Question: During the preparation for the convention everyone had a definite date to which we could accelerate, to concentrate all our efforts toward. And after that, everyone went back to his project and this common effort, aimed at one point, is not felt. How can we achieve acceleration relative to the same point?

Answer: I think we are old enough and do not need to set a date as a guide for ourselves. It’s a childish level if we can concentrate regarding any one day.

Day means a state. And as we advance further we will have to hold this state at a greater height and with increasing steadiness, until eternity. For the time being, we are given pleasant feelings of being in these states so that our material egoistic force helps us hold ourselves in them. Our egoism still supports this unity because we are at the beginning of our development.

The main thing now is to make this state permanent and to feel our belonging to our whole world group. Try to separate from this feeling and associate this condition with all the events of your life; in any situation, you only need to remain inside our unity. We need to stay in the same state in which we were during the convention together with everyone, and bring all your life inside it. All the daily activities: Lessons, work, home, family, all the situations happening need to be brought into the area of the convention and continue on its orbit.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How do you evaluate the state of the world group? What do we lack and what do we need to do in order to develop a focused joint attack?

Answer: In my opinion, you have already felt about yourselves that when you learn within the group seriously and steadily, trying to summon forces to relate to people, to friends and to learning correctly, in general for the whole world, then suddenly you feel some kind of confusion, an inexplicable mess, everything escapes from your head and nothing is connected. You don’t know where you are, something is happening that is not clear.

A number of days pass, perhaps a week or two, depending upon which part of the way in which the person is found (in the beginning this could even take up to two months and perhaps even more) and after that these states become compressed. They become shorter and shorter, but in spite of it all, a mess is felt in the head.

And then suddenly everything becomes clear, clarified, and organized. You learn on a new level, with greater understanding and feeling, and again everything progresses smoothly and well.

There is a cumulative process of your intentions, actions, learning, and then suddenly you again enter into an inexplicable internal vortex, you cannot concentrate mentally and emotionally. You are completely lost, and suddenly after a number of days or perhaps a number of hours or weeks, everything becomes clarified. This is the process.

Baal HaSulam writes that when he was in a state like this, it didn’t apply to the books, he wouldn’t try to read or to learn much. He would need to supply himself internally with everything, to reorganize and digest everything within himself so that the Light would bring him to another level and would convey to him particular elements so that he would begin to understand, to see, and to feel everything differently.

I personally think that a break like this is imperative, and incidentally, this is very widespread in everyday life. I remember that when I was studying we had a professor who was a lecturer who told us to go to the movies in the evening and come to him in the morning for the examination. And he was right. This truly helps, as it makes it possible for you to be organized and not just absorb what is written in books.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention 7/11/13, “Preparatory Lesson”

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The main thing is not to move from this point: “Today, we have gathered here.” Today is the moment when we need to work on not losing what we achieved before, but only on expanding. This is exactly the situation that has arisen now, after the convention. We need to care about continuing and adding to our gains, instead of waiting until we are thrown down once again and who knows when we will be able to rise again.

Our whole world group of Bnei Baruch must keep itself at least at the same level. We want to preserve what we have achieved, and if you are not able to stay at the same height, then you are not in the desires of bestowal even in the slightest degree.

We must by all means stay in the achieved state and not fall. Descent should be in the realization of the fact that it’s necessary to add to the previous ascent; it’s not enough for us! We must rise to a new ascent. And if we descend, we will never ascend to the King’s palace.

It’s necessary to distinguish every ascent that is in greater bestowal, which is added drop by drop: every time a little bit more bestowal, connection, and the feeling of unity. And after we reach this addition in bestowal, we get a descent based on the feeling of the opportunity to rise even higher. That is, we ourselves awaken the dawn and thus advance.

All the descents that we received to date threw us down from the achieved level, causing us to fall down. They were incorrect, not spiritual descents. The spiritual descent should occur in relation to the previous values. If in the past we somehow imagined bestowal, now we see that bestowal is much more. So, the state that we have achieved seems to us as a descent.

Of course, this is possible only with the support of the group. Let’s say, I have won $1,000 and am very happy. And then I suddenly see that someone else has won $2,000, and then I feel no longer in ascent but in descent. Similarly, we need to treat what we have achieved: Everyone should see in his environment that it’s possible to attain more, even greater bestowal! There should not be any descent; there is always an opportunity to add.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: We experienced great joy from the unity that was attained among the friends during the St. Petersburg convention and the mirror conventions. Now the thought of losing it is scary. How can we hold on to this unity?

Answer: The fear of losing the feeling of unity that was attained is a very good thing, even if it’s an egoistic fear. It guards a person.

There is no fixed state in spirituality and there are constant changes, just like in a living body where there are continuous processes going on. So the question is how we can advance. In order to preserve the previous state, we have to constantly advance, which means to constantly make additional efforts. It’s essential, even in order to preserve the previous state. If we want to rise above the previous state, we have to add a doubly squared effort.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/13, The Zohar

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Question: Everything that you say after the convention is already perceived in a totally different manner, as a new attainment. But on the other hand, there is the fear of losing it, since it takes great power to hold on to what we have attained and it can only come as a result of our unity. How can we increase the mutual support among us?

Answer: We have been through many states lately, through many changes, and have experienced difficult situations. Although they are easily forgotten because of the support from group, the essence of these changes is very significant. Besides, we have made great preparations for the convention. It was simply a favor from above that we held the convention in Krasnoyarsk before the St. Petersburg convention and I wanted everyone to envy those who had attended it.

It actually happened. Everyone wanted to reach the same state of unity and because they felt sorry that they had not felt it, they took the preparation very seriously. This is why we have attained what we have attained. I don’t think that the mirror conventions were any different judging by what I saw on the screen and in the convention itself.

It was the first time I have seen people ending the convention happily as if they are not about to say goodbye. They didn’t have to hug everyone and cry as they used to do in the past. No one came complaining to me that it would be hard to go back home. I left and no one even noticed. It is a very good sign.

People felt that their lives are in the group, in the general connection, while I only come and awaken it from the outside. I explain how to build and organize it, but life itself is fulfilled inside the group. It isn’t I who makes the convention, but actually you by yourselves. You have become so independent and this is very important, and so you have experienced these new feelings and advanced to a new state.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/13, The Zohar

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It is said that we are a shadow of the Creator, the reflection of this force—the property of bestowal and love. That is, on the basis of those desires, of the shortcomings that are revealed in us, we can guess from the manifestation of our egoistic properties how to invert them, to change, to turn them into the opposite.

Naturally, we are not able to do this ourselves, but our intentions, our efforts attract the Surrounding Light, and it leads us forward. In this case, each of us, on one hand, is a teacher, and on the other hand, is a student relative to his friends. Let’s recall Rabbi Yossi who said that he could not leave his students because he would be nothing without them. Everything that he revealed, he revealed because he worked with them. And so is everyone else.

That is why we interact as follows. On one hand, we show others how they should work, inspire, long for bestowal and love, meaning, everyone is a teacher relative to the other. On the other hand, everyone is a student relative to the other because he puts himself lower than others and thus can receive inspiration, intention, and sensation from everyone else. Existing in this interaction, we come to equality, in the equal line.

There is no equality in nature; we are totally different and have different sets of properties. There is not a single person who is like any of the other few billion people. And when we, not paying any attention to our natural inclinations and properties, begin to act in this way: once, bowing the head before others, and  another time, on the contrary, showing how to work between ourselves, then we become equal to each other. This is the key to unity, movement towards it.

In this way, we create the condition, in which the Creator is revealed: the great unified force of nature that connects the entire nature together. This is a global, integral force that began to expand from the point of the Big Bang and that built our matter in the lowest layer of the universe, and that we must bring back to unity. And this is the human being’s mission.

In principle, a person is different from the still, vegetative, and animate nature only by its ability to evaluate the lack of unity in nature that begins to be manifested now and is the source of our universal global crisis.

A crisis means not breaking, but the birth of something new. It is its property, and this is its true meaning.
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From the Convention in St. Petersburg 7/12/13, Lesson 1

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Our role is to understand that there is one and only one global nature, and we are the ones who need to connect it through mutual integration, through our intentions. Therefore the concept of “There is none else besides him” is derived from the unity of nature; there is nothing besides the one system that includes everything within it.

And it seems to us as separate because we are also separated, and therefore we don’t see the world as it is but see it according to the condition in which each person feels it solely and only individually within himself. The reason the world seems to us as separate, mutually distant, can be found in the lack of mutual connections between each other; this is discovered more and more with each passing day due to the fact that our ego is constantly growing. Moreover, its acceleration is growing acutely hyperbolic; we see how every year, every month, every week, and even every day, everything in the world is changing very rapidly. And this change is happening specifically because the same changes are happening in us. The world is felt solely and only individually. Therefore the method by which the world is felt correctly is derived from this as well; if we change our characteristics, then we change how the world is felt.

Currently there has already been much work done on this subject by philosophers, psychologists, and physicists. Scientists are gradually beginning to approach the awareness that the world depends on our subjective feelings, yet they are all identical. While everyone feels the world differently, they all feel it in the same manner through our egoistic characteristics. If we correct them so that the characteristics become opposite, then certainly we would feel the world differently: as integral and mutually linked. From here is derived one of the assumptions of our method: “Don’t think about correcting the world…” By these words we mean humanity. We don’t correct the world; rather we correct ourselves. So we begin to feel not only the world, but also ourselves within it completely differently. Ultimately, our movement from the present state, which is called “our world,” to the future state, which is called the “world of the infinity,” is in its entirety an inner correction of how we feel the world, and no more than this.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day One” 7/12/13, Lesson 1

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A letter: “The convention in St. Petersburg was so amazing, it was simply an image of the future world, as if I awakened at last into the real world. I was very sad towards the end, since I couldn’t say goodbye and the whole world seemed dark all at once. Then, on the plane I started listening to the lectures from the convention again, which revived me. It was as if the lecture during the convention made notches in my heart and then when you hear it a second time every word is revealed and implemented within.

The lectures were certainly incredible. Every word contains the method of life and how a person should find happiness and a meaning to life…

I think this miracle took place since it was such a homogeneous space, thousands of people, but in fact none of them were there by chance and so you know that no matter which way you blindly stretched out your hand, you will find a hand stretched out to you everywhere and an open heart…it is simply an awesome feeling!”
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Question: What should we do with all the interruptions that our friends all over the world encounter now: One is getting divorced, another had his money stolen, another had a car accident, and another was hospitalized? How can we work with such problems?

Answer: There is nothing we can say about our spiritual path except to be patient and to study gradually and systematically, and at the same time solve the problems gradually at the normal pace.

You must constantly feel that you are doing that since it’s the Creator who presents these problems. When you solve them, you are incorporated into the force of nature at the same time, which thus gives you a chance to solve all the problems in the world at any given moment and to hold on to the right intention.

There is nothing but that. I am saying this because I have been through that myself. I have been through some very hard times when I had very serious and complicated legal and economic problems. The Creator turns things around so that you won’t know what to do.

In that case we must simply shrink ourselves and solve the problems together with Him, while we understand that “there is none else but Him.” He makes us deal with these problems, like we do with small kids (we know that we only learn from problems), and you solve them.

When you solve them corporeally, you are constantly holding on to the right intention that everything that you receive comes from Him. Thus you carry on a dialog with the Creator and are constantly holding on to this intention, to this inclination. In addition to that, there are the friends, the study, and everything else. This is the only way to see things! Just don’t cut yourself off! The gap is already a result of a deviation from the original direction.

The main thing is to constantly hold on to the right intention, quietly and calmly and to act only to the extent that you can hold on to it. You will see that there is a solution to everything. Suddenly, everything calms down as if you have poured water on a flame, the water is poured and everything becomes quiet.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention 7/11/13, “Preparatory Lesson

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There is the path of suffering and the path of Torah (the Light). The entire world is moving by the path of suffering, and we are moving by the path of Torah. However, in its turn, the path of Torah is also divided into the path of suffering and the path of Torah. If a person is not able to awaken the dawn himself and the dawn is compelled to awaken him, then he advances by the path of suffering. That is, he descends into the darkness of the night, exposing himself to blows, earthly and spiritual, and remains in this descent until he climbs out from there. In this case, this also is called the path of suffering, but nevertheless, it is suffering on the path of spiritual development rather than the usual earthly development.

In contrast, there is the path of Torah when a person moves due to taking the desires from the environment. On this path, there is also a division on the path of suffering and the path of Torah. Entering the path of Torah, a person needs to pass the four stages of internal HaVaYaH, after which he enters the clear, true path of the Light. There, we already are ascending straight up by the beam of the Light.

Until then, you need to go through many clarifications of what the path of Light is. It is said about this, that if you are worthy, your work will be done at the expense of others. This does not mean that you take advantage of them as is done in our world, but you really use the ready vessels that the Creator prepared for His revelation and placed them in your friends.

Now, on the eve of the convention in St. Petersburg or any other convention in the future, we need to understand that our spiritual tools are in others. Preparation determines everything because we want to advance by the path of Light (Achishena), ahead of blows that approach us from behind: earthly and spiritual problems, various descents and detachment, and loss of interest.

It is said about this path in the Torah—about the people who did not listen to Moses—that, all the time, there were disagreements, frictions, disputes, and clashes between them to such an extent that Moses tells the Creator, “Leave me alone. I’m tongue-tied and cannot talk to them. They don’t understand me! They will not believe me!”

Already, after coming out of Egypt, in the wilderness, they constantly had problems and arguments. Moses would be glad to be free of his mission, but, on the other hand, he constantly protects the people, that is, the friends. Moses is an example for every one of us, showing what one should be in relation to others: Take care, and tell them everything that you have in your heart to awaken others and to straighten their path.

This is the way everyone should behave in relation to others. On the one hand, you must be great relative to the group, the giver, giving them everything that you have—inspiration, joy, the greatness of the goal—like Moses, the leader of the people. On the other hand, there is no more modest a man than Moses. That is, you become the smallest from the highest. This is the example of the attitude toward the group that the Torah gives us.

If you have found yourself in this state, do not believe that it is possible to labor and not find. You must find the desire suitable for the revelation of the Creator. The desire is your duty and revelation will happen immediately. The Creator, the upper Light, is just waiting for your smallest equivalence of form with Him to become revealed in your vessel at once.

He is already within you. As it is said, “I am the Creator, I dwell in you and in all your sins.” He is already here. Just reveal His first manifestation, the first HaVaYaH!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/13, Shamati #117

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