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.
[144563]
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.
[144561]
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.
[144609]
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.
[144556]
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!
[141248]
From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14, 1^st Meal 

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Question: How can we get out from the depth of our egoism that hangs around our neck like a weight and develop awe?

Answer: There are many different thoughts. I am here so that all the friends pull me out of my egoism. I am here to help the friends get out of their egoism. I am here to make some good action in the eyes of the Creator or to achieve a state where the Creator influences me through the group.

The question is which one of these thoughts is the most effective?

The answer is very simple. The most effective thought is when you constantly wish for all your friends, at least in the group of ten, not to mention the friends around the world, to attain the spiritual world.

And you are here in order to exert yourself and thus help others. Let it be self-sacrifice because in principle, it is the property of bestowal. You want to realize yourself—to give yourself to others.
[144492]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: What should our intention be when we yearn for revelation in the desire of the friends, that the Creator’s force of love should be revealed? Should it be in a person, above him, or in the friends?

Answer: It depends on what phase of unity and connection with the group a person is in. First it seems that he is separated from the friends. Then it seems that he is inside them. Afterward it seems that they are inside him and he absorbs and perceives their thoughts and desires. This means that there are different variations and transitions here: Who is in whom; who is adhered to whom; who is connected inside whom?

Question: But how should I want the revelation of the Creator inside them, or should I simply adhere to them and that’s all?

Answer: You help them with your desire in every way. You should worry about your friends just as you wish a person who is closest to you success.
[144490]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: What is a consistent order of work with the ego? Suppose that I discover evil within myself. What happens next? How do I work with this?

Answer: The first condition is to relax, for you are not ready to work with your ego. So, don’t think about “taking an axe and hacking the tail off the ego.”

Work with the ego doesn’t begin from trying to annihilate the negative characteristics within us. Instead, we attract positive characteristics to us. So, in general, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t talk about work with the ego. This is the role of the Creator, the Light. Our work is to want the ego to be corrected into an opposite characteristic.

In no manner do we think about the ego. We must yearn for good, for love, for connection and unity, for a connection between us in which each one will stop feeling himself and will feel one homogeneous body (the desire). If we think about this and want this, then the Light will act and influence us according to our yearning for it because this is its characteristic: one, singular, unified, a singular desire, the characteristic of bestowal.

Together with this, I don’t think at all about the ego. I think only about what is positive, and then the Light acts on me and corrects everything necessary in me. I don’t teach it what to correct because, after all, I don’t know that. That is how this works.

Question: Suppose I have discovered that I hate and envy some friend. What must I ask for at this moment?

Answer: Ask for love. Try it, and you will be convinced that there is a difference between asking for correction of evil and the appearance of the characteristic of good. It is not the same thing.

This is because a person is found wherever his thoughts are found. Why should I be within my evil and be stimulated by it, “sucking all around it,” and exploring it? I don’t need this! On the contrary, it is better that I would be connected with the positive future and desirable characteristics that don’t exist in me in the meantime. It is better to think about them, to yearn, to dream, to imagine that I am within them.

Flee from your ego and yearn for bestowal.
[144432]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: Will the world begin to think and feel the same as we do, through external dissemination, or must there be a very deep internal unity for this? In what way will this happen?

Answer: I don’t know. You are asking me about forms that have never been clothed in the substance of our world but for which there is free choice.

Malchut de Ein Sof, through all kinds of emanations: Shevirah (breaking), descent, correction, evolves into five worlds and descends to our world. In the physical world, nature forcefully developed this shattered egoistic desire to exist until our time. But nothing in this process ever happened according to the desire of a person.

The development of the creature is realized in three stages: descent from above to below, direct development, and ascent from below to above. We are now beginning to be engaged in correcting the shattered desires, which is done within the “middle line.” Only the third stage provides free choice in which I will develop myself more rapidly than nature would force me to do it.

Through the development of a yearning for correction through group, through friends, through envy, I push myself forward. The friends help me advance by developing in me a cunning and cruel egoistic feeling that they are satisfied and succeeding, and I am not, and this is what helps me advance.

This means that in our ascent from below to above, there exists the possibility of freedom of action where we don’t just hasten the time of our development, but also change its flow, its character, and the manner in which correction will be realized in a better and more rapid form or by a slow path of suffering. This depends solely on our choice. For this we gather in a group.

So when you ask me what will be, how must one act, in what form  can we embody everything in the future, I don’t know. Not even a prophet knows this. They wrote about future states and described them only in the form in which they will be forced to play out by our brutal nature.

But if we include in ourselves in this development and mollify our way, then it will be completely different. So there is nothing to read what the prophets wrote and sit and think about when their prophecy will be materialized, since it is doubtful that it will be as they predicted. We have already made many appropriate corrections.

In what manner this will truly be realized tomorrow, we still don’t know. But since we are going forward by way of bestowal, how this will happen shouldn’t concern us. We want only the one result from our path: that there will be bestowal to the Creator.

But if I ask about the future, this is a sign that I am an egoist.
[141167]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day One” 7/13/14, Lesson 2

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We have to follow one rule in order to advance through life in a good and wonderful way: There is only one force in nature and this is the force of goodness. We have to discover this force. We don’t call this force the one and the good but rather refer to it as “there is none else besides Him.”

Why do we say that there is “none else besides Him” that manages us instead of “there is one force that manages us?”

Because it seems that there are many factors, good and bad, that operate on us and mange us at any given moment. First it seems that I do something to determine something for myself, as does my environment, the world, world leaders, and nature—everything affects me.

This is actually why it says that “there is none else besides Him.” This means that we should pay attention and focus on one thing only despite what seems to be many factors that cause the condition we are in, including our feelings and thoughts in the corporeal world, and also in everything at home, in the family, in our environment, in society, at work, and in our world view. You suddenly think about history, about what is happening today and then you suddenly want certain pleasures, or you have certain thoughts and someone confuses you; you have to see that behind all these effects that come from the outside and what is invoked in you internally, there is none else besides Him. You must also see that there is only one reason, one source, from which the orders are issued to all the parts of creation that have no freewill and are managed by the same upper force that then affect you.

It can be your friends, your boss, your wife, your children, your health, the political situation, different events in the world, the weather, and your inner feelings. It all stems from the same one force that operates on you through all these factors and effects you.

If you focus your heart and your mind and constantly try to see that only He does it and not a thousand other different sources that influence you—like your wife, your kids, your boss, the weather, your inner feeling and everything that affects you on the outside—and that it is He behind all that and that you constantly want to be locked on Him, and connected to Him; you will gradually begin to feel the system that surrounds you that exists between Him and you. This system is called “the world,” and the upper force surrounds the world.

Then you will begin to feel and to understand Him because it is actually all the different factors in the world and the way they affect you which help you understand why He treats you this way. It is because you have to relate to Him as the good that does good no matter what and above doubt in the ideal way.

If a person tries to see only the one positive force through everything that appears in his mind and heart and everything that happens to him, these interferences actually reveal to him the one upper force, the good that does good. Thus he reaches the revelation of the Creator.

On the whole, this is our work. There is nothing but that. The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about the phases we go through as we reveal this upper force and how we have to organize ourselves so that it will be easier to see Him in every state that is revealed to us and how we can support others and be aware of external support so as not to forget this principle.

I may find myself in a state in which I focus my will and my power on the Creator, but suddenly a stronger influence may come along, which is stronger than my power to be focused on Him, and then I forget that I have to reveal Him, that it comes from Him, that He is only good that does good.

I suddenly begin to relate to all the situations in life as if they are independent and that they come to me by themselves and not according to the general plan that is operated by one upper force and that there is none else besides Him.

On the whole, this is the main principle of our work.
[141028]
From the Convention In Colombia “Day Two” 7/26/14, Lesson 1

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