We have already experienced the first feeling of connection, but the question is how do we continue using our experience? If we simply enjoy the pleasant feeling and the tranquility, then we are clearly using the illumination that comes to us. As a result of the loss of the illumination, we feel a descent. As Baal HaSulam said: “Shame on he who does not constantly step up his efforts, but makes a complaint, separating himself from the Creator.”

Therefore, we must constantly work on increasing our desire and efforts on this inclination in different forms among the men and the women, in different circles. We know that Ramchal’s students took turns in studying continuously from The Book of Zohar. There was always a small group that was responsible for keeping the general state every hour of the 24 hours in a day. We may also have to do something similar in the future. We have an opportunity to organize this duty around the clock all over the globe, in all our groups on every continent. It makes no difference whether it’s a big group or a small one, any small effort that one small individual makes is like a great effort that a grownup makes.

Now we should fear the descent back to the domination of the ego. We feel good and pleasant; we have experienced some unusual feelings and we are starting to enjoy and to analyze them, but no matter what I feel, what is important is to constantly remain above my feelings and my calculations and to yearn only for bestowal. When I am in bestowal, I don’t feel myself and I don’t even think about it. I only ask for bestowal: For whom am I doing all this?

I live thanks to the intention to bestow and not in the state itself. In the spiritual world, the state itself is not included, only what you add to it, the acceleration, and the derivative.
[126559]
From the Talk at a Meal 1/27/14

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Question: How can I rejoice and be serious simultaneously?

Answer: It depends on a person’s development. We see that children cannot display complex feelings: They are either happy or upset and cry, again and again, instantly moving from one to another. A serious grownup, on the other hand, understands that there are different states in life and one can feel both joy and sadness.

A whole person understands creation and knows how to connect its ends, so the worst feelings on one end and the best feelings on the other end support one another and intensify one another. He understands that this is how the matter of creation is arranged, in contrasting poles of darkness and Light, and that they must both exist one opposite the other.

If a person feels that this system exists and operates between these two ends, he is happy that he has both the force of evil and the force of goodness and that they don’t extinguish one another. By connecting on the middle line, the right and the left lines do not extinguish or nullify one another, but rather, support and amplify one another by 620 times.
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From the Talk at the Meal 1/26/14

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Integral Education Convention, Day Three, Lesson 1 “There Is None Else  Beside Him”

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Raising the Heart by the Paths of the Creator

To achieve real unity, we must attract the Light that Reforms. It’s possible to attract it only by giving respect to the greatness of the goal, the group, the friends, and the upper force that takes care of us and to which we are heading. Thus, we come to the relationship with the Divine.

Having achieved that, we act together as commandos (like all those in our world who unite in groups), and from this point we begin to aspire more to the Creator. In order to come to the Creator, we need to raise our own importance. There is no other choice, not because we want to walk arrogantly turning up our nose at everyone else, but because it’s necessary. We need forces in order to connect even more deeply, we need a stimulus that will give us energy and an urgent need in compromises and unity.

Where do we get this stimulus? The answer is “to raise the heart by the ways of the Creator.” This means that we must rise above everyone, certainly not above the group, but above the whole world, all the ages, and all the generations. We have to be proud that we are the pioneers, the last generation that paves the way for all of humanity. We have to cultivate group pride, purposeful, positive pride.

This pride should be born through force: I am not happy about it and not wholeheartedly proud, I just have no other choice but to increase pride. And it’s a lot of work.

We should look for opportunities to strengthen and maximize mutual guarantee. Where can we get the “appetite” for it? As a rule the appetite for mutual guarantee comes from a wider environment. For this we have to work precisely on the awareness of the importance of our environment relative to a wider environment.

In other words, we work with our group and raise its importance above each of us. After that, we need to raise the importance of our group above a more external environment. Only then can we connect the desires of humanity and strengthen mutual guarantee.

We cannot strengthen mutual guarantee if we close ourselves within the group. This is possible only by connecting external vessels and opening the internal ones. “The fool folds his hands together and eats his own flesh”; this is not about a person who does nothing but about a person who does not care about expanding the vessels (Kelim). That’s why he is a fool.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 4

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Question: To what level do we need to rise today? What exactly must we emphasize in attaining connection between us?

Answer: The first task is: “Love covers over all transgressions.” All evil that is revealed is discovered within the entire system and doesn’t depend upon anyone personally, even if it seems that this comes from someone or is discovered in someone. Everything that is revealed comes from the general integral system even if I see it locally and attribute it to a particular person and not the Creator. This is a defect in my comprehension.

All of the problems and defects are revealed so that I can rise above them again with faith above reason. If I discover negative characteristics in a friend (a friend who is with me on the path), this is a sign that I can accept him with faith above reason, with love.

All of the troubles and all of the joys, everything that happens with all of us, we must register this in our shared account and not attribute it to someone or something separate. This is all a game from above that the Creator plays with us.

The second task: We are not gathering in order to connect among us! We are coming to discover the Creator! And in order to discover Him we connect between us. Don’t confuse what is secondary from the essence.

Regarding everything that happens, we must feel first that this comes from Above and “If I am not for myself who will be for me?” and ultimately everything that happens is happening according to the program of creation. But in the middle, between these two points, the beginning and the end, I must reveal full devotion, nullify myself, and beyond this nullification, help everyone also to become like this as well.

First I nullify myself completely. And when I finish totally nullifying myself, then above my nullification, I begin to help others to do everything that they want. This is called reception for the sake of bestowal. Remember that our convention is not a convention of connection between us; instead, it is a convention of connection with the Creator.
[126426]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Integral Education Convention, Day Two, Workshop 1

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Question: On the way to the convention, how do we keep from losing the approach and the guidance that we received while preparing for it?

Answer: I don’t think that a person loses his concentration when he is on the way. He yearns to be here, to be together with everyone. People are sending me emails or SMS that they are on the way and will arrive soon from all kinds of places. Their hearts are already here with us.

I am very happy that this time we are arranging a convention of true connection. We have reached such a state of ripening where it is possible to talk about love that has been built over hatred, about connection over distance. This indicates our ripening, our first level of maturity.

It is impossible to advance without being stabilized, without balancing the two forces within a person: the positive and the negative. The realization of the first spiritual level is to stabilize these two forces opposite each other and to be aware that this is precisely the way that we advance.
[126493]
From the Talk at a meal 1/26/14

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Question: We have tried to reconstruct the experience we had in the “aquarium” together with our friends who came to the convention. We held endless workshops and discussions. We had a certain feeling of connection between us, but each one felt it differently. What was it? How can we reinforce and keep this feeling that we all loved so much?

Answer: When people connect they go through special experiences. It happens in different kinds of connections, good or bad, no matter what their goal is. The connection itself gives a person a feeling of power, development, joy, and an outburst of energy.

But if the connection is aimed at everyone’s ascent above himself and at being able to dissolve among the friends, the spiritual force is revealed in it. The Light that Reforms operates on us according to everyone’s efforts to ascend above his own self, and it conveys the upper force that connects us and that makes us feel the connection. If everyone wants to annul himself with regard to the connection, the connection becomes very powerful since it is aimed at the Creator. This matches the attribute of the Creator, to connect above our ego, above ourselves.

According to our yearning “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me,” we begin to receive the illumination. This special action of the Upper Light raises us higher to new states in which we begin to feel certain spiritual revelations. We don’t know what we feel exactly and cannot decipher it, but we have a feeling of a more sublime state that is different and unlike anything we felt in the past.

It is a special pleasant excitement, but it can also become unpleasant. Everything depends on how a person holds on to this state and continues his work in the group. What you feel is the continuous affect of the Surrounding Light to the extent that you want to annul yourselves and to devote yourselves to the group without any excuses, simply because this is what Kabbalists advise us, what the teacher says, and what the books say.

If you want to change and connect into one body so that everyone will not feel himself anymore, but only the collective “us” between us, the upper essence, then you receive the effect of the Surrounding Light. This is a special force that begins to operate on you and brings about changes in your inner software.

It isn’t that you just expand your perception, feeling, understanding, and mind. The essence of your perception changes and becomes integral. This is something that didn’t exist before. You begin to feel that the space that surrounds you is transparent, homogeneous, in which there is one force that operates. A person feels that he belongs to this integral system.
[126563]
From the Talk at a Meal 1/27/14

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Question: The women have conducted a very powerful friends’ meeting. It wasn’t easy. We had to make great efforts and we felt the connection between us. How can we focus this connection on the men now in order to connect with them?

Answer: Women go through states that are more difficult than the men and it requires greater overcoming. I really appreciate the women’s efforts and hold great hopes on them. The men’s success greatly depends on the women, but it is much more difficult for the women to connect, so I am really delighted by their efforts.

The moment women can connect correctly, they will discover the bridge that connects them to the men. It will be one woman that is ready to connect to one man. But first you have to reach a good, strong connection between you.

It is much more difficult for women to connect than for men. A man feels that he is free like the wind, that he is not tied to a home. A woman, on the other hand, is called “home” which means that she has a very individual character and wants to have something of her own, her own place, her own family. Thus, the connection between women must shatter the partitions that separate them and this is much more difficult than for men. We see that friendship between men is much more meaningful than friendship between women. This is nature.

It is very hard work and I truly appreciate it, but you can easily overcome it if you ascend above your female nature. There is no need to delve into your flaws but rather to advance and ascend to the good, to the connection.

When women are able to connect, they attain the ability, understanding, mind, and heart that guide them as how to help the men. For now you can’t help the men, you have to connect between you.

In the past we were on an evolutionary level where women couldn’t connect and the woman’s role was only to support the man. But we have reached a new era now in which the men connect between them and the women connect between them. Later we will see how we form a circle within a circle.

In the meantime, we are working only on connection and there is no need to look at the future or at the past. Today our work is the connection between the men and the connection between the women in order to reach mutual guarantee inside every circle.
[126553]
From the Talk at a Meal 1/26/14

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The Raspberry Ball

The “raspberry ball” is totally, absolutely losing all individual attitude to the friends. We take off all our garments of the physical body, and inner qualities of everything that we have received from nature; only the spark remains, the Reshimo, inherent in everyone, everyone’s spiritual core, his aspiration for unity.

If I still distinguish a different attitude, differences between us, then it is not a group. The group is when all the friends are equal, when I see no difference between them. They are all Reshimot; everyone is striving to reach unity.

During the first stage of the introduction to mutual guarantee, the Creator just brings us to connection and it is a rather theoretical state. On the other hand, to form the raspberry ball, we should already actively connect with everyone. The work with the raspberry ball starts with the efforts not to see any differences between friends and ends when all of them unite into one.

If we are united as a homogeneous group as the landing party, similar to other connections that people create in this world, it is not yet “one.” Indeed, in a physical unity of this kind, everyone wants to reach a goal; everyone has his own goal, and everyone is ready to unite for the sake of his individual goal.

We do not act like that. Here, everyone has to cancel himself for the sake of unity with others, giving up individual goals.

In this self-annulment, we don’t lose our mind or feelings but gain the mind of the entire group that is called “as one man with one heart.” One collective desire is revealed in which everyone feels his individual properties. Like in the system of cogwheels, he begins to spin with everyone, without pressure, and from here he understands how they rotate and why. This means “to know what the friend has in the heart.” Everyone knows this differently, according to his properties.

Thus we come to the raspberry ball.
[126594]

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