Question: There is a bit of time left until the Moscow convention for the graduates of the Moscow Kabbalah Academy. How can we help the friends who study virtually recognize the great advantage of the physical contact during the convention?

Answer: If a person lives in a remote place and doesn’t meet physically with friends on the path physically, he has no chance of discovering the upper world. After all, the upper world is revealed in the connection between us.

Virtual connection alone is not enough. This kind of connection is not enough even for people in this world. Even with the wonderful means of communication today, scientists go to conventions several times a year. Why isn’t it enough to communicate via video conferences? Why is it so important to meet and speak in person at least once every few months?

The main thing in these symposiums is actually the personal talks, the live communication. It isn’t the lectures that are given from a stage that matter but rather the interpersonal contact that conveys the spirit of the event. It isn’t about information but about the spirit, about the atmosphere. This is the reason that they meet in conventions: a word here, a couple of comments there, face-to-face conversations and even fleeting ones are valuable.

And all the more when it comes to our conventions. If we don’t connect when everyone arrives physically, then there is no point wasting our time on studying in front of screens, it will lead to nothing. There must be a personal contact, since it is through this kind of contact that the spiritual urge is conveyed.

So we are all going to meet in Moscow on the 13^th of December. All our friends from all over the world will connect to the convention and some will actually come. This pleases me very much. We all connect more strongly and adhere to one another this way. Let’s hope that the Creator will be revealed in this mutual connection.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/06/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence“

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We walk on two legs: left, right, left, right. We should always seek the right, but we always start on the left foot, from the growing desire to receive. It is impossible to do anything without a desire, without a deficiency, without any interest.

The action itself is performed by the Light that Reforms. On the whole, it is a very simple process, but because we experience it by these feelings it throws us into different states. When we are on the left side we cannot see the right, and from the right side we cannot believe that there is also a left side. And so we are like kids that either cry or laugh.

The desire to enjoy, the desire to receive, is all of our matter, which totally determines our state: all our feelings, our mind, and our perspective. We all depend on it until we reach the middle line. There we can already be above our desire, both on the left line and the right line, and manage ourselves, which is called above reason, above pleasant impressions or unpleasant ones in our desire to receive. We can already use all these states for our advancement from our own freewill.

But we will be thrown from side to side: to the left and to the right, until we attain the control of the middle line. When we are on the left, we need to somehow control our state so that we will not lose our heads and despair of the fact that everything is bad, that everything is dark, and that we don’t see anything. We have to use the left line effectively and constructively by trying to make something out of it and to not just having a bad feeling, drowning in despair, helplessness, and hopelessness.

It is clear that if a person is totally made of a desire to receive and it totally under the influence of the Light, then nothing will help him but the environment. If he doesn’t lose connection with the environment but invests in it, then the environment will always provide him and influence him with a certain measure of Light. If a person puts his exertion into the “warehouse” of the environment, his connection, his submission to the environment, the more support he will receive in this warehouse during a descent, and then he will be able to rise faster.

It is the same the other way around, when everything is nice and good. Then he shouldn’t lose his head, but rather try to use this situation in order to advance. We will also need the support of the environment that should balance us in such an ascent. The main thing is never to forget and to be aware of the fact that we need to reach a real deficiency. The only way to reach a real deficiency is by the support of the environment, since a person will always escape from the work in such states when he is by himself. The main thing is to go through as many pleasant states as possible and not to think about how beneficial they are for one’s advancement.
[122250]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/13

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There is a constant struggle between the importance of the goal and our feelings. If the goal is important, it makes no difference what states we go through along the way. It’s like a patient waiting for an operation knowing that although the treatment is unpleasant it is meant to save his life.

We should also understand that the Creator sends us more and more disappointments, darkness, feelings of helplessness, and unpleasant states on purpose. We, on the other hand, have to keep on increasing the importance of the goal so that the goal will be more important for us than the current state and what we feel. It’s a sign that the Creator “hardens Pharaoh’s heart,” and sends us more troubles.

It makes no difference how clever a person is and whether he is sensitive or not; everyone must go through this and hold on to faith and to the general power of bestowal he receives from the environment. Then you will not lose direction and the importance of the goal in states of  the”hardening of the heart.” This actually depends only on the balance between the forces that operate on a person. It can all be measured. If the goal was important for you and you dedicated yourself to the group in order to receive the support you need now, the Creator can harden your heart even more, and you can thus shorten the way and you advance along the path of “I shall hasten it” (Achishena), towards the goal.

The path of the Light, “I shall hasten it,” is not feeling constant troubles; of course, the path of “I shall hasten it” means that the importance of the goal helps you climb every summit and fall into every pit and still come out of all these hard states. It’s because you are constantly looking ahead at the importance of the goal. So, no matter what knocks you off your feet, whether it lowers you or raises you upwards, you keep on advancing consistently like a baby crawling on all fours.

We must understand that we have to reach the hardening of the heart that will fill our measure to the fullest and at the same time allow us to struggle and keep our connection so that it will illuminate for us and keep us from getting off track and letting go. We will be more aware of how essential the Light that Reforms is time and time again. We thank the Creator for the sufferings He brings us because it’s thanks to them that we need Him. We understand that we can turn to the Creator only together by connecting and by the prayer of many.

If we know how to fulfill our mission, then the work we have to do doesn’t seem difficult at all and is actually pleasant. Although it requires our constant overcoming, it becomes a sport. We enjoy the efforts that we make if we see a clear goal before us. Thus we advance speedily.

So there are two conditions that help us not to give up the hardest work there is: being incorporated in the group and thanks to this reaching the recognition of the importance of the goal. If we fulfill all that, we will feel grateful to the Creator and reach a prayer in response to which there will come such a measure of the Light that Reforms that it will raise us to the first spiritual level, to the world of Assiya.
[122247]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/13

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Connection is the condition in which there is nothing related to you or to me, rather it is only “ours.” In this connection it is impossible to distinguish anything that belongs to either party. It no longer exists. It is as if they pour dye into water and they mix.

And this is not a precise example, for there still remain molecules of water and dye.

Whereas, here it turns out there is something with no recollection of the previous components and division. Something completely new is created.

Even in an infant we distinguish the different facial features which he inherited from the father or mother. The same thing happens at the time of the descent of the worlds from above to below. Part reaches the Zeir Anpin from Abba and part from Ima. But after that, when we begin to pass from below to above, then everything is united in the Creator.

There is an action or intermediate state through which we reach unification. And unification indicates that there is only one, the two sides disappear. In our world unification like this doesn’t exist, for today a couple is connected and tomorrow there may be a divorce.
[122087]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

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Question: How can we connect through the Creator?

Answer: Very simply. Due to powerlessness in the face of the fact that we are not able to unite, we turn to the Surrounding Light, the Creator, and ask Him to unite us. This occurs at every degree. After we discover our inability to unite, we come to the “gate of tears,” cry, and receive the force to connect, merge together.

But how does the Creator glue us if we are different? We become glued together only according to our intentions to connect to the Creator if we want to bestow only to Him. He becomes our connecting link, our goal. This is like parents who unite in one child. They might even hate each other but connect through him, taking care of him together.

But in this child, they are reconciled but hate each other. However, they love him and that is why they connect in him, in this point. This is the union of opposites. We are all opposite in a thousand different properties and directions. No person is the same. So, what can we do with our desire to enjoy? We cannot kill it; we can do nothing with it. We are only given the opportunity to perform actions that lead to unity.

We need to connect two parts that have nothing in common except the animal basis. That is why there is this world in which we can connect on the physical level just by “holding hands.” But we express our feeling by this gesture. Therefore this degree is separated from all the other degrees, from all the states, because it allows us to begin to ascend. In this world, we can slap the other person in the face or kiss him and thus affect their desire. It is possible to kiss on request, and the desire can be changed due to his desire to kiss.

I just hug someone without feeling any sympathy for him, and even feeling rejection, but due to these actions, my desire gradually changes. This is the uniqueness of this world in which it is possible to affect one’s desire by physical actions. But all this happens at a certain degree and only as a preparation. And that is why it is not considered a spiritual connection.

But if we talk about spiritual desires that are higher than the degree of this world, then there we use material desires that in no way intersect with someone else’s desires. If we want to unite, then the Creator must be between us. Only through Him, through our root, we connect, like two brothers connect through a common mother. That is why they are called brothers.
[122091]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

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Question: How can we understand that there are different forms of connections between us? How can the connection between us change?

Answer: Imagine that you suddenly discover that the person sitting next to you, whom you hardly know and whose name you don’t even remember, is your brother. Your mother sends you a letter saying: “I have seen the two of you sitting together and I am overwhelmed. How can it be that my two sons have suddenly met! I had no idea what had become of him. He was kidnapped when he was a small child and here he is all of a sudden right next to you, what joy!”

You suddenly discover that you are brothers and your relations totally change. This is what we try to understand. You suddenly discover that the other is not just next to you but inside you and it has nothing to do with blood ties or that you have the same mother or father, but it is directly because of you. Adhesion is the state when another person becomes more important to you than yourself. If the part called the other is separated from you, you die. So you cannot agree to that! Your life is worthless without connection.

This is the only thing the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about: about the lack of connection and about connecting. There is nothing but that. We have a desire to receive, which we do not understand, and we learn about it by the Light that fills it from the shattering to correction, which means by connection. There are no other actions but that. If we speak about the perception of colors, music, or sounds, we only feel them as movement: either distant or close to one another.

We don’t feel those who are distant or near, we don’t attain the essence, we only feel the change. Every instrument is built according to this principle. We can resemble one another in different attributes, on different levels, in different manners. We don’t know the essence of the desire to receive, which is something from nothing. What is more, we don’t know what a desire to bestow is, something from something. We exist in a state of changing relations between us, and this is the only thing we perceive.

If the desire to receive and the desire to bestow were not moving mutually one towards the other, then we wouldn’t feel anything in our desire to receive and would cease to exist. Everything depends on the changes in our relationships, whether we feel greater love or lesser love. This is what we actually feel. We are not in the actual attributes of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow but in a derivative that determines the change in our relationship. This means that by perceiving only the changes, we don’t measure the speed but rather the acceleration.

If we move in a constant speed, we don’t feel anything and it is as if we stand in the same place (according to the principle of relativity in mechanics). Only if there is a change in velocity, which means that we accelerate, do we begin to feel it. It turns out that we live in this derivative and that we will never know the real essence, the something from nothing and the something from something, because we are the outcome of the meeting between the two.
[122080]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

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Question: What is the connection between my constant yearning to return to the center of the group and the war to see the true picture of reality?

Answer: The war is specifically made about this. If you wake up in the morning and see that you need to direct yourself towards the center of the group, this says that you are on the right path. If time after time you catch yourself unconsciously departing from this state and bring yourself back, this is a sign you are going in the right direction.

Question: What picture and what feeling appear in the center of the group?

Answer: In the center of the group the feeling appears that there is nobody; there is only one desire, not many, in which all of reality is felt.

And then you discover that today’s reality is not true, but only a simulation like on a computer screen. To the degree that your vision is corrected, you begin to see that there is nothing true in this world, there are no real forces. This is like a distorted copy of the spiritual world that shows us what we have ruined and points us in the right direction so that we can eventually enter the true world.

It is as if there is a life that you don’t see, but they show you a performance about it in a theater. And in this presentation you discover how much your view was mistaken and how you can correct yourself in order to see the true life.
[122050]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/01/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can an integral group remain in a state of excitement to convey a feeling of unity during an event?

Answer: The easiest way to keep in a state of excitement is during the time of preparing the event, for I and my friends want everything to go successfully. We think about this all the time, are concerned about how we can bring out the energy of inner unity and our integrality from within the group and convey it to the audience that is in front of us.

Therefore during all kinds of activities, workshops, lectures, talks, and games problems like this don’t need to pop up because we ourselves have a real need for this to succeed. We mobilize all of our yearning, all of the integral forces for attaining the goal; we must succeed.

If you feel this, then when you go out to a dissemination activity, you ask for support from the group an additional time so that it won’t forget you, and you try to attract that same warmth that you feel in the group to yourself at the time of connections like these. The need will appear within you when after the morning lessons the group gathers in a circle for at least ten minutes and recreates the wonderful power of unity, and you will grasp it and pass it on.
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From the Talk About Groups and Dissemination 11/24/13

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The whole point is how we awaken. The main thing is connection in different circumstances, the constant additions of coming together in different states and especially during a descent. These states are a real treasure in potential.

During an ascent, when I feel impressed, I operate on the fuel that I am given. The Light that comes from above shines on me and I hop on this wave and ride it for a while. But during a descent, even a small effort is worth a great deal.

On the whole, you should try to see that you develop and are continuously advancing. It’s like the iron parts that hold on the wheels of old locomotives that constantly move backward and forward over and over again. This is also a person’s spiritual work, even when he falls backward, he still advances forward.

So if we can consolidate our forces during a descent, it will help us see things more clearly than during an ascent. The reason is that in the dark I illuminate the corporeal nature that I am immersed in now, and it’s from this Aviut (thickness) that I reach a revelation. It’s extremely worthwhile. Even if I see that I can barely succeed and even with a fall a moment later, I still attain a great deal.
[122075]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/03/13, Writings of Rabash

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