We are usually on one of three levels in relation to our friends:

1. When the friend and the group are greater than us, in other words, we regard our friends and the group as higher than us in order to feel their greatness;
2. When friends and the group are beneath us;
3. When they are equal to us.

When I regard them as those greater than me, I put myself in a state when I am able to learn from them, receive from them what they have, like someone small learns from those greater than him. They are able to influence me. I receive their energy, strength, and excitement.

If I perceive them as being smaller than me, then I am able to give to them like a big one gives to the small.

I have a certain kind of communication with them in either case, when I either receive the greatness of the goal from them, or ignite it in them by introducing my might, my investment into the greatness of the goal, the greatness of unity. And all this is in order to reach a state of being equal to them. And then we will really be friends.

In the case when they are above me, they are my teacher. When they are beneath me, they are the students. And only when we are equal are we friends. This is the way we attune our thoughts in regard to the group. And I always see: where I can add, what I can receive, and where I can become completely equal with them.

The comparison must always be the goal. And the state of being below or above them is the state when I adjust myself in relation to them.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2

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In relation to our friends, we take into account not their personal properties, but rather something that belongs to our spiritual path. I don’t care about their everyday problems. We sweep all of this aside and forget everything that exists around us. We are interested only in one thing—their aspiration upward! This is their point in the heart and I am dealing with it! This is my tuning point!

It absolutely doesn’t matter to me what properties they have. They may be impatient, good, or not so good: It doesn’t matter! All of these are our animal earthy properties. They all stay at the level of our world. The most important thing for me is to unite with their point in the heart. This is what they aspire to the same way as I do.

The tuning in the group is a very special and fine action.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Shamati #190 “Every Act Leaves an Imprint”
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Preparation for the Convention In America
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Zohar for All – Passover “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” “And It Came to Pass at Midnight,” Item 108
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Obstacles usually come from two directions. The moment I want to bestow, familiar questions immediately come up: What do I need this for, what is this work for, and who is the Creator that I should listen to Him? However, if I operate for myself, the ego allows me to do whatever I want. It always supports me and makes me feel successful.

This means that if you follow the way of the truth, you will not encounter success, but only obstacles, barriers, and difficulties along the way. Whereas if you follow the way of lies, there are no problems and you will succeed in everything that you do. So, it turns out that obstacles and interruptions will surround me on every side and divert me from every direction: both by good and evil—by reward or punishment.

All these obstacles are essential because they guide us and help us exit our ego. In fact, they are not actually disturbances, but a way to correct our direction. With every step we make, we must learn how to aim ourselves in the right direction according to our desire to receive and our desire to bestow upon the Creator, according to our insignificance and the Creator’s greatness. Therefore, we always receive signs and signals from these two sources, from our ego and from the Creator. According to these signs, we can aim ourselves toward the goal.

This is why we should see all the unpleasant situations, hardships, confusions, hardening of the heart, and anger as corrections and tuning us on the way to the goal, to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/2012, Writings of Rabash 

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Knowing what is written in Kabbalah books means to connect with what is said, as it is written, “And Adam knew Eve.” We acquire knowledge by rising and connecting with the upper degrees. This is possible only through the connection between us that enables us to imagine the place where we receive spiritual filling, knowledge.

Therefore, even if we yearn to know what is written, we must not detach ourselves from the place, from the conditions, through which we can receive the upper knowledge. The place where we connect is where the revelation occurs. Otherwise, you will want to receive the upper knowledge about the spiritual world in your beastly, corporeal mind, and this is impossible.

Spirituality only operates in connection and is based on the intensity of the connection. Then, everything gathers into one point and returns to the spark from which all of creation started. If we don’t aim in the right direction, we will never understand what is written in Kabbalah books. We will come up with endless interpretations, but we will not come closer to the truth by that.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/2012, The Zohar 

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Question: A source of information in a group can either be its moderator or exercises that help clarify certain theses. What is the relationship between these elements in a group of integral education? Should everything be conducted in form of a game or can the instructor be a source of information as well?

Answer: Absolutely! There should be an instructor both in the main, educational lessons and during the practical exercises since everyone, without exception, needs to receive an education.

It doesn’t matter that some people couldn’t bear themselves to listen to a single lesson in school, graduated simply because they were “pushed out,” and went to work in some factory or at the street market. That’s not important!

All people should receive an integral education in its minimum form, in form of laws and memorized rules that they constantly repeat, if that’s their level. They need to repeat all the rules and literally know them by heart until, under the influence of various life’s problems, excesses, and incidents, these rules begin to come to life within them and prove that it is indeed so, that is, until the rules come into action and show them their real applicability.

Indeed, certain segments of the population understand everything on their own level: They wake up, take care of their needs, eat, go to their vegetable garden, and go back to bed again. We should definitely work with them. Accordingly, we need to prepare various kinds of educational materials, starting with simple pictures, like for small children. These people learn more from video clips, motion pictures, and theater or cinema productions that are as simple as TV series. The most important thing is that they learn the integral laws, the main provisions of nature.

There are also those who go further, to whom we can present the theoretical elements of attainment. And they will agree with them on the basis of their logical conclusions.

But overall, this is a multilevel education that needs to adapt to all segments and layers of the population, both on the social and intellectual level, or maybe not even based on their level of development but on the natural predisposition that a person has for comprehension of a given topic (physics, poetry, and so on). Even among domestic workers, there are poets and physicists.

People who are working on group selection have to really take this into consideration. Accordingly, we need to prepare various types of materials, different kinds of lessons, examples, activities, and games. Everything should be very differentiated and customized.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Soceity” 2/26/12   

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Question: There are people who are used to receiving an assignment, working on it at home, and then discussing the completed task in a group, and there are also those who are incapable of doing anything at home but are ready to take up anything in a group. Is it possible to practice both of these approaches in the method of integral education?

Answer: You should adapt to people instead of trying to break them down—this is the problem with today’s education. Of course we need to act in accordance with the individuality of a person.

You won’t be able to change people, and it is not necessary. We need to present the integral method to each type people in their own key, in their form and style.

Question: If in the experimental group for preparing future instructors one person will study at home and another will work only in a group, will that be sufficient?

Answer: No, absolutely not! A person won’t be able to study at home. We can give more theoretical and descriptive homework assignments to a group of such people, but they are required to go through practical exercises together with the entire group.

We need to assign them homework that allows them to prepare themselves for practical exercises. And then they will be coming with an understanding of what they need. They will be in agreement with it in advance, and it will be easier for us to work with them, even with those who initially didn’t seem prepared for that.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Soceity” 2/26/12  

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Question: Could you describe a day of a healthy integral family?

Answer: The alarm clock rings; everyone gets up. The children are going to school as usual. Mother stays home, or together with dad goes to study, to work.

People are working part time jobs in fields that are necessary, although it is not important where they work; it does not matter to them. Each one works as much as he can in a place where society decides it is the most useful and needed for society so as to supply food, clothing, a standard apartment, heating, health, retirement, vacation, medical help, and so on.

The husband and wife are working as needed, but regardless of whether they are working or not, they must study 5-6 hours a day in the group. This is considered as work that completes the job they have. People are studying the method of integral upbringing and education and the system that we all exist in: the worldwide, universal system of the upper mind, force. By learning, they are trying to discover it more and more and realize it through the connection between them.

This is the day and the life of people because they know that through this, they achieve a better mutual connection between them, and in it, they discover an eternal and perfect existence and an enormous, unlimited fulfillment that for them substitutes for absolutely everything.

This world they will feel as a means, as a place of work, until they reach the complete attainment of the system of nature. By this, they will achieve the whole system and they will fit in it by becoming equal with it, equal to the Creator, which is called adhesion with the Creator. They will reach a state where the feeling of this world will disappear, and instead of their biological bodies, they will feel spiritual bodies, meaning the forces that painted this world and themselves on the uncorrected ego.

Essentially, people will do only this. But as long as they are still in the egoistical desires, they will feel their bodies and will need to take care of them. However, it will be clear to them that this is the picture they have to “nourish”now with egoistical fulfillment such as food and other necessities of the body.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/19/12 

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam (The Steps of the Ladder), “What is a Blessing and a Curse in the Work”: Each day, man needs to start anew and say that today he will be awarded to see “I am your God” and that he will not escape from the battle. He should not say “I already prayed many times that God will give me the vessels of bestowal, and I will exit the desire to receive for myself, and I did not receive any answer for my prayer, so what is the benefit of praying again?”

The truth is that we never request vessels of bestowal because it is impossible.

Yes we ask for what is called “bestowal.” We ask to be able to love the other, but that is how we call it; this is not bestowal; it is not love for the other or bestowing desires. We never truly pray for the spiritual world, or the spiritual state, or spiritual vessels. In our current desire, in our current mind and feeling, we simply are not capable to request it, and we do not even know what it is.

Therefore, it is said: “I labored and I found.” One needs to put effort in what Kabbalists tell us to do, to follow strictly their recommendations, and to understand clearly that we do not have any chance to come directly and independently to the correct prayer; we cannot break our heart and raise a request for correction (MAN).

At first each one of our prayers is based on how to receive, to gain, and to take advantage of the friends, the Creator, of any one. That is the fact and there is no place to escape from it. But above us, there is a system of breakage that translates our actions, our broken requests, to correction.

On the way from above downward, the desires broke, and on the way back, when I rise from the broken state, they are corrected in this system. They rise as if I requested what is needed, as if I really plead for love and bestowal to the other and for connection with the friends and the Creator whom I am ready to accept as goodness.

This system is the broken world of Nikudim and the world of Atzilut that was created later is the adapter: On one side of this system, there are the false world, the worlds of BYA that are disconnected from the Creator, and the states opposite to bestowal, in which we exist. On the other side, there is the Creator, perfection.

My plea for love is a lie, but we all arrange this lie in a correct form as if we really want something besides self-benefit. If between us, we come together in the correct form, if we arrange the study and all our actions correctly, then our request goes through this system that corrects it, and this is what is called “I labored and I found.”

Although we don’t know the world of Atzilut, it does its work. And that is why we need to do exactly what Kabbalists tell us without lying to ourselves or being ashamed. It is true that we do not request spirituality, but scream like a baby and mother knows what he needs. Mother needs only a tiny scream from the baby to know what his needs are.

This is what is required from us. “Do everything that is in your power to do,” and this will bring good results.
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From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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