Question: What does mutual guarantee mean? What does mutuality in the group entail?

Answer: Mutual guarantee is when we provide each friend with an absolutely complete feeling of security and confidence to such an extent that we cover his entire egoism and he doesn’t need anything. That is, we give him our respect and love, and treat him in such a way that he no longer thinks about himself and automatically becomes free for the work for everybody.
[93685]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Workshop 2

Related Material:
Mutual Guarantee Is The Precondition For Our Spiritual Birth
Mutual Guarantee Is A Law Without Loopholes
The Hands That Hold You Up Over The Abyss

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Workshops - No Comments →

Question: The ascent that is felt during a convention is cultivated on purpose: during meals, lessons, and breaks. Do we need to organize unification after the convention in our daily life?

Answer: Of course! A convention is needed so that it does not pass in vain, so that after it we begin serious work on unity in this region, create a serious Siberian group, consisting of serious guys who will really unite in the Trans-Ural region, so that they truly feel themselves masters and begin good work among themselves.

They can make an effort; they have a good environment there—an environmentally clean spiritual space. So, I think that they will be able to accomplish a lot. That is a very good place for spiritual work. I hope that I will feel this; we will connect with them, and then we will move forward together.

I wish you all the best! And once again I am asking: everyone who can, come; I want to see all of you. You cannot lose! You can only win! Come, so not to regret later.

I am waiting for you in Novosibirsk!
[94113]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

Related Material:
In Anticipation Of The Siberian Convention
The Way Of The World Group
On Russia’s Spiritual Rebirth

Filed under: Conventions, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: What actions are most effective for drawing the upper Light at the convention in Novosibirsk?

Answer: The most effective activities at the convention are workshops. There will be a lecture or talk before every workshop. We study a certain topic there, and afterward conduct a workshop based on this topic, and then questions and answers. This is the main “package,” which will be held twice a day. Thus, we will have six lessons in three full days.

In addition, there will be other very effective events. The most important of them are gathering of friends, necessary for “warming up” 15-30 minutes before the morning lesson. Then, there will be meals, held in the form of gatherings with speeches, group presentations and so on. In general, the convention will include plenty of activities. But gathering of friends and workshops are the key things.

The most important thing is your connection and I am within it. Together, we will draw the upper Light. So, get ready!
[94105]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

Related Material:
All For The Sake Of Unity!
A Never-Ending Workshop
A Miracle That Is About To Occur

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Q&A, Workshops - No Comments →

Question: At the Novosibirsk congress there are singles events planned for young and older people to meet with the intention of creating a Kabbalistic family. What are your suggestions?

Answer: Attention! There will be a special singles event held during the congress for young or future Kabbalists. I’m very supportive of this. A person needs help along the path. I think that everyone needs it.

If there’s an opportunity to come then people should come. If you haven’t created a family yet then I strongly advise that you try to find your partner among the Kabbalists.

I am very happy that such an event will take place during the congress. After all, the more Kabbalistic families the better.
[94107]
From the Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

Related Material:
In Search Of A Spiritual Partner
The Creator Unites Spouses
A Spiritual Family

Filed under: Conventions, Family, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: We often think about how to come to a state of prayer. On the other hand, a convention is such a joyful act…

Answer: A prayer should not be sad. A prayer is an expectation of correction. Should I cry, kneel and beat my head against a wall? There is nothing like this.

A prayer is a feeling in the heart. I want my heart to be corrected. I prepare it so that it goes through changes, stops being egoistic, stops thinking about itself.

Once the heart stops thinking about itself, I immediately begin to feel the upper world. This is what I want! This is called a prayer! Nothing else.

Question: But we are saying that we need to come to a state of despair, powerlessness, some very difficult feeling, but a convention symbolizes a state of joy, unity. How can I put this into one?

Answer: It is also very simple.

Despair must be joyful. That is, I despaired of my own abilities—look, what I have accomplished! I no longer have hope for myself.

Baal HaSulam writes that there is no more joyous moment in a person’s life when he feels that in no way he can help himself, and nothing will help him but only a miracle from Above, this is when it happens. There is no happier moment than the feeling that only this will save him. What could be better?
[94110]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

Related Material:
The Joyful Tears Of Prayer
A Person Is Born In Joy
Joy In The Desert

Filed under: Conventions, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can I become more sensitive to the Creator?

Answer: I’ve brought this kind of an example many times—that we acquire the sensitivity to a certain phenomenon the moment we start working with it, even if we didn’t have it before. We acquire sensitivity to everything: to stones, trees, or other people. First we don’t pay attention to a person and then we begin to feel him more and more and discover everything in him. This is called: “a habit becomes a second nature.”

So I must aim the work I do with the friends at the Creator. I work on discovering the friends’ attributes, for which I have no need and am not interested in at all, in order to increase my sensitivity to them, by discovering as many attributes as I can. Not the friend’s corporeal nature, but his attitude to the Creator. Then at the point that I am in contact with him and want to be in contact with him, I discover a sensitivity to the Creator.

The Creator Himself doesn’t exist. He is revealed only in our connections. So increasing the sensitivity to the connection with the friends is equal to increasing the sensitivity to the Creator.
[93777]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Workshop 2

Related Material:
The Soul Is A Tool For The Revelation Of The Creator
The Threshold Of Sensitivity To The Light
Soul Tuner

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can we affect all the groups in the world now so that they will feel what we feel? How are we able to transfer our feelings to them? What kind of intensity, relationships, and connection is required from us?

Answer: We really are in connection with everyone. If they grasp us or not, is not, by the way, our problem since everything happens in relation to the Creator.

He affects us, He is completely disclosed to us. The Creator doesn’t conceal Himself. When we say that the Creator is concealed, He isn’t. It is we who conceal Him through our uncorrected attributes. He has nothing to conceal from us. We simply express it this way. But actually the concealment is in us and not in the Creator.

It is also this way in relation to other groups. When we study, hold workshops, in anything we do, it includes all the world’s groups. When we try to include it in us, even if we don’t think about it each moment (because we also don’t think about it now each moment), we can’t include it within us. We still have only a small desire, a small Kli (vessel/desire).

But when we begin to connect between us, we can simultaneously grasp a billion thoughts, a billion feelings, and they don’t annul each other. It is as if we are now very small, like one byte of information, and on it, for example, it is possible to write 0 or 1 and nothing more. But when we have a huge connection of 0s and these 1s, which means of all kinds of units of information, then we will be able to list and to include in us all of humanity, and then we will try to do that .
[93773]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Workshop 2

Related Material:
Sensitivity To The Creator
The Way Of The World Group
Soul Tuner

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Perception, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

A person who comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah really becomes enslaved. If he enters this system, then he really enslaves himself. There is nothing terrible about it since it is impossible to attain this system in any other way. If you go to special experts in yoga or any other system, they will tell you the same thing: If you want to attain our wisdom, our technique, our system, then you must temporarily detach from other things, otherwise you won’t be able to feel it in depth.

By the way, the wisdom of Kabbalah is not as strict as other systems, since it doesn’t separate the person from this world. He must be married, raise children, work, be connected with the world, and not abstain from doing things, not to go on diets, not to do all kinds of special, physical exercises, breathing, and postures. He needs to be a completely, regular person in this world. There is nothing expected from him except for only one thing, that is, the internal longings and intentions for the goal. This is specifically the most difficult condition, but in principle, the only condition.

All the rest isn’t important. It isn’t important what he eats, what he drinks, how he lives, or what he does professionally, of course, as long as it isn’t anti-social behavior. A person can be intelligent or can be simple. It doesn’t matter. In attaining the upper world, there is no importance in age or in level of education. It is opened to absolutely everyone! A person is not limited in anything.
[93478]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

Related Material:
Do Not Torment Yourself In Vain
Leave Your Ego On The Other Side Of The Machsom
Everyone Has The Right To Learn

Filed under: Conventions, Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

Question: Why should the states of unity, love, and cooperation be particularly important to us?

Answer: They are indispensable to us because we have to “advertise” them to each other by playing a game that allows us to enhance these states before afflictions hit us from behind. We draw a bright and happy picture on purpose. We don’t see this picture as of yet, but we can make the group influence each of us in a way so that we all want it. With the help of envy, jealousy, and pride, one can be forced to advance before afflictions strike him from behind. We really want to be stimulated this way.

It’s bad when suffering pushes us “from behind”; we prefer conscious advancement. We should build a group in which every member expresses and shares an opinion that unity and interconnection are wonderful, so we are the ones who deliberately approach the Creator by advancing towards Him consciously.

Question: So, where is the “freewill” here? Even if we run away from the blows that hit us from behind, even if we consciously move ahead and pursue our connection with the Creator, we still act out of our animate egoistic nature. How can we really detach from it and act differently (not egoistically), and manage to rise to the Creator’s level irrespective of our egoism? Where is the elevation over our animal nature here?

What does “voluntary participation” mean? How can we escape blows and afflictions, avoid pleasures and rise above them? Why is the state at which we are either “whipped” or “motivated by a candy” considered animate? How can we rise above the animate developmental level and grow sensibly?

Answer: Finally, we begin to realize that the Creator has prepared a perfect condition for us: the group. The group is not only a method of transitioning from love of friends to love of the Creator, but it’s a concrete place where we can implement freewill, a place where we “don’t depend” on our friends. We depend on the Creator; thus, we relate to Him in a good way, whereas, we “don’t depend” on our friends in the group, so this is the point at which we get an opportunity to advance. It’s based on the right attitude to the unity among friends—the kind of relationships in which we don’t get anything in return!

This is the point at which we finally realize the special condition that the Creator prepared for us at the time of the shattering of the whole, the complete creation into many fragments, granting them a chance to reunite. Only after they regain unity can they express free will without any kinds of sensations, either bad or good. Only then will they obtain a chance to rise above their nature. Only then!
[92981]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
A Spiritual Triangle
How Can The Blind Find The Right Road?
The Mystery Of Our Freedom

Filed under: Conventions, Free Will, Group Work, Love, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

You know why I like a Georgian choir so much? It’s because of the accord. The singers have to share the same feelings, the hearts of all participants have to be like one heart. They should work as a team and feel each other. There has to be internal balance and complete integration.

Each singer performs his part without interfering with others and simultaneously is in accord with them. Their voices go in innumerable directions and unite, then divide, split, and come back together over and over again. This internal flow of the connection of the opposites is what grants such strength to this art.

It’s exactly how a Kabbalistic group has to act internally.
[92986]
From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/5/12

Related Material:
From Separated Egoists To A Single Whole
The Taste Of New Sensations
The Fire Of The Hearts Lights Up The Darkness

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