Question: You constantly speak about the family, but today the notion of family has changed completely and is gradually disappearing. What makes you think that we can return to the old family model?

Answer: I am absolutely convinced that after experiencing an enormous crisis, we will return to the old family model. The modern egoistic family will really cease to exist.

The birth of a new family will happen due to our movement toward the goal, the root. We will see that the only way for us to reach it is by being absolutely connected with others on all levels of existence, with the partner in the family, with children, and through one’s own family, to other families, society, and the world. In other words, we will return to the model of a regular family that will allow a person to reveal the Creator above our animal, corporeal existence.

We will not be ashamed of being little animals in a family because a special relationship called “real love” appears between a husband and a wife in addition to the animal attraction. It is a relationship where they reveal the Creator between them and really attain the higher goal.

People will create families for the sake of this higher goal and establish a physical and spiritual connection with their partner. In this way, the family will be reborn, both on the spiritual and physical levels. However, it will be mainly on the spiritual level and from there, on the physical level.
[72425]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

Related Material:
Down With Loneliness!
Concessions Bring Peace In The World And Family
Don’t Stop On The Way To Love

Filed under: Education, Family, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: There are certain states or circumstances where a person doesn’t get a chance to sleep. Does this matter? Is it worthwhile to take a thirty minute nap?

Answer: This depends on the person. However, if a person is working hard on himself, then I would recommend taking a break in the middle of the day to rest. I would also recommend practicing a specific technique that teaches a person to sleep for about fifteen or twenty minutes and feel really well rested.

This is necessary in our work because we are in a constant state of inner concentration toward ascending, uniting, and we apply efforts beyond the typical mental and emotional efforts. Therefore, we must rest. It’s more important to rest during the day than to get a full night’s sleep.
[72458]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

Related Material:
Taking Care Of Your Physical Health
Gentlemen, Let’s Be Well!
Health, Not Wealth, Makes Us Happy

Filed under: Education, Health, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

We don’t realize that we are enslaved by our egoism. It rules over us and tells us what to do. And we don’t even feel that we operate according to its orders because we are connected to it to such an extent that its desire becomes my desire, and we merge into one whole. Then a person does everything his ego wants thinking of it as his life and his own desire.

But that is an example of the opposite state that we must reach by uniting with the Creator, cleaving to him to such an extent that I stop feeling the difference between His desire and my desire. As for now I fulfill all the fancies of my egoism with devotion, which shows me where to turn, when to inhale, to act one way or another.

I feel the same way being united with the Creator by rising above my current desire and fulfilling His desires, without hesitation or any calculations, so I will become corrected. And naturally, I have to go against my desire and personal calculations by investing great efforts to reach such a correction. But in the end, my goal is to reach the same level of unity with the Creator as I have now united with my desire to receive, without feeling any difference between it and myself.

And when I’m able to break free from my egoistic desire, I begin feeling that it is my enemy, that it harms me. Sometimes I love someone, and we are great friends, but then it turns out that he uses me and harms me. It takes time before I’m able to break free from him and certain things about him become revealed to me. Only then am I able to break free from him, to see that there is no other choice but to leave him, and to start hating him.

Thus the whole world starts learning that its ego is its enemy. Every person reveals that to the extent that he works on it. As a result, we begin realizing the need for change because we feel at loss in this race against our egoism. This is a big advancement because a person becomes separated from his nature, from his initial quality that forces him to only take care of himself, and he begins to critically analyze it.

This means that he becomes separated from his evil inclination and starts listening and searching for what he can do next. Thus he finds the Torah, a means for correcting egoism. He needs a force that is able to change his attitude toward his egoistic desire and that gives him the ability to become completely separated, to no longer make any calculations of what is worth getting and when.

This transition is called Lo Lishma. A person is still inside a desire to enjoy, but he has to imagine to himself that working above it would be more beneficial, that he would gain more from that. So he already works above his desire to enjoy, not willing to follow its orders. But the result of these actions and this work is still inside egoism because otherwise a person would not have the fuel for doing it.

At this stage a person goes through various states, starting from working in order to receive pleasure in his desire to enjoy to have energy and fuel to keep on working. But in fact, he wants to be in bestowal. Thus he asks the Reforming Light to give him the power to make calculations on the desire to enjoy not in his egoistic interests, but only out of hopelessness because he is a machine that needs to be fueled.

In fact he would rather remain in the quality of bestowal, but not for the sake of receiving pleasure from it. He realizes that there is no other way, and he has to pay to be given some freedom while he is under the power of the master, the egoistic desire. He works this way until he becomes completely separated.
[72703]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/12, Shamati #20

Related Material:
People: Who Are We?
What Is Egoism?
What Is Our Life? A Game!

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: In case it transpires that some people in the group of integral upbringing have psychological disorders, how do we interact with them?

Answer: We mark them out immediately and try to understand the extent to which they can conduct themselves in a general framework and the extent to which work on themselves can negatively affect their psyche. In that case, we will remove them from the group, gently and carefully, for some period of time or permanently.

We have psychiatrists who can give their conclusion after observing the person from aside for some time and using references from their friends and close ones. Undoubtedly, if a person with a damaged mentality stays in a group for a long period of time, it may give a negative result, a surge of very bad energy.

However, we rarely come across such problems; there are very few of such people. As a rule, they become balanced somehow.

We remove them for some time and then we give them the opportunity to return. Then, we remove them again, and they come back again. This happens a number of times. They cannot advance at the same rate as the group. That is why it is beneficial for them to be distanced a little bit. However, in general, most of them find some strength to compensate.

Question: People today often encounter deep depressive states, not simply a bad mood, but the deepest depression requiring anti-depressants, hospitals, and so on. If we come across such occurrences, do we recommend that the person go to the doctor, or do we try to correct it through the integral system?

Answer: In clinical cases, only a complete change in environment can help, where you take the person together with a particular group to nature, to the beach, or the river, and there you begin to carry out very serious sessions with him plus a lot of sports in the fresh air.
[72364]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11 

Related Material:
Taking Care Of Your Physical Health
Balance Means Health
The Brain Distinguishes Between The Sacred And The Profane

Filed under: Education, Health, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-03-16_declamation_blog-rav_full_mus.mp3 title=’16.3.12′]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

I don’t correct myself, but rather my incorporation in others. There is nothing to correct in me, except for my connection with others.

Who are the “others?” Here we should understand that the “me” I was yesterday is not the “me” I am today. I have to clarify the relationship between me and others according to the different states I am in. Every day a person starts a new leaf and the corrections are always with regards to the mutual connection between the Partzufim.

It says that the love among people is aimed at the love of the Creator. The love of friends is the same vessel, the same attitude in which I express my bestowal upon Him. After all, the Creator is the general law, the general attribute that I discover in the mutual connection among all of us.

There is nothing except for the general vessel. In my attitude to the friends, in my spirit, in my heart, I create the Creator. Until then He actually doesn’t exist.

Question: We are having an exercise in the group: Everyone should think about everyone worrying about everyone else in their thoughts. We remind each other to think about that and add, “with the help of the Creator.” Does this bring us to true love?

Answer: Yes, if you mean that everything can exist only with the help of the Reforming Light, then you really are creating the necessary conditions for fulfillment.

Love has no limits; it spreads until Ein Sof, (Infinity) and onward. Each time we define it differently—when we exit our present desires and intentions. The current exercise is effecitve against forgetfulness: A friend reminds another friend about three conditions: me, him and the upper force, the Reforming Light. In other words, the Reforming Light brings us back to one another. Once the Light resided in the connection among us and now when it “welds” us anew it fulfills the necessary condition of the correction in order to reside among us again. This is called a Mitzva (commandment) in the language of Kabbalah.
[68654]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
The Light Will Complete The Construction
Strike The Long-Awaited Goal
My Desire, Your Light

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

A person in our world is similar to a person who has lost his way in a field. In our time, all of humanity can also be likened to a great mass of people who, having lost all reference points, are wandering around the enormous field of life in the dark.

The way out of this situation, which arose as a result of our egoistic development, lies in creating an integral society. That is, it lies in searching for people who have realized that the current situation is at an impasse and that the only solution is to establish an integral connection between people.

In this case, the field of life transforms from a wild, empty field to a blessed field of life because the people in it desire to work on their egoism to attain the quality of mutual bestowal and thus, to become equivalent to Nature. In this case, their path is called “the path of bestowal.”

Because our egoistic nature is completely contradictory to this path, there is just one way to set out on this path: to be in an integral upbringing group that works on developing “love of friends” and where every person can help his friend progress precisely down this path.
[72484]
(On the basis of Rabash’s article “Love of Friends”) 

Related Material:
The Goal Of The Group
The Purpose Of Creating A Group
The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist – 5.20.10

Filed under: Education, Group Work, Inner Work, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Writings of Rabash “One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Correction of the Lower World from the Upper World,” Item 299, Lesson 83
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Writings of Rabash “Come Unto Pharaoh-2,” (Starting with: “However we should understand,” To: “We should know there is a virtue to love of friends”)
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-03-15_declamation_blog-rav_full_mus.mp3 title=’15.3.12′]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

Opinion (Oleg Deripaska, chief executive of Russian aluminum producer United Co. Rusal): “Oleg Deripaska … said three generations of Europeans will pay for the mistakes and inertia of their past and current policy makers, with no single politician seemingly willing to risk his or her popularity to address key problems.

“In healthier economic times, Mr. Deripaska said, governments and politicians won public support by being extremely generous with social benefits. Unable to continue this now, few governments are willing to make the tough decisions necessary to lift their countries, and gradually the region, out of the downturn.”

My Comment: He is right, but how would he act if he were in the place of those politicians?
[72719]

Related Material:
Under An Umbrella Of A Single Law
This Is The Crisis Of The System
Davos: The Major Themes

Filed under: Crisis, Economy - No Comments →