A question I received: Recently I came to the conclusion that what causes us suffering is our desire. It is impossible to reduce and it never ends. I want to stop desiring anything. I simply don’t wish to desire anything, and I just want to do what I must, no matter what comes my way. Is this possible? Don’t tell me, “try it and see.” I understand that this is impossible. But what should I do now?

My Answer: Try it and see. “Try” means to study and disseminate Kabbalah. You will then gain an understanding from being connected to the group, and will begin to feel the influence of the Upper Force on you. The group is like a tuning fork for a musician – it is an instrument for attuning yourself to the Creator, since the direction leading to him is hidden from us.

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Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Israel time I hold a public lecture in The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center. The lecture is broadcast live on our TV channel “YES-66” and the Kabbalah TV website. It is translated live from Hebrew into English, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian.

[Show slideshow]

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Americans should understand that their capitalism has ended. The authorities are still functioning by the outdated principles, which were relevant in times of individual egoism, by the rule, “one’s income depends on one’s personal egoism and efforts.” Today, however,every person depends on a system or grid of forces that govern the world. Today’s problems aren’t caused by individuals, but by every person’s interaction with the global governing system – with society or humanity. To find solutions, we must look to people’s connection with their environment, rather than to the individuals.

Providing huge monetary funds to revive the economy will not give any result because what’s missing isn’t the money, but the connection between people. The problem is how to create the grid that will connect everyone within people’s feelings and consciousness. It is people’s attitudes that should change: each person should be ready to keep for himself exactly as much as he needs for a normal existence. And all the rest should go to society. “A society of consumers” has ceased to exist. We are entering a society of “optimal existence.”

A quote by Karl Marx from 1867: “Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, real estate and equipment, pushing them to take more and more expensive loans until the loans end up in default. The defaulted loans will cause banks to go bankrupt and nationalized by the government, and this, in turn, will lead to the emergence of communism.”

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Questions I received on Kabbalah’s relation to African religions, people with mental disorders, and more:

Question: Is it possible to study Kabbalah and at the same time study non-European religions, or are some conditions necessary? I practice such religions as Santeria, Voodoo, and other African religions.

My Answer: It doesn’t matter what you do. Keep studying Kabbalah, and the truth will be revealed to you.

Question: You are disclosing Kabbalah to women and children, but you categorically cut off people with severe depression and “mental deviations.” Of course, Kabbalah is counter-indicative for a particular portion of people with mental illnesses, but among people with mental disorders, there are some for whom Kabbalah could be a remedy, like LSD in the 60’s. I think the psychiatrists and psychologists among your students, whom you trust, could work out a special program of studying Kabbalah for the right candidates from this category.

My Answer: But if even one incident of regular relapse were to take place, Kabbalah and I would be the ones blamed for it!

Question: If a person who studies the science of Kabbalah begins to lose his keen perception, the part of his consciousness called “thinking clearly,” can he continue to study Kabbalah or not?

My Answer: This is a normal state for a person who is making the transition from one degree to the next in the process of attainment. And in fact, this always happens in the process of growth: the past vanishes and is replaced by new content, which is more qualitative.

Question: In spite of the broad dissemination of the Kabbalah campuses, will there be some limitations on the admission of people to the daily lessons of the main groups?

My Answer: No.

Question cont’d: What if there are more people willing to study than the space can hold?

My Answer: Then we will rent more space!

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In the News (from CNN): “Bankers: Take your TARP money back” There’s a growing sense among some bankers that Troubled Asset Relief Program [$800 Billion] known as “TARP” has become toxic. As a result, they want to bail out of the bank bailout program. “It should be called ‘TRAP,’ not TARP,” said Brian Garrett, chief executive of Bank of the Bay in San Francisco, who is trying to return bailout funding.

They’re especially concerned about the limits on executive compensation – imposed in February, four months after the Treasury started sending out checks. All ‘mega-banks’ that the government forced to take bailout money say they want to return taxpayer funds “as soon as practical.”

In the News (from Bloomberg): “Goldman Sachs Said to Be in Talks to Repay TARP Funds” Bank executives are chafing under increased scrutiny that accompanied the bailout money, as public outrage over bonuses and executive perks intensifies.

My Comment: The highest priority task is to limit the banks’ leeway when it comes to their salaries, bonuses, and fake indexes. Next, they have to be made transparent to society and placed under complete societal and governmental control. Otherwise they will wreck the world with their blind greed.

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Questions I received on changing one’s name, astrology, clairvoyants, time, death, and homosexuality:

Question: My parents changed their last name from Kroni to Karni in order to make it sound better and simpler. My daughter Noga was born on 02.07.2003. Will the name Noga Karni be favorable to her?

My Answer: This is not a question for a Kabbalist. Kabbalah engages only in the correction of egoism, human nature.

Question: What do you think about the science of Astrology?

My Answer: I don’t value it.

Question: Mediums or clairvoyants are people who have the ability to “see” things that others can’t. What is the difference between them and Kabbalists, who have developed the sixth sense?

My Answer: People will extrasensory perception and people who are close to nature are, in fact, able to “see” things about people. However, they can only see the things that relate to a person’s animate or earthly essence. Kabbalists don’t see these things. Instead, they engage in correcting the soul and pay no attention to the body.

Question: If time doesn’t exist, does this mean we are already united?

My Answer: Yes, but not in our perceptions.

Question: What is death?

My Answer: It is the end of one’s sensation within the egoistic desire at the level of this world.

Question: My cousin is a homosexual. What should he do if he really wants to study Kabbalah? The Creator gave him a desire – an attraction for other men, and you always say that we don’t have any power over our desires because everything comes from Him.

My Answer: He can study. The Light will correct whatever needs to be corrected.

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In the News (from The Financial Times): “UN panel calls for council to replace G20” The Group of 20 should be replaced by a new Global Economic Council, an advisory panel of senior international economists has said. Under the panel’s proposals, the council, which would be a United Nations body, would become the main forum for setting the agenda for worldwide economic and financial policy.

My Comment: The problem is that under the UN aegis, everything gets politicized and pocketed. Hence, it is doomed to fail. The organization is in dire need of dissolution and replacement.

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Four and a half thousand years ago, there was already a situation similar to the one we have today, and there were researchers who understood this strange phenomenon. They understood what goes on in an isolated society where everyone’s interdependence becomes revealed and where people begin to understand that Nature does not allow them to relate properly to each other, as the situation demands of them.

They revealed the method of working with the nature of a human being in order to help people interact with each other properly so as to survive. However, this shouldn’t be done just for the sake of survival, but also to attain prosperity, development, and well being. They discovered how it is possible to influence a person, explaining that in order for this to happen, we have to attain the structure of the system.

It’s logical that we have to discover the system in which we exist. This is necessary in order to understand what binds us together, in what way are we interdependent and what kind of union we must achieve. We have to discover what our present nature is like, what we are capable of changing and what we aren’t, where our freedom of choice lies, and how we can change what must be changed.

We cannot change the program or the matter we are made of, and we cannot change the principle by which this system functions. The only thing we can and must change is our attitude, perfecting it to make it similar to the integral and harmonious system we are in. This is the only freedom of choice we have. It’s truly a wonder how everything in Nature is arranged in such a way that even if we wish to intervene in other aspects, we cannot change anything. We received a system where everything is predetermined except for this one thing. The connection between its parts is an egoistic connection, but it can be transformed, and this is precisely what we have to do.

There is a science that explains how to perform this action. If you use this science, you’ll be able to perform this action. It does not talk about anything except the connection between people, summed up by the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And this is now being revealed through various problems.

This science tells us what constitutes our only freedom of will: the unification of people with one another, and nothing else. Today this is being revealed to us by Nature itself, which is making us see the problem that needs correction – the broken connection between us. It also tells us how this system works, how we can achieve this connection step by step, and how this entire enormous, universal, amazing system will look in all of its splendor once each and every one of us, and all of us together, will implement the proper connection.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “One Precept,” on 03.05.2009)

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Two questions I received on the quality of bestowal:

Question: Lots of things come together as one whole for me thanks to my studies over the Internet. At your lectures and lessons, you always repeat that “bestowing” means interacting with the group and giving to others according to one’s level. If you help others in your region using the opportunities that have become available to you, is this also considered bestowal?

My Answer: Yes.

Question: If a person makes an action directed at unity and bestowal, but it’s not beneficial to the one who performs it, is this considered “faith above reason”?

My Answer: Such an act is always beneficial to the one who performs it.

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A question I received: I don’t feel the crisis in any way. Maybe I’m just lucky?

My Answer: Maybe the crisis is still not felt in some states of the USA, but it will reach these places too! Besides, there have always been people in different areas of the world who did not feel that they were living in this world.

I visited a village in Ireland once which had a few roads leading to different places. I asked someone how to get to the city, and he told me, “I believe it’s down this road.” I said I was surprised because he sounded unsure, so he explained that he’s never been there. It was astounding to see a normal man of about fifty, living in the world today, who has never been outside of his village.

There are some people who don’t know anything about what goes on in the world. They have their bottle of beer and they don’t need anything else. But the crisis won’t go unnoticed even for them, because they won’t have their bottle of beer any longer! Therefore, even they will be forced to unite with others.

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