We have no other way to turn to the upper force that depicts all of creation, all of reality to us, except for speaking to Him through the center of the group. I cannot turn to Him by myself and my appeal doesn’t reach Him. We see that people have been crying out to the Creator for ages, praying to Him, but no matter what they request, it leads to nothing; there is no answer and no response.

The Creator doesn’t answer since we don’t speak to Him correctly. The Creator is a fixed rigid system, the unchanging law of nature. It is like the laws of this world. Everyone understands that we can cry and complain if we fall from the tenth floor, but these tears won’t help since a person will still fall down and crash.

The same thing happens with the Creator. We try to attribute human frailties to Him, hoping that He will forgive us, have mercy on us, show His generosity, just like a person who wants to seem nice and polite, but this cannot be! The Creator is the general law of nature and nature knows no mercy.

If we don’t know how to relate to nature, to the Creator, nothing will help us; this is the way it has been so far. Kabbalah, however, teaches us exactly how we should act. Then we can know how to manage in the framework of these laws and how to use them.

So you shouldn’t feel sorry for yourselves and for the friends, but rather should understand that we intend to keep the general law and use it correctly. But in order to do that, we have to adapt ourselves to this law first. No matter if we want to or not, we will still be bent so that we will want to.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 2

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Question: How does one keep the unity in a group if we are far from each other, scattered all over the country?

Answer: Now, we are in a transition period, in a stage of building our system, and we still don’t know how to organize it correctly. No historical parallels exist for this; along with you, we are the first, the pioneers.

Each time some new possibility is discovered, we grasp it and realize it. But nobody knows what will happen tomorrow because we depend upon tens of thousands of our friends, each of whom has free choice.

While we are all linked with each other, each one has free choice, and in this manner, we become such a complicated and complex system that it is impossible to predict how it will behave tomorrow.

I know how to advance correctly, which principles must be maintained, and also I hope to understand what must be done in every moment that comes. But all the stages through which we pass are completely new, and I myself have not gone through them. I have gone through stages on my own personal spiritual path, but not through the path of an integral group, or of humanity, or a mini-humanity, this being our group.

So I don’t know how to build a group like this where all of its members are scattered over a large area, as in France, for example. It is necessary to try to do this according to the current existing technology. Once a month or once every two months it is worthwhile to gather in some single place, and all the rest of the time to be in contact with each other.

It is necessary to work together on some single project that will connect us and build our relationship. Certainly there is a difference if we are in a physical connection or not. It is not by chance that we are living in this world of physical bodies. Connection between bodies is the foundation for the birth of a new life. So when we gather together in conventions, a connection is created between us that is used as the foundation for spiritual development.

But after the gathering, each one can organize part of our general work for himself in the place he is in and move forward. We need to build a group and advance just like that. I am sure that with time additional opportunities will be revealed to us. If we overcome physical distance, then we will benefit very much and will immediately begin to feel a spiritual connection between us. It is necessary to relate to this only with complete seriousness.

In the meantime, I cannot say more than this. I will be happy to pass through all the stages of this way with you, but no person in the world has yet had experience with this. Even if Rabbi Shimon, the author of the Book of Zohar, or Baal HaSulam were in my place, they also would not know this. What has not been revealed practically on the lower level, no one can know, since this depends upon people’s free choice.
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From the “One For All And All For One,” Convention in France, Day One 5/09/14, Lesson 1

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Question: How can we increase the importance of duties so that friends in the group will understand that it is part of the spiritual work?

Answer: A person understands the importance of the group and the rigid frameworks he is in according to his spiritual level.

These frameworks determine whether he will follow the path of suffering, together with the whole world, or the short and comfortable path. If I understand that this gives me a unique opportunity that can disappear at any moment, then I need to make the best of every moment I have this opportunity.

It is like a person who is under the water and finally manages to rise to the surface and breathe. I also have to seize every opportunity, make haste, and participate in building a framework for myself. Thus I create the living conditions inside the aquarium or the hothouse where I can grow.

So a duty is purely working on my connection with the group. We already know that our advancement depends only on our connection with the group. This means that we have nothing to worry about but our connection with the group that is closely available.

Then we discover the mutual guarantee, the Creator, the prayer, the MAN, in the center of the group. But first we have to establish the framework of the group. The framework of the group is first of all participating in the duties and the different activities that support the group.

So whoever thinks lightly of the duties simply loses. The group will exist without him, but he will not be able to exist without it. If he wants to discover spirituality, then he has no choice but to make haste, to incorporate in the group, and participate in everything possible in order to advance it towards unity.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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We should try to explain to people the option of correcting themselves in a good way, since otherwise they will realize the need for change by tremendous suffering. The prophets already spoke about the terrible things that might happen to humanity if we continue to advance by the force of pressure.

A prophet sees the natural evolution of all the levels without man’s participation. But people can sweeten their predictions and limit them so that things will look totally different.

A prophet sees and accurately describes the laws of nature. A law is always the adaptation of two opposing forces on every level. This is all that exists in nature: a plus, a minus, and some adaptation between them.

The adaptation is different on every level and may be chemical, physical, biological, psychological, etc. But, there are always two opposite forces between them and any formula: from Newton or Einstein, or any chemical interaction, it doesn’t matter. It is all the same; everything is only about the interaction between opposites.

How can we show people that we are advancing towards such opposites, which have to be corrected in advance, and if we do not correct them, we should at least neutralize them?

Our correction is in two phases. First we have to remove the mutual hatred, which means to isolate the two opposite forces so that they will not be able to get close to one another. Second, we have to use the two forces correctly so they will actually spin the engine that generates positive energy.

At the same time, the first part removes the negative energy of the wrong connection between us, which is called “don’t do unto your friend what is hateful to you.” Then we become neutral.

In the second phase, we use two opposite forces, such as love and hate, by connecting the two Divine forces, placing a helpful mechanism (load) between them. This helpful load is our connection, our unity.

In other words, by connecting we actually become the load ourselves, and then the forces begin to illuminate inside us, generating the Light like a light bulb. This is the state of the future upper world.

Everything is very simple. Imagine people with opposite attributes flying towards each other about to crash, an explosion, murder, or war is about to happen. But at the same moment, a slowdown begins according to the law of “don’t do unto your friend what is hateful to you.” When the velocity diminishes, they begin to connect according to the law of “love thy friend as thyself.” Eventually instead of collisions and wars, there is suddenly love, affection, friendship, justice, and agreement.

That’s the reason that humanity’s expectation, the yearning for the right connection, is between two opposite characters called the Tabernacle.

The greatness of our forefathers is in the fact that they discovered these laws and passed them on to us with infinite care for all of humanity, so that we will be able to use them and advance along the good path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/06/13

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Preparation for the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Igrot,” Letter 17

Workshop

“The Book of Zohar” — Selected Excerpts

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 42

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Giving of the Torah,” Item 4

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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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In the News (from Psychology Today): “A new study has confirmed that humankind’s capacity for love and friendship sets us apart from all other species. Researchers at University of Virginia have found that humans are hardwired to empathize with those close to them at a neural level.

“Interestingly, the ability to put yourselves in another person’s shoes depends drastically on whether the person is a stranger or someone you know. … Humans have evolved to have our self-identity become woven into a neural tapestry with our loved ones.”

My Comment: We are actually connected by much closer ties, so much that our thoughts, feelings, actions, all of us and in everything, we are one body—and only our egoism falsely shows us division into parts.
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On May 1-3, about 60 kilometers from Tallinn, in a wonderful place called Yaneda, a convention about the method of integral education and information, the wisdom of connection, was held that gathered 120 people from 12 nations. 

[Show slideshow]

Russians were unusually in the minority, which is unusual for them; mainly groups from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, and Finland gathered, and representatives also arrived from Norway, Germany, England, and even Italy. The participants all had different experiences of the method of integral education, in different languages, with different temperaments and needs, but all were of the same opinion: The three days went by like three hours in which everyone lived three lives.
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Question: We see the changing seasons, day and night, and the changes in life in nature. Is this an objective understanding of time or a totally subjective feeling?

Answer: There is no objective understanding of any kind. If I perceive something as a spectator, it cannot be objective in any way. Even if someone tells me what he sees, but I am the one who hears what he says, I perceive and feel it in my own way.

There cannot be any form of objectivity. If a person perceives only his own feelings and knows nothing of what is going on other than that, there cannot be any form of objectivity.

This is especially true when it comes to the perception of time, place, and motion, which exist inside a person. A spectator with different senses would feel a totally different world. We know that our senses perceive only a small part of reality.

However, we perceive something that cannot be perceived despite our subjective, individual reality. There is actually a certain range that we don’t perceive even in our subjective perception, but we understand that we cannot perceive it.

We have no idea what else can exist except for that. It is because we cannot rise above our mind and know something that we have never felt. We can feel it only if we change our senses.

But even if we have new senses, who can guarantee that we will perceive an objective picture? After all, it is also depicted only in our feelings.

An objective perception of reality can only be attained when we exit our senses. We don’t need to change them, but simply to rise above them to something that is absolute. In order to do that, we need a special science and this opportunity comes only from the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/17/14

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Historically, the wisdom of Kabbalah begins in ancient Babel where all of humanity encountered a new state. Before that, people lived a simple life which everyone understood. Everyone wanted to succeed and they somehow got along with one another. Suddenly, however, they felt how much they hated one another and could not get along.

Conflicts broke out and their pride grew so much that allegorically this period is described as a time when people wanted to build a tower to reach the heavens. It was a very dangerous situation, a real civil war, an internal war.

Many people tried to resolve this sate and many wise men at the time realized the reason for the crisis. The reason was that all of humanity was in one place and people were tightly connected to one another; the integral system was revealed among them, but their relationships were not good.

They had two choices: either to improve the connections between them, which means to correct themselves, or to draw away from one another and break the connections. If a connection is bad and cannot be corrected, then they have to separate.

Thus, two schools were formed: At the head of one was Abraham who said that human nature must be corrected and people should connect by love, understanding, brotherhood, and closeness. At the head of the second school was Nimrod who spoke about drawing away from one another, like a couple that is getting divorced today since they cannot get along.

Humanity followed Nimrod, decided to separate, and dispersed all over the world. This state continued until the end of the 20^th century when the same state people felt in ancient Babel is recurring. Once again we find ourselves connected, not in one small place but all over the globe.

Now we cannot resolve the conflict by using Nimrod’s method of drawing further away from one another. There is nowhere we can draw away to because the integral connection is fully revealed among everyone. There is no choice now but to follow Abraham’s method, which means to correct the relations between us by correcting man’s nature.

This is the state we are in today. This is why Abraham’s method, called the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed today, which explains how to correct our nature so that the connections between us will be good.
[134614]
From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day One 5/9/14, Lesson 1

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