We cannot influence the discovery of the general connections in the modern world. This process goes on while we flop around like fish in a net, necessarily feeling our greater dependence upon each other.

On the other hand, internally, we are becoming more and more separated and dispersed. This is how it must be; otherwise, we would lose our freedom of choice.

This process involves many factors and it is continuing. At the same time, that connection continues to grow, our ego grows stronger. Today, bloodshed in various parts of the world and the murder of women and children no longer arouse compassion the way they did in the past. We think that we have become more sensitive and cultured; whereas, in fact, we have become more violent and don’t consider the connection between us.

Some kind of veil is concealing it from us; we see the same false picture of collective separation. Moreover, even if I am aware that I depend upon others, I am not prepared to consider this. The results are very sad. Is it possible to explain what is happening in the world logically? If someone were to look at us from the side, he would not find any logic to be operating: “What are they doing? Why are they making every effort to destroy each other’s lives?”

Human nature is contrary to the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate. The animate and the vegetative are a single complex that constitutes life, immersed in concern for the future. The main desire of animals is to reproduce and nurture offspring. This is an unchanging law of nature. We, in contrast, disregarding the next generation, destroy the world in which they will need to live. It doesn’t matter to us what will be left for our children. Resources are running out, the climate is becoming worse, there is a lack of clean water and clean air; the trees are being cut down…so what? We are even ready to make war; we now have nuclear arsenals for this.

In fact, our approach is irrational, defying all logic. And here there is a need to give the right answer, to make a decision. Since in logic and in understanding we are stronger than ever, let’s detach the mind from the ego and become responsible for what is happening. How can it be that humanity is ready to choose a completely different way of being, yet continues to advance toward the abyss?

The idea is that today the true enemy and hater is our ego. Blatantly and in an unprecedented manner it deceives us in every way possible, so much so that there is nothing left in life that can be enjoyed, that can comfort and be fulfilling.

Let’s hope that we can discover the true state of things as soon as possible and stop the downward spiral into world war. You can see today that even this threat doesn’t have the same deterring force it had in the past. “It’s okay,” the ego tells us, “We will fight a little. There were seven billion, seven million remain. It happens…” We cannot control ourselves and we can already see that this scenario is quite likely.

But meanwhile, throughout this process we are discovering a network of general connection. It’s discovered in the form of two forces: One comes from the Creator, linking and joining us. The second force originates in the ego, in the shattered Reshimot (spiritual genes). It divides and separates between us. The Surrounding Light that comes from one whole “circle,” influences us more, showing us that we are also “round.” In spite of this, under its influence, the ego erupts more and more, and ultimately we are torn between these two opposing forces, causing us to suffer doubly. Through the ego as it is, we could be successful, but it would be revealed as opposed to the global world network and we would no longer derive benefit from it. You see, in order to be successful in the global network, I must be well connected with everyone correctly. This is what the network demands of us, but it bumps into the opposition of our nature. Meanwhile the egoistic nature grows stronger.

If I experience much suffering because of my ego, which boils and bubbles within the collective network that tightly connects all of us, it could be that I will change. And experience doesn’t prevent this suffering; until the last moment I will try to flee and get away from it. Only through integral education, in which lies the Light that Reforms, will it be possible for me to raise my eyes and see what is waiting for me in advance. Integral education makes it possible to connect the ego with the global network and shows us how to use it according to the rules of that network.

Generally, I must find an answer for myself: What else can be done? For this it’s up to us first to understand where we have arrived. We have arrived in a world of egoists who are shackled to each other. We want to spread out as far as possible; something inside draws us outward, separates between us, but in contrast, the global network closes us in. So what is there to do? From where do you get a power for balance, for calm?

This is what integral education needs to explain to people: You can become serene, relax up to a feeling of perfection that is hard even to imagine. How can we do this? We are not masters of our ego. We can’t diminish it; even in the future it will continue to grow. Even with the network, it’s impossible to do anything; it pushes us closer to each other.

Only the Light that Reforms can correct the connection between us and bring us to balance. It raises us above the ego and transforms us so that we can use it according to the rules of the network and be incorporated into it.

It’s possible to express this otherwise: When we begin to connect artificially, ultimately we discover that we can do this for real. And within this unity we discover a new life, a new spirit, new powers, and a new reality. In fact, this is the wisdom of the crowd, the unity that raises everyone to a good connection. When we aspire to unite on equal terms, in this collective aspiration we find a power, which we had no idea about previously. This works for everyone, children and adults, the young and the old, women and men. All can comprise a single mosaic.

At the same time, every one of us transforms to be more and more complex. Our common “puzzle” is truly a complex system. But there is nothing to be concerned about here; the moment we aspire to unity, the components of the system immediately begin to reveal before us a general picture of integration and mutual wholeness.
[106890]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Writings of Rav Kook

The Book of Zohar — Introduction

Topic of Lesson “Group and Distribution”

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Baal HaSulam, “Messiah’s Horn”: And it was not enough that they could leave by themselves. You must understand from where the nations of the world would come by such a will and idea. Know that this is through the dissemination of the true wisdom, so they will evidently see the true God and the true law.

We are talking about internal processes, the projections of which are the external events. And the meaning is that today the “Egyptian scenario” is impossible. It has to be clear for all the desires that a person has to exit them and reach bestowal. Accordingly, salvation is impossible in the projection on the external world until the entire receiving desire, meaning the whole world, recognizes its necessity.

So, we are required to carry out the widest possible dissemination of Kabbalah throughout the world. It’s necessary that the nations get it from us to the extent that they can comprehend it. If they do not get this method, do not recognize it, and do not agree with it, then the people of Israel, that is, those in whom the spark of yearning for the Creator is burning, have no ability to rise and correct themselves.

That’s why we need to perform our work around the world as widely as possible and with maximum intensity. After all, we will not rise without dissemination outwards in all directions. This is the spiritual law: The nations of the world are strong in quantity, in width, and we in quality, in height. It’s said about Israel that it’s small among the nations, but is able to rise.

Thus, all of our success depends on the nations of the world. We go out to disseminate and address a wide audience, wanting to please the Creator above all. We bring people closer to Him so that in them unity is revealed, meaning that small illumination by which we ourselves, as a transition link, are able to please Him.

That is why we bring the wisdom of Kabbalah or integral education to the masses, intending to bring the whole world closer to the Creator in order to please Him. In our address to the world, we hold the principle of love your neighbor as yourself, which is the love of creatures striving for the love of the Creator. That is the approach in which success is inherent.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In fact, the Creator displays a “theatrical performance” before me in which everything, the actors and all, are puppets, except me. Therefore, trying to bring them closer to Him, I in essence correct myself. The whole world is part of my soul, broken and scattered vessels, desires that are split apart from me in different directions. And now I have to bring them closer together again.

If I were strong enough, the Creator would have let me feel their sorrows as my own. However, to ease my work, He sends me the feeling of “their” troubles so I will work on them. If, however, I neglect this work, I will feel that I am in trouble myself.

That’s why I still perceive the whole world “from the side,” so it is easier for me to work with. Indeed, if all the misery of people who are dying from hunger, wars, and other disasters would have manifested in me, if I had concentrated all my empty vessels even on the small degree of our world, I would not have sustained such pressure.

To prevent this from happening, these vessels were alienated from me and given to me to feel them as foreign so that gradually, as I become stronger, I would bring them closer to myself. Then, in the course of this approach, I find that they are not in trouble, that on the contrary, they are corrected and experiencing pleasure. Baal HaSulam writes about this in his article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation.”

There is no other way. I am not able to absorb all the ills of the world, although we are talking of my vessels, desires.

We just do not understand that higher mercy is truly hidden in the breaking of the vessels. In the end, due to it, I obtain a vessel capable of encompassing the entire reality, all the Light of the Creator; however, I never feel this empty vessel as it is because it is impossible to sustain this sensation.

A person can barely stand even on our small stage with his troubles. So, what can we say about the entire empty Malchut of the world of Infinity? Sometimes a person is given a drop of this state, the “illumination of Malchut,” a horrible feeling of a gaping abyss …

However, we were given the breaking of the vessels to help us, and now we are able to pass a series of states, gradually assembling them together. And when I bring any external part closer to me in the process, this bitter “fruit” becomes sweet, and as the result, I put it in my “basket” until it is filled with all the fruits of the tree of knowledge.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can we assess if a meeting went well? Is the parameter the feeling of a “raspberry sphere (ball)”?

Answer: A “raspberry ball” refers to a group that becomes one, a group of ten that becomes one. Then, each member of the group of ten loses his feeling of self and feels that he is on a higher level. In our state, we are ten, and on the next level, the group of ten becomes one. I call that a raspberry ball.

Each one should try to imagine it this way. We annul ourselves and ascend by the force of bestowal and instead of ten, become one, but on the next level. This is called raising MAN.

We enter the upper like an embryo and begin to feel it. The raspberry ball becomes a drop of semen with regard to the upper. So, when we annul ourselves and are incorporated in Him together, we feel something, but don’t know what it is exactly. I feel good because of something that is outside me, but I don’t really understand where it is and what is going on. This is the beginning of Ibur (conception).

If we feel an unusual heat wave during the meeting with the public, we must enter the raspberry ball with them, and thus you spur them.

Every person has the root of the connection with the Creator, the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that appeared after the shattering of the vessels. The only difference is how deeply it is concealed. Eventually, everyone must reach correction so that, when you create a raspberry ball together with the public, it is a special feeling of connection. You convey your awakening to them by that, the Surrounding Light. Then, the spark that is concealed deeply in them, and that doesn’t allow a person to feel it, begins to float and to come the surface.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/13

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Israel cannot grow without praying for everyone else that are in their egoistic desires and aware not even aware of this. This prayer should be only for the needs of others; it doesn’t matter what state we are in ourselves. If we have the spiritual spark, we have to work for the sake of bestowal in faith above reason.

The most important thing is the prayer, nothing more. Every action is more useful and effective the more quickly it brings us to the prayer. We need to choose the actions in our lives that will lead us in the most concise, direct, surest, and precise way to the prayer.

The prayer should be “the prayer of many” that is “double,” meaning that I ask for the lower, for “the many.” It’s called the prayer of “many” not because I ask for myself and for the other, but because for him these forces are not united around the Creator. There is no intention, no ability to connect them together.

Recently there is a growing crisis around the world that needs to be viewed as preparation for the prayer. What is the relationship between me and the flood in China, the volcanic eruption in Iceland, the unrest in Egypt, and the civil war in Syria? I cannot believe that all this happens only for me to form my prayer. We lack sensitivity, comprehension, and understanding of the system to recognize that this is really so. Even with these tangible, clearly revealed events, it’s difficult for us to see their connection with ourselves.

From this we can understand why Baal HaSulam wanted to talk to Ben Gurion to explain to him why he went to Poland to the workers strike. The upper management involved the Jews in all the events so that all these states would bring them to the prayer.

When the true picture is revealed to us, we will see how everything passes through us as through a lens focusing the rays of light. The entire universe eventually becomes compressed through us like through the eye of a needle. Thus the connection between all the rays of Light and the source is established.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Rejoicing in the Holidays and Not Giving to the Poor,” Item 175, Lesson 64

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It is impossible to invent something that doesn’t exist in nature. Perhaps there is no analogue in the material we build it from or on the same level, but it must exist. We take all the examples and the analogies from what already exists in nature; we cannot invent anything that is totally new.

It is fundamentally impossible. There is only one new point in all of creation—something from nothing (Yesh Mi Ayin). Everything else, except this “initial act of creation” (Genesis Maase) is a consequence of the meeting of the vessel and the properties of the Light in different connections. So we can take an example only from the existing attributes and create parallel forms.

Everything that we build in our world, which means in our egoistic feelings, is called “this world,” and there are examples for that in nature. If we want to continue our development by studying nature’s wisdom, we have to develop a new perception that is focused on bestowal. Then we can also fulfill the examples of in order to bestow by ourselves.

We cannot receive examples of the upper attributes from this material world, and so all the scientific progress ends on the border between our world and the upper worlds. Even before science has exhausted itself, our material desire to receive reaches a dead end and comes to an end. Our development ends at a certain point since we cannot find new examples we want to implement in this world.

Most importantly, we have lost the desire to look for them in order to invent new things and thus advance on the material level. We are in a point of transition, on the verge of the revelation of new spiritual desires.
[115226]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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If we create a shared connection between us above our egoistic desires and nullify ourselves within it in order to bestow to the Creator and to give Him satisfaction, and we use all this for work with the public in that we want to bring them closer to us and through us to bring them closer to the Creator so the Creator will bestow to them through us, then we will discover all the higher “worlds,” the entire system. It doesn’t exist outside of humans, rather only among us.

And also the still, vegetative, and animate nature, we discover are within us. Suddenly we discover within us the giraffes, lions, all the wild animals, every plant, and all humans. All of this is just a copy of our properties.

We once had other properties, apparently there were dinosaurs living in the world then. And now the properties have changed and the dinosaurs have disappeared. In our times the properties in us are transforming very rapidly and we see that many species of plants and animals are becoming extinct. They say that in the world 150 species disappear daily, at such a rapid rate, our desire to receive changes, develops, and advances.

It seems to us that nothing has changed on the level of the vegetative and the animate, but essentially every day very great changes are taking place in nature because it is entirely included within a person. Nature itself is only a copy of our inner qualities.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Spirituality is not attained by work in the mind, as it says: “wisdom among the nations – believe, Torah among the nations – don’t believe.” This means that the Light that Reforms is not among them. Therefore they are called the nations of the world and not Israel yet. This is what the whole debate is about: Who attains the Creator and who doesn’t? What is attainment?

To the extent that we acquire vessels of bestowal and sense in them, we attain the Creator, which means the phenomena that take place in our vessels of bestowal. It is impossible to attain anything else, except for a feeling in our vessels. The early simple desire to receive expands and acquires a new order. Before, it was scattered to many contradictory pieces that felt themselves as Israel and the nations of the world, relatives and distant strangers.

All this belonged to my desire to receive, but it seemed like a whole world that is around me in different forms. My role is to connect all this into one, to collect all the pieces and attach them to me by treating them with love. I have to understand that it was all given to me in order to correct myself, my point in the heart, by which I acquire the right intention towards all my enemies, those who hate me and foreigners, as I begin to perceive them as parts of my soul.

It is inside me that I have to find the right attitude towards them and then to correct them. If I perform such a correction in my inner attitude, I see that everything works out. All the many enemies and my problems are only a replica of my inner state. It is my attitude by which I divide all of reality into the land of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Babylon, and different distant countries and nations, which means that they are all the levels of my desire: the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and the speaking.

Once there was one desire, the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), and now it is divided into many parts, which feel that they are distant from one another and hate one another. All this can be connected into one form, and this is the whole correction of man and the world as one whole.

All this can be realized only if I demand correction. The whole difference is whether I philosophize about it using my mind or in contrast to what I see and the repulsion that I feel by all these parts, in faith above reason, as parts of my soul, although they seem so distant and even hated. So I begin to get closer to spirituality, working above my desire in the group and thus awakening it more and more.
[115028]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/13, The Book of Zohar — Introduction

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