We should yearn for the one force, the one reality that exists so that it will begin to control us. This should be the result of our exertion.

People ask me: How is it possible to check and see if we’ve actually attained something? To attain a certain result means to feel that there is no self-desire or self-thought left in any one. It is as if we’ve embarked on a spaceship and have disconnected from earth.

We rise and we begin to feel only the new collective field we are in. Just as every bird in a big flock doesn’t feel its own desire: where to turn to and what to do. There is one collective brain that operates everyone in synchrony. Even the birds that fly in the front and those that fly behind, on the right and on the left, no matter where they are, they all turn together, change speed and direction, and even turn in the opposite direction; not one bird turns too soon or too late.

A moment ago they were flying in one direction and suddenly all at once, they all turn 180 degrees, as if they were one body. This is called being one man in one heart, in general mutual guarantee. We cannot attain this attribute by ourselves, but only by the Reforming Light that ties everyone together into one system.

It is an analog system in which there is no “entry” or “exit,” there is no beginning or end, but everything happens at once simultaneously.

Modern physics is also discovering that the true reality is above time and that all over the universe different phenomena that are not related to time take place, but one process is tied to other processes that take place simultaneously. An ants’ nest operates according to the same principle in which millions of ants are operated by one brain.

We observe many such phenomena in the inanimate, vegetative, and animate worlds where each individual has no brain of his own, but all of them together seem to be receiving orders from a general brain that shows them what to do and that arranges everything.

This is the level we should reach. The difference, of course, is that when it comes to us, it has to happen in our feeling, in our understanding, in our recognition that in that “One” we attain our first spiritual degree. Then that “One” that we attain, that feeling, that brain, that life, is called the “revelation of the Creator.”

Then we are already in a different intention, in a different reality, in which one force controls the heart and the mind. We are incorporated in it, learn it, and get to know it to the extent that it can be revealed according to the thickness of our level.

Later our ego is revealed again and separates us from the “One,” so that we will attain it in greater depth, in greater, more qualitative, and clearer discernments. Thus we advance in our work: We connect, we ask for the Reforming Light, and are incorporated once more in the concept of the “One” more deeply.

This is how the Creator is revealed to the created beings in this world. I really hope that we are all on the verge of this revelation today.
[70389]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Pri Chaham”

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Question: The coming convention makes me feel fear and pressure that are way too strong. I don’t feel happiness and love, but only instructions and warnings. I don’t feel like going to the convention any more. Why have I reached this state?

Answer: It’s because you’ve never thought that a convention is not a picnic. You always came to our conventions like to a festival full of lectures, performances, dancing, and meals…. If a person awakens himself with the help of such activities, they are serious and beneficial for him. But if he doesn’t, he can simply enjoy life, without approaching what’s important.

In the past, too, people used to come to the Temple because there was always fresh meat and good wine there. While others used to come there with rather different thoughts.

Today we make people understand where they are. Everyone has to understand and agree to this; everyone should feel great fear. The Torah even describes the external signs of this state, such as ground shaking, thunders, and so on. It is really so.

At the same time, this very important situation should evoke happiness in us. You are in Gevurot (strength), but the upper level is revealed to you, if you deserve it, of course. If you don’t, here will be your burial place. So you should decide whether you should come or not.

The quality of the participants is more important than the quantity. Mass dissemination of the principle of mutual guarantee is one thing, while a spiritual ascent in the desert is something else.

If a person comes there as if to a picnic, he will cause himself great harm. He will diminish our power and will disturb us with his foreign thoughts and desires, and he will be punished for that in the future. Such a person shouldn’t come. There is room here only for those who are very serious.

I will understand if people decide to stay at home. It will actually be a serious attitude: A person is afraid, not sure of himself, understands that he is still weak internally.…

Well, so perhaps in another two thousand years you will have another chance ?
[70380]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: The closer we get to the convention, the more we feel the emptiness of thoughts, feelings, and powers. What does that mean and how can we work with that feeling?

Answer: This always happens before any important action, when a person loses all his previous, lengthy preparations. All the decisions a person has made and all his readiness suddenly disappear and there is a certain emptiness left, like while waiting for something.

It is true, it happens in corporeal life too. There is nothing we can do about it. It is very similar to the silence before a battle, when we know that in a short while a military operation is about to begin or even a war, but there is nothing you can do. We have been preparing ourselves, and have done everything in our power, and all that is left now is to wait. There is such a waiting period, a period of silence before the battle.

The same thing happens in both the corporeal and spiritual worlds, and it is true. It is a period when a person must make finer clarifications of the state he is going to.

It doesn’t mean that you should leave time for idleness and throw up your hands as if there is no choice and nothing that you can do, no matter what may happen. I should intensify my sensitivity, the sharpness of the clarification, up to the next level and prepare myself for finer discernments and frequencies compared to what I had before.

We should sharpen our sensitivity and try to feel what we couldn’t feel before.
[70387]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Pri Chaham”

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Question: In what way should our intention in the Arava convention be different from what we had before? What should we prepare ourselves for?

Answer: Our intention during this convention is to add great fear, great anxiety: What if I don’t support the general effort correctly?

Just like in a poker game, I go all-in, wager all my resources, and put all the cards on the table. I am ready to give all of myself in order to attain the Light that Reforms. I am ready to give my share and to push everyone towards the goal. At the same time, in unification with all the friends, I want to receive through them the force that will connect me not with them, but to the One above them. We must do our utmost so that love will cover all sins. We must yearn for mutual guarantee and unity.

The difference is that this time we act on our own, without the external circles, in one thought, desire, and intention. We don’t leave it, we are constantly inside. We attack not only and not so much mentally as in desire and intention.

This is what we prepare, and everything else depends on the participants. They build this state.
[70369]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: Can the group forbid a friend to participate in the convention because of improper behavior?

Answer: We must check every case separately. On the whole, these are the criteria:

• participating in the lessons every morning;
• paying Maaser (tithing);
• participating in the gatherings of friends,
• participating in dissemination as much as one can.

These four conditions are mandatory. If a person fulfills them, he has a place in the convention.

But we made some mitigations and we don’t check the participants according to these criteria. Many of them don’t pay tithe, do not participate in the morning lessons, and so on. Surely, these people don’t quite understand what we have in mind and what we do. However, it doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to succeed in the convention and that it will only be a “practice.”

Besides, different people come from different parts of the collective soul of Adam HaRishon, and for some of them it takes twice or three times longer to master the system. They can advance in some particular aspect, but it is more difficult for them to change internally. There are those who even become worse: coarse, careless, and so on. Don’t judge your friend until you step in his shoes.

On the whole, we don’t judge the friends according to their external behavior unless it is related to dissemination work. The main thing is that a person doesn’t show disregard.

Question: Does this mean that in the meantime these criteria are a recommendation and not a demand?

Answer: This time we don’t impose them, but a person should know that not fulfilling them keeps him behind. He can participate in our activities, but he won’t advance. He won’t disturb us in the convention, and he will feel an ascent, but not as a “man” who comes out of Egypt.

We give these people a chance to be with us, at a lower level that limits the feeling and the advancement. There is nothing we can do about it.
[70373]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Rabbi Elimelech from Lizhensk, “A Luminary and the Sun”: The main thing is to unite with each friend in love, serve the Creator with the single heart, to give a hand together, to extend connection among us and solder with each other’s hearts to become one whole and serve the Creator wholeheartedly.

In general, all our work is in one action: to unite as one man with one heart, to solder with each other’s hearts to become one whole and serve the Creator wholeheartedly. This is how we correct the breakage created specifically for us in order to reveal the degree of our separation and to build a bridge of love over it.

It’s in this manner of working with the help of an obstacle given from Above, the height of a bridge extending over the abyss of our egoism, that we build our common spiritual Partzuf and reveal the eternal reality in which we are to live. Thus, we’ll be getting even more blows of separation on the way and will be building a connection of love in mutual guarantee, unity, and complement like a perfectly tuned mechanism of an integral system. Each time we have to aspire toward perfection. Malfunctions and new details that need to be added to our system to become perfect will be revealed to us. And we’ll be happy to find and fix these details because corrections lead us toward true perfection.

We have to be happy with the evil being revealed. I am happy and rejoice in these apparent and appearing impairments, writes Baal HaSulam in the Igrot (Letters) 5, P. 11. He continues: I do indeed regret and complain about the impairments that are still covered, and are destined to be uncovered, for a covered corruption is in no hope…. Thus it’s very important for the flaws to be revealed. And they have to be accepted with joy. When a person is connected to a group in the right way, he accepts all the obstacles, problems, and difficulties with joy because he understands that by overcoming them and building a proper connection above them, knowledge, wisdom, and love will become revealed above evil. To the extent of an evil abyss’s depth, he climbs a spiritual height and perceives the Creator’s eternal world.
[70281]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Rabash, Shlavey Hasulam (Steps of the Ladder), “The Need for the Love of Friends:” There is a special power in the adhesion of friends. Since views and thoughts pass from one to the other through the adhesion between them, each is mingled with the power of the other, and by that each person in the group has the power of the entire group. For this reason, although each person is an individual, he contains the power of the entire group.

When children are together they learn good things from each other. Actually they sometimes “infect” one another with bad things, and in general, if a person is ill he infects others. Can this be happening in the group too? What do I need this for? Isn’t it better to stay at home?

There are those among us who think that it is better for kids to stay at home, and not be with children their own age, although this is absolutely contrary to our approach. Of course they receive both good things and bad things from the environment. There is no doubt about that, but a person can’t grow without the two things.

Therefore there is a special power in the adhesion of friends, if it isn’t a society of criminals or a gathering of jokers, of course. It’s said that dispersing the evil is good for them and good for the world. But we’re talking about those who want to reach adhesion with the Creator. In such a case, adhesion, the connection among them is only for their own good. In the mutual connection among us we want to discover the upper force, the force of bestowal and love. If we discover it among us, according to the law of equivalence of form, we will discover its root, the Creator.

The views and the thoughts pass from one to the other, if we are on a certain level of adhesion, in connection. Therefore each one is mingled in the power of the other, and that is the main thing. I need the power of the friends. Alone, no one has enough powers to attain spirituality. Whoever sits by himself and doesn’t connect with others has a problem. It could be that he hears talk about unity, but he doesn’t act and doesn’t carry it out. Many hear, but they don’t actually listen, they don’t connect to the action. I understand that it’s necessary, that there is no other choice, but something inside stops me. I don’t know what to do. I make “Herculean efforts,” come very close and retreat again. Everyone has this strong internal psychological barrier. No one can approach others easily.

The external ease doesn’t reflect what is happening inside at all. A person who finds it easy to hug the friends will soon discover that it’s actually very difficult. There are people who are very easy going, they connect, and converse with others easily. But in fact they can’t even imagine what an internal connection is.

Therefore, we should understand that it’s about working on internal unity. Even if it’s very hard, it’s thanks to this that a person begins to receive spiritual powers from all the friends. Rabash says, each one is mingled in the power of the other and by that each person in the group has the power of the entire group. When I am incorporated in the group I acquire its power. If I had the true power of the group now, even one gram from each one, it would be my net profit.

Therefore, although each person is an individual, he contains the power of the entire group in which he is incorporated. Everyone becomes equal to the group in his powers. Then we connect again and not just to connect or multiply our powers, but we actually raise them in the power we have attained, for example, one thousand in the power of one thousand. Thus it isn’t just power but the power of a “nuclear explosion.”
[70278]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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The friends unite through one goal. Together with them I can constantly check what our goal is and how to achieve it through unity. It doesn’t mean that first we connect and then aspire to the goal. It isn’t somewhere on the outside, and we don’t look for it like a special forces unit (the green color). No, the goal is achieved in our unification (the red color). We are together, and we reach such an adhesion among us that the goal is revealed inside. It is in our adhesion that we discover the Creator, according to the law of equivalence of form.

The levels of our advancement are dressed into each other, and every step we make is aimed inwards. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the internality of the Torah.

Our egoistic desires are like black points, and we build the connection above reason with the help of the Light that Reforms. The Light itself is also inside, in us, and it is called the Surrounding Light not because it is poured on us from the outside, but because it comes from a higher level, that is, from inside. It connects us and fills the void of our interconnection, like a cloud covering a valley.

Then we feel that we are like croutons in a soup. It is as if we step into the fog, get into the water, and sink into the thickness of the collective sensation. In it we discover the root that’s there: the Creator and adhesion with Him.

It is all inside. There is nothing on the outside.
[70274] 
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention” 

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Rabash, Shlavey Hasulam (Steps of the Ladder), “Judges and Guards”: It is said: “You should post judges and guards at all your gates.” When a person wants to start the work of the Creator, he goes through two stages:

1. Theory. He first makes himself a plan: what he should do and what he shouldn’t. That is, this is the clarification of good and evil, and this theoretical part is called a “judge” who tells him what to do.

2. Then he has to put theory into practice, and it is already called a “guard.”

It isn’t a single day’s work, but one has to exert himself in the work daily. Therefore, the plural form is used: “judges and guards.”

[70270]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention” 

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Question: In the last convention in Israel I felt an unprecedented sense of connection. But afterward, for a week I felt such a descent, which, too, I had never felt before. Now I am afraid of conventions. What can I do?

Answer: It is very good. It is excellent. We should really be afraid. We also see that before the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt.

Just imagine that you are being thrown out of the place you are used to, and that you escape in the middle of the night, not knowing where to. Pharaoh’s cavalry is chasing you. You are confused, you jump into the Red Sea, and suddenly a miracle takes place. Actually it isn’t so delightful. Then the people praise the Creator: “The horse and rider drowned at sea.” But we should understand that a person goes through very extreme states that resemble birth; he feels great pressure like an embryo during labor pains.

Then after the journey in the desert almost a thousand laws are “imposed” on you: what you should do and what you must not do, and what punishments you will receive if you don’t follow these laws. In other words, you get the plan of your future correction, even before you are at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “This is what is expected, whether you want to or not. It makes no difference. Take it and start doing it.”

Only now do you discover what the work of the Creator is. Up until now you thought that you are a hero among zeros and now you see a list that reaches the sky before you. In every line it says: “if you don’t perform—you will get problems, catastrophes, death….”

Furthermore, you are also told: “On the whole, if you don’t connect—this will be your burial place.”

Then the point of Moses gladly comes out of every heart, the point that pulls us toward the Creator. We connect these points and discover to some extent the connection with the upper force. It is done gradually: At first only the point of Moses discovers Him, while the other points—the sages, the elderly, the priests, the Levites, Israel, the women, the slaves and the children are standing at the foot of the mountain. They say, “We shall do and we shall hear.” In other words, all our desires that are ready to surrender receive the force.

It is happening today, and the next day we immediately build the golden calf.

It is important that we understand: It is all within our reach. We escape the ego, and we really need to feel this escape. You come to the convention, fully ready, fearing that you might not fulfill the mission and reach the desired goal. You are afraid of being restricted and obliged, just like the escape from Egypt.

On the other hand, you feel obliged to all the friends. You look at them and you desperately look for our collective point of connection.

Eventually, we should bring all our powers to one moment. But for that moment we should be taut during the whole convention, like a taut string. We should be connected in time, movement, and place, in the connection among us. It is said: “Israel the Torah and the Creator are one.” This is like the situation of the great priest in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur….We should reach that one single unique moment and then it will happen.

Then the path will continue, but it will be with the connection to the Reforming Light.

These are the conditions: You are actually running away; it isn’t in your power to go back to your previous life; you must achieve the desired goal; and at the same time you must pull together all your powers for that single moment. This aims you very sharply at the target. Let’s see how all this will happen.

In The Book of Zohar, (Nasso [Take] Items 98-99) it says: “…and they shall gather at the foot of the mountain. At the foot of the mountain they were told: ‘If you receive the Torah, good, and if not, there shall be your burial place.'”

This means that we with our egoistic desire will see the beastly life as “wonderful.” We will feel that we are in this “beastly burial,” and some won’t even feel that. Then instead of internal mental, goal-oriented, human disturbances, we should expect beastly problems from which the whole world suffers.

Therefore, we must prepare for the convention very seriously. If we’ve taken it upon ourselves, we mustn’t withdraw. It is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid.
[70249]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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