The spiritual method is built upon knowledge of the Shevirah (shattering) of the collective desire, of its fall and descent from the altruistic characteristic of reciprocity. From the start, this characteristic was a collective desire, but when the Upper Light entered into it, it was shattered.

But through its positive characteristics of love, connection, and yearning for unity, the Light granted completely opposite, egoistic desires to this desire. It follows that today we are completely contrary and opposed to the Light.

All of the characteristics that we have discovered and continue to discover within us will begin to be revealed in us as worse and worse. This is because when we advance forward, we will already have knowledge, skill, experience, power, unity, and mutual help, and so more and more egoistic and gross desires will be revealed to us.

Everything that is revealed in us is contrary to the power of the unifying Light, to what we need to be. Our best intentions, good impulses, everything that was and everything that is, is discovered to be opposite to our right and corrected state.

In the meantime we cannot say what the corrected state will be because we don’t have the appropriate feelings and the appropriate intelligence.

I cannot feel my corrected state from the uncorrected state because I need to connect myself with others to a particular degree, and then a spiritual intelligence and desire will appear within me, meaning, that my correct state will be revealed both in heart and mind, meaning both in desires and in intentions. I will be able to do something. But now I am not in it yet.

So the problem is this, a person can never correct himself by himself. No matter how much he tries, it is impossible to jump over his head! The only thing that is possible to do is to ask. When we yearn for the next state, our desire, our request to the Creator invites the influence of the Upper Light upon us. The negative energy that we awaken attracts the positive energy of the Light to us. In this way we are corrected.

Everything happens according to clear physical laws. There are no enchantments, magic, or prayers here that are accepted by society. A prayer is a desire that goes out from the heart so that the Higher Power will be revealed with the right intention toward others in connection and love.

When I seem to be asking for the others (for essentially I am an egoist and cannot ask for them, but I want to have a desire like this), then this preliminary request, meaning this negative desire, still invites the Upper Light, the positive energy.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

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Based upon the knowledge of the shattering of the general desire and through the method of its subsequent correction, we construct all of our work in a group, in conventions, in groups of ten, and more. Everything is built on the study of the material, how it was broken up during the Shevira (breaking) and in what manner it is connected under the influence of the power of the Light.

By accepting the guidance and advice of the Kabbalists, which was written in a psychological form that is closest to us, we learn how to behave, in what manner to connect in a group, to support friends, and to attain states in which we promise to support each other in our alliance.

The existence of this alliance, the precise intention found in it, is called Arvut, where each one of us is ready to be a guarantor for a friend.

Specifically through this work, we begin to see that we cannot correct ourselves. Before us is an immense world, but it turns out that it only seems as if it is huge to us because it is fragmented and expanded by our ego, and the moment we begin to put it together, we see that this is one single mass, one unified force.

We begin to understand that the world is not as we describe it to ourselves. Everything that we see around us is a reflection of our inner characteristics. And even though it seems to us that this is completely unrealistic and even imaginary, all people, buildings, the universe, and all there is in the universe is a reflection of my inner characteristics: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

The four levels of my inner characteristics (still, vegetative, animate, and speaking) are four different levels of Aviut (thickness of desire). Desires number one, two, three, and four work within me such that I imagine them in the form of matching images.

However, when a person works not only with the separating force, but also with the connecting and unifying force, he immediately begins to understand that this is truly so, that, essentially, our world is an illusionary universe (with which many physicists are already inclined to agree), and that there are a multitude of universes that interpenetrate each other, and the entirety of creation is only some kind of hologram or matrix. What the wisdom of Kabbalah wrote about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago—what the Adam HaRishon saw more than 5700 years ago—finally, the physicists are talking about today.

So, we need to reach our first level of spirituality as rapidly as possible, and then we will no longer have problems. We will begin to understand how everything is organized. The main thing is that the very first level is truly the most difficult. And after that we will already have skills; there will be an understanding of what is happening.

However, now, from absolute ignorance, we must enter into another reality. So the Kabbalists reduce everything to simple actions. They don’t speak about lofty matters because there is no one to talk to about this. They don’t speak about some kind of clever actions with inner intentions, with internal clarifications, because we don’t feel this yet.

None of us feel that we include all of the worlds within ourselves, that man is like Olam Ein Sof (the world of infinity). When a person attains Olam Ein Sof, he attains everything. In the end, a multi-faceted system of worlds emerges in which all of us and each one of us is the entire system included one within the other.

So, the Kabbalists don’t talk about this because all of this is very confusing and doesn’t provide anything. They simply advise us what to do, and based on this follow all the laws and general rules of behavior in a group that we study in order to gather and put the group together. This is the most important thing.
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From Preparatory Lesson 2 of the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14

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In The Study of the Ten Sefirot it explains from where came the Shevirah (shattering) of the collective desire and its correction—i.e., unification and connection—why they are like this, although in principle these laws are very logical, and in general we understand them with our physical nature. We must try to realize them in our workshops by immersing and being included in each other and agreeing with what a friend says. To agree means to go along with what he says. I sail on his wavelength and think like him. I don’t try to justify or judge his words, no!

I am together with him in his desires and thoughts. He says a sentence and I am within this sentence as if it were mine. This is so important that I try to guess his thought and desire such that if he were to stop, I could continue and come out with exactly what he would say. And so it is with each one of us.

We feel ourselves as completely equal, not higher and not lower than others. For only equals connect with each other and are found in mutual communication. So that is how we direct ourselves.

We try to help each other so much that from the beginning of the workshop to its end I follow myself every moment so that none of my thoughts and none of my desires will contradict the discussion, so they won’t be superfluous or foreign to what we are involved with now. It is necessary to try to be detached from the whole world, as much as possible, to be simmering only among us, to discuss everything that is happening with us and what else we can add to invite the revelation of the Upper Light upon ourselves.

The moment I see that someone is not engaged in the subject, is disconnected, is deviating from the direction—perhaps he has some personal problems—I invest effort to help him to return to our stream. Each one who departs from the common wavelength becomes a disturbance for everyone. This affects both women and men.

Someone who departs from the framework of the workshop in some way and is outside of our desires and thoughts disturbs everyone. But he disturbs himself much more. This is because he is in a unified system and is creating a disturbance within it; he is an organ that is not operating correctly and is inviting upon him a negative influence from the entire system. So we must try to be positive components of the one Kli of the collective soul.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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The wisdom of Kabbalah works only in the realm of physical laws. There is no complexity, mysticism or religion in it. We study the most essential law of creation, which is the discovery of the higher power, the higher energy. It is highest because according to its category, it includes within it, all the rest of the forces.

Just as all of the sciences are engaged in discovering the characteristics of nature, the wisdom of Kabbalah is also involved with discovery, but only of its essential characteristic, which is this universal force.

We study in what manner it is revealed in our world and how the Kabbalists succeeded in discovering it through their yearning to understand that the world is fragmented and must be connected in complete harmony. Through their yearning for the harmony of the world, they began to understand that the power of unification is lacking in our world.

The first person who discovered this force 5774 years ago was Adam who understood that the world exists thanks to the one and only force that links all of the components of creation.

The next great Kabbalist was Abraham. He discovered not just the Higher Power and its revelation, like Adam and the ten generations of students that came after him, but the movement, the evolution of nature. Abraham understood the reason for evolution that necessarily led to Adam discovering the higher power, the revelation of the power within him to transform to become like it, meaning to rise to the highest level of attainment and development.

All of the levels, the still, vegetative, animate, and especially man, which exists within the previous three categories, are directed towards this in order to bring humanity to the necessity of uniting under the influence of two opposing forces.

One of them is the egoistic, negative force that distances people from each other. The second is the positive, altruistic force that can be revealed to help unite everyone.

When these two forces are gradually revealed more and more, a person begins to work. He locks them onto himself, changes, and understands their mutuality. In being found between them, he handles them like two reins by building himself, and he thus he rises higher and higher to the complete realization of the two forces within him.

This is the entire development of man, his evolution. This is specifically what Abraham discovered, and so his method is evolutionary. It was discovered during the crisis that humanity experienced in ancient Babylon.

The next generations of Kabbalists more deeply discovered the spiritual. First of all, the Shevirah (shattering) of one human desire into an immense number of particular desires that exist in each one of us, and the discovery of how to connect them, was discovered.

We still don’t feel this, don’t see the inner desire of each one, in what manner it is possible to use it, in what kind of combination, nor how to see that pattern within which we are connected by completing each other. Each one of us is versatile, and in every aspect of our multi-faceted nature and its features, its tastes, it is necessary to get along with others very accurately.

It turns out that an n-dimensional system was created in which each one completes everyone absolutely and nobody can be outside of this system. And only then, when all of the separated egoistic fragments begin to yearn for each other and to connect, will they begin to search for themselves within this system.

By moving towards each other, with difficulty, they find themselves by using the general higher power. We turn towards it so that it will perform these movements upon us. We want to get closer, but we don’t know how. Under the influence of the higher power, we begin to perceive and understand this. And what is required from us, in sum, is a desire that we can create together in each other by showing an example of how much we want this closeness and unity.

Other than a desire and yearning for unification, we don’t need anything. The higher power carries out the second half of the work, which is why it is called the half-Shekel. This means that I must give the first half, and the Creator gives the second half. From my side, only yearning and desire are required, and that this desire will be right to a particular degree. And it will be right if I will maintain the rules of communicating in the group. Then we will invite the power of unification and it will finish the work, will infect us, and be discovered within us.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: I have tried various ways to work with the ego, and up until now it is very strong within me. How is one to work with flattery, opportunism, hypocrisy?

Answer: We don’t work with the ego. We only work in the positive direction. In this way the negative side gradually changes into the positive. Under no circumstances do we spend time on anything negative and don’t cry that we have many attributes that aren’t good. That should bother us the least!

That is the work of the Light. The Light will come and correct everything. My problem is to attract it to me. But if I sit and cry and beat myself up, then nothing will come from it. We can attract the Light only by starting to raise its attributes in importance, through my friends, through the attribute of unity, by showing everyone that I want it.

Thus, our work is not in learning about my bad attributes, relishing them, wallowing in them, and crying bitterly: “See how bad I am!” That is the worst thing that can be done. By doing that we are blaming the Creator for making us like that. Since everything that happens comes from Him.

On the contrary, when we long for good and begin to understand and become conscious that all the bad is simply embedded and it seems worthwhile to us to rise above it and to long even more for good, then all of that becomes very necessary and important. But this is only when longing for the positive direction!
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: From what state is prayer born? Is it within absolute darkness when I have no enthusiasm and I understand that I cannot connect with the friends, or must there be some enthusiasm about this unity and connection, or must I reach the extremity of the limits of my ability, when I cannot connect with anyone, and from here the intention appears?

Answer: Neither the first, the second, or the third. Prayer is called a desire that is inserted into the system, summoning movement within it. As a result of it, the system is changed and rebuilt, and you rise one level higher. It could be that you don’t feel this, but you get advancement. An operation like this on the system can only exist when you ask for the others.

Question: But I am an egoist. How can I ask for the others?

Answer: You try mechanically, pretending as if you are asking for the friends. Be imbued with this, that they are around you. Even your experiences will be mechanical and false; this is not important. Above a lie like this, which is called “receiving for myself,” Lo Lishma (not for Her name), the Light will come in every case and begin to correct you. Actually, it is no lie; rather it is your true state. But if you, like a little child, try to play at being in the right state, then you will grow properly.
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From the Convention in St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: I was in Sochi for ten days and I saw how the friends worked hard, like bees gathering nectar from the flowers. I want to convey all of this not only to the group of ten but to everyone! However, it seems to me that I cannot do this, it is difficult for me. How do I overcome this fear, what do I do with it?

Answer: This is a good fear; concern for others is very helpful. But. at the same time, it must be together with the right attitude towards the Creator.

We must work together with Him like partners; this is what is missing. This is when we give half and He gives half. We give our desire, our deficiency, and He gives His power of correction to this deficiency. So we must feel that we are together with Him in a single dance, in a single movement, linked with Him all the time.

The wisdom of Kabbalah places you in front of the Creator and it begins to show you in what manner you can bestow to Him, in what manner He bestows to you, because there is nobody else besides the two of us. This is what is missing in our concern, in our anxiety and apprehension, to feel that we are in this together with the Creator. Try to feel that we are working together with Him as a couple.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: For years we have been studying Kabbalah; we understand our path, strive to the property of bestowal. But at the last moment, fear arises about how to combine reception and bestowal, i.e., fear before the property of bestowal. I understand that it should be done not for myself but only for the sake of the Creator. How can we not be afraid of that?

Answer: Who gives you these feelings? Who controls your feelings and your mind? Who is inside you and causes you to have these perceptions? The Creator. So, talk to Him as He tightens the control in you, and sets up your sensual and thinking apparatus for a certain excitement.

For what reason is He doing this? If you begin to connect with His work and begin to explore what He causes in you and for what purpose. you will begin to feel the Creator and yourself as partners.

After all, He produces everything, not in you, but in your so-called desire, which He also created and upon which He is now working, causing certain disturbances within it. According to these disturbances, you have to find the correct answer of what you would like Him to do. Or, you agree that He does anything He desires, but teaches you how to relate to Him correctly. Start looking for the right dialogue with the Creator.

However, if you start doing this and do not take it through the group, it will not be the Creator, but only your psychological, emotional and mental conclusions. The Creator is within the group of ten. This is the problem of all the psychologists and other researchers who cannot understand where He hides.

Question: You said that the desire for the property of bestowal is manifested for a moment, and then we lose it, again feel for a moment, and lose it again. In order to feel our unity, should we wish this all together in one second?

Answer: A short-term collective desire will not help us. We need to accumulate a certain potential for a certain time so that our tension is correct. This is called “the world, the year, the soul” (Olam, Shana, Nefesh). That is, in spite of all the transformation that we are experiencing, if we direct this correctly towards the goal, unite, find the upper point between us, and adhere to it, then we gradually accumulate the required tension and the revelation of the Creator takes place.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: We know that a group of ten friends is a spiritual Partzuf. How can I see ten Sefirot among ten “donkeys?”

Answer: The word “donkey” (Hamor) stems from the Hebrew word “matter” (Homer). Working in a group of ten, you will see that of these ten donkeys (matters), you are the lowest. Malchut and all the other nine Sefirot are higher, pure categories of bestowal. You are the only uncorrected egoist.

You will discover that the matter of all the nine donkeys is actually concentrated in you. This means that you are the greatest donkey with a huge ego and all the others before you are not people but angels, the category of love and bestowal. You will understand that no one in the world needs to be corrected but you, and that all the others are totally connected to the Creator! Only you alone are the uncorrected part of creation. You should look more closely and you will discover it.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: How can we unite more closely around the events that are taking place in Israel? How can we affect and help strengthen the groups in Israel on the one hand, and at the same time, use this situation in order to advance and leap to a new level?

Answer: The point is not just about Israel, but that the Creator wants to raise the created being to a state of adhesion with Him. We have to see everything in a much more global manner and not be confused by what we see in the corporeal world.

There is a created being that includes the different levels of the desire and every desire has to reach complete compatibility with the Upper Light, with the Creator, and with the attribute of bestowal. This is what the Creator is leading us to.

The less egoistic, purest part of creation begins to yearn for the Creator and so it is called Israel, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator). Although in our world, even though this part seems the most egoistic, it isn’t so.

It fact all the nations of the world make up the whole great ego that is divided into billions of tiny pieces and so it isn’t expressed in its full intensity. The ego of Israel is concentrated in a small number of souls. How many people in the world yearn for the Creator? Let’s say a million such people and all the others number seven billion.

This is the reason that people think that we are much more egoistic: we demand to reveal the Creator, the spiritual world. We have to understand that we are one vessel (the vessel of the general soul). We have to yearn to go forward, and not to help Israel. Israel also doesn’t have to help us, but we must come together. The Creator has arranged these conditions for us that we don’t chose. They stem from the incompatibility between the Lights and the vessels, from the oppositeness between them.

The Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) is in a certain level of compatibility between the vessel of the world of Ein Sof at any given moment and they must reach absolute connection. The relationship between them determines everything that happens in the world.

Therefore, we have to accept this as an essential condition and see each of these conditions as the optimal condition that was chosen by the Light and the vessel. It is the law of physics that operates here and not anyone’s desire. It says in the Torah, in the language of the Haggadah, that this what the Creator wanted.

“He gave a law that cannot be broken,” and so we have to see objectively that every state that was given to us stems from the adaptability between the Light and the vessels. Although these states are very painful and unpleasant, all the internal and external states, the general and the private, were all given to us only so that we will connect more tightly among us. This is the only way we can fulfill them correctly.

The right fulfillment of each of these states is only in the connection between us that is aiming at resembling the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of the Light, until the Light is dressed, incorporated, and felt within us. We have to yearn for that at any given moment, despite the difficult conditions that the Creator gives us. Sometimes they are very unpleasant, confusing, humiliating, complicated and disturbing, making it difficult for us to understand what is actually going on.

By the way, this is the best state, which indicates that a person has transcended from one state to another, sometimes it may be very painful and accompanied by physical problems. I saw how my teacher Rabash used to go through them. He actually didn’t understand where he was and what he was doing. I used to take him by the hand and help him sit by the table and serve him a cup of coffee and then another, and then gradually we would begin to speak and come back to himself and turn to Light. But at first, he was simply a body that could hardly move.

We should understand that since each of us includes all of the desires, starting from the still, vegetative, and animate, all the way to the human level. We will gradually go through all of them.

We have to help Israel be together with us in one connection among us. All those who yearn for the Creator are called Israel. We have to remember our descent from Babylon and reach the state that all of modern Babylon called Israel yearns for the Creator. How? We do this by working together.

I hope that the Creator won’t leave us and will not hold back our advancement. The tension in the world will not subside, but will grow. Even if we are bombed, if there are demonstrations against us, or pressure put on us, the main thing is that we continue to yearn for the Creator above all that and bless every situation, since at least in this way we can develop. But we have to try to do it differently.

On the whole, we will later discover that by making one small change in our intention, we can change everything that happens in the corporeal world from bad to good. In one day our enemies and the missiles can turn into something wonderful and that is the absolute opposite! Together we will be able to do that and we will witness all of it!
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From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14, 1^st Meal 

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