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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Question: Upon returning from Sochi there is the fear of adhering to the friends who weren’t there so as not to catch viruses of the external world from them. How can we overcome this distance and not feel elated about being in Sochi while they weren’t?

Answer: When I look at everyone with an external perspective, I see that the Sochi group is much higher, more united and enlightened than the friends who were not here.

Of course, I cannot adhere to them after Sochi. On the other hand, the Creator has given me this state! He depicts this picture for me. But in fact I have to look at the group like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma who, as a great Kabbalist, saw the future state of his students who were still mediocre.

The future is actually constant, which means that you can see that the whole world is corrected even now. All these states exist in the spiritual world! They are simply portrayed to us in a certain order according to our ability to perceive them. Therefore it is said: “They have eyes but they cannot see, they have ears but they cannot hear.”

I will try to look at the group before me as a higher group than the one in Sochi, since in Sochi I saw an advanced group according to my attributes, while here, I see a group that is not corrected according to the same attributes.

One judges according to his own flaws and so I have to make an effort to see them as greater than the ones in Sochi, and to adhere to them with my soul, to the same state that I reveal in them as a higher state.

Then a new opportunity will open up for me, but it will already be the next higher level, when I correct all the ego that I see in my friends through my attitude towards them. I don’t see this ego; I already see it as corrected.
[142705]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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Question: If my friend is in a difficult situation, what must my prayer be? Must it only be about him or about the whole world?

Answer: In cases where you don’t know how to behave and you have no clear discernment about how to act, and even in those cases where you seem to know how to behave, you must consult with other friends. You are part of a large collective and you don’t have the right to act and behave on your own, as your mind or heart tells you.

You are a small cog in a large machine, and you must realize that according to this general mechanism, you alone cannot insert new relationships into the work. It is impossible for a person to act according to the principle, “That is what I decided, that is what I suppose, and that is what I will do.” In such a case, we will remove you from our machine. Even though our mechanism will become smaller, it will work in partnership.
[142676]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: How do we hasten our development?

Answer: Hastening development depends only upon the intensity of the correcting Light, the Light that Reforms. And its intensity also depends on the quantity and quality of the demand for Light.

So you must coordinate your common intentions, common decisions, the yearning, the desires, and shared demands in such a form that among you, there will be no internal gaps.

As a result of the morning workshop, you must reach a united intention for the whole day, and after that, hold onto it throughout the day so that when you look at each other you will feel that everyone is in this. Just the way a dog feels the mood of its owner is how you must feel about the movements of your friend, his behavior, and his drive.
[142673]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: When they disperse from Sochi to their homes, the people no longer want to be the way they were before. But what can they do if the city “cloaks” the person with all of its problems?

Answer: We must have two “coverings,” which we must always be concerned about guarding.

There is my external covering. Before everyone I perform like a theatrical actor. Everything that I display to my co-workers, neighbors, and even my family is all external. And inside is my own self. This is my “Sochi,” my friends, my spirituality, my true life.

When you are in your Sochi, you can allow yourselves to be temporarily composed of one part with which you come in contact with everyone and make yourselves a single Adam (man). And after that, when you disperse, when you go out to the external world, you must immediately clothe yourselves with your “outer shirt.”

It is precisely in the opposition between these two states, these two bodies, in one person where one grows.

Comment: So then when a person returns from Sochi he will sit at home longing and suffering.

Answer: We can use the coming convention in Saint Petersburg. We need to gather everyone into a single whole. Why do we think that people are longing and falling? There are no descents! There is only ascent now, and that is all:  rant and rave! What has already been, already was. They descended; so they descended. This was because the external environment influenced everyone. But now it is necessary to very quickly cheer up and begin to work.

We can use this immense power! People are ready to unite, and they understand you! So you must begin to connect and unite them, to prepare them and draw them to the convention.
[142666]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: You say that our next work is to perform exercises in increasing our sensitivity.

Answer: This is what all our work comes down to. The only thing that changes in us is our sensitivity and therefore we perceive the world around us changing. But in fact, it remains the same. This means that the direct Upper Light totally fills everything.

My Reshimot (reminiscences) are constantly changing and spinning, substituting a new Reshimo under the constant Upper Light that fills everything, and therefore a different pictures appear in me, like single frames in a movie.

Question: What should we do in order to start feeling the pain and suffering of our friends?

Answer: We will begin to feel our friends only as a result of our efforts and through this, the Upper Light will influence us.

The Light operates in two ways: On the one hand, it can influence the unprepared vessel so that our Reshimot will constantly grow, and so we see that the world is developing and developing badly, because the Reshimot are revealed as more and more shattered each time. This is because the Reshimot come in an increasingly stronger flow appearing on the background of the constant white Light. But if we want to discover these Reshimot by ourselves, since their correct fulfillment enables us to move towards the Creator and to resemble and become like the Light, we will feel our evolution as good.

There are two options to perceive the Light: a negative one, like darkness, and a positive one, like the Light. Therefore, I give an example that there is Light (Ohr) and there is Orta (night in Aramaic). It is the same thing and these two words have the same Hebrew root.
[142653]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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Question: In order to correct and balance the ego, a person must feel it as evil. How must we make indifference and insensitivity toward others intolerable?

Answer: Indifference is the greatest problem. When I hate, this is good; when I love, this is very good. However, we go through 99% of our lives with feelings of indifference. People consider this normal in our current life.

What can help get me out of indifference, to awaken and hold me in this state every moment of life? It is only the environment.

You have moved through very good states of very great elevation of sensitivity, more internal, not an external request for change. This is enviable.

If all of our groups were like this, then certainly the general situation would become much better. It will be possible to attain this in the next convention by trying to prepare and transmit to everyone the feelings and sensations that you have experienced, are experiencing, and will again try to experience within you. It is possible.

If you connected the state that you experienced with the 300 friends who were in Sochi, and you multiply it by five, with the same mass that will be in the convention in Saint Petersburg, and after that, 500 times, then even much more, with the mass that will disperse throughout the world, we can achieve a lot.

This is one of the most useful examples because you will multiply the sensations, the demands, the aspirations to each other,  the neutralization of the ego, and the desire to be a single whole by that quantity of people with the help of envy, through showing them how this is working within you, and not in them. So, the multiplication of your yearning will happen together with their yearning, and this will produce an immense influence and impression.
[142491]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Initially there is only one force in nature that created, manages, and determines everything. It is neither positive nor negative. It is simply an attribute.

We can feel this force only by its opposite aspects because we don’t feel anything in the form of one phenomenon, one value. The term “value” means that it includes two parameters: the base and the dimension, one (what it is and what it wants).

Our feelings are always made of two opposite attributes that are based on different contrasts: black and white, silence and noise, etc. This means that as created beings we feel ourselves only if there are two opposite forces in us.

The Creator is one unique force that wants to create us and to bring us to the upper state, but in order to exist and to be able to reach every state we have to be made of three forces:

• The negative force which differentiates us from the Creator; the ego without which there cannot be a created being.
• The positive force that can balance our ego.
• The middle force that is created and revealed between them as a result of the right balance between the two forces, i.e., the best use of the ego in its correct form, in the form of bestowal and love. This is the result because the third line, the middle line, is man.

In order to balance the ego that we receive from the Creator, we have to assess it as evil and understand that it was given to us from above and to balance it in order to make something that resembles the Creator from it. Thus, all our work comes down to a request, to a demand, in an action that draws the positive force that can balance the negative force.

We have to assess the ego as a negative force that is inside us, and the attribute of love and bestowal, altruism, as the positive force that is external to us. It is the Creator’s attribute and therefore sustains all of creation. We should want to balance these two forces inside us by using the ego in its balanced state with the right line as much as we can.

All this can be fulfilled only under the influence of the right example that the environment sets for us because a person will never feel the desire to work against his own nature, against his ego. He will always avoid it and will find any means so as not to annul his ego.

Balancing the ego by bestowal means using it in a zero state only to exist in a minimal form or restricting the use of the ego and then allowing it to be used correctly by balancing it with the right line. But all this is only to the extent that a person can work with the environment.

This whole world (the still, vegetative, animate nature, and man), a condition we feel we are in, is given to us so that we can use the environment correctly and want to acquire the positive force that balances the negative force.

Therefore, the whole world is the revelation of the ego on the white background of the Light, and the ego should gradually bring us to a state in which we will begin to feel that this state is unbearable. Or it will develop under the influence of the growing ego and bring about sufferings that will force us to look for a way to cope with the ego.

We should develop the correct positive force inside us and by it feel even the smallest ego inside us as bad. That will be enough for us to want to balance, neutralize, and use it correctly.

But in any case, the natural course of our evolution, which is constant and which cannot be changed or affected in any way, means that the ego is constantly growing in us and in the still, vegetative, and animate nature but to a lesser degree. The only thing we can do is to feel that the ego is bad as soon as possible and thus draw the Light that balances and corrects it.
[142426]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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Question: What does it mean to give pleasure to the Creator with the right intention? “Giving pleasure to the Creator” sounds rather abstract.

Answer: Suppose we have the privilege of working with each other. We must become friends. I must reach a state where I feel you are so close to me that it seems that a part appears between us as a single whole, as if we were conjoined twins. There could be one liver or one heart and all the rest is different.

Something in common appears between us, and in this commonality, I feel the Creator who is connecting us together. He deliberately made a separation between us and is now connecting us. Ultimately we become connected together as a single whole.

Question: So to whom am I giving pleasure?

Answer: You discover in the connection between us a common force called the “Creator,” and you feel how happy He is about the state where we merge and become “One.” By merging into a single whole, we feel Him there because He is One.. This is already a single Kli (vessel) that can feel its upper source, the Creator.

This is one precise activity and there is nothing else like it in nature. As in mathematics, there is zero and something different from zero. Everything else is built only on this. So at the moment, when you reach the One, when you and a friend merge together, then his spiritual source, the Creator, is revealed in him. All the effort that you invested in your connection now becomes happiness that you discover in him.

In this is the right effort, to become connected together, “as one person with one heart.” “With one heart” means that you have the same desires, a single intention, the same thoughts, and the same yearnings to help and complete each other. This is what you must attain here, at least in some particular place under these conditions.

Comment: I don’t understand to what I must connect myself.

Answer: The Upper Light will influence you. You must do this! Only you can summon it. There is a kind of switch, and when you turn it on, the Upper Light works.

Question: Where is this switch found, in the mind or in the heart?

Answer: In the heart. The mind is necessary to understand what to do with the heart. The switch is found in the heart, meaning the desires, where are they directed, towards what states? “And the next state that I want to receive emotionally indicates the direction of the heart.”

Comment: I haven’t understood anything.

Answer: It is good that you understand that you haven’t understood anything. This means that already in you there is a very good internal collection of characteristics and feelings. You understand that this isn’t simple, that everything slips away, that our ego becomes an obstacle for us. What can you do with it? It is precisely because you want to feel everything deeply that you say that you haven’t understood anything. The heart understands, the mind doesn’t, and we don’t need to become confused about this. The mind is given to us only to scrutinize and analyze our states.

I am trying to answer you emotionally only, but I could convey everything through diagrams, like Kabbalists do. When my students have no spiritual states, I make sketches for them. And then, when there is an inner state, I address that specifically. Basically, how could this be portrayed? Every person already draws it for himself in his heart.

Turn on the switch, so that the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) will influence you. Nothing else will help! Only the Light! But you must know its direction and imagine that correctly within yourself.
[142581]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: What does it mean to be similar to Light?

Answer: Light is the characteristic of bestowal that is realized in us in only one form, mutual connection. So what must I bestow, give, and to whom? How? What do I have? Suppose that I give you my coffee or a slice of bread….

No. My giving is not giving something external; rather, I give myself. This means that I adhere to you, to your desires, aspirations, and yearnings. With this I become a complete helper to you. We produce the characteristic of bestowal this way, or an even higher characteristic, love. That is how our similarity and equivalence with the Creator is realized. As He is within us, He wants to be discovered. That is also what we want regarding every friend.

So it is impossible to become similar to the Creator before you transform to being like Him with the help of higher bestowal towards your friends, or at least one of them; that doesn’t matter. When you don’t work for your own sake, then you are completely indifferent to the rest of the world, you don’t feel it and it is tasteless. And if you can connect with it, you become similar to the Creator.

The entire external world is the revelation of the Creator in a form that is our opposite. The moment that we attract this world to us and become adhered with it, with love for everyone, for our haters, for our opponents, for the masses of millions of people who are completely unimportant to us, gradually, in circles, we develop an identical relationship with the Creator. The Creator is found in them, and we discover Him in them. This is called: “I dwell among my people” (Kings II 4:13).
[142562]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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