Question: Where is the boundary between me nullifying myself, my opinion, and my investing myself in a group and thereby adding to its power?

Answer: I can add to a group only what it needs and not my opinion. I don’t have the right to insert my opinion into a group. I only show it that the most important thing in life for me is spiritual elevation, where perception of the Creator becomes the most important goal for me. This is what I must insert and contribute to a group. My personal opinion is not in this. I nullify myself and accept the opinions of the Kabbalists.

Could it be that you are confusing this with the work of dissemination or with other states? Could it be that you think about exchanges of ideas in connection to the manner in which we build the group, how we disseminate?

Very often, the term “group” is understood in two absolutely different forms. The first is that this is a spiritual form, where all of us are connected in the heart, in the yearning and inclination to discover the Creator, and the second form is when we work in dissemination, in unity, not within ourselves, not for the Creator, but in order to carry out some physical task. There is no need to mix this with that.

Carrying out a task on the physical level has no relation or connection to spiritual work. It is necessary to differentiate these two parts of a group, and in no way should they be mixed together. Then, everything will be okay.

There are people who are wonderfully involved with dissemination. We can speak about the strength of their natural abilities. There are people who can work more with their hands. There are technical workers, accountants and so on. Our dissemination factory is comprised of them.

In no way is it necessary to link the factory with the spiritual group where we are gathered together, unite our hearts and turn them toward the Creator, for people who are successful in one group might not succeed at all in another group. They don’t have this ability. There are friends who learn passionately, unite, are ready to ignite and awaken the others, but they don’t have particular skills for work, even in processing material. Therefore, it is seriously necessary to differentiate one from the other.

Try to think of how you divide the group into its spiritual part and its physical part. The spiritual part is only the inner unity. Who is more involved with this? Who is concerned about this more? Who gives more excitement to the friends, for the spiritual part of the group is the most important.

What belongs to the physical part? It could be that this is all kinds of experts, technicians, pragmatic people who simply work without a mutual connection between them.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/20/13

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Over thousands of years, thousands of people have been trying to get out of this prison, the feeling of a narrow, small world, but they have not succeeded in doing this. And that will never change! The desire to receive will never willingly expand out of its own desire and release me, so I cannot look at reality through it and see the real world.

This will never happen! On the contrary, from day to day I will discover that my desire to receive has grown, but the opportunities for discovering new phenomena in it have contracted. And this brings me to the feeling of exile that forces me to seek and find the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalah explains that a person cannot see anything more within his egoistic desire.

I must reconcile myself to the fact that the ego will not allow me to feel anything besides this world. And if I want something beyond this, then I must change my attitude regarding my desire to receive. I now perceive reality selectively, only seeing whatever interests my ego. But if I want to see a wider, truer picture, or at least a picture closer to the truth, then it is up to me to rise above the desire to receive, to go beyond my egoistic desire.

For example, I can exit my desire to receive and pass into the desire of a friend, or several friends. Through this, I have already expanded my perception and will feel the world that exists outside of me. I must connect with the desire of a friend. If I am able to feel reality in his way, then it will already be completely different in comparison to what I feel within my ego. That is how I will wake up from this dream and rise above myself. At least I will be able to get out of my box, out of my prison.

The general rule,  “Love your friend as yourself” is derived from this. This is the practical means that allows a person to get out of his tiny cocoon, which appears to us as this world through one’s prism of self- interest, to rise above oneself, and find a different view.

However, so that my mind will be truly independent of my desire to receive, I should not only go out to a friend or several friends, but rather it is up to me to connect myself to a multitude of other individual desires to receive. Only through them, each time from another perspective, will I see the true reality.

In the end, all the points of view, the individual perspectives will connect into one collective view, into one expansive observation. This observation will expand indefinitely until I will be completely free from my desire to receive, and through the desires of others I will acquire freedom. My perception of reality will not be not be subject to any conditions and will be absolutely objective.

A wonderful thing is that the true perception is still felt within my desire to receive, but I will have created glasses which correct all of the defects, neutralizes them, and makes it possible for me to see and to feel the higher reality.

So we say that the spiritual work is reflected in the need to “love your neighbor,” “rising to the height of the Creator,” and so forth. For “The Torah is spoken in the human language” (Mishna); that is what we are prepared to understand and feel. Yet in fact, this is talking about a change in the perception of reality.

But we need to carry out simple activities and exercises in order to attain this change in perception: either through our primitive, egoistic desire or through a desire to receive which is directed towards bestowal. In the end, I reach a state where my efforts to change my perception transform into pleasure because I feel that I am already close to freedom.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/13

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Question: I feel that we get the greatest impressions by being in the center of the group. Could it be that a friend will look for different ways to move to the central group? Is the fact that small groups are distant helpful for their advancement?

Answer: We are the first system in the world that is reconstructing itself after undergoing all the previous historical phases of the spiritual development of humanity. It is all happening for the first time. We have no previous experience, so we don’t know what we should do exactly and how to respond to everything that happens.

On the one hand, it could of course be very good if our central group grew stronger. There is no doubt that if it were stronger and bigger, it would reflect on all the other groups all over the world.

On the other hand, however, we must engage in dissemination all over the world now. So we need to support all the groups and develop them all over the world. The fact that they are not stable enough at the moment is beside the point. There are quite a few weak groups, just as there are very strong groups, but we still must continue our development.

I understand the doubts that people who live far away have and their desire to be in the central group and move over here. Personally, I would love to see them all next to me, like a mother who wants all her children to be beside her no matter if they are big or small.

However, even in Israel, people cannot move from other towns to our group because of different circumstances. Besides, they see the advantages in living away from the central group, some independence.

If, however, a person decides to move, and we know that he is a serious student who has been with us for a while, we don’t reject him in any way. He is our friend, and his place is with us.
[119605]
From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/20/13

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In the News (from The Atlantic): “By sending every adult and child $3,000 a year, the government could achieve historic poverty reductions. Think of it as Social Security for all, not just the elderly….

“The upside of giving everybody about $3,000 is that it’s a very easy policy to run and a surefire way to cut poverty in half. But it’s a large program: it would require about $907 billion in 2012, or 5.6 percent of the nation’s GDP. …

“Could we afford it? Sure. For starters, we could raises taxes, first on the rich, who would pay more in new taxes than they would receive in basic income, and then on lower-middle class and poor families, who would come out ahead. There is also plenty of room to cut tax expenditures on homeowners, personal retirement accounts, capital gains exclusions at death, and exclusions on annuity investment returns. This submerged welfare state for the affluent costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year. There is also the matter of the $700 billion military budget, which could take some trimming. …

“The appeal of such a program is immense. You get a check from the government every month no matter how much you make or how much you work. Maybe that will convince a few Americans work isn’t worth it anymore—but the vast majority who will probably continue to work won’t have to worry about losing their check as they move up the income ladder. That security might not just keep people out of poverty. It might let workers demand better wages and working conditions, because they know they always have something to fall back on. In other words, it could level the playing field for the bottom 99 percent.”

My Comment: Thus, we see that the idea of the equal rational provision for the population is being born. There will be less and less work. But it is necessary to occupy people, and with what if not with the method of integral education and upbringing, which will completely heal society.
[119924]

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Question: What does it mean to “see the spiritual world?”

Answer: We cannot see the spiritual world with our regular eyes. The spiritual world is perceived in inner sensations.

And even though in these senses we perceive it as something limitless and infinite, this is not determined by the geometrical measures of our world, but by our properties, our new senses, the inner vision.

And once we acquire these properties, everything becomes simpler and easier. We begin to see the forces that stand behind every action, every object.

Everything is very precise, clear, and specific. We understand that we are all controlled from above and that man only has one free action: to wish to see the spiritual world in order to identify himself with these actions.

He himself does not perform any actions; he only identifies himself with them. But he feels free by doing this because he rises above his egoistic nature, and instead of involuntarily carrying out all the laws as before, he begins to do it at his own will, he feels and sees them. And this is an entirely different case, this gives man a sensation of freedom.

Gradually, he begins to equate himself to the upper force to such extent that he no longer only justifies it, but he demands for it to perform all the actions that essentially are part of its program, even before it was planning on performing them. He is like a child who runs in front of the grown up demanding for him to do something.

And then the complete union of the Creator and the creation takes place.
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From Kab TV’s “Kabbalah for Beginners” 12/01/10

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Question: What is concealed from us? What exactly do we begin to feel during the revelation?

Answer: Nothing else exists except two forces, the Creator/bestowal, and the creature/reception, which bring us into action. Different combinations of these forces form a system, called Malchut; nothing else exists except for it, and we exist in it.

The revelation of this  system, full of Light, gives the feeling of attainment, wisdom, and fulfillment, provides answers to all the questions, and fills all the emptiness.

Besides, the life that one gets to experience in this flow is limitless. You stop being controlled by the body and you stop thinking that you are losing life with every beat of your pulse.

You feel perfection because opposite forces do not just connect, but they also complete one another. This begets joy and pleasure from attainment, which reveals the world from one end to the other to man, the entire nature, and not just the material world.

And then man begins to perceive this world in a different way. Before he used to see suffering, problems, and unhappy relationships between people. And now he sees that people are corrected and treat each other with love.

This transformation happens to man according to his properties: He attains that the world is a copy of this and everything that he sees is a projection of his inner properties. The better corrected they are, the more corrected he sees the world, and now he can justify it.

And then he discovers that this world also pertains to the spiritual, and he understands that all the people are in concealment, while he has attained revelation. It turns out that revelation is when man sees the true picture of this world: Before it seemed to be absolutely real, but now it is perceived as a film projected in the air that depends on the changing of his properties. Man perceives the people around him as inner organs of his soul, and they also change according to his correction. Then he understands that the world is not outside of him, but inside. And everyone begins to see this way.
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From Kab TV’s “Kabbalah for Beginners” 11/29/10

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The Zohar – Introduction, “The Night of the Bride,” Item 140: And all the Zivugim that were made one after another, revealed the ascents, and the separate, consecutive degrees have now gathered into one degree of one great Zivug—Unity, which shines in the world from end to end. Hence, it is written: DAY AFTER DAY SHALL BRING A SHEAF, that is, the intervals between days now become magnificent glory for they have been turned into merits. Thus, everything becomes the Creator’s one glorious day!

The states described here do not come with time but only as a consequence of our corrections. We read that something is about to happen. Nothing will happen unless we evoke it through our efforts. There is always an illusion that higher states will come on their own. Of course, we will reveal everything written here, but this will not come on its own with time. A new state will become revealed from our current state, and we will see how perfect and full of the Light of Infinity it is, just like The Zohar describes. When will this happen? Once we correct our perception and discover that we have been in this state all along but were unable to view it properly.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, The Zohar

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Preparation to the Lesson

Talk on the American Convention

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Beresheet (Genesis),” “He Carved a Carving in the Upper Light.” Item 1

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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According to the purpose of creation, we must ascend to the height of the Creator. However, our egoistic desire is not capable of it. It seemingly wants to grow up, to become great because it’s “something out of nothing.” It has a grain of “something,” meaning the Light that produced it, but by its nature, by its essence, it comes “out of nothing.”

This is the basis of the contradiction inherent in our nature: On the one hand, it aspires to greatness, and on the other hand, it cannot achieve anything. We see this in evolution, from the history of human development. In the desire to receive, it’s impossible to obtain anything in the form of permanent or growing fulfillment. In the end, the only chance for a successful application of egoism is to reveal the evil inherent in it.

Therefore, it’s so important to show one’s own lowliness. If a person acts as a researcher in a laboratory in order to reveal the property of lowliness in the desire to receive, it’s the good, true, and shortest path to reveal the Creator.

Here, we are required to work on self-denial. Within its framework, everyone must elevate the goal in his eyes and in the friend’s eyes and to receive from the group the examples of devotion, friends’ love, love for the Creator. All this is so that eventually he discloses his lowliness. It’s said that only the low will see the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/06/13, Shamati #26

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