Question: Lately, we are witness to Europe and Russia beginning to connect. Also, here in the convention, we truly are feeling this. How can we connect all of our sparks together?

Answer: Understandably, that would be remarkable. If this were possible, then this would be the materialization of our dream. The dream would have become reality. Then, all of our friends would be able to rise above their mentality, above the historical separation, above the contradictions and even above the hatred, and the main thing, above the Babylonian repulsion, above the difference in languages. If they were ready to rise above “Ancient Babylon” that now is being revealed more and more among us, then there would not be any more need to change anything.

Why is the global crisis happening? It indicates to us the pre-Babylonian civilization that existed in Babylon before the general separation: the division, the disagreements, and people stopped understanding each other. In general, this is not talking about languages, not about philology, but about the disappearance of mutual understanding between people.

What is this global world? The global world is being revealed as a system that existed before the Babylonian separation. This system was divided and now is connecting again, and motility called a “crisis” is taking place.

In ancient Babylon, the crisis advanced from a state of wholeness to a shattered state, and with us, after three thousand five hundred years, the movement is from the shattered state to the whole state. The world is returning to itself to its source.

If our groups were able to connect with the help of various mechanisms (helping mechanisms, virtual and more), then without a doubt, this would be remarkable. However, for the Europeans, it is very difficult to reach connection—very difficult! Europe is the most sensitive place with a rich history and a multitude of painful issues, with general, mutual hatred, whereas if we could rise above all this… This is extremely difficult. It is necessary to go through huge “pitfalls.”

I very much hope that the Americans will become an example because our students, our friends from the Education Center, are together with us. They have good organizers faithful to us. As of this moment, they are working together with the friends on the gradual connection, on the approach toward us.

If this truly will begin to be realized, we will feel an intense spiritual push forward. Perhaps this will become an example to Europe, and then they will also begin to depart gradually from the crisis.

Throughout history, it happened that in places where the Kabbalists once lived, the economy, the trade, and the culture always prospered. However, the moment that they were expelled from the country, everything died. Therefore, I hope very much that, first of all, this will lead these nations to prosper.

However, the most important thing is that this is the very core of correction, when we, or at least those who are engaged in the science of integral connection, will be able to realize it together. And in the nations of Europe and in a number of states in the United States, people are learning alone or in solitary groups who don’t want to connect.

Do you think that this can be realized in a different way? People still don’t hear, but I hope that they will hear. We need to write about this subject more clearly, more openly, so that everyone will see where this leads. Do not wait until they guess it is the correction of the world. The connection between our groups is the correction of the world.
[114543]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
Europe Is The Center Of The World And The Modern Babylon
The Way Of The World Group
Without Grinding Or Breaking The Gear Teeth

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - 1 Comment →

Question: I recognize the secret of dissemination and it is very simple. It is up to us to radiate happiness as a result of the connection between us. People will be specifically attracted to this, not to the suffering that pushes them away, but will be attracted to the happiness that we must disseminate. How do we maintain the dissemination of happiness all the time?

Answer: I will tell you what I did. I was sitting, writing books. I worked on the archive that was left to me from Rabash. It is up to each one to feel his mission. I reached Rabash when he was 75. I didn’t know how many years were left for him to live, but I knew that it was up to me to get as much as possible from him, and if I were not to get it, then all the knowledge that he had, everything, would go down the drain. I had the feeling that I was obliged to absorb and to record everything on audio tapes, to write everything down that he had. It could be that this was conceit or even audacity, but this held me.

I did not aspire to be number one after him. Even now, I don’t feel that way, I don’t like this very much since this only makes life complicated. I felt that I was obliged to receive, to drink from this well to the end, so that this knowledge would not disappear. Instead, it would be disseminated to everyone. This was the feeling of my mission. This really held me.

More than this, I have nothing to add. Do what Rabash wrote: connection, the happiness of the goal, a feeling of need and of having been chosen for a great and difficult mission.

Think about it. What is it to be parents? On the one hand, you are happy to see them developing, growing, and on the other hand, you are very concerned about them. Certainly, you want them to grow to be more successful, but what if this is not so? How disappointed and frustrated would you be? And much more so than with your own lack of success.

That is to say, your concern is in others. They give us an example of natural love on the animate, most primitive level. If, as a reaction, they also love you, then this love for you is much stronger, and the sorrow, the suffering of the loved one, is much more terrible and tragic, than your personal suffering, for love amplifies all sensations 620 times.

Therefore, if we would have a feeling of love between us, then the world simply would “explode with jealousy” because of our happiness. Therefore, the entire secret is always to return to love. So, if we relate this way to humanity, they suddenly will feel what kind of people we are and what is happening between us. However, even now, when they see us together, they wonder about the meaning of the strange “superhuman” relationships that there are between us.
[114540]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
The Baby Is Crying And The Grownups Are Happy
The Teacher’s Task
The Developer Of The Points In The Heart

Filed under: Conventions, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam writes that even though a person has a yearning for the Creator, for understanding of meaning, the source of life, and connection with it, he cannot himself be conscious of the Creator as long as a spirit has not descended upon him from above, as long as Light has not descended upon him.

In the meantime we feel this as a source of inspiration, insight, fulfillment, and elevation. If the person feels a revelation from above, only then can he begin to hear what the sages are talking about in their books. And together with this, when he sees what they are truly talking about, he begins to believe them.

Faith means that a person is connected to their words through his inner sensations. Which is to say, he already lives in this and begins to feel, understand, sense, and be aware that always in all of his states, in absolutely everything, he is managed from above. And there is nothing in his life that was not sent from above and he reacted from below, all of his reactions also descended from above. Thus it was conducted through a variety of states that caused various sensations.

It is as if he did something, went somewhere, he ran around, something succeeded for him, something didn’t, and so forth. His inner efforts, moral feelings, physical actions, sufferings, and successes, he was simply passed through these states to create within him the possibility of feeling more and more subtle states that bring him to feel who manages them, for what goal they were sent, and so forth.

A person begins to feel that he has absolutely no freedom in anything and all of his actions are realized according to the movements of the Creator (the Light), and he is completely dependent on them. If they give him a great portion of consciousness like this, then he dissolves into it, and if they give him a small portion, then he is left with the awareness that this is what is happening.

But if he is found somewhere in the middle, then he is thrown into a divided state and doesn’t understand how he must act. At every moment he either condemns the Creator or agrees with Him and that is how it is all the time. They give him a feeling of complete inability to remain in a state like this.

It is as if he is cut in two and doesn’t know what to do with this life. Suddenly he is thrown into criticism and condemnation in the analysis of what is happening with him, his relatives, and friends. For example, he substitutes one of his relatives that drives him crazy, and he condemns the higher management, reproaching himself for his past, as though he is refusing to agree that in the past the Creator operated him.

Conversely, he agrees and understands that all this is done with the help of the Creator and only in order to sharpen his senses, so that with these feelings he can understand and feel the higher guidance.

These states pass through him for some time, gradually coming back and cooling, going to the “right line” or the “left line.” When he is inclined to the left, he begins to feel as if the past depended on him and he admonishes himself because of all of his problems, or because he cannot justify this, since this is done by the Creator.

And the opposite, when he is found in the “right line” with full awareness that all this is done from above, then what is left for him? Where is he in this whole process? Does free choice exist? In a state like this it surely doesn’t exist: not in action, not in intention, not in results, not in anything.

That is the way it happens until he is completely cleansed. Which is to say, all of his observations and all of his doubts pass through some kind of inner work until he reaches the conclusion that there exists a very subtle system here of cooperation between him and the Creator, the Creator yearns for him and vice versa.

Now it is necessary to strengthen this mutual yearning until it reaches its full amount. The moment that this happens, the person will begin to discover true cooperation with the Creator.
[114249]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
Longing For The Unknown
The Warm Embrace Of The Light
The Purpose Of Life Is The Revelation Of The Creator

Filed under: Conventions, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How is it possible to maintain the intention “for the sake of the friend” most of the time and the intention “for my sake” only for a little time?

Answer: We are found in the world of Assiya, the world of action, because we don’t have the right intention and we can awaken it only by means of action, by way of all kinds of movements in matter. Therefore it is written, “Hearts are drawn after deeds.”

Friends in the group need to feel your aspiration, you must give them an example. After all, when you show them your aspiration, the importance of the goal, you try in all kinds of forms, even shrewd ones to awaken the friends as if playing with them and unintentionally showing them your excitement; this also helps you somewhat. But the greatest help is dissemination.

It is written: “I learned much from my teachers, and from my friends even more than from my teachers, and from my  students, most of all.” (Masechet Ta’anit 7a). My teachers, this is the highest level, from them it is possible to learn only when you are found like an embryo (Ubar) in regard to them, and in the fetal state you can acquire only the Surrounding Light.

You enter into them, cling to the walls of the uterus and remain in this state for nine months. This is called the “fetus,” which is to say, totally unconscious development.

Within the fetus it is as if emotion develops, but the fetus itself doesn’t feel anything. It reacts, yet this is not its reaction, rather the reaction of the body in regard to what is higher, in regard to the teacher. In a form like this each one is found within the teacher like a fetus.

Relative to the friend, you are on the same level and the only action between you is connection. So interaction like this cannot be carried out with what is higher or with what is lower, because the coupling, the connection, can only be if someone is equal. This is to say, the forms of the desires, the intentions of the friends complete each other as in a puzzle.

The third level is when you teach. Then the Light descends on you because there is a group of students in front of you (a Kli), they open their mouths like chicks and you must feed them.

In this circumstance you draw the Surrounding Light onto yourself (not even you, rather them). Therefore it is written, “From my students I learned most of all.” Why most of all? – Because in the first case you receive the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), in the second case, you complete each other, which is to say Hassadim plus Hochma—a small illumination of perfection.

In the third case, you truly receive a great Light that the students attract through their desires, unconsciously, incorrectly, it doesn’t matter which, and this Light passes through you.

If we didn’t internalize this and would run to the world to disseminate, we would get tremendous results. And it doesn’t matter what is disseminated: integral education or the wisdom of Kabbalah. What difference does it make? The main thing is that in any case you must teach them what they want if they truly want this. Therefore, if we teach, disseminate, serve, bring connection, which is what we aspire to ourselves, then we get a positive result.

So what does the wisdom of Kabbalah exist for? To discover the Creator within connection. Therefore they do the same thing. So it is written that all the people who don’t feel the Creator will lift upon their shoulders those who have the “point in the heart” and will bring them to the mountain of the Creator, which is to say, they will elevate them. They will push, compel us, perhaps harshly, perhaps softly, so that we will be elevated and will provide them with the knowledge, the fulfillment that they require.
[114293]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
When I Receive Life
Practical Work Makes Room For The Revelation
Learning From All The Pupils

Filed under: Conventions, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: What is the correct pressure a group can exert on a person to compel him to develop spiritually? How is it different from the pressure that can shatter a person? What is compulsion in spirituality?

Answer: There is no coercion in spirituality, there is only an example. Only example!

I suggest bringing up children in an identical manner. Until I understood this myself, years went by, I aged, my children grew. But essentially this is how it is.

Only through example can you educate, interest, help someone internally, and change someone spiritually. Just showing him that you make an effort and do some kind of work awakens jealousy in a friend and this gives him an example: This is the only way, nothing else!

This is not pressure. Typically we exert pressure on a person only in a case where he is harmful. The harm is the intentional disclosure of frivolity: “Ah…it is possible to think…,” this cannot be forgiven.

That is to say, it is impossible to look at this, to hear, and to see this. It is impossible for this to exist! If there is a person like this in a group, get rid of him immediately! I advise you! This is a terrible virus! It could be that by nature he is a serious person. But if he permits something like this outwardly or seems to be intentionally boastful, then he has no right to remain in a group! All the rest is not so bad, other than revealing frivolity.

A person should show positive examples to the group. If he arrives and begins to brag that he has earned millions or he begins to inflate all kinds of goals that we don’t want, then he must leave the group. He must be excited only about our goal, the abilities of our group, and what is found ahead for us, within our attainment.
[114176]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
The Lack Of A Good Example Is A Bad Example
When External Levity Helps and When It Harms
While Collecting Grains Of Awe

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How does one pass from a show and incomprehensible phrases to true feeling and expression?

Answer: In our world a person is accustomed to putting on a performance in the presence of others: holding himself a particular way, talking, and emulating heroes from a television series. This is because we are educated by examples: We behave according to examples that we see in life or on the screen.

All of our lives, all of our behavior consists of prefabricated structures prepared in our brain from the start. How to sit, how to stand, to eat, to speak, and so forth, all this is composed of very small images that are found within our heads and have them all the time and we  pull them out and play them like a broken record: one, two, three… that is how we behave.

But now we need to play ourselves for the first time. And here a person becomes perplexed and doesn’t understand what to do. He is confused like a little child who repeats everything aping the adults until he learns to imitate them in every way,  and he obtains these images. And then he already behaves in accordance to them. He knows that it is necessary to behave there like this and here in another way. Adults laugh and he laughs too, even though he doesn’t know about what.

But we have no examples of behavior in spirituality. This is a separate and complex subject. Therefore try to be with them as yourselves, without expectations; I am like this here, from the heart. Don’t pay attention to anything! Just as a few friends appeared here, this broke them in this kind of form and that’s it, we must be like them all the time.

Question: But what if I say something that is not according to the rules?

Answer: This doesn’t matter! What rules can there be? If you speak from the heart, then anything goes.
[114171]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
In A Warm Friendly Circle
Separate Yourself From Your Own Self
A Game As An Opportunity For Self-Expression

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: When we “get hit on the head” and turn off all our feelings, emotions and thoughts, where can we find a foothold? Where do we begin our ascent?

Answer: By engaging in mechanical actions.

Question: Let’s say, one is afraid that one’s desire reaches the machsom and will “come true;” then there will be nothing to aspire to. Can you please explain this situation and tell us what to do with it?

Answer: It means that one had no desire to bestow.

Question: Can it slow down our entry into spirituality?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Could you please explain why we need family in order to advance spiritually? What is the difference between married and single men and women? If all my real actions are making efforts to unite with the group and caring about it (and I truly believe in it), then why do I need find my second “half” in spirituality and make a family?

Answer: In this world, we should correspond to the upper world. That’s why one should have a family if it’s possible. By that, we hasten our spiritual path, not slow it down.
[113013]

Related Material:
Questions After The Convention, Part 4
Questions After The Convention, Part 3
Questions After The Convention, Part 2

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Marriage, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: We have friends who use the method of Kabbalah and who have already applied it to themselves. Can they give an example to a group in the “right line”? Why are they silent?

Answer: We are obligated to show our good relationship to others. We must make a friend happy! In no manner or way should we show him a “sour” face or relate to him in a coarse manner.

And if a relationship explodes, we know that this also has its place and we accept this with understanding that this can happen to anyone. After all, this says that the friend is found with an inner tension, is working on himself, and is not indifferent to what is happening. And so we forgive him. And conversely, regarding his negative deed, regarding this outburst, we compensate for it through a positive deed, and this will lead to a good result.

But it is necessary to be careful that these negative emotional outbursts don’t become routine, habitual. Everyone in a group must work so the feeling of happiness, success, and greatness of the goal will saturate it.
[114535]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
An Example With A Hint
A Person Will Help His Neighbor
How To Help A Friend

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: During one of the days of the convention it seemed a strange wave passed , and at that moment it seemed that surely everything was already corrected! There was some kind of flash and everyone felt this. But after this, everything disappeared as if it never happened. And there was a certainty that anyone who came into the smallest contact with the collective group surely felt this connection.

Is the belief that everyone will be corrected one hundred percent true?

Answer: There is no doubt about it. How could it be that something would remain uncorrected if all of nature is integral and even its smallest parts are linked between them?

Suppose that you were to remain uncorrected, this says that the entire creation would be uncorrected. Therefore you also need to make an effort. It cannot be otherwise! This is on one hand.

On the other hand, we see in ourselves how fleeting the desires can be. One desire, a second, a third… suddenly the thought “flies” somewhere, other desires appear and so forth. Millions of external stimuli are liable to influence us because there are still uncorrected spaces within us that are corrected only through the mutual intersection between our desires and thoughts.

Therefore the work that we are doing now is the most effective.

Sometimes I sit in a lesson and watch how the people study, read, and I feel that the air is full of wisdom but it is not effective. And now in this convention we are not speaking about any wisdom, we don’t make special sketches, don’t use the sophisticated language of our sources, but we feel very intense inner actions that are happening on a higher level, above us.

Thanks to our readiness to connect and nullify according to the conditions for rising with “faith above reason,” as it is called, to prefer bestowal instead of reception, we awaken actions from above upon ourselves. They descend upon us gradually and sink into us. Therefore, you will continue to feel its results being revealed in you for a long time after the convention.

Personally I don’t feel any special difference between the convention, the lessons, or various other events because all of these are a continuous chain of the work of the higher force upon us. We place ourselves under its influence and it acts.

And there is an immense difference between the action and its application. We can carry something out today and after a week or two receive a reaction to this action because it is imperative that there be linkages of additional mechanisms for this action, which is to say further crowds of people.

For example, soon we will return to our places, will mix with the rest of our immediate environment, and they will be connected to us in some form. In the environment of our groups, our relatives, and colleagues at work, we become more “dense,” everyone will gradually react without understanding and we also will not understand how this works, but that is what happens.

After this crowd absorbs our excitement, gradually it gets along and with the passage of time, it relaxes. Precisely after that, we truly begin to feel the results of the convention. This could happen over a number of weeks and maybe another month or two.
[114296]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
The “Pluses” And The “Minuses” Of The Convention
Rising Above Reason
How Can We Count What We Have Attained?

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: I understand what disturbs me from reaching the goal now,  I lack the “What for?” I see that I have everything that it takes to advance, but I take a step back knowing that it is possible to get something more in this world…

Answer: Where are you getting thoughts like these? You see, they didn’t disturb you before like they do now. This says that you are not sufficiently concerned about holding onto the goal. And if your environment is okay, then something is not okay with you.

This is your diagnosis: lack of connection with the environment. If connection with them was strong, surely no external thoughts could be aroused in you.

The moment that I found my teacher, Rabash (I searched for a teacher for a long time, I passed through several teachers before him), I struggled to adhere to him completely; in this way I burned all the bridges behind me.

Question: How can I arouse importance like this in me? I don’t know what to do, how to move myself.

Answer: In the moments that they give you great desire, it is necessary to realize it, so that afterwards you won’t have the possibility of withdrawing. You see, after this they will give you such great difficulties and you will need to overcome them. And if I burn the previous bridge behind me, the previous level, I can no longer retreat. And they give me enormous difficulties! And I have nowhere to escape! This is very important. In a way we are not aware that escape routes always remain for us: “It’s not so bad,” “later,” “I don’t feel so good now,” and we begin to feel sorry for ourselves. That is how the despicable self-love speaks in us.

You have a group, study, work, dissemination, and everything. But you must connect yourselves to this! Otherwise you withdraw all the time and the turbulence doesn’t let you move forward. The group must check all its friends and influence them this way, drawing them towards more serious adaptation within it. This is our problem.

On the one hand, we want the group to be as large as possible, that everyone will come without conditions. What difference does it make if a person comes to the lessons twice a week or seven times a week? What difference does it make if he learns seriously or listens with half an ear? He simply is not ready for anything else! How many people go into science? All the rest wanted to leave school! Which is to say, in principle, we don’t need stringent limitations for entry into the group. All who want to should come! Especially now when we are speaking so much about integral education!

And on the other hand, we must tighten the connection between us as much as possible, and hold onto each other. But if I look at those who come once a week; I will be like this myself.

Here we are found in a contradiction again, which is typical in our path and we still cannot find the middle ground. If good ideas come to you on this matter, I will gladly listen to them.
[114290]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Three” 7/14/13, Lesson 5

Related Material:
A Safety Net Or An Insurance Policy
Wired And Wireless Communication With The Group
What If Your Desire Doesn’t Burn?

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →