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: 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 →

Question: How is it possible to precede the acts of the Creator each time and to become more rigid in relation to the ego so as not to surrender to its treacherous schemes, and on the other hand, to be sensitive to the hints of the Creator?

Answer: Don’t think about the ego under any circumstances, not of how to surrender to it or the opposite. All of these games with the ego won’t help. It is more cunning than you and everyone else.

Egoism is a very strong nature that is completely opposed to the Creator and is equal to Him in its intensity. The entire egoistic system was created by the Light entering into the desire, which made its nature and all its attributes in all of its forms. Thus, the struggle against the ego won’t help at all! It is only rising above it and having the desire become similar to the Light that will help! But to face the ego head on is hopeless.

You don’t need to pay attention to it! Only yearn to move ahead! Don’t wait until it pushes us from behind.

Question: What should you do if you constantly think about this, and at the last moment forget about the ego and also about the Creator?

Answer: That is because there is no connection with the group and the environment doesn’t help you go forward.

Here there is a very simple system of forces. From the beginning you are given a point to lean on, you are given direction, pushes. It is said that the Creator puts your hand on good fate and tells you: “Choose this.” And then you choose.

Baal HaSulam writes, for this person it is constantly said to choose an environment for yourself that is stronger and stronger, one that will strengthen you, and in which you will not fall and not forget the goal.

The choice of a strong environment depends only on your investing in it. You don’t need to change people, you need to invest in them more, and then you will feel a greater influence from them. This is the point of choice of the new environment. It is not a matter of faces of people, but to what extent you can take from them that same upper energy that is in them, but they themselves don’t even know about it.

If it doesn’t succeed, then it’s a sign that you need to yearn to attain this. There is nothing to do. The work is only in that.
[85837]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/16/12, Preliminary Lesson

Related Material:
From Feeling To Reason, From Pleasure To Truth
The White Island On The Map
When You Start Looking For A Group

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

In the News (from ScienceDaily): “Vaginal birth triggers the expression of a protein in the brains of newborns that improves brain development and function in adulthood, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers, who also found that this protein expression is impaired in the brains of offspring delivered by caesarean section (C-sections).

“The team studied the effect of natural and surgical deliveries on mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) in mice. UCP2 is important for the proper development of hippocampal neurons and circuits. This area of the brain is responsible for short- and long-term memory. UCP2 is involved in cellular metabolism of fat, which is a key component of breast milk, suggesting that induction of UCP2 by natural birth may aid the transition to breast feeding.

“The researchers found that natural birth triggered UCP2 expression in the neurons located in the hippocampal region of the brain. This was diminished in the brains of mice born via C-section. Knocking out the UCP2 gene or chemically inhibiting UCP2 function interfered with the differentiation of hippocampal neurons and circuits, and impaired adult behaviors related to hippocampal functions.

“’These results reveal a potentially critical role of UCP2 in the proper development of brain circuits and related behaviors,’ said Tamas Horvath. ‘The increasing prevalence of C-sections driven by convenience rather than medical necessity may have a previously unsuspected lasting effect on brain development and function in humans as well.’”

My Comment: The whole problem of humanity is that our egoism puts us above the world, as its conquerors, rather than partners. This leads to the destruction of nature, creation of genetically mutilated food, creation of unnatural social relations and so forth. The crisis will set us free from the egoistic attitude and lead to harmony with the environment through suffering or awareness. Just by following the natural rules, we will never make a mistake!
[85337]

Related Material:
The Brain: A Secret That Is Inaccessible To Science
An Embryo: A Stranger Or One’s Own, From The Earth Or From Above?
Being Born In Spirituality Without A Cesarean Section

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, News, World - No Comments →

All of humanity exists in a system that resembles our body, which is comprised of interconnected parts. This connection already exists. The problem is that it doesn’t operate correctly.

After the breaking of desires, each fragment began to operate for the sake of self. The connection between them remained, only it became opposite to what it should be because each one only wished to receive for itself.

This is how the system developed after the breaking, becoming worse and worse. Because the desire to receive started to reveal itself with greater force and people thought that even though their connections were egoistic, it still helped them to develop. Today’s economists still believe that competition is good because it leads humanity to prosperity and success.

But it only appears to be good on the surface because a person feels comfortable in his egoism. However, in essence, all of our development is designed only for the sake of revealing the evil contained within our egoism, and we will reveal this at the end of our egoistic development.

Throughout the course of history, the egoistic connection between people (or broken souls) has been growing constantly. Among them, there are certain souls, which reveal themselves here and there, who do not wish to exist in accordance with the laws of receiving and competition, but who wish to exist in mutual bestowal and to help one another. These people are revealing the method of a new, altruistic connection that allows them to elevate above their egoism to a state of bestowal.

By correcting themselves, these people become a positive part of the general system. These are the Kabbalists, special people that have revealed the force of bestowal, and thanks to them, it flows into the general body or the general soul like fresh blood. This flow will cause the general soul to come alive and awaken.

This entire mechanism is beginning to awaken from the dead. After all, it was completely destroyed, and now there are parts of it that are starting to heal by connecting between each other. These parts are becoming more active within the system and strengthening their connection to each other, thereby awakening the entire system and injecting it with the force of bestowal through the natural connections that exist between all its parts: the broken parts, the corrected parts, and those in the process of correction.

As a result, all parts of the system are receiving a small energy boost and inspiration from the parts that are correcting themselves. For this reason the righteous are called the foundation of the world.

Even if we don’t disseminate widely, our work and efforts in uniting still will affect the parts of the system that aren’t able to discover the method of correction for themselves. After all, we exist in a single field, a single organism, but, in order to accelerate the process of development, we have to include external dissemination.

Baal HaSulam wrote about the necessity of revealing the science of Kabbalah in his article, “Time to Act,” as well as in his newspaper, The Nation. This helped to awaken people, which corresponds with our incredibly accelerated times.

This gives each part of the system the opportunity to awaken and to see that our crisis state is not accidental and that we aren’t doomed for suffering passively our entire lives. The crisis is a sign that we must accept the method of correction as soon as possible.

The Light, the power of correction, fulfillment and bestowal, enters the general system only through its corrected parts. The corrected parts of the system are called Israel (straight to the Creator), and their numbers are growing because more new parts are awakening to the correction.

They are called the inner part of the general soul. The rest of the parts that aren’t yet correcting themselves are called the external part or the nations of the world. Ultimately, everyone will unite and reach full correction.
[85578]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/12, Shamati #69

Related Material:
Everything Is Ready, The Last Word Is Ours!
I Am One With This World
The Method Leading To The Light

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Kabbalah Dissemination, Unity - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, the newspaper, The Nation: As also the love for the nation must be engraved in all sectors of the nation no less than the egoistic, individual love for one’s needs, in other words, also in the sufficient amount for the preservation of existence of the nation as a nation that is able to carry itself. And with the surplus of this minimum amount, it is possible to devote for the sake of humaneness, for the general humanity without any difference of nation or race.

This presents exact boundaries to the Jewish nation, and if it crosses them, if it cares for itself more than is needed in order to serve others, then this worry damages it and again enters breakage. One needs to take for oneself only as much as is needed for connection for the sake of others. It’s not only the exaggerated need that causes damage, but also excess connection beyond need.

Question: Does this mean that according to the measure of advancement, man needs to determine limits for himself for worrying about his personal needs, and following them, begin his investment in the society?

Answer: In the meantime, we have no basis for similar calculations. Today all of us, in general, need to concentrate only on how to attain the connection between us. And afterward, when the connection is discovered, we’ll work on strengthening it, and then we’ll see and feel the limit. It’s like my worrying about my health in order to serve others in bestowal. But if I worry about being alive and healthy above what is needed in order to serve others, then it is already a Klipa (shell), ego.

In that you constantly maintain this limit, you “sculpt” yourself, make a form of yourself. You maintain the intensity and the health of all your Kelim (desires/vessels) only for the sake of the opportunity to bestow. And this is called to receive for the sake of bestowal.
[85584]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Economics Of The Future Society
US Poverty Level Hits Record
The Power of The Spiritual Level

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: How can we check what our intention is while reading The Zohar?

Answer: The Book of Zohar is the source of Light that comes to us if we want to use it correctly. Thus, while studying Kabbalistic books, I always summon some illumination upon me, but it comes according to the intensity of my efforts and my readiness. If I study in order to gain something corporeal or to gain the next world as a personal privilege, then the Light, by its influence, creates in me even greater darkness. I grow further away from the understanding of what this system was given to me for, what I have to do with myself, and how I should treat others. Even when I read wonderful words about love and connection, I don’t feel a sense of belonging anymore, I don’t see the connection and I don’t know how to perceive the text: Whether to let it enter my heart or not, this means that I study like a bat that is nourished by the night and doesn’t expect the dawn.

But if I try to connect with others and this is the reason I learn the method, by keeping and observing the condition for accepting it at Mt. Sinai, yearning together with everyone else to be “as one man in one heart,” to enter mutual guarantee, to attain brotherly love and through it the love of the Creator, then the Light begins to advance me. This isn’t the ordinary path that is overcome in stages anymore, but I gradually begin to discover the bad shattered state in it.

The egoistic study conceals my ego from me, and I see myself as righteous. On the other hand, by the right study, I discover that I am immersed in evil. The first thing that the Light reveals to me is my evil attributes, and I have to work accordingly. By discovering the evil, I feel even worse feelings than before. So what can I do? After all, according to my nature I want to escape when I feel bad.

Perhaps I should stop studying and withdraw from the group? Perhaps I should feel despair? Or perhaps I should be happy that I was allowed to discover the recognition of evil? It should be a law for me, an invitation: If I can rise above this unpleasant feeling, I will yearn for bestowal above receiving.

I prefer to receive a blow, since the sufferings that are revealed in my ego show me that I don’t work for it. Although I experience unpleasant feelings, I overcome them and aim at unity. I don’t escape in order to sweeten the bitterness; I don’t close myself, I don’t descend, and I don’t stop studying. On the contrary, I accept all the troubles that come from every direction on the way to unite with the friends, as being sent by the Creator and that there is nothing besides Him.

I accept every state as beneficial for my advancement. I don’t want to annul them and I continue to study in order to neutralize the bad feeling. I actually want it; I want it to stay since it focuses me exactly on how to rise above it, to be above reason. I gladly accept all the problems and interruptions, the pressure of the circumstances, the external mockery, the different sufferings, since they all help me focus on the goal correctly, creating such limitations, such frameworks, that by working within them I undoubtedly advance forward.

Thus build inside me the vessels of bestowal above the vessels of receiving. They continue to grow and to suffer, while I, being one level above them, want to hold on to the connection with the Creator until I attain full faith, the attribute of Bina, and begin using my vessels of receiving in order to bestow.

But then too I don’t intend to calm myself, since I have risen to such a degree that there should be no thought of complacency. On the contrary, I yearn more and more upwards and am even ready to receive pleasure, but not in order to fill myself, but in order to fulfill the Creator’s desire.

This is all our work. Along this path I need a real source, an egoistic desire that provides me with the force of bestowal thanks to my overcoming the problems and the sufferings that are revealed in it, and it’s clear to me that it all comes from the Creator.
[85707]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/12, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
The Unlimited Power of The Zohar
In A Toy Store In A Size Of The Universe
Measuring The Power Of Our Intention

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Suffering, Unity, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Could you give a specific example of a correct family relationship? I do not yet fully understand it.

Answer: For example, the wife thinks that her husband is not supporting her; she feels lonely. However, she needs to treat him and speak with him like she feels his support one hundred percent. Instead of becoming upset that he gives her no support at all, she thanks him for being so helpful and supportive, and how will the husband respond?

At first, he will be shocked because he thought that she was going to start fighting with him. He will think that she is being sarcastic, but this situation is not just turned upside down, here we have an opposite that comes from another opposite, and from another opposite. This is because she sees faults in you, then she applies them to herself, and tells you what she would have actually seen in you if her egoism was not getting in the way.

Question: I do not understand how I can say the opposite from what I feel!

Answer: Please understand that we do not see the world. We only see ourselves! Every person has a filter before their eyes that only allows me to see what is good and what is bad for me.

This is so that I could distance myself from the things that harm me and become closer to the things that are good for me. I see the world very selectively.

I do not know and am not familiar with the real world, which exists outside of me on the other side of my hands that I am using to cover my eyes. I do not understand it and do not know anything about it.

It presents itself to me the way my egoistic desire paints it, but when I begin to perceive this egoistic desire as an enemy and I wish to see the world as good, then I wish to remove these egoistic, distorting glasses, and to do this, I speak well about all the things I see as bad.

This does not mean that I am lying to you because I treat you as a mother treats her child, and I like all of your qualities. This is how I will see you once I remove the egoistic glasses because only a perfect world exists outside of me.

Question: But I am still wearing these distorting, criticizing glasses!

Answer: However, you wish to see beyond them. Rise above your knowledge. Your natural egoism is soldered in these lenses. This is why you only see faults in your partner when you look at her.

If these were regular glasses, you would simply take them off and throw them out, but these lenses are implanted in you, and this is why you must accept everything that is bad as good. Remember, you are looking through distorted glasses.

“Love covers all transgressions.” This means that there will be no crimes left, only love, instead of them. You love everything in your partner. You simply do not notice any faults in her because habit becomes second nature. Try as hard as you can until it becomes a habit!

Let us decide that, from this moment on, we will behave at home as if we were both perfect and there are no contradictions between us, like we really want to do as much good as we can for one another and be like one body, not physically, in bed, but emotionally, internally. You will see all this materialize after a multitude of these kinds of exercises.

However, naturally, here you cannot do it without social pressure from the environment. You never leave this never-ending seminar. You simply exist within it, and then you will suddenly see the nature inside and outside you begin to change. You will see the world to be different, as well as yourself and all your relationships. Everything will change. As it is written, “I saw an opposite world.”

This seems to be a psychological exercise, but there is a lot of depth to it. We need a collective force to influence us and help us begin these exercises. However, there is a very important condition here: The teacher in this group needs to come from the community of Bnei Baruch.
[85259]
From “A New Life” 7/12/12

Related Material:
Fighting For The Record: The Bar Of Family Relations
Married, But Free As A Bird!
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Show Me All Truth

Filed under: Egoism, Family, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

The desire to receive cannot change anything except its intention. Imagine that your arms and legs are tied, what can you do? Nothing depends on you except your intention, similarly there is no other way the desire to receive can act.

It only knows how to receive, so let it receive and do the only thing it can do. The point is that sometimes it receives with the intention for itself and sometimes it closes itself and refuses to receive.

But how can I refuse to receive if my mouth is constantly open? How can I close myself? Only by my intention! If I don’t consider what I receive as receiving since it doesn’t bring me pleasure, it isn’t considered receiving any more.

Although I really want this filling, I don’t enjoy it since the desire was given to me by nature, but I don’t enjoy by the power of my recognition. The action of my desire to receive is to change the attitude to itself, to decide how to work with the desire.

To the extent that the Light influences me by allowing me to rise above my desire, I decide what to do with it: to restrict my desire or to allow myself to receive a little in order to enjoy. But what should I enjoy for? I may decide to enjoy for myself or for bestowal. It may be a necessary act of receiving which is not condemned or praised.

It all depends on what I enjoy for: in order to bring pleasure to the host, to the Creator, or in order to bring pleasure to myself. It may be that we both need to receive pleasure. If we connect like two loving friends, we enjoy the fact that we give to one another, which means the fillings or the connection between us.

We can have many such thoughts and decisions, but they are all related to the intention. I cannot change anything more than that: my mouth is open, my arms are tied—this is what my desire to receive looks like. Everything is solved only in “faith above reason,” in our thoughts. It is only about the actions that are below the Masach (screen).

Only my attitude to what happens to me counts, and it is the only thing that matters. I correct my attitude to what is going on until it becomes exactly like the Creator’s. This means that we have reached full adhesion with Him.

By that you will feel how important our intention is. Only our intention belongs to the level of the speaking. We measure our level according to the power of our intention.
[85163]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
Intention Is The Complete Action Plan
Intention: What’s Important Is The Result
A Human Is Defined By His Intention

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Question: When we are talking about the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature, we can “feel” them with the help of our five organs of perception. When we talk about the general field, which is revealed among us, it turns out that we have nothing to study it with?

Answer: That is why we have to create it by ourselves.

Man does not differ from an animal by the fact that he has an additional pair of hands or legs, but by the emergence of this new spiritual constituent, created by himself—spiritual because it exists outside of us, outside of the body, so to speak. However, this is where we differ from the animal level.

Otherwise, what can one say when comparing us to animals? What is the difference between us? The gadgets, which I create next to me?! This is not a level of a higher development, only adaptation and nothing more. However, spirituality is the next level of development.

A person begins to attain the essence of nature itself, because he or she comes into balance with it. He begins to feel its thin spheres that are driven by nature: the mind, the force that lies within nature, that moves electrons, creates all of the matter, and moves it. Meaning, that we begin to understand and feel the basis of that life, which controls the whole of the universe, and on which the universe rests.

This is what physics is talking about today. By the way, quantum physics turned out to be the most advanced, even though it studies the smallest, basically, mechanical particles. Finally, through this fine mechanics, the scientists are arriving at the forces, which stand behind it, and begin to perceive the program, the mind, and all sorts of contradictions that we cannot resolve with our linear mind. We must transfer into a quantum mind, into such attainments of nature, which actually are located above our egoistic, direct relationship to it. Life itself compels us towards this.
[85177]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/29/12

Related Material:
The New Image of the New Man
A Conscious Birth Of Humanity
The Transition To Integral Thinking

Filed under: Education, Egoism, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Science - No Comments →