December 23, 2024
Archive for June, 2014
June 30, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books, Perception of Reality
How Can the Spiritual Reality be Perceived?
The gist of our work is the making of the Kli. If we know how to build our tool of perception correctly, we will understand where we truly are. Our substance consists of a desire to receive delight and pleasure.
If we can make this substance sensitive to insights concerning reception and bestowal, we will be able to use it to perceive the spiritual world. It is similar to the way a block of crude iron is melted to create engine parts. When assembled correctly, they yield a working engine.
Similarly, we must work with ourselves to perceive spirituality. Building the spiritual Kli is a lot like sculpting—you must carve the raw material and file it until the desired shape appears. The raw material, in this case, consists of our desires, our thoughts, and intentions.
How a Change of Intention Enables a Person to Feel Nature
The Creator formed Creation with the intention of doing good to His creatures. To realize His goal, He created a Kli—a will to receive—that would receive His benefit. At first, this will is shapeless. Shaping the will to receive is the work of us all until it is robed in its final form—bestowal, the form of the Creator.
The substance itself remains as it was first made—a will to receive pleasure—but changing the intention to bestowal likens its modus operandi to that of the Creator. Thus, the intention is the form.
Kabbalah books depict the forms that one should create in the will to receive, degree-by-degree, to finally sense the benefits that come from the Creator. The general will to receive consists of 613 desires, and each of these is topped either by an aim to receive, or an aim to give. These forms of reception or bestowal that “cover” each desire determine one’s degree of spiritual attainment.
A degree is a certain level of strength of the Form of bestowal. This enables the benefits of the Creator to manifest within the will to receive. The diverse fillings within the will to receive are the origin of the many names of the Creator. It is the perceiving individual who names the Creator according to the flavors he or she feels within the Creator’s bestowal.
What Kabbalah Researches
Once the Kabbalists attained the nature of reality and studied it, they divided the manner of recognition of reality into four levels: Matter, Form in Matter, Abstract Form, and Essence. Kabbalah is a practical study method that leads researchers thoroughly and systematically along the evolutionary trail. As in any other scientific method, Kabbalah teaches the researcher what to do, which results are to be expected, and expounds on the reasons for them. Kabbalah does not engage in depicting theoretical states that one cannot carry out independently and with full awareness.
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June 30, 2014 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Events
Student: We have a question from a lady who saw people dancing and singing at conventions. It’s kind of pressuring.
Dr. Laitman: If she has no need to jump or dance, then that’s fine, she needn’t worry about that. People at the convention need to feel relaxed. No one is compelling or forcing anyone. We have all kinds of habits—singing together, being connected in this way, holding hands, whatever—but it really is not mandatory. If you want to, do it. If not, don’t. Just come relaxed, free. I don’t think anyone will feel uptight there.
This Q&A is based on the Special Q&A Session with Dr. Michael Laitman in Preparation for the ONE Convention, which took place on Sunday, June 16. Watch the whole video & stay up-to-date with ONE Convention preparation materials here »
June 29, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Events
Question: How can I help during the ONE Convention without missing anything? It is my first convention. I’m arriving on Thursday, Aug. 7. I very much want to be of help. Any task is fine with me.
Dr. Michael Laitman: It’s the ratio. We are going to be at a place where we don’t attend to ourselves. We will have most things prepared in advance. We get there with all the equipment. It’s a place we know, a place where people know us. Food will be ready. It will be prepared by the hotel. We won’t have to buy, carry, serve, or do anything. Everyone will be sleeping in hotel rooms with beds, showers, etc. You’ll have everything.
All that is left is to absorb, to open ourselves and accept everyone, so that in the connection among ourselves we will feel the upper world. That’s all. So that is our only problem.
What duties have you considered? I recommend that people who were never at a convention be given no duties. I’m against it. It happens in Israel too. A new person comes, and during the lesson, they make him serve coffee. They need to sit, listen and gather impressions. They cannot connect to bestowal, to the group, etc. You shouldn’t do that. You “teach the boy according to the boy’s way.” Don’t put him into spiritual acts that he doesn’t feel as being spiritual. Therefore, you need to give these people the best seats to participate as emotionally as they can with everyone, so that they feel no pressure from others. In short, treat them as children. They’re beginners, so they’re babies.
This Q&A is based on the Special Q&A Session with Dr. Michael Laitman in Preparation for the ONE Convention, which took place on Sunday, June 16. Watch the whole video & stay up-to-date with ONE Convention preparation materials here »
June 29, 2014 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Events
Student: There are many questions from students in the Education Center about integral education. This is very new to them.
Dr. Michael Laitman: I have a question for them. Did they study only “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”? Or did they also study the essays of Rabash?
Student: Let’s mention to the students and everyone what our friends from the Education Center actually study.
We have the first course which is the Fundamentals, where a person learns about the essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah according to the fundamental articles by Baal HaSulam. They also hear a bit about that when we start realizing the wisdom of Kabbalah we start feeling the need to disseminate it, publicize it to the world, and start doing it also through the method called “integral education.” But we’re not yet doing it in practice.
In the next, intermediate semester, one studies that a bit deeper. We learn the whole system of creation—the Sefirot, Partzufim and worlds—as well as how Kabbalah becomes realized in our daily lives.
Dr. Laitman: Where do I find these worlds? Inside the connection. Do they study that or not?
Student: Yep. Starting with the very first semester we learn that there was the shattering of the vessels.
Dr. Laitman: So if it’s in the connection, then we have to actualize the wisdom of connection. If we actualize the wisdom of connection within us, in a group, that’s in a group. But it’s time for us also to draw into our group and the rest of humanity…
Why have we come to it? That’s the Upper One, the Light. Do they know this concept?
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June 28, 2014 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Torah Portion
Numbers, 22:2-25:9
This Week’s Torah Portion | June 29 – July 5, 2014 – Tammuz 1 – Tammuz 7, 5774
In A Nutshell
The portion, Balak, begins with the people of Israel conquering the land of the Amorites. Balak, king of Moab, understands that the children of Israel are nearing him, and prepares to face the nation that came out of Egypt. He sends messengers to Balaam, son of Beor—who was famous for his great wisdom and power of his curses—and asks him to curse the people of Israel.
Balaam leaves for the land of Moab having accepted the harsh stipulation to say only what the Creator will permit him to. Along the way his mare stops. Balaam beats her but the mare won’t move. Balaam cannot see the angel stopping the mare. The mare opens her mouth and speaks to him, and instead of cursing Israel he blesses them.
Balak is furious with Balaam. As a compensation, Balaam tips him that Israel has a weak spot: the daughters of Moab. Balak sends the daughters of Moab and the people of Israel fornicate with them so much that even Zimri, son of Salu, one of the presidents of the tribe of Shimon, takes a Midianite woman.
This situation leaves Pinhas, son of Elazar, with no choice. He takes a spear and stabs them to death, thus stopping the plague that has spread in the nation claiming twenty-four thousand lives.
Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman
This story does not happen on the corporeal level. It is not about a process unfolding between two nations, but rather an internal correction process that one experiences. The story itself comes to show us how to correct the evil inclination. It is not a tale about children or grownups, nor is it a story about nations, countries, wars, prostitutes, or mares. All it describes is the correction of the evil inclination. It is the only thing that the Torah (Pentateuch) describes from the very beginning, from Adam—who began the correction—to the end.
The text speaks of a person who went through this path as Adam HaRishon (Adam), as Abraham, and as Moses, and who went through the whole process in Egypt and in the desert. During the gradual correction of the desire, a person gradually nears the land of Israel until one is faced with the “conquest” of the land.
The “desert” is a desire that a person still cannot use correctly, and therefore cannot see the fruits of the work with it. These corrections precede the ones known as the “land of Israel.”
The spies discovered that the land of Israel is a desire that, if aimed entirely at the Creator, yields beautiful fruits [Israel means Yashar El (straight to God)]. A person who approaches that correction initially acquires the land of the Amorites followed by the land of Moab, which is a higher degree. Man’s egoistic desire known as “the king of Moab,” Balak, begins to seemingly rebel against him because it does not want the corrections.
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