Lecture in Arosa - lesson 1
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Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
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Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
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lowercase italics: emphasized words
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Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
I would like to say a few introductory words. You all take part in the lessons of The Last Generation where Baal HaSulam explains what state we are in now. This state actually began more than a hundred years ago with the first immigration wave, and even before this, when we began to return to the land of Israel. Along with this the wisdom of Kabbalah started to be revealed.
At that time the Kabbalists had already determined that the wisdom of Kabbalah must be revealed to everyone. Particularly the return to the land of Israel at the level of branch and the use of the wisdom of Kabbalah must bring the spiritual degree to the nation of Israel so that it could bestow this method to the rest of the world. By this the world will come to the desirable state of the end of correction, to the state of eternity and perfection, in its entirety, and ascend above the corporeal existence.
During all these thousands of years the nation of Israel developed within other nations in corporeal desire to receive. This forced us to develop in the degrees of still, vegetative, animate and speaking, on the levels of Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet in order to participate in all the levels of life of this world, such as the framework of food, sex, family or that of money, wealth, respect, control and knowledge. That’s how we developed until we got to our current state, the state of global crisis, which we feel like a very unique state with many aspects. As the Kabbalists tell us, from this state humanity must begin its launch into spirituality.
Therefore, we operate from within our group and carry out the advice that Kabbalists gave us: to circulate the wisdom of Kabbalah all over the world in the hope that the world will recognize and understand what stands before it and will pass through all the stages of development not by the path of suffering, but by the path of the Torah, Light, the path of Kabbalah.
For this purpose, we contact all sorts of organizations in the world and together with them or through them try to circulate the method of correction. That is, if humanity understands before the beatings what stands before it, then it will bring itself to development by awareness, without the beatings. It is just like a child. If he knows what is demanded of him, he is acting according to some strategy that will help him go through these things peacefully, without beating, suffering and punishment.
Also, it does not happen forcefully, through the beatings, but through our awareness that our development and all the degrees we have to acquire are beneficial for us. It's not just for all these threatening things just to disappear. Rather, by that, we are reaching the existence that we are not aware of, above all the lacks of this world.
We will now proceed to the Arosa document, which we discussed with philosophers and scientists, and try to clarify additional points. Please don’t hesitate to raise your questions, because we should try to expand this theme and to understand what our place is today in relation to the world.
Once again, our circulation work is not just a world-wide dispersal, as it might appear from the outside. Rather, it’s the circulation of the method of correction for each and every one, in order to provide a person with the medicine on the spot. The moment he wants it, as soon as he understands that he is sick, meaning feels he must do something with his life, he should use the method of Kabbalah to check where he is, why he receives these beatings, what the laws of nature demand of him. And accordingly to that, he should have an opportunity to go through these things quickly and peacefully, to reach a state that will be forced on him in any case by nature. Therefore, (our) circulation is not like the usual promotion of some method or selling something. Rather, here is the medicine, the correction of the world.
Obviousness of Crisis
The general global crisis of humanity is obvious – depression, drugs, collapse of the family, terror, uncontrollable social systems, the threat of the use of nuclear weaponry, ecological catastrophes, and more. For example, according to the data that was published by the European Council in “Gruenbuch,” Europeans suffer from serious depressions that lead to 58,000 suicides a year, while 30% of all citizens of EuropeanCommonwealth suffer mental disorders.
The numbers are not that important to us, but these phenomena are growing, and this is how a person feels today. Along with this, surely, humanity builds for itself all sorts of systems of assistance of how not to feel these phenomena, how to forget about them, how to diminish the desire to receive. There are very interesting phenomena, such as people beginning to leave the cities and moving to remote, secluded places. They are like protective systems, but they only make time drag on. No more than this.
Recently, there are many phenomena of that kind. But the general crisis exists despite the anti-global movements that say: “No, it only seems so to us that we are in a crisis, but the world still exists, and we have already been in different circumstances of such kind, when it looked like this is the end, this is a final state.” In any case, if we’re speaking according to the results and the development, the dynamics of these matters, we see that it’s getting worse and it’s continuing onward.
The fact that we are getting used to it and already don’t worry about it too much, living in the routine (a person can get used to many things) does not mean that things are not changing for the worse. From something shocking it turns into something common for us and thus makes us feel as if we suffer less. If in the past the use of drugs was regarded as something horrible because by means of drugs a person disconnects from life, then today everybody says, “Oh, leave him alone. He’s not bothering you. Let him use it. And even more so, let’s make it legal.” We don’t consider it to be a beating any more. It is the same regarding some other diseases and problems.
Today everybody’s separating, families are not families anymore, and it is okay. It’s just a phenomenon that became a norm. It is accepted in society, people don't pay attention to it, as if nothing is happening. This means that don’t feel how much the things that once were shocking phenomena we couldn't accept, have become normal today. It's simply our world: “We change, the world changes, and what crisis are you talking about?”
There are many methods in order to diminish this conflict somehow and to bring these things to stability and balance, to some calming state. And the truth is, it’s correct, because why should a person suffer? It’s easier for him to accept life as it is. Because how do you know what is good and what is bad? There is nothing we can do about it. We cannot stop this development anyway and we have no medicine for this.
So it is like what Pharaoh says to Moses and Aaron: “Why do you cause confusion among the Jews? What is this fuss all about? Let them do what they want and leave them alone.” And what did Moses say? “No. Grandfather, you are wrong.” (Pharaoh was Moses' grandfather.) “You are wrong, and I am doing what I need to do, and you do what you need to do.” These forces exist one against the other.
On one hand, we have to realize that the crisis is real. The crisis is mainly in man’s perception of the reality. This isn’t a crisis of nature and ecology etc., but the crisis of man. Our problem is to acknowledge that man is the reason for the crisis and that he is contradictory to nature. Because all the rest of the nature's parts—the still, vegetative, and animate—exist in balance with nature. They are carrying out the commandments of nature and have no freedom of choice.
Man, in correspondence with his development and having the freedom of choice, doesn’t use his freedom of choice to adhere to nature (in Gematria nature means Elokim (God)) and therefore he is found to be in a crisis. By this he causes crisis to all the lesser degrees, which are the animate, vegetative, and still.
Question: If by representing these statistics…
We have lots of statistical data; there is no lack of it. We have a book of Dr. Laszlo with all the statistical information there. There is enough information in the UN too, and on the Internet. Go into all these sites and you will find an infinite amount of information about the deterioration in all the fields.
But once again, it depends on how you look at it. Either you say that this is normal, that everything is deteriorating, or you say that something is wrong here.
Question (cont'd): From our point of view, how should we explain this subject to people who say: “I don’t know what you are talking about? Everything is okay.”
We never turn to people according to what they say, whether they are for or against it. It’s not important for us. We present our attitude and we want it to be understood by a person and known to him, so that the moment when he begins to come close to our approach, he will know that here there is some method of explanation and of amendment. Not just a theoretical explanation, but rather a method of explanation and amendment, of correction of the state.
And to a person who just says: “Oh, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I don’t accept this.” We don’t appeal. We appeal to everyone in general: “Know that this is how it is. This is what we think, etc.”
Question: It seems that ego's development over the years made life more valuable. Once people could bear so many things, in the past they could watch gladiators kill each other, while today, the fly dies, and it bothers you. Is this directly related to the growth of ego? How did this happen?
If you are talking about man's levels of development, then (we can see that) man first had a small ego and lived in a primitive manner. Later on his ego increased and revealed itself in more advanced cultures, such as Babylon, Israel, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Egypt, and so on. We see that man’s life became more valuable. Why is it so? It is because a person feels this way.
In their early, initial stages of development human beings didn’t have the feeling of life and death, like animals. Animals are not aware: “Now I am alive and now I am going to die.” This sensation does not exist in them. They don’t have the sensation of time like we have. Rather, there is a stream of life and it (an animal) adheres to the stream of life in it. It's like a baby, like a small child. A child doesn’t acknowledge: “There is me and I am alive.” When it awakens in him (it could be at a very young age of five, six, or seven), then he begins to think about his life: “Who am I, where am I, why do I exist?” These questions start rising at a young age. If not, then this is the level of the animate.
Therefore, at the time of slavery or gladiators, as you just said, life of a person was not worth anything. This happened because, simply, this is how they felt. It was not because there was lawlessness. Rather, there was lawlessness because there was no discernment in this. That’s it.
Question: During its evolutionary development, humanity always found the way out of crisis and ascended to the higher stage of development. What is so different about this crisis? Why does this crisis demand something else? Why can it not bring some development otherwise?
During its history, humanity went through all sorts of developments, when it actually did not know where to go. We remember wars, periods of depression, and exhaustion, or periods of development like the Renaissance, or technological progress, or things started to develop or not in all sorts of places.
Why is our crisis now so unique? It’s unique because it’s global. You could say that China is in the period of revolutionary development, and everybody there wants to succeed in life. What kind of depression and despair do they have there? But we already see the signs and this will end very soon. And also the countries that have not yet come to the outbreak development already are starting to feel this in advance.
The connections, communications, transactions and all these things, by means of which the world became so small today, they transmit this understanding subconsciously to one another. One thought envelops the entire world. And this is a general crisis. It exists in all the fields where man is found to be: in culture, education, economy, the forms of government in each country, and in the person himself, in everything. Meaning, there is virtually nothing in man’s activities, in science where he would be particularly successful, what would give him some illumination, hope that this brings a good result, development and progress to humanity.
We cannot plan anything ahead. Once we were able to plan fifty years ahead of time, then thirty-forty, until this time. That’s how people planned their development in every country, at least twenty years ahead. How could you do otherwise? If I don’t develop all sorts of things, then how can I operate now? A person, as well, goes to school, to the University, gets an education; he also has a plan for fifteen years ahead. But a country must have a program for at least fifty years. It has to develop its systems, power stations, all sorts of things like this. Today I have a project and it will be ready in another twenty years.
We don’t have this now. Today we don’t know what will happen tomorrow because we depend so much on the large systems around the world that we lose control of things.
Hence, the crisis is multi-faceted. The main reason for the crisis lays not in our systems, our human society where there is Earth, human society on it, and the crisis in it. No, the crisis is in man’s perception of this world.
Before we thought subconsciously that we are developing, that if not we, then our children will come to good; we wanted to build the future for the next generation, there was always light ahead of us. Today a person does not want anything. The young generation always wanted to throw away the previous generation and to take its place, to succeed, and advance, and expand, and take control. Today they don’t want anything. (It leads to) drugs, despair, emptiness. It was never like this in history. They (the young generation) always wanted revolutions, they wanted something. Meaning, it’s already a sign of some aging of humanity. They filled themselves up, felt that they cannot fill themselves up any more. That’s it.
It means that the crisis is in man’s relation to his existence on Earth. This is the crisis. It isn’t a crisis in life itself and not in ecology. Rather, man himself who has reached emptiness, despair, the feeling that there is nothing to live for. That is, we feel unable to fill our corporeal, egoistical vessels. This sensation comes to us from our previous reincarnations, from our experience. We cannot fill ourselves; there is nothing to fill ourselves with.
Along with this, the point in the heart starts to reveal in us. It also adds emptiness inside our corporeal vessels and starts to draw a person somewhere, but where, nobody knows. So, we run to mystics, to all sorts of things, or to drugs. This is the picture.
Along with this we also try to create all sorts of helpful mechanisms and to receive a reward in this, to give a person some yearning and to offer him fulfillment. But the effect of these things is becoming increasingly small. The matter is that the person has to come to complete despair, meaning, when I am given all that is good in this world and I still feel myself empty.
So meanwhile, a person runs away on all sorts of journeys, although this too is slowly decreasing, a person doesn't feel any taste in this. He already doesn’t want to run away to nature from all sorts of problems he has in the city because even in nature he doesn’t find himself anymore. Also, when he wants to diminish himself, bow down his head a bit and 'take it easy' in order to protect himself, in this too he doesn’t succeed. This means that none of the systems are helping us.
It is not revealed immediately, but we see this phenomenon already: there is nothing we can do to help a man to preserve the desire to live. This comes from all directions, both from negative and positive, and it comes along with the fact that the world today can give you everything. Indeed, we can feed and dress the whole world, there will not be a problem with that. Give me a billion more people, and we will be able to do this as well. This is the crisis.
Question: You say that along with this apocalyptic picture, a point in the heart is revealed. How does it become revealed, in whom? How does man know that it is the point in the heart?
The point in the heart, which is revealed in a person, tells him, first of all, that his corporal desire to receive is empty, unfilled. It illuminates, adds even more to the sensation that you cannot get filled in your corporal life. It also adds another dimension that there is some fulfillment in some place, but I don’t know where it is. It’s an additional stimulus.
Then a person who doesn’t know exactly what this stimulus is, turns to all kinds of mysticism, to what is above this world, where this point is coming from. It is because this point clothes, as if illuminates from inside the desires of the still, vegetative and animate, and until it comes to the desire of the speaking, until it becomes clear to a person that he must ascend, to come to some Upper Force with the method of Kabbalah, it brings a person back to religion. Today, there is a wave of returning to religion, to fanaticism, to mysticism, and all these types of things.
(This continues) until the desire to receive grows a little in a person, and then he sees that all this is emptiness. After that he comes with his grown desire to receive to the sensation of the point in the heart, which becomes even more pinpointed, more purposeful, until he comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah.
We will wait and see. This is the process; there is nothing we can do. Yet there is something we can do, it depends on us. To the extent we circulate the wisdom of Kabbalah, to that extent we will instigate the disclosure of the general state, so people will feel that this is the solution.
Question: Up until today all development of society was external. The method of Kabbalah is an inner human development; it is impossible to compare, because these are internal things. How can humanity come to this?
Man was always comparing himself to society and wanted to gain the respect of society in something. In fact, this is a stimulus of his life. Because other than in my relationship to society I exist at the degree of still, vegetative, and animate. What makes me a man? The fact that I live in society, take from society all of its standards, things that are respected by society, and I want to carry them out in order to feel the “I” in the eyes of the society, that I am worth something, that I am great, that I am unique. This is our entire existence.
I, as a human being, was developing in this way all the time, from the beginning and always. But now, I start to attain a different appraisal of society. First of all, if society has no values, then I feel as if I don’t belong to it. That’s why today there is disconnection. A person goes to get drugs, he doesn’t want to be aware of himself, doesn’t want to feel society. Communication between society and the person is not as it used to be. Society doesn’t dictate to me, and doesn’t illuminate for me any values which are worthy for me to carry out in order to be privileged in some respect, or be appreciated by society. I don’t care about this.
I am no longer a human being today, because a human is the one who is nourished, brought up by society. Today I don’t care about it. “To be great? Who cares? To be rich? It's even more problems.” Nothing in society gets me moving anymore. I also feel that it will not fill me. The desire to receive outgrew this level of respect, control, knowledge, when everyone knows me and I am famous and respected. In this I also see some emptiness: “So what?” The desire to receive developed to a greater level, and this doesn’t satisfy me. What can you do? I don’t appreciate society. I don’t care for it.
This is a problem. This is one of the signs of the crisis. How can we influence man? How can we awaken him? The problem is that countries are breaking apart. If a person does not care about society, then I don’t talk about my nation anymore or about my country, I don’t care about anything, I could live someplace, but even there I don’t care where. This shows me the present picture of the world where borders are beginning to disappear and there is no national pride left, or anything of that kind. There are some primitive nations that are still holding on to this as opposed to the modern world, but that’s it.
These are all the signs of the crisis. There are many more, we cannot talk about all of them. Therefore I said that the state is multifaceted and it includes many discernments. It is so illuminating that we cannot follow it. From day to day we can hear from all sorts of organizations and people how they begin to be impressed by discovering these facts, what’s occurring today. Then suddenly, according to these signs, you see how they start speaking in a clear manner about what half a year, a year ago they didn’t even want to talk about, didn't want to acknowledge. Today it’s a fact, which is accepted by everyone. This is a good state. Things are getting clarified.
Question: How can you tie all these human problems, this development you talk about now, to all the problems in nature that befall humanity?
This is not important. The still, vegetative and animate are all tied together, as Baal HaSulam says in the beginning of the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.They’re all tied to man and along with man they ascend and descend. Therefore, if man is not balanced with nature, then the levels of still, vegetative and animate that are in him are also not balanced. The same applies to the external degrees, the still, vegetative, animate and speaking outside of man: they are also not balanced. Each one is in itself a small world, and by this, when he’s not balanced with nature, he causes the world outside of him the same lack of balance.
Surely, the still nature as well as the vegetative, animate and speaking, each one according to his degree, they are all found in the same state of lack of balance towards the force of bestowal, the force of nature, the Elokim. And in a person who begins to correct himself only in the level of speaking, all these degrees—the still, vegetative and animate—will be corrected because all these degrees are included in a person.
Question: They will be corrected from the outside?
What does it mean from the outside or from inside?
Question (cont'd): Say, I'm doing my work the way I should, but my friend is not doing his work like he is supposed to. Tsunami will come and both of us will drown. How can you explain such a thing to a person?
That’s something else. You’re asking now about an explanation, not about the facts, no. You’re not listening to me. We’re speaking now about facts and not about the forms of explanations, how I will come and explain to him why righteous people get the problems first? This is the known question. We’re not talking about this at all now. We’ll come to this as well. To the form of explanation we will come at the end of the article. Please, continue.
The imminent threat to the existence of humanity is steadily growing as a result of the use of nuclear weapons. In the leading scientists’ opinion, humanity does not have that much time to prevent this crisis from development in an undesirable direction – toward a world thermonuclear war or a global ecological catastrophe.
These are the facts. Scientists of all the fields are more and more aware of this state as the state of global ecologic catastrophe, (seeing) that nature truly is in this state today. But once again, there are many arguments about this, yes or no, for and against; and a habit already clouds our eyes, twisting our observations. In any case, (based on) what Baal HaSulam writes and what we read here, this threat of international, world nuclear war is developing and getting worse all the time.
Question: Why is it organized in such a way? Why must there be a threat and a fear in order to advance? Why must you advance through crisis? Why can we not advance from the corrected state?
It is because “The Light emerges from within the darkness.” We must come to a state where we will be like the Creator.
The Creator created us as the Light, as a point of existence from non existence. This is the point of desire to enjoy. Besides the desire, this desire to enjoy must acquire all the attributes of the Creator inside it, and to come to equality of form with Him.
So, in order to reach this state, I should be in the desire to be like the Creator, when I am outside of the Creator, for the creature is something that is outside (Bar) the degree. The Creator created me from something that doesn’t exist. He, Himself, is the Light and bestowal, and He created me as opposite, in Kabbalah (reception), which is the will to receive. To receive what? To receive pleasure from Him. It’s impossible to create otherwise the thing that is opposite to Him, because He Himself is the desire to bestow.
If I’m the will to receive, if I am the receiver and this is my nature, how can I reach the state where I am like Him? He wants to bring me to equivalence of form with Him, because He is wholeness and eternity, something that can't be excelled, the only thing that exists. How can I come to this if I am opposite to Him? I have to be like Him by my free choice. I have to be contrary to Him, even opposite to Him. I have to have a force to come to a state, every state, for or against. I have to be in control or awareness and let's say knowledge regarding everything. Briefly, I must be like Him and opposite from Him. It doesn’t matter what. I must have all the means.
How could it be that something will appear in the creature without even being a part of the Creator? “You have to give this to me, if You want me to act out my free choice, to prefer You instead of my nature.” There is much to talk about here.
From all these facts and information that I don’t want to get into now, it turns out that you must go through a disconnection from the Creator, (descending) down, to the reality called this world, when you are completely disconnected. And in this state of disconnection you must determine that you want to ascend, and to fulfill this ascension from darkness.
But do not think that when troubles and beatings come, they force you to escape. You then run from these beatings each time like some beaten animal, and by means of that you reach the goal. No, this is not the case. This is not the way of a man. This is the way of an animal that runs from beatings without any development. But you must ascend these degrees out of your freedom of choice, because you are free. It (ascending degrees) is not by means of beatings pressuring you from behind or any goal in front that attracts you. Rather, you have to be truly free, and from within this freedom to determine a direction.
So, it is not true that we develop by the way of problems and beatings. It awakens us only to come to the freedom of choice. If you are in a will to receive, in your ego, you exist inside the ego, it has control over you. Then what do we need beatings for? We need them so that we would want to come out of the ego to the level of zero. On this level of zero there’s also no attraction upwards, because then you would be in a desire to bestow, that the Creator will uplift you. This is not allowed to be. Both good and bad should not influence you. Then from this level of zero you decide.
Each time you determine some step forward, it must come from the level of zero. How can this be? How will you determine from the zero point where to go? What forces will you have, what conditions? In order to get ready for all these things you need to go through many, many preparations. There’s a system here that’s initially not so simple to comprehend. But there’s no choice, it is like this not because the Creator desired it so and couldn’t do otherwise. Rather, it’s in order to enable us to be like Him. It’s a system that puts us into the development to ascend to the level of Godliness. This confusion is specifically to build in us freedom of choice.
Correct diagnosis means half of treatment
The signs of a crisis are evident, but as a rule, due to the seeming impossibility of getting out of it, its existence and aggravation are concealed by governments, social organizations, scientists, sociologists, and psychologists. The reason for this deliberate concealment of the global crisis lies in the fact that they see no means of correction of the present state. As a result, this ostrich policy merely aggravates the problem and accelerates the approaching catastrophe.
This is on one hand. On the other hand, as we said already today, there is a matter of forgetfulness. Baal HaSulam writes about forgetfulness and remembrance, the way it works in us. It is written: “repeated transgression is viewed permitted,” that is, when a person gets used to something bad, this bad stops being “bad” for him because it covers for him his first impression of a beating. There comes a defensive, protective force from the side of man's ego, when he doesn’t feel bad, like he felt the first time it happened. The habit, which is the protective mechanism of the body, doesn’t allow a person to feel that same pain he felt for the first time, the same emptiness like the first time.
We see people that live in prison or in slavery, in all kinds of states. When we look at it, we say it would be better to die instead of living this way. But if you talk to these people, you’ll discover that for them this is called a normal life. They are used to it, and don’t think it could be different, though once they could have had a much better life than they have now.
Hence we have to understand that a habit and the public opinion that influences a person establishes new standards for him that it’s not so bad, it’s okay, this is our world. Today we still think that our world is different from the world of yesterday, and tomorrow we already don’t think so. We find ourselves being distant from the state we were before and accept this as our present state.
Therefore, there are people that conceal this matter all together. They deny it. There are those who say, “We don’t have a solution for this, so, it isn’t worthwhile for us to get mixed up in problems.” There are those who say: “Neither this nor that is true, rather we close our eyes, and that’s it. Let’s eat and drink today because tomorrow we will die. Just live now. You know what’s going to be in nature tomorrow, and what will happen tomorrow?”
There are many forms of running away from the truth. But surely by this the beatings will get worse. We assert that problem lies in man’s confrontation with nature, with the Creator, where nature is entirely altruistic and it demands of a man the equality of form. To the extent that we do not adhere ourselves to that same absolute law of total bestowal, we will definitely soak up this gap between our attributes and nature as the threat, pain and terror.
But there is no choice. In the meantime we advance, and the blow is seemingly preparing itself and developing more and more, and this whip is rising higher and higher before it will come down upon us.
As doctors say, the correct diagnosis is half of the treatment. The concealment of a disease and underestimation of its seriousness constitutes a direct threat to life.
What does this mean, “the correct diagnosis is half of the treatment?” If a person knew that he must go through these things, that this is not accidental, that it brings him to good, that he must go through this for the purpose of creation, and it is like a point of formation for him from which he begins to develop and to attain not the corporal wealth of this world but the eternal form of existence, then, undoubtedly, he would receive everything in a different way. He wouldn’t fall to (the level of) suicides, drugs, depression. He would relate to his existence in this world differently.
Even before he would relate to it, he would acquire a different perception of life. And because a person would be aware of what happens to him, by this he would also alter the reality. For reality changes by means of our thoughts. Therefore, knowledge is a cure in itself. This is what I want to stress.
We influence nature by thought. It’s not that being aware of things makes it easier for me: “Thank God, there’s a medicine, soon I will attain it, and things will be okay.” No! My acknowledgement is already a cure, a medicine, even before a practical action. Practical action is not so much what influences us. We cannot change it so much. We don’t need to. The main thing is our attitude to what’s occurring to us and the extent to which this attitude will be causal and purposeful: from whom it comes and for which purpose. It comes from the Upper Force with the purpose of bringing us to His level.
If we had such an understanding, even if external, of this, it would change our whole world. Starting from the problems with icebergs, ozone holes, and, of course, man's inner problems, such as depression etc., till the global crisis and the nuclear threat. Everything would change only through understanding. Because of this I put it as a separate line: “Correct diagnosis means half of treatment.” For us it is even more than half. For us, you could say, it is the whole treatment.
Question: If we tell a person the same things many times, will he believe us in the end or there is another mechanism at work?
No, we are not talking about believing or acceptance, but about the rise of awareness that can only come from the study, explanation, perception, acknowledgement, and acceptance. It has to be both the spiritual and the intellectual development, “heart and mind” in everyone. It cannot happen that a person says suddenly: “Great, I am with you. Just tell me, for whom I should vote.” No! Each and every one of us has to ascend to the level of the Creator, each and every one according to his degree. The development is the cure. The awareness of the Creator, “Know the Lord” is what, in fact, we have to acquire.
Question (cont'd): If I tell people that there is a crisis, then the one who feels it inside would agree with me one thousand percent. And whoever doesn’t feel this way, but is clever, might bring me proof that there is no crisis and all this is stupid talk. If I tell him all the time that there is a crisis and everyone sees this, and it is obvious, will I cause him to change?
No. Even to the contrary, Kabbalah says, “don’t put an obstacle in front of a blind person.” Scaring a person and telling him, “Don't do that or that” is not our method. It’s the method of religions or maybe politicians, people who want to make a profit out of this.
We come to a person with the cause: “First of all, know that there is none else but Him. What happens to you has a purpose of bringing you to your best possible state in a goal-oriented manner. But why are you brought down to this bad state? It is so that you become aware of the good and will now begin to improve your state.
First of all, we offer the medicine for the beating. We don't turn to people with the purpose of scaring them, not like those who say all the time: “See the news.” Do they tell you anything good on the news? Fifty years ago there were mainly good things in the news, all the bad things they wanted to conceal. Today it’s the opposite. Today we’re all masochists. You see news and you only feel bad, and the most scary and terrible sensation gets on the first page. They’re like looking with a candle for those to run over, to bring disgrace to, to reveal all the horrible things.
Question (cont'd): If a person felt bad and saw good in it, undertood that there’s a reason, there’s a purpose for this, he would not need you then because he would discover this by himself. I think that he doesn’t see anything good and purposeful in this.
You have to help him with this.
Question (cont'd): This is the question. By telling this to him a thousand times will I help him understand it, try to persuade him, will he believe me?
You have to arrange the beatings that he receives according to the cause and the goal. Where does it come from? Where does it bring him to? Then to the measure that he’s prepared to listen and you open for him two lines: beatings and the explanation against it. “Look why this is happening, look why that is happening. Where does it bring you to and how are you rewarded by this?”
When you tell him along with the beating is how much he’s being rewarded, it's like Baal HaSulam says in the Introduction to TES about a Jew who received beatings and then afterwards he cried about why he received so little beatings because afterwards he could have been rewarded even more. What is a Jew? He wants to come to unity and then he is ready to endure beatings in order to come to the unity. He wants five coins of gold, he wants to reach unity at all five degrees of Aviut, but he received less than this.
If you explain it in such a way to a person then he agrees with you, he kisses your hands. He understands now what is happening to him and how much profit he has already got, because this profit is suddenly illuminating to him from afar.
Question (cont'd): He doesn’t see in his present state the cause and the effect because he cannot work all by himself. If I come and brainwash him, inserting into him cause and effect connections like instincts, if I show him the connections between things, could he slowly match himself to my way of thinking, to my structure?
He wants to receive it because this is a salvation for him.
Question (cont'd): But does he cancel himself for it?
Yes, surely. He’s canceling himself for your sake; he’s willing to follow you with his eyes closed. “Bring me, it doesn’t matter where,” because his life is like this.
Question (cont'd): After I give him the structure…
You’re opening his eyes. You’re telling him: “No, don’t follow me with your eyes closed, open your eyes. Start gradually seeing “there’s none else besides Him” in beatings and their purposefulness.” This is what we’re doing here with ourselves, as well.
Question (cont'd): Let’s say he has a structure that says if I have money, it will do me good. So I tell him: “No, look for the Creator, this will do good to you. You made a wrong connection that brings evil to you. A good connection is to go to the Creator. This is good for you.” If by this he will start to develop?
No, if he still feels that he can develop in something, then you have nothing to say. You circulate the wisdom of Kabbalah in such a way that a person will want to come to you. And when he comes to you, you begin to explain to him. Not that you don’t let him develop in (seeking) money, respect or something else.