Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Sandpaper On Egoism – Balm On The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach of us once was a fetus in his or her mother’s womb. Our mothers nurtured us and as a result we developed. Imagine a state when you are there, inside. How does one feel while being in the fetal state?

The fetal state is analogous to our current stage of development. The breakthrough to spirituality is completely parallel to the stages a fetus goes through while it grows. The opposing forces (bestowal and receiving) descended from spirituality and ensure our evolution.

In The Study of the Ten Sefirot there are about a thousand pages that explain how spirituality can be attained. The book describes the descent of both forces into this world. Stages of descent are similar to the way we come to and then develop in this world.

So, what are the ways of advancement?

A group serves the “womb” for us; we have to take the best possible care of it. Our advancement should be conscientious and this is the difference in spiritual progress, spiritual growth from any other kind of advancement.

In this world, a fetus never worries about the place that ensures its birth and further growth. A fetus advances unconsciously. The same applies to humanity, its advancement is mindless; we are driven forward by forces, incentives, properties, desires, “chances.” etc.

We are the ones who have to create a suitable environment for our growth, the surroundings that will ensure our advancement. Our progress completely depends on the development of our environment. If we don’t elevate the group, if we don’t unite, connect, or enhance the collection and unity of friends, we won’t advance.

In his writings, Baal HaSulam mentioned that regrettably there were cases in the history of humanity when the “fetus” appeared stillborn. It happened solely because a group stopped caring for their unity.

At each step, we have to enhance our connection. When we manage to boost the unity among us, we rise and go through a new state, a new day, until we complete the entire nine months of our development. Then, we are born. The process of birth in this world happens in complete agreement with spiritual laws. This explains why those who are aware of spiritual laws also realize what’s going on in this material realm.

Thus, the development of the group, we should always choose over our personal progress, since only through the group can we “pull” ourselves up. This is the way we ascend: We trigger the influence of the Upper Light on us, demanding from It and appealing to It, begging and praying that It raises, unites, and connects us. Our connection activates the surrounding force, the mother’s womb, in which we are conceived. We call it Malchut or Shechina. This is where we turn into a man.

There are two opposing forces that reciprocally interact, the force of receiving and the power of bestowal. They have to come in balance with each other. Each time, when the equilibrium between these two forces is reached, it gives rise to an ascent. Then, we strive to a new state of balance, thus rising again. This is how we progress and are born. In fact, we ourselves grow.

The problem is that we have to relate to both developing forces positively, with joy. They are not always very pleasant; both of them work as “sandpaper” on our egoism and trigger numerous troubles and problems. We should always keep in mind that everything is organized by the Creator and only by Him. The Creator has enumerable methods to “bother” us; every moment He sends something to each of us separately and to all of us together.

We should accept His “treatment” and accept the states we go through in our material lives as blessing and a lot of luck. We have to realize that everything that happens to us is just the way He treats us and leads us. We should connect everything that happens to us with the notions “There is none else besides Him” and “He is the absolute good that does good.” No doubt that we perceive our lives contrary to His unconditional benevolence since we regard His influence through our egoism. As soon as we unite, His guidance will transform in the “absolute good”—truly!

Sometimes we happen to feel a spark of complete benevolence during our group gatherings or while we are engaged in collective actions that aim at enhancing of our unity. On other occasions, this state emerges on a personal, independent basis. The latter is not as desirable as when the group “digests” the Creator’s impact jointly.

The effects we receive mostly are not enjoyable. They become satisfying only when we correctly connect them with ourselves, thus reaching the middle line between the right and left lines (between good and bad states), when we pursue spiritual advancement by means of connecting with others.

All we have to do is just properly understand and accept the upper influence and correctly assess it. Our job is to constantly analyze and refer to the same notion over and over again; i.e., anything that happens to us, inside us, in our hearts and thoughts, desires and inspirations, everything that ever happens to us is done solely by the Upper Light.

Why does it work this way? – Because our job is to connect with our friends and pray that the Upper Light elevates us to the next state, to the property of bestowal.

We should tune ourselves in a way that we won’t miss an opportunity to ascend. Very rarely do we realize that everything that goes on with and in us comes from the Creator and that He is the one who sends all situations to us only because He wants to make us plea to Him in order to transform our “troubles” into a positive advancement. Each moment of our time, all our existence, is a permanent appeal to us from Above, a call to rise to Him. Our job is to tune ourselves up so that we won’t miss this chance.

The main prerequisite to it is to “lift our hearts to the Creator’s path.” Constantly, each one of us separately and all of us together should make our relationships with Him much more sensitive. If we manage to do so, we’ll start understanding what He is telling us. He talks to us exclusively through sensations that emerge in us; whereas we respond to Him through our reactions to sensations that we receive from Him. It happens over and over again: we receive a new sensation from Him and react to it, etc.

This is how we advance, like children who learn by reacting to stimuli. It’s not important if a child’s reaction is good or bad, right or wrong, this is the way children grow. We advance the same way.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/02/14, Workshop 2

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Nine Stages On The Way To Unity, Point 9

Dr. Michael LaitmanPreparation for the Integral Convention: Integral Educators.

We discover that we are destined not to maintain our link to the Creator and that we don’t need the wider public to keep the “raspberry ball,” rather we must have the raspberry ball in order to serve the wider public. And specifically through this discovery we approach the end of correction.

This makes it possible for us to see the integrality, the links, and the Arvut (mutual guarantee) in nature. We begin to determine our relationship to the wider public: how much we need it, for without it we cannot give contentment to the Creator, and how much the Creator wants humanity and not us.

That is how we attain our destiny and disappear. A “nation of priests” is when you don’t exist. You serve the wider public, serve all of humanity, and serve the Creator. And in this you see your anonymous role. You have no part or inheritance in anything, in sum you are the connecting link, a conduit, a component for transmission. And this is good because with this we can truly be closer to the nature of the Creator.

We must present and give an example to the world, and through this example convey to it the spiritual condition that we have attained. Even though in the meantime this is the opposite side of the spiritual state, if we succeed in turning the face of the world towards us, we can turn our face towards the Creator. By turning toward the world with love, we can turn with love towards Him. About this it is said: “From love of the creatures to love of the Creator.”

And in order to turn the face of the world towards us, it’s necessary to awaken the people to the right understanding of solidarity with them. For this it’s necessary to convey the inner tension in words. The words must be very clear and deep. Only in this way can we be integrated into the outer circle, truly connecting with them. And then we receive the required addition that will help us to rise and enter into a higher level.

The correct integral educator for spiritual development must awaken this development in a student. If we succeed in reaching the hearts of the people, then specifically those experiences and impressions that we awaken in the wider public will make it possible for us to grow the raspberry ball, enhancing and strengthening the point of contact with the Creator and feeling Him.

It is said: “I learned from all of my students.” We will yet understand why through a connection with students a person can learn more than from teachers.
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The Most Important Book For Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe World Zohar Convention 2014 is dedicated to the most important and unequaled book that was given to humanity from Above through a unique group of Kabbalists. All of reality is a result of the breaking of desires. And in our world this breaking was manifested by way of the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

The ten Kabbalists who created The Book of Zohar were the remaining survivors of the destruction. On the one hand, they still belonged to the great times and high spiritual levels of the people of Israel at the time of the Temple, meaning at the spiritual state. But on the other hand, they had already emerged from the breaking and reached a unique revelation among them thanks to absolutely unique work.

Never in history had there been an event like this, that a group of ten people gathered and attained such a strong connection, rising to the height of 125 levels of correction of the breaking that existed between them. And therefore by way of their external connection, meaning by way of the book, they managed to convey the levels through which they had passed: from hatred to love, and after that from even greater hatred to even greater love, and so on further and further.

It is said, “Whoever is greater than his friend has greater egoism.” And therefore the higher we rise, the more distant and opposite we feel in relation to each other, the more hateful. That is how our nature, the evil inclination, is revealed to us.

A regular person doesn’t have an evil inclination, he simply has desires. Whereas the evil inclination is revealed in people who want to connect with each other and at that time, according to their aspiration, pressure, and efforts to connect, they discover how incapable of this they are.  They discover that the ego is awakened in them all the time and pushes them away from each other.

In The Book of Zohar it is written that the very same students of Rabbi Shimon, who each had attained an extraordinary height, the upper part (GAR) of the world of Atzilut, before the lesson, at the first attempt to connect, felt unbearable hatred towards each other. They expressed all of this inner struggle and antagonisms in The Book of Zohar. They felt how the fire of hatred burned in them, something which specifically indicates a very high level of the recognition of the evil inclination and its corresponding correction into the good inclination.
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From the World Zohar Convention 2/5/14, Lesson 1 

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It Is Forbidden To Walk In Place

Dr. Michael LaitmanOne should not dwell in the previous stage, but should immediately enter into the next level and accustom oneself to such a change of states. If we stop in a particular state, this is not good. All changes are for the good; the main thing is that there should be changes.

It is written, (Isaiah 2:3) “For out of Zion shall go forth the law,” meaning departing from the previous state, even the best. This is even if it’s a fall from a higher state, from joy to sorrow. This is not important, only that there should be as many changes as possible because they determine the rate of advancement.

We always advance, stepping with the left foot or with the right foot; that is how movement is made. Therefore the main thing is not to stand on one leg in the same spot, rather to move all the time: from the left line to the right, or from the right to the left. The main thing is to go out of the previous state and enter into a new level of connection.

The ascents and descents happen all the time. They say that the Seer of Lublin said to his student who was complaining about the constant ascents and descents that he passed through 400 ascents and descents in the morning. It’s not necessary to think that he counted them, he simply knew the number of levels that he had risen: that is, the level where he had been before and the level to which he had risen. And that is how he knew that they were 400. Additionally, 400 is a number that symbolizes completion.

The more internal changes happen within a person, the better. And it’s not necessary to analyze them as to whether they are good or bad. There are no bad changes! Baal HaSulam writes: “I am happy about the wickedness that is revealed”; you see, if they are revealed this says that it’s possible to correct them. Even though it’s bad for me, I am happy that I can correct this evil. Therefore it’s good that you are going through many ascents and descents.

And in addition, this helps the friends. Everyone goes through many inner changes, and through integration we convey these ascents and descents to one another. So it follows that everyone wins and advances quickly.
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From a Preparatory Lesson for the Arava Convention 1/30/14

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Integral Mediators

Dr. Michael LaitmanIntegral Education Convention, Workshop 2: The group provides us the means that allow us to constantly yearn for the right feeling that my whole life, my thoughts and feelings, all stem from the Creator and that it is arranged that way so that through the connection, we will turn to Him.

Generally speaking the world is divided into two parts:

  • People who have received an awakening from Above, from the Creator, in order to advance to Him. The Creator brings these people to a group, “places a person’s hand on the good fate and tells him, ‘Take it.’” Then it’s up to a person whether to choose it or not, which means to be incorporated in the group, to become part of the general current against his ego or not. This is our choice.
  • The rest of humanity lives individually, each person on his own for the time being, in a random, Brownian motion. The ego develops in humanity, of course, but gradually, and not in a group flow.

People who flow together with the group are required to strengthen and to build it consciously. The main thing is to understand that the moment they become part of one of our groups or of the general group, they have nothing private or individual anymore. Everything that happens to them is only a result of being in a common movement with us. Now everything that they receive is through the center of the group and it doesn’t matter if it’s consciously or not. Then it spreads to everyone and each one receives according to the efforts that he has to make in the common flow towards connection, towards the center.

It is the same when it comes to our movement towards the Creator. Everything that we want to focus on Him, to tell Him, to ask from Him, to summon His bestowal upon us, the influence of the Surrounding Light, and so on, can also come only through the center of the group. This means that the center of the group is very important for us, like a point from which we can ascend in our appeal to the Creator and through it, like though an umbilical cord, we receive everything and give everything.

Let’s imagine our spiritual umbilical cord through which we receive and give everything. Only through this cord are we connected to the source of life. Imagine that you are an embryo in a womb, and that through this cord, through the center of the group, we receive our life, all the spiritual force, everything there is.

When we find the connection to the umbilical cord, we begin to realize the way that it’s all built, and how everything actually descends to us from the upper Providence. Our world is merely the world of outcomes, and therefore nothing is ever born in it. We begin to realize how we can affect the upper Providence and to evoke the best ascent.

Thus we reach a conscious development because we find the connection with our source, and start to connect between us, to draw everything from Him and to respond to it correctly. Although “there is none else but Him,” the Creator is eventually a simple passive source. Everything that happens is only through our bestowal, according to our request.

So how can we bestow upon the source through this umbilical cord? Through the center of the group, of course, otherwise there would be no contact with it. We discover it in order to ascend above all our deficiencies, and connect in order to receive the answer from Above, feeling the cooperation between us and the Creator through the pipe, through the line. We study about the line in Kabbalah and it goes like a pipe from the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) all the way to our world.

We serve as an upper level for the public and we have to use this pipe so that people will be nourished by us and will gradually be drawn upwards. It seems that we feel the point of contact with the Light, with the Creator, with the upper level, but for some reason we don’t really rush to find it and to use it in order to start passing the positive energy from the top down towards us and the negative energy from the bottom up.

The crisis that develops around us is in order to help us with it. Eventually, if we don’t wake up in time, it will also reach us not only spiritually, but also in the ordinary corporeal sense. After all, the crisis is meant only to awaken us to a quick connection with the immense force, with the abundance, with the upper Light that includes everything, in order to convey it through us to the world on the outside.

If we don’t do it in time, the world will not treat us very nicely. It refers specifically to us and to the wisdom of Kabbalah since we are the ones who have to perform the correction. If we did everything in time, we wouldn’t see a crisis at all and we wouldn’t feel anything negative. We would be taking constant preventive steps.

But we are lagging behind. At the moment we lag behind a little. I hope that it’s enough, and that later we will begin to understand the responsibility that we have towards the world and will understand that the crisis is a lack of the upper force that has to be conveyed to the world through us.

So how can we organize ourselves as quickly as possible in order to come in contact with the Creator, with the external world, and to be the conductors of the upper Light, of the abundance? After all, this is the solution to every aspect of the crisis. We have to feel that we are the conductors that connect between the upper world and the lower world; this is what we have to do.

It says: “The upper shall learn from the lower.” We have to better understand how we should turn to the Creator, based on our integral dissemination and our integral education in turning to the public. It’s just as we finally begin to appreciate the way our parents treated us when we become parents. When we begin to tie the deficiencies that are evoked in the public with the global integral solution, with the spiritual ascent that the Creator expects us to make, it’s as if we include the two ends:

  • On the one hand, the masses with their apparently simple daily needs.
  • On the other hand, the upper value that the Creator places before us, connection and the attainment of the one system that includes everything in which He is revealed as the reviving force.

This is how we develop on the whole, thanks to the fact that we are between the hammer and the anvil. On the one hand there is the public, the masses, and on the other hand the Creator. We have to balance the Creator’s actions which spur us on to connect that descend from the top and are fulfilled in the masses in the form of troubles and simple human needs, and we raise the problems and the simple troubles through us to a higher level of connection with the Creator, above time and space, above everything that is already in us, to the spiritual space.

This is our uniqueness, as we begin to connect the two worlds in us and to tie them to us. This is the special quality of the group that can perform this work, to connect, to include and to tie the two opposite worlds inside it. Being an integral part, we include all of humanity and we lower the Creator into it from Above. Thus we attain the feeling that is between the two opposite systems of creation. This is our uniqueness and our ultimate fulfillment.

The created being’s ultimate goal is actually fulfilled inside the group, which means in the connection of humanity, starting from the center, from us, and spreading to wider circles. We are already pulling those who are behind us, inviting them to join us, without pulling them to our level but simply acting according to the level of their desire and understanding the crisis as an aspiration for connection.

We feel that the current crisis is spiritual, while they feel it on the corporeal level. Yet, on the whole, the solution is one and it is to reach an equivalence of form with the Creator and to know how to be in contact with Him so that He and we will connect according to the condition of the equivalence of form. This is the method.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/02/14, Workshop 2

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Integral Education Of The Masses

Integral Education Of The Masses

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are chosen in the sense that we have received from Above the desire calling us to learn, yearning for connection with the Creator and the revelation of the Creator, which must occur before all of mankind.

It is already approaching the need for the next state; nature moves all of humanity forward. But people do not have and will not have their own desire. Thousands or a few millions will join us, but it is a tiny fraction of the whole of humanity. There will be no more.

The head is always so: it is small, like the microprocessor in a computer, but it defines and decides everything. The remaining parts realize this micro part.

So, we are this “chip.” We have to connect to the rest of humanity, begin to work with people, understand them, unite with them, find an appropriate vocabulary, create an appropriate dictionary, various images, examples, and develop suitable workshops, etc.

We teach small children all that grownups have, only at a low level in simple examples, simple actions. In order for people to feel their next desirable level in their connection, we have to encourage them, constantly attracting them with something.

We ourselves experience descents and ascents, and in accordance with this, we need to strengthen ourselves.

Others do not go through this. They constantly have to be attracted, embraced, warmed up, and served. We need to explain the method to them to the extent that they need to understand it in order to be connected to us and to rise with us. We take them as young children on the road, make them sit and drive them. The child is next to you, or even on your lap, or running nearby under your supervision because he does not know the way and does not even have to know it. You should not demand anything from people, except one thing: “If you are with us, everything will be fine.”

This should be our way out to the masses. Without it, we cannot advance upward after the creation of our collective Kli. We will reach the minimal level but no further. Indeed, we have received an awakening in order to “pull” humanity with us. We have to treat it very seriously. We will be able to ascend only depending on our success with a wide audience. If we do not succeed, it will serve as ballast to us, not letting us ascend.
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Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 8

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn Preparation for the Integral Convention

The Good Future of the World

The reality in which we are found is portrayed under the influence of the Light on the desire. We can change the relationship between the Light and desire, consciously or unconsciously, consistently, in stages, intelligently, with our own powers, through shared work, or as if by chance, as is written: “The Creator will accomplish that which concerneth me” (Psalm 138:8).

However, in every circumstance, the reality that we perceive, both the physical and the spiritual, is portrayed through the action of the Light on the desire. And when we reach the equivalence of the Light and the desire, complementing them, making peace between them, we bring peace to the whole world.

Therefore even people without a point in the heart who are not prepared to create a connection between the Light and the Kli and to equate their form by means of the Masach and Ohr Hozer, see the world differently. They don’t see it as the spiritual world because there are no spiritual components to their sensitivities. Yet since they also aspire to unity through various desires, whether speaking of a desire for money, security, education, honor, or control, they will be released from all the problems in their lives.

Of course, gradually other problems will be discovered in order to advance them further, but they will see that the world is coming closer to the good all the time. And this is already the good way, the path of Torah, and not the path of suffering. As a result of the unity from the unconscious influence of the Light upon them, they will see the changes for the better. They will discover the operating system of reality, meaning they will feel that thanks to good relations between them, the world is changing, changing their perception, their internal reaction to what is happening.

Will they be healthier? Yes. Will they discover other positive phenomena? Yes. Will there be fewer natural disasters? Yes. We will yet see how a person will activate the inner forces connected to the nature of the still, the vegetative, and the animate.

It’s up to us to understand that we have the strongest weapon that can be. All the forces of nature are for us, and even the Creator, in fact, wants to say to us: “Please use Me. Everything is in your hands.”

When we bring peace to the world, people will be involved only in a circular connection. Perhaps part of them will work about an hour per day; and with the rest of the time everyone will be involved with thoughts about how to resemble the Creator and will feel pleasure in doing so.

We still don’t understand how this could be, but that’s what will be. This will become the center of life. Besides the necessities, people will be involved only with connection to others, in bringing the connection between them to a greater depth, greater sensitivity, until the physical body and the material world are discovered as imaginary.

Another world will begin to unfold; connections beyond this world will be discovered, and we will see that all of these “spider webs” are interdependent. And as a result, people will begin to understand the wisdom, the thought of creation that is latent in all of its parts. This is called the glow of Divinity, the revelation of Divinity, meaning everything breathes, one thing depends upon another.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 8

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When The Pointer Moves

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom the book, Light of the Sun, Hints of Rosh HaShana: It is necessary to adhere and be connected with each other and be closed within one another in the hearts of everyone, so that we will be one union, serving the Creator wholeheartedly.

There is no partial in spirituality, meaning three, seven or nine Sefirot. There must be ten Sefirot because we don’t feel less than ten, we feel only a complete measure. This is like a machine within which data gathers and then suddenly the meter jumps. Like a watch that counts seconds inside, and when a whole minute is gathered, the pointer suddenly jumps to the following division.

That is exactly how our work happens too. This is because until we reach Malchut, we can work and pass through various states unconsciously. A person can go around and begin to do a multitude of things, but he must wait until he “gets it.” This is to say, he must pass through a particular number of actions, until it becomes difficult for him and he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and after this, he suddenly “gets it” and understands what he is doing! This is to say, he must reach saturation, a complete measure.

So when we gather, we must “adhere and be connected with each other and be closed within one another in the hearts of everyone, so that we will be one union, serving the Creator wholeheartedly,” meaning that it is necessary to discover a complete measure of desire. And this is a problem, because we seem to climb a mountain, and every time we fall, again and again. And so it is until a quantity of effort accumulates, a number of experiences are gathered, into a complete amount. As Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 19: “However, ‘time will do what the mind does not do.’ The Creator counts all the stimuli and collects them into the complete measure, which is the measure of hardness for the intended day.”
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From the Preparatory Lesson for the Arava Convention, 1/30/14

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Dr. Michael LaitmanIntegral Education Convention, Workshop 1: What is mutual guarantee? Why is mutual guarantee the means for attaining the Creator, for the revelation of the Creator, for ascending to Him? Why is this the only way on all the 125 levels by which our ego develops? Our ego ascends and we ascend above it by the mutual guarantee between us.

The ego keeps ascending and we ascend even higher above it by the mutual guarantee between us. This means that there is no other means, no other state that we have to attain except for mutual guarantee.

It is the mutual guarantee between us that includes all the conditions according to which we reach an equivalence of form with the Creator. Mutual guarantee leads us to equivalence of form with Him, and then He is revealed.

When we become detached from ourselves and reach the feeling of “us,” of mutual guarantee, we find ourselves in a totally different volume, on a different level, in a different dimension. There is nothing personal anymore, and the feeling of the body and this world disappear. It is as if I move to a new empty space in which there is only my concern for the group, and there I meet the desires and the aspirations of my friends.

Thus we reach true mutual guarantee: a feeling of the common dome above us, the feeling of a new space in which we discover everyone’s aspirations that are focused on the group, on unity, on what is between us. Then, if this mutual guarantee is formed correctly, a need to turn to the upper force, to be in contact with it, awakens in it. It is in the mutual guarantee that we discover the desire to rise to this force and to allow it to delight us and to be in contact with us.

This happens naturally according to the progression downward. Everything is born from the top down, and it is in the same order that the movement from the bottom up is evoked in us. The Reshimot (informational genes) that are on each and every level are gradually revealed and we suddenly feel such a big space that we have to add our aspiration for mutuality with the upper force.

So the right balance, the right relations between us, on the level of mutual guarantee when we ascend above our ego, generate the desire for the upper force in us: to delight it, to allow it to be revealed in us, to be connected to it. When we are connected, the mutual guarantee between us and this force are formed.

But it is a gradual process. We either attain a certain level of mutual guarantee or not: we may have stalled, we may have left it, perhaps one of us has fallen and we don’t feel it. On the whole, the moment we reach this state, or not, as we stall in fulfilling the mutual guarantee since something interrupts us, a new level of ego, which is lower than the one we are on, immediately rises in us.

But we have to ascend according to the descent. We fall again and rise once more. The level of the ego that is revealed makes us feel the need to tighten the mutual guarantee between us. We have probably not been sensitive enough in fulfilling it, or we may have not fulfilled it completely. Perhaps we have fulfilled it completely, which means that we have to ascend even higher.

The ascent takes place in two ways:

  • By the path of suffering when the additional ego is revealed before we have actually fulfilled the mutual guarantee between us because we have stalled, have stopped fulfilling it, or for any other reason.
  • By the path of I shall hasten it, when we have fulfilled the mutual guarantee between us and have to ascend to the next level according to our attainment.

But in any case, the new level of ego that is revealed in us, the new egoistic desires, the repulsion, the weakness, and the descents are all it order to spur us and to raise us to a higher level.

How do we operate in a state of descent by using the mutual guarantee between us? How does the state of mutual guarantee help us fulfill the descent correctly?

If we have signed an agreement of mutual guarantee, have risen above the ego, if we have begun to feel even for a short while that we are connected on a higher level, above our world, feeling awe and aspiring forward, and suddenly one of our friends falls, we must understand that it isn’t just he that fell, but we have received a sign that we have to start this new ascent together with him.

In other words, the friend himself isn’t the issue, but the fact is that a new egoistic desire has awoken in the mutual guarantee between us and it helps us rise even higher.

What should we do if one of us falls? We have to descend to him, to his level, speak to him in his language as if we agree with him. We have to keep the level between us and at the same time descend to him and connect to him. After all, when we connect to him, we can raise him.

Then, when we surpass the level we were on, we can continue to ascend. Thanks to our descent to the friend, we can ascend even higher than the state we were on before we descended to him. This means that we have to regard any descent of a friend as an opportunity given to us from Above to a new ascent to mutual guarantee.

When we reach such a state above us, connect to it, ascending and descending together, breathing together, we build a Masach (screen). We are like a piston that ascends and descends as we pump more and more and more desire from our egoistic attributes to our altruistic attributes.

This is how we work. When a friend falls, we ascend and descend with him. The same thing happens when the whole group goes through a similar state. This is our continuous action.

If we manage to hold on to the intention to delight the Creator by our connection, like good children in relation to their mother, a state in which we connect and work together is called a raspberry ball, and perhaps we can also call it a “float.”

We have to constantly be in this state. Constantly! To float forward, backward, no matter where we move; we have to constantly be connected; we have to fall and to rise together. What is more, we must constantly be with the Creator both in our lowest state and in our highest state.

On the whole, this is the method. Everything else are individual cases of this method. The moment we connect and find the connection with the Creator at least to some extent, the moment we ascend and descend together, is the basis for everything.

So what does it mean to float above the water? How can we be on this float no matter which ways we are moving? This float is called Noah’s Ark. It is where the spiritual ascent begins. The moment you create this, the rest will follow.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/02/14, Workshop 1

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Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 7

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn Preparation for the Integral Convention

The Importance of Our Mission to the World

1. All of humanity, all of nature, after the shattering is heading toward unity. And we are the ones who are studying the science of unity, the wisdom about how to attract other alternative power to help us to hasten the unity.

All of Integral Education amounts to this, teaching a person to connect with others as quickly as possible. Until now there was no need for this method, and now it is beginning to be in demand.

We are like a wick, all of humanity below us is like oil, and above is the Light of Infinity.

Accordingly, if we make ourselves into a conduit, everything will be okay. It is yet to be revealed to us that if we don’t connect the higher, the middle, and the lower in three lines, we cannot act.

We need connection with the upper force so that it will pass through us to others, to those who are passing through development for the purpose of raising the lowest to the discovery of the highest. And that is how we work; we are going around in this closed circle all the time: from below the desire is renewed, and from above the Light arrives.

2. In work with those who are further down it is important to make sure that feeling precedes intellect. Theoretically it is impossible to teach the wisdom of unity to the broader public; it is impossible to impart wisdom to people before the feeling. They will flee.

We ourselves are ready to tolerate this wisdom because we have a desire, a point in the heart. Without this desire we would also flee.

It is necessary to employ and activate the participants, to provide them with impressions, to gather them for workshops, to develop and expand their perception, understanding, and feeling to awaken them to clarification so that they will be expanded within and will discover a space within them that will begin to be filled with all kinds of details: “group,” “I,” and so on.

When we gather participants to discuss questions in a workshop, they gradually format themselves according to the integral model of the world and make decisions integrally, through nullification of the self, through the raspberry ball. They construct a general shared mini-reality in a group where there is a central point and Kelim, desires, want to connect in self-nullification, in reciprocity, in mutual guarantee (Arvut), in order to discover the Creator. In this group of ten there exists a model of all of reality.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 7

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