Question: Why does it always seem to me that there is still time and that it is possible to wait until tomorrow? Why don’t I dive into the study and dissemination, but find new excuses with which I deceive myself and others?

Answer: This is because you need to correct yourself, specifically thanks to these “whys.” The Creator gives us such questions and exercises like we give a little child in school. We must understand that they are required for our development, and we must try to respond to them correctly.

Generally, at the end of every exercise book, there are answers for the questions. However, for us, every question is given one general answer that includes within it an endless number of terms: “There is none else beside Him.”

In a group, there must be a sensation that we always are in a cloud managed by the Creator, and we must live in one basket mutually within this cloud, moving toward full awareness and management, and, simultaneously, nullify not ourselves, but our ego.

This means that I must manage, influence, understand, and work, but not within my ego, but rather within a state that I now must acquire, own, and master. This is an absolutely new state, and I must enter it.

A cloud into which it is necessary to dissolve my ego and in which I must begin to feel myself as active, as understanding, must envelop all of us. This is called “work in a group.”

This shared feeling must hold us within it, and we need to nurture, develop, and take care of it. This, at least partially, amounts to support by the friends. The group exists on this platform.
[141355]
From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14, Meal

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Question: How can we understand, know, and feel the effort that we must make in order to connect?

Answer: We see what is happening in the world, and to some extent, we begin to feel that everything leads us forward and that there is one force leading us to one, unique goal.

How can we make an effort in order to ascend above all the strange thoughts that confuse us? We must understand that it all comes to us on purpose from the Creator. On one hand, He draws us to Him, and, on the other hand, He confuses us and keeps us away from Him so that we will be able to develop the right attitude towards Him and towards our nature so that we will connect to Him.

It is actually by our opposite nature from the Creator and by the confusion and lowliness of our level that we can clarify, discover, and reach adhesion with Him.

It isn’t easy, but we must clarify this process because this is how we grow. At the same time, we must be ready for even greater external problems that the Creator will present to us as we advance so that it will be increasingly more difficult to clarify our inner problems. As it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater.”

The Creator created such inner conditions for us in which we fall into our ego because of the most trivial things that a beginner wouldn’t fall into, but a great person does fall into them since, for him, it is a great problem.

For example, it makes no great difference if a manual worker who works with a heavy hammer digresses one millimeter in the wrong direction, but, for a brain surgeon, any slight digression may cost the patient’s life. Therefore, if we don’t go through the descents ourselves, we will not know all the subtleties since it is only by our progress that we become aware of them.

The Creator wants us to get close to Him, so we need support. We mustn’t forget that our progress is not in studying the material more deeply, but in the internal connection between us. If the connection between us is right, we will feel the filling of the inner force called Light, or the Creator, the Bore inside us, which means come and see. How do we do that?

I see that it is different on every continent. Israel is characterized by special problems, and, here, the Creator leads us in a cruel and serious manner, but, still, the Bnei Baruch group lacks the power to connect. If we speak about Israelis in general, they still think that missiles falling on their heads is normal and that it will all go away.

Along with the afflictions, people become numb and don’t understand what is going on. This is like a child who is beaten and becomes increasingly more stubborn as a result. The more he is beaten, the more stubborn he becomes, and nothing can be done.

Therefore, working with Israelis is not at all easy. Thousands of people go out to disseminate every evening, organizing discussion circles, giving out brochures, and doing their best to influence the public. These are the conditions that the Creator has arranged for us.

In South America, the groups are very successful, sensitive, and knowledgeable. There are groups who find it hard to go out to disseminate, but they get along well with one another. There are groups, on the contrary, that go out and disseminate our materials. I was in Columbia, Chile, and Mexico, and every group is unique. I believe that the goal should be that all of South America should connect because of their common language.The Creator has given them a very serious condition, and they must ascend above the different regions and not play the game of separation anymore, “We are here and you are there,” but rather establish one serious Latin American department, which means to direct all their efforts to establishing one whole.

The Mexico group had a very powerful convention of connection and understanding. People already have grown and they are well trained and organized. The problem is that spirituality is above the ego, and only if we connect above the ego, restrict it and build a Masach (screen) will we be able to feel the upper world, the feeling of the soul.

This is very serious work. During my trip, I was convinced that the preparation period is totally over. There are no people in Israel, Canada, and South America who know more or less than others, or people who don’t know the material as others do. We really have reached a certain common basis, and now we must work only on our connection, which is the most important thing. The preparation period is over. Now, we must work.

In Israel, the work on our connection is in a worse state since it must go through all 125 levels until we reach complete connection.

The question is how we can actually do that. I believe that we will not be able to control this from inside the Bnei Baruch Center since, despite the mentality that has very little effect on the fulfillment in spirituality and all the practical recommendations which are identical for everyone, the conditions do matter, and we must work together in any case. It is because it is the same rule for everyone, and the way you fulfill it is up to you.
[141262]
From Meal 1 of the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14

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Question: The Creator gives us a choice and says: “Choose what’s best, choose life.” What is our choice?

Answer: We have to understand what is best for us. There are only two options we can choose from: either for myself or for the sake of others through the Creator.

“Choose life!” Life refers to spiritual life and to the existence in the attribute of bestowal.

This is what we are advancing to through a lengthy search, coming across small lowly matters until we go through all our ego to its very bottom, until we reach the lowest, most contemptible states, until we are actually immersed in self-mire and do not cease to be ashamed of it. It is because the Creator doesn’t lead us to justify ourselves but that we will justify Him by recognizing the opposite attribute that He has, the soul.

Choosing life means that in contrast to all the attributes, phenomena, and negative events, we will be able to recognize the Creator’s oneness and wholeness, His uniqueness, and will be connected to Him both on the good side and on the evil side by understanding that everything stems only from Him.

This means that the adhesion to Him is above pain or pleasure and we should feel that it makes no difference at all if we get joy from Him or not. The main thing is that it stems from Him. Our goal is to ascend above the ego in adhesion with the Creator.

We mustn’t fear that. The group has to support each other by understanding every friend, no matter what happens to him, no matter what ascents or descents he has, no matter what happens with each of us. All this is necessary only so that we will exit our ordinary egoistic corporeal system of events and value not the person but the Creator’s actions that are displayed by the friend.

Although not everyone fully understands this yet, we are already close to a state that we can go through this. Our getting closer is possible because now the gathering of our mutual feelings and mutual understandings are taking place in us since the Creator is doing that with us. Thus, we can begin to feel everyone as one single huge whole, the soul , which actually reconstructs and fulfills itself this way.
[141314]
From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14, Meal 1

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Question: If I correct my perception of reality, where do the changes happen? Is it in me personally or in the entire surrounding world?

Answer: All of the changes happen only within a person. You never see anything outside of yourself. There is a screen in your head upon which this whole world is portrayed.

If you want to see the true reality instead of this, it is necessary to attain love for everyone. Then all of the creation will become one simple Light. People and this world will not exist; only you will be left, swallowed in an ocean of white Light; then there is only you and the Creator.

And then who are we, but you? We are an example of your uncorrected characteristics that you must correct to be similar to the Creator. If you will love each one of us, and all of us together, as yourself, this will indicate that you have corrected yourself. So then we will disappear, and instead of us, you will feel the Light.

If you love others as yourself, you remove all of the differences in the world. In fact, there are no different colors: blue, black, white, red; there aren’t so many noises and sounds that we hear; there is no above and below; there are no right and left sides; there are no people, animals; there is nothing.

Gradually, to the degree that you begin to love, this entire world loses all the characteristics that typify it, the entire variety of forms. After all, if you love, you don’t see all kinds of characteristics in the beloved, no nuances, everything in him seems good! We must reach a form of perception like this, until everything will become absolutely white.

This is because we feel everything within our desire to receive that evaluates things all the time about what is good for it and what is bad for it. The whole world is divided only according to this principle: more beneficial or less beneficial to my ego. That is how all the sounds, tastes, people, animals, plants, and rocks appear; everything receives form within your desire to receive.

But the moment that you begin to relate towards the whole world with love, then all of its differences disappear and it all becomes white Light. This is called: (Proverbs 10:12) “Love covereth all transgressions (meaning, all the differences)”!
[143704]
From the Convention In Chile “Day One” 7/30/14, Lesson 2

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The Upper Light is at absolute rest, and the Creator is good and benevolent. This means that we are always standing in the presence of the Light, the absolute good that never changes. We are the only ones who change.

It is possible to pray only for my own correction. To ask the Creator to change is worthless because He is absolutely good to everyone, without exception, and cannot be otherwise.

The correct perception of reality is the understanding that there cannot be change in the Light and not even in us, but in me alone. This is because how I feel each one in the world and all the changes that everyone undergoes are determined only by how I myself am changed. Instead of demanding that others change, through mutual cooperation with them, I must summon a change in me, and then the whole world will be changed.

Wise people have long understood from their life experiences that it is meaningless to try to change others. Nobody is going to change and everything depends upon me. The wisdom of Kabbalah brings a person to a very simple perception of reality and explains that each one must correct only himself and not others.

But in order to convince myself to change, I require an environment. By influencing society, I influence myself. I seemingly want to improve the environment, but ultimately the environment influences me and changes me.

I play with the Creator and with the environment, but this is to influence me. Ultimately I change myself this way, by becoming similar to the Creator. I then attain a true perception of reality and I will see it as it is seen from the side of the Light, from the side of the Creator.

The Creator gave us this opportunity to change ourselves gradually, to constantly produce changes within ourselves to become more like Him, through the environment. If I perceive the whole world and all of the friends as perfect and only myself as requiring correction, by accommodating myself to them, I will be found in constant work that brings me closer to the level of the Creator.

And in truth, it doesn’t matter what happens in the environment, who is right and who is wrong. I perceive all of this as the Creator’s game with me. He is the one who organizes all of this theater around me to help me adapt myself to Him. For if there is none else besides Him and He is good that does good, then any other image that doesn’t come from the only good force testifies to my inner corruption that I must correct.

So I must be in a process of scrutinizing myself all the time, in an internal dialogue with the Creator scrutinizing what He is giving something to me to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to think, and to imagine. What memories float up in me, what thoughts spin around within me?

The Creator creates an entire world around me so that I will not forget, even for a moment, that all this is made by Him, that I am conducting an incessant dialogue with Him, that I want to discover Him, and to understand! This is like an infant to whom something is said, but he doesn’t understand anything, and just looks with open-mouthed excitement. This is how we also must try to understand at every moment what the Creator wants to tell us through this whole world that He shows us.

Essentially there is only a very small desire for pleasure to receive, that feels itself as if it exists in a physical body with hands and feet, and around it there are other forms, other bodies, a whole world. This immense world is changing all the time, everything goes around within it. All this exists only in my inner perception, in my desire to receive and is portrayed within my imagination, but doesn’t exist in reality.

We live in an imaginary world like this. All of its images are shaped within our ego so that we will interpret them correctly. If we accept the intention to bestow over our desire to receive, then instead of all of the forms of this world, we will feel the Upper Light that fills all of reality. We must reach such a final form of perception.

All of the work is to correct our inner perception, to be released from this pathological imagination in which we now exist, from this imaginary world, and come to the simple, Upper Light. Through work with the environment, imagining ourselves as closer and closer to the Upper Light, meaning bestowal, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” we can change our perception; and instead of this world, we feel the Upper World.

This distorted perception that portrays this physical world for us will disappear and in its place we will feel the one Creator, and see that besides Him, there is nothing. And we exist within Him and everything is immersed in an ocean of white Light. This will be the true perception, and not the imaginary reality in which we now live.
[143698]
From the Convention In Chile “Day One” 7/30/14, Lesson 2

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Question: Can I learn to discover the Creator through physical pleasures?

Answer: It depends on what is meant by physical pleasures: pleasure for oneself or those pleasures clothed in the physical actions of our world.

If the pleasure is clothed in a physical action of this world, it is possible to discover the Creator in it, but if it is intended for oneself, then it is impossible. Every action “for oneself” is called physical, and “from myself” is called spiritual.

When we connect between us to complete adhesion, then we really feel in substance this state in which the Creator is discovered. But this is only on condition that we use it for our unification above personal yearning and desire. The Light does all the rest, it is not necessary to be involved with this in particular; it only confuses a person.

It is necessary to study the articles by Rabash and Baal HaSulam, which are interspersed with little information about the conditions for spiritual work, and try not to leave them. They must become the fundamental conditions that one must maintain all the time, and when you run across them, check yourself according to them.

Then the Light will create the appropriate characteristics within you, and you will begin to feel that the entire physical world is not essentially physical, but only seems that way. In fact, that is how the spiritual forces portray our sensations for us. When the one power of nature begins to be discovered through this, we finally begin to understand the secrets and characteristics of our perception.
[141511]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

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Question: If, during a workshop, we are trying to come to a common state, enter into it, disconnect, connect, and suddenly a latecomer joins us, we immediately feel imbalance.

Answer: There should be no imbalance! We immediately need to “swallow” the friend who came. Suppose we have nine people, and suddenly there is the tenth, but he is not a disturbance to us, because we are working on him so much with our intention, our desire, that he immediately feels the framework that we give him and is included with us.

And if not, then during a round, no matter what he said or where he went, he must feel the framework of the group, and then occupy his place.

But in order for us not to fall out of this state, we need to specifically drive ourselves into it. Through our desire, our efforts, our constant example, including external efforts, we need to make other people feel that they exist so in a special ideological framework in which they cannot allow themselves even to speak about something external. This total pressure on each of us needs to be very strong.
[144153]
From Preparatory lesson 1 of the Congress in St. Petersburg 9/18/14

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Question: You said that we need to learn to take pleasure from making efforts in our progress and in the same way to take care of our friends.

If we combine these two sentences, it turns out that we need to work hard to help a friend get pleasure from making efforts?

Answer: Yes. As a result, the more you work, the more enjoyment you get, not from the results of the labor, but from the work, from the effort itself. When you are correcting egoism, efforts turn into pleasure.

It does not exist in our world. Here we work in order to earn, and earn to buy something or to enjoy something.

Why is the spiritual world infinite and there is no concept of time? Because the very effort includes both effort and its fulfillment, the Kli (vessel). The effort itself is fulfillment.

Start thinking about it, and you will see what a spiritual state is. There is no cause and consequence development of events, so a spiritual state is permanent.
[144157]
From Preparatory lesson 1 of the Congress in St. Petersburg 9/18/14

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Raising a prayer to the Creator means raising our best, most intense and vivid desires and aspirations, aiming them upward as we lift our hands upward.

In this case, we connect them so that everyone finds himself immersed in others, feels himself only in others and, in this state, chooses the deepest and most important thing.

A “prayer” means our only desire from which other desires are revealed. We strive to unite the desire to reveal the unified force that governs the entire universe in the whole of nature: the forces of harmony, balance, and interconnection.

We wish the same state for ourselves, the group, the country, the world, and all of humanity. This is our intention and our effort. Constant intention is the prayer of want we want eventually to receive.

In the future, we will transform this in the following stages. We will see how our desires for unity become realized in the desire itself. Usually, when a person strives for a goal, he thinks that he wants to achieve it, but in our case, it turns out that, being in intention, we suddenly will reveal that this is the goal, and nothing else is needed. This aspiration creates the condition with which the upper becomes fulfilled. That is what is happening in us and within us.

In order to become more concentrated with each other, we will have to go back to this demand and strongly wish to formulate everything more deeply and sharply. It is formed in us in this way.

This constant aspiration itself is the goal. At the beginning, we think that this is only a condition for achieving something, and then we will see that it, itself, is the goal.
[144082]
From Preparatory lesson 1 of the Congress in St. Petersburg 9/18/14

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Come, let’s imagine a technical component, a trigger, like in a computer, a “0” or “1”, or a small faucet that opens and closes something.

It is the same thing with us.  When we connect, we open a valve and something moves inside. And when we are detached, the valve is closed. That is how we work and that is how the whole system works. Light from one part enters into another part or it doesn’t. Everything works only on the basis of this single activity of connection or detachment, and nothing else.

This means that when we connect, we can influence the entire system of creation, all the worlds, our world, the nature of the still, vegetative. and the animate, our health, everything possible. We move or trigger the Light. There is nothing else in the world, only this energy. Either it moves and animates everything, or it has no access because of some wrinkles in the system.

How can we somehow create a system like this between us where the Light will flow in circuits within us, will increase and grow all the time so that we will constantly work on the discovery of more and more new valves?

Actually, these are called Sefirot. As we know, there is a Masach (screen), Ohr Hozer (returning Light), and a Zivug de Haka’a (striking interaction) on the Light and its extension from a second Partzuf to a third and so forth.

In this manner, we regulate the direction to which the Light will be extended and to which systems. And likewise, we regulate its intensity. We can activate parallel currents, all kinds of Partzufim and so forth. We can study its essence, its intensity, its characteristics, and the quality, according to what we switch on and block.

This is creative work, as you are involved in the study of the Creator, in that system which He made and gave to you so that you would begin to study it from your encounters: His thoughts and ideas, and of course, the purpose.

From me to we, from evil to good, from detachment to the development of good and Light. This is how we evolve.

And we always need to evaluate our actions and influences from above only according to the qualitative approaches and connections. This is the only way. Otherwise, we are mistaken and don’t understand the Creator. But if we specifically look from this point of view, then generally we begin to see His thoughts and ideas, His actions, and we begin to work together with Him. He summons all kinds of states, we react to them correctly and go in coordination with Him.
[143981]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Two” 9/20/14, Workshop 4

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