Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

Correction Indicator

524.01Question: How can I know that we have corrected something? Where do feeling and the mind come from? Is a correction measurable?

Answer: We don’t yet know how to measure concealment or revelation.

We are only in preliminary sensations. They do not yet have those forces, the height of which will be determined by us as giving or receiving. We can’t do that yet.

It all depends on the intensity of our work with each other. In general we need to strengthen our actions in order to reach a state where we really understand the quality of connection or the quality of distance between us.

Question: How do we stop identifying ourselves with our egoism and how do we distance from it?

Answer: For this we need practice. From how we act among ourselves, we can see whether we identify ourselves with egoism or with the quality of bestowal and to what extent. Only then will we be able to measure it. In the meantime we do not measure, but at least begin to feel more or less.

It all depends on us. If you translate the science of Kabbalah into relations between friends, then you will see it all in a practical form and will be able to measure, feel, and then repeat. And to do this, you need to start implementing it in connection with each other in the group.
[292441]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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In Connection Between Us

944Question: Does the revelation of the Creator take place individually or in the group?

Answer: Both individually and in the group. When we want to be included in each other, to be connected with each other, these are our individual desires, aspirations. But when we are in a group and yearn for each other, then we create conditions for the Creator, the property of bestowal and love, which existed even before our time, to begin to manifest in us. Therefore, the connection between us is the foundation (Kli, vessel) that is necessary for the revelation of the Creator.

Question: Are we building the Creator or revealing Him?

Answer: It is the same. To reveal the Creator, that is, to create Him from one’s properties, feelings, aspirations, and intentions by attracting the upper light into one’s desire for bestowal and love is one and the same thing.
[292310]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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Nothing Is Created In Vain

229We all originated from a single desire that was shattered. Therefore, none of us has a feeling of wholeness, understanding, desire for the right state, and for being filled with the Creator.

Our goal, our work, is to internally combine all desires into one common desire called Adam (man) from the word “Domeh” (similar to the Creator). Then we will truly become like Him. To the extent of our similarity to the Creator, we will draw closer, feel, and understand Him until complete unification with Him.

And all this is only through the merging of our desires, intentions, and everything that we have inside each one of us and in all of us together. Moreover, both good and bad properties and desires are necessary to achieve the highest goal. Thus, this goal will gradually force us to use all of our properties.

Nothing is created in vain or to damage or to harm. Our worst, most harmful properties remain for later. And when we have the strength and understanding of how to work with them, they will start to emerge, and we will already know how to work with them correctly and will turn them into good.

We study this in the wisdom of Kabbalah, starting with the fact that we perform a restriction (Tzimtzum) and then correct ourselves and attain the property of Bina (bestowal). Then we simply rise above our egoistic desires and do not want to use them. We sort of detach from them, move away, and do not want to act at all with our desires because they are all selfish.

And then, when we rise above them and reach the property of Bina (faith above reason), we can start attracting the property of reception (Malchut) to the property of Bina. We begin to raise Malchut to Bina. And then, in those properties of Malchut that we can raise to Bina, we will receive the light of Hochma that comes from Keter, the upper light, receiving for the sake of bestowal.

As a result, all our most selfish, terrible, and most ugly properties must be gradually corrected. It is thanks to them that we can fully feel the Creator and be sure that nothing was created in vain and that everything has meaning, purpose, and benefit. It all depends on the preparation we make for their use.

But the most important thing for us now is to rise at least somewhat above egoism, to make a restriction on its use, and to break out of this circle we were born in, developed, and are in now, from an internal connection with egoistic humanity. This is only possible if we cling to a group where there are other values, properties, qualities, and goals.

I cannot create the greatness of the goal in me by myself. There is no way! It may seem to me that I am able to do this, but I will not achieve it in practice. Therefore, I need the opinions and support of my friends, because I am just an egoistic desire.
[292319]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends,” Lesson 4

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Not To Remain A Philosopher

962.3Question: What is the correct attitude to states of pride and arrogance?

Answer: These are two opposite feelings, and we have to learn how to work with them.

Kabbalah is a practical science. One who implements it begins to feel what is being said, and one who does not implement it remains a philosopher, and so nothing can change for decades.
[292434]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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To Connect With The Shechina [Divinity]

939.02It is written in Degel Machaneh Ephraim: “One who truly wants to serve the Creator” meaning, to yearn for coming closer to the upper force, to build correct connection between people since it is impossible to work for the Creator and to come closer to Him in any way other that by building in practice the connection between us, such a person “must include himself with all creations.

He should feel that he is in them just as the Creator is in each of us, but we do not feel it. He must “connect himself with all the souls, include himself with them, and they with him, that is, to reach a state where we are connected to each other so that we do not feel the difference between us at all.

In our world, there is such an example of this in a pregnant woman whose body works only for the development of the fetus. We need to imagine that each of us is impregnated with a group, and we want to develop it, to be in it so that it is in us to such an extent that we do not feel the difference between us; it is just one body, one desire, one yearning, one life.

“That is, leave for yourself only what is necessary to connect with the Shechina [Divinity].” A person should not have anything besides the yearning to connect with the Creator through connection with the friends. The Creator is attained as a common connection between us. He is not somewhere outside of us, but we are constantly creating Him out of the right connection between us. Try to imagine what the nature of the connection between you is today in order to create the Creator from it.

To the extent that you would yearn for connection, you will begin to attain the revelation of the Creator between you, which you reach through your actions. In addition, you will begin to feel how the upper force, the common upper light, is in you according to your correct connection with each other, and then you will call this animating force the Creator.

And in order to unite with Him “it is necessary to bring together many people, for the more people serve the Creator,” meaning work in order to attract this upper force upon themselves, “the more the light of the Shechina,” the light of the Creator (the upper light) “appears to them. For this reason, one must include himself with all the people and with all creations, and raise everything to their root, to the correction of the Shechina.”

So you must feel that He is in them. Just as the Creator is in each of us but we don’t feel it, so he needs to connect himself with all the souls and incorporate himself with them and they with him. In other words, to achieve a state where we are so connected to each other that we don’t feel any difference between us, that everyone is together.

The correct connection between us is the one in which the upper light is revealed according to its similarity to the light.

Although our connection is between egoistic desires, if everyone rises above them a little and begins to treat his friends altruistically, then in these altruistic connections, which are like superstructures between our egoistic connections, the Creator begins to be revealed. Then this altruistic connection will be called the Shechina, the spiritual Kli (vessel) in which the Creator is revealed.

It all depends on how much we rise above the egoistic connections between us, which were initially created correctly in order for us to rise above them in the opposite quality, in the opposite relation, contrary to our relations with each other, and to understand that we must be opposite to ourselves, that is, to make a restriction (Tzimtzum), screen (Masach), and reflected light (Ohr Hozer), and to raise ourselves above egoistic relations.

To the extent that we create altruistic relations, the quality of bestowal, even, perhaps, love for each other, we create the Shechina, the place, the Kli, in which the Creator is revealed to the extent of our equivalence to Him.
[292313]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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What Does It Mean To Rise Above The Restriction?

232.06Question: What does it mean to rise above the restriction?

Answer: It means reducing one’s egoistic desire for oneself, not even the desire itself, but its intention, and trying to replace it with intention for the sake of others and then for the sake of the Creator.

In fact, there is no Creator as such. And what we can imagine under the concept of “for the sake of the Creator” is that we are all together and each one of us works to give back to the group and to the world.

We cannot escape from this! As a result, we will still be forced to change ourselves, if not now, then after a certain number of years or various events. The world will force us to do it, or the sufferings will.
[292354]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Annulling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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No Supernatural Actions Are Required

261Question: What does the building of the Creator mean if we have no idea of His existence except for what we hear from Kabbalists?

Answer: We know what hatred, love, rejection, and connection are in our corporeal feelings. No supernatural actions are required of us.

We must ensure that all our concepts of distance, proximity, hatred, and love are directed at our friends. Why are we doing this? So that we elevate the manner our relations with the friends to the Creator.
[292240]
From the International Convention “Rising  Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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In A Vicious Circle Of Global Dependence

275The Creator created the dependence of each of us on his environment. We see even in the evolution of humanity how people gradually unite and feel dependent on each other. It might have been through conquests, through negative relations between each other, but people are beginning to unite more and more, culturally, scientifically.

Look at the importance tourism has acquired in our time. Where does this desire to go somewhere come from in people? This wasn’t around even a hundred years ago. People didn’t have such desires. But they are gradually developing in us.

Why did the Creator create a person’s dependence, starting from his small environment, home, family, city, country, to a huge environment where I feel the whole planet, all of humanity, and understand that, in principle, I am dependent on them?

We are beginning to feel this, especially lately. We depend on oil and gas supplies, on what kind of harvest there will be somewhere, etc. And then we will move in such a way that we will feel dependence on the whole planet.

And this will lead us to the need for good relations with each other. We will not be able to cancel the dependence between us, but we will be forced to change it from negative to positive. And then we will be cured of all pandemics, from all the problems and viruses that harm us—from anything.

As a result, we will come to the point that we will need all the billions of people, and all this is actually the structure of my personal soul, your personal soul, his personal soul, and our common soul because it is one for everyone.
[292370]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4

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The Creator Is Behind The Friends

282.02Question: What can help us increase the importance of friends in practice?

Answer: Practically, we can increase the importance of friends in our eyes only through our efforts when we understand the need for it. Only to the extent that my friends are above me will I be able to reach the state when I discover the Creator.

I am constantly fighting with the fact that my friends are diminished in my eyes because automatically, every moment my egoism throws me down, and by disregarding them, I also disregard the Creator even if I am not aware of it.

The Creator is behind the friends, and to the extent that I elevate them in my eyes, to that same extent I come closer to Him
[292363]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Adhering to the Friends” Lesson 3

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You Can Play With Egoism

559Question: I understand that it is necessary to annul yourself. And what if one of the friends criticizes and continues to do so? This complicates the work. What should we do?

Answer: We must understand that nothing happens in vain. If there is a person in the group who does not yet accept this, show him or her an example of how you annul in front of each other.

Awaken envy in him of how connected you are with each other, understand each other, how close you are to each other so that he sees it from the side, in his egoism. And then he will understand that he has no other way, that he must also annul himself like everyone else.

Play on egoistic properties. Our egoism is created in such a way that we can—with its help—re-educate it into altruism, because it is envious, looks at others, wants to be better than others, higher, stronger, and so on. Egoism can be played with.
[292249]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Annulling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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