We are under the constant influence of the one and only force of the Creator—there is none else besides Him. Why does He always confuse us? We sleep, and then all of a sudden we wake up, get inspired, rejoice, and then again have no idea where to go. We feel like we want to stay close to our friends, then we prefer to be as far from them as possible, staying away from the group. Then we are either in high spirits or suddenly become sad. What does He want of us? Why does He constantly toss us from side to side? Why doesn’t He give us concrete and correct directions on how to advance?

Religions dictate: “Do this and that, and everything will be fine. Don’t do that or you’ll be in trouble.” Everything is clear there. This is the way we teach our children: “Stop doing this, it’s bad. You’ll succeed if you do what I am telling you.”

Everything that’s going on in the world is more or less clear to us except our own spiritual work. We are doing something that is utterly elusive. We are in constant confusion. Something that we clearly understood yesterday is totally vague to us today and we can’t even come back to it.

Why does the Creator turn us into people who swing from one state to another, from certain conclusions to others? If He is One, Unique and Unified, if He is the only force that governs us, then where do our diverse states come from? Why does He do everything in His power to confuse and disorient us and bring us to a state when our desires and thoughts are of no help at all?

Question: Why does He do that? If, say, this single force is throwing us from side to side, then why does He evoke such states in us when the more we advance, the more doubts and troubles we go through? Does He really want us to come closer to Him? Why doesn’t He want us to become smarter and stronger? There is a goal, a method, everything! Then why do we experience ever new opposing sensations and opinions? What’s going on in general?! Why does He need all of this?

Answer: The Creator constantly shakes us in order to make us understand that we are helpless and to motivate us to eventually appeal to Him. Why does He constantly shake us as if we’re in a washing machine? He does that to make us lose the ground that we stand on and hold onto Him.…
[92896]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Workshop 1

Related Material:
Clinging To The Creator Through The Group
The Role Of The Group Is To Discover The Creator
The First Article, Which Is The Beginning Of Everything

Filed under: Conventions, Inner Work, Spirituality, Workshops - No Comments →

The conscious aspiration towards the Creator means that we organize a group, its spiritual center, assemble together, all our aspirations are aimed forward, everyone is equal, everyone connects, and we expect to find the Creator and cling to Him as to our only place of rescue specifically in the group.

A small child holds on to his mother (he doesn’t know anything else in the world), grasping her, feeling her, and recognizing her scent, and that’s it: He doesn’t need anything else. So do we need to reach such a state in order to hold on to the Creator, but only through the group and from within it. This is our salvation! It is specifically in this state that we cross the Machsom (the barrier that separates us from spirituality), the first point of connection, adhesion, contact with the Creator.

It is well described in the stories of the exit from Egypt, when one no longer knows what is happening. People flee from there at night, run without knowing where to, jump through the Red Sea. They jump into the abyss, it doesn’t matter where—what matters is to move forward, towards the Creator, and to hold on to Him! It is not known what will be there, and there’s no need to know. One finds himself in this state, and in this state he passes the Machsom. This is, to our present states, when we, so to speak, are slightly rocked from side to side, we need to add these big shake-ups.

And after one passed the Machsom, he is being shaken more strongly. There, on one hand, one finds the Klipot (the shells) and on the other, the divinity, meaning forces of impurity and holiness. There serious problems begin, which don’t stop until Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction). They travel from the bottom to the top by a cone, and minus and plus become greater and greater. And that gives us greater and greater need to hold on to the Creator. And this is what His help is. This is why it is called “help against him.”

But is there another possibility to come to Him if we are egoists and were created opposite to Him? There is no other way.

So what is our participation in this? When we are being shaken, we grasp onto the Creator, like a baby to his mother, crying, longing, clinging to Him. What is our work in order that we will grasp this process and transform it into good, conscious, worthy?

Question: How can we make this process in order to participate in it and not just to be rocked from side to side and thus have us long to hold on to Him? How is it possible to transform this path into something more normal? How is it possible to speed up our progress forward?

Answer: We can participate ourselves in this process only in the event that we approach it more strongly and attain the point of connection in the group. Through this point, we will hold on to the Creator more strongly.

We need to do this consciously so that the shake-ups from the side of the Creator don’t influence us, so that we ourselves, regardless of the shake-ups, exalt connection with Him, so that drawing closer to the Creator, to a state when we are in reciprocity, unity, love, and mutual assistance, when we are one complete whole will be important for us. This shouldn’t be in order to escape problems, but because it is important in itself.
[92886]
From the Georgia Convention 11/05/12, Workshop 1

Related Material:
Clinging To The Creator Through The Group
Why Is The Creator Constantly Shaking Us?
Preparation Period: A Voucher To The Spiritual Life

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

We have a huge force in our hands and there is nothing that compares to it in the world. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the foundation of nature without all the myths and beliefs! The physical laws, the most profound laws of the world are mutual cooperation of two opposing forces: the Light and the vessel (desire), the attribute of reception and the attribute of bestowal, and there’s nothing but that.

Call them what you want: plus and minus, the North Pole and the South Pole, or proton and electron. We have the method to balance them that explains how we can build the world using these two building blocks, how we can complete the building of this purposefully incomplete world by ourselves, and thus understand what the Creator wants of us.

He wants us to be able to build it with Him. Just like a child builds a house of building blocks, sculptures something, plays with a construction set, or puts together a jigsaw puzzle, we too have to complete building this world!

The still, vegetative, and animate parts of this world are instinctively balanced. Nature operates in them so that they are never wrong and function correctly. Someone catches someone else, someone eats someone else; this is how nature governs them. This is so except for man.

We contain the animate and the speaking levels. We have to bring the animate level to balance with nature. This means reasonable consumption. The world will have to come to it either by suffering, by a crisis, or in a good way. I think that this development will accelerate now.

In any case, now everyone is already speaking about this openly. Lately we hear on the media that things will not be better in the future, but even worse. It isn’t only in Europe, but in America and in other countries too. That is, people already admit that there is no way out of this state.

Thus, nature will bring us either consciously or by blows to feel the necessity of a wise existence, of reasonable consumption: Everything should be shared equally, and then everyone will have whatever they need to subsist. All the other forces and time will be aimed only at attaining the next level called Adam (human), meaning similarity to the Creator in unity between us.

This is what we have to build by ourselves. We have to attain this level and to exist in it sensibly and not instinctively, so that we’ll be able to attain the level of the Creator, the one unified force that surrounds and manages us.

We must not think about this force as something material. Only the desire can be real. The Light that manages it is not matter, but only an intention to bestow. We will understand this with time.
[93604]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

Related Material:
It Is Time To Change
The Keyboard Of The Commanding Computer
Should We Wait 150 Years?

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

Question: Is the realization of evil an incessant process?

Answer: Oh! We still have to get there! Then you’ll see how a second is stretched out. It simply doesn’t have an end; it simply disappears. Time is not compressed into a point as they say in our world, but rather stretched so that it disappears.

This is not as people usually think, that time is accelerating like in technology where we move from hertz to kilohertz, to megahertz, to laser frequencies, and so forth. No! Here everything is happening the opposite way. Time is gradually stopping; however, during one second, you can go through a huge number of states. This second still does not end.
[93390]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

Related Material:
Endless Life Between Two Seconds
The Expanding World
Make Every Instant More Exalted

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

When you are thinking about the other, a special action happens within you. A special state emerges when suddenly a very warm point appears in the heart, so red, crimson, and incredibly warm! It lights up when you are thinking about the other. You connect with him, and it lives; you stop thinking, and the point is extinguished.

I have not spoken about this before, but this indication appears in the human heart, and it tunes him correctly, similarly to when you tune into a radio frequency. You can determine by this point, like in a precision instrument, whether you are connected with others or not.

We have to work on this and wait until this point appears. If you suddenly catch contact with others, it comes alive in you, and you guard it, afraid so it is not lost. And then, there are more and more with others. And gradually these points come together, and the Creator is manifested in them.

You need to feel this point once. It’s so warm, hot, bright, not even red, but crimson, and it simply paralyzes a person by its love, connection with others. He can do nothing, and for it, he is ready for anything. We need to reach this state quickly!
[93381]
From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/8/12

Related Material:
The Point Where The Hearts Connect
Give Love
The Point Of Melting The Heart

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

Nature is a circle; it’s perfect. At this time, nature impacts us integrally. This conclusion derives from laws of nature and is supported by sociology, physics, and other sciences. Therefore, our society must reach the same condition and become global, closed, rounded, and integral. Everybody must depend on each other.

Look at what is happening in the world now. Today, it is enough to isolate any particular country, and it will perish. It will not endure on its own. Look at Iran or some other countries. They completely depend on everyone and everything. We are unable to break these liaisons.

Afflictions push our society from behind toward integrity. It should become as rounded as nature itself. Integrality means that we must reach balance and equality with each other.

Practically, everyone must live at the same financial level and work hard on making equality and mutual interdependence stable. Nature will push us toward it quite strongly. So far, we haven’t realized it. Therefore, we will be getting more impediments until we come to understand this fact.

How do we achieve this? If we continue using only the remedies that currently are available to us, this process will be very complicated. However, if we approach the problem from the point of view of Kabbalah, then it will be relatively smooth since the Kabbalah methodology allows us to achieve it without too much trouble and makes it almost effortless. Kabbalah explains and vividly demonstrates that the current state of affairs in the world obligates us to live according to standards of reasonable consumption.

By all means, a person must have a house, a family, a job, a car—everything that a normal human being needs at this time—but anything that is beyond this level is extra. We should not allow lavishness any more.

Nature will force us toughly by setting up catastrophes. It is obvious, and we have almost exhausted nature. Soon, all natural resources will be drained away, and we won’t be able to satisfy our needs any longer, not to mention those of our children and grandchildren. For them, there will be nothing left at all. The integral laws of nature tell us about it.

Nowadays, integral upbringing should replace our current paradigm, our current perception, of the world through integral education. We must begin to educate people to understand in order to see the world differently. Since we all are at the mercy of one another, we should naturally change our nature to the fullest interaction with each other.

Here, the Biblical appeal, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” comes to mind. It is obvious that we simply cannot abide without this verse. It is inevitable that we eventually will achieve this state, but it is important whether we will get there forcefully or voluntarily, consciously and smoothly.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is meant to help us realize these things and, thus, avoid severe blows of destiny. It helps us move ahead in a kind and mild way, which eventually will allow us to win.

What, in fact, shall we win? We will transition to a new level of existence, to another dimension. At this time, we all are at the animate level. Animals take care of each other and of their bodies. We also take care of our relatives, friends, and of our bodies as well.

In other words, we do not rise above the animate level, whereas the “speaking” (human) level—called Adam, from the word “Domeh” (similar to the Creator)—is analogous to the force of bestowal and love. This level is quite different from the one where we are currently, and we still must ascend to it.
[92372]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
Growing Recognition Of The Current Moment
The Discrepancy Between The Two Systems
Revealing The Unity Of Nature

Filed under: Conventions, Education, Group Work, Integral Upbringing, World - 1 Comment →

The latest written source of the wisdom of Kabbalah is dated approximately 500 years ago. These are the books by the Holy ARI. About 20 volumes of his writings disclose in detail the entire system of governance of this world and its interaction with the upper world.

The ARI’s books explain not only the way this world is controlled by the upper forces, but also our impact on them, the reverse influence, and how this influence once again triggers the actions of the upper forces upon us. The books by the ARI describe all these interactions between the upper governance and us, our freedom of will, our destinies, previous reincarnations, and so forth. They provide a very serious and detailed description of everything there is.

However, it turned out to be insufficient. In the 20th century (400 to 500 years after the ARI), another Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam (“master of the ladder” in Hebrew), appears. Why? It’s because he described in detail the “ladder” that one must ascend when climbing from this world, the current state in which an ordinary person finds himself, to the peak of his development.

It’s not about physical growth, nor does it talk about intellectual development. We see that there is nothing much to boast about in this world. Rather, it is about the advancement that each of us must accomplish: to attain the upper world, the system of governance. It is about our attainment of the eternal, perfect world that still is beyond our perception. Baal HaSulam presented a modern-day methodology that we are using at this time.

His son Rabash has developed his father’s method further and made it more practical. He created a concrete, step-by-step instruction described in numerous articles. These articles clearly show how by changing ourselves, expanding our organs of perception, we can begin perceiving the hidden Universe concealed from us by our own limitations.

It’s common knowledge that we are limited. We can hear only within a certain range of sounds, we see a limited spectrum of light, and so on. In other words, all our senses—vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste—are limited. While here we are talking about other organs of perception, not the ones that we currently have.

In order to widen our organs of perception, we invented multiple devices, such as telescopes and microscopes for the eyes, numerous types of radars, locators, and so forth. However, most important for us is to figure what additional organs of perception we need in order to sense the world around us.
[92385]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
The Role Of Kabbalists In Each Generation
First-Hand Method
Kabbalah: From Abraham To Present Day

Filed under: Conventions, Kabbalah Study, Perception - No Comments →

Question: If I understood you correctly, Kabbalah is a science that helps us advance. Can we say that everything is in our hands and what happens tomorrow depends on us? In other words, life doesn’t depend on chances, but rather on our efforts, intentions, and work.

Answer: There are no accidents in life! The more we penetrate into this world the clearer we see that nothing is accidental. As little children, we simply don’t know the laws of nature when we exclaim, “Oops! It suddenly fell and broke!” It’s not an accident; it’s a lack of knowledge since we are unaware of the circumstances that caused this occurrence.

So, there is no such thing as an “accident” in nature, starting with the smallest particle and ending with the most complicated structures. Everything is predetermined and compliant with the laws of nature. We should learn and follow them and then everything will be good.

There is a very simple solution to this problem. Nature shows us the problems of our imbalance with it in the form of crises. Problems! Let’s say, I have high blood pressure; it’s a problem. There is a normal condition and there is an abnormality that I can measure and compare with normality and balance them out. We call it treating a disease or regaining balance, even if it is done artificially.

Same applies here. We are in a state of imbalance with nature, which we regard as various crises: in science, culture, finances, economics, human society, terrorism (you name it!), including the ecological crisis. We have to balance ourselves with nature, it’s absolutely the same system: “What is inside, same is outside.”

Kabbalah teaches us how to stay in balance with nature. We certainly observe harmony in nature, but Kabbalah helps us learn faster, nothing more than that. “Cutting” off (getting rid of) afflictions is the only problem being solved here. We’ll arrive at this point anyhow. However, the problem can also be resolved in a very dramatic way that’s much more intense than the hurricane we just survived.

Imagine that a hurricane happened in some other place, not in New York, but let’s say in one of many underdeveloped countries. How would that country cope with its aftermaths? It would be thrown back to the middle ages and it would be impossible to help them. Maybe they would get a couple of airplanes with flour, that’s it.

We should think about these issues. It’s a pity that people do not realize how effective “spiritual medication” can be in fighting serious symptoms of the disease.
[92288]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
Should We Wait 150 Years?
Check For Balance
Learn To Live In Balance With Nature

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination - No Comments →

When a person carries out spiritual work, he usually doesn’t feel that he is really performing it, that he is investing efforts. They somehow get lost, as if into space, into a hole, which afterwards slowly, slowly becomes filled. A person doesn’t see it, and only when his efforts reach the edge of the hole, ready to spill outwards, then he begins to feel the results of his work. Thus in filling this space, mutual support is very important.

Baal HaSulam gives a very good example, when a person enters the treasury of the King and gradually takes out a certain amount of coins, as much as they give him, and then the guards knock them from his hands, and then again he enters and again they spill them, etc. This means that constant and most serious efforts are required.

A person is not able to work in this way. He needs to see results; either the troubles push him from behind or some kind of intentions pull him, some worthy cause. And when none of this exists, he finds himself as if in space, he makes movements, but there’s no energy. And here the group needs to give him this energy. Also it isn’t important if it was correct or not correct, or if it was real; the important thing is that he will receive inspiration.

Thus the main thing in our work is to constantly discover the greatness and to show to the others that you are already there.

When a person sees that others have some kind of intention, suddenly think, suddenly show him that they exist in inner tension, then he is also forced to wake up: “What is happening with me? Where am I?” In this way he returns to the intention. Gradually these intentions connect together and give their influence, the results. Thus, there is no need to forget this, but from necessity to see it.

In this sense, women can do even more than men, since from the beginning, from their nature, they were created in order to create desire and in that to push the men to implement it. Thus they need to work together and not to forget that during all our activities.

It doesn’t matter what we do. We can add our intention to everything.
[92787]
From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/7/12

Related Material:
Seize Every Opportunity!
Every Day Again With An Empty Cup
General Mobilization

Filed under: Conventions, Free Will, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Question: How do we achieve freedom of will from our egoism through the connection with each other? How can I consciously be free and develop freely, not pushed by a stick towards happiness or by being attracted by a candy to the same happiness? I want to become aware, understand, and realize myself and my free will, independent of these motives. How is this possible to implement in the group and by what conditions? After all, this problem exists even after the Machsom when I already know and understand everything.

Answer: A person attains independence from the Creator when he asks the Creator for the sake of the group and asks the group for the sake of the Creator. If he is one-on-one with the group or with the Creator, this cannot be achieved. This is a triangle.
[92977]
From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Workshop 1

Related Material:
The mystery Of Our Freedom
The Creator Is Hidden, But The Group Is Open
Between Minus Infinity And Plus Infinity

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