Shamati #1, And only if that person has a true desire will he receive help from Above. And he is constantly shown how he is at fault in his present state.

What is the help from Above? It is that you are constantly pushed into your own inner filth, into your egoism, and are shown your own insignificance. This is what the Creator does: He constantly shows a person a huge, black darkness inside of himself, a garbage dump in his thoughts, desires, intentions, and calculations.

Why? It is only in order for him to come to need the Creator, to bring him to a state where he will no longer be able to stand his own stench. To do this, it is necessary to constantly pull him out of this feeling and to show him a different existence—one that is slightly higher, lighter, and higher than his egoism. Then he once again has to be shoved face-first into his own egoism: Look at yourself, see who you are. And then he once again has to be slightly pulled out of that swamp, and then once again thrust head down.

That is how everything happens until a person comes to feel that he really does not have any “holiness” or spiritual purity, and that everything comes only from his personal, small, egoistic being that was created in him and in which he was created.

Although he occasionally receives awakening from Above, which momentarily revives him, but soon after he falls into the place of baseness.

Of course, all of these are the Creator’s actions. But that doesn’t matter because a person feels them upon himself and inside himself. All we are is the sensation. There is nothing else in us besides sensation and we realize only what we feel. The mind only accompanies the feeling.

However, this is what causes him to come to [finally] realize that only the Creator can help and really bring him closer [to perfection]. This need or demand for perfection gradually ripens inside us precisely from these opposite states.
[34357]
From the 4th lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Question: You have said on numerous occasions that the ideas of Kabbalah should be brought into psychology and to scientific minds. I teach psychology in a university and I noticed that like all other scientists, even psychologists have very narrow opinions. So how can we approach psychologists? How can we bring elements of Kabbalah into psychology?

Answer: In principle, I myself came from the scientific world. But I left it. Yet, I respect people who nevertheless try to find something out about nature, themselves, and the surroundings. Of course, they are driven by egoistic qualities, but that’s how man is and you cannot do anything about it.

Psychologists, philosophers, and other people who study what seems like man’s inner world and the theory of knowledge, as well as scientists in the field of various closed systems—all of their research is based on our nature and the previous developments in all of science. Science develops in our five senses and is built out of these sensations.

Naturally, this entire science is absolutely egoistic because it comes from the sensation inside egoism, our main quality. And naturally, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers are unable to understand Kabbalah because it works with opposite qualities. These people are no closer to attaining Kabbalah than all others.

That’s because in order to attain Kabbalah, one must have a point in the heart. If it is present, if a person has a need to know “Why do I exist?” that is not coming from smart philosophic reckoning, but from his personal, inner necessity, then he reaches the sensation and understanding of what Kabbalah talks about. This does not happen immediately, but over the course of a great amount of serious study.

At first he does not understand what it is talking about at all. He sits at the lessons for many months, listening and nodding his head, but he still does not have the inner sensations that emerge under the influence of the Light, which are adequate to the realm that the science of Kabbalah talks about. However, gradually this happens. We have to wait.

That is how children grow. Over the course of 20 years a person is brought up and grows, and only later does he become suitable for living in our world. Even though he was born in this world and his entire environment is also in this world, it still takes him 20 years to become more or less independent. And even then he is next to his mom all the time…. Still, suppose this is so. However, in our case we are talking about the spiritual world, a completely unexplored territory. How can I prepare for it if I am not in it? How can I adapt to it if I don’t feel it? I am told about this in these books and I don’t understand what they are talking about. So everything comes down only to the influence of the Surrounding Light.

We simply have to take these people and place them under the influence of the Surrounding Light if they agree to it. Meaning, we have to place them in the right environment, evoke the Surrounding Light through the study, and over the course of several months or years, we will see the result. This is the only thing we can do. If a person agrees to it, this will happen to him, and if he doesn’t agree to it, it won’t happen.

How much knowledge he has acquired in this world does not have any relation to Kabbalah because the knowledge he has acquired is about our world, this realm, “inside the aquarium.” So how will this help him find out what is outside? After all, everything is structured in a completely different way over there.

Even if he is a great scientist in our world, even if he is Einstein himself, he will suddenly find himself completely imperceptive to what is being said here. It is written that it is not the smart person who will master the spiritual world. That is never a criterion! It can only be done by a person with a point in the heart, who properly places himself under the external influence of the group and the inner influence of the Light. From inside the point in the heart is influenced by the Light, and from outside it is influenced by the group.

Under the influence of these two sides, this point swells up and a person begins to feel the first ten Sefirot inside of it as he rises from one degree to the next. And suddenly—Kabang! This sensation becomes revealed inside of him. Then he begins to understand what he heard about, what he read, and what others talked about. “Oh, now I get it!”
[34257]
From the 1st lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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The Internet has been around only for only about 15-20 years. It hasn’t even taken one generation to grow, but there’s definitely a generation raised on the Internet.

And if we wait till the next generation arrives, another 15 years, we will see a very different humanity. It will all live on the Internet, constantly plugged into the common communication network that connects everybody by means of some portable devices such as an iPod, for instance. And we will maintain acquaintances with one another only through this virtual network.

That will be the time when all our good and evil will come to light since this system has an internal force that we are not aware of at the moment. It is yet to emerge and unfold.

In the place where people are connected with one another, a “third component” emerges as well: an effect, a “derivative” of this connection. Suppose we are a group of 10 participants who are interconnected. It means that there also is a cumulative force of the group consisting of ten people.

But this isn’t all! When we bond, an additional force comes to life, an extra component produced by our oneness, its result, a “generalization” which includes all particular forces. And if we get connected in one network, despite the fact that it is completely egoistic and false and has absorbed all the worst samples of our nature, it nevertheless is a system that brings us together. And hence, the force supplying this connection will be revealed in this place.

It exposes a new necessity to us. This network itself has such a unique nature, character, and legitimacy that it will pull us toward integration, unification, and correct development, to a truly unified humanity.

If we get connected, no matter how, by good or bad ties, this bond will bring us to the correct type of unity in the end. It may bring some blows on the way if we are egoists and don’t understand what the right form of evolution is. But by the same token, it can go smoothly and well. At any rate, one way or another, within this network, there works a special force that is one degree above us.

The integral egoism which has connected and is forcing us to be together, which has arranged this whole network and us in it, seems to be a negative force, but inside it, there is a positive one that gradually draws us to becoming as one. I am certain, based on how fast we are developing now, that we will reveal it in the very near future.

It is a natural phenomenon: When people unite, within such unification and as a result of it, there is an additional force present. This is how nature is designed. It could be a gathering of some clowns or the most evil criminals, and still, their unity will produce a powerful result (albeit possibly bad). It is because bonding itself is endowed with spiritual force. After all, spirituality is a connection.

So, our connection may be good or bad for the time being, but it will still advance us as a result.
[34249]
From a TV Program “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/20/2011

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Question: Why is the Internet communication network Facebook so incredibly popular?

Answer: Our ego is developing not only quantitatively but qualitatively as well. If previously a person was satisfied with having five or ten friends with similar interests in his or her circle so that they could go fishing together, visit bars, play cards, walk dogs, and so on, today it doesn’t satisfy them anymore. A person wants to meet others not by way of dogs or fish, that is, not based on corporeal interests and geographical proximity; rather, he seeks internal similarity, a place where he can express himself or herself the most.

A person searches for a way to communicate where he could even lie. But, essentially, by doing so, one express his “self” even more. After all, when we lie, we expose our inner truth! This lie demonstrates what we want to be but can’t.

It is very much in sync with the principle Facebook is founded on: A person displays only what he or she wishes to show, their "best pictures." But it speaks about one’s inner world. As a matter of fact, due to their egoistic nature, people may be greedy, paranoid, cowardly, or primitive, but they will present themselves as they view their ideal. In other words, a person shows what in his or her eyes is merited as a deeper, internal, attractive form.

So it follows that on one hand, I know what I am (although I may not realize it myself), but to others, I present myself in a more attractive disguise. And sometimes, it’s the other way around: I wish to look worse than I am, playing a tough guy and portraying myself as a belligerent Don Quixote.

Still, it doesn’t matter whether this image is better or worse than the real one because this lie eventually shows a person what their essence is, and he or she comes to know their evil. A person faces a question: What am I compared to the image I present myself as on the Internet, anyway? After all, everybody views me as I depict myself on the Internet, but I myself start to realize that I am far from what I have painted for others.

This brings people to the awareness of their evil, to the need to change, and to become closer to the image they wish others to see. Since if I am not in physical contact with you and you don’t see me, I can pretend to be whatever I want to for you: a new me, my inner ideal, that doesn’t have anything to do with my corporeality. And this image is a more authentic one!

Therefore, our development toward virtual communication will lead us in the direction of spiritual communication, spiritual changes. This is why I am so happy to hear about the development and growing popularity of Facebook and other communication networks.

I am certain that within this social network there are psychologists and sociologists who are doing serious research. After all, it is a global phenomenon now which expands over the entire humanity.
[34108]
From a TV program “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/20/2011

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Question: What role does asceticism play in human development?

Answer: Kabbalah has a very negative opinion of various restrictions. It does not demand anything from a person with regard to his earthly life. In principle, you can do anything you want.

It’s a different matter when you become engrossed in all sorts of fetishes in this earthly life by introducing some kind of special customs, habits, and exercises to it. Live normally. If you like doing yoga, then do it. If you like running in the morning, then run. If there’s a certain diet that is healthier for you and another that’s less healthy, then eat accordingly. None of this matters. The most important thing is not to turn anything into a cult.

Kabbalah treats every person absolutely normally. It doesn’t care about how a person lives, what habits he has, and what his customs, religious convictions, and inclinations are. Who he is in the earthly life doesn’t matter one bit.

We are once again returning to the essence: Egoism rises in us in order for us to compensate for it above ourselves. That is why it doesn’t matter one bit what I am like. Limiting yourself in food or applying any kind of methods—none of this will help. Nothing will help.

On the contrary, a person who does some kind of physical exercises or keeps some kind of strict boundaries thinks that he has already advanced forward, has achieved some kind of level, that he is righteous and so on.

This can only confuse people. Therefore, live normally, calmly, eat well, and think about your health and profession. Take part in all the things that your surrounding society does.

And together with this, study Kabbalah. This balance or normal state is the most preferable one. Fate has placed you in this environment so go with its flow. Then you will see that in reality, everything around you is in the ideal state, besides yourself.

A minus is compensated by the right plus.
[34198]
From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: I would like to know: Where inside me does the evil inclination reside? Is it in the heart or in the ego? How can I find it in order to get rid of it?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that he rejoiced about the revelation of new, evil qualities inside of him because they are not new, but are concealed in a person, and it is unknown when all of our evil, not yet revealed, will be revealed in us.

Indeed, the times when the evil becomes revealed are unpleasant. A person begins to eat himself up because he does not agree to it and does not want it. This approach also needs to be corrected.

To tell you the truth, we must only be happy when the evil becomes revealed, but not as masochists. If this evil reaches the necessary measure, then a person will explode and produce such an inner outcry, such a feeling will emerge in his heart that he will receive a revelation from Above.

Then in relation to his heart, he comes out to other people and starts feeling the spiritual world, which cannot be felt inside of you, but only in the desires of other people. However, this is a good feeling. Then a person experiences every moment as a great adventure where his desires and intentions begin opening up the world to him.
[34167]
From the lecture in “Kabalah L’Am” Hall on 12/21/10

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There is a very clear, sequential, and gradual movement in the spiritual world. If I don’t have the feeling of hunger, a desire for the next level, then I don’t have a Kli (vessel or quality) in order to feel it, and so I don’t feel it.

A threshold is required. I have to ascend from my present state, from desire #1, to the following state, desire #2. If I have ascended to the next level, desire #2, then I feel the source of Light that is there.

But if I still haven’t attained that desire and am somewhere in the middle, on one of the 10 intermediate levels (called 10 Sefirot), then I do not feel the next state. I have to reach the very last level, and only after passing it do I begin to feel the next state. This is a precise corpuscular method where everything is graduated by degrees just like quantum particles in an atom. And we cannot do anything about this.

Therefore, there is an intermediate state between my initial desire (in which I felt a certain kind of fulfillment and it seemed like the sun was shining) and my second desire. This intermediate state is practically felt as emptiness, hunger, and suffering. But if I know that I am advancing, that this is a cumulative process that will end and that I will reach happiness and fulfillment, then even this process is necessary in order for me to attain a new desire, and therefore it directs me forward correctly.

The sensations of the bad states, confusion, obscurity, and emptiness, drive me forward, helping me to advance faster. If I felt some kind of pleasure and fulfillment in these states, then they would push me away against my will and it would be very difficult for me to advance. I wouldn’t aspire forward out of goodness and all the things that are nice because my egoism would immediately force me to sit and relax.

Therefore, we should relate to suffering the right way, understand its goal-oriented nature, and know how to use it correctly. As soon as I connect it to the right goal, this suffering turns into anticipation of the wonderful fulfillment that is to come.

If we master this method, life will seem wonderful.
[34140]
From Lesson 1 Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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We need to understand that the solution to the modern problems is not to tame our egoism, but to rise above it. That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah isn’t so simple; it is above the level of the methods that teach how to gradually take control of and reduce one’s evil inclination.

Kabbalah says: No, you absolutely don’t need to fight your egoism. And you won’t win that war anyway because your egoism will only keep growing. Moreover, it is smarter than you and will always get away and take everything with it.

You must only learn how to turn it away from you, outward. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science that teaches us how to work with egoism. It is a very complex science since it includes practically everything there is. It allows us to employ our egoism correctly, and because our egoism keeps growing to gain ever greater opportunities to step outside ourselves and attain what surrounds us.

It isn’t easy to explain to people that transformation does not lie in reducing one’s egoism, but rather, in applying it correctly. The more egoistic you are, the better. People don’t comprehend it, wondering, “How is this better? The more harmful I am to others, the more envious, greedy, frugal, and cunning I am, the better?” That’s right!

Yet, you find yourself asking, “How can that be good? You are wrong: We need to eliminate all these vices. A good person is someone who doesn’t have any of them.” But that’s not so! A good person is someone who has tremendous egoistic miasms, but he transforms them into a connection with others. His aspiration is not to use all his dreadful attributes in some way, but rather to recycle them into good ones. We have to recycle them, but never annihilate them.

It is even very difficult to explain this to people who are intelligent and deep-thinking. Today we are witnessing an imbalance with nature and discord in society, our personal lives, and everywhere else. Is this for the better or for the worse? It is certainly for the better! The worse, the better!

It is hard for people to understand this. This understanding can’t get through all at once. But have patience; little by little, everything will fall into place.
[34154]
From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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In order to be in balance with nature, it is necessary to consume intelligently, meaning to the degree it is necessary, depending on every person’s needs. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article, “Peace in the World” and in other articles.

However, this practice cannot be imposed through terror. It can only happen by means of education! Yet in their times the Russian revolutionaries took a different path, having discarded the principle of education.

In addition, this was taking place in an underdeveloped country, with the most underdeveloped population that to this day is used to living in practically feudal conditions. Today the people of Russia, who are good-hearted and kind, still agree to the feudal conditions in which Russia exists to this day. This is not a capitalistic, but a feudal country with its customs, structure, corruption, and all of its social relations. It is feudalism.

It might seem to us, “But how can that be? This, in modern society? Isn’t it long gone? In the West, Feudalism hasn’t existed for 300 years already.” True, in the West it hasn’t existed for 300 years, but in Russia it still exists. That is to say, every person still agrees to it. The people still haven’t developed above that level.

Only a small portion of the population, about 10 – 20%, cannot tolerate these conditions, while everyone else agrees to live in them. They don’t care that they have a master, that they have to submit to someone without law and order, that everything can be bought and sold, and that the rich are powerful and right. People agree to this! That is why it is still deemed a feudal level of social development.

Marx absolutely did not suppose that this kind of country would try to implement his idea. He practically laid out Kabbalah in the form of economic laws. But the egoism of the post-Soviet realm is completely different. This egoism is feudal and not yet ready for serious development.

However, when we work with each person individually or with our groups in Russia, we see an astounding result because the people have points in the heart. They are very responsive and goal-oriented.

The question is: Will the society be able to understand that it has to unite, but not by the laws it was brought up by in the Soviet regime? The unity has to happen by laws where everyone is equal, conscious, and unites consciously. The people of Russia are not used to uniting consciously. Will they reach this, will they be able to do it? That is, indeed, a question.

Therefore, our groups in Russia are very dear to us. I personally know this nation very well since I grew up there and my native language is Russian. But can we look at Russia as the country that has the ability to easily realize the Kabbalistic principles? That is something I do not know.

On the other hand, in Europe, despite the fact that the people are very different from the Russian image, all they have to do is overcome a certain external opposition, a certain shell or casing. After that, as soon as this idea penetrates into people’s thoughts, they realize that it is true and are able to realize it inside of them through their development.

In Russia it is easy to come close to the individual. But in Europe it is much more difficult! Yet I think that if we penetrate inside the individuals in Europe, they will find the forces and abilities inside of them to unite. Their conscious collectivism will emerge.

On the other hand, in Russia collectivism does not emerge despite this. There the society is not developed collectively. I think that it is not yet able to do this.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding all of these surmises, we have to develop Kabbalah and disseminate it everywhere. Of course, there is a great boundary in the countries that were once socialist. But this should not stop us. We shouldn’t give any thought to where it’s easier and where it’s harder, why, and how. We should work, and that’s all. I never make any calculations. We do not know what is better and what is worse, and how everything will occur.
[34050]
From the 3rd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Excerpt from the talk at the 3rd World Spirit Forum “Cooperation in the Field of Consciousness,” Arosa (Switzerland), January 23, 2006:

All of nature’s forces except for human ego are in balance. All of them form a single system of nature’s forces and only man disturbs their harmony. Everything in nature is interconnected and aspires to equilibrium within itself and with the surrounding reality. The violation of similarity leads to the violation of equilibrium, beyond the limits of which the organism starts disintegrating. The possibility of restoring equilibrium is the condition of life.

Today mass media speaks about this a lot. Everything is based on the balance of forces. This is clear to us, but still we lack the full understanding of the greatness of our participation in this process. All of nature on all levels of development is in a very fragile state of balance. And man needs to realize that he is in breach of this balance. The unstable nature around us completely depends on us, and we are the only element in creation which is out of balance.

Man is in the middle of natural balance, and his fluctuations reflect on the whole of nature. Everything is automatically and instinctively balanced on the still, vegetative, and animate levels; this is how all of nature operates. And only man is under question. He is given freedom of will, and regrettably it is exercised egoistically; frightfully we are constantly “tilting” into the negative.

These faults accumulate over the course of thousands of years and we gradually take nature out of balance. Everyone speaks about this today: We are past the point of no return, and at this point there is nothing we can do with ecology, the contamination of the oceans of the world, the greenhouse effect, and so on. Briefly speaking, “relax, you do not have a choice.”

In reality this is not how things are. On the contrary, Kabbalah says that it is in our power. The current tilt was only caused by man. The problem is in realizing this. Even today there are many “intellectuals” who say that: “None of it matters; there are cyclical, recurring processes in nature.”

Obviously, we are not at an ecology conference, and we are not fighting for the protection of the environment. We must understand that all of this operates in a completely different manner. This way nature specifically teaches us to overcome the imbalance and turn the tendency in the opposite direction.

What for? To exist in a clean world? To be in our families with children? To have a calm and a long life? Absolutely not. We need to make the change for an entirely different reason. It is in order to begin to control ourselves, our influence on nature and thereby acquire the external perception of it, rise to the world of man: the spiritual, perfect, and eternal world.
[34012]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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