Every level summarizes and incorporates everything that takes place within it. We constantly are learning from ourselves about the states and characteristics through which we pass, which gradually accumulate, and after this, like a gauge, reach a stage where zero becomes one, and after that, again reach a stage where one becomes two, and so on. That is also how it is with us.

However, when the number one or two appears in me, it appears as a negative sum of all the previous negative discoveries above which I can rise, and I now rise above all of them together, and the first positive level is created for me.

Therefore, we must understand that the Creator is never revealed to us in a good way. He forces us to change, and then we feel Him, which is to say, our own corrected states will be felt by us as characteristics of the Creator.

Therefore, we don’t need to look somewhere else, rather only within us, clarifying where the characteristics are that are operating against connection that were created as a result of the shattering of the collective soul. We discover them and rise above them all the time. That is how we advance. This is to say, love covers over all unintentional mistakes and all crimes, and we advance according to this principle.

Now, when we are found in a good atmosphere like this, lacking mutual concern, first and foremost, we must make a “heavenly firmament” above us, such an environment, such a dome, that will hold all of us in constant awareness that we need to discover within us the opposition to connection and surmount it all the time.

If this doesn’t appear in us, this is a sign that we don’t yearn for connection, but when we truly yearn for it we immediately feel the opposition. This is because in spirituality there is no stopping. Immediately, all kinds of disturbances will be added to us as stages of advancement.

Many of the source texts talk about how the Kabbalists felt mutual hatred for each other. In The Book of Zohar it is said that the students of Rabbi Shimon felt such a mutual hatred that they were ready to burn each other to ashes, a fire of hatred burned among them.

Apparently, they had nothing about which to dispute. All of them were poor and lived in a small cave. About what did they feel hatred? It was because they wanted to get close to each other to correct their nature and discover with this the characteristic of bestowal and love, the Creator.

Therefore, the great power of the environment, the group, a constant reminder that if the group works correctly, then all the oppositions that appear among us are our only means for spiritual ascent.

From bricks like these, the corrected characteristics, the soul is built. The characteristics of rejection are the shattered parts of the temple of the soul. By connecting them, we rebuild this Kli, vessel, our collective soul.

We make an effort to connect and eventually discover the evil in each of us: We don’t want to connect. Along with this, we need to feel the pressure of the group so that we won’t flee from the hostility and hatred that appears in us about some of the friends or all of them. Under pressure from the group we begin to yearn for connection in opposition to the force of separation. Therefore, the pressure of the group must be strong.

Through yearning for connection, we begin to understand that, not only do we require the pressure of the group here, but also a higher power, the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), and so three compulsory components appear: ourselves, the group, and the Surrounding Light. Through them, this problem is solved and we connect.

The next time, it is the same thing. That is, the conditions for connection transform into a start. So, after connecting, again we need to search for an even greater reason to connect, and again, we get rejection and descend, over which we rise again, and go forward. We all are going through a process like this.
[112514]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day One” 7/12/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
The Creator Pushes, While The Environment Catches Me
The Path To Goodness: Step By Step
The Last Variable In The Equation

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work | Add Comment →