Question: In the course of people’s interactions some strong emotions may arise. They can be positive as well as negative. How and where should one realize these emotional states should it happen in the group or elsewhere?

Answer: One can realize his or her emotions however one likes as long as they stem from an integral worldview. If they do stem from an integral worldview, then that person can’t afflict harm to another. That person may speak up or shout out something abrasive when he sees a negative action or a result, but he won’t cause harm to another.

Question: If someone has an outburst and says some hurtful things, is it better to reconcile immediately or to give it some time?

Answer: It’s impossible to smooth everything over immediately by saying let’s shake hands and hug. This has to be clarified. It’s quite possible that each one of us has the right to blow up and the rest have the right to get upset. All of this is correct and normal. This happens with our children whom we love so much, but at times their behavior is so unbearable that we just can’t stand it.  We observe this in animals as well, when a mother will thump a baby on the head or give it a box on the ear.

There is nothing to be ashamed of. Within a specific framework outbursts and hard feelings are acceptable. We have to examine these things since we’re still in the process of perfecting the process of upbringing and we haven’t yet reached its final state.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Soceity” 2/26/12 

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A person decides what to consider the day and what the night: what is good for him and what is bad. Sometimes, he is given awakening, raising of the spirit, great light, and he understands how wonderful it is to enjoy and come closer to spirituality. He calls it day, but in reality, it is light in his egoistic desire. Egoism enjoys, and this is not called spiritual advancement.

Or maybe he feels in the dark, exhausted, but his mind understands that this state is useful for advancement. And although in his desire to enjoy he experiences unpleasant sensations, it is said: “I sleep, but my heart is awake.” The desire to enjoy feels darkness, but the point in the heart—Light. A person understands that this darkness is useful for him, descent precedes ascent, and he needs to prepare even greater desires for this. And the desire comes from darkness.

That is why it all depends on what a person values, what he considers the day and what the night—in his sleeping egoistic heart or in the point in the heart, which is burning and yearning for spirituality.

If a person begins to separate one from the other, then he already has two points, according to which he can aim and direct himself exactly to the goal. One point is his ego. And it is good that egoism does not feel anything good. The darker I feel in my egoism, the greater my desire (Aviut) will be above which the point seeking the goal exists.

The main thing is to separate these two points and all the time hold them correctly against each other, finding out with what I identify myself. Do I choose the direction that leads me to the Creator, although my path lies in the dark, do I consider it good? Then, I can be sure that I move correctly because my egoism is not interested in rushing there, like a thief, running ahead of everybody else and shouting: “Catch the thief!”

My ego does not want darkness, and I rise above ego, above reason, and want my bestowal to be above reception. And this is a good state in which my day and the day of the Creator are the same day.

And if I suffer that I feel bad and have no interest in advancing, it means that I follow my desire to enjoy, my ego. I run there where my egoistic heart, but not the point in the heart, calls me: This is the difference.

We need to try to divide ourselves into two parts: the point in the heart, which faithfully adheres to the goal, to bestowal in any situation, no matter what happens, and the heart itself, which is always eager to receive. Its appetite is growing constantly. Darkness reigns in my heart, and there is a ray of Light in the point in the heart; this means that I directed myself correctly. And I achieve this through the environment, group, external force, which is needed to pull the point in the heart out of the egoistic heart and aim it at the goal.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/12

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Question: What does it mean that we can exist in another form: without the body or outside of it?

Answer: There is information, its carrier, and someone who senses this information. And all of them can change. Information (the intellect and so on) can exist not only in a protein, silicon, or other carrier, and not even in the material one, not in the brain.

Information per se is not material. It is only us who perceive it through a material carrier. We are already able to pass on information from a protein, live carrier (the brain) to an inanimate one. All of our evolution has been leading us to gradual changes in the information carrier, the gradual distancing from its initial, natural form: from speech to writing on different carriers, and then to programming and storing information in the virtual space.

Today we are standing at the threshold to another state in which the body will lose its importance, the sensations will transfer to a new dimension (the attribute of bestowal), while we will move the information from the brain-carrier or, to be more precise, the quality of reception, to another carrier: the quality of bestowal.
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Question: When people start to treat everything according to the principle of “There is none else besides Him,” it’s as if they stop functioning in life; they lose jobs, family problems arise, and the material foundation crumbles. Ultimately, this really interferes with their spiritual advancement. We know that there’s also another perspective: “If I am not for myself, then who is for me?” How can I discern “There is none else besides Him,” when I have to find the second perspective within and approach life according to “If I am not for myself, then who is for me?”

Answer: We shouldn’t throw these phrases around since in principle, they also speak about other degrees. Usually these phrases pertain to spiritual development, and not only the corporeal. What can be done in order to correctly aim a person at the goal so that he won’t err on life’s path? It’s difficult. I’ll give you an example of just how difficult it is.

I also quit my job. I had a wonderful clinic with twelve doctors, a large staff, technology, and so on. In those times, you can say that the turnover of this clinic was in the millions. I simply gave it away, gave it away! I didn’t even sell or liquidate it, but gave it away in order to get rid of the management duties, without getting even a cent afterward. I could not continue working. This is why I understand people like that.

The best thing is when you work at a simple job. My teacher Rabash said the same thing. He was always being offered promotions at work; they wanted to make him a team leader and then a department manager. “Under no circumstances! I want to be a simple worker.”  “But this way you can earn five or ten times more!” “I don’t want that.”

Until the very last day of work, until his retirement, he remained a simple clerk. He worked in the income tax offices, filled out forms and papers, understood these mechanics perfectly, and didn’t want to climb higher. He would say that this allowed him to think about his spiritual work while he filled out papers on autopilot. And before that he worked in construction and wherever else as a simple laborer.

In other words, when a person has a creative job, when at work he must bring something into being, then it is difficult for him. But if he does mechanical work that doesn’t require creativity like in a machine shop or a garage, then he can continue working and I don’t see anything shameful in that. He is required to work. A person is required to be married, have children, family, and a job. Through this he exists within the framework of our world, and on that basis can develop further.

The group needs to support him in that and help. But again, he needs to work in order to provide a normal life for his family, and not for the sake of excess. But this he does have to do. How can we help with this? Within the group there needs to be such an atmosphere that obliges you to look after your friends so that they won’t fall and neglect their jobs. And if someone’s husband is having some kind of problems, the wives have to inform the group about it.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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Question: What is the meaning of “to enjoy being connected with others”? How can we explain it?

Answer: It is impossible to explain since we do not sense it in our world. To enjoy being connected with others means to reveal the force that exists between us.

Currently it exists in the egoistic form, in its opposite; now I can enjoy being above others, being better than others, that I look positive in their eyes, have their respect, etc. For this I work all my life. Besides the things required for fulfillment of the animate existence, everything else I do is only for the purpose to look great in the eyes of other people and to have their respect and honor.

If not for this pressing necessity of my egoism, I would buy one pair of pajamas and wear it my whole life since it’s the most comfortable. I would wear slippers all my life and would live my life the way that is most comfortable for me without concern about my neighbors. I wouldn’t care about any extras since I wouldn’t be receiving from any attitudes and values from the outside world about jewelry, hairstyles, cars, etc. I would not have any needs except for the corporeal ones.

If we were able to develop just the spiritual needs, leaving only the requirements for our animalistic, physical needs we would pretty quickly achieve the revelation of the next rung of our development, meaning our next level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of the Integral Society” 2/5/12

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Question: How can a person give up corporeal pleasures if he doesn’t feel any pleasure in the desire to bestow yet?

Answer: We see that humanity is compelled to go through different states. Egoistic development leads people to despair and depression, drugs, alcohol, and suicide.

We live only by virtue of an instinctive, beastly fear of death, given to us to attain the goal. The fear of death is what keeps us and controls us, and if it weren’t for its control, we would have different calculations.

It is intentional that we are enslaved to death so that we’re compelled to go on living in every situation, even the worst. We are ready to give everything for life, although there’s no doubt that life itself isn’t worth it. But we act unconsciously, guided by an instinct instilled in us purposefully so that we advance towards the goal specifically by way of suffering and difficult calculations.

In doing so, we go though states in which there is no justification to go on living. However, the goal of creation forces us to do so. Therefore, the Creator inserted this beastly fear into the desire to receive, which obliges us to struggle for our lives. After all, the notion of  “life” is much higher in our eyes than any suffering.

All this is so that we can survive and through the constant egoistic calculations reach the decision that we shouldn’t wait for death to redeem us from the suffering that we feel in our egoistic desire, but rather switch it for another desire, the desire to bestow. Then bestowal, connection with others, will not seem worse than death and unrealistic.

It’s because we’ve suffered so much in our ego that we can now make the calculation and agree that it’s possible to reach the desire to bestow. It’s the suffering that can help us do that. This is how we advance.

This means that there is a struggle between the different forces within a person. A person himself only has to sum up this struggle, and it is called the life wisdom he acquires at such price.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/2012, Shamati #35

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We don’t realize that we are enslaved by our egoism. It rules over us and tells us what to do. And we don’t even feel that we operate according to its orders because we are connected to it to such an extent that its desire becomes my desire, and we merge into one whole. Then a person does everything his ego wants thinking of it as his life and his own desire.

But that is an example of the opposite state that we must reach by uniting with the Creator, cleaving to him to such an extent that I stop feeling the difference between His desire and my desire. As for now I fulfill all the fancies of my egoism with devotion, which shows me where to turn, when to inhale, to act one way or another.

I feel the same way being united with the Creator by rising above my current desire and fulfilling His desires, without hesitation or any calculations, so I will become corrected. And naturally, I have to go against my desire and personal calculations by investing great efforts to reach such a correction. But in the end, my goal is to reach the same level of unity with the Creator as I have now united with my desire to receive, without feeling any difference between it and myself.

And when I’m able to break free from my egoistic desire, I begin feeling that it is my enemy, that it harms me. Sometimes I love someone, and we are great friends, but then it turns out that he uses me and harms me. It takes time before I’m able to break free from him and certain things about him become revealed to me. Only then am I able to break free from him, to see that there is no other choice but to leave him, and to start hating him.

Thus the whole world starts learning that its ego is its enemy. Every person reveals that to the extent that he works on it. As a result, we begin realizing the need for change because we feel at loss in this race against our egoism. This is a big advancement because a person becomes separated from his nature, from his initial quality that forces him to only take care of himself, and he begins to critically analyze it.

This means that he becomes separated from his evil inclination and starts listening and searching for what he can do next. Thus he finds the Torah, a means for correcting egoism. He needs a force that is able to change his attitude toward his egoistic desire and that gives him the ability to become completely separated, to no longer make any calculations of what is worth getting and when.

This transition is called Lo Lishma. A person is still inside a desire to enjoy, but he has to imagine to himself that working above it would be more beneficial, that he would gain more from that. So he already works above his desire to enjoy, not willing to follow its orders. But the result of these actions and this work is still inside egoism because otherwise a person would not have the fuel for doing it.

At this stage a person goes through various states, starting from working in order to receive pleasure in his desire to enjoy to have energy and fuel to keep on working. But in fact, he wants to be in bestowal. Thus he asks the Reforming Light to give him the power to make calculations on the desire to enjoy not in his egoistic interests, but only out of hopelessness because he is a machine that needs to be fueled.

In fact he would rather remain in the quality of bestowal, but not for the sake of receiving pleasure from it. He realizes that there is no other way, and he has to pay to be given some freedom while he is under the power of the master, the egoistic desire. He works this way until he becomes completely separated.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/12, Shamati #20

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I don’t correct myself, but rather my incorporation in others. There is nothing to correct in me, except for my connection with others.

Who are the “others?” Here we should understand that the “me” I was yesterday is not the “me” I am today. I have to clarify the relationship between me and others according to the different states I am in. Every day a person starts a new leaf and the corrections are always with regards to the mutual connection between the Partzufim.

It says that the love among people is aimed at the love of the Creator. The love of friends is the same vessel, the same attitude in which I express my bestowal upon Him. After all, the Creator is the general law, the general attribute that I discover in the mutual connection among all of us.

There is nothing except for the general vessel. In my attitude to the friends, in my spirit, in my heart, I create the Creator. Until then He actually doesn’t exist.

Question: We are having an exercise in the group: Everyone should think about everyone worrying about everyone else in their thoughts. We remind each other to think about that and add, “with the help of the Creator.” Does this bring us to true love?

Answer: Yes, if you mean that everything can exist only with the help of the Reforming Light, then you really are creating the necessary conditions for fulfillment.

Love has no limits; it spreads until Ein Sof, (Infinity) and onward. Each time we define it differently—when we exit our present desires and intentions. The current exercise is effecitve against forgetfulness: A friend reminds another friend about three conditions: me, him and the upper force, the Reforming Light. In other words, the Reforming Light brings us back to one another. Once the Light resided in the connection among us and now when it “welds” us anew it fulfills the necessary condition of the correction in order to reside among us again. This is called a Mitzva (commandment) in the language of Kabbalah.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What is meant by the term “previous reincarnations”?

Answer: I spoke about the field through which we are connected to each other. Reincarnation means that genetic information gets passed down from one generation to another, but so far we are only uncovering the material part of it. However, it also contains sensory and rational information of the previous generation’s world-view that passes on to the descendants.

This is why even infants of the new generation are a result of the previous one, and they have everything in them that all the previous generations have gone through. Thus, the development of mankind takes place through the chain of generations. And just like we pass down from generation to generation the material achievements of technology, science, and art, we pass down our inner emotional and intellectual development as well.

This can be verified on newborns. We see that today, children have perception corresponding to that of our generation. But if we were able to give birth to a baby that belongs to, say, ten generations before us, we would see just how different he is from a modern newborn in his potential and developmental ability.

This phenomenon can be called reincarnation because a person carries over information from the previous life into this one. And what is a previous life? It’s the life passed down to him from a previous generation.

Suppose a hundred years ago people possessed a certain level of intellect and feeling. They developed within their generation and passed away. Their children now belong to a different level of development. Why? Because one generation passes down to another not only the physical matter formed from the cells of their father and mother, but also a certain inner human message. This progression of the generations is what we call reincarnation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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Question: What does the ability to “feel the world through everyone” mean?

Answer: If I am included in others, if I feel what they feel and think what they think, then obviously, I possess capabilities several times greater than an average person. I am much broader, I am able to include more within myself. After all, our perception of any phenomenon depends on the number of parameters that we’re capable of grasping, on the resolution of our view.

The number of parameters depends on the quantity of opposing things that are included in me. Due to the contrast between them, I distinguish the individual parts and can build out of them, like out of construction blocks, many options. At the same time, I understand what these constructions are composed of and how they differ from one another.

And if the feelings and reason received from others are absorbed by me, I become the owner of different and opposing properties. Then I perceive the world in a more multifaceted way, and relative to the previous planar perception, this seems like an entry into a new dimension.

Psychologically, this is a completely new perception, a new world. Through this I rise above the limitations of the body, associated with the categories of time, movement, and space since I am included into humanity. I acquire its shared feeling, its acting mind—the data that comes to us from nature.

I receive an opportunity to attain the feeling and the mind inherent in nature, which exist within it as my root. All development in this world proceeds from there. In this development I see that I return to that place, to that root of feeling and mind within nature from which the entire chain of creation evolved: the still, vegetative, animate, and me—a human being who reaches the root and thereby completes the circle of development.

I want to emphasize that it is no accident that nature is pushing us to a state of mutual guarantee so that we will literally lose our individual properties. We don’t really lose them but only rise above them because they are corporeal, pertaining to the animate level.

Everything individual within me relates to caring for the body so that it will live through its allotted time in the best way possible. But development consists of us rising above the concern for the body to a common concern. This common concern endows us with completely different properties, not the bodily ones. Thanks to them, I reveal the program and purpose of creation, the intention of nature in which not a single element develops by chance—everything advances according to a program. And I can attain and understand this program.

And as soon as I direct myself towards an integral vision, connecting with other people, I immediately begin to grasp this integral vision, exchange my “glasses” for round, integral ones. I see the entirety of nature and don’t just receive from it a narrow channel relative to my own body, of whatever carries benefit or harm for me: food, sleep, entertainment, and so on. No, I don’t live by this! I live on a level independent of my body and already look at nature that is above bodies. It’s as if I am no longer inside a body: I judge, check, and control from the universal human mind and feeling. This stage fundamentally differs from the current one.

Right now I am merely an advanced animal, within certain boundaries, and it’s unclear if this advancement is in a good or a bad direction. But due to inclusion into the global mind, I achieve a new dimension. I qualitatively change my perception of the world in which I find myself. It becomes genuine since I no longer view it through a narrow egoistic slit, pulling to me whatever is beneficial and brushing away the harmful; rather, I literally come out through it and live in the world. And there, perception is completely different, not through an egoistic sieve through which I see only whatever is useful or harmful to me, but independently of myself altogether. This is what the new dimension inherent in man is.

And then I really reveal the mind and the feeling that exist there, within the bright state outside of my body, behind the wall with a narrow slit through which I peek. I understand the entire process and purpose of creation.

Our research shows that this is truly so, that this is something elusive and imperceptible to us. But we are already starting to realize that evidently, this level does exist. It can be compared to dark matter: It exists, but we don’t perceive it, even though it comprises 90% of all matter in the Universe.

Similarly, we cannot yet reveal the common feeling and mind that exist in the Universe. However, scientists who study the cosmos talk about the presence of a powerful feeling and mind there, like sounds that we cannot pick up on, hearing only some kind of noise. We cannot reveal these phenomena because they belong to a dimension above us.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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