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In the News (from DSNews): “Selfie is a way to inflate one’s importance and obtain instant popularity. This phenomenon occurs when the individual becomes more important. The reason is a lack of real communication, inability to reveal one’s inner world.
“Complex content – public, social, informational – takes only 20-30% of the total social networks.
“The bulk of the content is focused on personal life. This trend is even more noticeable in Instagram due to main visual content. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are the same in their principles and preferences of the audience.
“Fascinated with themselves and drawing attention to themselves, users of social networks are becoming more fragmented; selfie contributes to the fragmentation of society. Social networks have stopped thinking. Selfie is a way to communicate with society at the loss of live communication skills.
“Funny pictures forced out thinking. Decline of the masses is observed in selecting specific information: an image makes a bigger impression than a text because the brain processes visual images faster, so there is greater involvement.
“Consumers of digital information do not like to read, they perceive only images. Pictures get more viral circulation than analytical articles.
“Users of social networks are much more interested in their own photos or the photos of their neighbors than in the significant events in the world. Great interest in positive information has been laid in the very principle of the structure of social networks.”
My Comment: This is a consequence of the growing egoism, for which the main thing is instant gratification. But there is a dead end in its development and it will be forced to look for fulfillment and will find it only through bestowal.
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A person needs to pass the integral method through his or her own feelings, to work repeatedly, dig through this material, grind it within oneself, enter it emotionally, and pass it through yourself.
This is not a simple system. You need to sense it gradually through your suffering, searching, and frustrations—through the questions inside you. Otherwise, nothing will come of it, just like with everything else.
How much does a person suffer, toil, blunder, and spend sleepless nights until he or she becomes a good specialist in something. This is the only way we grow, by grinding everything inside ourselves. Any workshop, any Convention, any collective action, leaves its imprint, its Reshimo (reminiscence).
We just held a two-day convention, which is already imprinted in a collective Kli (vessel) because a certain commonality formed here between us. Thus, in our future work, we will turn to this convention once again because it has its history and its continuation. This is how it works. This is why I feel sorry for those people who did not come here.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day Two” 7/12/14, Lesson 3
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Question: During the process of disseminating the integral method, I came across something interesting. We were working with the teachers of a school and they said to us that there is nothing new in what we are talking about: unite, be friends, educate children correctly, but we approach this in a different way. What is this “different way”? Where does this come from?
Answer: In our words, our activities, in everything, a completely different purpose is felt. And it is not the words that are directed towards this goal, rather it is an inner force that exists within these words. This is what they feel. The main thing is that they also feel the result that your actions, some kind of trace remains that does not exist after other activities.
You come to the external community, apparently entertaining them, and you do some exercises with them. After this, these people go out. Their head is turning in a slightly different direction and they begin to perceive the world differently because in your words and actions exist a higher energy that changes people. It changes them! This means that they cannot say what it was, but they feel that something has changed.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day One” 7/11/14, Lesson 2
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Question: In the sources we are told that the Creator manages all the wars for us; He fights for the children of Israel, expels them from their land and returns them to it, provides victory and defeat. Is this correct also in the twenty-first century?
Answer: Actually it is not that simple. Indeed, we don’t know exactly what happened in ancient times so it is difficult to make the comparison today. First of all we must understand the concept of “the wars of Israel.”
In fact, all of the wars of the children of Israel happen within them, against the “evil inclination” that disturbs their connection. Because of their inability to connect and to convey the method of correction to the whole world, external problems are added to their inner disturbances and we must invest effort in them also. That is how many wars were fought.
On our way from Egypt, we passed by way of Mount Sinai and the Sinai desert; there we fought not just once against Amalek and against other enemies. After that the wars of the conquest of the land of Israel began; seven nations dwelled there and we were compelled fight against them to expel them from the land.
But these were internal wars. The seven nations lived both in us and in our world. And in general, what happens within the soul is also copied outside; our world is a copy that is a reflection of our soul.
So the foundation of all of our wars is internal. It is up to us to fight against our ego that separates and distances us. And according to the Torah it is up to us to be as one man with one heart. We always need to fight for connection.
Question: This means that there is a goal that is determined from the start for all of these wars?
Answer: Right, there is one goal: to reach connection according to the present level, the present period. The picture that we see outside is found within us. This means that all our haters, all the anti-Semites, and in general the people, humanity, all of reality, everything is within me. And only so that I will have the possibility of relating to all this correctly do I see this external reflection that makes it possible for me to differentiate and recognize what is happening, and thus fight. But the war is internal: to connect my good characteristics and to advance with their help, to rise above my bad, egoistic characteristics. That is how I am victorious over my enemies, my defects. And then, on the outside, I also defeat the external enemies.
But the victory is only by means of the Light that Reforms. It is written, (Kiddushin 30b) “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice, for the Light in it reforms.” This refers to the power that separates us and also the power of the Light that helps us connect and win.
Question: How does this mechanism work in a nation in a state of war? More precisely I am referring to the nation of Israel that is engaged in a war with Hamas?
Answer: We are not making the corrections, we have not connected between us, we have not connected with the nations of the world, and we have not helped them to unite with each other. We are to blame for their present situation because only through us does the Light reach the world; we must be a “light to the nations.” And if we don’t do this, then we have a war. Those characteristics that we haven’t corrected through connection seem to us like our enemies and our haters.
Have we succeeded in correcting them? Have we succeeded in winning this war? The true hero is the one who “transforms his haters into his lovers.”
Question: War always inflames passions in the people; there are those who agree and those who don’t agree, each one has his own opinion. Are these signs of separation that we must correct? Is it worthwhile to stimulate debate to try to connect all the extremes together?
Answer: Yes, nevertheless, the war is designed to awaken us. War in itself cannot correct anything. Only through a chain of troubles can it push us to a compulsory understanding of the situation, until we understand that it depends only upon us. But this is not with the armed forces or our military strategy, rather only with connection, with the Arvut that we attain among the people and become an example of the right connection that makes it possible to overcome the crisis and reach general harmony.
Question: So how can we wage war after it has already broken out?
Answer: Without a choice we are fighting an external enemy and yet we clearly understand that, in fact, we are fighting with an internal enemy. Along with the military operations, it is up to us to strengthen, expand, and increase the connection between us because this is the main part of the war. The troops who are in Gaza, the “Iron Dome,” all of these are imperative only to gain time for the internal corrections.
Question: Every moment is precious! Our friends are falling on the battlefield. So how can we become wiser while we are immersed within the endless maelstrom of the news?
Answer: There is no need to disconnect from the flow of news, although most of it is not correct and not accurate. But nevertheless I would suggest being involved with connection. This means coming to workshops that we are doing all over the country, entering our website and learning what connection between people is. Even mental effort, even reading some article, is already a big correction, and through this the Light is extended through us to all of the people of Israel and through it to all the nations of the world. That is how everything will calm down.
Come, let’s do this with all of the people of Israel, and then we will see results throughout the world. Everyone will suddenly support us, including our uncompromising neighbors.
Question: This means that to have a breakthrough it is enough to open the doors and go towards one another?
Answer: Yes, “We open the doors of the heart”.
These are the “wars of Israel” and not battles against external enemies that we still conduct. The true battle is waged within the heart, within the yearnings of Yashar-El, when we fight to connect our hearts into one whole heart, to be as one person with one heart.
Indeed, the people of Israel at Mount Sinai were standing before an immense ego, a mountain of hatred (Sina), under conditions of connection. And the land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), is a desire (Ratzon) directly yearning for the Creator (Yashar-El), the desire to bestow, for “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
To reach the land of Israel we had to accept the conditions of Arvut, connection, to be as one person with one heart, and after this to pass through a correction of forty years. But modern Israel has already existed for 66 years and we have not neared one another by even one millimeter, probably it has been closer to the opposite; apparently there is no people of Israel and the land of Israel doesn’t exist as an internal spiritual concept in which we must live.
And there are no wars of Israel in the true sense, for we are not fighting to become the people of Israel in the land of Israel, rather we are just a bunch of exiles.
Question: If the war is a “battle” to connect the people, so how exactly does the Creator manage the battle?
Answer: If we succeed in breaking through the current orientation and succeed in attracting the Upper Light, the power of connection, then it will fight for us.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write. The Wars of Israel” 7/21/14
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Question: We have heard many times that, initially, the people of Israel should be corrected. Is it worthwhile to concentrate on its correction in order to come closer to our goal and give delight to the Creator?
Answer: The people of Israel are that part of humanity that longs for the Creator through the way of connection and unity between themselves. There is no such concept of “Israel” from nature, as if someone is born Israeli and someone is not. We know that this concept first appeared in ancient Babylon.
In the spiritual world, the concept of Israel is the direction toward the Creator via the unity between us, the creation of the desire in them that is similar to the Creator, which means as one, unique and unified. Therefore, first of all, we constitute those who want to attain the Creator in the unity between us.
The next circle we need to work on are those who, 2000 years ago, were in this state and fell from it. In them, there exists hidden Reshimot (reminiscences) which work negatively, repelling them from spiritual attainment since the broken Kli (vessel) operates in the opposite direction.
In addition, if one of us has even a minimal possibility, we need to try in every way possible to work with these people. In Israel, there is such an opportunity since here they are a majority.
The rest of humanity, the nations of the world, also have these genes, but they were never awakened, not in Babylon, not after, and not now. We will work with them at the end because as we build a stronger inner part, the easier it will be to work with this external part that is far from spiritual longings.
Thus, the correction is made from the inner part to the outer part. This is what Baal HaSulam writes about in “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” (Sections 60-70).
Every person in the world who longs to attain and reveal the Creator constitutes Yashar El (straight to the Creator)—those longing for Him. If there isn’t unity and connection between them and connection with the Light, then it isn’t likely that the Light from them will spread first to the people of Israel and then to the rest of the nations of the world because the most important thing is the mutual connection that is shared by us.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria 7/11/14, Lesson 2
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Leviticus, the section “Tazria”, 13:1-3: And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying: “When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes in the skin of his flesh the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests. And the priest shall look upon the plague in the skin of the flesh; and if the hair in the plague be turned white, and the appearance of the plague be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is the plague of leprosy; and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.”
The discovery of the next level requires a rejection of those desires that we cannot correct. And they leave us in the form of slag: plague, leprosy, and all that is spilled out. In general, knowledgeable doctors understand that everything that is shed from the body of a person is for his own good and it must be expelled. But most doctors simply heal people.
Comment: But this is talking about a Cohen (priest) here, not a doctor.
Answer: A Cohen is a doctor at the highest level.
All diseases appear from a violation of the animal systems when we cannot hold onto the right balance. For balance constitutes a guarantee for health, for longevity, for success on all levels: moral, material, physical, traditional, familial, cultural, and social.
Only one force exists in creation, and we must work by regarding it with balance on all of our levels. But if the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate are found in balance with it, because they are guided by it instinctively, the level of man is not. In his departure from balance, man violates the balance of all the rest of the parts of nature.
This happens not only because he interacts with them physically, but simply because he is found with them in one single integral system. Even our thoughts and emotions and our mutual relationships influence the environment that surrounds us.
So it follows, whether we want it or not, each one of us and all of us together are responsible for all of nature. Essentially all are together, because our incompatibility causes incompatibility between humanity and all of that nature that surrounds us like an envelope. The main thing is that this is an incompatibility with that power that manages both nature and us.
But this power manages us with particular patience, giving us some kind of freedom, so that in the framework of this freedom we determine our balance with it, and we find the homeostatic formula in any of our states. Only in this way do we balance nature as well as all of us in relation to it.
To the degree that balance is attained, this external force begins to be felt within us and among us and we rise to the next level of development called Adam, meaning, Domeh (similar) to the only power of nature, which is called Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/18/14
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The Book of Zohar, “Ki Tazria” (When a Woman Delivers), Item 105: “As light excels over darkness.” The benefit of the light comes only out of the darkness. The correction of the white is black, for without the black, the white would be pointless. And because there is black, the white is elevated and respected. It is like sweet and bitter. A person cannot know the taste of sweetness before he has tasted bitterness. Thus, what makes it sweet is the bitter.
In things where there are opposites, the one reveals the other, such as in white and black, light and darkness, sick and healthy.
Darkness is the embodiment of all the negativity that we attain in life: insecurity, fear, stinginess, pride, and contempt. Why did the Creator create darkness as the cruelest, dirtiest form that is opposite from Him? It is actually in order to attain the Light.
We, the created beings can determine everything only by oppositeness. The Creator is only one infinite Light. There are no two opposite attributes in Him in order to feel, to prefer, and to learn about one from the other. We have to understand that there cannot be one attribute without the other.
When we ascend we do so along the right and the left lines, on two legs, by opposite attributes, by opposite feelings, and the more Light there is, the more it is felt in contrast to greater darkness. This happens all the time, everywhere, in everything that we feel, think and in every decision that we make.
A person has to have great patience in advance in order to be able to go through all this. But it isn’t easy to do so because the spiritual path is the path of purification from the ego and is based on an inner struggle.
Only the right support of the environment and its constant strengthening can keep a person above the water while he is actually no one and nothing. When ten zeros come together and understand that none of them are worth anything but together they do their best to help one another, the Upper Light descends upon them and turns them into heroes.
Question: What is the psychology of a person’s inner movement?
Answer: The pleasure one receives is not a masochistic pleasure. It is a result of one’s self-correction.
Imagine ten people who cannot help one another in any way but who are still trying to do so with all their might. This brings a great upper force to descend upon them since each of them is fighting his ego in order to help the others. The result is circular mutual guarantee and the upper force connects, empowers, and raises them to the next level.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/14
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