A question I received: What advice can we give the world today to make sure people won’t think the crisis is over just because trillions were poured into the economy and there is a “breather” in the crisis?

My Answer: We can only give them one piece of advice: educate the world and disseminate the knowledge about the state of the world. It is just like teaching a child to understand what kind of world he is living in, instead of leaving him to reach this realization by receiving blows of fate. If left to realize it on his own, he will need 5 to 10 thousand years, which humanity has gone through in order to build this world, and he will be forced to pay for this knowledge with his own blood!

We educate a child during his first 15-20 years of life in this world, so he will understand this world and be ready to live in it. In much the same way, today we have to teach all of humanity about the new global world and our complete interconnectedness. Then, in just a short period of time, each person will understand what the new world is all about and will be able to behave in it correctly. Otherwise, people will have to learn the same thing though suffering.

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Two questions I received about the future state of the economy:

Question: How do you base your claim that we are living in a new world? So there’s a crisis, but the economists are saying that we’ll begin gradually coming out of it as early as a year from now.

My Answer: If they had such great insight into the future, then we wouldn’t be in today’s terrible predicament. Everyone is “smart” when looking back at the past. When the situation hits rock bottom, everyone starts offering their observations and analysis. So why didn’t they warn us about the danger ahead of time, so we could have corrected everything in time?

The same people who got us into this mess are now telling us that prosperity is only a few years away. But the fact is, no one knows what life will be like in a few years. Even now, during the crisis, they’re still concocting all kinds of new ways to profit from it. With all the market fluctuations, they’re outright lying to us. They’re using these falls and bankruptcies to continue making money.

Where did the current market ascent suddenly come from? Why in the world is the market rising? They’re simply blowing up the bubble even more. There’s no solution to this. We are simply revealing that we now exist in a new system of laws.

Question: Isn’t this how the economy works, by ascending and descending?

My Answer: The economy does not work this way. The economy is not a science, but a reflection of the connection between us. It will be whatever we make it. Right now it is built on our egoism, though we still don’t understand this. We simply make contracts and have all sorts of relationships that make sure everyone will profit, succeed, steal and exploit others. And the fact that someone has thought of a new game is no reason to claim that the crisis is over and everything’s back to normal.

Half a year to a year from now, we will see that the current calmness, quiet and even ascent, which the economists are bringing about, is just a more sophisticated way to keep stealing money.

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In the News (from The Guardian): “Solar storm could cause planetary disaster at any time, warn scientists” Such a storm today would lead to ‘planetary disaster.’ The NAS study released this January outlined the devastating impact it would have. For instance it could leave half of the US without power within 90 seconds, without coal after 30 days and would take the country a decade to recover. This would have a knock out effect on many of the systems that support our lives, including water and sewage treatment, storage of medicines requiring refrigeration, supermarket deliveries, power station controls and financial markets.

My Comment: This sounds similar to the next Egyptian plague, doesn’t it? Water turning to blood, frogs, vermin, beasts, diseased livestock, boils, thunder and hail, locusts, a strange darkness, and death of the firstborn. But do we really have to go through this in order to verify that we are living in “darkness?”

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A question I received: What does the “breaking of the covenant,” which is considered a great sin in religion, mean from the point of view of Kabbalah?

My Answer: The covenant is when one attains adhesion with the Creator through equivalence of form with Him. Equivalence of form is attained by correcting one’s absolutely egoistic nature to its opposite: bestowal and love, the Creator’s nature. If a person reaches this state, he has to guard it. But let’s get there first.

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Everyone is invited to the North American Kabbalah Congress
Which will take place on May 15-17, 2009

The North American Congress is fast approaching! Please don’t delay – register now and join all your friends at this most important event of unity! Click here to register

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We have no choice but to begin studying the global system. Just the act of studying will improve our intentions: We will reveal the right intention, which means that we will wish to bring the world to the kind of relationships that nature deems necessary.

As soon as we begin to do this, we will come closer to nature and will cease being opposite to it. We will have a good relationship with nature because we will become similar to it through our qualities.

We will be like an obedient child, who no longer wants to break everything around him and be punished by his mother. Even though he still isn’t corrected inside, he is already trying to understand what is required of him and what he has to do in order to avoid being punished. He is already being treated differently, and as a reward he receives a candy.

The same will immediately happen to us. But how can we start? We can start simply by studying. We have to give people this knowledge through the TV, the Internet, newspapers, and all other media. We have to explain to them what Baal HaSulam is saying.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “One Precept,” on 03.05.2009)

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Questions I received about loving one’s neighbor:

Question: You say that it is possible to love others as you love yourself. I want this very much. Please tell me, is there someone who could pray for his friend with all his heart, so that the friend would love his friend as a mother loves her son?

My Answer: This has to be your own prayer, because your request – provided it is complete – will surely evoke the Upper Light, which will correct you and give you this quality.

Question: We know how to “love” for the purpose of receiving love in return. But what is it to “love your neighbor as yourself?” How is this love different from the egoistic “love?” We do not know this “Supreme Love.” How are we supposed to implement it in our daily life?

My Answer: The study of Kabbalah involves all the actions that attract the next, more advanced state (these actions include the studies, unification in the group, and dissemination). Otherwise we are pushed toward the same state by suffering. Our task is to aspire to this state before the suffering will push us from behind and make us aspire toward the next level just to avoid the suffering.

So, only the force that attracts us to the next state, called the Upper Light (Ohr Makif), is able to “explain” to us what is “genuine love” – love for someone other than yourself.

Question: What if my neighbor is not nice to me, and is mean? How do I rise above this and love my neighbor?

My Answer: You will do this for the sake of the Creator if He is more important to you than yourself. And this importance of the Creator has to come to you from your environment.

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As a result of the crisis, we are beginning to feel that “our prior life is dying” and we are entering a new world. We are revealing a new type of governance, called globalization or integration, where all people are interconnected and interdependent.

Everything is governed by this integral force that connects us with each other. I may not want to depend on China or America or Russia, or on anyone else, but I am told, “It doesn’t matter what you want or don’t want, because everyone is connected with each other! They just don’t know how to find the correct form of connecting, which will satisfy everyone.”

We now see that a lack of knowledge about how to connect brings us disasters. But what can we do about it? No one knows. However, the world will soon realize that there is no way out.

In the past we developed under the influence of our growing egoism, and we understood our world. Even when we felt bad, we understood it. However, today we have to develop differently: under our own influence, in spite of our egoism. Yet we still don’t know how to do this.

Perhaps things will lighten up for a week or even longer, and then people will begin thinking that the crisis has already been resolved. But this is similar to the Egyptian plagues, where the conditions get better only to get worse. We are being thrown back and forth in order to destroy our entire logical foundation, to confuse us completely.

This is exactly what is happening now. Moreover, the blows will become more qualitative. This will lead to even more confusion and humanity will feel more frightened and insecure, while having no understanding of what is going on. And all of this is happening in order to help us realize that we have to find a new approach to ourselves, Nature and the world.

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Two questions I received about studying other spiritual writings while also studying Kabbalah:

Question: In your book Leben aus der Kabbalah (in German), you write, “One should not read other authors who write about Kabbalah, because they can influence the reader.” This statement scares me. I’ve had a craving for spirituality and for knowledge ever since I was a child. However, my soul also wishes to compare different methods and to search for the only real truth behind all the wonderful sources. For example, Buddhism also says that life must be used for spiritual development. So who is right?

My Answer: Rabash and Baal HaSulam write in their articles about the group and freedom of will that when a person is brought to Kabbalah, he should doubt and check everything. However, once he has made his choice – for example, if he chooses Kabbalah, he should then enter the study of Kabbalah completely and avoid confusing it with other methods, as otherwise he will not succeed in anything.

Question: I have read the Old Testament with Gnostic knowledge, as well as Dhammapada, Buddha’s quotations, and the Bhagavad Gita. They all talk about a single, unique God and the soul. I have also read the Upanishads. I don’t associate myself with any religion. Does this contradict Kabbalah?

My Answer: Only you can figure out everything for yourself, including whether you need a teacher, and if so – who that teacher should be. When I asked my Teacher about how could I be sure that I was in the right place for me, he said, “Search, check, and choose quickly, and then delve only into what you choose.”

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In the News (from ScienceDaily): “New View Of The Way Young Children Think” The researchers found that children neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it. The good news is what we’re saying to our kids doesn’t go in one ear and out the other, like people might have thought. It also doesn’t go in and then get put into action like it does with adults. But rather it goes in and gets stored away for later.

My Comment: A person learns only from his own mistakes. He won’t make the same mistakes now that he made in the past, but he will always be wrong about the future. It is written, “There is no righteous man in the world who has not sinned prior to performing a righteous deed.”

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