Here is an inner exercise: We are far from each other in our qualities and thoughts—foreign and different ones; we are separated by everyone’s individual egoism. There are so many of us, and we differ so much from each other in order to reveal the Creator through our connection.

Our differences, distance, and rejection show the distance to the Creator. I see how far I am from the people who study with me, who are my closest people in the world in spirit, purpose, aspiration, and understanding of life. And we are still so far from each other. I am even more distant from all the other people in the world. If I test myself in relation to every person, then this entire cumulative difference will be the distance between me and the Creator.

Now the meaning of the group becomes clearer. This is why we unite between us: We want to be able to achieve some kind of correspondence at least between us and become closer to each other, which means to be closer to the Creator. We aspire to at least overcome the difference between us. We push our egoism away, rise above it, and wish to connect only with our higher thoughts and desires, to become closer to the Creator in one form or another.

This way we begin the journey. And then we will see that there are no people here, there are no individual souls, there is nothing—only a blurry vision, which causes me to see people instead of the Creator. It is as if I am not able to focus; everything is blurry, and instead of one person, I see two, three, or four. And now I see billions of bodies before me. But if I manage to combine them all, I’ll get the Creator.

This is what I need the group for: to start this process one way or another. All our unity exercises must be directed towards the revelation of the Creator! After all, they are a means for revealing Him. There is no meaning in a group on its own, but only from the point of view expressed as: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Baal HaSulam writes that there was a horrible crime done in the socialist Russia in starting to build an altruistic society and having completely deformed the principle of being one man with one heart, one desire, one purpose. Everyone was together; fair distribution, mutual guarantee, everything was wonderful, except for one thing: They have turned a means for attaining the goal into their goal. And this made them lose big time.

It is the same as focusing and combining blurry images in order to see them themselves, and not what stands behind them. And I will naturally miss because my focus is not on the image concealed behind these illusions, but on the illusions. And this is why Russia has failed.

We cannot allow for this to happen to us, and this is why there must always be three components present: I, the group (the place and the means for revelation), and the Creator, that is, the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.
[62147]
From Lesson 2 at Arava Convention 10/28/2011

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Writings of Rabash “What Are the Powers Which Are Needed for Work,” (Start with: “And, from what was said”)
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let There Be A Firmament,” Item 65, Lesson 20
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 13, Lesson 8
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “The Mind’s Control Over the Body,” Lesson 11
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Question: What does it mean to lower yourself?

Answer: Lowering yourself means instead of giving in and falling, you search for different means to make the upper Light let you feel that bestowal is more important than reception.

All changes happen by virtue of the Light that reforms. Therefore, lowering yourself means doing everything possible from your end (which is called a prayer) so you will value the quality of bestowal and elevate it much higher than any reception, and so any reception would be despicable, while bestowal would be holy in your eyes.

Then you will want it! And to the degree of your desire, you will attract the Light that reforms, which will create the structure of the spiritual Partzuf in you: the head (Rosh), meaning bestowal will be above, whereas the body (Guf), reception – below. The head is on top, above everything, which means that even reception below, in the body, takes place for the sake of bestowal. This is the right spiritual Partzuf.
[64309]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/11, Writings of Rabash

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Opinion (Joseph Stigliz, a professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics): “Someone recently quipped that the best thing about 2011 was that it was likely better than 2012.

“European leaders repeatedly proclaim their commitment to saving the euro, but those who could have repeatedly said that they are committed to not doing what is needed. They have recognized that austerity will mean slower growth – indeed, a recession is increasingly likely – and that, without growth, the eurozone’s distressed countries will not be able to manage their debts. But they have done nothing to promote growth. They are on a death spiral.

“Two more positive notes for 2011: The US seems finally to have awakened to the yawning gap between the rich and the rest – between the top 1 percent and everyone else. And youth-led protest movements, from the “Arab Spring” to the Spanish indignados and the Occupy Wall Streeters, have made clear that something is very wrong with the capitalist system.

“The US had hoped for an export-led recovery, but, with economic growth slowing in Europe, its largest customer (and impeding growth in much of the rest of the world), that is unlikely. And, with the worst effects of spending cuts potentially still to come, gridlock – and Republican spite – may mean that the Barack Obama administration’s payroll-tax cut will not be extended, weakening household consumption.

“2012 may mark the beginning of a new and more frightening phase of the world’s worst economic calamity in three-quarters of a century.”
[64252]

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In the News (from GALLUP): “More Europeans are ‘suffering’ than ‘thriving’ in several countries hard-hit by the financial crisis, including a number that have already introduced or are introducing austerity measures. More than one in five residents rate their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, and Portugal. The largest gap between thriving and suffering is in Bulgaria, where 45% are suffering and 5% are thriving.

“Gallup classifies respondents’ wellbeing as thriving, struggling, or suffering according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10 based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale.”

My Comment: In the end, we find humanity in the semi-darkness and low spirits—from the results of its own progress. But it is important to realize that this time is not the end, but a new beginning! However, in contrast to the previous states, it is difficult to see future here because it is opposite to our egoistic nature, thus the need to disseminate a new kind of knowledge, meaning integral upbringing.
[64258]

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Opinion: (G. Lebedev, Research Director at HeadHunter, from professia.info): “If the crisis in Europe triggers a second wave of the global economic crisis, young specialists will be the first to suffer as employers will opt to hire experienced workers that can produce reliable results.

“In 2009 the number of vacancies for young specialists fell five times since employers sought to reduce risks as much as possible. The upshot was that specialists with extensive (6 years or more) experience were much more likely to find employment.

My Comment: This problem will lead to others: Without a job a person can’t start a family, take out loans for a home, and so on….
[64128]

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It says that a person should write the Torah on his heart. That is, a person discovers everything that we read about in the Torah (in The Book of Zohar) by being in that same system of connections between the souls, in his relation towards that system. He has to uncover the whole book of the Torah. Everything that is written in it is gradually, step by step, revealed to him.

Kabbalists describe this using several languages, in several ways, in order to convey to us all the levels of the full connection: the root level (Shoresh), the first (Aleph), second (Bet), third (Gimel), and fourth (Dalet) levels. But ultimately, they tell us how a Kabbalist, a person who attains spirituality, discovers this network of connection that ties him to the other souls, and how he returns to the correct connection with these souls: a connection of mutual guarantee. This is what The Book of Zohar writes about.
[64210]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/2011, The Zohar

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Question: If we organize a course on integral relationships for a group of people, will it move them closer to the question about the goal, or will they just understand that the modern world is like this?

Answer: This will bring them closer to the goal. They will begin to feel it, however, in a natural way.

We experience plenty of “revolutions” on our spiritual path because we build the structure of the upper world; we study and form it like architects, designers, and naturalists. Other people, however, do not participate in the study, design, and construction; they do not care and take advantage of what others have done. How many real researchers of nature, artists, and educators with a capital letter are there in the world? There are few. However, they change the world and lead it forward from generation to generation. Others play the role of “users.”

You open a new world, build it, extend the relationships between people and the Creator, and through yourself conduct the Light that Reforms. You carry the methods of education, unity, and upbringing to them, and they use that because life itself leaves them no choice. As a child has no options but to go to school, so will they get integral upbringing from you. Namely you will become a mentor, a father for them.

Question: Will this encourage them to continue the path and choose the proper environment?

Answer: They cannot continue, they can only use. Of course, they can be induced to use it more, but not in a creative sense, but namely in application.
[64220]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/2011, “The Freedom”

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When I use everything that exists outside of me for my own sake, it is egoistic usage. But when there is a reality outside of me, which aspires to the same goal as me, then the same intentions that exist within me also awaken in my soul, in all the desires that are external to me. And this is why I begin to work with these external desires referred to as friends.

From this we can understand that the group is my soul, the place where I reveal the Creator, my inner fulfillment, the spiritual life. From the entire external reality the Light organizes certain forces for me called the group, which are closest to my point in the heart that exists inside my body, inside my ego. And then I can establish a connection between my point in the heart, confined inside the body, and my soul that exists outside of me.

This is how I begin to acquire these external desires. This is why it is written: “Buy yourself a friend.” I buy my external desires by rejecting my ego, the desires to enjoy, making gifts, and doing different actions in the group.

This can help us understand the meaning of internal work, when I make an effort against my egoistic desire, inside my point in the heart, so I would connect with my external desires and transfer myself there as much as possible. And I do this until I entirely begin to only be fulfilled inside these external desires, instead of fulfilling my inner, natural, egoistic, desires.

The worlds, including the world of Infinity, the entire universe become revealed to me inside these external desires. But my ego will resist and serve by “help made against” me to show me the desires that are still left outside of me, and it will do it to the very end, until I acquire all the external desires. I will not be able to reveal whatever is around me without my ego awakening inside of me.

There is a universe, and I, my ego, and my point in the heart exist inside it. My closest circle is my group, my friends. And then the rest of the world follows: humanity, the animate, vegetative, and still nature. Or we can treat it as worlds with which I work: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon.

This makes it clear why I need this entire world, the so-called 99% who personally are unable to help me, and this is why I must simply give to them one-sidedly. The only ones who can help me are the group, given to me by the Creator so that I manage to come out of myself, my boundaries. The main thing is to get out of myself—it is the most difficult thing to do.

This is why it is arranged to have one area in the entire large soul, which would be closest to me, and it is called the group. It helps me come out of myself and start acquiring my soul.

And when I come out of myself, I advance even further, together with the group beyond its boundaries, connecting the entire universe to me and attaining all of nature as one whole. I attain the integrity of nature, its full connection, and thus reveal the upper worlds.

I reveal an even greater Light by attaining a connection with the spiritual forces on lower degrees: “humanity,” “animals,” “plants,” and the “inanimate” where a larger desire to enjoy exists.
[64053]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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