Question: What does the work on the principle love thy neighbor as thyself come down to?

Answer: There are many steps and many stages on the way to this state. This is the whole system of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

At first a person simply yearns for a connection with others. There are different special exercises like sitting together, having meals together, discussions, consultations, and talks about getting closer, which for the time being can just be theoretical. For the time being there is little practical work here, since on the first levels, people still barely feel the movements, the attraction, and the need for connection and unity with others.

Comment: This means that they should at least sit next to one another for a start.

Answer: Yes, this is how the connection begins, from external to internal.

Later they study different sources that speak about that, about how the world is in a state of absolute connection and that all the elements of the still, vegetative, and animate levels are mutually connected, mutually complement each other, and to what extent the system that manages our world is totally integral, and that above it, there is the whole system of creation.

We should just live in this system as we do now. Forces and the realization that are opposite this system are intentionally awakened in us so that by this oppositeness, from the dark, we will discover the Light.

Now we are small passive elements managed from Above and we are also part of this immense analog, global integral system, totally connected and simply perfect. But we don’t feel it. We were given such options, such conditions, on purpose, so that we will feel wholeness only if we can reach that by ourselves and to the extent that we agree with it and understand that we need it. This is a person’s gradual internal correction and what Abraham taught his students.

Then they began to see the states they were in compared to the states they should reach. First they simply discussed it verbally without any basis, repeating the words of their teacher like small children who repeat every word the grownups say without even understanding what it is about. Then they began to feel it, out of their yearning for one another and out of cooperation and unity that affected all of them. That is, even their mechanical actions affected their inner states and led to internal changes.

They began to change their attitude towards one another. They went through times of descents and times of ascents, all stemming from one source: each time they felt they were incompatible with any format, they had to yearn to attain it.

In order to attain that, there was a need for constant alternating descents and ascents in order to constantly raise the oppositeness by penetrating more and more deeply into perfection that can only be attained through the opposite state.

This is how they advanced. Moreover, their movement forward to greater and greater closeness symbolized the detachment from Babylon, from the inner state of total dispersion and the movement towards the land of Israel, which meant moving to the state of connection. This is what Abraham led them to.

Here I must say that the wisdom of Kabbalah is perfectly logical because it coincides with our corporeal perspective things, with the principle “matter as a reality is given to us in sensation.”

Abraham’s students advanced in a natural way and in an internal way from the state of Babylon to the state of the land of Israel, and accordingly they also advanced externally from Babylon to the land of Israel. They felt that they needed to advance.

How does a person get such feelings?

I am sitting here and I suddenly feel like going somewhere and doing something, like calling someone and talking. I have certain thoughts and desires, but where do they come from? They also come from inside, but I simply don’t know it and I can’t follow this mechanism. And so it seems that it operates randomly and coincidentally.

Now it is about desires that are not on a physiological level but on a spiritual level. When I change some spiritual attributes inside me it also affects my physical attributes.

Thus, when they began to change internally and get closer, the people who followed Abraham began to feel the need to leave Babylon and they also drew away from Babel externally.

They began to move forward and gradually move their tents, awnings, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys and thus they advanced towards the land of Israel. It was not such a great transition from Babylon to the land of Israel, which they fulfilled internally and externally.

Question: So the land of Israel, as it were “reassured” them and they changed from nomads into farmers?

Answer: They were not farmers. Wheat was grown in Babylon, but the people who followed Abraham along the historical path for nearly a thousand years after Babylon were shepherds. Only after settling in the land of Israel, after the exodus from Egypt, did they settle down and in addition to being shepherds began to engage in agriculture as well.

Then after the exodus from Egypt, on the same principle, they felt internally that here was the place for the Temple.
[142631]
From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 8/27/14

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Question: Upon returning from Sochi there is the fear of adhering to the friends who weren’t there so as not to catch viruses of the external world from them. How can we overcome this distance and not feel elated about being in Sochi while they weren’t?

Answer: When I look at everyone with an external perspective, I see that the Sochi group is much higher, more united and enlightened than the friends who were not here.

Of course, I cannot adhere to them after Sochi. On the other hand, the Creator has given me this state! He depicts this picture for me. But in fact I have to look at the group like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma who, as a great Kabbalist, saw the future state of his students who were still mediocre.

The future is actually constant, which means that you can see that the whole world is corrected even now. All these states exist in the spiritual world! They are simply portrayed to us in a certain order according to our ability to perceive them. Therefore it is said: “They have eyes but they cannot see, they have ears but they cannot hear.”

I will try to look at the group before me as a higher group than the one in Sochi, since in Sochi I saw an advanced group according to my attributes, while here, I see a group that is not corrected according to the same attributes.

One judges according to his own flaws and so I have to make an effort to see them as greater than the ones in Sochi, and to adhere to them with my soul, to the same state that I reveal in them as a higher state.

Then a new opportunity will open up for me, but it will already be the next higher level, when I correct all the ego that I see in my friends through my attitude towards them. I don’t see this ego; I already see it as corrected.
[142705]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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Question: It is written in the Torah: “Thus, shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile My tabernacle that is in the midst of them.” What is the meaning of “My tabernacle that is in the midst of them?”
Answer: The expression “and I shall dwell among them” repeats several times in the Torah, and about the Temple it says “My tabernacle.” Why is that? It is because the corrected desire that is created by us is the Creator’s tabernacle, the vessel which we correct and which He fills with His Light.”
This is His home since the Creator is inside the filling of the corrected desires, and so it is by them that we discover Him. We find the Creator in our desires, in our yearning for connection with others according to the principle of love thy neighbor as thyself.
[142609]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/5/14

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Question: If my friend is in a difficult situation, what must my prayer be? Must it only be about him or about the whole world?

Answer: In cases where you don’t know how to behave and you have no clear discernment about how to act, and even in those cases where you seem to know how to behave, you must consult with other friends. You are part of a large collective and you don’t have the right to act and behave on your own, as your mind or heart tells you.

You are a small cog in a large machine, and you must realize that according to this general mechanism, you alone cannot insert new relationships into the work. It is impossible for a person to act according to the principle, “That is what I decided, that is what I suppose, and that is what I will do.” In such a case, we will remove you from our machine. Even though our mechanism will become smaller, it will work in partnership.
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From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: How do we hasten our development?

Answer: Hastening development depends only upon the intensity of the correcting Light, the Light that Reforms. And its intensity also depends on the quantity and quality of the demand for Light.

So you must coordinate your common intentions, common decisions, the yearning, the desires, and shared demands in such a form that among you, there will be no internal gaps.

As a result of the morning workshop, you must reach a united intention for the whole day, and after that, hold onto it throughout the day so that when you look at each other you will feel that everyone is in this. Just the way a dog feels the mood of its owner is how you must feel about the movements of your friend, his behavior, and his drive.
[142673]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: When they disperse from Sochi to their homes, the people no longer want to be the way they were before. But what can they do if the city “cloaks” the person with all of its problems?

Answer: We must have two “coverings,” which we must always be concerned about guarding.

There is my external covering. Before everyone I perform like a theatrical actor. Everything that I display to my co-workers, neighbors, and even my family is all external. And inside is my own self. This is my “Sochi,” my friends, my spirituality, my true life.

When you are in your Sochi, you can allow yourselves to be temporarily composed of one part with which you come in contact with everyone and make yourselves a single Adam (man). And after that, when you disperse, when you go out to the external world, you must immediately clothe yourselves with your “outer shirt.”

It is precisely in the opposition between these two states, these two bodies, in one person where one grows.

Comment: So then when a person returns from Sochi he will sit at home longing and suffering.

Answer: We can use the coming convention in Saint Petersburg. We need to gather everyone into a single whole. Why do we think that people are longing and falling? There are no descents! There is only ascent now, and that is all:  rant and rave! What has already been, already was. They descended; so they descended. This was because the external environment influenced everyone. But now it is necessary to very quickly cheer up and begin to work.

We can use this immense power! People are ready to unite, and they understand you! So you must begin to connect and unite them, to prepare them and draw them to the convention.
[142666]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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Question: You say that our next work is to perform exercises in increasing our sensitivity.

Answer: This is what all our work comes down to. The only thing that changes in us is our sensitivity and therefore we perceive the world around us changing. But in fact, it remains the same. This means that the direct Upper Light totally fills everything.

My Reshimot (reminiscences) are constantly changing and spinning, substituting a new Reshimo under the constant Upper Light that fills everything, and therefore a different pictures appear in me, like single frames in a movie.

Question: What should we do in order to start feeling the pain and suffering of our friends?

Answer: We will begin to feel our friends only as a result of our efforts and through this, the Upper Light will influence us.

The Light operates in two ways: On the one hand, it can influence the unprepared vessel so that our Reshimot will constantly grow, and so we see that the world is developing and developing badly, because the Reshimot are revealed as more and more shattered each time. This is because the Reshimot come in an increasingly stronger flow appearing on the background of the constant white Light. But if we want to discover these Reshimot by ourselves, since their correct fulfillment enables us to move towards the Creator and to resemble and become like the Light, we will feel our evolution as good.

There are two options to perceive the Light: a negative one, like darkness, and a positive one, like the Light. Therefore, I give an example that there is Light (Ohr) and there is Orta (night in Aramaic). It is the same thing and these two words have the same Hebrew root.
[142653]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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Question: In order to correct and balance the ego, a person must feel it as evil. How must we make indifference and insensitivity toward others intolerable?

Answer: Indifference is the greatest problem. When I hate, this is good; when I love, this is very good. However, we go through 99% of our lives with feelings of indifference. People consider this normal in our current life.

What can help get me out of indifference, to awaken and hold me in this state every moment of life? It is only the environment.

You have moved through very good states of very great elevation of sensitivity, more internal, not an external request for change. This is enviable.

If all of our groups were like this, then certainly the general situation would become much better. It will be possible to attain this in the next convention by trying to prepare and transmit to everyone the feelings and sensations that you have experienced, are experiencing, and will again try to experience within you. It is possible.

If you connected the state that you experienced with the 300 friends who were in Sochi, and you multiply it by five, with the same mass that will be in the convention in Saint Petersburg, and after that, 500 times, then even much more, with the mass that will disperse throughout the world, we can achieve a lot.

This is one of the most useful examples because you will multiply the sensations, the demands, the aspirations to each other,  the neutralization of the ego, and the desire to be a single whole by that quantity of people with the help of envy, through showing them how this is working within you, and not in them. So, the multiplication of your yearning will happen together with their yearning, and this will produce an immense influence and impression.
[142491]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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We exist in a field of thought. When this field operates in one direction while I operate in another direction, the difference between the pathways, my error and its degree, are perceived as the degree of my suffering.

The bigger the error, the bigger the suffering. Everything depends on how opposite the direction of my desires are to the program of creation.

How do I test myself in relation to the program of creation? I have the group for this. When I cancel myself in relation to the group, in other words, when I bring my desire closer to the program of creation, I begin to move according to this program and then I feel good, suffering cannot affect me because the source of all the suffering is our lack of correspondence to the program of creation.
[25256]

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Question: What does it mean to give pleasure to the Creator with the right intention? “Giving pleasure to the Creator” sounds rather abstract.

Answer: Suppose we have the privilege of working with each other. We must become friends. I must reach a state where I feel you are so close to me that it seems that a part appears between us as a single whole, as if we were conjoined twins. There could be one liver or one heart and all the rest is different.

Something in common appears between us, and in this commonality, I feel the Creator who is connecting us together. He deliberately made a separation between us and is now connecting us. Ultimately we become connected together as a single whole.

Question: So to whom am I giving pleasure?

Answer: You discover in the connection between us a common force called the “Creator,” and you feel how happy He is about the state where we merge and become “One.” By merging into a single whole, we feel Him there because He is One.. This is already a single Kli (vessel) that can feel its upper source, the Creator.

This is one precise activity and there is nothing else like it in nature. As in mathematics, there is zero and something different from zero. Everything else is built only on this. So at the moment, when you reach the One, when you and a friend merge together, then his spiritual source, the Creator, is revealed in him. All the effort that you invested in your connection now becomes happiness that you discover in him.

In this is the right effort, to become connected together, “as one person with one heart.” “With one heart” means that you have the same desires, a single intention, the same thoughts, and the same yearnings to help and complete each other. This is what you must attain here, at least in some particular place under these conditions.

Comment: I don’t understand to what I must connect myself.

Answer: The Upper Light will influence you. You must do this! Only you can summon it. There is a kind of switch, and when you turn it on, the Upper Light works.

Question: Where is this switch found, in the mind or in the heart?

Answer: In the heart. The mind is necessary to understand what to do with the heart. The switch is found in the heart, meaning the desires, where are they directed, towards what states? “And the next state that I want to receive emotionally indicates the direction of the heart.”

Comment: I haven’t understood anything.

Answer: It is good that you understand that you haven’t understood anything. This means that already in you there is a very good internal collection of characteristics and feelings. You understand that this isn’t simple, that everything slips away, that our ego becomes an obstacle for us. What can you do with it? It is precisely because you want to feel everything deeply that you say that you haven’t understood anything. The heart understands, the mind doesn’t, and we don’t need to become confused about this. The mind is given to us only to scrutinize and analyze our states.

I am trying to answer you emotionally only, but I could convey everything through diagrams, like Kabbalists do. When my students have no spiritual states, I make sketches for them. And then, when there is an inner state, I address that specifically. Basically, how could this be portrayed? Every person already draws it for himself in his heart.

Turn on the switch, so that the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) will influence you. Nothing else will help! Only the Light! But you must know its direction and imagine that correctly within yourself.
[142581]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, lesson 2

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