A person lives only by the desire in the heart. It makes no difference what he says out loud, or whether before reading The Book of Zohar he suddenly begins to think about what he should pray for or what he should think about.

We are before a system that can give us anything we want. We only have to clarify what we can receive from it. I can receive from it something that can harm me by bringing me all the goodness and corporeal pleasures and thereby keeping me away from the goal and “shutting me up.” This is called the “potion of death,” which will fill me with pride and make me receive everything that I lack in this world, meaning to fill my ego.

Or I can ask for something that is detached from this world, which is opposite to it and is not so real—and I will actually receive that. After all, this force can do anything: He created the evil inclination, and He can also create the good inclination and perform the shift between the two worlds: both from top down and from the bottom up. It all depends only on me, only on what I ask for.

So a person has to think, and to take into account that he always raises a prayer because there is always a desire in his heart. This desire either says: “I want to sleep so leave me alone,” or it can be a desire for different nonsense that is in his subconscious. After all, the Reshimot (informational genes) are always evoked and fulfilled in some form.

A person can also take things seriously and want to find out what to ask for; it is all in his hands. A person must know that he is always under the influence of the Light, but now that influence is more intense and strong, and he has the opportunity to advance even in the opposite form of the created being.

It all depends on his deficiency. If he has a deficiency, if he is really somewhat part of the special actions of the Light, which can raise him—then it is fulfilled. And if not, then the Light works on him in the opposite manner.

If people don’t pray with the right intention, meaning if they don’t ask some purposeful action of the Light, they still are under the influence of the Light. This is because the surrounding Light operates on everyone and the Reshimot are constantly evoked in us. The Light operates on the Reshimot and so humanity advances. [Read more →]

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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Mutual Guarantee — Our Future”
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The work we do is called the work of the Creator because the Light is the only thing that ever does anything: It originates, changes, corrects and fulfills desires. The Light does everything: It is the only creative force.

Beside Light, there is desire. Desire wishes for something, but when the Light doesn’t fulfill it, it starts to sense affliction. Next, the Light begins to play with desire: It fills it a little bit, then leaves it unsatisfied; then again fills it up and again vacates and leaves it empty; it allows the desire to go through various stages of fulfillment and deficiency.

Because of such elaborate work of the Light, desire gets smarter. It begins to detect what kind of fulfillment it lacked previously and which one it has currently; it also begins to recognize various forms of the Light. This is how desire develops an intellect, which is arranged very simply and wants to know only one thing: how to get maximal fulfillment.

In other words, instead of letting desire simply wish for something, the intellect begins to work with it. It directs desire and teaches it to rise above its transient demand. Intellect prompts desire to suffer a little at this time in order to get much more later on. This applies to a worker who gets paid at the end of the day, to a businessman who invests millions in the stock market intending to gain more in the future, and to a patient who is ready to undergo surgery for the sake of the future recovery, etc.

Plain desire is not capable of such things! However, intellect that grows next to desire is able to contribute to it, thus bringing the future form of fulfillment closer and making desire ready to suffer.

This is how the Light acts: by developing desire and growing intellect next to each other. This “pair,” desire and intellect, unite and start working against the Light. By complementing each other, both of them become more sensitive and smart and work jointly in relation to the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/12, The Zohar

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According to your attitude to your body, your desires, you can evaluate your progress. Only relative to this work can you measure your ascent to the spiritual degrees. But we know that the body can’t make the slightest movement if it doesn’t bring pleasure, which would offset the expended energy, justify the costs, and provide fuel. How is it possible to force the body without it? The mind wouldn’t even begin to think in that direction and calculate. No inner motion emerges in the desires of the heart.

The human body itself can’t move because everything is determined by the desire that must see fulfillment ahead. How can we make the movements that do not bring fulfillment to our egoism which are called “giving” (Lishma)? It’s impossible!

How can we get at least closer to this? It’s impossible to get closer except by cheating! To do this, we can use the influence of the environment or other external influence, which stirs in us “envy, lust, and honor which take a person out of the material world” and brings an egoistic fulfillment to the body. Thus, it has no choice, but to move.

However, any change is possible only through the surrounding Light. This Light comes to us even when we act for egoistic motives. It’s clear that we can’t move otherwise. But if nonetheless, I want to act supposedly for the sake of my pleasure, then the surrounding Light comes and brings me closer to that.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/18/12, Shamati #108

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In the whole world there are calls for social justice. We, on our part, should explain to people that it is impossible to enforce social justice artificially. A standard division of resources, like they do in social security, won’t help. For example, it is impossible to compare a millionaire who receives a thousand dollars for the third child with a poor family that receives one thousand dollars for the third child. Is this justice?

As Baal HaSulam explains, the measure of truth doesn’t allow us to attain justice. If you divide things equally among everyone, there will be no equality. So how can we solve this problem?

In order to do that, we need to be as one family. In the family there isn’t equality, but everyone receives his share because we treat everyone with love. When I love everyone, I can help one at the expense of another. Thus I operate according to the principle of mutual guarantee, and so I operate fairly. There is simply no other way.

This is what we have to gradually convey to people. After all, today society is more sensitive than ever to inequality, including sectors that not long ago were very far from that. In every country there are plenty of reasons for dissatisfaction, and the only way to succeed is to educate people about unity. According to the level of connection, people will come to social agreement about how to divide the resources, thanks to their sympathy for the sufferings of others.

Can you demand cheap housing for yourself when others have nothing to eat? After all, we have a common “pie,” which isn’t enough to supply all the demands. So if we don’t unite people into one family, we won’t reach anything.

Then we will be able to explain that the current evil is actually for the better: It enables us to correct ourselves and to advance towards the good. After all, thanks to mutual cooperation we will change and will start to share the resources the same way it is done in the family. Then we won’t need to turn to the government, which will not help with its imaginary crumbs anyway. There is only one solution: unity of the people.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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You shouldn’t torture yourself because of your qualities or the bad things that you did or do. After all, it is the Creator who “trips you up” and arranges all the different states for you. This is how He brings you to the recognition of evil and actually does all the work. And you, instead of revealing the truth, reprimand yourself for your actions.

Question: But if you don’t pay attention to these things, isn’t it like running away from the struggle?

Answer: It isn’t a struggle at all. You are like a donkey in front of which an obstacle has been placed: He doesn’t understand how it can be bypassed, and tries to break through it. There is no point in that.

We have to rise above all the actions and feelings, above all the imaginary calculations, and through the group, connect with the Creator. It is the only way to reach the right decision. All the rest is a game, the show of life. It costs us great pain and suffering, but this is our evolution: It is impossible to avoid the mistakes here before we discover the opportunity to rise. One day it will happen.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Let’s say that an adult steals something. The usual approach is moralizing and intimidation: “Thou shall not steal! It’s bad, you’ll get arrested.” How can we work with that in an integral system of upbringing?

Answer: We organize a trial. The only question is: Who is under trial?

We shouldn’t hide the fact that each of us has a hidden impulse to steal. Each of us has taken something, has stolen something somewhere, at some point. And even if someone denies that, it simply means that the person is lying to himself and to others, or possibly isn’t even noticing it, which happens often.

“From where do we get this quality? Is it useful or harmful? What does it actually mean, “stealing”? Is it mine or someone else’s? Maybe this isn’t someone else’s?” Initially it is necessary to discern all these primary states and positions based on an absolutely objective picture without emphasizing anyone or anything, abstractly: What are these categories of “stealing,” “honesty,” and so on?

After that we analyze a specific incident, also without relating to any particular person because this could happen to anyone. We require each of the participants to place himself in the shoes of the culprit, to feel it through, to defend himself, to accuse himself, and so on.

We all live through this incident together. These are the conditions that were set up for us, and that is why we need to learn from this example. We should even be grateful to our friend for this act, which we experience as if we committed it ourselves.

Since we are all integrally connected within one system, in one group, we should then ask ourselves: “How could we have brought our friend to such a state?” This means that society is to blame. A person is a reflection of the environment in which he lives. It turns out that quite possibly he isn’t at fault at all! The problem is in us! In other words, any such occasion could help us clarify a lot of problems, to review our values and relationships.

In the end we should come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as individual wrongdoing or individual good, kind acts: All of that is merely a consequence of the influence of the environment. Thus, everyone should be under trial.

If we come to that point, everyone would feel that this petty thief lives inside each of us, and so he manifests in some of us, perhaps in the most impressionable individual. Can you imagine what kind of a field opens up for clarifications and analyses?

However, we must exit this state with only one conclusion: Everyone is to blame! If it’s a group, a society, or a class in which everyone is interconnected and undergoing the process of integral unification, everyone is at fault. There is no such thing that some one person is better or worse: It is all of us who are either better or worse.

Grades have no place here. You cannot give individual grades in such a society because you’re grading the society itself and not an individual.

Question: Does that mean that after the discussion I have to return whatever I stole, or is it sufficient to just come to realization?

Answer: You personally do not need to do anything. This is decided by everyone. You need to clarify everything collectively, and if it’s necessary to pay for the stolen items, then everyone pays together. If we come to a conclusion that everyone is to blame for this action, that means that everyone is responsible for it.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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In the News (from Reuters): “President Barack Obama formally notified Congress on Thursday that he plans a $1.2 trillion increase in the U.S. debt limit prompting Republicans to level election-year charges that deficits are out of control.

“Obama said ‘further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments.’

“The proposed increase would push the debt ceiling to $16.394 trillion.

The move by the Democratic president, who is seeking re-election in November, gives Congress 15 days to vote on a resolution of disapproval under terms of budget control legislation passed last year.

“‘The President’s runaway borrowing threatens the foundation of our economy and the financial future of every hardworking American,’ said Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

“‘It brings our nation closer to what the chairs of his own fiscal commission called “the most predictable economic crisis in its history.”’”

Comment: A rabbit is unable to get away when hypnotized by a boa’s eyes. It understands this but tries not to think, desiring to be mesmerized and not hearing about the future, denying the possibility of changing its behavior.
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Question: When a grownup enters a system of upbringing, the first thing that he or she is concerned with are ethical questions: What’s right and what’s wrong? At the same time we know that ethics blocks the development of a person.

Answer: We are categorically against ethics. The problem is that ethics assumes an enormous quantity of various conditions that a person has to memorize and absorb, and thus create his inner “I,” imposed upon him through all possible ethical limitations, becoming “narrow-minded,” fixated, and “packaged” and seemingly interacting with those around him in a precise and correct way. Naturally, in this process he constructs his own image—a black, packed steel “suitcase.”

We are absolutely against this. This is not freedom. A person cannot live like this for long, and if he can, then he loses all sensitivity to perception, sensation, kindness, and mutual understanding. An ethically correct person could decide that somebody should be killed and could easily murder him because this corresponds to the norms accepted in his environment, which he has mastered well. In essence this is fascism, Nazism, all possible forms of utmost extremism, and so on. These forms are the opposite of anarchy.

Here we offer a middle line, a middle state between the two. That is, a person should understand the necessity of each of his ethical positions: Does it correspond to nature, is it acceptable in today’s society and in interactions with those around him? We need to arrange it so that the benefit of society is always placed above that of the individual and in addition, the entire society moves towards an ever-greater integration since this is what nature demands.

Thus, undoubtedly, an ethical framework is necessary, but one that is continuously developing and flexible, existing under self-control and the control of society, without any so-called “sacred cows.” Hence, this is not the ethics offered by the proponents of “Prussian training”: “What we will drill into you will stay with you for life.”
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Question: You said that the overall integral education curriculum consists of approximately ten courses. The history of evolution of egoism is an on-going course that continues until the complete integration of humanity. What other courses are included aside from perception of reality and psychology?

Answer: We should definitely study human physiology and demonstrate just to what extent our body is structured in a holistic way, whereby all the bodily organs are interconnected. They are all composed of opposite elements and function in different ways, but each organ operates in harmony with itself and others. A departure from this harmony is what we call illness, and it instantly causes a malfunction in the operation of the entire organism.

Similarly, within the organism of society each person should be its united, integral, and simultaneously unique individual part. Nobody infringes on my individuality, but I need to correctly balance myself with the entire society, and then society will represent a single healthy organism, a healthy collective. And together this collective will then unite with nature.

Generally, I need to constantly think of how to be organically and integrally connected with myself, society, and with nature. Initially I cannot connect with other people, and I need to know whether relative to nature this would also be unification or not. In other words, everything needs to be formed simultaneously: individual, group, society, and nature.

And this is why our courses need to include the following sequential studies:

1. Human physiology, physiology of integral systems, the structure of integral systems, their interdependence and feedback mechanisms, tracking factor, and system equilibration or progression along a set course towards a particular goal, as in small cybernetic systems with simple feedback loops;
2. The structure of creation and of society, perception of reality, and history;
3. Practical application within a group, family, on oneself, and in society;
4. Crisis, its cause and purpose;
5. Courses on upbringing in which we supplement all that with practical activities. This includes trips, tours, and so on.

The guiding principle of all the courses is to provide a person with a sensation of integrality of the world, which is perceived by us, egoists, as the opposite, anti-integral and isolated. It’s more convenient for us to imagine it this way so as to “swallow” it in parts, to maximally exploit it for our own sake.

But when I think about the fact that this system must work precisely in this integral form and that I will feel good because of it, then I have to study it, its interaction, interdependence, and global scope. This helps me to be a co-participant, compassionate and empathetic.

That is why all the above mentioned courses are necessary and will include no more than ten interconnected disciplines. All the courses (each with its own particular emphasis) develop a clarification of the subjects: from the small technical details of integral, analog, and servo systems, the structure of our organism, physiology, and psychology to a gradual transition towards mutual involvement.

Each course must be taught by a specialist. Every specialist naturally should be appropriate for the given group, that is, as is known from psychological practice, he or she must be compatible with it so that people accept, respect, and value him or her, and hear what he or she has to say. He must treat them correspondingly, be of a corresponding age, title, and so on because we’re dealing with beginners that judge others “by the cover” so to speak. Although in principle, anyone can be an instructor if they are studying in our system today and have no academic titles. But it is preferable that an instructor be someone whom the listeners respect.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

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