One of the lectures planned for the St. Petersburg convention is called “the cycle of the ego in nature.” Is there anything else in nature but that?

Everyone should draw his whole ego out and tell us how much he loves to deal with it, like a dung beetle. We should not cry or beat our chest, but normally and seriously feel what the Creator said: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.”

We have to bring out everything there is in us and compose a song about how ugly we are inside and how much we love our ugliness. Our greed, the inner lie, and our inability to see the truth, our inability to love and to bestow should be expressed in this song.

We have to feel it so well that we will really be disgusted by ourselves, but the most important thing in the revelation of our terrible primary attributes is that they don’t allow us to unite.

Question: We always try to end the day positively. But in this case is it better if everyone went to sleep in the shattered state, under the impression of the revealed ego?

Answer: No, I thing the revelation of our rotten internality should delight us. After all, we finally understand what our illness is, like a person who discovers the reason of his ill state. The next day he will come and get the medicine, but he will know the exact reason, and he will be glad about that.
[142771]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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We make a covenant at the convention because without the covenant we cannot reach the common desire by which we reveal the Creator. It isn’t anyone’s caprice but an essential condition that is necessary for the spiritual work.

According to the law of equivalence of form, a vessel (Kli) that discovers a certain attribute must resemble that attribute in our world too. Take physics, chemistry, physiology, or anything you like for example, it is the same on all levels.

Thus we should attain the attribute of resembling and becoming equal to the Creator, and it is attained in the connection between us when we ascend above the ego. This is what we should aspire to. Such acceptance of the way, the intention, and the attainment of this state is called a covenant. Although we have not attained it yet, we commit ourselves to that.

We can tell people about that in advance. We are not hiding anything, and this is the reason we are holding the convention that has to bring us all to maximum connection and unity and even, hopefully, to the first level of resembling and being equal to the Creator, which means to His revelation.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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We are setting a simple standard for the upcoming convention in St. Petersburg: Those who come here and who will participate in the convention have to dedicate themselves to the covenant between us, so that the Creator and the general correction will be revealed in them. This is not subject to debate.

We tell ourselves that we are in an ideal state and that the distortion of the harmony is inside of us. Everyone must find the deficiency inside him that conceals the spiritual revelation from him and from everyone else. So the main thing is to delve into myself in self-scrutiny.

All the answers are inside me since I am surrounded by wholeness and the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). So this self-scrutiny and looking deep inside ourselves comes down to a prayer to the Creator and in increasing our sensitivity to Him.

This means that we should understand that even now we are in an absolutely ideal state and that all the problems are inside of us, in our uncorrected senses. We need each other’s help and together we can reach the state in which we feel the real ideal world. This is our mission in the convention and our mission in life.

Every day will start with a friends’ meeting in which the friends from Sochi bring everyone to an emotional state. The preparation is rather long and serious, and it increases our feelings and the inner tension. As a result, each one composes his personal prayer, which is poured from him and is expressed on paper.

Then there is the first lecture about what the Creator demands of me. In the sources, it says that the Creator demands fear. We have to unite and to connect in order to gather, establish, and create the right form of tremble.

Why is that the precondition with which we enter the next state? Fear is the feeling of necessity, the feeling of having no choice, the feeling of something that is approaching, of something that is not understood. It has to be established in the form of a special necessity. It isn’t fear but an inner tremble because I have to reach the love of the created beings and through them the love of the Creator, but I cannot attain that by myself.

The final outcome at the end of the day should be a serious prayer that is attained by the broken hearts, extracting every drop of blood from the heart, everything there is in it. The day ends with a general prayer to the Creator.
[142766]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 4

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From the book: The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

Why Four?

It is very likely that unification is not just an action but something more.

To illustrate this, let’s consider a concept such as “states of aggregation.” Something that is just next to us! One and the same substance may vary in appearance beyond recognition. Behind the formula H₂O there may be hidden ordinary water, a piece of ice, clouds, and even flames.

The aggregate state of matter is the state of the same substance in different ranges of temperatures and pressures. Traditionally, the aggregate states are considered gaseous, liquid and solid.

“As temperature increases, gas becomes ionized – turns into plasma, which is sometimes called the fourth aggregate state.” (Academic Dictionary)

This suggests an interesting conclusion. Things that are absolutely different in appearance may ultimately turn out to be the same thing. This topic is very promising, and we may return to it. And now let’s talk about a strange coincidence.

The fact is that the four aggregate states quantitatively match the other four, the four levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate and human.

Why do we pay attention to this similarity? Why did you decide to compare these four and not others? Because both of these groups are actually classified on the scale of the universe and this is serious.

There is a clear similarity between the fours.

Every single element in them appears in a strict sequence, one after another. For example, when steam is cooled, it turns into water first, then into ice. This order does not change.

In the second group, the principle of sequence appears in the following way.

The still nature appeared first, then the vegetative, and only after that, the animate, followed by the human.

In addition to similarities, there is a fundamental difference between the fours. In the first four, the processes of transition are reversible. For example, water may become ice, and ice can turn into water again.

In the second one (at least in its “live” part), this is not observed. A rabbit cannot turn into a cabbage, and a human being cannot become a rabbit, though a rabbit appeared after the cabbage, and a human being after the rabbit.

By the way, this process is called evolution.

“Evolution is an irreversible and to some extent, directed historical development of living nature that is accompanied by changes in the genetic structure of populations, and the formation of adaptations, the formations and extinction of species, transformation of ecosystems, major ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole.” (Academic Dictionary)

Plenty of questions arise with respect to evolution. For example, if it continues, then is it not over? If it is not over, do we expect something new? Maybe the four levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate and human, in the long run will become as one, what academician Vladimir Vernadsky called the noosphere?
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Writings of Rabash, Letter 16

Shamati #23″ “You that Love the Lord, Hate Evil”

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “The Third Commandment,” Item 206

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Come Unto Pharaoh-2”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings”

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Parashat Hashavua (after the death) tells us what happens after the death of the sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu. They committed a great sin, were therefore doomed, and the earth swallowed them.

We understand that the Torah speaks only about a person’s internal attributes that require correction. Among them there are attributes that are cut and eaten afterward, and also attributes and desires that are burnt, drowned, buried, or strangled.

In other words, there are a thousand ways to fight a person’s egoistic desires that are seemingly expressed in such external actions that are really scary. But in fact, these are all internal actions that are expressed that way in matter.

Like Aaron, his sons are our highest internal attributes, and what is more Aaron’s sons are greater than Aaron since a son is the next higher level. For example, we constantly see Rabbi Elazar who is Rabbi Shimon’s son next to Rabbi Shimon who wrote The Book of Zohar.

So if the attribute of Rabbi Shimon refers to a person’s correction, the attribute of Elazar, being a higher level, refers to the correction of the whole world.

Aaron is the highest level of love and bestowal and this is the reason he is called a priest. Two branches stem from him, his two sons, Nadav and Avihu. The two branches that connect in a person believe that they can raise special incense, which means to perform a correction and to ascend to the highest level with their fire. But this is impossible until the end of correction. Therefore, the attribute of Nadav and Avihu in a person have to be put to death for the time being, concealed, and not be allowed to be used.

To enter with their fire means that a person can operate on the attribute of bestowal by himself, which means to receive in order to bestow and to mutually cooperate with the Light of Hochma. He can also reflect Light himself, but this is impossible before entering the land of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/6/14

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Question: In Sochi we attained such a connection and unification that you are calling all the participants in the activity the “Sochi Group.” Is it possible in the upcoming Saint Petersburg congress that all will become one homogeneous group of Saint Petersburg?

Answer: Even without Sochi, what I have seen throughout this month in South and North America amazes me: The friends have made a breakthrough and moved ahead. I have never participated in such unique conventions as in Mexico and New York.

Suddenly I saw people who could tear themselves away from their daily lives, their families, and the external world and break through together into a common denominator. Moreover, this was in America, a nation where people are afraid to get close to each other and they protect themselves with fierce dedication. Then suddenly, something like this was revealed.

There were more than a hundred students there from the Education Center that until the convention had not participated in anything. They sat hugging each other, sang in a bar in the evening until two in the morning. People suddenly “disconnected” from their American mentality.

And with the full enthusiasm of the participants, the convention began with an ascent, and also ended with this enthusiasm. Never before had the Americans experienced this. They always traveled home quietly a few hours before the end of the convention, but there was never something like that there!

When I was leaving, everyone stood, cried, and watched the convention end. For America this was something indescribable. I am very familiar with this continent. Moreover, these were not Russians and not Jews, but really Americans! So we have a starting point for truly making our united Kli.

After what we have done in Russia, if we make the same breakthrough as the Americans, then there is simply an infinite state ahead for us.
[142713]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 3

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Question: What does the work on the principle love thy neighbor as thyself come down to?

Answer: There are many steps and many stages on the way to this state. This is the whole system of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

At first a person simply yearns for a connection with others. There are different special exercises like sitting together, having meals together, discussions, consultations, and talks about getting closer, which for the time being can just be theoretical. For the time being there is little practical work here, since on the first levels, people still barely feel the movements, the attraction, and the need for connection and unity with others.

Comment: This means that they should at least sit next to one another for a start.

Answer: Yes, this is how the connection begins, from external to internal.

Later they study different sources that speak about that, about how the world is in a state of absolute connection and that all the elements of the still, vegetative, and animate levels are mutually connected, mutually complement each other, and to what extent the system that manages our world is totally integral, and that above it, there is the whole system of creation.

We should just live in this system as we do now. Forces and the realization that are opposite this system are intentionally awakened in us so that by this oppositeness, from the dark, we will discover the Light.

Now we are small passive elements managed from Above and we are also part of this immense analog, global integral system, totally connected and simply perfect. But we don’t feel it. We were given such options, such conditions, on purpose, so that we will feel wholeness only if we can reach that by ourselves and to the extent that we agree with it and understand that we need it. This is a person’s gradual internal correction and what Abraham taught his students.

Then they began to see the states they were in compared to the states they should reach. First they simply discussed it verbally without any basis, repeating the words of their teacher like small children who repeat every word the grownups say without even understanding what it is about. Then they began to feel it, out of their yearning for one another and out of cooperation and unity that affected all of them. That is, even their mechanical actions affected their inner states and led to internal changes.

They began to change their attitude towards one another. They went through times of descents and times of ascents, all stemming from one source: each time they felt they were incompatible with any format, they had to yearn to attain it.

In order to attain that, there was a need for constant alternating descents and ascents in order to constantly raise the oppositeness by penetrating more and more deeply into perfection that can only be attained through the opposite state.

This is how they advanced. Moreover, their movement forward to greater and greater closeness symbolized the detachment from Babylon, from the inner state of total dispersion and the movement towards the land of Israel, which meant moving to the state of connection. This is what Abraham led them to.

Here I must say that the wisdom of Kabbalah is perfectly logical because it coincides with our corporeal perspective things, with the principle “matter as a reality is given to us in sensation.”

Abraham’s students advanced in a natural way and in an internal way from the state of Babylon to the state of the land of Israel, and accordingly they also advanced externally from Babylon to the land of Israel. They felt that they needed to advance.

How does a person get such feelings?

I am sitting here and I suddenly feel like going somewhere and doing something, like calling someone and talking. I have certain thoughts and desires, but where do they come from? They also come from inside, but I simply don’t know it and I can’t follow this mechanism. And so it seems that it operates randomly and coincidentally.

Now it is about desires that are not on a physiological level but on a spiritual level. When I change some spiritual attributes inside me it also affects my physical attributes.

Thus, when they began to change internally and get closer, the people who followed Abraham began to feel the need to leave Babylon and they also drew away from Babel externally.

They began to move forward and gradually move their tents, awnings, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys and thus they advanced towards the land of Israel. It was not such a great transition from Babylon to the land of Israel, which they fulfilled internally and externally.

Question: So the land of Israel, as it were “reassured” them and they changed from nomads into farmers?

Answer: They were not farmers. Wheat was grown in Babylon, but the people who followed Abraham along the historical path for nearly a thousand years after Babylon were shepherds. Only after settling in the land of Israel, after the exodus from Egypt, did they settle down and in addition to being shepherds began to engage in agriculture as well.

Then after the exodus from Egypt, on the same principle, they felt internally that here was the place for the Temple.
[142631]
From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 8/27/14

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From the book: The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein:

The Postulates Of The Theory of Integrality

We exist in a closed sphere called the “Universe.”

Nature “strives” to a perfect state.

Any force or phenomenon has antagonists.

Nature “forces” us to realize who we are, in what world we are, to what state we are heading.

We don’t know 99.9% of the laws of nature.
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