bring us to a deep enthusiasm, emotionally and responsibly. That we would really get to the convention to create a revolution within. In each and every moment, even from this moment during our preparation for the convention we should demand that such a network would be built between us, so the property of bestowal would be revealed in it, and we will feel ourselves as existing in the upper world.
This is what stands in front of us, ready for us, it was prepared for us and depends only on our will that it will happen and be revealed to us, and then the whole world rises up with us to the upper world. This is what we have to hope to achieve, it is what we are yearning for and preparing ourselves for these days. Amen.
 

Do your account about the common feeling
Each one comes with whatever he has and he complements the others with whatever he has. Do your account about the common feeling, about the common deficiency, the common result. This is what I should yearn for, this is what I should examine, that's the place I should be, not about myself.

What The Mind Doesn’t Do, Time Will

Question: When we work with the ego, we constantly deceive it. Is this actually what the Torah says?

Answer: I wouldn’t say that the work with the ego is deception, but it is actually the right way to use it. In itself it is powerless, like a child who gets mad but cannot do anything about it. This is why we were given the Torah so that we can change it. This is the whole idea.

The main thing is to hold on to it. It takes years and sometimes decades. Some of my students who have been studying for 15 years are just starting to grasp it.

My teacher, Rabash, told me how his father Baal HaSulam, who was torn by inner questions, once randomly took a book from his teacher’s bookshelf and opened it. But we know that nothing happens by chance, and it was the book Eitz Hachaim (The Tree of Life) written by the ARI. Although his teacher the Rabbi of Porsov had forbidden him to touch it, he understood that this was exactly what he needed. He had found his book but didn’t know that it would take him 20 years to even begin to understand what it says.

This story left a very strong impression on me, which was almost depressing: “if I am 30 now, it means that I will understand things only when I am 50!”

But on the other hand, it is impossible to stop our evolution and it continues and can even be hastened, but despite our will it takes time since our evolution takes place in this world, in flesh, bones and nerves. The inertia of the corporeal matter pulls us backwards and doesn’t allow us to make the spiritual leap.

All the Kabbalists, no matter who they were, went through theses states. So you have to plant the spiritual seeds inside you.

If evil is revealed somewhere, it is only so that you can purify and change yourself so that you will be able to be “planted in the ground and grow.” At the same time you shouldn’t identify with the negative attributes. You have to exit them and to follow them from the outside. Then you will be able to place yourself under the shower and be cleaned, receive help to be planted in the ground, and ask for more.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/18/14

Looking For A Solution In A Circle Of Equals

Question: In a workshop, in a circle, does everyone have to express their opinion?

Answer: No, this is not a televised debate which fill all of the channels now. If everyone starts bringing arguments from his corporeal mind and showing everyone how smart he or she is, this won’t lead to anything. In a circle there is no place for wise guys. We require connection only, and in connection all are equal.

We come to a workshop to connect and find the power of unity, shared wisdom. So among us there are no righteous or smart alecks, nobody is right or wrong, rather all are equal. We gather to invest inner, mental efforts for the sake of unity between us, to feel the power of our unity within the inner connection between us. This power is discovered thanks to our efforts.

There is no place here for debates. Essentially, there isn’t even a need to talk. It would be even better if we could invest inner efforts and connect without words at all. Yet since we are not used to this, we are forced to talk about something. And the subject could be most common and familiar.

Nobody in a circle expresses their opinion! I listen to what you are saying and agree with you 100%.

Question: But we are talking about current events: leaving Gaza or not, acting this way or another.

Answer: What do we have to talk about this to begin with? Are we a cabinet that makes decisions?

Question: But we want to hear what everyone thinks.

Answer: What do I need to hear what everybody thinks? How does that help me? We gather in a circle not to hear the opinions of everyone, rather to scrutinize the unique mission of the people of Israel. So we discuss our history, our role, our wisdom, why we are like this. It is necessary to speak about this and not about the operation in Gaza.

I understand that this is a question that is burning inside people, bur one has to gradually move from the deed to what caused it: Why is this happening this way? Why do we find ourselves thrown into a situation like this all the time? Why does it keep repeating all the time? Why can’t we correct it once and for all? What do the neighbors want from us and what do we want from them? Is there a higher power here that is “heating” up our relationship all the time?

It is possible to begin with current events and gradually move toward a more internal discussion. We flee from actual questions and only want to go deeply into their sources.

If we begin to discuss how to fight and how the enemy reacts, what is correct and what is not, and what all the politicians say about the subject, it will go on forever, without any benefit. It is up to us to try to scrutinize the cause, the solution. After all, the cause and the solution are found in one place.

But usually people only talk about external consequences that get renewed every day and feed mass media.
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From KabTV’s “The Mission of the People of Israel,” 7/8/14

Turn History Towards A New Horizon

Question: What exactly helps to come to a warm feeling of connection in a circle?

Answer: Everyone perceives themselves equally. There are not those who are higher or lower, all want to connect, and this connection is possible only between equals. I accept everyone’s opinion, all hearts, all thoughts. It is important to me to be integrated into them and disappear there, to enter there and dissolve.

And that is what everyone thinks. Within a feeling like this we build one heart as one person. At the same moment when we attain a connection like this, we feel within this shared heart a unique power, an intelligence called the Torah. For we maintain the conditions of receiving the Torah: We have become like one man with one heart.

And so we feel that we have become one desire and one thought. This common desire and thought become for all of us a feeling of an elevated state, higher and loftier than our present corporeal life. This raises us above our families, above this land, above all material life.

We have already begun to feel that power that intentionally arranges for us an uncomfortable form like this in this earthly life, with incessant problems and wars, so that we will rise to His level. If from this moment on we continue by awakening ourselves to an even stronger connection and discover the higher force even more, we can advance without any external disturbances.

On the contrary, we are going on the good way all the time with “I will hasten it” (Achishena), in the way of the Light. And by raising ourselves upwards we attract all of the people of Israel after us and after them the whole world as if we are dragging a net behind us: Everyone joins in and rises.

Question: This is truly so, but the moment that I go out of the circle and look at the news, I immediately forget about the feeling of connection in the circle…. How is it possible to hold onto it and disseminate to all of the people of Israel?

Answer: Again it is necessary to gather for workshops again and again, and outside of your circle there will be thousands of other circles. Each one of them, through its action, influences the others and they influence it.

And so we discover that we can change the world only through such action of connection. We truly become the masters of our fate. But it is impossible to correct the situation through the elimination of a few terrorists and the destruction of their bases. We don’t change history with this, it repeats itself. Our connection is the only means for turning history towards a new horizon.
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From KabTV’s “The Mission of the People of Israel,” 7/8/14

Adjusting To The Higher Tuning Fork

A group of Kabbalists is not built through a chance gathering of people. Rather, it is gathered from Above. The global nature builds everything, including the group around and within us.

It is up to me to relate to a group as a community of people from this world that are gathered following the influence of the upper power that creates unique conditions for us so that we will try to connect between us through a network of higher relationships. It is up to me to relate to a group as an offering from the Creator to insert me into a higher society, and don’t ever forget this.

So, it is up to me to accept everyone who comes to a group as a desired component, cultivating this relationship all the time, sharpening, and considering it more and more.

I have no other way of communicating with the upper force except through the group. If I want to speak with the upper level, it is up to me to turn to a group as a model that offers to be connected with me. Only through it I can explain it to the highest level, the “Creator” who created me, all of us, the entire world.

This relationship to a group is very important! It is to be understood that through it, I am speaking with the Creator. From here is our obligation to pray for the many, to turn through everyone to the Creator, to relate to others with love. In order to be directed to the next level, to the Creator, there must be relationships of equality between us, despite our differences.

We try to create a single whole from ourselves in which personal desires, intentions, yearnings, and connections don’t exist. Rather, everything is mixed into a single drop so much so that within it, we lose ourselves and acquire the intelligence of the next, higher level, its desires and thoughts with which we become a single whole.

According to the law, “ten turns into one.” Then it splits again into ten (the ego grows) and again is connected into one, and that is how it is in all 125 levels of our ascent.

This means that on every level a matrix is given to us, and if we work with it correctly, then we communicate through it to the Creator. This is not like what we do when we are communicating by telephone or through the computer. Rather, we rise to this level emotionally and are included in a direct connection with the level. So, the Creator, meaning the next level, begins to live within us.

The one difference is that on our level, in concealment, if we don’t feel the Creator, in the next level, we feel ourselves and the Creator as one whole, including the intellect of the entire universe, a general gathering of communication, the program of creation. This state is called “adhesion” to the Creator, and after it, there are 125 further levels in which adhesion with Him grows.

It is up to us to realize this possibility given to us in this incarnation of life, to relate seriously to a group and tune into the realization of our relationship to others permanently. Indeed, all the rest of our deeds are much less useful for ascent to the next level than what we can do in a group.

Even when we go out to the wider public with various activities, we require them only so that the need to connect will grow between us. Going out to humanity can be implemented through various communications media.

All of these are helpful since first and foremost, what is important to me is direct, clear, and correct communication with those friends who are gathered by the upper force, and it is up to me to work with them against my will. If this were given to me to decide, I wouldn’t ever choose them. I don’t know why I am required to attain the upper level, so they give me a group in which it is up to me to direct and arrange myself correctly.

Together with this, it is up to me to understand that all the rest are absolutely correctly directed, and I become a single string among a hundred strings that are tuned to the others. Yet, first, I sense myself tuned in the best way, and even though an awful, terrible sound comes out of me, it seems to me as something pleasant.

Like a mother who looks at her infant and he seems the most beautiful to her and the entire world is worth nothing compared to him, so I also relate to myself as the favorite. All of the rest seem to me not tuned at all, so much so that it is up to them to tune themselves to me.

However, in reality, our tuning must be completely the opposite. It is up to me to accept them all and each one as a completely tuned instrument or absolutely correct collection of characteristics. I am the only one who is not corrected, and this is not only in a group, but also in the entire world, in the entire universe. I am the only one who needs correction. So, everything was created for me. When the person relates to the world like this, he can say, “The world was created for me!”

Relationships like these in a group place us in the right state. I thank the higher power that brings me to a group. I am thankful that it shows me how I criticize everyone, and reject and hate them. I relate reasonably to part of them because I must be connected with other people, receive from them, so that I can feel myself better.

Gradually, I tune the string a little further and a little further. I bring it to the ideal sound in relation to the tuning fork. The tuning fork is the general movement of the group in which the higher sound has been felt already partially. When the general movement enters into harmony, the higher essence is revealed in it.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 3

The Daily Direction 8/5/2014

The Daily Direction 8.5.2014

Selected Excerpts from Rav Laitman’s Words, Daily Lesson

“Each one must pray that his friend will have the prayer”

This is how we reach the quality of bestowal

If I want to be in bestowal I need to take care of the fulfillment of others, what the others wish for, my friends to bestow. Therefore, I need to do everything that is within my hands in order to bring them to a state that they will make an effort, that they will want and be able to bestow, therefore I pray that they will receive what they wish for, that they will have the craving to reach bestowal, will want and be able to bestow, so they will have everything, and for myself it’s enough only to pray for them.

If I’m satisfied with this, then it is like the real quality of bestowal. I don’t want anything for myself and I pray only for others, that they will have the ability to bestow, because this is the highest and most exalted of all.

And this is the true and correct prayer that man can perform and the Creator will listen to this prayer. Also, before, the Creator listened to all prayers, to all the desires that we feel, and even everything that we are not aware of, it is always inside the Creator.

But thanks to this prayer, I truly feel and know that I am within the power of bestowal, inside the Light, inside the Creator and that I awaken Him to bestow to others. That means I’m already included with the Upper Light in the same quality of bestowal towards my group.

and my group becomes the vessel which I bestow to.

And I suddenly discovered that on one hand, I’m connected to the Creator, asking Him to bestow upon them, and on the other hand, for myself I ask for nothing. I only ask for  the Creator to realize my desire to fulfil them, in their ability to bestow. Then I’m completely purified from the will to receive and make myself a passage. Roughly, this is how we reach the quality of bestowal.

The Right Student

The right student is always in a state that he does not understand the teacher. He always goes towards the step where the teacher exists, and therefore he (the student) does not always understand him, does not get him, but is willing to do what the teacher says. It is always like that in “faith above reason,” otherwise, how you would transcend? Therefore, towards what to do: You will always find yourself in a situation where you do not know what to do, and yet you are doing.

We Demand Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)!

The Creator is not attained without a group. On the other hand, a group without the Creator is not a group, but “a seat of the scornful.” So I, the group, and the Creator make up one whole. This is what is meant by “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are One.”

The Torah is the force that welds us into a group if we want to unite in spite of the repelling force. So the Giving of the Torah and mutual guarantee are connected. After all, mutual guarantee by itself is impossible. We don’t implement it but demand that it be implemented. This is called “the miracle of the exodus from Egypt.” We only participate in it; the changes are not performed by our power, but only according to our desire.

Our job is to want so badly, as much as we possibly can, and then the answer comes. At the same time we are already making the “golden calf,” like in the time of the Giving of the Torah. It happens, but we don’t forget to cry out! We have to be prepared and to demand the maximum, as much as we can. To demand and not to think about what will happen later. A general demand is required here. Then we will receive the power of unity, and if our egoism rises the next moment, as the system is programmed, it isn’t our problem.

Our collective problem is to demand the correction of the egoism that is given to us now, only that, and no more. A person is assessed according to the current circumstances. We must only feel what is necessary as much as we can in our readiness to attack.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2