Question: Today business owners have already guessed that the most valuable human capital is collective knowledge and skills and they want to use it. They understand that for the mind to realize this itself, rigid hierarchical structures must give way to soft, self-regulating ones.

But in Russia for example, people are used to a very rigid hierarchy: the “tzar-father,” the breadwinner, the business owner. Is it worthwhile to switch to a new structure? Will people want self-regulation?

Answer: Whether people want or not, it doesn’t depend on them. Nature gradually changes human needs and that is why they will still have to come to this.

Now is the time to establish these values. People see that they do not know how to arrange life; there is devastation, the struggle to survive, huge bills, friction, power, and pressure. Everything which can be replaced by normal relationships is controlled by the power structures of crime or the state.

I do not blame anyone; it is just a transition period. But, in principle, the path to the future lies in choice: Either we wait for nature to mercilessly put pressure on us, forcing us to change or we will consciously match ourselves to the integral system of nature.

By the way, in this respect, Russia is not far from America. Americans are great individualists. They do not take other people into account and can openly do whatever they please. If it is profitable to do so, then I will do it; I will even use others as stepping stones just to win. And the side that loses everything understands that it is the law of harsh business, which has also taken root in Russia.

So, in this respect, both these countries are similar to each other. That is why they will have to undergo a serious readjustment of values and enter into a new system. It will be very difficult, especially for America.

It will be a little easier for Europe because it has a different culture; there is a connection among people and it softens them.

Russians also have an inner connection, “We are a people, we are a community,” and that is why their transition could be easier. But still they will need integral education.

I must say that the Russian people are very open to this. They are inclined to education. The TV, the media—all this is ready to be directed from above. If the government had accepted the idea of moving towards a similarity to nature as a universal necessity and started to implement this, then the Russians would have succeeded quickly and easily; it would have been declared at the top and accepted at the bottom.
[100829]
From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/5/13

Related Material:
If I Want, I Punish; If I Want, I Pardon
Everyone Makes A Decision
The Secret Of Success

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: Why do businessmen with little or no education have so much success recently? What is their strength? Why are the best results attained sometimes by leaders who have no experience or even knowledge?

Answer: This happens because the connection of the linear, egoistic connection of “you for me and I for you,” that is, the system of pure capitalism, has stopped working. The world has entered into an integral connection where everyone is connected to everyone, since through a chain of five people who know each other each person on the Earth is connected to all the rest.

In this system, the old connections don’t work anymore, and other connections are required that are based on understanding and the feeling of connection and unity between people. Thus, the first place is taken not by Stalin’s principles of rigid pressure, and not the American principles built on competitiveness, but the principles of mutual connection.

The ones who win are the ones who can build good and correct human relations and not at the expense of finance, commerce, business, etc.

Thus, success will now be on the side of those people, even though they are not great professionals. And if now I need to choose a director of the plant, I would take someone who simply knows how to work with people, and by his side would always be a specialist.

Today what is important is synergy, the connection between people and the ability to assemble a good, friendly team that will be as one whole so that everyone will feel good, including the workers’ families, their children, their wives and husbands.

If people connect between them, then they will find greater similarity to all systems and immediately will begin to succeed. This stems from nature itself, from somewhere in the roots from which comes the vital force, the nourishment, the moisture, and then a successful mutual connection grows.

If a person has the right approach to the team, to reciprocity, to the integral connection between people, then he can direct anyone. He will always be able to find an expert in each area, and if these specialists work in a cohesive friendly way with the team, then they will succeed.

Today this is the main work in a company, the main role! But basically, there is a need for many of these people who constantly hold the team together in the spirit of integration to rise above the egoistic outbursts of each one.
[100746]
From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/5/13

Related Material:
Collectivism Is More Profitable Than Professionalism
There Is No Harmony Without Integrality
How To Fill The Void?

Filed under: Crisis, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - 2 Comments →

Question: What are the phases we have to go through in establishing the relations in the family until we reach the complete unity?

Answer: First I need the help of my wife, which is called “help against,” so I can examine myself and unite and explore one another as much as possible. I have to discover that I see the other as a distorted figure that the ego depicts for me. This is the psychology that we have to learn; this is how we have to educate everyone so that they can be mature adults who understand their own feelings and special attributes. Then a person will be able to use all his special attributes correctly in the connections with his or her partner.

First you build a relationship with your wife, drawing her picture and your picture and decide to what extent you can enter into it and to what extent she can enter yours, and where you meet. You start from the basic understanding that you are two egoists facing one another separated by an infinite distance. Now each one has to leave his starting point and start getting closer to his or her partner.

The closer I get to the other side, the further away I get from my natural basic point, and the more difficult it is for me to advance. It is also increasingly more difficult for my wife as she remains with her “self.” We have to thank one another for these efforts, and so we will be able to advance closer towards one another. All this happens thanks to our mutual concessions until we reach an inner connection.

This is the point of contact for which we are ready to give up our own base and connect. To connect means that I receive from my wife what is essential for her according to her character, so that it becomes essential for me. Thus the contact is created between us, a connection, mutual incorporation. There are protrusions and indentations in each of us by which we connect.

What is important for my wife should also be important for me, and she does the same with regard to me so that a shared space is created between us. Working in this space, thanks to our efforts to hold on to the connection in different states, helps us connect. This shared space is called a couple.

There are huge spaces besides this shared space that belong only to me or to her. It is like two intersecting circles with a common area between them in which each receives the other’s desires as if they were more important to him than his own desires.

I see that there is no choice and that these are my wife’s needs. What should I do with the areas that are still separated from one another? We will have to work on them by clarifying them and with common efforts we do all that in our desire to create one whole from the two of us.

If we know how to unite into one whole in the family, then we will also succeed in larger external circles, and even more external circles, until the whole world becomes one person. Then there will not be a global integral crisis. There is plenty of everything in the world, but we have developed in the wrong direction. Instead of developing everything for the good of man, we have acted to harm him. It is like a couple locked in an apartment unable get along and so they are ready to burn everything out of their mutual hate; it is the same situation and the same problem.
[100658]
From a “Talk About a New Life” 7/25/12

Related Material:
The Universal Key To Success In Life
The Family Relations Adaptor
Model Of Family Relations

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

Filed under: Holidays, Inner Work, Israel, Spirituality - 1 Comment →

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

[media 2]

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Igrot,” Letter 31

[media 3]

[media 4]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Balak,” Item 109, Lesson 7

[media 5]

[media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol 6, Part 15

[media 7]

[media 8]

“A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

[media 9]

[media 10]

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_2013-02-20_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’20.2.13′]

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

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, “HaShavuah” Selected Excerpts

[media 1]

[media 2]

Filed under: Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: People today still hope that their governments will solve the economic problems…

Answer: The governments won’t solve anything, and it doesn’t matter whom we vote for. After all, it doesn’t depend on a prime minister or a president. No matter who it is, he has nowhere to get the money for the wellbeing of his people. We have entered a round global system in which everyone is connected to each other and dependent on one another. Still, many believe in the approach of isolation and that they will be able to survive on their own. But, in fact, this approach only brings them closer to total collapse.

Today every country that tries to act only in its own interests is destroying itself. It was possible once when there were those who dominated others, but today everything has changed and even the US is facing resistance against its global ambitions. Today the old system of man’s dominating man and nation dominating nation is collapsing. It doesn’t work since the new law of nature is already active internally. Everything is now mutually connected and no matter what I do for others, my attitude comes back to me as a boomerang increased several times.

Question: But still, I don’t actually see that I am part of a general whole yet, I am changing…

Answer: Do you want the Creator to reveal to you now the whole plan of creation and by that lower you to the “animal” level? Suppose I show you that we all depend on one another, and that if I intend to eat breakfast without caring that others have breakfast too, I would be poisoned and might even die. This would deprive me of my freewill and I would be like an animal, like a dog, who knows in advance by what something smells like whether it can be eaten or not. In that case, I would not be able to be a human being any more.

Things have to be different here. We are not animals; we can’t be connected on the corporeal level of emotion and knowledge since it isn’t the human level. Suppose someone gives me a million dollars, should I take it or not? If I feel that by that I would be causing myself harm, I will not take the money. But it would be an egoistic decision “within reason” and I wouldn’t grow by that, since I have to resemble the Creator.

It says, “And they shall all know me from the smallest to the greatest.” This means that everyone will know what the pure attribute of bestowal is; they will know it in their hearts and act accordingly; this is what we are advancing towards. If the benefit of the connection were revealed it wouldn’t be hard for us to connect egoistically. But no, we shouldn’t connect on the basis of knowledge but in faith above reason, which is opposite from knowing. I don’t see that the connection is in my benefit in advance.

This is called “labor pains,” when two opposite forces are active in me. It’s the only way we can advance. Otherwise, without fulfilling our mission, we would remain on the “animal” level. So we must understand where to get the powers to discover for ourselves first of all, and then for others; it is a qualitatively different knowledge of the facts about the egoistic desires “moving against the wind,” which allow me to be born into a new dimension.

We felt it during the Arava Convention to some extent when we had the chance to break through upward, to rise above the body and above anything that has to do with it, to break away from it. It’s a psychological problem but still this idea can be conveyed to people. We all have the right potential that only needs to be brought to life, to be brought out, so that this discernment will float upwards.
[100771]
From the 4^th Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
Anti-Globalization And A Global Government
The Benefits Of Unity
Big Things Begin With Small Steps

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Economy, Free Will, Politics, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

It is obvious that we have many complaints to the Creator about our state, the conditions we would like, and about the host who is responsible for everything that happens to us. But this won’t help. We either agree to the conditions we have been given or we have to advance by the path of sufferings.

After all, in order to set such conditions, we have to know the whole process, the whole system; we have to understand that everything is for the best and that it’s impossible to fulfill the conditions if we don’t know the systems and are in constant concealment as we advance from the bottom up. The only thing left for us is to believe that all our work has to be done above criticism and complaints. When we look at everything from our ego, we can’t come to any other conclusion since the advancement is actually with regard to the desire to bestow and not toward the desire to receive; so in our state, we will never be able to understand how we advance.

It says, “Open a gate for me that is as big as the eye of a needle,” which means just exert yourselves a little, “and I shall open the upper gates before you.” But we have to discover the “eye of the needle” by ourselves, and it’s a very difficult task. It is because I have to lower my head, to annul my pride, and to understand that we will not be able to perceive and to appreciate anything inside our ego, but rather it is by the feeling of our lowliness, the lowering of our heads, that we begin to understand what is happening.

After all, it’s by the concealment of our ego that we begin to know the Creator who is concealed and we begin to resemble Him in some way. A mother who takes care of her baby is also in concealment from him, since the baby doesn’t know how much she cares; he doesn’t have to know either. What’s important is that the result of all her efforts will be fulfilled in him, the conditions for his growth.

But if we yearn for the Creator, we have to discover His actions with regard to us and to repeat them by ourselves. In order to do that, we have to humble ourselves like a mother who forgets about herself for the sake of her baby, or like the Creator with regard to the created beings. We only feel the result of the Creator’s care for us, but all His actions with regard to us are not revealed since we are babies who can’t understand anything.

So how can we be evoked so that we will want to know the Creator’s work? It’s impossible to know it until we become parents too. Only then will we appreciate what our parents did for us. In order for us to grow in the spiritual world and to become spiritual parents, the Creator doesn’t fill all our childish desires, He doesn’t serve us sweet porridge like a loving mother, doesn’t change our diapers and doesn’t amuse us with different toys so that we will be happy. He doesn’t spoil our desire to receive, but rather evokes different questions in us, sufferings, and unpleasant discernments with which we have to work in order to discover the reason for it, since this is how we will be able to discover His work.

If I don’t feel good, I must discover why. Of course, first I feel dissatisfaction; it’s my natural response, I resent the fact that I feel bad! The next thought is already aimed at the Creator and at why He acts this way. He is wrong; He should change! But if the problem doesn’t go away and I can’t get out of it, the blows force me to be more patient. I don’t resent this anymore; I ask, “What is the point of this kind of life?” This brings me to study the Creator’s actions.

I am told that I am responsible for everything that happens. Did I do something? All is done by the Creator! But it turns out that everything is opposite from the way it seems to me, “There is none else besides Him,” “the good and the benevolent,” and all the good that He gives me turns into many different contrasting forces within me. I don’t see that all this stems from the good and the benevolent. Although sometimes something good happens, it’s mostly bad.

I have to determine that it’s a fact that everything that I receive comes from the Creator who is good and benevolent and that there is none else besides Him. If I do that in the state I am given now, I will reach my first spiritual level. Later the same kind of work is expected of me but more qualitative and sublime. This means that our work is first to see that we are the source of the problem and not the Giver, and then to correct ourselves so the problem will disappear. The Giver, His action, and I should connect into one whole called “adhesion“. This will be the proof that I have reached an equivalence of from with Him.
[100767]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
A Violin Tuned To The Creator
The Burden Of The Efforts You Haven’t Made
Looking From The Creator’s Point Of View

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: Why haven’t Kabbalists written a manual for life so that every person will be able to use it?

Answer: If this book were about how to make a profit and to gain something, people would read it, but the book would be about how to give up, to bestow. So whom would you offer it to? If I had something to interest ordinary people with, I would have done it a long time ago. All the leading TV channels would have invited me for interviews, “He has a recipe for comprehensive infinite pleasure!” But here, on the contrary, there is a psychological barrier: We have to transcend our nature and move on to the next level, and then we will receive pleasure.

So how can I raise myself above the “threshold of the strangulation” of death? People think that they reach the next world, which means the spiritual world after the body dies. I really don’t understand why the body stands in their way, but this is how they see things: that the body is buried in the ground and the soul rises “upwards.” How can I imagine a state that I kill my ego? It says, “He who wants to live should kill himself.” Only then can I really start living. But how can I fulfill that? How can I explain this to people?

Here we offer the remedy before the illness. First we inform people that they are ill, which means that we act like the Creator who reveals the crisis in humanity. Today everyone feels troubles to a certain extent, so what is the diagnosis? Our ego is ill.

But this is not enough, a specialist has to come and speak to the patient so that he will listen, because if people don’t listen, then the illness will keep on developing until the pain will sharpen their hearing.

On the whole, humanity has to hear what’s important: The whole problem is the wrong mutual connection among people. It’s for this reason that they don’t know how to live correctly in the integral world, how to educate their kids, and how to establish the right relations. They have to realize that the whole problem is our ego. Later we will be able to carry on this conversation and explain how people should connect by integral education.

Then people will finally understand what’s going on; they will understand why they are being driven “crazy” by every possible means, why they are required to work 14 hours a day so that they have no time to think about anything. Children are intentionally educated the way they are at school, the TV channels broadcast series of murder and rape and this is all in order to turn a person into a zero, to turn him into an “animal” so that he will not be able to find a solution for his life.

Question: Why don’t Kabbalists have a campaign against the ego, just like the campaign against smoking? Why don’t they write a book about how to prevent the “egoistic fever”?

Answer: Kabbalists don’t have the same authority and the same power that doctors have; Baal HaSulam already tried to warn people but no one listened. As for “effective campaigns,” they also have an egoistic motive. The cigarette manufacturers may be losing money but another group is making a profit from that, for example, food manufacturers who produce unhealthy food. They profit when people don’t smoke and don’t die early from cancer so that they buy their products for many more years. These products make people ill, and at the same time make the medicine companies richer. The main thing is to keep people in a “corral” like animals, in the framework of modern life that doesn’t allow them to think too much about what’s important.

Everything comes down to the profit that someone makes from the consumerist society. Thus all this could go on infinitely if it weren’t for nature’s plan. We would remain slaves who consume what they are being “fed” by supermarkets and the media, without choice. But the Creator has other plans, so we are approaching the collapse of the current capitalistic trend.
[100763]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/13, “The Peace”

Related Material:
About Kabbalah, Marx, And The Big Lie
When Did The Integration Begin?
The Illness Is Clear: It’s Time to Treat It

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A, World - No Comments →