If we felt that something in the convention was missing, it’s only because we were not ready for it yet and now we have to work on it. This means that we have to summon the feeling of the connection between us in order to discover the Creator (the Light) in this connection. Thus both the means (the group) and the Torah (the Light) will bring us to the Creator, according to the rule “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

The point is that in ancient Babylon they spoke Aramaic, which since then is parallel to Hebrew. Hebrew and Aramaic stem from the same root and they are two opposite languages. One language conveys the information through the vessels and the other through the Light: Aramaic does it through the vessels, the desires, while Hebrew does it through the fillings. There is nothing other than these two attributes and so these two languages exist in a parallel.

The Babylonian Talmud that everyone studies today is in Aramaic since it’s about correcting the vessels. The whole Talmud is a system of correcting the vessels, the desires, but it’s described as the states of the still, vegetative, and animate nature of these desires. The Torah, however, (which stems from the word Light) is in Hebrew, since it comes from Above. This means that the Talmud comes from below and the Torah from Above.
[113072]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, “Faith Above Reason”

Related Material:
The Iron Rules Of Spiritual Grammar
Falling In Love With The Winner
Choose Essence, Not Form

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

Question: How should we work internally with the state where I seem to have two options in which you see either your ego or the right work? What should you do so as not to remain idle?

Answer: Here, we feel the need for mutual guarantee, mutual support, that must exist in a group. It is like a wall that guards the group both from external influences and from negative internal influences of all its members.

This wall—the spirit, the wholeness—is built out of the importance of the goal, of the readiness of all the group members to annul themselves before the idea of a group, like in a family where there is a certain inner basis. There can be anything in it, but there is something that constantly balances it, gives it weight, lowers it to the ground, and doesn’t let it break apart and disintegrate.

This is why a family is made of several generations: grandfathers and grandmothers, parents and children. Once, everyone used to live together. The generations change gradually like spinning wheels, but there are always three generations that support each other and which depend on each other. Now, of course, it all disintegrates. In the group, however, we must adhere to it.

There should be a substantial mass in the group that makes it stable and balanced. It doesn’t pull downward, but simply balances different eruptions and disorder. Therefore, a person who goes through different states must have the inner feeling that the group is stable, massive, and permanent.

This is what we must cultivate and actually establish as our foundation. Anything may happen, but we have our foundations.

My job as a manager is to make all the small groups all over the world into one whole, one unified foundation that will support everyone. Then, different problems and conflicts that the Light will certainly summon in us will serve us correctly only in order to grow.

You can call it mutual guarantee or by any other name, but we must do it. The group is like a hot house, an incubator. As it is said, “My home is my castle.” A person needs to exist in an environment—the root, soul, body, attire, and all.

We must establish all this. The group must talk about that, to think. There must be a feeling that this is my family, my home, where I come and don’t want to leave! That’s the way it should be.
[112790]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 3

Related Material:
A Family In Which Everyone Is Loved
Saving The Friends From Concerns
The Hands That Hold You Up Over The Abyss

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

Question: Why is it impossible to hold the Light; it is lost?

Answer: If we could keep the achievements, then we would not be able to develop. If we constantly felt receiving the fulfillment, we would have considered ourselves in the state of final correction. My desire would be constant, the Light filling it constantly, and I would feel myself in the end of correction. How can I know what the end of correction means: 100 kilograms of desire and fulfillment or a million? If the Light fills my entire vessel, I feel satiated.

The newborn, who eats 50 grams of milk thinks that he has received a full meal. You need a kilogram to feel satisfied and he needs only 50 grams. Everyone feels himself filled in accordance with his wishes. If you fill yourself up to the end, then it is called the world of Infinity. Infinity means no boundaries: You received as much as you wanted without any restrictions and therefore this fulfillment is called infinite, unlimited.

Therefore, if we could keep the filling, then we would feel in perfect condition, in a perfect state and no need for further development.
[112778]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
What Do Mushrooms Think About?
The Precisely Measured Infinity
Deficiency And Fulfillment

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

Question: If I make an internal movement toward connection with the group and am rejected, from where can I get the strength to rise above this and formulate a request for correction? How can I make an effort to ask the Light to come and correct this?

Answer: There must be an incorporation of wisdom from the group against the ego here.

The idea is that, if friends come to you and call you to come to a Gathering of Friends or to some other shared event, it will be unpleasant for you to decline, and you should go with them. However, in this way, you are moving because of their fuel and not your own fuel. So, there will be bestowal, but it will be very small and passive.

In order to be integrated wisely within a group, you must prepare yourself in some way and find within yourself the strength to overcome your ego, just like that, as if you are jumping into a quagmire with your eyes shut, which is very difficult!

There already could be a prayer here to be included in a group. It no longer is considered individualistic but is a group matter because you want to be with them, want to be among them as a force of bestowal together with them. This is already something else.

However, if there is no other choice, then it is desirable that they will come and save you and somehow bring you out from a state of descent and include you among them. However, if you can, try to do this by yourself as much as this is possible because the surrounding Light will illuminate you precisely to the degree of your personal effort.

If they just come after you and it would be unpleasant to refuse, then you will not get any Light. Where is your effort? It is not yours.

The group will advance because it supports a friend, sustains itself, and so forth, whereas for you, no. You will get something general, comprehensive, very distant, but no personal advancement since they included you among them. This is to say, it will be your movement, but it will not be wise, like an embryo in its mother’s womb. They include you among them, and you advance within them together with them, but as an inanimate creature. Therefore, at all costs, it is necessary to try to go outside of yourself into the group.

All the rules of the group are derived from here: To submit yourself toward the friends, to mix with them, to hold onto them, to be useful somehow, to do everything in order to be within the group, not from above and not from below. The main thing is within! Try to be in the center. This is not saying that I am this center of the group. Being in the center means to be protected from yourself within the group.

Question: What is it saying that I made the right effort, a prayer? How would this feel?

Answer: You will get a new perception, a new feeling, and a new understanding of the world order.
[112763]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 3

Related Material:
The Effort Beyond Human Power
Rejecting Our Present Selves
The Right Definition Of The Godly Force

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

Question: Modern civilization is based on every problem being solved only through groups of people. But according to the experts, attempts to connect people into these kind of groups brings the opposite result most of the time. Within three or four months groups break up and only a “handful” of people remain faithful to an idea and the rest scatter. Why is this?

Answer: This is because people lack an incentive and drive for something and so they disperse.

If 20 to 30 years ago or even ten years ago it was possible to unite one collective into a group, today this is very difficult, as people have no incentive to work. What for? Why? For what purpose? They cannot be ignited, not through building a movement, a party, and not with anything in particular.

Humanity has folded all the programs. Where has the yearning to conquer space disappeared to? Nothing is left. Everything is concentrated only on grabbing something, stealing, being isolated far from civilization, and basking under the sun. People have no motivation especially when speaking about serious matters like these.

There was a time when people were ignited by great ideas, tried to materialize them for themselves, for their children, for the country, for the homeland. Today all borders have been opened; the relationship that a person has with his residence has become essentially one of consumption. This is how it is in regard to his nation and his people as well. We have spread throughout the earth, the previous boundaries are gone.

The concept of the family has also disappeared, it has broken apart. Parents have no responsibility for their children and the children have none for their parents. At best, the children put their parents into nursing homes. And parents react calmly to their children leaving them and living a life of seclusion. The traditional framework of a family, of a collective, of a region, a nation, and so forth has collapsed. Nothing remains sacred to a person, meaning that the ideals for which it was worthwhile to live, to work, to compete with someone, and to achieve something have disappeared.

This kind of lack of motivation began to be discovered in the 20^th century, but it was still weak. In spite of it all, they somehow managed to finish things by building a party, or through fear as in the time of Stalin, or through brainwashing as with Hitler. But this could only happen in isolated instances, for a short time and with particular people.

But today, as I travel extensively throughout the world, visiting various nations, societies, and civilizations, I see that everything has stopped working.

The only thing that can spur a person on and give him an incentive is the fulfillment that he gets by working directly in a collective when he specifically feels through unity with others, that he finds some kind of serenity and rest.

But for this, it is necessary to construct, connect, and raise a collective in this kind of form, to show people how they can begin to get the magic that is in life through cooperation and mutual support. By creating a small, artificial society, they will get a feeling of life, mastery, interconnection, partnership, concern, and love.

If we create all of this in a collective then people will not go anywhere. They will come again and again and will specifically try to work for this. Not to attain the goals required by managers and landlords, but rather because when they work like this they feel alive, they feel that they exist, that they are found in some lofty state above our regular daily life.
[108994]
From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/20/13

Related Material:
For This It Is Possible To Give Everything
For The Sake Of The Family, I’d Do Anything
How to Awaken the Life Force?

Filed under: Family, Group Work - No Comments →

Question: What does it mean to repent my actions, emotions, and thoughts if the Creator is directing me completely? How do we not continue to err, to deny the supervision of “There is none else besides Him,” and, along with this, reach my recognition of evil?

Answer: Be sorry that the Creator made you fail in a form like this! It is a sign that you deserve it!

Question: Before the Second World War, Baal HaSulam tried to warn people about and prevent the Holocaust, but the results are known. You say that people will hear us only after blows. What can we do in order to prevent the blows, or are they inevitable? What is the right reaction to what is taking place: to endure and to pray for humanity (are we not cursing the Creator through our suffering and pain) or understand in a relaxed way and try to justify the necessity of developments like these? How is it possible to soften the blows and to bring the world to correction in a good way?

Answer: We need to administer the blows to our ego ourselves in that we act in opposition to it, and then we will be released from the external blows of the Creator. And if we work together, we will not feel the blows but pleasant shared efforts.
[112823]

Related Material:
Mistakes From Childhood?
The Land Beyond The Horizon
Two Methods Of Dissemination

Filed under: Group Work, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Laitman Unplugged - No Comments →

Question: How can one help a friend correctly if we see that the evil inclination has been aroused in him and he accepts the thoughts that come to him as truths and convinces others of their truth?

Answer: A person found in a group begins to feel within himself all kinds of anti-spiritual inclinations as a result of his good work. We see how suddenly he is changed acutely. Moreover, he justifies his behavior. It is typical for everyone to justify himself.

First of all, you need to connect among you immediately (without him, even though he also wants to share in this), and discuss what to do about him very seriously.

Agree among yourselves as to how you will influence him. He needs to see how we are working to connect, that this is what is important and essential for us, for this is specifically what we are learning, and this is how we do it. About this, there is no argument. This must be so!

If he is opposed or something is not right for him, we simply show him, “You see, this is not our invention. This is what is written in the sources, and we carry out these conditions. Whoever doesn’t carry them out has no place here. Therefore, either stay and gradually be included in the general work, or go.”

It is necessary to show clearly and precisely that only the collective state of the group should determine his behavior, for connection is a general desire of all together, according to a single method for one goal.

It is forbidden in any way to condone such things! He has no right to chill and relax the hands of the others! We must let him understand clearly that we relate negatively to his behavior, but it is necessary to do this gently, gradually approaching vital explanations. We must agree among ourselves to distance from him so that he will see that we continue to connect and support each other, and so forth. If he will not adhere to us it is a sign that his place is not here.

It is necessary to explain to him (with love, you see, we want him to stay), that, to our sorrow, we don’t see the right behavior in him appropriate for the requirements of the spiritual method, therefore, either he surrenders himself to the group, or if not then he will harm it and so for his own good it would be better for him to go.

However, even if he goes, this must be done so that he will have the possibility of returning. For example, it is possible to offer him the option, “You don’t need to come every day. Come when you want to be included in the group.” It could be that he will come once every two weeks, and after that it could be that he will return completely.
[112628]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day One” 7/12/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Helping The Wounded In The Battle Against The Evil Inclination
The Ego Tends To Protect “Its Territory”
Not Negotiable

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

Baal HaSulam, “Walking the Path of Truth,” Letter 17: …so as to always be a target for you between right and left. This is because there is one who walks who is worse than he who sits idly. It is he who deflects from the road, for the path of truth is a very thin line…

First, we must make sure that we know the right direction so that we can perform actions that aim at the right, accurate, and clarified direction. If I am not sure as to what I must do, it means that I don’t know what the right direction is. If I know what to do, I still must check whether it is the right direction.

It turns out that a person moves by walking not the actual steps, but by clarifying their direction. There are no steps forward as one walks, but only the clarification of the right direction. This means that I advance.

If I am at a certain point where I clarify the direction from it to the Creator, I unite with the Creator at that point. It turns out that I make the right step forward without moving from that place. Then, immediately at that point, new conditions are revealed which I must clarify again as to which way to turn, how to use all the conditions in order to unite, and where I must get to. If I determine how to perform such an action, it means that I have discovered unity at that point, and there is nowhere I must move to.

The steps by which we advance are not by moving, but by determining the point of a more correct attitude, perspective and trend each time, the point of attaining unity and connection, this is actually an attainment along the spiritual path.
[112988]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Penetrating The New World Through The Eye Of A Needle
Dangerous Fictitious Dealings
The Speed Of Spiritual Advancement

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

Baal HaSulam, Letter 17: For the path of truth is a very thin line that one walks until one comes to the King’s palace.

One who begins to walk at the beginning of the line needs great care so as not to deviate to the right or to the left of the line even as much as a hair’s breadth. This is so because if at first the deviation is as a hair’s breadth, even if one continues completely straight, it is certain that he will no longer come to the King’s palace, as he is not stepping on the true line.

It’s not clear how one can keep the right direction if one has deviated from it once. So this is a very serious warning. How do I know that I have never been wrong before? Is it possible to choose correctly if I am at a certain point now after having made a mistake? Can I find the right direction and advance if I am at the wrong point?

It’s a very uncertain and scary situation. Like all of you, I have made many turns throughout my lifetime. I have been confused and took the wrong direction. So how can I find the right direction after all this? Even if I find it, will it correct all my previous corruptions?

Such questions make our state very uncertain. How can I advance if I don’t know for sure that I have been following the right path? How many times have I gone in the wrong direction?

Hence, one who walks upon the true line of preparing for the work of God (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.) must always test himself to see if he wants the three above aspects equally, as the end of the act is equal with its beginning. If one wants one of them more than the second or the third, then one deflects from the path of truth, and understands this.

This is the meaning of, “Open for me one aperture of repentance, such as the eye of a needle, and I will open for you gates where carts and coaches enter.” Interpretation: the aperture is not for entrance and exit, but to insert the thread for sewing and for work.

Similarly, you are to crave only the commandment of the upper One, to work, and then I will open for you a door such as an entrance to a hall. This is the meaning of the Explicit Name in the verse, “but in every deed (spelled like Hall in Hebrew) as I live and all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

An eye of a needle means worrying about uniting Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one point. We constantly worry only about that and this point becomes smaller and more focused. In order to reach it we have to constantly unite all the 613 attributes, meaning the desires that awaken in us and which are opposite from one another and present different conditions: those of Israel, those of the Torah, and those of the Creator. We need to unite all this into one whole, into unity.

If we can bring all to such unity, it means that we collect everything into one point into an eye of a needle. When we focus ourselves on one point through an optical instrument, we can see an opening in it that leads to a new world.
[112981]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Moving Fast Forward By Running In Place
The Main Point Of Life
Checking The Aim’s Precision

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