If we yearn to attain a state of Arvut, we must portray this goal somehow as a general state in which we are connected, to describe for ourselves what being “together” means. That is how we reach the concept of the “center of the group,” the unity that is produced between us and is stabilized as our common asset.

We become partners in building this commonality of “House, Kli, and vessel.” Each one must bring the most essential and valuable part of his heart, the “point in the heart,” and thus from ten “points in the heart” we build this Kli. From the “I” + “I” + “I” + “I” that are connected together, the “We” emerges. And after that, this “We” also melts and becomes “One.”

This is a psychological problem. In the meantime we don’t feel and understand how this is possible, but that is how it happens. Certainly everything is realized only through the influence of the Light, but it’s according to our efforts. And then we reach the concept of the “raspberry ball.” This is not a Kabbalistic term, but that is what we are calling it. Like children who are playing with a ball, that is how, in the meantime, we play with unity.

In this manner we reach the third section on the way, the raspberry ball, and we must clarify what this is. A raspberry ball is our unity, the connection between us, within which everyone disappears. Each one comes out of his “I” to all of us, and afterwards this “all of us” becomes one.

To forget myself and to connect together is possible in regular life also, like sports teams, criminal gangs, or pirates. This is very easy when everyone has a common egoistic goal: to rob a bank or sail in a submarine. There was an incident where a submarine began to sink and part of the crew could have escaped. But when it became known to them that the other half wouldn’t be able to get out of the submarine, they returned because they couldn’t abandon their friends, and they drowned with them. This special work they took upon themselves made it so that one could understand how it would be possible to live without the other. The connection became dearer to them than life. But this is still an egoistic approach in the framework of this world, even though this was a very special deed.

A raspberry ball is special in this because we need to understand how to connect. We are still learning how to unite. In the meantime, these are attempts and not practical actions, even though we are completely serious about working on them.

This is education. And after this, we must lay out that knowledge to our students in integral courses and explain what is happening with us and with all of humanity and what must happen if we want our continued evolution to advance in a good way, in the way of “I will hasten it.” And if not, then we must advance by the way of suffering through the same stages, but in total confusion without understanding our development and not feeling anything except evil.

Imagine the immense difference in advancing through explanations, mutual help, and the influence of the Light, or escaping from the blows; how much suffering we will pass! The difference between the way of suffering and the way of Light is immense.

Therefore, the first stage is to understand Arvut (mutual guarantee). The second stage is what is it composed from. The third stage is the raspberry ball: How from the concept of “We” we become “One.” This is possible on condition that within this oneness we begin to feel the Creator, to understand Him. The feeling that we are searching for Him together, like a team of commandos, brings us to true unity, to a perfected whole.
[125035]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14,, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention

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Question: I have doubts about collective decision-making. It is impossible to sit in a circle for hours and discuss every question. Maybe after a discussion like this one person will still make a decision? Otherwise, this will take too much time.

Answer: I think that people mostly will be engaged in discussions only in circles like these, and regarding work, it could be that they will work for an hour per day and perhaps not at all. All of their time, they will be looking for solutions about how to be like the Creator. In that, they will see that this is their main occupation, and they will get pleasure from this. In the meantime, we don’t understand how something like this is possible, but this is how it will be!

This will be the center of their life. Besides eating and the necessary care for the physical body, all the rest of a person’s business will be dedicated to this: 24 hours per day in thought and 15 hours in action. The person will be involved constantly in creating a tighter and tighter connection with others, more internal and emotional, physically or virtually, until we begin to discover that the physical body doesn’t exist at all, and this entire world will begin to be seen as imaginary.

Every decision will be accepted collectively. This is natural. From where can someone know better than others? Even now, it works like this. In large societies, hundreds of people participate in management and critical decision-making. How can one make a decision if what yesterday seemed to you as completely correct, today is simply ridiculous and vice-versa?

A person is not ready to do anything alone. If he wants to be like the Creator, how can he continue to work alone? This is no model that makes it possible to set yourself up in the right way. Therefore, today, we have no other option. The times of the talented people, the prominent politicians, the economists, the leaders have passed. The manager of today is not at all higher in any way than the others and is not ready to make the right decision. Everything is in decline. After all, we started a new development and it must be collective, integral!

So, we advise all the managers in all kinds of societies to organize and assemble groups for making decisions. This is already happening now because people intuitively feel that a decision like this is more reliable. It’s only that now they gather and argue, and each one promotes his opinion. However, gradually, they will discover from their personal experience that in this way it is impossible to reach a decision. Apparently, theoretically, everything is all right! However, in practical life, this is not okay. It doesn’t yield good results.

So, then they will listen to our advice and accept that the group must clarify issues, not through argument between them, but through self-nullification of everyone toward the center of the group to clarify the opinion from above. The Creator must be present in this, which will give them a perfected solution. Our decisions and solutions are already called integral.

For a discussion like this, there must be ten people. Therefore, in government, there are all kinds of committees; there is the assembly. Even from egoistic self-benefit, people understand that it is no longer possible to hand over the entire government to one person as to kings in the past. There must be connection, either egoistically at least or spiritually.
[124736]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/14, Lesson on the Topic: “9 Steps”

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Our goal is to reach equivalence and harmony with the Light, in other words, to reach the completion of correction, to eternal love and bestowal. This state requires our awareness and sensation of, and elevation to all the required characteristics in order to understand what we are lacking to resemble the Light, which inner changes we must go through.

That is, all of our work is to understand what I am feeling now and what I would be feeling in the corrected state. In every state I must react like the Light.

At every moment of my life, I must yearn for balance with it, meaning, to equivalence of form. For this, first of all, it is necessary to be aware of the properties of the Light. However, in the meantime, we are in concealment and don’t feel the Light as long as we have not reached equivalence of form with it, and how can I resemble the Light if I don’t feel it?

Here, a condition saves us which was created especially for us: this world. It is a wonder that doesn’t exist in any of the other worlds. Here, in this world, even though I am in the complete shattering, completely opposite to the Light, in spite of it all, I have the possibility of discovering desires that, like me, are searching for equivalence with the Light. Like me, they receive this aspiration from Above, this drop of semen, this “point in the heart,” without which this aspiration would not be awakened.

From this point, we already can begin with actions similar to the Light. That is, when we interact with one another, we can create from ourselves an example of what is called the action of the Light: bestowal, love, mutual help, mutual cooperation, and awakening. We have the opportunity of doing those actions that the Light does with us to warm each other a bit, to agitate, meaning to arouse desire and envy in a friend.

Instead of the Light, the Creator, we get the group. The Creator brings the person to the good fortune and says, “Take it!” In other words, He brings him to a laboratory, puts him into the model through which we can advance with the help of the friends in spite of our shattered, ruined state. The Creator brings you to them, and now you begin to act!

Everything else depends upon you, upon the manner in which you do the work and relate to the group as to the Creator who bestows to you. When you begin the dialog, the reciprocal work, with the group, you will clarify how the group influences you and you influence the group. Then, it is possible to rise together.

So, we must reach a state that is called Arvut (mutual guarantee) that obligates mutual help and mutual influence by everyone for every member of the group. We present ourselves before every friend as the bestowal of the Light, of the Creator upon him, and he must react to us like a creature that wants to correct himself and resemble the Light.

In other words, each one wants to identify with the group, to be connected, to adhere to it, to become one man with one heart, with one mind. That is, I must melt into the friends absolutely so that nothing will be left of me. I want to immerse into the group. That is what each one must do, and with this, everyone is helping everyone.

As a result of this, after the last drop of effort, we truly become one man with one heart. This drop is like the last bite we eat at a meal, and, after it comes the satiety, and we feel that we have filled ourselves. In this way, we complete a full HaVaYaH, ten Sefirot. You see, only the last phase, Malchut de Malchut, feels, understands, and knows with whom it is dealing, why and how it must behave, how it is constructed, how the Creator is constructed, and what must be done in response if it gets everything from Him: both the Light and the desire.

So Arvut is the first stage—connection into a single whole—and it seems that there is nothing more to do. However, we understand that, in the meantime, these are just words, as it is said, “the end of the action, is in the initial thought.” In thoughts, we already want to reach the final outcome, but you must go by a path that can be long. You see, I must build myself, and only then will I recognize the Creator.

Everything is created from Above in a perfected form, but the creature must attain this perfection, be aware of the Creator, become like Him, understand Him to His entire depth, and resemble Him in all his actions. You see, if the state of the creature is less than complete equivalence with the Creator, it is not considered that the Creator has been beneficial to him.

We must pass through all of these stages, and as long as we have not finished the previous stage, we cannot pass to the next stage. Therefore, from the beginning, we are talking about Arvut, about attaining equivalence of form with the Creator, about harmony with nature: coupling, embracing, kissing, all expressions of equivalence of form with the Creator, and in spite of it all, these are all still words, and now we begin to construct this state; that is, we enter into the second stage and beyond. Overall, it is possible to discover the nine stages on the way to spiritual discovery.
[124841]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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A person’s work with the group is meant to sustain the connection with the friends even if he draws away from them physically, when he goes to work or when he goes home. I should not break away from them even when I am in difficult states, not only in fatigue or indifference, but even when I feel hate and repulsion.

The Upper Light plays with me while I have to divide myself into two parts. The first part is all I feel since all these feelings come from the Light into my desire. The second half determines what I should do, it controls me.

It is as if I have two roles. The first role is to feel the states that the Light brings me as deeply as I can. The second role is to control my feeling and to understand where it comes from, what causes it and how I should change it in order to advance to the desired state.

I have to be an expert inspector, examining, clarifying, and checking myself to direct myself to the goal. Later these two discernments merge and thus become the body (Guf) and the head (Rosh) of the spiritual Partzuf. The head determines what happens in the body and how it should function but only if this part, my expert, has control over the other part, over the desire.

In the meantime I try to exist in these two roles and to constantly see myself from the side, thus clarifying what the Light does with me, how I change, how I should change, and how I should react to each and every state.

I constantly assess myself from this control system. I change by becoming more independent of my feeling, of the discernments in my desire. I try to do my best not to identify with the desire and to rise above it. This means that my “head” is above the “body.”

This is the function of the second phase along the way of our spiritual advancement. I expect to reach a state in which I feel that all the desires and inclinations that are created in me by the Light are good, although I don’t feel them that way and don’t see that they are valuable since everything is broken. But they are good and beneficial to my advancement and are essential along the way: I have to gradually correct them one by one, to collect them to the one goal, to adhesion to the Creator, since these are parts of my soul.

So I examine myself like an assessor who sees all the corruptions in me and am glad about it since only by correcting them can I advance. If I discover greater corruptions, it’s a sign that I am advancing well since I have revealed such great deficiencies I should do something about . This means that on the one hand, this problem can occupy all my thoughts and all my heart. I find myself in a terrible situation and don’t know what to do about it. The problems are so great that my head explodes because of the horrible tension.

But on the other hand, I should know that this whole state was sent to me by the Creator so that I will solve all these problems only in the connection with Him and with the goal. The solution to the problem begins when the goal becomes more important than the problem.

If this is how I see these two approaches, then I don’t care about what happens to me: My goal is to be corrected and to resemble the Creator in bestowal, love, and adhesion which are more important to me than my personal state. Thus I solve every state. If I place myself above the state, it usually doesn’t need a solution anymore. I see that I don’t need anything else, “everything is resolved in the thought.” With regard to our state, it means that every state is less important than our mutual guarantee, since mutual guarantee is the goal that we have to reach in the connection between us.
[124929]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: How can my work with the world change me in a way that I eventually attain the Creator?

Answer: It is very simple. I have already explained it many times.

Let’s say that we aspire to rise to the Creator, to the property of bestowal. We cannot address the Creator solely for our own sake, even if we ask for the property of bestowal to be granted to us. “Give me the quality of bestowal! Correct me!” Why? It sounds as if you are blaming the Creator for making you “bad” and now you are asking Him: “Correct what you did!”

There are very subtle nuances here. Remember, we cannot address the Creator with our personal requests. Our demand has to be general and come from all friends. Only when we try to unite in a group and create common properties between us can we address the Creator by asking Him to manifest in us. Our appeal to Him is called MAN and His answer to us is called MAD.

But even if we receive something in return, it will be only a slight sensation of spirituality called Galgalta ve Eynaim or Hafetz Hesed (one who doesn’t desire anything for one’s own sake), nothing more!

In order to truly sense spirituality and elicit the upper force, we don’t need desires of our own, but rather the desires of our neighbors. Otherwise, our demand for altruistic properties will be just an egoistic act.

“Why do you need altruistic qualities? Be happy with the way I created you!” If one wants to rise above one’s nature, one shouldn’t request to alter it.

Think about it and try to “digest” these states internally. If we justify the King, then we validate everything He does to us, even if He imprisons us. If we don’t approve of the King, it means that our egoism is screaming in us and that we judge everything through our own states.

Therefore, we should address the Creator all together in order to truly reveal the Creator instead of praying just for ourselves. If we do so, we’ll acquire a “small addition,” seven billion people, the entire humanity.

If we take care of the others as if they were our children, then we’ll start to feel them. As soon as our influence on them begins, their reaction will suddenly become clear to us. We’ll start caring about them. We’ll understand and feel them as if they were our children. We’ll realize what’s good and what’s bad for them since we’ll feel their internal pain.

We’ll sense their reaction, their demand, their MAN for salvation and unity that will be directed to us.

We are incapable of doing it on our own. Then again, can they really unite and become one whole even though they are not a Kabbalistic group? They don’t know anything nor do they want to study since they don’t have any predisposition for it.

In order to connect internally, they need the Upper Light, the Creator. MAD will transition through us to them. They will sense It because while educating them, we will become a source of energy for them. We serve as a transitional link for them.
[124337]
From the Virtual Convention in Moscow 12/15/13, Lesson 5

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Question: Are there external measurements or revelations that show the purity of my intention?

Answer: Your real intentions are not known, even to you, and others certainly don’t know them. Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the hidden wisdom, the inner part of the world, since it talks about that which is not revealed in our world.

How can we determine our intentions? Just try to do everything in the group with good intentions and gradually you will begin to feel as you lie to others and yourself, and you will enjoy it as a revelation of truth.

Moreover, it suggests that not only did you previously have bad intentions in action and now their real essence is revealed, but also in the future, they will remain like that. So, what is there to do? It is to ask for good intentions.

Thus, begin to perform good physical acts for the good of the group, try to work within them with the correct intention. As a result of that you reach a conclusion that all of that is done only for your sake.

This is the correct result, you reveal the truth. And even though you feel uncomfortable, you must be thankful to the Creator and ask that from now on He will give you the opportunity to do the right thing. Then, you are given the correct intention.

The next time when you do something for the group, again you will be shown that you had an incorrect intention, and again in an identical way, you go forward. In this advancement via cycles, you constantly discover within yourself the incorrectness of your intentions, but you discover them each time at a new level.

Of course, it is an unpleasant situation. However, by way of general support, by overall inspiration, by understanding that it is specifically in this way that we advance, you will see that it is a wonderful internal battle. In the end, from within all of these conflicting sensations, man begins to understand himself, the world, and the Creator.
[124719]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention 12/13/13, Lesson 2

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There is a force in The Book of Zohar we can use. But in order to discover the inner potential of this book, we have to be on its level to some extent. So how does this mechanism work? In legends and fairy tales the hero finds a secret chest that he opens with a big heavy key. Which key will open the secret of The Zohar for us? What is the key that fits every lock? It’s the equivalence of form. This is the key that we put into the keyhole. It’s only by the equivalence of form that we can open The Book of Zohar. This is the basic key rule.

Later, of course, we need the group and the connection with the friends, etc. in order to reach an equivalence of form with this book. Thus, we open The Zohar and read it according to our equivalence of form, according to the love and hate that are in contrast to one another.

This means that it isn’t that simple to really open the book. If we open the book it doesn’t mean that the book really opens up before us yet. It all depends on what happens between us. If we are connected, we are also connected to the book and then to the same degree we can attain it and feel the group of Rabbi Shimon, the ten friends, the ten Sefirot. It isn’t about people but about their essence, about the quality that is in the desire. Thus we begin to know them, are attracted to them, and a bit of each of them is revealed in us.

We have enough power. By annulling our ego and in the connection above it, we establish a connection that helps us discover what is written in The Zohar. We establish the foundations, the infrastructure, a common place, since the spiritual spot can only be collective. Here we become equal to the first level of the revelation of The Book of Zohar, in the intensity of our connection above the interruptions, according to the law of the equivalence of form.

In order to do that we will gather at the February convention and we make great efforts and pay a lot of money while giving up many other things in order to reach this general gathering. All this effort should bring us to an ascent and to connection. This is how it was arranged from Above: If we use the means that have been prepared for us, we reach the desirable outcome.
[125040]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/14,, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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The influence of the group must be so strong that “it doesn’t let me sleep.” That is, that I will never be able to forget about the importance of connection; rather, I will feel that this thought is stuck in my mind and heart, a permanent backdrop.

It is absolutely possible to attain this. No one can complain that this does not work. If he thinks so, he is simply lying to himself. For this, we only require work and time.

If the person places himself under the influence of the group and is under its healing power, he cannot become detached, as if he is drawn by a magnet or some kind of wave that holds him in its field. He becomes linked to an environment that he chose himself at one stage. However, after the choice is made, he enters under the influence of the environment, the friends, appreciates the same values, and thinks the same way as everyone, for, if the group is important to him, he will accept all of its opinions, even those that he didn’t value, didn’t love, and didn’t think were good and beautiful before.

We see from our lives that if we love and appreciate someone, we begin to accept and copy his behavior because we appreciate him as higher than us and we depend upon him.

Therefore, the ego doesn’t become a disturbance for us, and if we have not succeeded, the reason for this is that we have not invested enough energy in strengthening the group. We have not utilized envy. The teacher also learns from his students, as it is said, “I learned much from my teachers, even more from my friends, and even more from my students.” Therefore, you can learn from everyone that you teach.

The moment that we feel some kind of inner resistance, we need to accept this as the “left line” against which the “right line” is awakened. The society will stand against this disturbance and then we will see that this is not a disturbance, but rather an opportunity to connect the two lines and build the “middle line” between them in order to advance even further toward a portrayal of the Creator.

We are trying to connect the broken parts of the soul as if we were connecting gears. However, we don’t want them to be pressed onto each other and compelled to rotate as happens in a regular society. We want them to begin to turn in a synchronized manner through helping each other, avoiding pressure by any one of them on another. All of them must turn in full agreement and harmony. That is, each one feels himself as completely free, without any pressure, because the Light turns and moves everyone together.

When the Creator is revealed, no pressure of one on another remains in any direction and all are driven by means of the Light. This is as it is written, “And the third party will come and reconcile them with each other.”

Revealing the evil inclination within himself, he can check whether he is able to pass to the right correction immediately. If he immediately accepts this discovery of ego as a help, as something good and useful, “a helpmate against him,” then he immediately can work with this and build the “middle line,” and the middle line is already the discovery of the Creator, and then the work becomes so easy for a person, without any friction, that he feels as if he is simply floating in air.

However, it is impossible to remain in a state like this because oscillations come all the time, right and left, and the person balances between them in the middle line, which is called the line of accommodation, equivalence of form.
[124511]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/14, Lesson on the Topic: Preparation for the Convention

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Question: What difference does it make to whom one builds an intention for the sake of bestowal: the friends or people who don’t belong to the spiritual process?

Answer: The idea is that you don’t feel bestowal from strangers. They will not support you, but will begin to relate to you, to put it mildly, like a person who is insane. If you behave like a divine dandelion who only wants their good, they will not understand you.

For something to be okay, there must be mutual cooperation between you; you must develop this reciprocity, where you are to them what they are to you: You support each other, stimulate each other, discuss your problems, and so forth. It is possible to do this only in a group of like-minded people.

In a group we cooperate reciprocally between us, support each other, and yearn to attain fusion of our hearts, mutual guarantee, Arvut. With whom do you intend to do this? With those who are walking in the street and someone this doesn’t matter to at all? A person doesn’t know where they are moving him, for everything happens in a general field. People are like electrical charges that are moving in a general field of light; they reach the lowest point of balance with it and are concentrated there. So we are also gathered in a group in our world. You suddenly begin to feel where they are dragging you and with whom it is necessary to connect. This is because your charge, your “point in the heart” is moving in a field of Light and comes to this state.
[124650]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson #2

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Question: You have said many times that a person studies, let’s say, for ten years, but still doesn’t succeed in adhering to the group, becoming a spiritual embryo. So what happens during this time, does the ego simply grow?

Answer: When a person truly adheres to the center of the group and becomes a spiritual embryo, he begins to feel as if he exists in the spiritual world to his full capacity. Exactly as in our world, an embryo that is found in his mother’s womb attains the same thing, for everything that is happening in her body, in fact, is designed only for him.

A spiritual embryo is a state that is not simple and is a very high state from which the entire spiritual level begins.

Suppose that ten years of studying has passed for someone and he still hasn’t become a spiritual embryo; that is, he has not succeeded in nullifying himself towards the group. And no matter how much we tell him about this, no matter how much he reads in the sources himself, he cannot do anything with this because he is not participating physically in the work of the group; he is arrogant, separated from it.

We are  in a special world in which even all of our physical actions invite spiritual results; I cannot love the friends, I hate them, but in spite of it all, I still force myself to sit with them, smile at them, approach them through some kind of external action with the hope that this will change me, and this truly does change me. If a person doesn’t do this, then it is too bad, even after ten years he will remain the same.
[124647]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson #2

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