Question: Integral education makes our children more positive and kind. But, on the other hand, the science of learning of our world, in spite of this, is based upon egoistic fulfillment. Every child would like know something better than his classmates do. There is a certain duality. Doesn’t this influence the process of learning in a bad way? Won’t the child loss the intention and the taste for the science of learning of our world?

Answer: Egoistic characteristics were given to us so that we would use them correctly. Here competition is required. Envy, this is a person’s best characteristic. Without it he would not advance. We would have remained living in the trees or in caves; we wouldn’t have come out from there if not for envy and competition.

Therefore it is forbidden to take this from the children in any way, but rather only to direct them correctly so that both competition and envy would be for the purpose of bestowal: Who among us does something much more and much better for a friend, for the group, and so forth.

Then a person really blossoms, everyone encourages him, he does great work both for himself and for others, brings everyone great benefit. But these awakenings in people should not be killed in any way, especially in children. Only try to change them gradually, to transform but not reduce them.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day One 12/13/13, Lesson 1

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Question: The moment you reach a group, you have no problem in nullifying yourself towards the friends because you see their greatness. And after this, when you are included in the group work and they begin to humble themselves toward you, then your “serpent” immediately raises its head and begins to whisper: “Look, you are just like them.” How is it possible to deal with it so as not to succumb to all its schemes?

Answer: First, don’t think that you can somehow win in this struggle or even to stop it; this is impossible. It is certainly possible to flee from it entirely. But the spiritual way amounts to this, that you must transform the evil “serpent” into the good “serpent,” that is, transform all of its poison into medicine.

In order to do this, we must create a relaxed and serene atmosphere between us so that it will be comfortable to think constantly about spiritual elevation. Around us there must be an atmosphere like this in which I feel very good: I don’t make an effort and I don’t get tired.

Suppose that we are in a convention now that is tiring and we are falling asleep in spite of it all, but it is necessary that we have a feeling of softness, freedom, warmth, and lightness.

All of this must be lifted, raised, entered into the heart, and not passed through the intellect. It is pleasant for me among the friends in the group; I don’t get tired and I feel much better myself than when I sit in the living room on the sofa. A state like this is what we must attain in a group. Incidentally, women can do very much for this.

Prepare tea, coffee, light refreshments, be concerned for each other, at least create a relaxed, calm environment because internally we are under much tension. Especially if I must monitor myself all the time about what I am thinking, how I evaluate my states, then it is necessary to do this in order to make work with my “serpent” easy. In fact, the group can neutralize it, put it to sleep so much so that it will be very easy to go forward.

If it is hard for you, you become tired, or you try to flee homeward; this is a sign that your relationships in the group are incorrect. If you are tired while you are in a lesson, this is a sign that you do not comprehend the material correctly; it is not clothed smoothly on your heart.

Furthermore, the conditions in a group and in a lesson must be close to the spiritual state. And the spiritual state is eternal, not because it is like this in itself, but because you want it to be eternal. Therefore, it is up to us to yearn for our mutual relationships to these states, where you want them not to end, like a meeting with your girlfriend who gives a sensation of brightness, love, reciprocity, and warmth. This is all in your hands.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 4

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The goal of the spiritual work is to acquire the attributes of the upper world. We call it upper but it is actually the only world there is. We, however, are external to it, as if senseless, unconscious, like in a dream.

How can we awaken from this dream in which the ego closes us in like a cocoon?

We are immersed in ourselves since we constantly think about ourselves and want everything only for ourselves. As a result, the space around us is distorted since all the forces are drawn inside and are locked up in there. So it is as if we are in some kind of cocoon made of forces and cannot see anything external to it.

There is a huge world around me and I am just a tiny point, an embryo, that cannot exit the cocoon and feel what is actually happening.

All this is arranged that way in order to help us be born independently. The birth should be on our account since otherwise we will not feel the real enormous world we live in but which we don’t feel at the moment.

In order to feel this world, we have to gather and establish in us the senses for perceiving this world. Thus, we will discover exactly what we lack and how to feel what we don’t perceive.

When I do something by myself, I know exactly what happens in every part of this “machine.” If I start to illustrate a machine  to someone and show and explain how it operates, it will take many years before a person understands its structure and all the subtleties will still remain a riddle for him. He will find it hard to understand why I have created the parts of the machine from special materials that I have put together this way and not any other way, how I thought about it, and jumped out of bed in the middle of the night when an idea came to my mind and drew it. I remember such times in my life.

A person who studies this, looking from the outside, will not understand anything anyway. You have to give birth to yourself, and then it will be yours. So we have a mission: to give birth to ourselves in the only, big, eternal, perfect world, in the Creator’s world, which is the only force that wants us to want to know Him and to attain and to reveal Him by ourselves.

He has created a special state for us called our world or this world in which we live like in a cocoon tightened by a great egoistic energetic force, so that we will begin to actually feel and to attain the Creator outside His luminous world. It is in our world that we can give birth to ourselves by gradually developing and creating in us more and more new attributes that can help us discover the Creator’s world and gradually resemble Him.

But how can we break through this massive egoistic protection, through the border, which we have to change?

As strange as it may seem, this is why there is a very special attribute when people come together. By getting together, we create a special energetic form. If each of us gradually exits himself and connects to others, the preliminary conditions for the attributes that exist in the real world are created.

Although we are inside a cocoon, we already manage to move in it somehow and to do something among us by partly connecting to some common form that is gradually formed as everyone tries to annul himself and imitate others, to some extent at least, and to connect with them.

A person experiences pangs of conscience since he sees that all the others manage to exit themselves, can sacrifice something and give in to others, and that they are not so tight-fisted, arrogant, and cruel and can be considerate of others; the connection between them is somehow natural, but not for him. He doesn’t succeed in anything.

When a person goes through such states, he is cleansed internally according to our collective efforts to get closer and to create a certain form that resembles what is external to it, inside the cocoon, by our mutual yearning for connection.

Don’t be put off by this, don’t fear, don’t think that it is a return to the old socialism, since there is nothing to be ashamed of here. Try to do everything that you can in order to nullify your individual egoistic urges and to attain something that is collective.

It is this collective “something” that will eventually be born and which will be called a soul.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 4

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Question: I don’t understand how we can change the intention of corporeal desire. How can I eat for someone else? Should I change it in the first place? I often hear that we shouldn’t touch our corporeal desires…

Answer: You shouldn’t change your desires in any way, but you should change your intentions.

Why not? Because I dedicate my life to attaining the upper state and being immersed in our world is only in order to change our intentions.

The Reshimot (reminiscences) descend into our world so that we can operate in it. At the same time our intention is a minus while an action can only be a combination of a minus and a plus.

You are saying: “I love to eat, I love a girl, I love to sit with friends in a bar or to watch a football game, etc.” That’s true, you love all that. These are your desires, so why can’t you use them with the right intention in order to rise to the goal, to return to this world but not from the same level you fell into the Reshimot, but in order to rise until the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) on the spiritual ladder.

Why do you think you can’t do that? By ascending from one level of Reshimo to another level, you are already completing a good reincarnation and not living your life in vain. You may reach the end of correction in this life, and it is possible in our times.

But even if you go through another round, next time you will already be in a different state, on another level. In our time we are actually in such states that we can reach the end of correction. This is the goal!

So we shouldn’t think that “a thousand enter a room and only one comes to the Light.” This isn’t true anymore; you shouldn’t worry that you have certain negative urges, as it may seem to you. If you engage in correcting the intentions, at the same time you shouldn’t worry about a thing. Just keep on asking yourself whether you do whatever you do for yourself or for the one you perform the action with, is it in mutual cooperation with the friends, a woman, etc. If it is mutual, then it is good.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day One 12/13/13, Lesson 1

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Question: When I was informed that there was a convention, I didn’t have a shadow of a doubt that I would come to it. But as the time for the convention approached, more and more external and internal obstacles appeared. One moment I was enthusiastic that I was traveling to a congress, and in the next moment, the opposite, I had no urge to travel at all; this occurred innumerable times. Why are we given obstacles like these?

Answer: The obstacles depend on how much you feel them as such. But if you were to feel that for every obstacle, for every small disturbance, whether some thought or confusion, that you had received a great reward in all kinds of ways, then would this seem like an obstacle to you? This would be a means for attaining a good, eternal, and perfect state. Therefore it depends on how we look at it.

You lack the sensation that “There is none else besides Him.” And He set up the obstacles for you; He simply wanted to give you more possibilities for fulfillment. Difficulties, despair, overcoming them, these are all your efforts that you invest so that afterward, when at the convention, you can feel and get more. Therefore you need to thank the Creator for the so-called “sufferings,” for now, specifically thanks to them, you feel a greater fulfillment.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 4

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The Kabbalists who left writings, books, and textbooks for us are teaching within them some general rules about the right way for people to connect in a Kabbalistic group.

The first condition is nullification of the self. We must nullify ourselves and show this to all the others as if we are proclaiming: “I am ready for everything in order to make a complete zero of myself. Do anything you want with me. In no way do I want to command anyone, to be the leader, to pressure anyone. I want to be a complete zero in a group and am ready to do everything necessary for your benefit.”

The second condition is greatness of the goal. Our advancement depends on the greatness of the goal in our eyes, on the importance of the characteristic of bestowal, love, and unity between us. This must be the most important thing for me and I must show this to everyone. I must speak about this, even if this is not that important to me personally because the friends will return that stimulus to me and we will impress each other. Our obligation is to elevate the group, for it has a lofty goal. I must speak about this with the friends, all the time elevating the importance that the group is everything. This will help me to nullify myself.

The third condition is bestowal to the friends. I must try to give them some gifts. By the word “gifts” I mean bestowal to the friends. I go to the kitchen and wash the dishes, clean, do something for them. I try to serve them, like an adult serves the children, helping them in whatever way possible, to give, to add to every situation in the group. On the other hand, I must feel myself as small, wanting to receive influence, education, and bestowal upon myself.

That is, on the one hand, I am great, I bestow to the friends all the time, exalt the goal in their eyes, and care about them. On the other hand, I am small, ready to receive everything from them that can fulfill only me.

A dual relationship like this regarding the group is very important. The larger the gap between these two polar relationships: I am below – the group above and I am above – the group below, the closer I will be to the goal.

We also need to include some of our particular problems that we need to raise to solve them.

All of this is realized in that I am always concerned for my friends that it will be good, happy, and pleasant so they will have complete confidence of attaining the goal and they  remain with great energy through the connection between us. And this energy must be pumped through the group so that all of us are “cooked” in it, in the good sense of the word. It will warm and throw us around so that we will shake all of the ego out of us and accumulate a completely different force, the power of bestowal and love. That is what we need.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 4

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The soul is the one and only vessel (Kli) in which we feel ourselves as a single whole. In the spiritual world nobody feels himself separately because we all feel the unity, feel the sum result of the connection.

In that we lose ourselves individually, each one of us finds himself specifically in total unity, and this is an indescribable feeling. There is no need to fear losing yourself, for we acquire an eternal and perfect existence here and not a miserable, egoistic, temporal, and wasted existence.

And besides this, from the eternal, glorious and infinite world, we see our cocoon and those people who still exist within it, as in a dream, like blind people trying to exploit everyone to their own detriment and not understanding it. Each one wants to pull the blanket over himself and thinks that with this he will get something good, but in the end all of his attempts only bring suffering.

So how is it possible to come out from this cocoon? We do so only by way of the group. In what way is it possible to begin to do something within it? For this a very interesting state is given to us, existence in bodies. Therefore our inner feeling can be both within the cocoon, in our egoistic body, and outside of the cocoon, outside of our body, in an altruistic state.

People who already exist with their feelings outside of the egoistic cocoon still can live physically in our world because our body has no connection to the spiritual world. This is simply some physiological entity, an imaginary component that is portrayed for us as existing, but essentially this entity is completely imaginary and doesn’t exist. Physicists have also already spoken about this, not just Kabbalists; science is gradually approaching this fact.

In other words, the Kabbalists can exist simultaneously in the upper world in a spiritual form and in the material world within the physical body, returning to the material image that appears in our world to leave their impressions for us, to teach their sensations, perceptions, and experience that they received by going out from our world to the upper world. They tell us how they worked in a group, united with it, learned the fundamentals of the states of the group and with its help gradually passed to the upper world.

We must use their advice, recommendations, and instructions to follow after them as after guides that show the way. So we also call them revolutionaries, pioneers, and we go after them. If not for them, we would not know how to organize in a group in a precise form in our world. But even if the group is organized in the right form, this is still not enough.

Besides this, we must be involved in learning about the upper world and about those laws of reciprocal cooperation of bestowal and absolute love that exist there with bestowal above reception with constant overcoming of our evil inclination. On the other hand, we also must be involved in external dissemination in order to bring all the rest of the parts of the one collective soul after us until we attain complete adherence, coming together, connection, until we attain a state like this that will be completely similar to the Creator in all characteristics.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 4

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Question: If there are stages in the development of the human ego, are there stages in the development of the group ego?

Answer: The movement is only forward. There is no other movement, not in nature and not with the person.

So don’t think about the ego and you don’t have to think about the group ego. It’s necessary to yearn only to advance towards group unity. Then in a natural way you will pass this group egoism. Very big problems will appear among you in unifying, in understanding, in general, in how to endure the friend who is next to me, and so forth.

But in any case, the yearning must only be forward. You don’t need to think about “how will we discover our ego as quickly as possible.” You should only think about positive discoveries, not the negative ones.

The fact is that all of Malchut is latent within us, the entire immense ego, the enormous intention for the sake of my beloved self. But we begin to yearn for unity and not in any way for anything else!

When I yearn for the right side all the time, then my ego grows on the left side in a different form parallel to it. And in a manner like this it follows that at the moment I rise to a particular level, immediately a negative intention “for my own sake” appears simultaneously. In the end, I include the negative component within the positive component and thus I create my Kli.

From the positive component I have a “screen” (Masach), and from the negative I have an inner desire that I transform into positive, and in this way I grow all the time.

It’s said: “Everyone who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater.” Therefore my main foundation (1) must be yearning for unity that grows (Σ) all the time. And the ego, that is the intention for myself, will always be secondary (2), and it will not disappear; don’t be concerned about it.

You ask, “How in a group can we discover its entire ego?” You will discover the entire ego of the group when you reach the higher line, the completion of correction. But in spite of it all, you will advance towards this upper line only with the “middle line” in that you always yearn for the right first, only for unity. And the “left line” will inevitably appear in you.

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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 2

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Question: I have no desire to simplify the wisdom of Kabbalah for the framework of distribution to the masses. I want to be involved with a dry methodical science and to pass it on in a form like this. This concerns me very much. With what could this be connected?

Answer: This is due to the fact that you don’t understand how much the wisdom of Kabbalah is a practical science. All of the calculations and sketches are good only when you see clear and precise actions behind them: How humanity will ascend to the level of the Creator, reveal himself to the next world, to the next dimension, for itself.

When this truly will begin to be shown to you practically, and the wisdom of Kabbalah is an absolutely practical science, then you won’t have any contradictions and opposition between it and the work with the masses. This is work, just like taking care of a newborn, when you feed it and clean up after it, feed it and clean up after it all the time. And you do so for many months, until it becomes a small person.

Initially this work seems to you to be miserable, unpleasant, repulsive, and even unnecessary. But this will pass.

To the degree that you yourself enter into the science of Kabbalah, you will feel more and more how much it is impossible to advance forward without attainment, and all this calculation will be empty, it will not replace discovery of the upper world. The upper world can be discovered only when you act in mutual participation with the friends and through them with the Creator, and simultaneously descend with this down to the masses of society.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day One 12/13/13, Lesson 1

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Our entire problem is in the intention of our actions. A person’s actions are divided into physical and moral aspirations, inner desires that can be expressed in a particular form in his actions. We live in a world that is composed of two components: our inner aspirations and the outer actions. The most important thing is the inner aspirations to which, in general, we don’t attribute much importance.

It is clear that the world around us is directed toward a particular goal, and the form of our advancement doesn’t depend on us at all. We see that all our programs and projects lack value, and we cannot realize them. They disappear somewhere and in their place various other events arrive. You see that we don’t control anything. We make all kinds of revolutions, build something, aspire in a particular direction, but at the end, everything turns out differently and we cannot understand what is happening to us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that the world is under the influence of absolute laws that we must know and not just observe, and we must use them in the right way in order to reach the best state possible for us in the field of the application of these laws.

In any case the world will reach the goal. A person, whether he wants to or not, will reach a state that was planned from the start by nature and toward which it has led us for billions of years.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is possible to reach this final good state in two ways.

One of them is the way by the forces of nature. This way is unpleasant, bad, pushing us forward through suffering and influences our ego, our instinctive desire, which acts automatically to be in the most comfortable state that we can choose for ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, at each and every moment.

When nature develops us through suffering, it shows us the inferiority, baseness, and vulnerability of this state, and then through this state, we are forced to seek something else. However, the idea is that nature constantly leads us in this form so that we choose the next state according to its goal, and eventually we advance.

Thus we advance by the way of trial and error because we don’t know our next state and don’t understand what it must be in comparison to the previous state. We flee from the previous state without aiming for the next state; we move forward unconsciously: The main thing is to hide, to escape from the suffering just as every animal instinctively flees from danger.

This advancement, in any case, brings us to the goal, but by a long and difficult path.

As a result, we are invited to understand the whole chain of events we have been passing through over the course of thousands of years of our evolution.

In this way, we discover a very interesting truth: the need for the change in intention in all of our actions. In other words, our actions can remain as they are. The main thing is to work on changing our intentions, and this is, in fact, talking about a change in myself.

The most difficult thing for the person is to change himself. What do I want from what I am doing, from my life, from every state through which I am passing?

You see that the intention I am now maintaining, either consciously or unconsciously, is only for my own good or for the good of others. In this case, I must change in some way! How can I rise above my nature, change myself, my intention?

The Kabbalists say that this is the main thing, the most important thing for the person. There is no need to do anything else. We try to change our lives, our society, and the wisdom of Kabbalah says that everything changes through a change of intention. If we change our intention, we change everything. If we can control our intentions, we control the entire universe, all the worlds!

Therefore, if, today all of the intentions in all of my actions are only for my own good, I must transform them so that in every activity they will be only for the good of others.

Is this possible? In principle, no. If we look at the reality that surrounds us, we see that everything acts only egoistically. In other words, we and the nature around us—human society, all inanimate objects, plants, animals, and humans—only act for their own benefit, for themselves, and cannot change in any manner.

However, if we continue to act this way, we will cause even greater suffering. And now it is evident in our world at an increasing rate: All kinds of troubles are coming upon us that are becoming more and more threatening.

On the other hand, in each and every generation, there are a number of people (in our generation they are many) who are beginning to understand that they must reach something else, to go out to another level of existence, to another level of intention, to understand what is happening and rise from the level of the activated to the activator.

This desire acts in the subconscious of all of us. Among a part of us, it is revealed less, among another part, more. In other people, it is revealed in various, unique forms. We see the ways in which people come to us, how they find us. You see that we exist in the field of our intention, and they are attracted to it and join our groups.

Many of them disappear after this, returning to their world. Many of them certainly don’t understand why they came as it seems we didn’t explain this to them in a good way and in our lessons and workshops about Kabbalah. Therefore, we must advance and correct ourselves in this also.

However, in a general manner, in our time, there are already many people who aspire to change their intention so that, through the two intentions—for their own good and for the good of others—they can begin to manage their state and the state of the world that surrounds them.

Therefore, even though our first intention is absolute egoism, an intention for our own good, we can correct it. For this, intelligence and control were given to humanity.
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From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day One 12/13/13, Lesson 1

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