Question: Modern civilization is based on every problem being solved only through groups of people. But according to the experts, attempts to connect people into these kind of groups brings the opposite result most of the time. Within three or four months groups break up and only a “handful” of people remain faithful to an idea and the rest scatter. Why is this?

Answer: This is because people lack an incentive and drive for something and so they disperse.

If 20 to 30 years ago or even ten years ago it was possible to unite one collective into a group, today this is very difficult, as people have no incentive to work. What for? Why? For what purpose? They cannot be ignited, not through building a movement, a party, and not with anything in particular.

Humanity has folded all the programs. Where has the yearning to conquer space disappeared to? Nothing is left. Everything is concentrated only on grabbing something, stealing, being isolated far from civilization, and basking under the sun. People have no motivation especially when speaking about serious matters like these.

There was a time when people were ignited by great ideas, tried to materialize them for themselves, for their children, for the country, for the homeland. Today all borders have been opened; the relationship that a person has with his residence has become essentially one of consumption. This is how it is in regard to his nation and his people as well. We have spread throughout the earth, the previous boundaries are gone.

The concept of the family has also disappeared, it has broken apart. Parents have no responsibility for their children and the children have none for their parents. At best, the children put their parents into nursing homes. And parents react calmly to their children leaving them and living a life of seclusion. The traditional framework of a family, of a collective, of a region, a nation, and so forth has collapsed. Nothing remains sacred to a person, meaning that the ideals for which it was worthwhile to live, to work, to compete with someone, and to achieve something have disappeared.

This kind of lack of motivation began to be discovered in the 20^th century, but it was still weak. In spite of it all, they somehow managed to finish things by building a party, or through fear as in the time of Stalin, or through brainwashing as with Hitler. But this could only happen in isolated instances, for a short time and with particular people.

But today, as I travel extensively throughout the world, visiting various nations, societies, and civilizations, I see that everything has stopped working.

The only thing that can spur a person on and give him an incentive is the fulfillment that he gets by working directly in a collective when he specifically feels through unity with others, that he finds some kind of serenity and rest.

But for this, it is necessary to construct, connect, and raise a collective in this kind of form, to show people how they can begin to get the magic that is in life through cooperation and mutual support. By creating a small, artificial society, they will get a feeling of life, mastery, interconnection, partnership, concern, and love.

If we create all of this in a collective then people will not go anywhere. They will come again and again and will specifically try to work for this. Not to attain the goals required by managers and landlords, but rather because when they work like this they feel alive, they feel that they exist, that they are found in some lofty state above our regular daily life.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/20/13

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Question: What does it mean to repent my actions, emotions, and thoughts if the Creator is directing me completely? How do we not continue to err, to deny the supervision of “There is none else besides Him,” and, along with this, reach my recognition of evil?

Answer: Be sorry that the Creator made you fail in a form like this! It is a sign that you deserve it!

Question: Before the Second World War, Baal HaSulam tried to warn people about and prevent the Holocaust, but the results are known. You say that people will hear us only after blows. What can we do in order to prevent the blows, or are they inevitable? What is the right reaction to what is taking place: to endure and to pray for humanity (are we not cursing the Creator through our suffering and pain) or understand in a relaxed way and try to justify the necessity of developments like these? How is it possible to soften the blows and to bring the world to correction in a good way?

Answer: We need to administer the blows to our ego ourselves in that we act in opposition to it, and then we will be released from the external blows of the Creator. And if we work together, we will not feel the blows but pleasant shared efforts.
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Question: How can one help a friend correctly if we see that the evil inclination has been aroused in him and he accepts the thoughts that come to him as truths and convinces others of their truth?

Answer: A person found in a group begins to feel within himself all kinds of anti-spiritual inclinations as a result of his good work. We see how suddenly he is changed acutely. Moreover, he justifies his behavior. It is typical for everyone to justify himself.

First of all, you need to connect among you immediately (without him, even though he also wants to share in this), and discuss what to do about him very seriously.

Agree among yourselves as to how you will influence him. He needs to see how we are working to connect, that this is what is important and essential for us, for this is specifically what we are learning, and this is how we do it. About this, there is no argument. This must be so!

If he is opposed or something is not right for him, we simply show him, “You see, this is not our invention. This is what is written in the sources, and we carry out these conditions. Whoever doesn’t carry them out has no place here. Therefore, either stay and gradually be included in the general work, or go.”

It is necessary to show clearly and precisely that only the collective state of the group should determine his behavior, for connection is a general desire of all together, according to a single method for one goal.

It is forbidden in any way to condone such things! He has no right to chill and relax the hands of the others! We must let him understand clearly that we relate negatively to his behavior, but it is necessary to do this gently, gradually approaching vital explanations. We must agree among ourselves to distance from him so that he will see that we continue to connect and support each other, and so forth. If he will not adhere to us it is a sign that his place is not here.

It is necessary to explain to him (with love, you see, we want him to stay), that, to our sorrow, we don’t see the right behavior in him appropriate for the requirements of the spiritual method, therefore, either he surrenders himself to the group, or if not then he will harm it and so for his own good it would be better for him to go.

However, even if he goes, this must be done so that he will have the possibility of returning. For example, it is possible to offer him the option, “You don’t need to come every day. Come when you want to be included in the group.” It could be that he will come once every two weeks, and after that it could be that he will return completely.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day One” 7/12/13, Lesson 2

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 3

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “On the Night of the Bride,” Item 140, Lesson 51

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World,” Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, “Walking the Path of Truth,” Letter 17: …so as to always be a target for you between right and left. This is because there is one who walks who is worse than he who sits idly. It is he who deflects from the road, for the path of truth is a very thin line…

First, we must make sure that we know the right direction so that we can perform actions that aim at the right, accurate, and clarified direction. If I am not sure as to what I must do, it means that I don’t know what the right direction is. If I know what to do, I still must check whether it is the right direction.

It turns out that a person moves by walking not the actual steps, but by clarifying their direction. There are no steps forward as one walks, but only the clarification of the right direction. This means that I advance.

If I am at a certain point where I clarify the direction from it to the Creator, I unite with the Creator at that point. It turns out that I make the right step forward without moving from that place. Then, immediately at that point, new conditions are revealed which I must clarify again as to which way to turn, how to use all the conditions in order to unite, and where I must get to. If I determine how to perform such an action, it means that I have discovered unity at that point, and there is nowhere I must move to.

The steps by which we advance are not by moving, but by determining the point of a more correct attitude, perspective and trend each time, the point of attaining unity and connection, this is actually an attainment along the spiritual path.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 17: For the path of truth is a very thin line that one walks until one comes to the King’s palace.

One who begins to walk at the beginning of the line needs great care so as not to deviate to the right or to the left of the line even as much as a hair’s breadth. This is so because if at first the deviation is as a hair’s breadth, even if one continues completely straight, it is certain that he will no longer come to the King’s palace, as he is not stepping on the true line.

It’s not clear how one can keep the right direction if one has deviated from it once. So this is a very serious warning. How do I know that I have never been wrong before? Is it possible to choose correctly if I am at a certain point now after having made a mistake? Can I find the right direction and advance if I am at the wrong point?

It’s a very uncertain and scary situation. Like all of you, I have made many turns throughout my lifetime. I have been confused and took the wrong direction. So how can I find the right direction after all this? Even if I find it, will it correct all my previous corruptions?

Such questions make our state very uncertain. How can I advance if I don’t know for sure that I have been following the right path? How many times have I gone in the wrong direction?

Hence, one who walks upon the true line of preparing for the work of God (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.) must always test himself to see if he wants the three above aspects equally, as the end of the act is equal with its beginning. If one wants one of them more than the second or the third, then one deflects from the path of truth, and understands this.

This is the meaning of, “Open for me one aperture of repentance, such as the eye of a needle, and I will open for you gates where carts and coaches enter.” Interpretation: the aperture is not for entrance and exit, but to insert the thread for sewing and for work.

Similarly, you are to crave only the commandment of the upper One, to work, and then I will open for you a door such as an entrance to a hall. This is the meaning of the Explicit Name in the verse, “but in every deed (spelled like Hall in Hebrew) as I live and all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

An eye of a needle means worrying about uniting Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one point. We constantly worry only about that and this point becomes smaller and more focused. In order to reach it we have to constantly unite all the 613 attributes, meaning the desires that awaken in us and which are opposite from one another and present different conditions: those of Israel, those of the Torah, and those of the Creator. We need to unite all this into one whole, into unity.

If we can bring all to such unity, it means that we collect everything into one point into an eye of a needle. When we focus ourselves on one point through an optical instrument, we can see an opening in it that leads to a new world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I check that I do not deviate from the right course?

Answer: The course can be checked only according to the principle: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.” All the deviations are only from this unity. There is nothing else to worry about but to clarify this principle precisely as it determines the correct state in every moment of our life. And if we are not in this unity, then we have swerved from the right course.

Check how much everything that happens is connected to one source: You yourself with all your qualities and all the conditions that you received in the group. And the whole world is a small addition to your relationships with the friends. Connect the Creator to all of this.

Everything needs to be focused together as in a gun sight, constantly connecting these three points in your life. Then you will have a correct view of the world, the correct perception. You will see the true world, not a false one.

If you look through a telescope and see people, stars, rocks, plants, animals and their different relationships with each other, you would see the whole world as a kaleidoscope. There, you see the friends and all their problems, as well as your personal problems, as spiritual, internal. The entire picture is inside the kaleidoscope.

And then you start to focus this lens, tighten up its axis, until they all merge into one. That is, you understand that all this comes from the Creator and is sent to you on purpose. There is a system between the Creator and you, consisting of 613 parts, every one of which and all together you need to organize correctly so that between you and the Creator there is only one straight line that connects you, which in the end is reduced to a single point of unity, adhesion!

Everything disappears but this point of adhesion. This means that you created yourself, placed yourself in the correct place, in the correct point. We need to begin to feel our 613 desires and the Light that stands against them and swings them, and if not the Light, at least some forces, sensations, that are perceived closer to unity or further away.

You need to deeply regret if you suddenly don’t feel this unity, feeling as if something has gone wrong in your life. You need to be constantly concerned that this is in order. You will not be able to live without it; this concern will not give you rest.

It would seem that it’s impossible to always be in these thoughts. But this point of unity is special because we don’t need anything else in life but it! Even if you work somewhere, are involved with family, children, home, or various problems, you begin to see that the unity “Israel, the Torah, and Creator” solves any problem and everything calms down and falls into place.

When this unity is achieved, the actions that had to be made disappear. You seemingly perform them to achieve unity. But as soon as it’s achieved with their help, they immediately disappear because this world becomes clothed in the spiritual world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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“Faith above reason” means that a person has pushed the limits of the property of bestowal within himself, exiting himself. Faith is called bestowal, the property of Bina, the Light of Hassadim. When I am on any spiritual degree, in any state, I expand my possibility of bestowal and love. This is called “faith,” which begins to predominate, to prevail over the property of receiving, over egoism. Reason is the Light that we receive that fills our egoistic desire. But faith is the property of bestowal, the condition of spiritual advancement.

After the convention in St. Petersburg in 2013, I heard from many people that “now was the first time we felt that we really achieved something.” Indeed, after this convention we first felt unity, and not everyone by himself, but something common, some common mass that linked each other together, closes everyone in itself. In addition, we have found that there is connection between what happens in us and what we study in the primary sources (partly, in The Book of Zohar, partly in the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash) about the conditions of connecting a person within the group, the conditions of our unity.

All this has become much closer to us. We seem to have confirmed the correctness of our development. This means that we have received new knowledge. And how can we now go in faith above the acquired reason?

In this state, of course I can be happy that I have become convinced of the correctness of my path: that I have a teacher who does not fool me, that I have dispelled my doubts and solved some problems. But I fell into the desire to receive and got a bit of the Light into these desires. On the one hand, it’s good that I have achieved this, it should be so. We must never doubt that what we receive and what we are in is how it should be, and we got it from the Creator. And now another question arises: How can we go further?

Next, I have to close my eyes to everything that I received and advance to faith above reason: to break through to the next level by the fact that I do not want to look at the gained knowledge or to pay attention to everything that exists in me today as a proof of the correctness of the path. I want to move forward with eyes closed, only for the sake of bestowal. This means that I should not think that I have confirmation of the evidence that I am advancing on the right path or whether I have the inner confidence that I am in the right group with the right teacher or not.

If we go by faith, it’s completely different conditions, the opposite of reason. That is, the property of bestowal is opposite of the property of reception, as is the property of the Creator opposite to the property of the created being. So, the next degree that we have to cover, to which we should ascend, is realized not by our reason and not with our confidence, but on the contrary, when we rise above them.

In other words, now I want to go only to the property of bestowal, paying no attention to anything, despite everything I received at the convention, despite the sensation that gave me confidence, the foundation of life. I am interested only in that, and I want to enter in that.
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From the Virtual Lesson 7/21/13

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