The spiritual growth of the person begins with the fact that he completely forgets about himself and finds himself with his entire mind, intellect, and emotion, with the desire to think only about the group as a unified whole. Moreover, this doesn’t depend on the group itself, as in the example of Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma.

The person “dissolves” in it and begins to see it in its true form. Apparently this is not a group and not his friends with whom he spent so much time together, no. He simply sees a gathering of great Kabbalists, one soul. It could be that they don’t even suspect this; whereas he already discovers this in them because everything depends upon our personal characteristics through which we see the world.

Today it is like this when we look at the physical world; we suppose that it is as we see it. The moment that we change our characteristics, we see instead a completely different society and environment, and those friends of ours will be seen on another level, in a different form.

Therefore, such a person has no claims against the environment; he always gives his friends the benefit of the doubt without criticism: They are absolutely right, they absolutely believe in the goal; and he justifies all that they do. The main thing for him is simply to nullify himself, and to give them all that is possible, all of his energy, all of his vitality. To this degree he enters the group and sees them spiritually. And so certainly according to his efforts the “Surrounding Light” influences him, corrects the quality of a person, helps him, and he begins to see an absolutely different world instead of the former environment to the completion of correction. This is how it all happens.

Therefore this work, and especially the intention towards it, becomes a foundation for the spiritual ladder. And after that descents and ascents take place.

The descents and ascents of normal life do not interest the person—family, work, and whatever else—he needs certainly to arrange all this to the degree that this is required for his physical existence, since this won’t end when his spirituality begins. This remains because all of our ascents begin from this, we again fall to the level of this world, we rise to the next spiritual level, and again fall into the egoistic state of this world. And that is how it is 125 times. This is most complicated and difficult.

Therefore I always emphasize that the most difficult thing is the first level when the person is able to be detached from himself for the first time and enters into a group such that he loses himself, he doesn’t exist. He is not afraid; he is happy about this; he discovers himself in a different form, in the form of the entire group. Within it he discovers the right reciprocal link between all the friends, which is called the “Creator,” that is found between them, and he is mixed with this network of reciprocal linkage. This is called his adherence with the Creator.

To the degree of a person’s spiritual growth, more and more opposition, contradictions, descents, and doubts appear. And again he is elevated above them to states like those through which great souls, the students of Rabbi Shimon, have passed, who were ready to burn each other to ash with the fire of hatred. And this was the first condition of that high level upon which they were found. That is to say, before they could begin with spiritual work, they had a beginning state like this.

Therefore the ascents and descents are compulsory. Thanks to them we rise, changing the ego to bestowal and love. And all the time, the greater our ego becomes, we can attain greater adherence between us above that hatred that is to be discovered on higher levels, and we go forward.
[113717]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

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How is it possible to help a person choose the right environment? We need to describe it to ourselves correctly and how to bring people to us, for from them the environment that will influence us, in which we will dissolve, is created.

And there is a problem here. On the one hand, we want this environment to be as wide and rich as possible, both quantitatively and qualitatively. On the other hand, it could be that it is made qualitatively large, but at the expense of quantity; and the opposite, it could be quantitatively large at the expense of quality. In this regard, we have these questions and concerns. “Should the group be small but cohesive and strong? Or the opposite, should it be wide and large, but all kinds of subgroups and streams might appear in it without any special unity?”

What should we do in this circumstance? How should we behave? There are no recipes for this. We must do both. It is necessary to constantly vary. And in doing so, we ourselves grow.

It is absolutely necessary to try to bring new friends. Certainly we pass them through some kind of “waiting room,” there must be some kind of absorption here, an international academy for Kabbalah or all kinds of other courses and lessons. There could be evening lessons, even postgraduate lessons and then, if they agree, it is possible to bring them gradually into the group.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

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Question: Can we assume the desired result of the convention is that we need to gather all the yearnings of our friends with a unique desire, to combine it with my yearning, to the “point in the heart,” to increase the intensity?

Answer: I consider the Moscow group to be a very strong group with great potential and with immense experience. You have all the departments, and you simply have become not just a serious group, but a factory.

I don’t see any particular problems in the Moscow group or in the Kiev group. People come and go. Well, so what? The doors should always be open; don’t place any obstacles, any barriers, or anything! Entry and exit should be open for everyone, except for those who harm.

For all the rest who leave, you cannot ask anything of them because, in another year or two, they could come back as if they left just for five minutes and came back to class. This is because in spirituality, movement happens like this.

With Rabash, people returned after fifteen years. They entered the lesson as if nothing happened. They sat, opened the book, and began to study. I looked at them wondering where they fell from? They looked as if they had gone out for a few minutes and returned. And because this was truly how they felt, that fifteen years had not gone by, rather, it was really, a few minutes. They just came and went.

Therefore, you need to relate to people like this very seriously. Simply understand them, and the same with all of humanity as well. They will gradually discover that there is an internal group that is seriously engaged, like researchers with this science, and they are implementing the practical aspects of integral education. And they are committed  to integral education.

They gradually will even discover that this is the wisdom of Kabbalah! You will see that nothing terrible will happen. Gradually, people will swallow this. Therefore, there is no need to advertise anything, and there is no need to be afraid of this either. A person gets used to everything.

Now, we are moving toward a fall in society and the world that people will be ready for anything. Nothing will astound or surprise them,  and nothing will confuse them. You can see for yourselves how our century compares to the previous one.

Question: After the last convention, friends began to return to the Moscow group that hadn’t been in the group for some time.

Answer: Treat them very well, comfortably; coming and going, that is their business.

You will reach a state where it will be considered an honor to pay Maaser. Every friend will see honor in this if can commit some duty or obligation. You will see, how much each one’s concern for every one will not be a punishment or a burden as there is today, but rather a reward. “I don’t need anything. Give me something to do for the others.” This will be comprehended as reward, as pleasure,  so, in the meantime, have patience.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, Shamati #59 “About the Rod and the Serpent”

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We already understand that we can discover a new spiritual state only in the connection and unity between us, and now we are beginning to understand how to move from one level to the next. For the first time we have reached the understanding of our path, its components, and the actions it involves: First a step on the right foot, then a step on the left foot, and the body is in the middle. Thus we advance by the middle line: right foot, left foot, and another step forward, right foot first and only then the left foot, which is done on our part.

We always begin from the right line since we always advance towards bestowal, love, connection, and unity in faith above reason. The left line, however, is revealed according to how the Light reveals it to us. So on every level it says: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice,” in order to correct it. This refers to the system of the influence of the Light on the evil inclination, which you correct with the help of the Light so that you can advance.

This is the system we are in. The right side is bestowal, love, connection, and unity (∑), which means everything that comes from the side of Hesed. The left line is the desire to receive, to know, the force of receiving, which means the ego, while I am in the middle. What do I attribute myself to? I attribute myself to the point in the heart and so I am the one who aims at and yearns for the Creator.

The question is how do I advance? My first action is to start with the right line, which means to yearn for bestowal, love, unity, and maximum adhesion.

Our unity takes place above the ego, of course, without which we wouldn’t be able to manage in the spiritual work. It’s connected to us in advance and is the initial, ancient state.

It turns out that the ego (1) is the heart and in it there is the point in the heart in which I aim at connection and unity. The moment I do that, I begin to receive a certain illumination (3) in our connection and unity (2). Perhaps we don’t feel the Creator in the feeling of unity yet, but it’s actually His feeling already.

Having attained this attribute the ego starts to connect to it again (1b). Once again we direct it forward to unity (2b) and eventually receive the next level that is much higher than the previous one. This is how we advance.
[113156]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, Shamati #59 “About the Rod and the Serpent”

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In the current reality, I feel myself, my relatives, my group, the other groups, the state and the world, which correlate to the five levels of Aviut (the coarseness of the desire), from the root phase to phase four. On the whole, this reality is the soul or, in other words, the desire to receive, but in its corrected form. Now, it is shattered to pieces but by the correction of the connection between the pieces, I reconstruct it into one structure, one desire, Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity ∞). Then, the Light of Ein Sof, or the Creator (NRNHY), fills this soul.

There is nothing but that and this is the only thing the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about: about the correction of the desires that seem detached from me to different extents. This is how the fictitious external picture was formed for me, a group of friends, and I must bring each of them closer to me. This is our work.

It is about my soul, about my eternal spiritual vessel in which I exist. Do I want to keep on feeling only my corporeal existence in which I am now, in this “self?” If I want to come out and begin the correction of my soul, to attach to it, to connect to it, to live in it, I must gather these parts into one. These parts are in each of us. So, I work by overcoming my ego in order to connect with the friends, with the parts of my soul.

If I ignore their external form, it means that I don’t see their faces but only the parts of the soul. Every external form is neutralized when I work on love, instead of hate.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The right advancement of a group is when it is not given any motivation from above. The Creator doesn’t give us any reason to justify the spiritual path. We don’t see any positive outcomes in our study, in dissemination, in other activities, but actually, it is the opposite as we discover total lack of success. Then, by consolidating the connections between us, we demand that the Creator be revealed among us, and this becomes our fuel. Otherwise, we are egoists who are unable to discover our vessel, to reveal the Creator and ascend.

We mustn’t descend to the levels of enjoying our success, the egoistic pride for having worked to disseminate, and measure our advancement by the outcome and the number of people we have brought closer to spirituality. We don’t want to return to the level of childish bragging. We respect and value the state in which we have no hope and no hold on the ego, of the desire to receive in which there is no filling, no feeling of success, no joy, nothing. We don’t enjoy this since otherwise, it already will be a reward. There are those who enjoy suffering since it fills them with adrenalin.

The Creator should give us only the fuel called bestowal in our actions of dissemination and not proof of our success. If we succeed without Him, we will not need Him. We must feel darkness in our vessels of receiving in order to demand the Creator’s help. Egoists don’t need the Creator since they want to use Him and receive an even greater egoistic filling.

We don’t need a filling but we need the Creator’s help in our actions. We ask for the fuel that allows us to work and don’t need anything but that. We keep away from the reward. The Creator offers us pleasures, His revelation, while we must put different Masachim (screens) on ourselves and restrict our desire. We are in a very difficult position. We have a problem since our car moves forward by itself without any fuel, and we must only hit the brakes instead of pressing the gas pedal.

There is no gas pedal in spirituality and you constantly press the brakes, thus keeping different temptations and pleasures from entering your desire to receive. Otherwise, I will commit an offense and will fail.

Our job now is not to be impressed by our lack of success, but to be impressed by the fact that we are given a chance to bring people closer to connection according to the real laws. If we have such an opportunity, we don’t need anything else. This is called “God’s servant.” We only want a chance to work, nothing more than the “eye of a needle” so that we can put the thread of our work through it, and that is enough.

If a person is satisfied with that and the result of the work doesn’t matter at all, if he grows stronger by the group and begins to demand the Creator’s help, he doesn’t need anything else. The vessels of receiving are totally empty, and there is only the group that powerlessly, humbly, is ready to pull itself together somehow with the little power it has left and turn to the Creator. This is the very last state from which there is the great breakthrough to the next level, to a higher state.

This is how we should continue the St. Petersburg convention, in order not to feel any success in our vessels of receiving, but, rather, to change our vessels to vessels of bestowal. Let’s hope that we will be able to do this work until the next convention in February in Israel. This will be a very meaningful advancement.
[113638]
From the Lesson Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/13

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We must make efforts only to unite everything to one point, where the Creator and the created being, “something from something” and “something from nothing,” are adhered. All the concealments, the distortions, the contradictions, and the events seem to exist only because we don’t feel and don’t perceive the unity. There is no time or place. There is only the state of lack of unity and this is what we experience and live in.

Everything that I feel now around me and inside me is the lack of unity in every possible way. The moment I can unite everything the world becomes the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

Question: How can we connect all this to working in a group of ten?

Answer: The group of ten is a support tool in a “sight” through which I view the world. It helps me focus on it and attain unity. Suppose there is a small circle in the center of the lens with an “X” in the middle that helps me focus on the target.

Dissemination helps us clarify the goal that we don’t see at the moment and cannot focus on since it is beyond the horizon. Dissemination creates the conditions, the data that we must put into the formula in order to calculate the right direction to the goal. There are a thousand parameters we must take into account in order to shoot, such as heat, cold, weather conditions, the wind, different diversions, constant and changing states.

All this must be included in one formula in order to ensure that we hit the target. This formula is this entire world, everything that we see in our 613 senses.
[113629]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Nature never changes, rather our perception of nature changes the extent of its disclosure. Man is changing, becoming more intelligent, more powerful, and therefore he investigates nature more and more deeply. Nature itself is not changed, rather the person is the one who is changed and discovers in it new phenomena, new laws, characteristics, and connections.

Nothing is changed in reality; all the changes take place only in relation to us. The person doesn’t do anything by himself at all. Either they manage him in an absolute manner from above, without any participation from his side, or they manage him with his participation. But through this participation he can only hasten development.

And in that I hasten my personal development, with this I influence the whole world since I become an integral part of a large integral system. Therefore all its other parts also are changed together with me.

Suppose that now I advanced within a month what I  needed to advance over the course of a hundred years (with a speed like this we move forward), but can the rest of the world remain in place together with this? We draw the entire world after us and hasten its development. Likewise the picture is changed: our way of life, the way of advancement. We move rapidly, well, easily, softly instead of shaking with hard bumps in a cart filled with blows, bruises, problems, and sufferings like those that followed us throughout the entire exile.

It all depends on us! And this says that Israel (“Yashar-El” directly to the Creator) hastens the times. The state of the completion of correction is rigidly determined, it is a law. But all the rest of the states, although they come according to that same law of development, the person himself determines their speed, manner, and how he feels them. We need to believe that this is how it is at every point on the way, along with the fact that everything is determined by the Creator and that “There is none else besides Him”.
[112761]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/13, The Book of Zohar – Introduction

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Question: You say that it is time to remove all the limitations for new students and if a person wants to come to the lesson we shouldn’t forbid that. Until now we used to allow a person to gradually join the group, the method.

Answer: I would allow people to join different events freely. It is because we have to think about how to attract people. It you allow people to attend different events they will later join the group and participate in all the activities together with everyone else.

Maaser (tithing) is very serious business. When a person pays this each month, there is an inner struggle inside him and he has to decide whether or not to do it.

Baal HaSulam used to charge money for every lesson. We know that it isn’t a problem to pay for something once: “Tell me how much I should pay for a whole year and I will pay, and I don’t want to hear about it anymore.” But this isn’t what we should do. Each of us should pay once a month when he gets his paycheck since he has to “tear” himself from himself. It is very hard and complicated.

So you should understand these friends. I would allow them to join the group and to feel it very closely. I wouldn’t hide anything from them. I believe that we should be completely open, and only when we see that these friends want to study seriously will they have to take a certain course if they haven’t done so already. Perhaps they have just finished such a course and have grown a bit weaker now.

I would let them join all the lessons and all the conventions without any preconditions since now, we—the major, central mass—have reached a point that should have been achieved at the convention. Now we can allow those who we can attract by the integral education to be around us, even those who don’t belong to it.
[113578]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, Shamati #59 “About the Rod and the Serpent”

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When the mind agrees that the truth is in bestowal, a person has to work on his heart, which according to his nature only feels receiving as sweet and bestowal as bitter. Working in converting receiving to bestowal is the work in the heart. Logically I agree that the truth is bestowal and now I have to feel sweetness in bestowal. This is attained by habit, due to performing certain actions with force at first: listening to what the friends say, envying them, and trying to do what they do.

These actions, which are against my will, draw the Light that Reforms upon me. After all, it isn’t about the mind that can be persuaded, but about the heart, about the desires. Only the Light can change the desire since it created it in the first place. So if I work systematically in order to draw the Surrounding Light upon my desires, I gradually begin to feel the importance of bestowal.

It takes several years. After all, since the first week I arrived, I came only to learn, and just speak about the greatness of bestowal. I see how the friends speak about it and I repeat after them, like a baby who repeats what the grownups say, even if he doesn’t understand what it means. But I consciously perform actions of bestowal towards the friends, which means that I study with them with the intention of drawing the Light that Reforms, so it will change me.

I keep thinking about the Light that will change my attitude to bestowal. Bestowal needs to be more than just a theoretical truth that I recognize in my mind thanks to the evidence obtained. Now I am looking for the Light that will change my heart so I will feel the sweetness in bestowal.

Some of the sweetness that is felt in bestowal is a result of my actions. If I help the friends, I receive a positive response from them and I already feel sweetness in that. They treat me nicely in response to my bestowal and I begin to respect myself for having bestowed upon them and for helping others. This means that I begin to change my attitude to bestowal even by simple corporeal actions, which let me feel its sweet and pleasant taste.

But the most important change in the taste is done by the Light that Reforms. All this work is called the work of the heart.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/13, Shamati #148 “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”

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