November 15, 2024
Archive for March, 2012
March 29, 2012 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Courses
This coming week begins the new semester of the Free Kabbalah Course, an introductory course to the wisdom of Kabbalah!
Together with the whole new Sunday lessons curriculum, You & Society, the popular Kabbalah Fundamentals classes, which will give you the fundamental principles and basic concepts of the wisdom of Kabbalah, will take place live every Wednesday night.
The first introductory class will be held on Wednesday, April 4, and there will be 2 classes per week (every Wednesday and Sunday) over a 12 week period. All classes will be available for download, and the entire course with its accompanying materials is available free of charge.
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Below is a sneak preview of what you will learn in the Kabbalah Fundamentals classes…
1. Introduction To Kabbalah
- What is (and is not) Kabbalah?
- What is Kabbalah’s purpose?
- Who is Kabbalah for?
- Why is Kabbalah growing in popularity?
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2. Where Did You Come From? Where Are You Now? Where Are You Headed?
- The ultimate contradiction about having a Creator: If there is a Creator that’s all good and loving, then why is there so much suffering?
- The four methods humanity has used to deal with this contradiction.
- Kabbalah’s approach to this contradiction, explained in 3 states: 1) Where did you come from? 2) Where are you now? 3) Where are you headed?
- How to get from where you are now to where you are headed optimally, i.e. with understanding, enjoyment and consciousness, and without pain.
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3. Who Are You? What Is Reality?
- How do you perceive reality?
- How do you know if what you perceive is real?
- What is at the source of your perception?
- What can you change your perception into, and how?
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4. Where Do Your Thoughts & Desires Come From? How Can You Use Them Optimally?
- The Kabbalistic allegory about the host and the guest and how it relates to you.
- Three approaches to your thoughts & desires: 1) Unconsciously being under their control, 2) Suppressing them, 3) Rising above them.
- How can you make a change? By actions or by intentions?
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5. What Is Time, Space & Motion?
- Why do you feel sometimes like time flies, and sometimes things take a long time?
- Where does your perception of space, distance and separation between yourself and others come from?
- Just because you move from place to place, is it really considered that you’re moving, or are you just staying still the whole time?
- How can you speed up time, discover a whole new space, and really start moving?
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6. How To Make World Peace A Reality
- Humanity’s globalization and today’s global crisis explained by Kabbalah.
- How to use nature’s examples to model a perfect existence for humanity.
- Why have all attempts toward a peaceful existence among humanity failed? What was the missing element in all those attempts?
- How does Kabbalah provide what was missing in all past attempts to make a peaceful existence for humanity?
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7. Do You Have Free Will? – Part 1
- Why do you want freedom in the first place, freedom from what?
- What is the formula that motivates every action you make, and every thought you think?
- How does society influence the choices you make?
- The four factors that determine everything happening to you, and everything in nature.
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8. Do You Have Free Will? – Part 2
- What are the prerequisites for free will?
- How is the environment a factor in realizing free will?
- What do you need in your environment to realize free will?
- What is the effort that is key to realizing free will?
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9. How To Discover The One Force Acting On You
- What is the one force constantly acting on you?
- Why is this force hidden from you?
- How can you attain perception and sensation of this force?
- Why is attaining this force beneficial to you and everything around you?
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10. Creation & Evolution Explained: From Before The Big Bang To The Future, Final State Of Existence
- What happened before the Big Bang?
- What formula bases nature’s and humanity’s creation and evolution?
- What are the stages of nature’s and humanity’s evolution, according to this formula?
- Where is humanity headed from today onward, according to this formula?
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March 29, 2012 at 10:53 am · Filed under Education
One special quality of acting is that when a person comes close to being in contact with the environment, he “comes out” of his current problems and qualities.
Suppose I am experiencing some personal drama. To position myself correctly in relation to the environment, I must be in a different state. This means I have to “come out of myself,” forget about my own worries, and “put on” a different role. And in that new form, I proceed to work with the collective.
By working this way, I will gradually be able to resolve my conflicts to some extent and understand their cause, and absorb or add to myself the desires and aspirations of other people, which caused the conflict between us. The conflicts might remain for some time, in which case at some point in the future I will remember this conflict and will be able to understand it, to become included in it, and to experience the state of its participants.
A person can “come out” of his nature and enter another role. He can literally dissolve in it, completely detach from the troubles for some time, however tragic. These are the opportunities we can learn from actors.
The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).
March 25, 2012 at 8:29 am · Filed under Courses
Next week begins the new semester of the Free Kabbalah Course, an introductory course to the wisdom of Kabbalah, explaining the fundamentals of the wisdom and how it provides a person tools for realizing a wholly new and different life.
Due to popular demand, this semester will introduce a whole new curriculum for the Sunday lessons all about how this wisdom relates to you living in the society you’re in: the family you were born into, the locality and country you were born into, the school you went to, the education and upbringing you received, the workplace you are in, the circles of friends and acquaintances you have, your hobbies, interests, and more. It will provide foundations for how to realize integration and balance between you, society, nature and the reality connecting them all.
The first introductory class will be held on Wednesday, April 4, and there will be 2 classes per week (every Wednesday and Sunday) over a 12 week period. All classes will be available for download, and the entire course with its accompanying materials is available free of charge.
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Below is a sneak preview of what you will learn in the new Sunday classes…
Sunday Lesson #1: Evolution Of Creation (April 15, 2012)
You will begin relating to history as part of an overall developmental process that has occurred, and is still occurring. That process is the development of desire through levels known as “levels of existence.”
You will learn:
- How the evolution of creation through still, vegetative, animate and speaking levels is development of different levels of desire
- How each new level of still, vegetative, animate and speaking is a new level of existence
- How humanity is approaching a new level of existence
- How each evolutionary level contains these same 4 levels within it
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Sunday Lesson #2: Will To Receive – The Operating Program Of Society (April 22, 2012)
You will begin recognizing the single overall goal (or intention) to receive as much pleasure as possible for the least amount of effort.
You will learn:
- How a single force acts upon every single thing on this level of existence, causing it to want to receive pleasure
- This force is like an operating program constantly determining in advance what choices we make prior to one even feeling a desire
- Societies rise and fall, wars are fought, depending on whether the society is receiving enough pleasure or not (this will be exemplified through historical and current events)
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Sunday Lesson #3: Perception Of Reality In Relation To Society
You will see how your perception is dictated by the society you are in.
You will learn:
- How your perception of reality is based upon the levels of desire dictated by the society influencing you
- How your perception can change when the levels of desire of the society change
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Sunday Lesson #4: Judgment
You will see how society not only sets what we perceive, but also influences what we say is good or bad.
You will learn:
- How within our current level of perception, we base “good and bad” only upon what society dictates to us what is good and bad
- How we can be under the influence of many different societies at once, and choose which one has the most influence on us
- How society as a whole sets parameters for judgments based upon its given priority of desires
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Sunday Lesson #5: The Point In The Heart
You will see how there has been a progression in the quality of desire, which has led to an overall desire for pleasure that cannot be fulfilled in this level of existence.
You will learn:
- How society as a whole has evolved to a level of desire that exceeds the ability to be fulfilled from this current level of existence
- How the result of this change and increase of desire is responsible for wars and disasters in the world
- How the point in the heart has gone through an evolution
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Sunday Lesson #6: Concealment
You will see that the society you live in only pursues desires at the animate level, and that until today, people have not needed the wisdom of Kabbalah and the additional sense one can attain through it, due to the goals always set by society.
You will learn:
- How social goals for pleasure, even those we hold in highest esteem (e.g. helping earthquake victims), are based upon the simple want to feel good
- How as long as society only pushes to receive pleasure on this level of existence, one does not need additional senses as one will always pursue goals dictated by society
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Sunday Lesson #7: Equivalence Of Form With The New Level
You will understand that equivalence of form means attaining the goals of the new level of existence.
You will learn:
- How the true problem of not sensing on the new level of existence is in one’s lack of equivalence of form with that new level
- How equivalence of form does not mean new desires, but rather a new method of operation – why one makes an act
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Sunday Lesson #8: Egoism
You will understand that the concealment of nature’s full picture is caused by your current operating program, which controls your entire current level of existence.
You will learn:
- How egoism is the culprit that causes society to always dictate chasing desires in our current level of existence
- How egoism is the desire to receive for one’s own personal benefit
- How what doesn’t allow a person to feel the next level of existence right now is that all benefit is directed inward
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Sunday Lesson #9: Connection
You will understand that “connection” is what is concealed from you, and how connection is needed in order to sense the next level of existence. You will also understand that there is a concealed connection between you and every single thing that exists.
You will learn:
- How the butterfly effect shows how connection is society has become global
- How there is an overall connection between every single thing which causes us as a whole to operate as a single whole
- How our egoism prevents us from sensing this force
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Sunday Lesson #10: Will To Bestow – Operating Program Of The Next Level Of Existence
You should understand that in the next level of existence there is an entirely different operating program than the will to receive.
You will learn:
- How the next level of existence operates under an entirely different program, where enjoyment is attained by benefiting others
- How without existing on this new level, it is impossible to feel or understand that one could feel pleasure from anything other than reception
- How connection is a fundamental necessity in order to attain the next level. It cannot happen alone
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Sunday Lesson #11: The Necessity Of The Right Goal & The Right Desire
You should understand that the key to obtaining this new operating program is not knowledge, but rather the acquisition of a new desire from society.
You will learn:
- How to accomplish a goal on this level of existence by acquiring knowledge followed by appropriate action
- How attaining the goal of acquiring this new level of existence is controlled through desire, and requires a total mind shift
- How society dictates what our goals are
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Sunday Lesson #12: The Necessity of Attaining the Right Goal & Desire
You should understand that although society provides this desire, you are responsible for its development.
You will learn:
- How society is responsible for providing us our goals, and how one must seek a society with the importance of the desired goal
- How after finding such a society, one must place that society on a very high level of importance or one cannot be influenced by it
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March 25, 2012 at 1:15 am · Filed under Education
Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: Let’s talk about the role of acting in the method of integral upbringing. You often say that a child, like any person, should learn to change himself, to develop the ability to work above his states.
Dr. Michael Laitman: A person has to learn to play various roles, and in this way, present himself to others in a different guise than he really is.
Dr. Ulianov: I noticed that everyone has the ability to act, not just actors. What is the essence of this human quality?
We Are Always on Stage
Dr. Laitman Of course, we are all acting. After all, we don’t know how to behave. Animals behave naturally. They don’t have feelings of shame or envy. True, they do experience biological envy, if you can call an animal’s emotions that. This feeling they have is determined by biological factors. Animals behave however Nature has programmed them to behave.
But man’s desire is on a higher level. He works hard trying to earn social approval, respect, and honor. It’s as if he is working for others in order to receive knowledge and various privileges from them. Man wishes to feel his power over others who are like him, and he is compelled to act in front of them. He cannot allow himself the freedom to express his natural qualities. Our inborn qualities would turn us into a mere herd of animals. But when a person acts (which is what we all do), then it’s no longer a herd. It’s a human society.
By performing different roles, we turn the herd into a human society. It is how we differ from animals. We are always acting out some persona and never behave the way we really are, even when we are alone.
The more humanity develops, the more it engages in tighter communication and people constantly follow examples they see in others. That way, we are all like actors, scanning inside through the roles we‘ve observed in others and “putting them on” when the right circumstance arises. This is how we behave. It is natural for each of us. Sometimes we notice this in others, such as when teenagers take famous Hollywood actors as role models and try to emulate the popular characters they have played.
But the skill of acting is something different. An actor plays a role consciously rather than unconsciously, unlike a regular person who has collected various examples since childhood and simply imitates the behavior of others.
At a specific stage we begin to understand that man’s task is to come to total integration, to become as one man, to feel each of us as part of a certain entirely coordinated natural mechanism.
For that, man has to feel the nature of others and “play along” with them. Obviously, it’s not an accident that man was endowed with the ability to act. Every person has to feel and understand everyone else. And for that, I have to fully agree with the existence of something that’s opposite to my natural qualities.
I am a small, primitive egoist who constantly wants to “hog” everything to himself. But to conform to society so that I may properly connect with it, I have to become an actor.
So it’s wonderful that I act out other people. My own nature pushes me to force everyone to do what I want, even when I don’t know what it is that I want.
But for an artist, it is important to do the opposite and learn from other people. It’s important for him to be able to adapt his qualities to others and play along with them, and this does not diminish the person in the slightest. On the contrary, it is how he connects with the environment and rises to a higher level. Thus, one studies people and comes closer to them, developing the ability to be in the right communication with them.
The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).
March 24, 2012 at 8:18 am · Filed under Education
Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: You once said that you like verbal games in the form of anecdotes.
Dr. Michael Laitman: Yes, just not crude ones, but ones that are built upon the unexpected combination of opposite parts which in principle should not connect. The ability to connect things that are not connectable is a special mental quality.
Some people have souls consisting of two opposites and they aspire to connect these opposites into a single, integral form. These people are special, and if you hear them tell an anecdote, then it’s a real anecdote. All the others are crude surrogates.
Dr. Ulianov: Can we use this form in our method so children will make up good stories of their own and tell them to one another?
Dr. Laitman: Yes. But they shouldn’t be mundane stories about a husband, a wife, and their lovers. They should not include insults and widespread clichés. The challenge is to find two opposites and to unite them in spite of our routine notions.
Dr. Ulianov: From what age can these verbal games be used among children? When are they ready for this?
Dr. Laitman: I don’t think it should be done in early age because this requires very serious inner development and life experience, the ability to tell anecdotes apart from jokes or camouflaged insults, and from aggression and slander that play on man’s darkest instincts and therefore seem pleasant to him. But these are not anecdotes.
An anecdote is a story that combines opposites in a completely unexpected way, turning them around to reveal some special aspect, uncovering the interface, unity, and integration between them. An anecdote is an unexpected expression of integration.
The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).
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