Question: How can we remain in a state called “one family” during the convention in Germany? How do we tell the difference between this kind of “family” and the regular family, which is one of our animate needs?

Answer: We named the next European Congress a “family convention.” We think that the time has come and that the knowledge that we have accumulated and the circumstances which we are in allow us to build one unified family that will be comprised of all our groups—one big Kli (vessel.) As Baal HaSulam writes, the entire world is one family, and today we have to become as one family.

In other words, all our groups and our friends who do not have groups, wherever they are, have to make themselves sense the rest of the Kli on a regular basis and totally depend on each other. This kind of connection really exists and we have no other way but to gradually reveal it. It’s our primary task.

Secondly, we have to maintain a good connection, never criticize each other, but rather get closer with others. We have to find a common denominator and mutual grounds: common desires and intentions, feel complete mutual interdependence. It’s as if we are at home with our families and have no doubts that we depend on each other. This is the least we can do now.

At the same time, we don’t have to know all of our friends by names. We simply have to sense that they are inside us and that we are one joined entity. Then, while working on self-correction, we, at the same time, help others and feel everything through ourselves and try to correct, fulfill, and shape others spiritually. Each of us has to act this way in respect to others.

It’s vital. By working so, we will jump ahead and will approach the ultimate level of the universe in which we all exist and which is yet hidden from us by our personal egoistic properties. We have to rise above ourselves at least a little and accept the fact that others are equal to us if not higher, bigger, or more important than us. If we manage to act so, we will break the wall that is called the “Machsom.”
[103162]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/17/13

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Question: What does it mean to address the Creator?

Answer: To address the Creator means to demand from the inner forces of the world that hold and control it to be clearly manifested in us. We have to know this force, be in contact with it, and to act with its help. That is why we ask, demand, it to be revealed.

It does not matter to the Creator how you address Him. You can curse Him, just do not leave!
[103681]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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Question: I work in an artistic workshop where I help people with mental and emotional problems, with depression, and all sorts of social problems to come out of their seclusion through art. I don’t understand the difference between integral education and social work. What is the difference between them?

Answer: The difference is that in the case of integral education, you transmit the Light through yourself to others. You organize them so that they will transform into a spiritual Kli (vessel). After all, you have a point in the heart and therefore, you work with them through yourself. You receive their desires and problems and arrange them such that something is added in you and for this addition you can receive the Light.

This is not social work, but spiritual work. This is the difference between them.

You work in order to attract the upper Light to organize all humanity into one whole, into one unified system called “Adam” so that in this system the upper Light, the higher state, will be revealed. This is not some kind of relaxation instead of a pill. Rather, it is specifically the elevation of humanity to the next level of existence.

We are not engaged in relaxing people even though we may say this to them. But we understand that it is impossible to do anything on the level they are at, except raise them to a spiritual level.

All of our attempts to resolve some of the problems in this world, charity, or help for various population strata are to no avail. Nothing is fixed with this, and it only gets worse. There are many investigators of this subject; and it is completely clear that all of the problems are derived only from our not correcting ourselves and instead, becoming involved in this kind of social work.

I am not saying that this work is not required or that it is harmful. If it is possible now to help a person in some concrete manner, it is necessary to help. However, together with this, one must not forget that we don’t attain anything with this. Therefore, it is possible to be involved temporarily with social work as long as we haven’t yet begun the widespread dissemination of integral education.

Question: Do these two types of work conflict with each other, and is it possible to unite them?

Answer: It is possible to unite them but only to the degree that you understand that with this, you are providing only temporary relief to a person’s condition. If your actions are connected to real correction, then this is meaningful.
[103572]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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Question: There are many nations and cultures in Europe that feel separated and divided. How can we build a European continent without any barriers?

Answer: The differences in culture and mentality are irrelevant since we rise above them. We should understand that this is the spiritual distinction that originated in ancient Babel. It is intentional.

Can you imagine what one heart and one mind means? You rise to a different level of communication where there is no need for language or for anything else—you simply feel each other since the information flows from one to another without words. You work according to a single unique plan that is above all differences. This is what we should reach.

So Europe was built that way on purpose, varied and full of contradictions, where for centuries mutual relations between all the nations and the cultures have been very complex. However, there is no need even to understand and to clarify this. The only thing we should do is simply rise above all that together! If you pay attention to the language a person uses, to his character, views, and habits, you will never reach a single opinion! This is the entire problem!

We suggest that we should unite above all the problems, above everything that exists on the ordinary, corporeal level. Then there will be no problems. This is the whole method of integral education.
[103495]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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Question: If I include all 600,000 souls in my quality would ordinary people feel my great power when they interact with me? Will I influence them in certain way?

Answer: 600,000 souls are not parts separated from one another; it is a conventional Kabbalistic name of the level to which we have to rise.

This means that if now I sense the minimal bonding with others then conventionally it is called one. When I begin to climb the spiritual rungs and let’s say I include myself into Zeir Anpin, it means that I include 10 souls within myself; if I become included into ISHSUT – it is 1,000 souls, in Aba ve Ima – 10,000, etc. In addition, this is multiplied by 60 because Zeir Anpin consists of six parts. When I rise to Arich Anpin it turns out that I multiply myself by 600,000. It means that my today’s attainment increases 600,000 times.

However, this is just a convention because we don’t understand what 600,000 means. It is an incredible progression. It is not linear, but rather exponential in the infinite degree.
[103320]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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Question: “I, the group, the world.” As long as this picture exists in our imagination, the world endures much, exactly as you said many years ago. But of course, this shouldn’t make us happy. It’s necessary to help people, to support them, especially in our European Convention…

Answer: I agree absolutely. First of all, we are commanded, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If I must relate to people with love, how can I be happy about their suffering? Certainly, something like this simply cannot be.

And on the other hand, when we look at what’s happening, we need to hurry and dedicate as much power and time as possible to dissemination. I hope that we will speak about this at the convention. For it’s very important for us to bring the understanding to humanity that a very clear, very concrete, simple, and practical method exists. Already today it’s possible to implement it and to see wondrous results in a number of days.

We know how rapidly people are changed within the framework of integral education beginning from the first lecture, from the first workshop. If we can only give them the method, they will open their eyes and see how simple everything is. We are preparing ourselves for this, and we already have a few hundred people in various countries that are ready to be teachers and educators.

One way or another, the world will not work it out without suffering, but these will already be sufferings of love, when together with the force that pushes people from behind, a force also draws them forward. This is our obligation, our mission, to show them the way.

In truth, I already spoke about this state many years ago, and frankly, every day I expect that they will begin to hear us. Otherwise, undoubtedly the suffering will grow more and more. And in spite of all this, I have great hopes. Due to the communications media, due to the reactions of scientists and politicians, I see that the world has changed. They are already beginning to grasp the idea and understand that today we require a breakthrough, a new way.

Question: The better that the understanding of the world is connected to the manner in which the group learns, it unites internally. And in spite of all this our ego demands a payoff in the form of conventions, and in general, endless meetings. Has the time not come for a new level? For in a form like this we cannot continue to gather the entire world. Someone will always remain on the sidelines and will feel himself deprived. Has the time not arrived when every one of us, within himself, and simultaneously in another, will come to the thought that we are one whole, not only through mutual physical activity, but also with inner activity? We need to be together internally.

Answer: The world develops from simple “mechanics,” to electronics, to radio and to television, to computers, to a virtual network, and after this, to a spiritual network. Our mutual connection is coming closer and closer to its spiritual form.

Today the world is making a transition to virtual connection, to conference calls, to telephones and chats. And now we need to go out to such a level of connection so that the whole world will know our coordinates in all segments of the network and will have the possibility of connecting with us, easily and correctly.

We need to be accessible to everyone in this virtual form so that the person can find a group, a society, a new image of humanity, a correct connection between everyone. It’s necessary for everyone to understand how to go inward, how to be included in this collective, how to live in it, how to feel included in a mutual connection. The moment that a person will take a cell phone into his hands or turn on a computer, this virtual atmosphere will then embrace him, will draw him inward and begin to work on him, will attract him more and more towards new stages of development.

And in the end, artificial channels and lines of communication will no longer be required, for we will stretch wires from heart to heart. This will be the coming level, yet we cannot rise to it without preliminary communications through these networks.
[103236]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can I connect with this gigantic European family if I am not acquainted with anyone personally? On what level is this connection realized?

Answer: I also do not know anyone here, except for 10 – 15 people that I came across personally, and I don’t even want to know. What does it matter to me what their names are?! I never remember names and don’t know whether it is this person or another. This isn’t important at all! What is important is that he has that same desire as you, and therefore you are both attracted to it, and together you have already become some kind of whole. From this connection is the whole of our method.

What is the connection to the bodies of people here, where they are from, what language they speak, what their characters are, or if it is a man or a woman? It doesn’t matter. We need only the connection of our points in the heart and nothing more. In any case, ultimately, in another few decades these bodies will no longer exist in our world, and only the points in the heart will be left. And those we need to connect in order to feel eternal existence in them.

All matter gradually disappears; nothing is left from it. The main thing is our eternal point! When you begin to pay attention to only this point in the heart, you will begin to relate to a person completely differently. I often scold my students, you know how I am, but I very much love this point in them.
[103499]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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Question: How can we work with the next degree correctly? What is this next degree? How can we approach it, find it, see it, discover it? What is the difference between the degree itself and what is discovered in it?

Answer: Our world is the feeling of our egoistic division, of mutual repulsion. We comprehend everything in this state of mutual distancing: from one another, from the still, vegetative, and animate nature. And this state is called “our world.” In other words, since we draw everything towards us in an egoistic manner for the sake of personal pleasure, we separate the one spiritual Light into negligible portions and comprehend these as objects of the still, the vegetative, the animate, and the human nature of our world.

And on the contrary, if we begin to connect these objects together and relate to them as to a single whole, then we begin to feel the next degree, the upper world.

The group has been given to us so that we can find how to comprehend the space that surrounds us in another, correct form. Ultimately it follows that when we connect with each other, trying to unite emotionally, imagining the integration of our desires and thoughts, as one heart and as one mind, then we portray the spiritual world before us, and yearn for it. In the same manner, a child desires to be an adult.

Through this desire we summon upon ourselves the upper Light (Ohr Makif), which corrects the ego that separates us and in this manner forms the next degree, the connection between us, the AHP of the upper degree.

Thus we connect to the upper level, only through mutual cooperation between us. And then we begin to feel the field, the energy, the wave, that streams between us.

Problems between us will grow more and more, forces of repulsion will be discovered more and more, while we need the opposite: To rise above them and to connect ourselves all the time until the negative and rejecting forces of opposition, on the one hand, and the forces of our mutual connection, on the other hand, will attain the position of our first spiritual degree. And then it will be discovered in the middle line.

Thus, the spiritual world will be discovered through the connection between us provided that we rise above the repulsive forces, working patiently and steadily on the connection until we rise to the position of the first spiritual degree.

These accumulated degrees, when we tirelessly try to connect despite the incessant problems between us in a group, are simultaneously the internal development of the embryo through which we need to pass. And then we are born.

What do they say when a newborn arrives in the world? “Congratulations!”
[103439]
From the Meal before the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13

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The wisdom of Kabbalah says that all of nature is a desire for pleasure, a desire to receive fulfillment. This desire developed over billions of years from the still, to the vegetative, to the animate, to the level of the speaking. In the course of development, a person passes through the same stages of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Throughout all these stages, humanity passed from one stage to another, from one area to another. Life was created somewhere in Africa and from there wandered somewhere in the east, and after that moved to Europe…

And today, we have reached a particularly unique stage. Now Europe is found at the center of the world, and according to its mixture and integration, it has become a kind of modern Babylon. It sets the tone for the world: culturally, scientifically, and technologically. Despite the fact that America seems separate from Europe, it is in fact the same civilization. Thus, we need to speak about Europe as the center of the world. In a general way, what happens in Europe influences the entire world.

There was a time when humanity spread from ancient Babylon over the face of the earth. It existed there as a community of an immense number of different tribes who were united by a common area by means of a relatively common culture and level of existence. Today, the same thing is happening in Europe.

This is a huge number of people, a nation, if it is possible to say this, which is composed of a large number of tribes, peoples, and nations who as a whole are united by a particular culture, uniform level, comprehension of the world and mentality. Even though they are different from each other, they have, generally, the same common pattern. And this pattern has gradually spread throughout the world.

Europe is the origin and the spirit of modern existence. But it is itself passing through very painful changes, for our whole world is changing, and not only in a technological sense, but also because the desires found at the base of our system have changed lately in a particular, qualitatively acute form.

Throughout millennia, humanity was developing in a simple way through increasing desire. People wanted more: to earn more, to get more, to expand more, to enjoy. They simply wanted to fulfill these desires. In general, they developed quantitatively and, practically, very little qualitatively.

But today a very complicated transition is taking place towards new desires. We have gradually drifted from the traditional direction of development that leads to wealth, fame, power, and knowledge. Humanity no longer searches for these things that formerly interested and fulfilled it. Today it is passing through a passive, “amorphous” existence, because it is found in a transitional stage.

In our spiritual changes, sometimes we are found in great ascent and after that find ourselves in descent, indifference and even despair. And so we cannot do anything, we don’t want anything. And after that again something “explodes” from within, and again we are drawn in some kind of direction, and again we are filled with energy. With us these states transform very rapidly, and in humanity, in its development, they change very slowly.

And today we are passing through that stage. We have been found in it for quite some time: It is expressed in nihilism, denial, apathy; it originated in the years after the Second World War, in the fifties and the sixties. From that time, these phenomena received new forms: an increase in the number of divorces, people not wanting to establish families or to give birth to children, wanting to be alone, and abandoning their parents. There is no sense of a community that once provided for the family, a group of people who were connected by a feeling of family. This also is lost.

As a result of this, a person is found in a state of confusion. And this is felt in particular in Europe as the most developed part of humanity.

But in a fundamental manner, this process is only a transition to a state in which we search for meaning. People have lost pleasure, lost desires, lost the urge for the former fulfillments. There is nothing to do here. There is simply no urge! It is difficult to compel people.

You yourselves at work, at home, at various events, probably meet people like this: a little disappointed, empty, and indifferent. Various communications media, advertisements, try to arouse them all the time for something: sports, soccer, shopping, and so forth. All this looks exciting, but in fact it is not. A person is attracted to this only because he needs to fill himself with something.

Moreover, this process in Europe has added to other processes. You see, in principle, the unified force of the Light influences all of us. To the same degree it influences the mental and moral level, all the levels. And as a result of this, we feel a collective descent.

However, the crisis has influenced not only the family, education, and culture. The most important thing for us at the moment is the economic, financial crisis. You see, the economy, finances, have always connected people. If people were not dependent upon each other economically with the need to earn money in order to exist, they would not have organized into cities, peoples, nations, and all kinds of associations; they would not have had the incentive to do so.

What, in principle, stimulates connection between us? We need to make a living, to exist, to enjoy, and to develop in a shared form. And when there is a crisis, the financial, economic gap between us already becomes a basic, fundamental separation, and it represents the most significant transition to the next stage.

And here, the role of Europe is very important: Europe is found at the focal point of events today and can show the whole world the right approach to a solution to problems, with which, sooner or later, everyone will need to contend.
[103443]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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Question: How can we come to feel the necessity of carrying out our mission and being united?

Answer: We learn about connection and unity in a group from all the essays by Baal HaSulam and the Rabash, why this is needed and for what. This touches upon both a person regarding the group and a group regarding all the others.

Today the world demands this. The world crisis obliges us. For if it didn’t exist, we would not think about it.

Our group once numbered 30 – 40 people. We learned in a small apartment, and that was fine for us. This was only 15 years ago; and I thought that this was how it would always be.

But at the end of the ‘90s of the last century, the world suddenly began to change. Many new people began to come to us, and we were compelled to move to another building. After that people began to feel a need for us, they began to appear in various countries around the world, and I arranged a lecture tour in 11 major cities in America. This is to say the world had changed.

So from the start, we planned to learn only in a small group, as it had always been customary among the Kabbalists. But when there began to be a move towards us from the world, and it began to show its need for us, we were compelled to change. So today, you have found us. But if it had been up to us, we would not have shown ourselves to anyone, we would not have gone onto the internet, we would not have been occupied with dissemination, for the Kabbalists had always been closed. But the world began to demand; its state had changed.

It is also the same thing now; the crisis obliges us. It is as if this were a condition: If you don’t correct it, why are you receiving the upper Light? Is it for yourself? There is nothing like this “for yourself” in the wisdom of Kabbalah, in spirituality. You don’t receive anything in the spiritual world for yourself. And so a prerequisite appeared for us—to connect between us, and along with this, to disseminate.
[103401]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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