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May 15, 2008

Archive for Daily Lessons

Integration in Technology, Communication Systems and Babylon

From Today’s Daily Lesson

StudentStudent: If I understood the previous paragraph correctly, does it mean that the higher spiritual level we are in, the more technology will decline?

<a href="http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/bnei-baruch#about-rav-michael-laitman-2c-phdhttp://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/bnei-baruch#about-rav-michael-laitman-2c-phd">Rav Michael Laitman, PhD</a>‘ /><strong><u>Rav Laitman</u>:</strong> Of course. What do we need technology for? If I understand you without a phone, cell-phone or any other communication line, then what do I need technology for? </p>
<p>If I feel others, instinctively, naturally and internally, then why would I need thousands of TV channels? To constantly look at what they’re saying? If it’s all in me, then why do I need it?</p>
<p>If I understand the phenomena that can be in a person, and they are inside of me, then why would I need comedies, dramas, histories, novels and whatnot? It’s all inside me. </p>
<p>I don’t become thick inside. I begin to contain everyone and everything in a way that I’m happy. I’m not limited, but on the contrary, the fact that we want to connect to each other in this way, with this great distortion—look at what’s happening, especially in how the media attracts attention for the reason that they don’t want connection between us.</p>
<p>“Communication lines” is only a name we give them. But what communication is it? They want to profit on peoples’ connections. It’s important for them. In other words, it doesn’t matter what they provide us with and what kind of connection they create among us. They go on and on about what is happening in their services, and you go in there… and it’s only so that you go in there. Just look at the lies they’re using. These are not communication lines. The name is incorrect. </p>
<p>In other words, we need to understand that everything which has taken place since the Babylonian separation—when everyone lost their ability to understand and feel others, when the confusion in the languages occurred, when one didn’t understand the other—everything since then has only been to complement that flaw. </p>
<p>We see that it’s not working, and today it’s finally appearing in the clearest way. Leaders don’t understand the people, they don’t understand themselves, children, grown-ups, or anything. We don’t even want this communication anymore. We see that it has reached its lowest point. </p>
<p>So in the beginning, we wanted to, as it was in Babylon… What happened there? Abraham said that we have to complement ourselves, so we went deeper into nature, the ego separated us, and we have to go deeper into nature, be more giving, more connected to each other, and then we will be one system again, in harmony. The rest of the Babylonians said “No. We will go, each according to his ego. We’ll be able to connect to each other; we’ll be fine. We’ll provide for each other, and no one will have any deficiencies.” We see today how no one can give himself anything; no one can connect to others; no one feels that he has any need to connect to anyone, and if he does have it, he doesn’t know how to do it. We are in the worst possible state. </p>
<p>It thus turns out that our crisis is the same Babylonian crisis, in ancient Babylon, in the Tower of Babel, and now we understand that it’s because we didn’t take on the right complementation. Instead of spiritual complementation, we wanted to complement ourselves corporeally—technologically—and we failed.</p>
<p>Rav Michael Laitman, PhD in the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article <a href="http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/articles/exhile_and_redemption.htm">Exile and Redemption</a>: <a href="http://files.kab.co.il/video/eng_t_rav_bs-galut-ve-geula_2007-06-20_shiur_bb.wmv" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker(Rav Michael Laitman wmv video | mp3 audio (55 min)

Baal HaSulam’s Intention for Writing “Talmud Eser Sefirot”

From Today’s Daily Lesson:

Student asks a questionStudent: It’s unclear how the Partzufim of BYA receive the Light of Hochma. Baal HaSulam doesn’t explain it.

<a href="http://www.kabbalahblog.info/page/6/?s=%22Laitman%22">Rav Michael Laitman, PhD</a>‘ /><b><u>Rav Laitman</u>:</b> That’s right. Baal HaSulam doesn’t explain it nor does he intend to. This is the problem: We think that <i><a href="http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/talmud_eser_sefirot/tes_index.htm">Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot)</a></i> is an explanation of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria). </p>
<p>Baal HaSulam doesn’t explain the Ari at all. He wants to direct us in how to study the Ari to reach the goal: to correct ourselves and then to discover what the Ari discusses in our <i>Kelim</i> (vessels/tools/receptacles), because you will never know otherwise. </p>
<p>It is literally impossible to bring you a picture of what is happening in the world of <i>Atzilut</i>. If he does explain, sometimes, that some things happen somehow by different technical actions, he also doesn’t intend to give a technical explanation so that you will learn that the will to receive and the will to bestow need to be in mutual bestowal to one another, that the Upper Light will correct the will to receive, and so on and so forth. </p>
<p>Why would he explain spirituality? It’s impossible to depict. At the end of it all, Baal HaSulam strives so that you will direct yourself toward revelation by the explanation. This is his entire hope; that you will reach him by your own corrections, and then you’ll discover what is being discussed.</p>
<p>If your <i>Kli</i> (vessel/tool/receptacle) is not on a degree that is written here, in the same state as the world of <i>Beria</i>, <i>Yetzira</i> or <i>Atzilut</i>, then you won’t understand what is written, in each and every sentence. So you have to be brought. His entire trouble is to bring you there. Not to simply “blah blah” talk about it. It’s not a world where I can tell you about a certain state, a certain place and you depict it and imagine it to yourself… </p>
<p>This is how it is in our world, however, in the spiritual world you’re incapable of imagining it. It’s the opposite; it’s not worthwhile for you to imagine it, because all these imaginations give you satisfaction. Therefore, he has completely no intention of bringing you any knowledge—only <i>Ohr Makif</i> (Surrounding Light), as he mentions in item 155 of “<a href="http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/introduction_to_talmud_eser_sefirot.htm">Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kabbalahblog.info/page/6/?s=%22Laitman%22">Rav Michael Laitman, PhD</a> in the lesson on <i><a href="http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/talmud_eser_sefirot/tes_index.htm">Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot)</a></i>, Volume 6, Part 16, item 107: <a href="http://files.kab.co.il/video/eng_t_rav_bs-tes-16_2007-06-03_shiur_bb.wmv">wmv video</a> | <a href="http://files.kab.co.il/audio/eng_t_rav_bs-tes-16_2007-06-03_shiur_bb.mp3">mp3 audio</a> (55 min)</p>
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What is Spirituality? What is a Soul?

From today’s daily lesson:

In today’s lesson on Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), Rav Laitman defined “spirituality” and “soul” in relation to a student’s question (19:00).

QuestionStudent:What’s the difference between the 6,000 years and the 600,000 souls? Does it have the same weight?

RavRav Laitman: You think about spirituality as if it’s defined and deterministic like corporeality: “Here is a cup, so I call it ‘a cup,’ and there is a book, so I call it ‘a book’… and ‘a soul is a soul’”…

There is no such thing in spirituality.

Spirituality is only the interweaving of forces and nothing else.

You’re a building engineer and have bricks on the mind (laughter). Ask a person who works with computers if he or she can define what’s inside the computer. Ask this person what matter he/she’s dealing with… It’s evasive. Where is matter within the computer? There’s RAM and different memories being burned, the existence of movements and connections of things creating different forms out of themselves… this is how it is in spirituality.

Spirituality is a multitude of different forces and vectors, connecting among themselves, creating new forms time after time until they reach their initial form—the adhesion of the creature with the Creator. This has been preplanned and already exists in the Rosh (mind), because the end of the action is in its initial thought. Moreover, we need to reach this.

Until we do reach this, all these forces and vectors operate in the billions—an infinity of forms and connections among them.

Where is the soul in this picture? Time after time, consciously and unconsciously, and in each and every one of us, there is a renewal. We live this renewal of these forces; we sense and live in a part of it, and there is a part we don’t sense.

You are a multitude of forces, interconnecting and operating, but what do you perceive out of this magnificent totality? You only perceive a very small, primitive stratum, and this is what you call “I am Gaby,” “I am Michael,” “he is Nesse” and so on. We name and sense ourselves like this.

Internally, however, each and every one of us is a soul. What is the soul? It is the entire Kli (vessel/receptacle) of Infinity and we have to find out how this Kli is adhered to its Creator.

In the meantime, I discover something tiny, false and opposite called “a dream.” The sages who have reached this vision say about it “I have seen an opposite world.”

We don’t feel anything of this great reality. It’s like you have a great big balloon. This balloon is you adhered to the Creator. You only feel a spot on this balloon, and you call this spot yourself, your life and your world. Within this balloon are a constantly renewing interconnection, circulation and revolution of forces. And at each moment, at each second, you can define this as a new soul, a different soul. There is a unique connection between these forces, in their resemblance to their Creator, in their fulfillment and absence of fulfillment. There is no such thing as a defined soul.

You may tell me: “Maybe you’re right, but I read in the book Shaar HaGilgulim (The Gate of Reincarnations) different stories about the soul coming from one person who was a merchant, and later on to another person who was righteous, and then to a third person who was a thief, and a fourth person who was something and someone else…” So is a soul something defined in a person or not? We thus need to understand these stories, because this Hollywood-like storytelling version is far from understanding what is really written there. So for the time being, you can take that in each and every stage there is a change, a new soul. And so it is written “each day a man is a new man.”

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD in the lesson of Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), Volume 6, Part 16 (May 3, 2007): wmv video | mp3 audio (38 min)

What is Ego? What is Shame?

From today’s daily lesson:

What is Ego?

Student: What is the ego? Can you define it?
Rav Laitman: The ego is what I feel as self-relaxation, a void, a deficiency, a desire… it’s a socket or a depression in me that’s filled. I feel the filling of that absence as pleasure.
• There’s a deficiency which is filled.
• The sensation of deficiency is called “pain.”
• The sensation of the deficiency’s filling is called “pleasure.”
There are four definitions: deficiency, fulfillment, pain/suffering, pleasure. (50:13)

What is Shame?

Rav Laitman: There is shame above the ego and shame within the ego.
“I’m ashamed. I stole, and everything was fine but now I got caught. Oh, how people will talk about me, it’ll be in the paper and all kinds of places… so I’m ashamed. Am I ashamed because I stole? No. I’m ashamed because I was caught.” –That’s shame below the Machsom (barrier).

Shame above the Machsom is from—“Am I giving? Do I love?”—and the shame is in the discovery that I’m not like this way in every way. It is shame from a lack of bestowal. (55:50)

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD in the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)” (April 29, 2007) wmv video | mp3 audio (59 min)

What is “the Machsom” (“the barrier”)?

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