Question: Would it be worthwhile for us to change the form of the conventions gradually and to do them not for those who have been learning the integral method, but for those who don’t study and want to hear about it? Immense efforts and means are invested in preparation for conventions. Might it be preferable to invest in attracting people who are not familiar with the integral method?

Answer: Certainly, it would be nice to use all our means for world dissemination. However, it is impossible to turn to a person and say: “Let’s set up a virtual convention, and the effort and resources that could be invested in a physical convention, we will invest in dissemination.”

Question: Why not? It is certainly very nice to see like-minded people with whom you are familiar at the conventions. However, these events gather so many people now that it is more and more difficult to meet people whom we know. So, our experiment to create a big family where everyone knows everyone else essentially becomes a fantasy. Is it worthwhile to waste our resources and efforts on this?

Answer: You might be right. I feel that we are going in this direction, but every paradigm must finish its work. So, I hope that what is being conceived now will ultimately come into being: a virtual world system of integral education that will not require constant meetings.

However, today, when I come to Europe, for example, and hundreds of students arrive from thirty countries, for them, this is not just a meeting with me. This is an organization. They communicate with each other, regroup, and agree on how to disseminate, what must be done next, and so on. Along with this, I try to give them the opportunity to connect, to mold an organized center for information and publicity by themselves.

The power that is created through our communication is what is called the wisdom of the group that today already has been established through experiments.

We are dealing with physical values, not imaginary ones. When people gather and organize some kind of society among themselves, a great power and potential appears, which is greater than the mere sum. This is natural and scientifically proven.
[107716]
From KabTV’s “The Global Crisis” 3/19/13

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After the recent convention in New Jersey, we feel a certain fogginess, a certain distraction, and an inability to concentrate. I understand that we have been through several days of very active clarifications and strong feelings, but we must transcend all that.

There is the person’s inner state, and there is the state of work, in which we must sustain ourselves by connecting above all the states we have been through in order to draw the Light that Reforms. If we wait for things to work out by themselves, we only will acquire an animal mind, but if we operate as a group and draw the Light that Reforms, the Light will come from Above and give us the upper, spiritual mind.

These are two different levels in which there is a totally different perspective. It is either an animal’s perspective or a perspective of man (Adam), similar to the Creator. We must choose now through whose eyes we want to look at reality. If we simply sit and wait without yearning for the inner group concentration, we will go back to the animal life, to the animal perspective.

We shouldn’t be afraid of leaving all our previous feelings and accounts and of expecting only the Light that Reforms, no matter which states it brings us. The main thing is to exert ourselves in drawing the Light. So, let’s make an effort and focus on that.
[107489]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 05/14/13, The Book of Zohar 

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Question: What inner action can I perform in order to help the friends and not just smile at them, but to actually bestow and give internally? I don’t want to just spend some time in the convention and then go home. I want to create and to perform this inner action, so how can I do that?

Answer: We are going to have workshops and you should try to listen to one another, and feel the circle that is formed by your ring. Everyone should lower his head before the others so that he can receive from them. At the same time, everyone can also add to the others, give to them. You should want a special force to appear in the circle, the force that will be shared by all the participants in the circle.

None of us has any feeling or mind of his own left since our own heart and mind belong to the animal, to the donkey, that is left outside the circle. In the circle, however, there are souls and not bodies. You don’t see physical people before you, but only their yearning to connect in order to reveal the Creator. This is for what this exercise is meant.

If we manage to connect correctly, we will begin to feel a certain closeness to something new that we haven’t felt as of yet. There will be a special feeling, a special force that is external to you, that pulls you out of your body. This is the experience we should attain.
[107367]
From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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Question: Why do I have to make such great efforts not to fall asleep during the lesson although I exert a lot of efforts in the study and in dissemination?

Answer: I will tell you a secret: People who are attracted to spirituality, who want to reveal the Creator, don’t like to study…. It’s because they want to feel! They may even seem a bit stupid and sleepy. They can read the same passage ten times and not understand what it says. I have experienced it myself.

If you let someone on the outside read this passage, he will immediately “understand” what it says. This is very typical of the wisdom of Kabbalah since the point in the heart is awakened in a person when he reads, the point of feeling and not the mind. A stranger perceives the text in a totally logical way, and so he has no problem understanding what it says.

This is the reason that we sometimes see how new people come to the group and apprehend and master the material easily. It’s easy for them to understand what the text says, they immediately begin to study TES, and in a month or two already begin to discuss the most complex theory. People with the point in the heart, however, who have studied for ten years, cannot understand what it says since they are looking for a feeling and not for logic, like a clever donkey.

We should understand that there are two main obstacles for students. The first obstacle is when we discover problems in the group, in the relations between the friends, but we don’t understand that these problems are actually the springboard forward and we escape them.

The second obstacle is that a person reads the text over and over again and already knows it by heart, but feels that he doesn’t understand what it means. This is true not only with regards to the theory in “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” or TES, but even with regards to Shamati and other articles. Certain articles may sometimes move a person, but most of them seem dry and do not touch the heart.

This is actually a good sign. It is said: “It isn’t the wise who learns.” It doesn’t mean that I am giving you permission to sleep during the lesson, but in fact I do understand it. I have never made complaints to students who sleep since I understand them. It isn’t just feeling tired, but a result of wanting to feel spirituality. If they don’t feel that, they don’t understand why they sit in the lesson.

It’s said about this: “Time does what the mind doesn’t do” since the mind cannot really help us here, but time can! This means that with time the Light influences us when we are in the group or even when we sleep during the lesson. You should just let the Light work on you, and the sensation will come.
[107364]
From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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Question: You said that it’s necessary to try to see the Creator behind everything, including my thoughts and emotions. But when something bad happens, it’s very difficult to hold onto Him, not to speak about getting out of such states. Why does the Creator put us into conditions above which we are unable to rise? Intellectually, I understand the need to surmount this, but it’s impossible.

Answer: There are no states above which we are unable to rise. Every state accurately matches our present level, which makes it possible for us to overcome it. If we make the effort and fail, this says that we have not sufficiently prepared a base.

Suppose you have to take a test, and you want very much to succeed in this test. But you haven’t prepared enough, and therefore, no matter how much you “sweat,” no matter how much you try to answer the questions, this doesn’t help. So, what’s the point of complaining that you invested all your energy and failed?

So, humanity and each individual evolve according to a program, and if we prepare ourselves and our environment correctly, it cannot be that we will not succeed in overcoming all the states that we encounter on the way. For these states do arrive in stages according to a precise program, and we receive everything necessary to be ready for them.
[107404]
From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot” Item 19: The angel of death comes with a drawn sword with a drop of poison at its tip; the person opens his mouth, he throws the drop inside, and he dies.

The angel of death is our ego that cuts us off and distances us from spirituality all the time. And obviously, it does so according to that method, according to that general plan by which we must advance. It has to grow in order to justify its name, the angel of death.

We see that, in our day, a global crisis has been revealed. Humanity is gradually coming to understand that the problem is not in bad economy or finances, not in the broken family, but rather in human nature itself. This means that we will not escape the crisis through a simple change of the external system. Ultimately, we reach an understanding that the angel of death lives within us and is killing us. We must kill him ourselves before he kills us. Time after time, he intentionally cuts us off from the good life more and more so that we will feel that we have to kill him.

The sword of the angel of death is the influence of the Sitra Achra, called “Herev” because of the separation that grows according to the measure of reception, and the separation destroys him.

A person is not prepared to refrain from using his ego. We see people continue to behave egoistically even though they know that they are harming themselves. However, they are compelled to use their desire to receive, and finally: One is compelled to open one’s mouth, since one must receive the abundance for sustenance and persistence from her hands.

So, we are killing ourselves from generation to generation, returning to this world again and again with an even greater desire for pleasure and again, swallowing that deadly drop”: In the end, the bitter drop at the tip of the sword reaches him, and this completes the separation to the last spark of his breath of life.

People must finally understand that using the desire to receive kills them. No matter how much we burn with new hope of exploiting it, looking for different forms, and trying to overcome it, in spite of all this, we understand that our nature is compelling us to kill ourselves.

The angel of death kills itself by showing us what is causing us to die. It arouses us to fight against it. This is reminiscent of the story of the Egyptian exile. At first, it seemed that Pharaoh was good! With seven years of plenty, absolute abundance, it seemed that we had succeeded in controlling the angel of death and that was on our side.

However, in the end, we began to feel the seven years of famine. This was no longer the same Pharaoh. The angel that led us through life suddenly became cruel. We used to think that all of life is in front of us: With all the opportunities of the “American dream,” we would continue to progress and get more and more from life. It seemed to us that the entire world opened before us for our benefit.

Suddenly, we discovered that we are locked within this world. Every day becomes darker and darker, cramped and horrible, threatening to kill us and, at the end of the matter, we realize that the problem is not in the world. Rather, it is in us, in the egoistic nature that is found within us and inspires us to life, in our angel, meaning our internal power.

So, it essentially is fulfilling its role, like Pharaoh who brought the children of Israel closer to the Creator. This is that angel that, through opposition, carries out its faithful work. An angel is a force of nature that has no choice, a part of the overall program that operates until we finally feel that we have no choice and must flee from it.
[106507]
From the Men’s Convention “The Next Step” 4/26/13, Lesson 1

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Our ego has grown for many years until a spark suddenly awakened in it, a glimmer, a starting point of the perception of the upper world. When such a spark is ignited in a person, he begins to feel discomfort and worry. He feels that this world is not enough for him and that he needs something else: There is something else in this life above the corporeal existence, a more sublime goal.

He cannot go on living like everyone else anymore, and he yearns to understand the meaning of life, its essence, its basis. What is the inner force that manages him and what is the purpose of his life?

This spark undoubtedly exists in each of those who have gathered here in this convention since otherwise you wouldn’t yearn to come here. Yet, there are many people who come to study and check themselves when the spark in them is ignited. We have to make great efforts in order to fulfill it, and this is something for which they are not ready yet. In the meantime, the gap between the force of the ego that pulls a person into his own body and the force of the spark that pulls him out of his body, calling him to transcend, is very big.

A person’s ego is very heavy and it keeps the spark inside it as if in a prison cell. Therefore, such people surrender to their ego and agree to remain in this prison. They find different excuses, according to which they eventually leave the spiritual path since they must justify themselves. And thus, they leave.

Rabash says that there are sparks of the love of others in each of the friends; that is, there are anti-egoistic forces. The ego hates the others, and the force that is opposite the ego is called love of others. But one spark cannot ignite the Light of love, meaning to make me feel someone else’s desire as mine and fill it, just as I fill myself. In other words, I cannot exit myself and be incorporated in the other, which is called “love of others.”

Therefore, we gather in a group and agree to work and empower one another in order to collect all our sparks and, in the connection between them, discover the upper world.
[107198]
From a Talk on The Importance of Gathering 5/10/2013

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A person can reach the general love for all of humanity, all of nature, and all of reality from the love of friends. Then, he sees that our world also takes on a form in which there are only attributes, where there is no matter, but only a force. This force is the only thing that operates in the world in its different variations.

There is no separate corporeal and spiritual world, but only one world. If a person looks at himself and at the entire world correctly, he understands that there is nothing that was created against him, that everything was created only for the benefit of the connection between us and the ascent to mutual bestowal, connection.

So from the love of friends we reach the love of the Creator, that is, the love of all of reality—the desire to bring the Creator contentment. To bestow upon the Creator means to bestow upon everyone. The term “together” stands for the Creator. A person serves all the created beings and the inner force that created them and enlivens them, and through them he bestows upon their Maker who exists in them.

Therefore, we see that the wisdom of Kabbalah is a very practical method. We can study it as a theory for many years and not advance at all. The main thing is the actual implementation, and it can be implemented only in the connection between us.

So, when we gather in these conventions, it allows us to connect and absorb the general spirit. The amount of people coming together helps us to reach a great intensity. They don’t necessarily have to be old students with great experience. The main thing is the general force when each one wants to exit himself and enter the other, to “pour” himself outward, and burst into their arms. Thus, he opens his perception to the world and begins to discover nature, regardless of his five physical senses.

There is a special quality in the connection between the friends: Since their thoughts and opinions are conveyed from one another thanks to their adhesion, everyone is incorporated in the forces of the other, in his attributes and his perspective. Thanks to the general incorporation, each one receives the power of the whole group.

Every individual is small and weak with limited powers. But everything is arranged so that if he is incorporated in the group, which wasn’t given to him by chance, he completes himself through it. This is enough in order to fully feel the whole spiritual world. None of us can feel spirituality, but through the connection, everyone can acquire it.

Of course, a person has a chance to acquire a great spiritual desire in a big group. It is easier to do so because it is easier to annul oneself before a big society when many people influence a person. We must pressure only a little, and it can happen. We will be able to transcend ourselves and attain the upper reality in the incorporation between us. I do hope that we will fulfill that and together discover the true reality in which we are living.

It isn’t mysticism but a science, a higher psychology. By revealing the upper world, we will discover the upper laws of nature that modern physics only now is getting close to. Modern physics is on the borderline of matter, where the corporeal laws disappear, and this is why physicists cannot discover what is above time, motion, and place. We, however, will reveal all of this since our senses will be ready for that. Then, we will discover how we should behave correctly in our world and how to control our fate. We will have the key to success, not at the expense of others, but for the benefit of everyone!
[107203]
From a Talk on The Importance of Gathering 5/10/2013

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Convention in New Jersey, Day 3, Lesson 6

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Convention in New Jersey, Day 3, Workshop 4

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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.
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From a Talk on The Importance of Gathering 5/10/2013

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