Rosh HaShanah

A “year” is a period from the beginning of creation to its end. It is written that a man called Adam was created on the eve of the new year, on Rosh HaShanah, and before that, the whole world was created. Therefore, within a year, we need to complete all the corrections, and if we do not succeed this year, then the next one comes.

A year is a complete cycle of states necessary to correct all of our properties. Therefore, our program for the next year is to reach a final, corrected state, and for this, it is necessary simply to awaken the Creator constantly so that He gives us strength to make corrections. We should not let Him go.¹

Blowing the Shofar evokes mercy, the power of the good. Prayer, Shofar—all this is meant to awaken the upper level to make corrections in us.²
From the Daily Zohar Lesson 9/11/18, Zohar for All,  “Rosh HaShanah”

The Dalai Lama, It’s Not Easy …

In the News (The Earth Chronicles of Life): “‘The Dalai Lama revealed the secret of happiness’:

“Less envy and anger, more love and compassion – only through this man can come to harmony in the soul, the Dalai Lama XIV said in Riga during the spiritual teachings for Buddhists from Russia and the Baltic States.

“Man is destroyed by anger, envy, a sense of competition, fears and other negative emotions that lead to suffering, while happiness is achieved not through the implementation of unbridled desires, but through the ‘peace of mind’. Compassion and altruism help to come to him.

“’It has already been scientifically proven that anger literally destroys the immune system, while compassion and peace of mind strengthen it. If you treat others with compassion and altruism, then malice, envy and competition in you will be much less, and happiness – much more,’ said the Dalai Lama.

“A materialistic system of values ​​makes a person a money-grubber.

“’Unchecked desires destroy both man and the environment, and this does not bring happiness to anyone. Happiness comes when the mind is at peace, when there is peace in the soul. Therefore, it is so important to train your mind,’ he said.”

My Comment: He is absolutely right, but how can this be accomplished?

Remark: In principle, it is clear what the Dalai Lama is leading to: it is a specific view of the world, meditation…

My Comment: This method is good for people with very little egoism, which used to manifest itself in humanity thousands of years ago. Also, today it also applies, but only in some parts of the world where it can really be offered and accepted.

Question: How can the state of happiness be achieved?

Answer: To do this, you need to change a person in order for a person to change the world so that the world does not chase artificial goals, but everything is in balance with nature and with each other.

It is possible, but not through a technique of just sitting and feeling happy.

Question: You said that the ego will develop and grow and that there is no escape from it. What can be done with egoism that grows and kills me?

Answer: I’ve talked about this many times. Until we show people that this final state leads us to destruction and instead there is an eternal and perfect state that we can achieve in this world now, today, until we convince humanity of this possibility, we can do nothing.

Question: How can this be done?

Answer: Only by working on ourselves, bringing ourselves to a state where we can truly become an example of correct human relationships, finding happiness and the highest quality between us.

Question: What should our relationships be like?

Answer: Love each other. The Dalai Lama also speaks about this, only it must be achieved. It is not easy and is accomplished through tremendous effort and by a trustworthy method that connects the impossible with the desired.

Is it necessary to get to this? It is necessary. Is there an opportunity? There is, but it’s hard. Here, we must reshape human nature, change it.

Question: How does human nature change?

Answer: Only under the influence of the revelation of the upper force. In attempts to unite, we reveal this force. We want this power to change us, but only this force! And not that I want to be good, and I’m already good.
[232415]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/20/18

A Lifeline For Everyone

The desire to enjoy is the material of creation, so it cannot be good or bad. It is just matter that can be neither praised nor condemned—it is just how it was created.

If the desire to enjoy cares only about itself at the detriment of others, it is called egoism. If the desire to enjoy, which receives the ability to give from above, that is, the ability to work with one’s desire in contrast to one’s natural instinct to enjoy himself and instead to give pleasure to others, it is called the desire to bestow.

A desire is able to behave this way if it considers the one to whom it gives more important than itself. If I value you more than myself, then instead of taking for myself, I will give to you.

In our world, it is easy to do. After all, if I see that I depend on the one who is higher, more important, and stronger than me, then I am ready to give to him. I do this based on the same egoistic calculation because by giving it to him, I will win even more than if I took it myself.

There are, however, two conditions for genuine, non-egoistic bestowal. First, the object I want to give to has to be hidden. I should not feel its importance, otherwise I will certainly give with egoistic intentions, as it plays out in this world. Besides, I need to get more strength for such bestowal, despite the total lack of egoistic motivation.

First, we are helped from above, the importance of the higher is hidden. Then, one needs to do it on his own. Other than that, one has to receive the power of bestowal from above. Then I will have the opportunity to give to the Creator although in my corporeal eyes He has no importance. On the contrary, I see that the whole world and I myself am much more important. However, I gain the power of bestowal atop my nature. This is called faith above reason, above one’s own opinion. This is a true miracle from above.¹

It is said: “A lifeline has been thrown to us by the Creator.” Why are there so many disappointed people who have not achieved anything? It is because they did not want to hold onto the rope. Everyone gets a lifeline; it hangs right in front of your nose, but you do not want to notice it.

Once one grabs the rope, he starts to get closer to a Kabbalistic group, he gets absorbed in it, and dissolves. We people think the opposite: that we are ready to do anything alone and that these actions will help us.

People remain in this delusion for 10, 20, 30, even 40 years, until they finally agree not to bow down. The force comes from above and they become ready to annul themselves in everything, bow their heads, and join the ten. They are ready to do anything: to give up everything just to join the group.

This is very difficult. It requires self-scrutiny, clarification, and overcoming. One should be very straightforward and honest with himself and with the group.²
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/18, Writings of Baal HaSulam,“A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

A Well-Tuned Symphony Of Light

One needs a strong screen strength in order to receive the Light of Hochma for the sake of bestowal. The whole work of the spiritual Partzufim on correction consists of turning the state of Achor be Achor(back-to-back) to a state of Panim be Panim (face-to-face).

There is nothing more opposite than the male and female principles. When the spiritual Partzufim Aba and Ima, the supreme father and mother, turn face to face, they are the most opposite to each other. Therefore, there should be a tremendous force of love in order for the male and female principles to unite face to face and on equal grounds when they want to give to each other and to the lower.

This is impossible without mutual participation and common intention. And all this is done to please the Creator. “Face to face” means: according to the good will of the higher and the good will of the lower, at the good will of the father and the good will of the mother who want to give birth to a new spiritual level ZON to enjoy this higher power, the Creator.

By their nature they are opposite: Aba desires Hochma, and Ima desires Hassadim; the father seeks wisdom, and the mother seeks grace. But if they are able to rise above their nature, then all three together: Aba, Ima, and ZON become similar to Keter. All the nine lower Sefirot work in order to become similar to the highest—Keter.¹

A Well-Tuned Symphony Of Light

The spiritual world works as one common organism that always strives to make maximal use of itself for the sake of bestowal. Therefore, it does not perceive its parts separately, but only on equal terms, as one. This is the Malchut of the world of Ein Sof, which constantly thinks about how to engage itself in order to achieve maximum bestowal.

In the higher Partzufim, there is such a polyphony of sounds, as if from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Two spiritual phenomena grow and develop parallel to each other, like two melodies, each in its direction and tonality, and in the end, they merge into one infinite harmony, a symphony of Light.²
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/18, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 2, Part 7,“Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 9

Ibur (Conception)

We are born in this world with a desire to enjoy, with a selfish heart in which there is one special point: the beginning of the upper world, the divine part from above. We need to transfer the importance and significance from our desire to enjoy to this point, the desire to bestow. From the desire to enjoy, only a black point should remain, and the desire to bestow, from a point, from a drop of semen, from a tiny spark, should expand to the magnitude of Bina and Keter.

This is how we move from one world to the next. Everything depends on the importance of the point in the heart, the point of bestowal and love, on exiting oneself into one’s friend, and the ever-greater disregard of one’s egoistic desire until it shrinks to a point. Although at first we feel the whole big world in this desire, it turns into a point that it originally was, into the four stages of direct Light: a black point inside the white Light. Also, the spark of bestowal will expand to the magnitude of the world of infinity, filling everything with the white Light.

We need to make all these changes through our own efforts, to increase the value of the point of bestowal and love, the spiritual spark, the Creator’s property, and simultaneously, each time we annul ourselves and the importance of our desire to enjoy in which we meanwhile perceive this whole big world.

Our entire work is to reduce our world to a single black point, to find a spiritual spark in ourselves, and raise it up to the world of infinity, a bright, vast world.

This whole process begins with the state of an embryo, when we pay attention only to the point of the white Light, to the spiritual spark, and do everything in order to augment it. We imagine ourselves staying within Bina, in the mother’s womb, and this is how we advance.¹

Usually, at this time, higher egoistic aspirations awaken in a person to rise up, to establish oneself, to become famous, which are opposite to the desire to annul oneself. This is exactly the work that is given to us from above. Until a person agrees to become a zero, which does not need anything either now or in the future, he will not be able to enter the spiritual world and become a spiritual embryo. Not before.

Until a person agrees to diminish himself to zero, to one point, he will not enter the state of the embryo. It is necessary to feel this well in order to understand where this eye of a needle through which one penetrates into the spiritual world is located.²

The force that draws us into spirituality, called Moses, leads us to the foot of Mount Sinai, that is, to our insignificance in front of the mountain of doubts. This is a very difficult feeling and a person must agree with it, that is, be ready to continue despite many doubts and humiliations, reducing himself to a complete zero.

If he reduces his desire to enjoy to the very minimum necessary for existence to which his nature, the Creator, obliges him, then he is ready to receive the Torah.³

We must allow the upper one to work on us, completely trusting Him, like an infant in his mother’s arms or in the mother’s womb. The whole world is a mother’s womb and we need to become an embryo in it. Imagine how to do this; one needs to reduce one’s own desires, thoughts, and actions. Perhaps we work a lot, but it is as though we do nothing by ourselves; it is the upper one that works through us. We only want to feel how He works on us.⁴
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/18, Lesson on the Topic “Conception”

Why Don’t We Feel The Upper Light?

Question: If we talk about the Light, then what is the suffering that I feel?

Answer: It depends on the suffering: love or hate.

Suffering is the absence of the desired. If I wish to give to someone, to please, and I cannot, this is one type of suffering. If, on the contrary, I want to receive and do not receive, this is another type of suffering.

Question: It is said that if the Light of life is not clothed in the Light of mercy, it is like a sharp knife. What does this mean?

Answer: Any Light coming to us should be clothed in the quality of bestowal, to transfer it to others, and then it will be for our benefit. We must prepare for this, otherwise the Light will not come.

We do not feel the upper Light because we do not have the desire to pass it on to others. As soon as I transform myself into a conductor of Light, then immediately the upper Light opens up in me to the extent that I am opened to others.

Question: Can we then say that when I feel pain and suffering, it means that the Light of life (Hochma) is not clothed in the Light of mercy (Hassadim), in my bestowal?

Answer: Yes, I close it within myself, and it presses on me, wishing to enter.
[232571]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/15/18

The Game Is The Constant Work Of The Group

Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation: Just as we expect actors in the theater to do their best to make our imagination think that their acting is real, we expect our interpreters of religion to be able to touch our hearts so deeply that we will perceive the faith of religion as the actual reality.

We have to play a game, until “faith in this methodology will gain strength in our hearts.” Playing a game is the constant work in the group. If this is not the case, it is unlikely the group has a chance to advance.

Question: Is the agreement to act out a contract between us or is each of our contract’s in relation to the Creator? Is there a difference in these definitions?

Answer: There is no difference. The cause and the consequence change all the time: I work with the Creator for the sake of the group, or I work with the group for the Creator.

Question: So the concepts of “contract with the Creator” and “contract with the group” are the same?

Answer: Yes and no. It depends on what is the cause and what is the consequence.
[232279]
From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 2/8/18

Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 3/18/18, Part 2

Question: Which actions are used as a preparation for attaining the goal according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: I would say that there is nothing except for unity.

Question: Learning the wisdom of Kabbalah accelerates our correction. Does this mean that all the suffering that is destined for my nascent soul will happen in this lifetime?

Answer: I don’t know. Everything depends on your efforts, but you can complete all of your corrections in the current incarnation.

Question: Is there some kind of stimulant we can use, like the drugs used in sports? For instance, is there something you can “eat” and immediately accelerate into the upper world?

Answer: You have to get this stimulant from your friends.

Question: Is it possible to see the entire world in one person?

Answer: There is no problem. After all, the entire world is a common general Kli.

Question: Is it true that people whose fate is difficult and complicated are closer to correction than those who live without worries?

Answer: Yes and no. I personally don’t have a difficult and complicated fate. My entire life had been arranged materially, nothing bothered or  annoyed me. But I had a different emptiness, a lack of spirituality, not something material.

Question: How is it possible to hear the quiet voice of the Creator that constantly speaks to you and not confuse it with the voice of the ego?

Answer: The Creator whispers to you about love, not in relation to yourself, but in relation to others, how to work on unity with others, how to push them toward unity in a pleasant way.

Question: What are the desires of a friend in the group that I fulfill?

Answer: These are mainly his yearning to attain the Creator.
[231622]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/18/18