Opinion (Bruce E. Levine, a clinical psychologist, author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite): “A preoccupation with money is nothing new in our culture, but have Americans become even more ‘money-centric,’ and does this deaden us, making us incapable of resisting injustices?
“A money-centric society is one in which money is at the center of virtually all thoughts, decisions and activities. …Such a society coerces even the non-greedy to focus on money at the expense of damn near everything else in order to survive.
“Both greed and fear make one more money-centric, and in recent years, it has become more socially acceptable to be greedy and increasingly commonplace to be financially insecure.
“Nowadays, nearly everybody, even teachers and postal workers, lacks job security. Today, I see money worries, more than anything else, triggering panic attacks, depression, and alcohol abuse. Money discussions have even come to dominate family counseling sessions, where high school students increasingly talk about their fear of becoming financial losers, and parents fear their children will ruin their lives by accumulating student-loan debt while pursuing fields where there are few decent-paying jobs.
“As late as 1936, a sitting president of the United States running for reelection knew that that it was quite popular to blast the greedy, selfish elite: ‘We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.’
“That was Franklin D. Roosevelt on Oct. 31, 1936. Contrast FDR’s speech with President Barack Obama’s response in an interview excerpted by Bloomberg Businessweek and the Wall Street Journal in February 2010: ‘First of all, I know both those guys. They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system….’
“So, it should surprise no one that the Rolling Stones do corporate gigs, including one a decade ago in which they took in $2 million to entertain Pepsi bottlers in Hawaii.
“Equally widespread and probably even more responsible for dissipating rebellious energy is when songs of perceived rebellious artists are used as background music in commercials used to propagandize listeners into associating their rebellious urges with consumer products.
“Spirituality, music, theater, cinema, and other arts can be revolutionary forces, but the gross commercialization of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now damn near everything—not just organized religion—has become an ‘opiate of the masses.'”
My Comment: Egoism directs our entire life, and there is nothing but personal gain behind our actions, even the most “unselfish” ones. We can rise above our nature into the property of bestowal only under the influence of the force of the “Light.”
[74136]

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Question: Which part of the world do the non-Jewish people who study Kabbalah belong to?

Answer: Today they belong to the category of “Israel.”

If before the term “Israel” referred to the actual people, today it refers to those who aspire “straight to the Creator” (Yashar–El), that is, to the spiritual idea. Today it makes no difference any more who your parents were. What’s important is whether you accept the method of correction, whether you have the “point in the heart” (•). According to this point you are called “Israel.” If you don’t have this point, you belong to the part called “the nations.” So it follows today you can belong to “the nations,” and tomorrow you can become “Israel.” Eventually everyone has to reach the goal.

 

 

Whoever has received this spark must disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah and at the same time take care of their own advancement, the group, and the means necessary for that so that the general pyramid of humanity will not turn upside down and land on its head, thus placing all the harmful parts of “the nations” at the head of the pyramid.

Moreover, Baal HaSulam emphasizes that these categories exist in every person, and today the entire world has to identify and correct them because we are now at the final phase of the correction. This is the reason that today “Israel” are people who yearn for the Creator and not anything else. 
[75737]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/2012 on Holocaust Memorial Day 

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Question: When I leave the group, good feelings remain in my memory. However, when I return to it, a certain fear appears within me that forces me to clarify what I am afraid of.

Answer: You are not sufficiently connected to the group. You don’t have anything to fear if you are small among them. If you are still afraid, you need to make yourself even smaller, up to the point of a fetus within a mother’s womb. Then, you will have nothing to fear.

The entire problem is that you trying to guard yourself, and fears appear along with all kinds of doubts, worries, and so on. To the extent of these fears, doubts, and worries, you need to understand that they are given to you so that you become more deeply integrated in the group. Then these fears, doubts, and worries will disappear. By annulling yourself before the group, you will find yourself within it under its protection. The group becomes a womb for you, as something big within which you exist.
[75502]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2 

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Question: If the Creator manages all the opposing forces that appear during this time, why is the transition between two degrees so dangerous?

Answer: Our main work is concentrated specifically in the transition between the degrees, not in the fixed state. When I am on a certain degree, I work only in order to delve into these states, to understand and examine them.

In our world, we think that the main thing is the achieved state, not the transition to it. However, in the spiritual world, what matters is the transition, not the state itself.

We remain in a certain state only for the period of time required for us to discover it. It could last for a second, then the transition, again, a state lasting a second and again, the transition. There was a Kabbalist who told his students that he went through 400 ascents and descents in a few minutes’ time.

In the spiritual world, we feel an inverted and different dimension into which we break within the framework of time, movement, and space. It is specifically by this that we penetrate the space between the seconds of our world. In our world, the seconds move directly one after another. Spirituality is found between them because spiritual life takes place specifically in the transitions, not in the states themselves.

A static state is a dead one, and it doesn’t count in spirituality. It exists only in order to complete the degree, which includes in its sub-degrees a great many internal transitions. This is why a person, who is in the spiritual world, is constantly going through changes and has no rest.

The spiritual concepts do not exist within our coordinates of time, movement, and space because in our world, there are no breaks between the seconds, there are no gaps either in time or space. Whereas spirituality indicates that you find an interruption between one second and the next, and penetrate its depth, thus entering the spiritual dimension.
[75516]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/2012, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Is it possible for us to change the world right now with sufficient speed and effectiveness?

Answer: To change the world means to explain how it is currently and how it should be. By correcting myself and beginning to be an integral part in this entire space within this system, I thereby change the world. When I explain to the entire world what is happening to it and how we need to change in order to bring the world into balance, I am altering it.

Basically, I am providing explanations so that people would change themselves. There is no coercion in it. I cannot force them, I can’t come up with some new society, stick them in there, and then the world would become better, by no means.

We are at a stage where there can be no other change. Nature has always driven us forward. We thought that we were changing the world, but in reality, we were simply pushed toward happiness with a “stick.” We were always trying to do something, and ultimately, we have come to such a state where we improve the world only by improving ourselves with our awareness, with a rational understanding of nature, and with our connection and balance with it.
[75583]
From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/26/12 

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Question: How can we increase the importance of the goal before the coming conventions in South and North America? There are many serious interferences now; how can we rise above them?

Answer: It is good that there are many interruptions. A person needs two discernments. On the one hand, he feels the interruptions: how he disrespects everyone and how much he hates to be with them as his pride raises him above everyone else and he draws away from them.

This can happen both to an individual and to a whole group and by that actually destroys it. The question is whether a group can recover. The convention gives such a chance to groups that are in a difficult situation and that hardly have any positive forces that can connect them.

There are groups that connect only on a negative basis: against the teacher and against what he says, or against another part of the group. This is the only thing that keeps them together. The convention is an opportunity to enter a bigger and stronger environment that is above the individual group. In it the problematic group can be corrected, if they are ready to annul themselves: each member individually and the group as a whole.

They will come to the convention like to a Mikveh (ritual purifying pool), but in order to do that they have to “make a sacrifice,” to bring their ego as their sacrifice. If they are ready for that, the convention will heal that group.

If not, we will see how as a result of the convention, they will draw away even further and they may even go their own way. I believe that the convention should be strong enough, so that everyone will have clear discernments: that he either annuls himself and advances towards the goal with the help of the environment, which we build together as a factor in its development and as the representative of the Creator, or he leaves the way by clarifying that it is not for him.

Let’s hope that this is what will happen. Enough of the childish games and the struggles over control and honor that are tearing up the groups. It is time for serious advancement and time to stop acting like kids who are fighting in the sand box. It is time for important actions and the responsibility that humanity demands from us.

If you are ready for that, that’s great, let’s work. If not, it is better if you just disappear. It is one or the other. So the convention should help everyone clarify where he is and to what he is prepared to dedicate the rest of his life.

When the whole global group connects during the convention, it is a very strong environment, which is most efficient for advancement. Therefore, it is a good idea to be included in it these days and to take part fully in what is going on: both physically and internally with all of one’s soul. By that a person puts himself under the strongest possible influence for advancement in our world.
[75726]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”: The world erroneously considers Nazism a particular upshot of Germany. In truth, it is the upshot of a democracy and socialism that were left without manners, religion and justice. Thus, all nations are equal in that; there is no hope at all that Nazism will perish with the victory of the allies. Tomorrow, the British will adopt Nazism, since they too live in a world of democracy and Nazism.

If democracy and socialism are not corrected, if they aren’t included properly in the process of correction, Nazism stems from them. And this could happen anywhere in the world. In the 20th century, Germany was the most progressive country with advanced science and rich culture; however, the development of society there took the Nazi form.

Therefore, Baal HaSulam continues: What happened to the Germans is one of nature’s wonders. They were considered among the most civilized nations, and all of a sudden, overnight, they became savages, the worst among the most primitive nations in history. Moreover, Hitler was elected by the majority’s vote.

All this is the result of the power of evil that comes into the world if we don’t bring good into it. After all, in general good and evil are revealed equally. First, the evil inclination is revealed, and if we don’t attract to it the Reforming Light, it acquires the worst forms. And since this is the strongest desire, it absorbs culture, education, science, and everything else, and is manifested as the greatest evil, arrogance, pride, and lust for power over others. Everything is mixed in this egoistic desire. And if we don’t hurry to bring the Reforming Light, this evil will break out of us.
[75743]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/12, “Holocaust Memorial Day”

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Question: Why is the spiritual process so physically painful for women? When will we feel the result, after all, the convention does not end, it continues?

Answer: I believe that every person can feel the result to the extent of his desire, to the extent of their constant participation.

We constantly do inner examinations, analyses; it is like we pull and extract newer and newer definitions and sensations from within, which we use to build and form the new sense, called the soul.

It is made from a specific way I combine with others, maybe some more or less pleasant ways, through our different sensations, etc. This is an integral organ. The more active we are in connecting with each other for the purpose of revealing the integrality, the better we will reveal our mutual unity, and to this extent the Creator will manifest in this as a common force according to the law of similarity of qualities.

There is nothing else for us to do but act in this direction. Those who feel it, feel it; those who do not, do not. Today this opportunity is given practically to everyone: both men and women. Try to move more clearly towards it.
[75678]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/26/12

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Question: We have received an enormous credit from the upper world, which is the addition of all our desires, and everyone has received an enormous desire and an even greater aspiration for spirituality, which I would have never managed to receive on my own.

In the corporeal world, different societies have different ways of managing people who are not able to pay their debt: Guards, the police, and the militia can come, a person can be imprisoned, and he can even be physically destroyed. How does this happen in spirituality? What will happen to us if we fail to return this enormous debt of trust?

Answer: If a person in our world has so many ways to obligate another person to pay his debt either through the government or one way or another, then do you think the Creator has fewer ways? He has many more ways to do it. There is no problem; He will force you to do it.

This is the essence of the path of suffering: If you fail to achieve the goal in the right, beneficial, convenient, comfortable, and quick manner and to do something new every day; in other words, if you fail to “pay your debt,” then in the end you stop feeling it for two or three days, but then everything accumulates and starts to work.

This is why we must understand this very clearly and fear it, really fear it, because the Prophets have written very horrible things. When obligating forces begin to push us from behind toward the initial, set goal of creation and it does not happen through our voluntary drive forward, this is felt as horrible suffering, because they are given to us on the still, vegetative, and animate levels to help us understand that we need to move to a higher human level.

And the transition from one level to another is very difficult! You see how much the entire world suffers and does not understand that it needs to simply make a small movement upward. It does not understand! And it will continue to starve, die, and destroy one another—billions of poor people will be dying and will not be able to understand this.

This is why we need to try to quickly explain this to ourselves and to all the rest.
[75676]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/26/12

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