Question: What is joy? How can I constantly work in joy?

Answer: We talked about a sense of confidence and security that should be achieved, when one loses track of time because at that time he feels that he is within the Creator. This permanence that he feels allows him to be beyond time, that is, to begin to feel the upper world that has no flaws, no changes, and so this feeling is constant. It comes gradually.

A person’s confidence that he is moving toward the goal should be the cause of such feelings of joy because I cannot feel that I can solve some of my problems, succeed in something, aim clearly in my aspiration and worry at the same time. It means that something is wrong. Joy is the result of my correct action.
[86965]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Lesson 7

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Question: In the process of studying, everything is changing: There are both physical and virtual workshops. At what point is the individual work with oneself, with a book, with the source?

Answer: What for? Where do I solve the problem of creating within me a sense of the spiritual world? It’s only in the group! What is the use if I sit down and study on my own?

Sometimes, it is necessary to better understand what happens to me in the end. In such cases, I must admit that I need to study on my own, reread at home, not only such serious materials as The Study of the Ten Sefirot diagrams, but also the articles, the letters of Rabash and Baal HaSulam.

If individual studies are needed to better understand correctly what you have to do for the group, then study and if not, then why do you need other studies? They may even discourage you.

You will begin to understand a lot, to think that you are a wise person and that you don’t need anything else. As a result, you get the poison of death instead of the elixir of life. There is a symbol in medicine, a bowl with snake venom that can be a poison and can be the basis for drugs. So here; you need to be very careful when it comes to studying. The main thing is intention!
[86962]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Lesson 7

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The sum of our gratitude for the past gives us the total vessel (Kli) for the disclosure of the Creator, total sensitivity, power, intensity, suffering, movement forward. Why is gratitude so important? Because in this way a person already has a positive attitude to the Creator, to the Light; he sees It positively, and the Light shines on him as It is ready to shine the Light.

When we give thanks for the past, and everyone makes such an effort connecting with the friends in the group to gain the strength to relate to the past correctly, then we unite and form the common desire to understand and reveal the Creator. This is on the one hand.

On the other hand, this desire is filled with gratitude, awareness, and appreciation of the past because we begin to feel that it was absolutely necessary in order to come to this current state where we start to enter the upper world. Why is this state that we obtain by nullifying the negative past a means to reveal the Creator? Because it gives us absolute confidence that the world is ruled by only one positive force. Thus, we can feel like a baby in its mother’s arms. Nothing else is necessary; everything is in complete order. A baby can smell his mother, and he feels safe in her arms.

Once we reach this state of security and confidence, the world becomes infinite; it simply gives way. A person feels that he is unlimited. Nothing constricts us; we are under no authority, pressure, or constraints, neither conscious nor subconscious! And that is why the upper world is revealed, the total, true universe in which we live which has been compressed to the level, the size, of this world by our constant, alarming, apprehension of something unpleasant, and by lacking the proper characteristic of the Creator who rules and dominates everything. Thus revelation occurs. It is possible to bring yourself to the full revelation of the upper governance only by working on yourself, your past, present, and future. By this, we completely eliminate time, the most limiting factor of our world. Completely! If I think that I am in one constant force that controls everything and keeps everything in an absolutely positive state, then there is no time. What changes? There is no motion or movement, no top, bottom, no coordinates, just one simple space, the world of Infinity.

Of course, we need to grow to this state. I also don’t know what it is yet. But at least, the expansion of the sphere in which we exist by obtaining guarantees, security, the feeling of oneself in the mercy of the quality of bestowal which gives us this movement outwards to the expansion of the sphere.
[86756]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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To approach the Creator is good, and to distance oneself from the Creator is evil. So, we have to tune in and perceive everything only in this way. Through this system of coordinates (good, evil) approaching or distancing ourselves relative to the Creator, we should perceive life. And you will see how fast you come to a completely different frame of feelings, quite a different assessment of values, as if from one language to another.

Therefore, no matter what happens, you must evaluate everything in terms of closer to or farther from the Creator. After your evaluation, you control yourself; getting closer to the Creator, you feel good, distancing you feel as evil, or not quite yet.
[86753]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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Question: Do I act correctly by praying for everybody and wanting that each of us will also ask the Creator for the Light for all? I want that everyone will find themselves in this society, in this Light, and that the Creator will help each of us to acquire it.

Answer: Why for “each of us” and not all of us? Isn’t it better if it’s everybody together?

Why do we talk about unification, about aspiring towards unity? It’s because in spirituality there is no such state like “I,” “he,” “you,” and so on. It’s better to ask in the name of “we.”

Try and you will see that life will instantly become clearer, better for everybody. In this “we,” you will discover the only state that exists. And the current state will gradually move away from you and will indeed be felt as illusory—it’s just that we had been aimed like that before.
[86495]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 5 

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To actually achieve the desired result in spiritual advancement, we need to use all of the allotted time.

This is not a couple of hours a week, a few hours of dissemination or any other activities. We have to continue the same work that we did during the workshops; it continues in everyone internally during the breaks, during the meals, while travelling—no matter what! This is the most important thing!

After all, a morning lesson or a meeting like a workshop is like recharging, like connecting to the power source. When you connect to the group, you attract the upper Light to yourself; you charged yourself and can go safely in your life for 20 hours. Then come back again.

This is required once a day! Otherwise the spiritual connection is cut off. At least an hour a day, but there must be a connection to a physical or virtual group, to the Light; you recharge yourself and continue the rest of the time to work on this charge.

Now, we are gradually switching to a different kind of work, which is much more difficult than sitting in circles with each other. In this work, there are thousands of various disturbances. But we understand that these are not a hindrance, that we are surrounded by the Creator Who wants us to be connected to Him all the time through these disturbances. And then we will see that these are not disturbances, but opportunities to connect, to amplify the signal. Let’s try!
[86750]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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It is known from the science of Kabbalah that we are in a constant state. Only our sensitivity, our perception of this state, changes.

How can we improve this sensitivity? If I were to add the sensitivity of my friends to the sensitivity that I received today—that is, to the point in the heart, if I connect my heart with their hearts—this will be enough for me to begin to feel the true state I am in.

How do we connect our hearts? Our attempts unfortunately lead nowhere. We address this request to the Creator, to the Light. I try repeatedly, but little works.

Why? It is because our attitude toward this is egoistic. We want to receive all the time, to increase our sensitivity of this world we are in, but we can see from it only a small, faint fragment. We want to expand our egoistic properties and absorb the upper world.

We should come out with a different attitude. This is correct attitude to the connection between us, to the feeling of the upper world, based on the property of gratitude.

Gratitude! Any human action, no matter what, should start with it. It is said that, even if a sharp sword were to be raised over your head, you still have to give thanks and firmly hope that this is only for the better, and thus the Light works on you so that precisely such critical conditions put you in the right attitude toward the upper governance.
[86608]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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When a person looks at his history, at the several decades that he has lived, he sees how the Creator has led him to his current state by gradually bringing the person closer to Him, by putting him through so many states that seemed unnecessary, ridiculous, and utterly pointless situations, periods of life that seemed absolutely unnecessary.

Actually when a person accepts everything, even if he doesn’t understand why he had to go through all that yet, the gratitude for the fact that the Creator has brought him to his current state along this path and for the fact that he is beginning to reveal the Creator now, in his gratitude by justifying the past, he comes to the right intention, to the correct state in the present.

“Article 26” in the book Shamati, “One’s Future Depends On and Is Tied to His Gratitude for the Past,” also speaks about how impossible it is to relate to the future correctly if you don’t justify your past states by totally accepting the fact that it all comes from “There is none else besides Him.” If this happens, it is a sign that everything had to happen the way it did until the present, and a person must not regret anything that happened one way or the other.

Only starting from the current state, when all the previous accounts are over, can a person be thankful in advance for the future and be in a state of free bestowal, free movement towards the Creator, when there is nothing negative in their past relations. By the correction of a person’s attitude regarding the past he prepares himself for the future.

The Creator puts us through all sorts of different twists and turns and metamorphoses intentionally, and retains a negative memory of these events in us. We actually don’t remember the positive moments; we only remember the negative ones because the ego remembers the moments when it didn’t receive, where it was cheated, where it could have won but lost, etc. If I justify the Creator’s Providence in the past, it doesn’t count as the past, but rather is transferred to the future. Thus I build a vessel, the correct attitude to the future, and so I am ready to move forward.

So it is impossible to start from the current moment simply by erasing the past. It was given to us so that now, at this moment, we will be able to look at the future correctly and to relate to the Creator correctly.

If I am totally reconciled and gratefully accept everything that I felt as negative with regard to myself, the world, my relatives, and more distant people, to the Creator and everything that He did to me, if I understand that by that I went through my path, and now thanks to rising above it, despite my ego, despite my egoistic criticism, I can transform all my previous feelings to gratitude, to adhesion to the Creator. It isn’t that I simply forgive Him, but rather understand, perceive, and feel that I am given the chance now to start a connection with Him, so I am ready to reveal Him.

Therefore, a person’s future depends and is tied to his gratitude for the past. If we correct our attitude regarding the past from criticism to gratitude, from sorrow and disappointment to joy, we create the correct vessel for the revelation of the Creator.
[86605]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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Question: If I suddenly feel the desires of everyone else, what should I do with them? Should I fill them?

Answer: If you don’t just feel extraneous desires but the yearnings of your friends, their desires for the goal, then you identify with these desires and don’t divide them into “theirs” and “yours” anymore.

If you are yearning for the right thing, you turn into “there is none else besides Him,” into an integral part, so there is no division anymore. It should be like a test, a control for the right yearning.

You feel your friends’ desires as your own. You simply connect with them and so there is no “you” and “them.”

A person is a desire; each of us is a desire. If we want to feel others we perceive them as ours.

If a mother is filled with her child’s desires, her desires and his desires are still separate, but if we want to attain the revelation of the Creator by yearning for Him for “there is none else besides Him,” we feel our desires as absolutely identical; I don’t feel a difference between my desires and the desires of others.

Imagine that you have just connected with someone, that you spoke to him, felt that you think alike, and that you want the same thing, you become as one man. The external division of the bodies disappears, and there is only one, internal—not two connected but one.
[86492]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 5

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Question: If I don’t know who to appeal to before a prayer, then why do I experience a sense of trepidation before the Creator, a fear of appealing to the Creator?

Answer: I envy you. This means that you know Who you’re addressing.

It is a very exalted state when a person addresses the quality of bestowal, the Light, or something higher and feels a sense of trepidation. This means that he feels the extent to which his state, his life, each cell and each moment, all of his relationships and encounters, all depend only on the Light. That is, he feels that he is not the one in control of himself, that he isn’t in charge of the next moment, and that everything exist outside of him. He doesn’t yet sense whose hands he is in and because of that he feels a sense of trepidation. For the time being this is an animal trepidation, but it propels us forward.

Then at some point, an opposite sensation of confidence will come, making me feel good, as if I don’t depend on myself. Nothing could be worse than actually being in charge of myself and my destiny!

I’m glad that there is Light that determines everything, forms everything, and guides me. The only thing that remains for me to do is to feel and work in unison with the Light, which is the only way for me to realize all of this.
[86430]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 5

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