An Online Game With The Creator

By Rav Michael Laitman

Dr. Michael LaitmanAs we examine the universe, we see that nature together with our world are concealed from us. We are revealing the world over the course of thousands of years, from generation to generation, and we are becoming more familiar with it.

The Creator is the common force of nature, and this is why we will need some more time to attain Him. However, why is reality concealed from us? Why is the Creator hiding from us?

After all, He is not like the laws of nature that conform to Him: the still, vegetative, and animate levels of development or the human level. He is the common law which contains the thought, as well as the beginning and the end of the universe. Everything is included in Him. Then, why did He create everything so He would be concealed from us?

What is so special about attaining His revelation on our own and asking His help with it? What is this game? He conceals from us, and we need to suffer over the course of thousands of years of our development until we come to the question of, “Why is the Creator concealed?” Only then does the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method of revealing Him, become revealed. What do we get from it? So, we will reveal Him, and what will happen then?

People say that we will be happy then because the Creator is Good and does good, and we will exist in love above all the suffering once we attain His revelation. However, if the Creator is the force of infinite love and bestowal, then why did He create us to be so miserable and sordid? Why do we need to work so hard to come to the one who loves us?

We see that everything is also the same in this world. People who have been through different obstacles on their way to attaining love, unity, and revelation value it; they feel how they have benefited and discovered something great, dear, and important.

We also see that every person in our world essentially wishes to be loved for who he is. However, this kind of relationship between us cannot exist. Only a mother experiences these feelings toward her child, and this love is corporeal and animalistic. It has come to the mother from nature, and it obligates her to love her child, give him life, sustain him, and facilitate his further development.

This is the only exception. Since we do not love other people for who they are, we want to have proof of how this will benefit us. All of this helps us to understand, at least slightly, why the Creator needed this game (the concealment).

He wants us to come to this love without expecting it to benefit us. Just like we want to be loved for who we are, He also wants to be loved for who He is without our expecting any personal benefit. This is why we will not be able to understand how to begin to establish a connection with Him before we free ourselves of our ego.

The first thing we need to do in order to develop the sensation of the Creator within us is to rise above our nature. In other words, we need to rise above personal interest, above “How will this benefit me?”

This will be possible when I manage to become absolutely free from it, as if I did not exist, as if I were absolutely independent and objective, and able to see and judge things this way. Then I could begin to perceive the Creator, the force of bestowal, the force of goodness, from that moment on.

Otherwise, if He were to reveal Himself, I would come to Him because this would benefit me. This is because if I were to feel that He only evokes love, security, health, and happiness, I would be forced to love Him because He is the source of everything good. This love would be compulsory and dependent.

This is why I need to arm myself with a screen, a restriction and my anti-nature, and to become free from my own ego. Then, both of us would become carriers of infinite and pure love without personal benefit, and we would begin to understand that it is not the Creator who conceals Himself from man, but man who conceals Him with his ego.
[33053]
From the Introductory Lecture “Why the Creator is Hidden” 12/14/2010

Source: http://www.laitman.com/2011/01/an-online-game-with-the-creator/

Life Is Like A Cup of Coffee

www.spiritual-short-stories.com

Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi: Secularism Will Triumph in the Arab World

December 11, 2008 | Special Dispatch No.2148

Liberal Author Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi: Secularism Will Triumph in the Arab World; Terrorism’s Crimes Are ‘The Death Struggle of Fundamentalism’

On May 15, 2008, the liberal Arab website Aafaq.org published an interview with prominent Jordanian-American liberal author Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi. In the interview, Al-Nabulsi discussed the meaning of secularism and its importance to the future of the Arab world.

The following are excerpts from the interview:

“‘Secularism’… [Is] In the Interest of Religion – To Keep the Sacred (Religion) Apart from the Profane (Politics)”

Interviewer: “What is your concept of secularism?”

Nabulsi: “‘Secularism’ means the separation of religion from the state, excluding the clergy from politics, and not permitting religious political parties. These measures are all in the interest of religion, to keep the sacred – religion – apart from the profane – politics.

“This is because when, throughout the ages, politics made use of religion, the joining of religion and politics was to religion’s detriment. Politics gained, and religion lost. And likewise, this separation [exists] in order to hold the politician accountable for his political activity, and not [let him] take refuge under the umbrella of religion to avoid accountability and punishment. It is difficult to oppose or hold to account the clergy who combine religion and politics.

Read more of this post

Rav Michael Laitman: Perception of Reality

www.kabbalah.info

The Empathic Civilization

empathiccivilization.com

Do It Anyway!! (Paradoxical Commandments)

All The World’s A Stage

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare – All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)

On the basic premise of Socialism

The basic premise of Socialism is class warfare. Socialists believe that rich and privileged people have too much, leaving the poor with nothing. Not considering that many wealthy people achieved their means through hard work.

In countries that embraced socialism in it’s communist form, the rich were quite literally robbed of their wealth, their lands confiscated whilst they were placed in squalor!!! Although one cannot argue that there is no disparity between rich and poor, and there is from time to time an underclass. The question is, how do we deal with this challenge?

The socialist model involves depriving the rich of their riches, and redistributing these amongst the poor. Okay, so lets say this is done, then what? Now everybody is poor, so are the poor any happier? The previously wealthy certainly aren’t! Imagine if you worked hard all your life, to then have a government take it all away again! Is that really social justice?

However, it is certainly true that the situation of those less well off, has to be resolved somehow. Another alternative, implemented by less extreme socialists, is a welfare system. To some degree, this improves the lot of the poor. At least they now have a basic income, healthcare and education. But there is of course, one very serious drawback, they didn’t work for these benefits.

People who have received welfare over a long period of time, often begin to expect a certain standard of living, they never worked for. This can lead to a lack of appreciation for what they have.

Another very serious drawback of both these socialist models, is complete lack of incentive and higher aspirations. There is little room for self improvement in a socialist system. One of the reasons capitalism has continued to be successful, in spite of it’s own shortcomings; it allows the individual to improve his/her situation. People want liberty and opportunity, two things that socialism denies while still claiming to be on the side of the poor!

Whatever direction politicians take in the near future, we need to learn from the lessons of our past. Socialism has failed to improve the situation of people from working class backgrounds. Something we need to consider in 2008, our society still faces many of the same social issues we did at the beginning of the last century.

The Philosophy of Liberty

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