Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-05-12_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’12.5.13′]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

Convention in New Jersey, Day 3, Lesson 6

Convention in New Jersey, Day 3, Workshop 4

Filed under: Conventions, Workshops - No Comments →

We gather in order to unite and help one another overcome self-love. Everyone has to think about canceling their egoism, stop worrying about their own fulfillment, and strive only toward loving their neighbor when it is possible. In other words, throughout the entire convention, from this moment forward, we need to think about rising above ourselves and exiting our egoism. This is the only way for a person to feel the need and the desire to acquire the new quality called the desire to bestow.

When egoists like us connect and I look at others, I begin to realize that my egoism is very wisely made. Essentially, it is made in a way that helps me come out of it. In reality, nothing in my personal life interferes with spirituality. With the right attitude toward my nature, I will reveal qualities in it that help me attain the spiritual world.

The rejection I feel for others is given to me to show me how far I am from having spiritual qualities. Moreover, there is envy in me. When I see how others connect, and how every person tries to come out of himself and become closer to others, I envy them. Envy is a huge, egoistic force but essentially, it begins to work to my benefit, helping me to rise above my egoism.

Also, ambition—my desire to be higher and more successful than others—works to my benefit. I see the success of others and feel ashamed. I want to have what they have, at least not to fall behind, but to surpass them. It turns out that there is not a single quality in our egoism that we could not use to liberate ourselves from our egoism. This inner work is called “help against him.”

We need to delve into this work with our friends, but in reality we discover that there is nothing in our lives that we need to fight. Overcoming is spending every moment trying to be sensible toward heading in the right direction. Then, we will see how all our natural qualities help us attain the goal in a direct or an indirect manner.

There is no need to fight any of our inclinations. Instead, we need to study how nature plays us. If we use all our impulses wisely, we will be able to break through into the spiritual world.
[107207]
From a Talk on The Importance of Gathering 5/10/2013

Related Material:
Envy Each Other More
Envy Is Useful When It Increases Wisdom
Only By Studying Others One Can Understand Himself

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: I really would like the world to be a better place after the convention, a place where no one takes advantage of others, where there is no more pain, my bank account is fine, and life is good. Is that possible?

Answer: I think that it is in our power. Just imagine that many of our friends all over the world unite around this convention. These are the people who have the spiritual sparks, the particles from the upper world. If we connect them all, we can do anything!

Since our entire world is still, it doesn’t have the power to change anything. Now, when this becomes so clear, we see that no one can manage the world, and no one knows how to manage it either.

A century or two ago, we could do so since our ego was not so developed yet, and we could change the way we used it. However, now it is impossible. The ego has become closed, it has become round, and so no one in our world knows what to do with it.

Only we can take advantage of the fact that it has become round, which means connected and tied with others, while the egoists cannot since they are all separated. So, when the world becomes global, strongly connected, and mutually interdependent, everyone throws up their hands in despair, and no one knows what is going on. We see that they cannot manage even financial systems, not because they aren’t knowledgeable enough but because the rules in the world have changed.

The integral connection, the analog system that is now taking over, won’t let an individual or an egoistic group manage things. Only if you establish an analog system between several people can you change the world somehow, by using it like a management panel. The egoists cannot do that. Only we can, and this also includes your bank account.

So, everything is in your hands. If you ask us to connect to you, you will see how this happens. It isn’t mysticism or magic but real spiritual laws, which means that they are above our world. If you positively change the way the system works, you will see to what extent things change in the corporeal world since our world is an outcome of the spiritual forces. Nothing happens on its own. Everything is managed by an inner force to which you will have access.

Thus, you will understand why we need suffering in this world, including an overdraft in your bank account and everything else that is happening in the world. All this is meant to awaken us to rise to the upper force, even if it is in order to manage our corporeal life. From the height of this force, we really can do something; but as long as we don’t do that, the problems and troubles in our world will only grow. Therefore, the ball is in your hands.
[107172]
From a Talk On Preparation for the Congress in New Jersey, 5/10/2013

Related Material:
The Convention In New Jersey: United Into The One
In The Analog System, “Almost” Doesn’t Count
Integrality That We Cannot Escape

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: People who are seriously involved in the integral method feel a need for a similar society because they cannot manage these things individually. They want to communicate with others more. Is it possible to do this virtually?

Answer: In order to solve integral problems, we need to feel, hear, and as if “smell” the person. We are similar to animals and perceive a person in his physical dimension. Thus virtual communication is not enough.

It’s certainly possible that one day there will be virtual connection that will create the illusion of everyone’s presence but, until then, it’s not possible. We need to ensure that people will feel complete communication. This is the way we have to create even an interior space and all that helps people, until it doesn’t matter to them where and how. And afterwards they will also feel this at a distance, just like a mother feels her child.
[106992]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/4/13

Related Material:
Nothing Personal
We Are So Close That Words Are Not Necessary
Homework For Two

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can I become more sensitive to the fact that I am a component of the integral system?

Answer: This sensitivity develops when a person tries to devote more and more attention to his connection to the group. He checks himself whether he sees the friends as his beloved children, whether he has sweet thoughts about them, and whether he wants to feel their suffering as if it were his actual, physical pain.

A person must try to increase his sensitivity and his attitude and decipher the concept “as yourself.” It isn’t easy since a person manages to do that for a moment and then, the next moment, he falls and is detached from this feeling since our ego doesn’t want to suffer for the whole world. However, a person still advances time after time.

The Masach (screen) he acquires helps him to share everyone’s suffering and at the same time, justify the Creator and rejoice. The spiritual Masach works that way, giving a person the endurance without lowering his sensitivity to suffering. Thanks to that, he can experience very deep feelings that can be both good and bad.

In our work, we either sweeten or cover up our suffering through the mind, through the thought that many suffer from the same things that we do and that it isn’t our personal pain. In a time of war, for example, when many are killed, it is easier to bear the loss. It isn’t by chance that it is said, “Misery loves company.”

That’s the way it is in our world, but in spirituality, it is impossible to reduce your worries this way since you feel everyone as yourself. However, the Masach brings you closer to the Creator. It is absolutely impossible to advance if you don’t identify with the Creator since your perception becomes very sensitive. The depth of the good and bad feelings in your soul is unbearable, and they overflow beyond the boundaries of this world.

Although there is also such terrible suffering in our world that can drive a person mad, our sense organs cannot bear that. So, only in the connection with the Creator, in the Light of bestowal, can you be so greatly impressed that it exceeds the boundaries of the corporeal world. Thus, the connection is an essential precondition for the spiritual revelation.
[104956]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Sensitivity to the Creator
The Soul is The Tool For The Revelation of the Creator
It All Starts With Gratitude

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Suffering - No Comments →

When we begin to investigate our nature, the major breakthrough in discovering the truth is to stop focusing on our animal degree with which we usually identify ourselves: with our body and all its desires, thoughts, and longings. This is a primitive egoism, inherent in the whole human race, and every inhabitant of this world feels its manifestations to a higher or smaller degree, in various forms—everyone according to his nature.

We need to consider the history of humanity not as a life of animal bodies, but as the development of desire on the speaking degree. When we look at the world, we see how difficult people’s life is, how much they need to fight for it and apply efforts. Everyone is fighting for his existence. But why is it arranged so? It is all so that we understand the futility of our desire.

It’s no accident that we complain about life and suffering so much. This life intentionally forces us to suffer so that we decide that our egoism—our desire to enjoy—is killing us, and we then want to rise out of it to the next degree. If we don’t pay attention to bodies but look at the common desire, we will see that it grows from epoch to epoch and as it grows, it suffers more and more, more qualitatively.

Although a person has all the material things, his desire has grown to a more human level, and he doesn’t feel the satisfaction of a well-fed life. If once people were fighting for a piece of bread, today they don’t die of hunger but suffer from other causes.

In this way the common desire of which we are part develops and advances and, as a result brings us to the need to solve this problem. It’s impossible to continue living inside of this egoism that is born only to suffer. There is nothing else to do but to decide that we desire to rise above it, to grow in a different direction.

We don’t want to increase this desire further so that instead of a hundred we will want two hundred, and according to this, will double our suffering, then will want four hundred and will suffer even more. We need to use our desire differently, not to try to fulfill the animal body, but our true body that is outside of this animal: to rise above the animal—above the horse—to the level of the rider. This task should be the goal of our life.

Humanity reveals this and is now at a crossroads. It gradually begins to realize that it will bring itself to total destruction if it doesn’t change its nature. And we have the knowledge and understanding as to what needs to be done. We have the method that we try to realize for ourselves and to use as an example for the entire world, becoming a light to all the nations.

We want to break away from egoism that states “I will reign!” and forces us to serve our animal body; we want to rise from its degree and connect to the human within us. This human being within us does not exist; there is only a point from which we must develop it. This spark, called the “point in the heart,” exists in every person. But there are people in whom it burns and requires its realization. That’s why, around us around throughout the whole world, there are people who are able to realize this opportunity and build from this point the rider, the human, meanwhile hidden within it like in a drop of semen.

It’s necessary to implant this drop in the womb, which is the group. And when we adhere to the group, like a drop of semen to the uterus, then from this adhesion we start to get the upper force, the revelation of the Creator. There are three components: my drop, my group, and the Creator, who is revealed in it. Then I start receiving nourishment nourishment and strength through this group, and thus I grow.

In reality, I grow due to the fact that through the group I receive the force of the Creator; my desire to enjoy is also growing and seemingly wants to intercept me. But due to the fact that I draw the Light that Reforms to it, this raw, formless material begins to acquire the form of man, Adam, similar (Domeh) to the Creator.

I don’t know what it means to be like the Creator, and I feel various disturbances. But these very disturbances show me the form in which I should resist them, to ask adherence to the group and demand the influence of the Creator. Due to this, my desire begins to take a human shape. It’s just as the embryo passes through the different stages of its growth, undergoes all kinds of changes and takes different forms until it finally looks like a human being. Thus, we reach a state of readiness to be born in the spiritual world. And the very first stage is to adhere to the uterus, that is, the group, and to try to get nourishment through it from Above, the Light that Reforms.
[106245]
From the Men’s Convention “The Next Step” 4/26/13, Lesson 1

Related Material:
Growing In The Group
Finding The Force That Balances The Ego
Voluntary Slavery: Performing The Laws Of Nature

Filed under: Conventions, Egoism, Evolution, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

As we ascend 125 spiritual degrees, we return to an “embryonic” state again and again, at deeper and higher levels. This is the special ladder in which every level of self-annulment takes its own form, with its unique characteristics.

And this is why the embryo submits to constant changes throughout its growth until it becomes similar to the upper one in its self-annulment, thereby completing the first stage. In this stage, the lower one is carrying out only its first self-annulment: It accepts everything that the upper one does, sends, or says to it as something perfect, even though it may seem to the lower one that it’s against it, that it’s repulsive to its mind and feeling.

Then when it completes the stage of conception, it actually begins to nullify itself by constructing the head of its Partzuf. It is born with its head turned downwards, that is, in self-annulment, and it begins to raise it, that is, to accept the mind of the upper one instead of its own. In other words, now it works actively against its own mind and feeling, and not only nullifies itself, but checks with the upper one at every step.

And even if it doesn’t agree with the upper one, whose words seem to him absolutely illogical, contradictory, and inadequate, it still it accepts them; this is already actual self-annulment. Before, in the stage of conception, it acted without examination, and now it accepts the mind and feeling of the upper one in defiance of its own.

This way, gradually, it constructs the head of the Partzuf and becomes similar to the upper one in terms of its inner program, its vessels (desires). Eventually, on a certain stage it is able to replace the upper one in all acts of the latter.

This is the order of the degrees, and we rise in them through the power of resistance. Baal HaSulam tells a parable about a servant and the ministers, when the king wanted to place the servant as head of the ministers. In order to do this, he told one of them who was skilled in buffoonery to pretend that he was the leader of the enemies and the bandits so that, through fighting with them the person could examine himself as to what degree he could “protect the king,” meaning to adhere to the mind of the upper one. After all, when the king’s assistant dresses like a criminal, it is not easy to recognize this. On the contrary, a person always thinks that he is right, and he needs a strong power of overcoming to rise above reason, not like it was on the first stage.

And this is the state that we call the “second conception.” After all, even though the person matured, came out of the embryonic stage and infancy, the conception continues even here: the actions are the same but on a new level. Now he actually nullifies himself in order to be similar to the upper one in practice.
[106266]
From the Men’s Convention “The Next Step” 4/26/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
The Embryo’s Worries
Learn To Work With The Spiritual Head
The Decimal System Is In The Basis Of The World

Filed under: Conventions, Inner Work - No Comments →