We had a very powerful and high quality convention in Kharkov, making a big step forward. This has advanced all our groups around the world. We have felt universal participation: Everyone was with us from all around the world, all connected. Let us hope that this will raise us to a higher, stronger, and more internal level of connection in comparison to the previous level.

It is clear that this success would have been impossible without all the preliminary work and self-sacrifice that everyone expressed to attain the goal of creation. I think that we have managed to feel it and realize it better. I am very grateful to all the participants and am proud of you. I am referring to all the organizers and all the participants of the convention who felt how significant this step forward was for us. I am glad that everything happened the way it did.

Let us hope that from now on we will continue to delve deeper into our connection and that inside it we will reveal how everything is determined by our appeal to the Creator. Even though right now I am referring to you, we must still thank the Creator for directing us, accompanying and advancing us towards Him, for having an upper force that guides us, and for having merited to advance towards it.

The main thing I wanted to convey to you at this convention is the feeling that when you are in a group that discusses, listens, and dances inside the notion of a “group,” then it holds you up. But the moment you leave this notion, even if physically you are still in the group, you immediately fall into your thoughts.

You had to feel this ascent every time when you are with our friends who influence you and possess your mind and heart, and a descent when for some reason you break your connection with them.

We needed to get a feel for how necessary it is to constantly be under the influence of the environment. Otherwise you immediately return to an animalistic state. I am only human when the group rules over me.

These two levels needed to become very clear to every person, and this goal is what the entire convention schedule was directed towards. If somehow we managed to reach this realization, now we need to strengthen it: to understand the extreme importance of the influence of the environment, which Baal HaSulam speaks of. This is my entire freedom of choice: to keep strengthening this environment in any way I can by increasing my susceptibility.

The environment must keep getting stronger and have a more powerful influence over me. Our mutual guarantee must manifest here: mine according to my attitude towards them and theirs according to their attitude towards me, to always keep me above my corporeal calculations. And this will lead us to modesty and devotion of the soul—the states which lead to the attainment of the goal.
[86207]
Excerpt from a Conversation During a Meal After the Kharkov Convention 8/20/12

Related Material:
Everything Is Ready, The Last Word Is Ours!
The Convention Is In Our Hands
Don’t Waste Time – Become Included In The Convention Now!

Filed under: Conventions, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Unity - No Comments →

First of all, we need to determine exactly how we actually move on the spiritual path.

Trying to figure out where we are, where we should go, and how to find meaning in existence, we see that everything is closely connected, intertwined, and confused. Turning to human society, we see that everything is messy, unclear; everyone does what he wants, everyone has his own theory, his own philosophy of life. Overall, this is the mess in which we live. On the other hand, studying nature, we see that everything is logical, everything happens according to laws.

The question is why?

Because human society is not subject to the laws of nature. Our body obeys nature. In life, we also carry out the instructions of nature, but partially. And all that is human in us—not animal but namely human—we are absolutely on our own and do whatever we want.

How are we to organize this human in all of us? If humankind were capable of it, if it understood how to do it, then everything would be clear and correct.

Maybe too clear? Boring? Perhaps, in this case the illusion of freewill would disappear? Maybe we would have felt less flavor in the search, in life, in daring? Or not? Here is the problem that is hidden in humanity.

When I come to Kabbalah, when I finally try to use it to discover the meaning of life, when I, not only in theory but in practice, seek to understand the depth, the foundations of the world, to understand what drives it, how to participate in this and become as the whole world in my mind: perfect, eternal, infinite, then I find that I am confused.

This confusion happens because we need to constantly connect the two opposite ends of the universe: us who are at the bottom and just start asking questions and the most perfect, highest point: the Creator, that is, the fundamental force of this world that has created everything.

Between these two points there is a space that we know nothing about. If we find this link, if we fill it with the correct understanding of what is happening in this space, we will know everything.
[86065]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

Related Material:
The Picture Of Creation Hanging On Two Hooks
Forerunners Of The Modern Crisis: A Short Study From The Beginning Of Creation
The Compass Pointing To The Creator

Filed under: Conventions, Free Will, Society, Workshops - No Comments →

Question: My question is regarding the qualities of reception and bestowal. Within these two properties, their symbiotic fusion, I feel like a complete altruist. How can I come to understand that this is not what I am?

Answer: There is no need for this! Not at all! You are a complete altruist. Continue to act this way in the group with all your heart, and you will gradually understand that you are a complete egoist.

Question: What is the difference between spiritual bestowal and bestowal in the corporeal world?

Answer: There is no bestowal in the corporeal world: It is a disguised egoistic desire to receive, to use another person. I do a favor for another because it is good for me, he will also do something good for me.

In fact, we are not able to perform any actions of bestowal. When have you ever given anything to anyone? Has this ever happened?

Comment: Always all the time.

Answer: You simply fail to see that all your actions are driven by egoism. Continue doing it, but in the group. Because outside the group none of it matters.

Start doing it seriously in the group, together with studying, together with dissemination, together with learning, bestow to your friends, involve them in something. But to bestow does not mean to boss them around. Give yourself! Start doing it, and you will suddenly see that everyone is bad, they do not want anything, you will see where you are, etc.

Comment: I am trying to do this, but this does not help me stop seeing myself as an altruist.

Answer: Lack of connection with the group: I have nothing more to say. This is the only thing that leads to the realization of the real evil. It does not happen on its own; so I am an egoist, so what. But evil directed against the Creator only manifests through the group.
[86047]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 3 

Related Material:
A Tuning Fork For David’s Violin
Salt And Pepper In Spiritual Work
Everything Depends Upon You

Filed under: Conventions, Egoism, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: You said that there is no such thing as “lethargy.” How can we focus ourselves on the goal in order to become an eternal engine?

Answer: It only depends on the importance of the goal. In fact, there is no tiredness. Suppose you have a small child and you are busy with him 24 hours a day with feeding, diapers, and all the rest. This, of course, is very hard work, but it is the physical fatigue in our world.

In the spiritual world, if a person advances, he is nourished by the Light and doesn’t get tired. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t sleep or eat, and so on. He needs to do all that, but the detachment, the mental fatigue, doesn’t exist. Of course, he sleeps physiologically, but only because it is essential for his body.

That is, if we are charged by the upper Light, constantly looking for a way to be fully focused straight on it, then we always fulfill our normal physiological needs: the basic amount of calories, sleep, and so forth. It will always be on a normal level, and this will be no problem. But it must be observed! Kabbalists say that a person needs 60 breaths while he sleeps.

We are in a field of forces. You may think that it is mysticism, but actually it is a science, physics, and vectors. How do I focus myself on that field, in the inverse square of the distance between us, that is, direction, the direction of the angle so that I catch the energy from it? Everything follows the same laws operating in our world with some form of energy like radiation, for example.

However, once again, we encounter the problem of mutual guarantee: Will you support your friends? Because a person in an instant may lose the direction, and then nothing works. In an instant, he may find himself in some incomprehensible space! And then any external, silly, narrow-minded, external interruptions begin to influence him.

So, the most important thing is to create the need in the group to constantly support each of its members. Afterward, there is nothing to worry about. You will always succeed.
[85963]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Attaining Unity
Burning With Spiritual Work
There’s No Such Thing As Physical Fatigue

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

A very important period is starting now; I would say a crucial one. The world is in great turmoil; it is becoming increasingly clearer that we are helpless before the blows of nature: human or environmental. People have no way of understanding their real reason or how to cope with them. The upper force generates all of these events, but we cannot tell people that.

So the convention in Kharkov should show us the level of unity we need to reach in order to overcome the crisis.  The world, in any case, should understand how to move forward.

After all, we are on the verge of difficult, critical states, and they will be disclosed at an accelerating pace. Each day we will face a new world, opposite from the one we knew the day before, and that requires a new understanding, and a new approach.

The familiar feeling will disappear, and I will feel that we are living in an unknown world that reveals a new, unexpected face to me each time. I try to hold on, to bring things back to the way they used to be, but those are futile attempts. It evades me and comes to me in an unfamiliar angle, in different relationships, in strange news that I cannot understand or digest. People’s behavior changes and so does their reaction to what is happening. I begin to sense a feeling of uncertainty.

What can we say about the experts in economics, politics, education, etc.? They will encounter even greater helplessness and confusion in their fields.

So we are the only system versed in all of humanity, which is in the forefront and can lead everyone in the right direction. Actually, this direction is not less logical than different speculations that stem from the crisis, confusion, and the total lack of understanding of the problem. We already understand the spiritual logic here; we’ve already felt the changes ourselves.

How can we present the message to the world? How can we make it common knowledge? It is a problem. But the moment our message is spread among the masses, their desire will become much softer and more flexible, and we will feel a greater responsibility that will be conveyed by those around us. Then we will raise “the prayer of many” together with them.

So, we need to disseminate, but in order to fulfill our dissemination we have to unite and to be strongly connected. In order to take care of people, we have to be strong in quality, not in quantity like they are. We have to acquire the same qualitative intensity as their quantitative intensity. This is the whole problem.

Question: How can we explain to people the essence of today’s changing chaotic states?

Answer: Everyone already feels it but cannot digest it. After all, people are living their daily lives; they are “putting out fires,” spinning in a wheel hoping for the better. This is their life, and the future depends on us to the extent that we disseminate the method of correction.

My concern is not whether they will receive it, but whether I will be ready. What’s more, we have to act very quickly.
[85767]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
The Convention And Dissemination
The Cure For The World Is In Integral Education
Understanding The Essence Of The Crisis

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A, World - No Comments →

Question: You recounted many obstacles that a person meets when he begins to work in the group. One of them is that they can appear as opportunities to a person; they can appear very tempting and attractive, able to improve his life and not interfere with his engagement in spiritual work.

Answer: They all interfere with spiritual work. Otherwise, they are not obstacles. It only seems to you that if something breaks, if something happens, then you have to fix it, and then you can return to spiritual work, but actually it is an obstacle that is specifically against your spiritual work. Each kind!

Question: If a person wants to deal with some of his regular corporeal desires so that they don’t distract him, then would that also be an obstacle?

Answer: As it is written, “If there is no flour, there is no Torah.” We must create all the needed conditions for existence, necessary and sufficient, like in mathematics. This means to conduct a regular life. Today, also, that might not be so simple. Everything depends on what I consider sufficient. for myself

Once I asked Rabash about this, and he gave me a very interesting answer, “The essential level of self-sufficiency is such a degree that you would be happy if there was no need to deal with it.” This means that you would be happy if you didn’t need to eat, drink, sleep, purchase a Chevrolet, or go on vacation to the Caribbean Islands. The essential level is what you really are forced to deal with—forced—and you are not at all happy about it since you must maintain the life of this body in order to rise to the next level. What do you need for that?

If a person’s mind is in the right place, he simply doesn’t pay attention to what is essential to him. Take any musician or writer who “lives” in their work. For any creative person, creativity is everything. He doesn’t need anything else!

It doesn’t matter to him how he looks and what he eats. He “burns” with his work. Thus, when you burn with your work, then there wouldn’t be such a question.
[85955]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Obstacles Guide Us On The Way
Lessons About A New World: Let The air Out Of The Balloon But Not The Demons Out Of The Bottle
Don’t Hope For a “Maybe”

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

Question: The friends in the group told me what I need my ego for. What do I need the ego that I feel on the outside on the street for?

Answer: This is all part of your soul! Malchut, the soul, or humanity call it what you will, all are actually you. So, who are all the rest? They are all parts of you, only about you.

This means that it is a multi-layer structure of seven billion where all the individual souls connect, and instead of one plane, the outcome is a sphere. So, you absolutely need everything. Therefore, a cynical, disrespectful attitude toward anyone in this world seriously hinders your spiritual advancement.

In fact, you must reach a state where you perceive all the people in the world, the totally negative ones and the totally positive ones, as close to you, as inseparable parts of yourself. They are actually nobody. With regard to you, they are puppets, and they operate only in order to provide the right background for you to get closer to the Creator.

Question: I can’t stand my ego. I have no choice; it is an inherent part of me, but I can escape anothers’ ego or drive them away.

Answer: Where do you see someone else’s ego? If you feel it within your ego, what do you actually feel? It is your own ego. It seems that the world is divided into a multitude of people, but, even now, you are speaking with yourself.
[85949]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

Related Material:
The Picture Of Creation Hanging On Two Hooks
Head To Head With The Ego
Studying Myself In The Mirror Of The World

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

Question: You said that we have to play actively in front of each other that we are at the next degree, so that others envy and follow us. How can this be expressed? Should we simply be good, kind, helpful, smiling and this will excite and draw the friends? Or should we be firm in relation to the goal? How should I show this in order to cause maximum envy?

Answer: We are in the world of Infinity, the full connection with each other. The only problem is that we do not perceive it. We are like blind kittens. We need to begin to feel where we are in reality through our properties.

That is why the 125 spiritual degrees are called the rungs of revelation, the revelation of what you exist in. But you are underdeveloped and don’t feel that. Here now, as if in the same space (although not actually in the same space, but in other dimensions), there are plenty of various phenomena, objects, relationships, and actions. We feel none of this; it is outside of our senses.

Some people, including psychics, sense this a little. In fact, it is so. Bedouins living in Israel feel what’s going on 100 miles from them according to various manifestations of nature. But all this is at the level of our world. Psychics like Wolf Messing feel a little higher of course, outside of time, because the next degree raises man above time, etc.

That is, we play the next higher level, thus wanting to attract the forces of nature to ourselves so that they pull us towards it. We do the same thing in our lives; people play: I want to be like someone, for example, like scientists or musicians, I play this, do exercises, and thus come closer to them.

Why do the exercises pull me towards this? Because I’m attracting the same upper Light, only at our egoistic level. This is a physical law: If I aspire to something, these forces of aspiration realize everything. Therefore, we must become inspired to play.

But most importantly, we have to desire this inside ourselves because initially we are connected with each other, and if I want something, our desires concentrated together and directed at the same state will lead us to it.

That is why there are people who are dancing in front of you with a harmonica and inspiring others, and there are those who are standing modestly on the side and cannot even join the circle or sing along with everyone else; there are different people, it doesn’t matter. Externally, we must also show this for our friends in order to be inspired together. But the most important thing is an internal aspiration.
[85917]
From Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
125 Steps From Me To The Creator
Seeing The World Through Desire
Pray For The Internal Power Of Bestowal

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: How can we imagine our first shared spiritual degree correctly?

Answer: This is when you are fully united with each other and the full property of bestowal is manifested between you. That’s all! You have united with everyone and feel that you are at the next degree, the upper world.

You see the entire history of humanity, its foundation, the root cause, and its future higher state in which we ascended together. We exist there on all 125 degrees, and you simply reveal them. When you enter the spiritual world, you reveal 1/125^th of the perfect state.

The upper force is revealed inside of it, and you begin to feel to a certain degree, its properties, the laws of exchange between souls, laws of behavior, where it all leads, and all the mechanics. This is a huge attainment of upper wisdom. It is called the science of Kabbalah. This is what fills us, the so-called “Light of wisdom” (Ohr Hochma), which gives us the maximum fulfillment.

It is natural that you feel yourself already existing in the body since the body exists next to you in order for you to correct yourself through it. But your entire existence is already associated with that level of information, the fulfillment that you have just revealed. You are in it. This is your “I.”
[85895]
From Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
125 Steps From Me To The Creator
The Spiritual World – The World Of Qualities
The Spiritual World Isn’t Mysticism

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

Question: Is fulfilling the principles that Rabash conveys in his articles essential in order to attain spirituality, or is it sufficient to keep the group’s statute? For example, can I criticize a friend if I think it is for his own good, that I would be doing it out of love for him?

Answer: You have no right to teach anyone since you will always find a justification for your actions. You have to see the friend as great in “faith above reason.” This means to accept the fact that he is great and that only your egoistic eyes cannot see it. But! There are two buts here.

The first but is whether he is a real friend: Does he participate in the connection and unity in the group? This is the important condition and actually the only one. Does he yearn to participate in the connection and unity in the group? If he does, he is a friend, if he doesn’t he isn’t one.

Second, the criticism should be only regarding his participation in the group or in the work that he does. Suppose he works here as an electrician or in dissemination and he does something wrong, here we criticize him, which means that we try to correct his slips. But this doesn’t affect my love for him as a friend in any way. In such a case, I treat him as a performer of some physical work and that’s all. The two aspects have nothing to do with one another.

If he is a real friend, that is, he works for connection and unity, then I must simply accept him as absolute, as the Creator. “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.” It is the same thing! Rabash writes beautifully about it saying that eventually the group is corrected only by love among all its members, which becomes the Creator.

So we don’t criticize a friend, but express our love to him openly. It is an essential condition. Thus we work correctly against our ego.
[85889]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/16/12, Preliminary Lesson

Related Material:
My Friend Is A Representative Of The Creator!
Each Friend A Treasure
My Friend, The Great Sage!

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