Question: What is unique about teaching integral approach to the elderly?

Answer: I think that they will receive it with greater understanding because a person who has already lived a lifetime understands to what extent one is not the master of one’s own life. It’s as if it passed by above him, commanding him, and not him being in command of it.

People of that age agree more with the fact that nature works on us, and now, when they don’t have that much time left to understand, realize, and possibly correct that in some way, they are more diligent, sensitive, and compassionate.

Besides, the enormous hard-won life experience gives a person a completely different approach to what is being offered. From the very beginning, a person is open to learning, so naturally, his participation in the studies is most amicable. We are offering a person to achieve harmony in that short segment of time that he or she has.

These are people who live and measure themselves not relative to some achievements, but relative to the end of life. Generally speaking, this constant subconscious sensation in a person determines his or her entire behavior.

And here is where we need to imbue the endpoint of their life with joy, attainment, and ascent towards a new state that exists beyond the end of corporeal life. We should give them a sensation that it’s as if they’re flying and about to crash into something, and suddenly a motor appears that carries them up above the obstacle. It is precisely a sensation of this possibility that will give them strength, and then, of course, it will be very easy for them to work in a group.

I hope that these groups will be a serious help to us because in principle, the more groups of this kind we can create, the easier it will be for us to include ourselves into all of humanity.

By the way, longevity inherent in our time (life expectancy is more than doubled compared to the previous centuries) means an accumulation of life experience by an individual. At some point, people lived 30 or 40 years and died young, without gaining any experience in life. From the ancient times and all the way until the 18th century, a person lived no longer than 35-40 years. It’s hard to believe now that there was once such a short life cycle. A person practically had no time to attain anything in life, grew old very quickly, and died. Everything somehow broke off very abruptly.

We need to take advantage of the fact that in our time, the developing ego offers us an opportunity, in accordance with its development, to simultaneously live through and internalize the experience and the point of view that develops in a person by the age of sixty and beyond. Today elderly people comprise the vast majority of humanity. We need to take advantage of this group, which is sympathetic to our methodology and its outcome, and through them create in all of humanity a certain correct background for integration.

Therefore, under no circumstances should we pass these groups by, although our usual automatic attitude towards this segment of the population is: “We’ll create all the necessary conditions so they wouldn’t bother us. Let them sit somewhere on a bench and calmly live out their life.” No, we need to build very powerful groups out of them, and they will disseminate this method, its usefulness, and a life-saving solution that it offers to mankind among their children and grandchildren.

Question: We know from experience that the majority of the elderly really love to tell the story of their life. Should we give them an opportunity to share their stories?

Answer: Only if it helps us in the capacity of a psychological example: What you related, what you saw, what you lived through. Naturally, the elderly love this, but their stories need to be accompanied by investigation and analysis: Why this happened, what it provided, what this should teach us today, and so on.

Elderly people passing time in various gatherings is their own business, but we need to take it into consideration and teach them how to relate to the lived experiment of life.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

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Shamati #108 “If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Three Lights,” Item 140, Lesson 39
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, ”The Eser Sefirot of ha Olam Nekudim,” Item 5, Lesson 4
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“Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 47, Lesson 24
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The spiritual vessels, the desires, can be “straight” and “round.” There is a similar division in our world too. The desire of the group is “straight,” because we work with it, assess and weigh it trying to reach equivalence with the upper Light.

All the other desires in the world, which are represented by other people, are “round” because they are not related to the “line,” (the limitation by the Masach, screen, and the work that is directed by the Light), and they simply want fulfillment.

Now a growing emptiness will be revealed in them. If we do our best to connect to one line, and on the other hand, we join the world as a circle, then people will feel how they receive a filling from the “pipe” that is formed by us. Then they will be drawn to us, will adhere to us like leeches, because they will feel that here is the source of life.

But in order to avoid a situation in which we would have the fulfillment that they couldn’t have which would result in their being filled with hate, the system of integral education must be opened to them immediately in order to explain to a person how to attain the fulfillment.

The Light cannot pass from us to others just like that. We must build a network of the right connections, and an education system is necessary for that. There won’t be any contact between us any other way.

It only seems as if the integral education is meant to simply connect people to one another. On the inside, however, it is the connection of the “pipe” that passes the Light into the “circle.”

In our group we are all equal, there are no differences between us, and we make up the same vessel into which the upper Light comes. But our vessel is in the form of a pipe; we work with the Masach and the Reforming Light. We try to adapt ourselves to the Light, to resemble the Light, and the desire and the intention to bestow is a kind of channel for the Light, a kind of a pipe, we become when we connect with the friends.

The external world is a “circle.” In order to create a connection among us through which the external world will begin to receive the inner fulfillment from us, there must be a certain degree of equivalence and we need an adaptor, a connector between us and them, so that we can connect.

This is possible only by education that we will provide the world with so that people will know how to connect the “circle” to the “straight line” in this world. Then, through this pipe, the method of the fulfillment will begin to seep, and the world will begin to organize itself to receive this fulfillment.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

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In the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” Baal HaSualm explains that the part of our brain responsible for our perception of reality is built like a photographic machine through which I see the world divided. I feel myself as a kind of body and see everything else that exists as outside of me. So all of reality is divided into two parts.

This, of course, is a lie and there is no such division. But the point is that there is a Creator and a created being, and the created being should attain the Creator as a result of his development. Attaining the Creator is possible only by observing Him from the outside, and so the created being has to feel that he exists separately from the Creator, standing opposite to Him.

Then by comparing the two opposites, the created being checks and understands the inverse attributes, realizes that he is opposite to the Creator, realizes that he is evil and that he needs correction to become similar to the Creator and to reach adhesion with Him. Thus he raises the level of “human” in him.

In order to allow a person to assess all these attributes, understand, get to know, clarify, and correct his perception—reality is divided into two so that it seems to a person that he and the external world exist separately.

This, of course, isn’t even close to the truth. The assumption that a person exists and the Creator is outside Him, outside the world of Ein Sof, is also not true. But such a feeling is necessary so that we will add our exertion to building our vessel and attaining the understanding and revelation. Then it will be a “human” who built all this out of his free will.

It is like giving a child challenging games and puzzles so that he will work and thanks to that grow, understand, see, try, make efforts, and build himself. The same happens to us with the dual perception that makes us sense ourselves and outside of us, the world.

All our work is to make efforts to connect the two parts into one whole picture called “there is none else besides Him” and “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.” This means to sense myself and the external world as one, and to understand that first I have to care about the external world and only then care about myself. After all, I will have to provide only what is necessary for the existence of my beastly body, and I have to try and see all the rest, all the external world, as most precious, my soul.

Then I will reveal that the external world is also me. It is because I treated it as something opposite to me that I hated, rejected and tried to stay away from it, that enabled me to learn about myself, about my nature, and about the “evil inclination.” I had a chance to fight all its fine attributes, the unperceivable, the coarse, and cruel attributes and by that to attain the Creator.

After all, in every incidence of hate towards the external world, there is a need for the Creator’s help in some way. So my rejection of the external world and my decision to connect to it, the power I receive for that from the Creator, and the unity I attain, all bring me to adhesion with the Creator.

So it turns out that there are actions of connection with the external world and there is the acceptance of this world, the feeling of unity or the Creator. By the creation of this division of me and the external world and the “neutral zone” (“Klipat Noga“) between us, I get help from the Creator—a state that is already partially prepared to attain the connection with Him because of this false perception.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

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The group is part of the external world for me, but I can’t work with the whole world at once to get a response from everyone and measure myself in relation to the world. The world cannot support me along my path because it doesn’t have the same goal I do. It has all kinds of different goals and doesn’t know where it is headed.

So I find a group, a part of this external world that I can connect and work with to clarify things. Indeed, on one hand it is foreign, a part that is external to me, but it is close to me according to its goal, perception, and studies. So it is worthwhile for me to connect to the group in order to get power and support from it. I see that with them it will be easier for me to advance.

Eventually I begin to understand that this isn’t a group of people, but they are the very parts of my soul that I need to collect and add to myself. Or perhaps to the contrary: I need to exit myself and to find myself within them rather than in my present “self.”

Then, together with the group, we want to expand our relationship with the whole world into a wider circle. This circle does not share the same goal; it has different aspirations. This is my more external part.

The parts of my soul called “root,” “soul,” “body,” “attire” and “hall.” “Root, soul and body” are the internal part, which I feel as myself, the “attire” is an external part but it is adhered to a person, and the “hall” is the more external part.

And so I play with the group as the external part that is closest to me, that is ready to join the same purpose. I don’t see it as a group of people but rather as my desires that are only dressed up in these masks that make faces at me. But I understand that I must connect to them because it is there that I attain the goal. If I exit my ego and become incorporated in them, there I will find the attribute of bestowal.

But we can’t just work among ourselves on our connection. We need to work together on something external. This external thing is the world. But here too, my desires seem to oppose me; these are my seven billion different desires that are showing me that they don’t belong to me. My ego separates me from them and blinds me, confuses me, and obliges me to perceive them as foreign and opposed to me.

I must work with the world, but it is much more difficult than working with the group. After all, at least I have something in common with the group: a goal, studies, and common processes. In the group it is as if I am in a kindergarten, in comfortable conditions that constantly help me exit myself.

But the external world has no conditions that help me: There everyone is against me. The only thing that ties us together is a collective problem, although it seems to us that we are headed towards different goals. The world by running away from pain eventually has no choice, it will reach the same goal that I see as good and desirable. So I should relate to all the circles around me—the group and the rest of the world—as to myself. They are only presented to me by the Creator in this opposite form so that each time I will learn to work with a more external circle. I perceive the inner circle, and together with it I begin to work on the more external circles.

We cannot worry only about one another. Like a young couple: How long can you look at one another before you get to know each other and become used to one another? Then they need to have a child so that they will both take care of him!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“: Indeed, you should know that the reason for our great distance from the Creator…is for but one reason, which became the source of all the torment and the suffering that we suffer, and for all the sins and the mistakes that we fail in…. Clearly, by removing that reason, we will instantly be rid of any sorrow and pain…. And I tell you that, that preliminary reason is none other than the “lack of our understanding in His Providence over His creations,” that we do not understand Him properly.“

So our only problem is that we don’t understand the leadership, His Providence. So let’s understand!

But no, we don’t want that. Therefore, the most important thing for us is to discover His Providence, to discover the way He treats us, the connection with Him. After all, this connection has a form, a formula, and a format that enables us to locate Him.

It is about the line between us and the Light of Ein Sof. The “Light of Ein Sof” is the Creator’s attitude towards us, which is above all the circles. In other worlds, it is the line that passes through all the circles until the central point.

We can’t attain the Creator by ourselves, but through that line we can build, we discover His attitude towards us, and so we rise up the spiritual ladder. Eventually, when we go through all the levels and reach Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction), we fill all our desire with the Light in all the circles. This will be a sign that after having corrected our desires, we feel the Creator and understand Him. After all, we reveal only Him.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The goal: We have no idea what it is and no desire for it. We want something totally different, and it isn’t even the opposite because we don’t have anything to compare it to. Kabbalistic books speak about one thing, but we think in a totally different way and don’t take it in at all.

A certain urge simply appears in us: We aren’t happy with life and we try to find fulfillment. At the same time we are confused and we deceive ourselves that we are attracted to some wonderful sublime goal. This only increases our pride and nothing more.

In fact, the only thing we want is to satisfy our ego. Here too, we don’t know exactly what it is: We don’t see its limits, we can’t measure our yearning, and we don’t see to what extent egoism controls us and how addicted we are to it. All our life passes in foggy blindness and ignorance.

So the question is: If we did catch the end of a thread and we do have a chance, how do we make the best of it? Of course, we distance ourselves from different false methods in which we determine that there is no true filling. They are meant for people who cannot make a thorough examination and are happy with the “truth” that satisfies them.

But it could also be that we are caught in the illusion of a certain method, and that if we look at it from above we will see that it is also false. Just like many mystical methods that seem true to their followers.

Who can check that? What can we count on with regard to that? Can I, at my present level of development, examine what is happening outside my level?

After all, everyone judges according to his present “self,” and of course reaches positive conclusions: “Everything is fine; I am in the right environment and the right method.” Everyone examines the situation according to his level and his height, according to the depth of his criticism and ego and so he justifies himself.

So perhaps I have also been “tricked” that way? Perhaps I am also satisfied with what I have, swimming with the current, just like yesterday?

How can I still assess the situation not as part of the routine? How can I rise to a more qualitative approach? Let’s stop here for now, with the question that we have to ask ourselves on the spiritual path.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Our whole process of evolution is through the environment. If there were no environment, I wouldn’t develop, despite the Reshimot (reminiscences) in me. We see that if children are left in the forest and are found only some time later, they develop like the animals that took care of them in the forest. They develop according to the traits of those animals, they suffer from the same illnesses they do, they think and want the same things the animals do, and even live the same lifespan of those animals.

This means that their body got used to living with animals to such an extent that they were impressed by these animals, so that if a child is found at the age of 6 or 9 (and there have been several such cases), then despite the treatment and good conditions they lived in afterwards, they lived the same number of years as the animals they had lived with. They lived 12 to 20 years at the most.

In other words, our body greatly depends on the society in which we develop, and in that sense a person is very flexible. If we take a dog or cat for example, who lived with man for ages, they only get used to people a little. Of course, they can’t live in the forest like wild dogs and cats, since they have a different character. They also pass on to their offspring a different attitude to man and the environment. Yet they are not that flexible. Man on the other hand, when incorporated in a certain environment, is impressed by it very strongly, even fatally. Compared to an animal that gets used to living with people, man is much more powerfully impressed and becomes accustomed to the lives of animals.

This means that we all depend on our environment. Therefore, in education, we should also first pay attention to the environment as a factor that determines a person’s development. A person’s whole future depends on this. If we change the environment, we change our personality, our desire, our perspective, and our paradigm of life. Therefore it is very important to be careful, to think, to check, and to consider the place we enter, the friends and the circles where we spend our time, and whom we give ourselves to.

We must teach a person to know and to learn what surrounds him, and explain to him how dependent he is on the environment and how he can manage his life by it.
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From “Lessons About a New World” #3, 12/29/11

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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Course to Be A Man, Human Development”
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