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If we organize our life in a way that we live by helping each other as in a big family, then we will improve our level twice as much with the same resources. There will be such a difference, as if I started receiving a doubled salary, and it only depends on the connection between us.

Double benefit, the double fulfillment of AHP, will convince people. But we know that this is not the most important thing. The Creator awakens us not to get double fulfillment, but to correct the connection between us, and in it to reveal the upper force. The Creator is revealed not in us individually, but between us.

For the time being, it is called Lo Lishma. We attract a person through his material gain, and we are not deceiving him! He will really feel better, he will have more prosperity, more confidence, a more peaceful life.

We invest in this intention, that is, we are in the connections of this general crystal structure, and the rest of people are in its nodes, are its elements; everyone is still in his own desire. But it is only temporary, they will begin to value the connection between them, understanding that their salvation is in it. A person will begin to cherish this connection, honor it. He will understand that it is has a high value in itself and it is more worthwhile to hold onto it than to his own pocket.

This connection gives a heartfelt, inner satisfaction, uplifts a person’s spirit, gives a feeling of greater freedom and less anxiety. These are just egoistic motives that allow a person to rise above his problems. But later he will see that even without the pressure of problems, he wants to belong to this high feeling of unity. And then he is so imbued with it that he will agree to any problems only to keep this elevated feeling.

That is, he will begin to reveal the evil of egoism, will separate it from good, and will establish a barrier (Machsom), a screen (Masach) between them making the restriction, and organizing himself on the spiritual principle.

The main thing for us is to be in the connection of the structure and not to sink into its nodes, into its problems. We talk to people about their problems but only to think about how to reveal the good, correct connection in the system, and constantly reinforce it.
[114730]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13

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In the News (from BBC News): “Choir singers not only harmonise their voices, they also synchronise their heartbeats, a study suggests. Researchers in Sweden monitored the heart rates of singers as they performed a variety of choral works.

“They found that as the members sang in unison, their pulses began to speed up and slow down at the same rate. …

“The researchers also found that choral singing had the overall effect of slowing the heart rate.

This, they said, was another effect of the controlled breathing….

“The researchers now want to investigate whether singing could have an impact on our health.

“There have been studies on yoga breathing, which is very close to this, and also on guided breathing and they have seen long-terms effects on blood pressure… and they have seen that you can bring down your blood pressure.

“We speculate that it is possible singing could also be beneficial.”

My Comment: When people interact with each other, they begin to connect with each other through their organs, like one body, and in this case, we can treat patients by including them among the healthy.
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Question: If we had to clarify things according to truth or lie instead of bitterness and sweetness, will we discover that everything that is bitterness is actually the truth?

Answer: On the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, sweetness is the truth and bitterness is a lie. People constantly clarify this point. We can see it especially with small children and when they grow up it becomes more concealed. The lie blurs the clarifications and they don’t seem so prominent any more.

It turns out that I can exert myself and seem like a real warrior, dedicated to some abstract idea, but it is all a lie. This abstract idea, this sublime cause simply seems so sweet to me and so I am prepared to do everything in my power to attain it. All our clarifications are aimed only at attaining sweetness. Actually we are not ready to lift a finger until the Upper Light enables us to do so which is called “faith above reason,” the force of bestowal.

Until then there is no way we can do anything if we don’t see any benefit in it for our desire to receive for the sake of sweetness. I can change one benefit for another thanks to the understanding, the recognition, the envy, the passion, the respect, the influence of the environment, the popular attitude, and out of the fear of what people may say about me and whether my friends would justify me.

All this affects my behavior, but only because my values change and what seemed to be bitter before doesn’t seem so anymore. It is because now I know that if I use this bitter thing, I will be awarded with the support of my environment, so it doesn’t seem so bitter anymore, but rather is felt as sweet.

The sweetness I feel from the environment that tells me how great I am, what a hero, and the fact that everyone wants to be my friend is now added to the bitter taste that I have felt. It turns out that I feel sweetness on a totally different level of taste. But still it is sweetness for which it is worthwhile to make an effort, and so I change.

It seems that I go through certain changes and corrections and that I ascend, but it all takes place in my desire to receive and nothing actually changes. The real change can only be by the Light that Reforms. When a person receives it, he feels what a change really is.

Therefore it is said, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Without tasting, we don’t see anything. You think that you are changing, but in fact, the changes are only on the level of this world. You may become more “human” and worry less about your corporeal body, but it is all thanks to your desire to enjoy that is simply more complex, deep, and egoistic, on more refined and disguised levels of the ego.

Everything is simple for a small child. If something is sweet, he wants it, and if it is bitter, he doesn’t want it. But a grownup can cope with bitter taste, and if it is justified and valued by society, he feels this bitterness as sweetness. Then he already thinks that he is big and special and that he has already corrected his taste, but in fact, he is still the same egoistic child but more cunning and corrupt.

This is how our life passes until we finally arrive at the recognition of evil. Thanks to all these changes, we turn the tastes that are bitter for a baby into sweetness for a grownup, but they do not contribute it to anything. We don’t reach the fulfillment of our desire this way.

On the contrary, we reach a point where the desire is totally empty and we have no means of changing ourselves in order to feel a certain pleasure. Thus humanity finally reaches a barrier, a critical point, where it has to decide that it needs the upper force that will change our reality and change us.

This means that we need the Light that Reforms, but people don’t know that it exists and so we have to explain to them that it is possible to change this reality and to rise together by the new consciousness that allows us to reach sweetness instead of the bitterness through the connection between people. There, in this connection we feel a new life.
[114583]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/13,Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid That Is Heir To Her Mistress”: As a whole, the worlds are considered internality and externality. This is similar to a heavy load, which none can lift or move from place to place. Hence, the advice is to divide the load into small parts and subsequently transfer them one at a time.

So, corrections are carried out in sequence, one after the other. This is how we should relate to what happens in our world, in our state, and everything needs to be corrected in that way.

Before we turn to correcting the world, meaning our external vessels, desires, that belong to AHP, we have to concentrate and correctly unite as inner vessels Galgalta ve Eynaim. We need to correctly realize our common point in the heart so that it becomes strong and connected together. All its strength is related to how much it’s connected in all its parts. These parts take various forms, and our task is to unite them. This is the group and the mutual guarantee that we have to achieve.

As much as we can, we reveal outer circles around ourselves, which we should care about. And we continue until we encompass, “cover,” the entire reality of desire. Thus, our work is divided into two parts:

1. Unity of the group
2. Unification of this world.

[114671]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: We have friends who use the method of Kabbalah and who have already applied it to themselves. Can they give an example to a group in the “right line”? Why are they silent?

Answer: We are obligated to show our good relationship to others. We must make a friend happy! In no manner or way should we show him a “sour” face or relate to him in a coarse manner.

And if a relationship explodes, we know that this also has its place and we accept this with understanding that this can happen to anyone. After all, this says that the friend is found with an inner tension, is working on himself, and is not indifferent to what is happening. And so we forgive him. And conversely, regarding his negative deed, regarding this outburst, we compensate for it through a positive deed, and this will lead to a good result.

But it is necessary to be careful that these negative emotional outbursts don’t become routine, habitual. Everyone in a group must work so the feeling of happiness, success, and greatness of the goal will saturate it.
[114535]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

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Question: During one of the days of the convention it seemed a strange wave passed , and at that moment it seemed that surely everything was already corrected! There was some kind of flash and everyone felt this. But after this, everything disappeared as if it never happened. And there was a certainty that anyone who came into the smallest contact with the collective group surely felt this connection.

Is the belief that everyone will be corrected one hundred percent true?

Answer: There is no doubt about it. How could it be that something would remain uncorrected if all of nature is integral and even its smallest parts are linked between them?

Suppose that you were to remain uncorrected, this says that the entire creation would be uncorrected. Therefore you also need to make an effort. It cannot be otherwise! This is on one hand.

On the other hand, we see in ourselves how fleeting the desires can be. One desire, a second, a third… suddenly the thought “flies” somewhere, other desires appear and so forth. Millions of external stimuli are liable to influence us because there are still uncorrected spaces within us that are corrected only through the mutual intersection between our desires and thoughts.

Therefore the work that we are doing now is the most effective.

Sometimes I sit in a lesson and watch how the people study, read, and I feel that the air is full of wisdom but it is not effective. And now in this convention we are not speaking about any wisdom, we don’t make special sketches, don’t use the sophisticated language of our sources, but we feel very intense inner actions that are happening on a higher level, above us.

Thanks to our readiness to connect and nullify according to the conditions for rising with “faith above reason,” as it is called, to prefer bestowal instead of reception, we awaken actions from above upon ourselves. They descend upon us gradually and sink into us. Therefore, you will continue to feel its results being revealed in you for a long time after the convention.

Personally I don’t feel any special difference between the convention, the lessons, or various other events because all of these are a continuous chain of the work of the higher force upon us. We place ourselves under its influence and it acts.

And there is an immense difference between the action and its application. We can carry something out today and after a week or two receive a reaction to this action because it is imperative that there be linkages of additional mechanisms for this action, which is to say further crowds of people.

For example, soon we will return to our places, will mix with the rest of our immediate environment, and they will be connected to us in some form. In the environment of our groups, our relatives, and colleagues at work, we become more “dense,” everyone will gradually react without understanding and we also will not understand how this works, but that is what happens.

After this crowd absorbs our excitement, gradually it gets along and with the passage of time, it relaxes. Precisely after that, we truly begin to feel the results of the convention. This could happen over a number of weeks and maybe another month or two.
[114296]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

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Question: I understand what disturbs me from reaching the goal now,  I lack the “What for?” I see that I have everything that it takes to advance, but I take a step back knowing that it is possible to get something more in this world…

Answer: Where are you getting thoughts like these? You see, they didn’t disturb you before like they do now. This says that you are not sufficiently concerned about holding onto the goal. And if your environment is okay, then something is not okay with you.

This is your diagnosis: lack of connection with the environment. If connection with them was strong, surely no external thoughts could be aroused in you.

The moment that I found my teacher, Rabash (I searched for a teacher for a long time, I passed through several teachers before him), I struggled to adhere to him completely; in this way I burned all the bridges behind me.

Question: How can I arouse importance like this in me? I don’t know what to do, how to move myself.

Answer: In the moments that they give you great desire, it is necessary to realize it, so that afterwards you won’t have the possibility of withdrawing. You see, after this they will give you such great difficulties and you will need to overcome them. And if I burn the previous bridge behind me, the previous level, I can no longer retreat. And they give me enormous difficulties! And I have nowhere to escape! This is very important. In a way we are not aware that escape routes always remain for us: “It’s not so bad,” “later,” “I don’t feel so good now,” and we begin to feel sorry for ourselves. That is how the despicable self-love speaks in us.

You have a group, study, work, dissemination, and everything. But you must connect yourselves to this! Otherwise you withdraw all the time and the turbulence doesn’t let you move forward. The group must check all its friends and influence them this way, drawing them towards more serious adaptation within it. This is our problem.

On the one hand, we want the group to be as large as possible, that everyone will come without conditions. What difference does it make if a person comes to the lessons twice a week or seven times a week? What difference does it make if he learns seriously or listens with half an ear? He simply is not ready for anything else! How many people go into science? All the rest wanted to leave school! Which is to say, in principle, we don’t need stringent limitations for entry into the group. All who want to should come! Especially now when we are speaking so much about integral education!

And on the other hand, we must tighten the connection between us as much as possible, and hold onto each other. But if I look at those who come once a week; I will be like this myself.

Here we are found in a contradiction again, which is typical in our path and we still cannot find the middle ground. If good ideas come to you on this matter, I will gladly listen to them.
[114290]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

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Question: After the completion of all the courses, new students are often thrown into some kind of vacuum. This affects women especially because the men have a young group, whereas women don’t. Would it be worthwhile to create a separate young group for them and create a course of intensive study with a teacher on the articles of Rabash?

Answer: I suppose that women need to organize a group that is involved with the absorption of new students. This group doesn’t need to be mixed.

When a new student feels herself in a warm circle of women, this will be a pleasant surprise for her that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. You know this for yourselves. In general, women don’t really greet new students cordially, to put it mildly. If you show a new student that among you there is an absolutely different form of mutual relationship, this will be better for her than any absorption! She will be faithful to you. She will feel that she can’t find anything else like this anywhere. Here societies appear, a place appears in which they accept her, wait for her, a place in which they don’t laugh at her, in which she can speak freely from the heart. So this is very important.

If you show her that she truly can be pleasant and open with you, you will find in return that it will be very easy to absorb her.

You don’t even need a center for this. Gather with someone once a week at home in an informal atmosphere: coffee, tea, sweets, and invite all the new students. They will not find anything like this anywhere!
[114169]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 9 

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You,” Item 162, Lesson 60

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 15

Preparation to Unity Evenings

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