Question: How can we ascend anew to the level of connection we had at the Arava Convention? How can we make sure that our work is direct, without any questions?

Answer: Everything depends on our intention, on whether every second, no matter what I may be saying, doing, or hearing, I think about greater closeness, unification, and the creation of a common feeling within where the Creator, the Light, will be clarified.

It’s like a person who has either a great problem or great joy. Suppose that a very pleasant encounter awaits me in the evening such as a dinner with people dear to my heart or some special event. During the day, I have to work, interact with co-workers, and solve problems, but I abide all day in anticipation of what is to come at night. Alongside the problems and concerns that I deal with every minute, I’m absorbed in the thought that in the evening, something wonderful and pleasant awaits me. I have two thoughts!

The same thing happens here. We can be interacting or doing anything. We purposely close off from everyone in order to ensure a maximum possible concentration of intention between us. This intention should be constant. Whatever we are listening to, doing, or saying, we have to constantly feel tension, seek and strive toward the sensation of oneness between us, the connection in which the Creator has to manifest Himself. This is what we need to do.

Secondly, you said that we felt it in our past unification in the desert. I don’t want to remember that; it was in the past. Right now, I want to ascend and feel a completely new next state. I don’t want to return to the past or even think about it. Each time, I stand before something completely new, and this new state will be better and deeper than the past one. This is the only way we should think.

Therefore, don’t try to awaken former feelings within you; they will only cause harm. Don’t live in the past!

Our next actions should be directed toward coming closer practically and at creating a new sensory organ. This should be much stronger, much more evident and clear than what we had in the desert or in other places.

Together with all our friends around the world, we should feel that we are ascending collectively, developing within us a new sense organ and building the conditions for sensing Him. We will feel Him. It is just around the corner, it already exists within us. Only a little bit more, and He will begin to manifest Himself.
[74033]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 1 

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Question: There are people in the world who follow their heart’s calling. They are immersed in their goal completely and live only for it. Do these people possess a spiritual sense organ and do they need Kabbalah?

Answer: Kabbalah originated in the ancient Babylon, when it was immersed in the same crisis that we have today and its people lost a sense of direction in their lives. They suddenly felt that egoism confined them within an animalistic existence. Then they revealed this method of attainment of the upper force.

Kabbalah is necessary only for those who find themselves in a deep inner crisis and who question the meaning of life.

In general, the question about the meaning of life arises in many people for different reasons. If I, for example, lost money gambling, or trading stock, or something happened to me, I also think about the meaning of life. But this question arises in me as a result of a “minus,” that is, as a result of suffering and some loss in our world. In this case, people do not aspire to rise up; it doesn’t interest them.

We have to clearly understand what people come to us. You can clarify that with any psychologist or even independently.

Let’s assume a person has everything: a car, a house, a family, and a job. If this person lost something in this life (a minus), he or she will also question the meaning of life: “What should I live for if I lost it?” But it’s not the aspiration upward, forward. If you give this person a “plus” instead of a “minus,” it will be sufficient to satisfy him or her.

People like this do not need something spiritual, something higher. What speaks in them is not a Human higher than an animal, but an ordinary animate level: The sun is shining, the grass is growing, and all is well on the earth.

For a person who questions the meaning of life all of it as if stops to exist. It all isn’t worth anything, doesn’t mean anything because everything begins and ends. Life itself doesn’t specifically give anything; there is nothing particularly valuable in it except for the fact that I receive; nothing else is happening, and in the end, I simply live like a beast.

A person who thinks in this way and begins to question the meaning of life is questioning something different, something that is directed upward, above my beastly existence, the reason he is so limited in years of his life, abilities, and minuses that don’t let him have his peace of mind. “What is above this minus, what is it all for?” Depending on what level this question is originating from, this person comes to mysticism or somewhere else.

The desire is constantly developing within us. This is the development of the question about the meaning of life according to the five gradual levels of desire: 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4.

If a person is at the preliminary level of development, he will be satisfied with different philosophies. If it’s the next level, then it is psychology. Such people often become poets, writers, philosophers, and psychologists.There is a level of development where a person is drawn to some actions, to various psychological practices: “We will be dancing or sitting in the lotus position, we will be breathing or not breathing, that is, we will begin to attain upper substances through the body.”

This also relates to the search. If a person is at a level like this, he will be doing yoga, other various practices, and it will satisfy him. You can’t prove anything to him. It is the level of their knowledge, attainment, and sensations, it is the level of questioning that arises in them now. Partially, various religions are here, too. They are intended to reassure, to provide balance, and to give hope.

On the next level, a person can no longer be satisfied with various physical exercises, breathing gymnastics, and so on. He feels that it gives him nothing. After all, it is all about the body that strives to feel comfortable. “What if I start meditating?” And he begins meditating with some letters or symbols. It is already something more abstract, yet it also doesn’t go beyond his psychological framework.

Eventually, at the final level of development, the question arises within man: “Is there anything that exists outside of myself if I absolutely annul myself? Is there a method that will help me get rid of my current “I”? I want to perceive the world outside of myself.” These people come to us.

What does “outside of myself” mean? It means the perception of the world not inside of me, not through my five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. These sensations penetrate us, are summed up, and thus we sense the world inside of ourselves according to a certain program within us.

On the screen situated at the back of the brain, the sum of all of these sensations paints before us a picture of the world in a certain proportion: We receive more than 90% of this picture through our sight, 7-8%  through our hearing, and the rest through our smell, touch, and taste. That’s it!

It means the program is changing inside of me, desires change, and accordingly, I receive a sensation of a different world. As if it moves, as if it does something inside of me. But how can I come out of myself and begin to sense the universe in its entirety?

Latest scientific studies say that only a field, a force, and nothing else exists around us; only one force and nothing beside it. Hence what appears inside of me, within me, and what we research now, all of it I have to see as my connection with this force. I have no other opportunity to reveal it, only through the impressions I receive.

That is, I have to constantly analyze that everything that happens inside of me, both a plus and a minus, everything comes from one force. If I constantly direct myself to it in this way, then even through my present perception I begin to attune myself to this force and feel it more and more. Accordingly, having attained such a state where I within myself receive an additional sensor, I begin to sense this force itself.

I begin to reveal it, and precisely through its opposite influence on me I feel infinity, perfection. It purposely confuses me and gives me various obstacles so that through them I could hold on to it. Thus I raise myself above my animal.

On the animate level, I am purposely given sensations of various negative influences so that I could rise above them and feel this force. This is what the entire method is comprised of. And the group, studies, dissemination, and everything else are only to help in attainment of the goal.
[73904] 
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3  

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Question: How do I begin feeling the upper force?

Answer: We begin to feel the upper force only to the extent we can attune ourselves to it in our unity. A person cannot feel this force alone.

Tuning into this force should be in accordance with it. If I do it on my own, it will be an egoistic tuning. The ego will rule over me. How do I exit this state?

I need more than a desire to exit and rise above myself—this is an individual and egoistic desire present in millions of people in our world. How do I feel this very force, precisely this force? To do that, I must become equivalent to it.

There is a very simple law in nature: You can sense some phenomenon only to the extent you consist of it. That is, if I feel, hear, see, taste, or smell something, it is because I possess certain qualities that are also present in what I feel. There must be a  law of equivalence of form. I have to build in myself a device that will detect waves existing on the outside.

Let’s assume that we have a radio set. What do I do when I turn its handles? I tune it in; I generate a certain wave in it. If there is a similar wave on the outside, the antenna will detect it according to the principle of resonance, equivalence, and I will hear some sounds; my ear will detect them.

It means I have to build within myself a receiver that will contain qualities similar to those of this force. If I simply desire to come out of myself and sense it, I will achieve nothing. That is the reason we gather in a group where I do not only desire to rise above myself, but rather want to rise above myself in the quality of bestowal, in the quality of love, which is the quality of this force.

There are millions of those wanting to exit and rise above themselves. However, it takes time for them to hear that besides rising above themselves, they can achieve it by building the quality of bestowal within.… It is only possible in the group, between us, when you begin to unite with others according to the principle of “love thy neighbor.” Then you begin to become equivalent to this force and are able to sense it.
[73907] 
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3 

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Question: I have the feeling that my ego “steals” everything from me. I sit with my friends and it seems that I ascend my desire to receive, but then I feel that they are the ones who are doing that. I feel that I am in the dark, that I don’t hear anything, and don’t feel the Light. What should I do?

Answer: You should try to dissolve into the friends, like someone who is small or like someone who is new in a society.

When you come to a new society you don’t know anything and you don’t know anyone. You try to enter it without being too prominent or standing out. Suppose you come to a new work place, you simply try to keep quiet in order to discover, to see, and to feel everyone else.

This is how you should behave. Then you begin to feel what they have. You will develop like an embryo in his mother’s womb. Then gradually, to the extent that you begin to feel yourself as real and safe, you begin to express yourself together with everyone else.

Try to neutralize yourself and only be inside. This is enough, because we will create the field that exists here. You shouldn’t worry, if you do that, you will feel it.

Question: But in any case my ego will feel satisfaction in that. How can I avoid stealing from myself and from others?

Answer: Who says this is bad if you want to feel spirituality? It isn’t bad.

The goal of creation is to enjoy, to be filled, but in bestowing. You want to enter the group and to acquire that attribute of bestowal, and in it you want to feel pleasure. In the meantime that’s okay. We cannot imagine anything else.

The most important thing for us today is the yearning for bestowal, to bestow in order to feel pleasure. This is our level, called Lo Lishma, (Not for Her Sake).

When the Light comes and is gradually revealed in us, (this will happen only if we yearn for it that way), as a result of its influence we will begin to feel that the attribute of bestowal is above everything else, greater than everything, and that I want to be in it. Even if in the meantime it is egoistically, “I want to be in it.”

Then the Light will influence us in such a way that you will suddenly begin to detach from yourself, from the “I want.” Your “self” will suddenly begin to disappear and you will feel yourself “outside yourself,” outside the “self.”

Leave it to the Light! You cannot do it by yourself. You have to yearn as much as you can in all your desires, including the egoistic desires—and the Light will do all the rest.

This is a “prayer.” You are asking the Light to do this work for you. It created your ego and it is the one that will change the ego. Our yearning should be only for that in order to enable it to do this work.

If we yearn for unity, the Light will do all the rest.

We are all egoists. We don’t know and we don’t understand anything. We don’t know what will happen to us in a minute. We don’t know our attributes, we don’t know anything, and we are not required to do so. We are only required to do one thing, to simply try, to make an effort, and the Light will do all the rest.

The maximum unity in the group summons the Light, and then it changes us. We don’t have to do anything artificially. Everything will be taken care of and you just try to connect.
[74105]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 1

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Question: Do people understand that the evil inclination exists in them? Can we openly tell them about this?

Answer: No, not under any circumstances! It is forbidden to tell a person that he is egoistic, or even to say anything bad about him. What right do you have to do that? If he is normal and usual and behaves like other humans, then how is it possible to tell him that he is bad, that his ego controls him, and so forth? The opposite should be done. You need to suggest something good to him, without telling him in any way that there is something bad about him. You need to approach him as if he is special.

How do we approach a child? If you want to educate him correctly, you don’t need to put pressure on him. You need to support him, to give him security that he is capable, that he is able, that he is big and strong. In this way, you will awaken the correct forces in him for advancing forwards, and thus he will develop. If you begin to put pressure on him, you will get the opposite result in the end. Unfortunately, we don’t know how to educate children. We aren’t taught this, and thus we ruin them.

It’s also the same in relation to adults. You need to awaken the good and correct feelings in a person, to praise and elevate him. And because he is special, you show him something special in the world that can raise him even higher. Then he goes together with you! You don’t lie to him because in truth this possibility exists in each person.

Don’t reject a person with the message that he is an egoist. It is forbidden to do this! After all, we all are egoists, but if you tell an egoist that he’s that way, then he will immediately be repelled by you, whereas you must come into contact with him. Simple psychology: It is forbidden to negatively relate to a person. It doesn’t matter whom. You need to look for a good connection. That is called, “to sentence each person to a scale of merit.”
[74098]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 1

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Question: How should we prepare for the convention in Brazil in the best possible way?

Answer: First, I would like to say that in the beginning I will be having short meetings with the groups in Columbia and Chile. But this doesn’t replace the convention in any way. Therefore, I am inviting all our friends from South America and, in general, from the whole world to this convention. I strongly recommend that you come to Brazil. I think that we will have a wonderful “carnival” there.

It is very important to attend a convention at least once. I don’t know when I will visit South America again, and so let’s meet. It isn’t just any meeting, but another kind of contact, not like via the Internet. If it doesn’t work out, we will meet in Columbia and in Chile, but if you can, come to Brazil.

This convention will be multi-lingual. Perhaps it will be easier for those living in Australia or in the Far East to come to Brazil than to our other conventions, and it is worth it. It is a problem if a person has never attended a convention “physically.” After all, in our world we exist in a body and need this kind of interaction. We can’t form a virtual connection that leaves such a strong impression yet.

It isn’t by chance that business people fly to meetings all over the world, although they could call each other or use Skype. We may wonder why would a person waste so much time flying. It would be better if he sat in an office; he could get much more work done. But people still need direct communication, even if it lacks any feeling and warmth. Dry, cunning, and far from being honest, these contacts still require personal face-to-face meetings.

So trust me that for us it is very important. By creating such contact we will be able to carry it through, and without it, it is very hard to advance.

The collective preparation is just as important. This is a collective convention, and so we should feel it. Disregard will cause great harm to all of us. We mustn’t sit and wait for someone else to organize things. If this happens you will not benefit from the convention in any way. Without preparation it is even worthless to connect via the Internet because it would be stealing, actual stealing. You have to make efforts and you will benefit accordingly. If no one thinks about it, no one worries about it, no one cares, the convention will only bring harm.

Everyone has to take an active part, at least in some way according to one’s abilities. One should be concerned at least in the heart: “What did I do for it?” Without participating, you will have no vessel. So what will you be able receive? In what will you receive it? Clearly, it is only by our joint work that we are creating this vessel.
[74230]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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It is written, “there is none else besides Him [besides the only force of nature].”  This means that there is no other force in the world… that is opposite or similar to it, that exists besides it. That is, there is only one force in the world, Nature, which includes everything in it.

Actually, it doesn’t include anything in it; it only seems to us that it is divided into many parts. It seems to us that there are many forces, reasons, results, and different occurrences in the world, but it all stems from this one force.

We are among many people, with such big problems, worries, and constantly changing actions on purpose, so that despite everything, despite all these actions, problems, and interruptions we will focus our attention only on the force that created everything around us.

Everything that seems like interruptions that negate the uniqueness of this force, Nature, and that stems from one plan, one thought, one goal, all of it is meant to repel us from it so that we will return to the same track, like a missile that has to constantly follow the same course. It constantly checks itself when it is off track, and only so it can aim itself again towards the goal, like an ordinary surveillance system.

I have to direct myself at the goal, but I am on the path, not knowing how to advance, as if hanging in the air, and there are no road signs around. So how can I do anything? This is the state we are in: We don’t see the goal. It is totally hidden from us by the screen that conceals it.

Since there is a screen, we don’t know what goes on behind it. So how can we reach this goal?

To do that, we have “road signs” and certain diversions, and we constantly check ourselves and thus advance forward. By diverting from the goal, I calculate the error and return to a normal state. And this happens all the time.

But what state is considered normal? How do I know it? After all, I have never seen this great goal, so how can I aspire to it? I aspire to it when I aim all my thoughts, longings, actions, the reasons, the results, and everything that happens in the world to one source only. I have to attribute all the minuses and the pluses, everything that happens to me to one thing only—to this source.

This means that there are individual forces of a single force of Nature, which purposefully acts with the intention to divert a person from the goal.
[73794]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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Question: On whom does the ability to annul oneself with regards to the upper one depend: on a person or only on the Light?

Answer: The level of your self-annulment depends on the group. You will never be able to annul yourself before the teacher and before the Creator if the group doesn’t encourage, support, and strengthen you. You cannot annul your desires by yourself; you don’t have the strength for that.

You have to work with the group in relation to the Creator because without it, you won’t be able to approach Him. You have to assume the correct form that draws you closer to the Creator, and you do that with the help of the group. The group gives you this form of annulment, the approach, the point of contact with the upper one—you do all that within the group.

During the convention in the Arava desert you felt the existence of this contact point, the point of general connection. It isn’t in the upper one yet, but it is the result of our collective efforts. Now we need to develop it so that we will feel that this point is in the waters of Bina, in the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa). This is the state we have to attain.

We should feel that we are inside the upper one and annul ourselves more and more on top of the growing ego in us, on top of the conflicts and problems that come up. We annul ourselves for the sake of unity, in order to stay in the upper one, to bring Him pleasure and not to reveal our desire, because otherwise we will become a foreign body and there will be a shattering, an abortion.

We have to attain greater loyalty to the upper one, which will symbolize that we are growing and expanding inside Bina, until we fill the entire space of Bina by our desire. The result is that the desire to enjoy is in it, but we have annulled ourselves completely above our ego and thus have grown. This is called a spiritual embryo.

When it reaches the size of all of Bina, of all the spiritual womb, its doors open.
[72292]
From Lesson 2. The Internal Convention, 3/2/2012

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In preparation to my visit to Colombia on April 27-29, 2012 a comprehensive site explaining the principles of global education has been created by my students, with information about the lectures that will take place to address the general public in Bogota, the capital, and Barranquilla, the second largest city.

I will also have a warm encounter with the Colombian group, including special lessons and meals. The students are coming from nine different cities in the country.
[74257] 

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

This is the condition: The upper force is revealed only if we really need it for unification.

Question: Where does this agreement come from?

Answer: It comes from the general desire. One is not able to correct himself without the other. The correction is made through the universal unity. The force that corrects needs to be common to everyone.

The force and the mind, the effort and the approach, everything needs to descend from Above. Everything accumulates into one and as if “sews” me to others.

This is what we need to think about. If we want this to happen, then first of all, we need mutual guarantee. After all, in the general mutual inclusion, every single point that is soldered with the others contains all the rest.

Question: Is our cry to the Creator our agreement to this?

Answer: I would say yes. Only actually it isn’t a forced scream. We reach agreement about our state, about the helplessness, and the need to reach mutual bestowal, mutual guarantee, mutual connection, and mutual assistance and support. When you begin to connect all of these things, you discover that you lack the upper force. Then you really need it, while previously your needs were of a personal nature.

You discover that you need the upper force in order to really fulfill the conditions of connection in mutual bestowal between everyone. But it’s not starry-eyed idealism already since the goal is to discover the true attribute of bestowal that lies above the needs of all.

Thus, here the general agreement is required: We carry out the unification but not for the sake of corporeal benefit. Thus, it arrives as a result of our search, our work in analyzing the state.

Question: By what does the friend complete me?

Answer: Without one another, we are not able to understand what we need to receive the Light that Reforms. We can’t reveal our real deficiency if I don’t help him and he doesn’t help me.

Question: Do I ask for the friends?

Answer: I try to pray for the friends, I worry that they will receive spiritual revelation, understand, and feel what the spiritual world is. When everyone supports each other, each one shows the correct desire.

You want something that seems to you like spirituality. And it doesn’t matter how correctly you picture it to yourself. Let everything be artificial, until we receive the Light that Reforms. And still, try to think about the friends: “I wish that they will achieve this before me.” If you initially wish for the greatest things for the friends, this is already spirituality.
[71969]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 6

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