Question: We have tried to reconstruct the experience we had in the “aquarium” together with our friends who came to the convention. We held endless workshops and discussions. We had a certain feeling of connection between us, but each one felt it differently. What was it? How can we reinforce and keep this feeling that we all loved so much?

Answer: When people connect they go through special experiences. It happens in different kinds of connections, good or bad, no matter what their goal is. The connection itself gives a person a feeling of power, development, joy, and an outburst of energy.

But if the connection is aimed at everyone’s ascent above himself and at being able to dissolve among the friends, the spiritual force is revealed in it. The Light that Reforms operates on us according to everyone’s efforts to ascend above his own self, and it conveys the upper force that connects us and that makes us feel the connection. If everyone wants to annul himself with regard to the connection, the connection becomes very powerful since it is aimed at the Creator. This matches the attribute of the Creator, to connect above our ego, above ourselves.

According to our yearning “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me,” we begin to receive the illumination. This special action of the Upper Light raises us higher to new states in which we begin to feel certain spiritual revelations. We don’t know what we feel exactly and cannot decipher it, but we have a feeling of a more sublime state that is different and unlike anything we felt in the past.

It is a special pleasant excitement, but it can also become unpleasant. Everything depends on how a person holds on to this state and continues his work in the group. What you feel is the continuous affect of the Surrounding Light to the extent that you want to annul yourselves and to devote yourselves to the group without any excuses, simply because this is what Kabbalists advise us, what the teacher says, and what the books say.

If you want to change and connect into one body so that everyone will not feel himself anymore, but only the collective “us” between us, the upper essence, then you receive the effect of the Surrounding Light. This is a special force that begins to operate on you and brings about changes in your inner software.

It isn’t that you just expand your perception, feeling, understanding, and mind. The essence of your perception changes and becomes integral. This is something that didn’t exist before. You begin to feel that the space that surrounds you is transparent, homogeneous, in which there is one force that operates. A person feels that he belongs to this integral system.
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From the Talk at a Meal 1/27/14

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Question: The women have conducted a very powerful friends’ meeting. It wasn’t easy. We had to make great efforts and we felt the connection between us. How can we focus this connection on the men now in order to connect with them?

Answer: Women go through states that are more difficult than the men and it requires greater overcoming. I really appreciate the women’s efforts and hold great hopes on them. The men’s success greatly depends on the women, but it is much more difficult for the women to connect, so I am really delighted by their efforts.

The moment women can connect correctly, they will discover the bridge that connects them to the men. It will be one woman that is ready to connect to one man. But first you have to reach a good, strong connection between you.

It is much more difficult for women to connect than for men. A man feels that he is free like the wind, that he is not tied to a home. A woman, on the other hand, is called “home” which means that she has a very individual character and wants to have something of her own, her own place, her own family. Thus, the connection between women must shatter the partitions that separate them and this is much more difficult than for men. We see that friendship between men is much more meaningful than friendship between women. This is nature.

It is very hard work and I truly appreciate it, but you can easily overcome it if you ascend above your female nature. There is no need to delve into your flaws but rather to advance and ascend to the good, to the connection.

When women are able to connect, they attain the ability, understanding, mind, and heart that guide them as how to help the men. For now you can’t help the men, you have to connect between you.

In the past we were on an evolutionary level where women couldn’t connect and the woman’s role was only to support the man. But we have reached a new era now in which the men connect between them and the women connect between them. Later we will see how we form a circle within a circle.

In the meantime, we are working only on connection and there is no need to look at the future or at the past. Today our work is the connection between the men and the connection between the women in order to reach mutual guarantee inside every circle.
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From the Talk at a Meal 1/26/14

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The Raspberry Ball

The “raspberry ball” is totally, absolutely losing all individual attitude to the friends. We take off all our garments of the physical body, and inner qualities of everything that we have received from nature; only the spark remains, the Reshimo, inherent in everyone, everyone’s spiritual core, his aspiration for unity.

If I still distinguish a different attitude, differences between us, then it is not a group. The group is when all the friends are equal, when I see no difference between them. They are all Reshimot; everyone is striving to reach unity.

During the first stage of the introduction to mutual guarantee, the Creator just brings us to connection and it is a rather theoretical state. On the other hand, to form the raspberry ball, we should already actively connect with everyone. The work with the raspberry ball starts with the efforts not to see any differences between friends and ends when all of them unite into one.

If we are united as a homogeneous group as the landing party, similar to other connections that people create in this world, it is not yet “one.” Indeed, in a physical unity of this kind, everyone wants to reach a goal; everyone has his own goal, and everyone is ready to unite for the sake of his individual goal.

We do not act like that. Here, everyone has to cancel himself for the sake of unity with others, giving up individual goals.

In this self-annulment, we don’t lose our mind or feelings but gain the mind of the entire group that is called “as one man with one heart.” One collective desire is revealed in which everyone feels his individual properties. Like in the system of cogwheels, he begins to spin with everyone, without pressure, and from here he understands how they rotate and why. This means “to know what the friend has in the heart.” Everyone knows this differently, according to his properties.

Thus we come to the raspberry ball.
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All of our lives must be directed towards the one cause from which this life is derived, that is, towards the Creator. And He is the goal we must achieve. And all the events in our life in our world are in sum derived from that thought of creation. And if we direct ourselves correctly at every moment towards that unique goal that is shaped by the thought of creation, we advance on the “royal road.”

Clarifying the direction and being conscious of this way is possible through the means that are given to us in this world. This world is created and stabilized in such a way on all of its levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human and the relationships between them all only to give us the unique possibility of correct action, meaning that we direct ourselves towards the Creator at every moment.

And the means that helps us to direct ourselves towards the Creator from every circumstance that happens to us in this world is the group. The group is like a mini-humanity within which we find ourselves in the right environment that we have constructed for ourselves. The more we organize it in an ideal, correct, good, and true form, through this we can rise higher and higher. The group is a level that is above me towards which I elevate myself more and more upward through the society.

Work in society is interesting and unique in that it becomes the intermediary between us and the Creator and between us and humanity. I cannot find the Creator by myself because I must reach equivalence of form with Him for this. In order to become equivalent to the Creator I must achieve “for the sake of bestowal,” essentially I must be in the intention to bestow. And this is possible only if I insert myself into a group and lose myself there. If together with the group I go out towards the Creator, surely I will be found in bestowal.

In order to bestow to the Creator by way of the group, I must carry the entire group in the direction of bestowal to the Creator. Therefore together we must mold the group in this direction with such a goal, with such a mission, to be connected in order to bestow to the Creator. This must be our shared goal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/14, Workshop

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Overcoming the Ego with the Help of the Environment

Having attained a certain point of mutual guarantee, I hold on to it, value it, enjoy it, and want to develop in it. But as a result of the Light that Reforms that I summon, this point begins to grow in a way that is not desirable.

The Light never operated so as to simply bring me to Ein Sof (Infinity), to correction. On the contrary, according to its plan, in its relations with the vessel, it has to show me how opposite I am from it. So to the extent that I make efforts to unite, my yearning, my work, and my efforts turn into darkness.

The moment I accept mutual guarantee as the mutual unity that has to dwell between us in spirituality, the place where we feel that we are together and not separated, the obstacles called egoism are revealed. This egoism is no longer part of this world, but is actually the real egoism that is revealed in contrast to our unity, our connection, and our mutual guarantee.

All the discernments during the descent are merely an indication of how weak we are when it comes to mutual guarantee, and nothing but that. Here the mutual guarantee of the next level is revealed: What is the connection between mutual guarantee and the Creator? What is His attitude towards this? How does He dress in it? How can our mutual guarantee depict Him to me? And so on.

There are two types of mutual guarantee that operate during the states of descent and ascent, and it is the gap between them that determines the height of the level you reach.

Thus we advance. On one hand I should feel the influence of the Light on me as much as possible, and on the other, I should clarify this feeling: “Where does it come from and why? How can I turn it to its opposite form and advance to the desired state?” Later these two discernments become the head and the body of the Partzuf: The head determines what happens to the body and how it should operate. But this is only if you control the desire.

In the meantime you constantly try to look at yourself from the side as well: What is happening to you? What is the Light doing to you? How do you change and how should you change? How should you respond to each and every state?

On one hand it occupies your whole mind and all your feelings, and you experience such states which you simply don’t know how to exit. But on the other hand, you should know that the Creator sends you these states so that you will solve the problems that are created only in the connection with Him and with the goal. The solution to the problems begins with the fact that the goal is the resemblance to and the equivalence of form with the Creator and this is more important than the problem. On the whole, everything is less important than mutual guarantee.

The key to mutual guarantee is the recognition of the importance of the goal. It is because mutual guarantee is a kind of inner feeling which we have to attain: I determine the inner state and how it depicts the new reality. It isn’t just the point of our unity; it expands and becomes the point of the new reality. It is this recognition of the importance of the goal that sustains it and develops it.

We have to constantly clarify what we need and what we don’t in order to raise the importance of the idea of mutual guarantee.

From this point, we return to the greatness of the group and its effect on us. This effect should be versatile; we should use envy, lust, honor, ambition, everything that can pressure me, push me, and shake me. This should be the way everyone operates on everyone else.
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Question: How is it possible to hold onto the balance between the inner concentration and communication within the convention?

Answer: This is a perpetual problem that must be solved regardless of what you are doing. Very heavy or light moments can come, different pleasant or unpleasant feelings, but the person must always be composed of two parts. In one part he feels his beastly body, what is happening to it.  And in the second part, he is like a person riding on his donkey (Hamor), on the egoistic substance (Homer).

Such a split feeling must be with us everywhere, in completely different moments in life; it should be with me when I am alone, with friends, with my family, with my wife and children, or when I am just walking down the street. I must divide myself into two parts: the donkey and me sitting on it.
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From the Talk at a meal 1/26/14

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Question: What do you recommend for those people who cannot come to the convention?  And how can those who are in the convention support the friends who stayed at home and continue with integral education activities?

Answer: During the convention we must bring everyone together into local centers or in someone’s home, gathering as many people as possible. The minimum of many is two. Even if two people can connect, it is better and worthwhile to do this instead of sitting alone.

During the convention we must free ourselves from all work and be together with us all the time. Follow all that is happening in the convention and join with us heart and soul. And also we must not forget to think about all the friends throughout the world constantly.

But during the convention we don’t think about external dissemination activities in integral education; we concentrate only within us, only in our connection. The convention must be conducted with constant thoughts about our ascent. And only at the end of all of these conventions, from this growth, will we begin thinking about and going out to external dissemination.

During the two days of the integral education convention, we will think about and discuss how to go out with this method, but nevertheless, the focus is devoted to our assembly. Therefore, stop all external activities for these days and join us.
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From the Talk at a meal 1/26/14

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In order to better understand the process of educating a person, we have decided to present the nine phases that the public goes through with the analogous root in the nine phases for those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Familiarization with the Concept of Mutual Guarantee

The feeling of mutual guarantee appears when a person feels the group and not himself, when the concept of a group seems great to him and dominates him, replacing the feeling of the self. This is exactly how the feeling of the self disappears and the concept of the group appears. This doesn’t weaken a person because the feeling of mutual guarantee is stronger and is actually above us.

This feeling is attained by mutual help, by everyone’s mutual bestowal upon each of the friends. Everyone wants to identify with the group, join it, embrace, and be incorporated in it, to be as one man in one heart and one mind. Everyone feels that he has to dissolve among the friends without a trace. Everyone wants to drown in the group. And all help each other in this.

Each of us turns to all the friends and together we speak about one thing: about how to connect. How to imagine the good mutual connection between us, the way it was before the shattering of the vessels: one vessel, one desire, one thought, one intention, one feeling, where everyone feels the others as if they are one whole.

We shouldn’t clarify the negative aspects because we want to establish the positive ones, Noah’s Ark. We want to rise from this world, so why should we penetrate it even deeper and delve into it?! We only want the good. The Creator brings a person to the good fate and says: “Take it.” What do we need the bad fate for?! We don’t want to know how opposite we are from others. We must unite in order to exit to spirituality. We unite and that’s it, period.

We reach a state, as it is said: “as one man in one heart,” “all of Israel are friends.” Then we complete this action. So the first phase is the phase of mutual guarantee: We become one whole.

At first glance there is nothing left to do afterward, but it is clear that we only speak about mutual guarantee according to the principle of “the end of the action is in the initial thought.” The road before us may be long because we have to establish ourselves. It is thanks to this self-construction that we come to know the Creator.
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A person comes to an educational course as a result of a certain need. First he doesn’t understand where he is. Then as time goes by, he accumulates different impressions and feels the excitement in connection and unity time and time again, to such an extent that he begins to cry in the circle.

Eventually he feels that he has caught fate by the tail and that he has an exceptional chance to improve his life and the life of those around him. The goal of bringing the world to unity becomes so sublime that he is ready to dedicate his time to it.

A person who begins to study the wisdom of Kabbalah expects a similar process. First he wants to know about the structure of the worlds and has no desire to hear anything about unity. Gradually he feels a growing desire to read articles about the group, but only about the fact that we will feel good together, like in a synchronized society or a team.

We gradually move from the message about the group to the message about unity, mutual guarantee, without clarifying why we need it yet.

Then we yearn to be as one in the group, and we understand that all our yearnings and longings have to bring us to unity with the Creator, according to the law of the equivalence of form.

As we yearn for unity with the Creator we discover that we don’t have the power to do so and we begin to realize that the only way to receive forces is from an external source. Why do we suddenly think about that? Because this is how the system is arranged: When you complete a certain part, it places the next part before you.

We have to achieve this state in our work with the external environment, with the public, so that we feel that these people are like our own children. Then, having no other choice, we will turn to the Creator with a request concerning them.

Once again we understand that as a result of the law of cause and effect, all this is done so that we will be able to focus on Him, so that all of humanity, everything that exists in reality, will focus on Him, yearn for Him, and want to delight Him, so the created beings will go through the process of evolution and will eventually realize that He is actually the One who has created all of creation as the absolute good. Thus, everyone will reach unity with Him.
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The Torah, “Exodus (Ki Tissa),” 30:11-30:12: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their numbers, let each one give to the Lord an atonement for his soul when they are counted; then there will be no plague among them when they are counted.”

“Counting the sons of Israel” means to acquire new foreign desires and intentions, which I had previously rejected. A person begins to feel them as one integral whole.

“Let each one give to the Lord an atonement for his soul,” means that we don’t just connect to one another but that each one begins to work above his ego and to connect to others and discovers our common attribute, the common desire between him and others. It wasn’t felt before, either by me or by others, since it was mutually established between us. This mutual desire resembles the Creator and is therefore called a soul.

No ordinary person in our world has a soul. This attribute simply doesn’t exist. We have to develop it by our efforts, by drawing the Upper Light that creates the general soul among us, not separately in each of us, but only between us.

It turns out that there are seven billion people in this world and one common soul for all, which is the void between us that was filled by egoistic feelings towards one another. We establish new connections above it, by changing the egoistic attitude to an altruistic attitude towards one another, which is our soul.

Thus, the force field of mutual attraction begins to work in which we exit ourselves and live for the sake of others, and by that we acquire our soul. The state in which everyone begins to feel himself outside his previous corporeal egoistic self is the feeling of the upper world, the feeling of the Creator.

This is what the Torah teaches us, as it says: I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah (Light) to correct it. The word “Torah” stems from the Hebrew word “Light.”

First we have to discover the ego in us, and to the extent that we discover it, we should want to change it. When we change our attitude towards the ego, not by despising it but simply by wanting to turn it into an opposite attribute, we understand that it was intentionally created as help against us, and so we begin to draw the Upper Light upon us that corrects this ego.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/2/13

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