Question: Your recommendations regarding integral education projects are expressed very clearly in writing, but what should we do if in practice they are not fulfilled in the same manner and not according to your recommendations?

Answer: The point is that as we grow the group goes through different states. This is what we often call childhood diseases. When a child develops he has to catch the childhood diseases because otherwise his body will not build up the special protective properties and will not be able to mobilize the inner system to resist the external environment.

We are under the harmful influence of the external environment all the time and our inner systems continuously work on that so as not to be influenced by its negative effect or to neutralize it somehow. This is how every living organism works.

For example, how much can a stone perceive from the outside? Very little, and therefore it retains the same form all the time. A plant gives and takes more, and an animal even more. A person perceives a great amount of information, a lot of psychological influences, and we have to respond to all that; otherwise, our body will not be able to hold on! This is how we stabilize ourselves.

So we go through childhood diseases: We do something right and something wrong, we express our opinion, we keep quiet, we shout, and we curse. Let people experience all that! We have to go through such states. As a result many people will leave and so gradually what has to be will be stabilized.
[121156]
From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

Related Material:
A Responsibility That Should Not Be Taken Lightly
Are We Disseminating Correctly?
Uniting Into A Single Drop

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Why does a person sometimes feel a shower of corporeal problems and blows hitting him? What is the reason? How can he overcome this through the connection in the group?

Answer: There are people who really feel they are under a barrage of corporeal, physical, or family problems. And there are those who go through everything easily. It depends on the structure of a person’s soul, on its orientation with regard to the other souls, and on what he has to correct.

The only thing we can do is to accept everything as essential for our advancement. If we do our best to engage in the study, in the center of the group, and in dissemination as we deal with the problems, we will overcome everything easily, although at first it seems very hard.

However, we must solve all the problems and under no circumstances try to ignore them.
[121154]
From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

Related Material:
Your Personal Problem Is Everyone’s Problem
The Work In The Heart
Don’t Scream “No!” Standing At The Threshold

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: You said that people who actively disseminate must be those who possess a special yearning for connection and unity in a group. Do we need to work on creating special conditions for this purpose or is it possible not to pressure those who don’t see special meaning in connection?

Answer: There are people who have a skill for dissemination, but they don’t have a skill for work with connection. Dissemination is realized widely, and people who are extroverted are particularly involved in this, while connection, this is work for introverts. These are absolutely different vectors, different directions.

I can even bring specific examples of who among us is inclined to what. There are people who can disseminate wonderfully by going out to the external public, yet they cannot work on connection in the group; others are involved with this much better. Everyone has different traits and we must use both of these and others.  As a result, the Upper Light will create a common property between them in which the first spiritual phenomena will begin to be felt.
[121104]
From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

Related Material:
Two Parts Of The Same Group
Conductor Of Integral Energy
We Are A Group

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How will my impression of the Creator be different from the sensation that I have today in my connection with the friends?

Answer: There is a qualitative difference between the mood of a simple unity with friends and the unity within which you will reveal the Creator. This is the difference between the Soviet-style communism and the altruistic communism about which Baal HaSulam writes.

We must strive for connection, equality, up to complete unity and mutual guarantee as one man with one heart. And this mutual bestowal between us must not be in order to improve our own lives. We should not turn into a “mafia.” That is why Baal HaSulam writes that communistic principles in an egoistic manifestation, as it was in Russia, were very close to Nazism.

Indeed, Russia and Germany had a very good relationship before the war. If they had not shared the border, they would have become allies in this war, like Germany and Japan. Indeed, by their nature, these regimes were very similar. Only due to the proximity of their borders and the plan to capture that territory, they turned into enemies.

Therefore, it is so important to aim oneself at “Israel, Torah, and the Creator” in connection within the group. The Creator is the ultimate goal, that is, this whole world, the entire human society, still, vegetative and animate nature are included in man; this entire common general image of the human being as a small world should be directed to a higher force, the source of our life.

We have only one point of contact with the higher force: it gave birth to us; creation, if we are not directed to the Creator, will eventually arrive at the same picture as in Nazism or Soviet communism, because this unity would be just for our own benefit. We will not come out of the egoistic properties, but will only organize life in our neighborhood, city, and the world in the form in which we all feel good.

But it never ends well. We have already seen such examples in history: utopians, kibbutzim, etc. After all, if this force does not come out of our plane, then to whom will I give? It will turn out again: “You to me and me to you.” This will have no real result.

I cannot give to you, and you to me because our difference will be manifested immediately. As the saying goes, “there is only one step from love to hate.” Even people who love each other should quarrel sometimes to add a bit of “pepper” in their relationships. The problem is that we lack the middle line.

Even if we achieve complete mutual bestowal where everyone gives to everyone else, we will not be able to balance these relations without the participation of a certain higher component from another level. We need the middle line, otherwise this illusion will explode and end in war.

We can perform an experiment with a loving couple, create conditions of a heavenly life for them and after a while see what happens to them. This form of relationship is not viable and cannot exist for a long time. To do this, you need to be angels and not people, that is, to not have egoistic desires.
[121149]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/13, The Zohar

Related Material:
Getting Charged Within The Field Of The Creator
What Makes Our Work Effective?
Our Weapon Is In The Creator’s Hands

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: What do we give the public (the 99%) in order to receive their desires and to provide them with the Light?

Answer: We organize an external group, for example, a group of ten. They have to discover the warmth and the connection between them. What is the warm connection that the 99% should reach?

We explain to them, teach them, that by the general connection between them they attain a good life. They may not attain it immediately, but they already begin to feel this warmth, love, comfort, and a better life. Here in the circle, life is better and everyone is attracted to its Light like butterflies. This is the atmosphere we should create.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that all of creation is a desire. So we have to guide the desire of the external group correctly. Today their desires are divided to the standard range of food, sex, family, money, respect, knowledge, and all kinds of nonsense and confusions that they are all lost in. We, on the other hand, want to guide their desire to unity, to connection, so that they will simply feel good.

When we worry about them, we increase the warmth, the deficiency, and we are incorporated in it feeling it as our own. Then we attain the desired connection in the group between us, that same warmth, and add it to their warmth. We continue to raise it to the Creator, although He is actually among us, and then we receive an answer.

Our initial deficiency is Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and the deficiency we receive from the public is called AHP (AHP). We raise the two deficiencies and the Creator answers both. Thus we want to bestow back upon the people. We raise their deficiency to the Creator since we want to bestow upon Him by that. Our group Bnei Baruch (BB) is in the middle wanting to bestow upon the Creator and humanity, while we actually don’t need anything and we are Hafetz Hesed.

Thus we form the exact structure that is described in Talmud Eser Sefirot. The first seven parts of the book describes the development of the vessels and the shattering, and starting from the 8^th part until the 16^th part it is about the correction.

[121060]
From the One America “Virtual Convention” Day One 11/16/13, Lesson 1

Related Material:
Everything Begins From The Group
Connection With The Light
In The Desire For Peace

 

Filed under: Conventions, Events, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: What should we do about friends who don’t come to the lesson and who don’t want to disseminate?

Answer: When I just started studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and began to read the articles “The Giving of the Torah,” and “The Mutual Guarantee” calls for unity, like “love thy friend as thyself” etc., didn’t impress me at all, since it reminded me of the times of the old Soviet Union. Humanity has been through everything, Communism, Socialism, and Kibbutzim and has realized that there is nothing in these ideals.

This is how things had to be historically, so that we will begin to establish a new approach: On the one hand, we should feel repulsed by the unsuccessful past and on the other hand, reexamine it.

Now such criticism of the past should already be done through the group, through the wisdom of Kabbalah, through workshops, so that we will find out that there is a wonderful special attribute in the unity and connection between people.

Friends who can’t hear that yet, who are repulsed by our dissemination and our unity in the group but who want to come and study the wisdom of Kabbalah should come and study. First they will participate in the work in the group formally, and help out somehow, do something, and gradually they will be incorporated in it.

The main thing is that they shouldn’t cause any harm and that they shouldn’t force their opinions on everyone else. It is because our group works exactly according to the method of Baal HaSulam and everything connected to his study is holy and no one can counter it.

If at the moment a friend cannot understand to what extent the calls for unity and connection are necessary for spiritual attainment, he should sit quietly and listen, or leave the group.

We understand that a person develops slowly, it will take a while until gradually, under the influence of the Surrounding Light, he will begin to change his perception and the feeling in his heart and mind. But he shouldn’t resist or interfere with the advancement of others. He hasn’t matured enough and hasn’t ripened yet.

We cannot force people to participate in the group connection and in dissemination with all their heart and soul, although both Baal HaSulam and Rabash speak about this. A person may not feel this awakening yet, and it may come even after 10 or 15 years; this is how people develop.
[120999]
From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

Related Material:
Unity Against Someone Or For Someone?
A Group Is The Unity Of Desires
Unshakeable Confidence Is One For All

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How can I be sure that I will eventually succeed? Are there any guarantees?

Answer: This is called “faith in the sages.” But the one thing you can really trust is the Light of confidence that shines for a person to the extent that he reaches the attribute of bestowal. He doesn’t have it yet because the only means to attain it is through the incorporation in the environment.

I have nothing but the environment; I can be part of an environment that prefers corporeal values, and I can be part of an environment that prefers spiritual development, through bestowal. There are two alternatives: the path of receiving or the path of bestowal. There are two forces operating in nature, and we can prefer one or the other: either to bestow in order to receive or to receive in order to bestow, either one. This is how this world operates. Everything is very simple and is determined by the environment that we choose.

But if I have already chosen an environment, that is a teacher and friends, a path, and a goal, I have to feel that it is what I want. I shouldn’t force myself. If I have a point in the heart and if I feel that this path is for me, I join the environment.

But after joining it I have to be incorporated in it with all my heart and soul. I cannot be in an environment that is totally plus (+) while I am totally minus (-). I will be thrown out of it. The Light that Reforms will influence me and I will be thrown out after a year, two years, or even five years; it makes no difference. We see how this happens. Then a person begins to hate us because he is not incorporated in the environment, in the group.

But just like you are influenced by the media in our world whether you like it or not, here too, when it comes to our spiritual development, you have to be under the influence of the environment. This is where we are given freewill, and so we have to make constant efforts. It has nothing to do with a person’s character but with the gentleness of the soul. If a person is lucky, he stays, and if he isn’t, he doesn’t stay, and is kicked out…

You are incorporated in the group and you are told: “Did you choose to be with us? Welcome, but you should know that there are certain conditions that you have to fulfill. If you agree you can stay, and if you don’t, then leave.” There are many such groups, parties, and movements; choose whatever you like, these are our conditions. We rely on the writings of Kabbalists and this is what they say. We don’t care what others have chosen and what values they prefer and accept. We accept and follow the advice of Kabbalists that have reached us through a chain of Kabbalists through the ages, starting from Abraham until today.

They implemented these conditions and reached spiritual attainment. According to their books, we see that they reached the inner essence of nature, the upper dimension. We want to attain the same things and so we listen to their advice.
[120655]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/13, Shamati #64 “From Lo Lishma to Lishma”

Related Material:
The Environment Makes A Human From An Ape
Unshakeable Confidence Is One For All
Learning How To Work With Egoism

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The environment—from the moment that the ape came down from the tree and became a human, it is everything  This was written about in the book, The Tree of Life by the Ari, 400 years before Darwin. Beginning from that moment on, they already had become not just a band of apes but had transformed into being a kind of “society,” a society of individuals. In this, each one is a personality by himself, and in spite of it all, everyone is connected together; there are various types of unique links between them which are evolving all the time.

This was an alliance for the sake of a particular goal: defense against predatory animals, defense against other bands of apes, and so forth. Thus a social structure began to evolve more and more.

Human evolution is possible only due to the environment! There are legends about the existence of Bigfoot living somewhere in the Himalayas. But why do we describe him as a wild man with a height of two and a half meters, covered with hair and not think that he could be subtle, beautiful, and good? Because he lives alone! Perhaps he has a family, but this is still a form of existence on an animal level and not like a human society.

Therefore, if you have chosen some environment, you must become integrated within it. You must arouse yourself with jealousy all the time; this is the most effective means. It is necessary to be jealous of others, how much they have already advanced, are active, running everywhere, and internalizing the goal. If you begin to be jealous of them, then you will surely succeed.
[120651]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/13, Shamati #64 “From Lo Lishma to Lishma”

Related Material:
The Power Of Environment
Unshakeable Confidence Is One For All
Common “Flock” Of Humanity

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

There are two egoistic forces in our world, a negative and a positive one, and we all are between them, a small animal called man (Adam).

These two forces operate on us spontaneously. We don’t know the system according to which they lead us forward by throwing us from side to side, but in the 21^st century, we have reached a level that we seem to have used them up.

We feel tired, alienated, indifferent, frustrated, lacking motivation, and depressed. This is actually the most common illness of the century and it affects the whole world. Managers of every institution complain about people’s indifference; people don’t want to work; they have no motivation to do so. A person cannot do anything with himself since these two forces have grown weak in us and their sum doesn’t push us forward anymore.

So now we begin to perceive and to study a new entity, a new order, a new dimension that is also established by the action of these two forces.

The moment we begin to yearn for the center of the group, to create what we call the right Babylon, in order to become one whole, we will immediately feel how we are repulsed by it.

What is more, the repulsing force (P2) is much greater than the attracting force that we develop (P1).

If we understand that we have to reach an outcome when the one force of connection will be revealed inside us,  we will have another force left, the force of prayer or the force of requesting, our desirable efforts in yearning, so that this force will be revealed in us. It is called a prayer but it is actually the power of our desire. It isn’t a prayer in the usual sense.

We want to add another force to us that will help us yearn for connection and unite us.

Naturally we get a very small force based on a certain egoistic desire, on egoistic benefit, since this is our nature. But when we try to attract a new force, we want the force of bestowal and love to reside among us so that we will lose ourselves, our animal essence, in our collective connection.

We operate according to the instructions that the Kabbalists left us about how to establish a group and the connection between us, and about how to focus on the secret force, draw it to us, and want it to be revealed between us as one whole so that we will resemble one another according to the system of mutual guarantee.

“Loving the other” means feeling the desires of the other and filling them while he fills my desires. This is the mutual incorporation in one another, the mutual connection. When we operate that way in the group we summon the influence of the upper force upon ourselves and it is revealed in the first phase, although not very clearly yet, and we feel certain new emotions and new forms of bestowal internally.

Subconsciously we begin to understand that the world is built so that it is possible to move to a totally new state, to the next level, in which we exist in a totally different manner, in mutual cooperation between us, as one whole, while our whole egoistic essence is be left below. It will not go away, but the altruistic force that connects us all will dominate it.
[120801]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day One 11/1/13, Lesson 1

Related Material:
The Embryo Of The Next Phase
125 Degrees Of Revelation
To Nullify Yourself And To Know = To Reveal = To Connect

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How do we distinguish between egoistic exertion and purposeful exertion?

Answer: I exert myself purposefully outside myself according to the intention and the goal. I bring my whole exertion to the center of the group like a bird that brings everything to her nest. I want everyone to enjoy this and our pleasure is in discovering how much we can delight the Creator.

Even if we don’t discover this, what’s important is that we have a chance to do something that brings Him contentment. The main thing is that we have the intention that allows us to do this and to reach this. The Creator doesn’t even have to know about us as long as we can bestow.
[120993]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 09/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Like A Bird That Carries Everything To Her Nest
No Effort Is Lost Without A Trace
The Simple Law Of Mutual Guarantee

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →