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Kabbalists give me “advice in the dark,” and in the end I’m like a child before a yet unexamined reality.
We give advice to little children in the same way, and they obediently follow the instructions because for now they do not know anything about the given subject and they trust the adults completely. Instinctively, a child believes us, as his nature instructs him to do, he or she follows us, with what we call the “eyes closed.”
We must follow Kabbalists the same way. Of course this causes discomfort; we are grown people, we want to feel and understand. “Wait, what exactly am I doing? Why do I do this and with what purpose? Where is this coming from?” Everyone has many questions and excuses.
It does not matter. If we were children, the upper world would open up before us in no time. But then we would be like “angels” there, not higher than “animals.” But if we wish to attain the degree of the Creator, then we cannot make all our actions and take all our steps through our natural aspirations, we must do it through faith above reason—in other words, against our egoism.
This constitutes all the complications. I am given a certain advice, but I fail to see logic in it because my mind and feelings pertain to this world. I do not see or feel that this is the exact way I need to act.
I am told: “Even if you do not understand it, you need to know that this is the way things are there in the upper world, since there, everything is directed towards bestowal, when here, everything is directed towards reception. There everything is in unity, and here everything is in separation. There everything is eternal, perfect, and aspires towards balance, while here it is the other way around.” But words do not help me. I am still standing on the foundation of this world, and I need to acquire the upper world from here.
Yes it is difficult on one hand, but necessary on the other. I do not need to transition from one world to another; instead, I must live in both worlds in order to be independent in relation to the Creator. It is similar to what the guest says to the host: “I want to be like you. You are a giver and I want to give. You give to me and I want to give to you. I depend on you and I want you to depend on me.” So I also need to be independent standing before the Creator.
We cannot even imagine it: On one had there is none else beside Him, and on the other hand there is something independent. And this state exists only because we assert ourselves in both worlds: I constantly build the upper world above this world. This is why the journey is so difficult. After all, my every action, my every step, must oppose my desire and understanding, everything I know and everything I have gathered and collected over the course of my entire life.
Everything is the other way around. Even when we speak about love and unity, in reality it is not the kind of love and unity we are accustomed to. They lie above our nature. In other words, I must reach a state where I do not seem to exist. It slightly resembles a mother who selflessly gives herself to her child.
But here I need to go to the end in full, limitless unity in relation to the entire world. And this, despite all the obstacles, is when I discover that all the desires to which I must fully give myself, are opposite to me, hate and reject me. As the Aviut (the thickness of desire) grows, I am shown the distance between reception and bestowal, and then I reveal the entire burden concealed in unity.
And all this is to acquire independence at the height of the Creator.
This is why we need to agree with everything we experience. And even though our nature, the nature of this world, rejects all the forms of the spiritual world, we must agree with this. The spiritual form is opposite to me, I hate it and do not accept it, but this is the way things need to be. I must understand and love it; I must prepare myself for it with the help of the group, the environment. This is exactly where we are going: towards this contradiction, to make it desirable so it would serve as proof of the fact that we are advancing towards the truth.
[72045]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7
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Question: Our state is like that of a birth. A birth is a concrete action that either happened or not. However, if I ask this question now of my friends I’ll get all kinds of answers in the full spectrum, as if there are numerous tints of the grey color here. Is this the way it is supposed to be, or is it only one of the two, either black or white?
Answer: There is a very good example for this, the exodus from Egypt. It can be related to a single person who includes all of these qualities within him, since the whole world is inside of him. However it can also be seen as the exodus of many people of all types, amongst which there are men and women, the elderly and the children, infants, people related to the nation of Israel, and the Egyptians, the so-called “mixed multitude.” Everyone is coming out; everyone is running.
In this crowd, there are those who dreamed of this flight for many years and some who are following along with their relatives. There are children and infants who are led out by their parents. There are the elderly who would have no one to take care of them if they stayed. There are those who saw the crowd fleeing and just then decided to join.
But there are those who are going at the head of the throng who are determined to escape, and in front of them all, Moses is leading the way. Meaning that we see that among those who arrive at Mount Sinai are all types of people. And inside of a single person, reaching this state of the first unity above the mountain of hatred between him and his friends, there are also a multitude of desires and thoughts, from the high point in the heart which leads him like the forefather, Moses, and up to the most rough, vain desires.
In the end it’s required of them all, all so different and each one with everything confined inside of his spectrum of desires, thoughts and intentions, it’s necessary for all of them to be ready for the mutual connection as much as we, being below the Machsom, are capable of it. Of course, all of this is happening in a world of deception for the sake of egoism, Lo Lishma, but no more is required of us yet.
It needs to be understood that the spiritual approach is not difficult at all, but very simple. The problem is that we are not directed at the spiritual! I am not directed at unity! If I were able to remain in the aspiration towards unity for a few hours, I would have reached it. However, I don’t want it, and I am spending hours on all other possible things except spirituality, so in the end, life alone is not enough to reach it.
The problem is that we keep forgetting where we need to apply efforts. If you apply effort in the correct place, then it doesn’t matter if you have very little water, but you are using it to water a seed planted into the earth, this seed will shoot sprouts. While if you have a lot of water, but you are pouring all of it out into the desert sand, then nothing comes of it.
That is why the whole problem lies in the quality of intention. While in quantity, we are over-fulfilling it, skirting around, doing something, and we remain satisfied because we have used all of our strength. However, if you were to see how it really is, you would understand that you have not done anything in the right place at all. This is the whole issue. This is what we are working on and everything depends upon this.
Each one is already overfilled with theoretical knowledge, the science, and the articles. What remains is to apply the effort in the right place, only between the hearts, and then we’ll succeed. In our state today we can reach this within a few hours in order to at least touch the spiritual vessel, and then everything will be much easier.
[71836]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 4
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Opinion (Kyle Bass, Hedge-fund manager, Hayman Capital Management): “In his latest investor letter Kyle Bass lays out his case that a wave of hard defaults is coming.
“His basic argument: The world is just saddled with too much debt.
“Throughout history, he says, total debt-to-GDP only ever breached 200% when nations were spending on war. Today we’re at 310%.
“Says Bass: ‘There is no savior large enough with a magical pool of capital to stave off this unfortunate conclusion to the global debt super cycle. We think hard defaults are imminent.’”
Comment: If we look at the crisis of humanity in this way, then, of course, there is no salvation. If we look from the perspective that the world finally will climb out of its dead-end “development,” and head not toward financial development, but toward a civilized, unified integral society, then it turns out that we are not in a crisis, but at a turning point between the fall and a great ascent to a brighter future. It would not be in competition, mutual destruction, and victories at any cost and to our own detriment, but in an integral, confident, peaceful flow of life.
[62596]
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In the News (from BBC News): “Hundreds of metres under one of Iceland’s largest glaciers there are signs of a looming volcanic eruption that could be one of the most powerful the country has seen in almost a century.
“Mighty Katla, with its 10km (6.2 mile) crater, has the potential to cause catastrophic flooding as it melts the frozen surface of its caldera and sends billions of gallons of water surging through Iceland’s east coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. …
“There were more than 500 tremors in and around the caldera of Katla just in October, which suggests the motion of magma. …
“The last major eruption occurred in 1918 and caused such a large glacier meltdown that icebergs were swept into the ocean by the resulting floods.
“The volume of water produced in a 1755 eruption equalled that of the world’s largest rivers combined. …
“In 1783 volcanoes in the area erupted continuously for eight months, generating so much ash, hydrogen fluoride and sulphur dioxide that it killed one in five Icelanders and half of the country’s livestock.
“‘And it actually changed the Earth’s climate,’ says Mr Cochran.
“’Folks talk about a nuclear winter – this eruption generated enough sulphuric acid droplets that it made the atmosphere reflective, cooled the planet for an entire year or more and caused widespread famine in many places around the globe.’”
[62543]
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In the News (from The Economist): “Unless Germany and the ECB move quickly, the single currency’s collapse is looming …
“A Euro break-up would cause a global bust worse even than the one in 2008-09. The world’s most financially integrated region would be ripped apart by defaults, bank failures and the imposition of capital controls…The euro zone could shatter into different pieces, or a large block in the north and a fragmented south. Amid the recriminations and broken treaties after the failure of the European Union’s biggest economic project, wild currency swings between those in the core and those in the periphery would almost certainly bring the single market to a shuddering halt. The survival of the EU itself would be in doubt.”
My Comment: There is anxiety and joy. The anxiety is due to the dramatic turn of events, and the joy is due to the fact that they take place. There is a hope that the “patient” will finally listen to the “doctor” and will not accept the “band-aid,” but only the real medication.
[62685]
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Question: There are several languages in modern psychology; for example, direct conversation or psychotherapeutic metaphor, the purpose of which is to create a fairytale for a specific person where he can defeat his problem. Through this language, the fairytale penetrates the person’s consciousness.
I know that you use different languages when teaching people. What is the best way to use them and where?
Answer: We have many specific articles about integral upbringing, about moving towards integration, unity, about coming out of one’s “I” towards “we,” from “we” towards “one” where even “we” becomes lost, and unity appears instead of it—just unity. There are many examples and images regarding it.
But we do not classify language because we do not use a psychological approach, the one used by the modern psychology, even though we approve of it and are happy that it has evolved so much that it helps us advance.
We do not have a system like this. I hope that once psychologists come to us, “break away” from their boundaries, and learn ours, they will create specific tables, workbooks.
We do not have this. We believe that our work is so multi-faceted and it is done in an ever-changing society with changing circumstances to which we always apply very different materials. We are very flexible. It is possible that during one lesson in a single group conversation, in a single discussion, you might experience several such states which might not fit into any clear framework of conduct consistent with the group.
I observe this during my lessons, when I have a face-to-face conversations with students and their questions, which include materials from completely different levels and different forms.
Comment: One of these languages is the language of joking, humor, etc.
Answer: It is used constantly, wherever possible, but only to the extent that it is able to clear the air and to help with uniting because this is the only goal; in other words, you use whatever helps.
Humor is very good because it relaxes the situation. It frees the subcortex and helps the person to come “out of himself”—and the person enters a new level.
Humor reveals completely different communication and thinking possibilities. It is a method of rising to a new level. It is so unconcrete that a new degree of our development forms in it, and this is why we encourage it a lot.
[71842]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11
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Question: When a man is going through unpleasant states, we recommend that he connect to the group and solve his problem there, through the integral connection with others. What can we recommend to a woman in a case like this?
Answer: Male instructors, who teach groups of women, must notice these things and help women. Several men must work with women’s states, and not just one man. Moreover, constant work with the group leads to women overcoming these states.
Question: What do you mean when you say that male instructors need to work with women?
Answer: Support, explain things, have individual talks with women.
When several male instructors see that a woman really is in a very difficult state, we must work with women as well even though this happens very rarely; women usually overcome these states on their own; it is much harder for men to do.
Usually at least two instructors should be speaking with a woman. And if we have a husband and a wife studying in separate groups, then by temporarily putting them into one group we can influence the wife through her husband, and vice versa.
Question: What do you mean by “influencing?”
Answer: Support, for example, if the man has fallen or become weaker in his integral development.
Question: And the other way around? We can influence a woman through a man?
Answer: It can be done in a family. We can tell the husband to support his spouse, but he must not tell her that he was instructed to do it. Naturally spouses decide everything between them. In every situation, we advise one of the partners how to unassumingly give the other partner the importance of further integral advancement, and show that this makes him or her greater in the eyes of the other partner, and he or she is valued a lot.
[71845]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 2/16/11
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Question: We have observed the psychological phases of splitting and integration and noticed that men manage to reach integration and women usually do not. Is this somehow connected to the laws that you are speaking of?
Answer: Of course. We already discussed the characteristics of men’s and women’s groups. The women’s group concentrates on the men’s group, it exists around it in the form of help, support, as the part that obligates men to advance towards unity. Then the unity that men attain also expands to the women’s part.
This is why work in a women’s group is completely different. It is seemingly directed towards the external part, the men’s group. And women connect between themselves only to influence it. It is best that they understand the efficiency of their mutual work, the purpose of which is to influence the men’s group.
But this is a fairly complicated problem and it cannot be solved very quickly. Only after many special events, when women begin to taste unity, which the men’s group attains and which emanates to them, only then do they become ready to somewhat unite in order to bring on the next ascent of men and receive some fuel from them. They develop this essential need. It is not corporeal or inherent—it stems from the integral level.
This is why under the influence of unity of the men’s group, a new demand for unity arises in women, even for unity between them. In other words, emptiness—the desire to unite—appears in them. First of all, they begin to feel their personal participation in this unity, and every one of them receives her own fulfillment from the men’s group. And then, the more they connect, the more they rise above their female essence and become able to unite between themselves into a single women’s part, a single image of a woman.
Maybe I express my thoughts in a somewhat complicated way because these are quite advanced degrees not suited for beginner groups. All this manifests better in practice. For this reason, this should not be discussed with women theoretically since initially this is against their nature and only antagonizes them.
[71848]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11
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Question: On the whole, is our message about mutual guarantee meant for naïve people?
Answer: No. We are offering humanity something that is very concrete: practical changes in society. It isn’t naïve, but very real. According to the law of mutual guarantee, we are all mutually connected. Evolution and progress present this very clearly to us. In the past the connection was weaker, and we lived separately in isolation, but today the system has suddenly become “tight.” The natural condition of our mutual guarantee stems from this: Let’s act according to the new situation. Eventually, our good future depends on this.
What’s naïve about it? On the contrary, here is the key for the correction of human society in every aspect. This is the rescue from all the troubles.
See what’s happening in Europe, and it is only the beginning. What will the Europeans do when winter becomes colder?
The decline is everywhere, including in Germany. A total collapse is expected in Europe if people there don’t accept the fact that we are all connected.
Here they have to act against the old familiar common sense. Everyone thinks that he will manage to isolate himself, to equip himself with the necessary resources, to provide his own energy, food, medicine, and to sit on the sidelines. It won’t work.
On the contrary, everything should be wide open and one whole. If you go against your will and start connecting with others despite all the fears, if you try to connect with everyone else, you will attain the upper force that is concealed in the connection. You will not be able to overcome the crisis if you don’t bring it down to your level.
The current crisis is very different from what we’ve known so far. Today the general European “pie” is divided into different colorful parts, and if every country, despite the external union, continues to isolate itself, the results will be horrible. Members of the EU seem to be considering the option of separating and surviving separately. “If there is pressure, then I will get rid of the collective problem, and return to my currency and manage somehow.” But here they are doomed to fail.
Today Europe must unite into one nation and cancel the boundaries in every area: education, economy, industry, etc. There must be one government responsible for everything. If the Europeans do that, they will receive the upper force form Above that will influence them.
However, without this force, they will not succeed. Even if every nation is strong, problems will come up that will not allow individual countries to provide their own needs. If Germany, for example, cuts itself off from all the others and counts on its own natural resources, it will collapse.
What the Europeans are missing today is the power of unity, the Creator that will descend into them and fill them. This is impossible, as long as they don’t connect. If they want to be smart separately, they will only be smart alecks.
All the problems we see today indicate what is missing. A desire is missing, power, a decision, one “head.” If the EU wants to operate with thirty “heads,” things will be bad. Even if there are several years of prosperity, it will be like in Hitler’s days, from the mid 1930’s onwards, towards the war and the collapse that followed. Today it will happen much faster than in the 30’s. If Europe doesn’t choose connection, it will find itself very close to a world war.
[69965]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot
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