Question: I live in Saint Petersburg. What can I give to the Georgian group while physically present at this congress?

Answer: This is a very good question.

First of all you can give your warmth and physical participation. You can leave them with the impression that many people from all over the world are with them, that they are not alone in the mountains, they are our big family and together we are advancing toward the goal; we can’t do it without each other, otherwise we won’t this goal. If the Creator aroused all of us that means we have to work accordingly, we cannot separate any part of ourselves and say that “we’ll deal with them later.” This can’t be done.

It’s like children in the family: Can one be taken care of at the expense of the other? You have to do something with each child and the same thing applies here.

The most important thing for them to understand is that we see them, we feel them, we’re watching them, and we want to see them growing stronger.

On one hand, we have to offer our help and support and on the other, show them that we expect them to become big and successful. This is the kind of impression we must leave them with and afterward we must constantly keep in touch with them.

This is really a good, serious group and these are good states. Georgia is a very important region. As strange as it may seem, it influences everyone else. There are a few places in the world such as the Baltic states and Georgia where the population is only a few million, but they are very sensitive.

This is why we must help the Georgian group and show great concern.

We have to understand that Georgia in relation to great forces such as Russia, Europe, and America is a rather delicate point. Thus, it’s here in particular that our fine work can give results in many distant places.
[92561]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 2

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The next level after love of friends is love the other as you love yourself. We connect not only with the point in the heart but also with all the other values which complement one another like one harmonious chorus. And then I begin to love all the attributes of all the friends because they complement me and I complement them, forming one complete whole.

Through the point in the heart we are not able to connect in order to reach equivalence of form with the Creator. We reach equivalence of form with Him when all of our attributes become completely connected, complementary with each other. Therefore, love the other as yourself is the level on which unity, that is, the Creator is revealed in man.

From here it is clear how important my friends are to me. Their importance is that without them I am not able to reach anything. We are all parts of one creation and we broke and feel ourselves as divided. Everyone is an egoist, feels only himself, and others he feels only to the extent that according to his concepts, they can help him or bother him. This means that friends are only important in mutual work, and it is only when I constantly annul myself in front of them that I am able to connect to them. This is the importance of the group.

Attainment of the goal depends on our constant longing from the beginning egoistic point of each person, the point in the heart, via the group, via the connection to the revelation of the Creator within it. This means the quality of the One, the Unique, the Unified.

The “Creator” is specifically an attribute and not something that exists personally. We can’t feel anything in separation. We feel the manifestation only on matter. Thus, when we speak of a certain force, we mean where and how it is expressed.

Accordingly, when we speak of the Creator, we mean the attribute of unity, uniqueness, love, bestowal, the attribute of abundance, the completeness that is revealed in us. Otherwise, we can’t speak of Him since we don’t know how it can happen externally to us.

So the group must reach a state where it will demonstrate the attribute of the Creator.

From here appear many different conclusions: “How to make a friend”? How to relate to him: as to greater or smaller than myself? Like to a student or to a Rav?

It turns out that all of the answers are correct: Also as an equal, also as a student, and also as a Rav. At first sight, how can he be equal to me, if all of us have completely different natures!? He can be equal to me only in one thing: I am not able to attain the Creator without him and he can’t without me. It seems that from the beginning we are partners in adversity.

And afterward we begin to operate in the following way: Each one of us needs to be above the friend in order to help him, and to be under the friend in order to know how to receive inspiration from what he has, to receive from him the recognition of the importance of the goal, and to yearn for unity. This longing is lacking in each one of us and will always be lacking. It is possible to receive it only from others.

Thus I work with the friends: He is greater than me, he is smaller than me, he equals me. And then a connection really takes place. The main point of this work is called, “Make yourself a Rav and buy yourself a friend.”
[92451]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Question: You say that envy helps us advance. I don’t understand what we need envy for.

Answer: I envy everyone. Yesterday when people sang during the meal, I really envied them: Why can’t I sing like that? Or when someone quickly grasps the material that we study, I also envy him: Why can he do so and I can’t? Is this envy bad?

Imagine that there are people here that seem on a much higher level than you; it is very good that they have attained something. But I haven’t? How can that be? How can they and not I?

You may say: “So do you want them not to attain this level either?” No, I want them to advance even more, but I want to advance with them, which means that it is positive envy that pulls me forward. I don’t want to bring them down, I want to follow them forward; it is a very important point.

Envy usually means that I don’t want the other to have what I envy in him, but for us envy is different—it means that I want the same thing that I envy.

Question: I have never envied anyone. How can I envy a friend when I know that the Creator has given him a certain attribute? Suppose there is a good computer and a bad computer that cannot be good, this is how the Creator has made it.

Answer: No you are calming yourself by that, because you are lazy. Now you have to feel sorry that you are lazy.

Question: Yes, I am lazy. I understand that this is my attribute and there is nothing I can do about it, so I say to the Creator: “That’s the way we are, the way You have created us, so what do you want of us?!”

Answer: First of all, all the questions a person asks are legitimate and right, since they stem from the desire in him; there is nothing we can do about it. But the whole group should evoke everyone else, otherwise they will continue to sleep. Here we have to play.

Why do we organize different games now? Because I have to show the friends that I am on a higher level than they are, and that there is something else in me: “What, you don’t know yet? I already know this,” etc. We have to tease one another and to hint that there is something great in spirituality, since otherwise we will not move. The Creator will remain concealed until we discover Him by our equivalence of form, so there is nothing we can do. We have to envy one another.

Envy is an essential attribute. Everything is created for a reason. Under no circumstances should you suppress anything in you. You should feel envy.
[92503]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Today we are only beginning to suspect and discover that we are mutually and tightly connected, and are conducting research on the topic, and writing various articles about it on the Internet. But it wasn’t that way before.

Ten years ago I couldn’t speak about this. In 2005 I presented a document in Arossa, Switzerland at the World Wisdom Council, and they refused to agree with me. Four years ago I spoke with a Nobel Prize winner in economics and told him that the world was in a crisis and that everything will disintegrate rapidly, just like at the time of the Big Bang when the universe was created! He didn’t agree with me.

There were many such people. I gave lectures in the US at different universities, colleges, everywhere.

Five weeks ago, I met a representative of the EU in Italy. I told him about what was going on and he understood me—something that has not happened before. He wrote down everything, like a student, and asked me again and again, but his conclusion was: “I agree with everything that you say, but we cannot put this into practice; we cannot solve this, we don’t have anyone to turn to at the moment, no one will understand, although you are right.”

This means that gradually the world is advancing toward the recognition that we are in a closed space, under the influence of the forces of nature, not above them, and that we cannot do as we like as human society also has certain attributes that were given to us by nature.

We have to study these laws and to abide by them since otherwise we will feel bad. And most importantly, when nature is locked and becomes global there are mutual interactions of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking components, and then our negative interactions can affect the world of the still, vegetative, ad the animate just as it is happens now with hurricane Sandy or tsunamis.

This means that all these levels of interaction are interdependent and it turns out that man by his wrong attitude to other people and to nature affects everything, since man is the highest level.

Here we need the wisdom of Kabbalah since it tells us how we should organize ourselves. If we don’t become round as our ego is, which means mutually interdependent, we will find that we are opposite from nature.
[92376]
From the Georgia Convention, 11/5/12, Lesson 1

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Question: Sometimes there is a feeling in the group that we all understand and feel a certain phenomenon, but suddenly we feel fogginess in our minds and thoughts, a kind of stupor, and there is the feeling that we develop very slowly. Why is that?

Answer: Why do we constantly forget our goal while in the group, why do we connect and then it all disappears, why do the pictures of the world conceal the real picture in which we should see that everything around us is our desire and that we have to connect in order to discover the Creator in it? Why do we detach ourselves from the true picture of the world and the mirage and imaginary picture that we see conceal spirituality from us? Why is our world stronger than the spiritual world?

It is all because you haven’t focused yourself together with the group on connection.

If you make efforts by yourself, you cannot attain anything by that, you can only succeed when we mutually help one another so that the picture of connection will become a spiritual picture, that it will acquire life, acquire Light in it, and will show us that it is the only true picture of the world.

The external picture that you now see will suddenly lose its intensity and its influence on you and will gradually fade. You would feel that everything that is happening here is like a dream. I drive somewhere, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, go somewhere, all this suddenly begins to fade. You suddenly begin to see that it all stems from your attributes and it stops being so real, clear, and alive and becomes blurry and foggy.

The same picture that is focused on connection, which you imagined before, now becomes real and in it you discover new states. It is this picture that becomes the important one, which means that you begin to feel where the signals are coming from, the Providence, the higher level.

Thus you gradually change one attribute for another.
[92462]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Question: Under what conditions can we see that a group exists and that is headed towards the goal?

Answer: A group that is headed towards the goal is a collection of people for whom there is only one goal. They know what it is, they perceive it among them, and feel it. They study together from Kabbalistic sources; they check themselves according to these sources, and work on the connection of their points in the heart, which means that the main thing for them is the connection as they ignore all the other attributes. If a person yearns for unity in order to reveal the Creator, it is enough for him to be my friend even if he can be an unpleasant person in every other aspect; it makes no difference. Gradually we all understand how to adjust ourselves to one another and to get closer.

A group is a collection of people who understand that in order to attain the Creator they have to work on themselves, to study, and to lead a certain lifestyle. They have to meet on a regular basis and to be so strongly connected that it will constantly lead to connection and unity.

If they just rent a place and gather there, it doesn’t mean that they are a group yet, they meet physically, read together, and then go their own way, does that make them a group? According to the wisdom of Kabbalah everything is determined by the internal awakening and not by the physical bodies.

A group refers to the yearning of the points in the heart to become one whole. Only then it is called a “group.” So we still need to work a lot on this.

But when all the people yearn together for one goal, understanding that only by that will they connect above all the differences, they bring out the Creator’s attribute and by that, overcome the shattering—then they become a group.

So it turns out that all our contrasting attributes are in one egoistic desire. It is as if all the egoistic desires that are opposite from ours, that are in contrast to one another, are now in one sack. We restrict our desires, place a Masach (screen) above these attributes and focus our points at the Creator, at equivalence and bestowal.

It turns out that our connected egoistic desires are left below while our intentions to connect and the yearning for the Creator, to resemble Him and to become equal to Him are above them. This is how the soul, which means the one collective Partzuf is created.

The soul is one. There aren’t many souls. There is only one vessel for everyone. If we create it, we suddenly discover that is has already been created! We only try to discover it and by our attempts we suddenly discover that we already exist in it. This is because that one whole creation already exists while the shattering occurred only with regard to our consciousness. When we yearn to advance we ascend above our current feeling.
[92445]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Question: When new people join our group, we have a problem of communicating and connecting with them because we already feel different …

Answer: I understand. There is nothing to be done. Newcomers will gradually get closer to you. Do some work together, invite them to various events; it will gradually pass. Only if the group reaches a critical mass, will there not be much difference and newcomers will enter it easily. The group will not feel that it has been joined by additional new people. To do this, it should create a serious critical mass, for example, twenty permanent members of the group. And when it gradually includes newcomers, it won’t be felt much: the new ones can easily hide and the old ones can easily overlook them.
[92512]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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What is love of friends? I don’t love any of them. Naturally, I want to dominate all of them so that they will serve me and do what I want. What do I need them for? It would be better if they didn’t exist.

This is the “normal” attitude to others. Love of friends means that it doesn’t matter what their attributes, mental, and physical problems or their successes are; what’s important is only their points in the heart. It is these points that I love, and I don’t have to love all the rest.

On the whole even a person’s gender doesn’t matter; we must abandon and draw away from external appearances as much as possible. Then all the other factors suddenly begin to complement one another.

Because we don’t complement one another in the points in the heart, we connect them and there we agree. The moment we connect the points in the heart, suddenly all our typical attributes, which are totally different, begin to connect like gears. This is how two discs in the car’s clutch system cling to one another and the whole mechanism begins to spin in synchronization. If we connect the points in the heart and ascend above all the other attributes, ignoring them, we can connect. How does this happen? I love and respect the friend’s yearning for unity and his yearning for the Creator. I think that he is better than me in that and that he is higher than me and yearns for that more than I do. Thus I see my friends as the “greatest in our generation.” If I raise the friend’s value according to the main thing, ignoring his corporeal attributes, I get closer to him and “place” myself below him. This is how we connect.

“Love of friends” is the connection into one whole, in their points of connection. “Each one shall help his friend” in that. I can provide different services for my friends in the group and help them solve corporeal problems, but only if we are truly parts of one group trying to connect our points. The wisdom of Kabbalah is very strict about simple mutual help. Why? Since it demands a person’s intention! Here I have to clarify things deeply and accurately to myself; what am I doing this for? It isn’t because I feel sorry or uneasy about something, etc. I bring myself to another state—that I do something because by that we reach unity and only for that reason.
[92454]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Question: We know that we are all egoists. We were led to the group by the awareness that we cannot live like this. However, we still do not have an understanding of the goal; there is no course; we are like the blind. How can blind people show the road to each other?

Answer: A person advances according to his desires. When I really want, I move forward. If I feel good in the current moment, I do not move, but remain there. If it is good there, then I will sit there, thinking about nothing else: I will have no thoughts, no movement—nothing. As soon as I feel bad, then there is movement from bad to better. This is the only way I advance.

If we are in a group, learn, and make some actions, we think that this is enough; we have no inclination to move forward; every day is the same routine, everything is the same. How can we force ourselves to move forward?

Of course, if, God forbid, misfortunes fall on us or the world, it shakes us. And what if they do not? Then, I need to create them on purpose, artificially, otherwise I will not move forward.

Creating problems artificially? Yes!

It is better to create them yourself then if they come from somewhere above. There is nowhere to escape, we need to move forward; only if I bring about this discomfort, these desires in myself, then it will be better for me. I will do this with others purposefully. I gather people and tell them: “Why do we wait for the next hurricane, crisis, or tsunami? Why do they come? To move us from point A to point B. Let’s do something ourselves that will force us to move from point A to point B.”

We have to invent something so that point B pulls us from point A and do something in point A so that it pushes us towards point B, that is, so that we feel bad now and good in the future, so it seems to us. Let’s figure out how to do this, then we will move forward, and we will not need various negative forces that push us.

How can we do this? It is said that “a friend should help a friend.” They help each other by constantly telling how wonderful the next state is and how unbearable the current state is. If so, I convince myself, and if my friends say that all the time and I become convinced of this, then I do not need any negative forces; I will rush forward myself instead of waiting for something to happen or not happen to me.

Envy is the most powerful tool; it is good for moving forward. We need to use properties such as envy, jealousy, and so on.
[92507]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Question: Our group has existed for three years. Before, people would enter and leave the group until the group finally formed. Now we are at a point where there’s no longer an inflow of new strength. Can the reason for this be that we are so used to each other, we sense and feel each other like members of one family and we feel so good together that we don’t want to let anyone else in?

Answer: This can happen. I’m not entirely familiar with the situation to give you an answer. But everything has its time, so don’t worry. You should use this time to study more and to strengthen yourselves. I don’t think that now is the time to conduct wide dissemination. As far as I feel, the situation here is still quite lethargic. It’s best to wait. For the time being you should work on improving your connection with us, try to work more on the materials, translate books, and adapt the material for the local population. Maybe you’ll be able to write articles on the Internet or in small newspapers. Maybe you’ll be able to adapt them for your local population. I don’t think that many people will be joining you right now. After all, a point in the heart becomes revealed only when a person has reached a certain level of egoistic development, and it hasn’t happened here yet. Therefore, you should work more on yourselves.
[92458]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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