On the part of the created beings, meaning all of us, there is only one action that we can perform: to aspire to unity. More or less, we understand the system in which we all exist and realize why we strive to act so.

We don’t unite for the sake of gaining or creating anything, nor do we build a team of people who will accomplish some earthly tasks as we are used to in this world. We unite to attract upon ourselves the upper Light that will truly unite us and manifest itself inside this interconnection.

The fact that we devote that much time to the exploration of various forms of behavior in the group can only be explained by our confusion. In fact, all that is required of us is a single action and nothing else.

The Light will also make a single action that will match our efforts. However, we have to make the utmost exertion. I should always imagine that I am at a certain level and want to rise to the next one. I need to apply effort that corresponds to the difference (∆) between the two levels.

This ladder is discrete. And that’s why my efforts are not enough. I need to be inspired and forced; I need to be obliged, teased, and pushed towards it.

With the help of our environment, we have a tremendous opportunity to generate negative forces that will push us ahead, “prick” us a little, cause some minor pain, and create troubles. On the other hand, they should trigger us and pull us forward by producing a good feeling in us and ascertaining that something huge and wonderful is awaiting us ahead.

These moves should be built on pain and jealousy, on the qualities that are inherent in our nature. I want to elicit these forces to work on me so that they shape me correctly and make negative forces join together behind me and push me forward by stimulating me from behind. A stimulus is a sharp stick with which donkeys are urged to go forward. Accordingly, I want those stimuli to urge my “donkey.”

Besides, I want to be pulled forward. I need my surroundings to permanently remind me of the beautiful goals that are set in front of me, about what can be reached in this life and in this world if we manage to rise above it into the sensation of the infinity of the next level.

So, I want to be pushed and pulled at the same time. If I am in the environment and can awaken myself in relation to it as described above and if the environment is also ready to act similarly in response, meaning that the environment is acting this way relative to me, relative to all others—everybody together relative to each and everyone, then we will be able to elicit sufficient internal tension that will be equal to the delta (∆), to the over-fall between two levels.

Let’s mark our current level a zero (0); the next level will be marked as one (1). Our current state is a preparation period to level one. It’s the hardest and the most unpleasant phase since we all are as blind kittens that feel or know nothing. We have to blindly follow what’s written in the books. We don’t even have to understand what’s written in them. This is how we advance since the correction really starts from zero.

The Light impacts us constantly, and as soon as we hit the threshold level, it starts changing us: It alters our ego into its opposite, into bestowal. Due to the power of bestowal, instead of being repulsed from each other, we begin contacting and uniting with each other, thus creating a system of interconnection.

As soon as we manage to create this kind of system at the very first level of our interconnection, the Light emerges within it and fills the space which was always present among us. The only difference is that previously we used to reject others, and now within this new space we try to make contact with others beyond our egos, and the space is being filled with the Light. This is what we call revelation of the Creator.
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From Lesson 1, Kharkov Congress, 8/17/2012

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Our awakening to the Creator usually starts when a certain grievance towards Him arises in us. Only rarely do we turn to the Creator with gratitude, and more often we do so with complaints and grievances.

Such grievances awaken in a person repeatedly. But if he nevertheless remains in a group and continues to study, drawing the Light to himself, then he begins to realize that all the problems, suffering, hardening of the heart, shame—all are situations that the Creator arranges for him in life, and the most unpleasant ones especially are designed to show him that everything comes from the Creator.

And secondly, he needs to understand that he shouldn’t ask for all these problems to be fixed since then he would be turning to the Creator from his egoism. But a person must turn to the Creator above all of these problems, agreeing with Him, rejoicing, and seeing in all of these actions, which evoke in him various unpleasant reactions, the Creator’s kindness and mercy that accompany him throughout his entire life. He needs to ask for correction of his attitude to the Creator.

He needs to try to correct himself above all of these unpleasant sensations, perceiving them as obstacles above which he can rise if he desires to perceive them as kind help in attaining the property of bestowal. And then, all of these unpleasant situations, pain, shame, and confusions will appear to him as the opposite, as help and mercy from the Creator who sends them so that a person would accept them as good, and above them will ask for his correction.

And in completing this stage, a person asks for the possibility to be ready for anything that comes from the Creator, blessing in advance for all the bad as for the good. This means to accept the Creator’s direct and indirect governance, as it is written: “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.”

So our work consists not in asking the unpleasant sensations, situations, influences, and disturbances to be removed and solved. Instead, we need to be prepared to see the Creator’s hand in all of these actions, especially sent so that above them, we would build our correct attitude and form vessels of bestowal. And do it to such an extent that these problems and disturbances will not only stop bothering us, but we will see in them a special mercy and benevolence.

Then we will not ask the Creator to solve our problems, and instead we will correct our properties ourselves, because we will see the benefit of these problems. And instead of all kinds of evil, we will see only good in the same places.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: There is group work and there is dissemination. What should be the internal clarification so that there will be no diversion to one side or another, so that there will be a harmonious integration inside me?

Answer: A harmonious integration is when you feel that nothing matters, that the external world, the group, the Creator, and you are all the same. Only then will there be a harmonious integration, at the end of correction. In the meantime, you will always have the problem of what to deal with. We have to judge according to the circumstances.

Of course, the main thing is the group and the state it is in, since if I don’t have that I have nothing to disseminate with and nothing to turn to the Creator with. I cannot turn to Him by myself.

So the group and its connection are primary. Then comes the attitude, that is, I am with the group as a collective revelation, the clarification of the Creator as the One who creates, corrects, and fills us.

Then, when you already begin to perceive this model, you can turn to the world, since it is better to turn to the Creator when you tie it to the whole world.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 4

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Throughout the seminar, each group, each circle, must find a question that he would like to ask. Discuss it among yourselves, come to the state when this is really a very important question for you, the most important one, which you all agree to clarify from the bottom of your heart, and that is exactly the question you want to ask.

Do not yield to your friends now, like we usually do it, saying: “They are great, they are big, they know better; I bow before what I hear from them.” Here, it is the opposite: “No, I believe that my opinion is more important.” I want to captivate them with my opinion instead of our common work. So in no way can there be any concessions here, but on the contrary, the realization of the brightest prayer, its peak: what we should really ask! And it should be of the feelings and of the mind. It must combine everything that we really need in it.

“Chew it thoroughly,” analyze what you will ask for. Do as in a fairy tale: You are given one wish, once you will say it, it will be implemented!

Afterward, we will try to hear and possibly unite all of these desires. We will write them out, connect them all together, try to find what is the most common among them, and that will actually already be a collective prayer.

Most importantly, express yourself concisely, coherently, clearly, so that it will just break the heart!

First of all, we need to warm the hearts up so that they all become soft, melt, and unite into one. Then it will be possible to come to the collective agreement about what is important for us.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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In the previous workshop we reached the conclusion that we cannot do anything by ourselves. We tried to do everything in our power, but it led to nothing. That’s true! It led to nothing! There is no hope that it will lead to something! Why? Because we actually have no powers. Those who say that we cannot do anything are actually stating a fact.

We are merely egoists, and we can only work within our ego. We cannot do anything outside the ego; it isn’t in our power. We cannot do anything above the ego; we cannot actually advance and get closer to someone else. We can only do that when we see some benefit in it.

What can we do? Ask the Creator! Nothing else can help us since it is the only force in the world that does anything. We were given the chance to discover this, to discover that He is the only force that operates and no one else.

So all our work comes down to a request to attain a desire that will really oblige Him to help us.

But it isn’t easy to reach such a desire. It grows gradually. We have to think about when it will grow so that we will shout; we have to ask for it each time. This request should include all our desires, including the smallest ones, no matter what they may be.

They are not real intentionally, just like kids who whine, cry, and weep and get what they want no matter what by using our love for them. We have to behave in the same way with the Creator, to learn from this world how we should behave.

All the requests, the demands, the begging, and the pleading are generally called “prayer.”

A prayer is also a feeling in the heart. In fact, it isn’t a request but a feeling in the heart when a person checks himself and no matter what he sees he wants to turn to the Creator with what is in his heart. No matter if it is good or bad, no matter what: Take it and do what You have to do with me!

There can be different prayers: serious prayers and less serious ones, emphatic prayers, whatever; what is important is to pray. Everything is attained only by the power of a prayer, the power of the request. The stronger it is, the more firm it is, the more insistent it is, the better.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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An appeal to the Creator, a prayer, in our state can be only collective. Otherwise, the Creator does not hear. He hears only when people gather together and come to the same opinion as one man with one heart, one mind, because, thus they create a collective desire.

What do they want? Him to correct, raise, fulfill them, and so forth.

One person is worth nothing, means nothing: Such a prayer does not exist. You can scream as much as you want, but it will be the voice of one crying in the wilderness. If ten people get together, then, no matter how they shout, even falsely, their plea will taken into account because they are trying to connect with each other.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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We can cultivate a true desire for bestowal only if we actually work on it in the group. If a person leaves, it means that he is simply going in the wrong direction. Outside the group we can’t understand what a desire to bestow means at all. We have to make efforts, feel that we don’t want it, that it’s repulsive and painful; we escape the fact that we have to be connected with others. Only if we are persistent and stay in order to be connected in mutual guarantee, do we begin to understand what the attribute of bestowal means and to what extent we are far from it. Then comes the demand so that the force of bestowal will simply influence us because it is the source: It created us.

Now from this point of view, we can look at what is going on in the world. It seems that on the one hand everyone is mutually connected now and there is nowhere to run, all of humanity makes up one big group and this mutual connection is being revealed more clearly now but as a negative connection. However, at the same time people already begin to understand and to recognize that if there were a good mutual connection among us, we could create a wonderful humanity, a wonderful world.

But we can’t do it! It’s because our ego does everything that it can to separate us, it pits us against one another: this mutual hate, distrust, repulsion, etc. This means that the world is headed in the same direction we are but in small steps, gradually, according to its form, but still in the same direction. So it’s already possible to speak about this source everywhere.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the inner psychology of the individual and of all of humanity. It is the continuation of the ordinary psychology. The point is that psychology has run its course and has been in a crisis for several decades now. The wisdom of Kabbalah is its substitute. It tells us about inner attributes, about the forces of nature, not only man’s forces but of the world around us, which means how man and the world around him reach a state of balance. This is actually the role of psychology: to bring a person to a state of balance with the world that surrounds him.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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Question: During yesterday’s workshop, some circles weren’t able to reach a mutual agreement. How can we reach a mutual agreement during today’s seminar? What are we doing wrong?

Answer: I don’t think that you’re making any mistakes, just like you can’t say that a child is making mistakes. This is a natural process of growth, and it’s called education not mistakes.
I think that we got excellent results from yesterday’s workshop, regardless of the fact that not all groups spoke up. Perhaps they were too shy to disclose their conclusions. We must understand that even if yesterday we all had the same phrase, we still would think differently and imagine those words in our own way.

Ultimately, by uniting in the group, we reach a state called the “prayer of the many.” This is when all the mutual phrases, which are different for each person, unite into a mutual integral desire. This is what we have to achieve.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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Question: I am sure that at this convention we will achieve something very high, powerful. But with this confidence, I feel an alarm, an additional animal fear for the world, a fear that others will not ask.

Answer: You have to ask for them.

Israel is now in a state before war. And atomic bombs, thousands of missiles, and everything else are at the ready from two sides. For every citizen of our country, we have perhaps, a few missiles from all sides. We understand that; otherwise, our people will not stir, and the Creator has to act in this way in order to bring the nation to its usual prayer, to the correct state.

But how can we come to this? That is why we, as a group, feel that we are responsible not for changing the actions of the Creator—that’s His business to decide—but for maximally directing us all at the goal and, thus, somehow try to win over all the others.

That is the solution to every problem. These problems are never solved physically. We see that the more people get involved in physical problem solving, the more they multiply other problems. So, sometimes, it may be enough for one person to ask for the world. And the fact that you cry is good, you cry for all of us.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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Question: Do we receive the forces that advance us through our exertion, and then through them, rise above the ego?

Answer: It is through our exertion that we allow the Creator to affect us. It is only according to the measure of our correct efforts—and it’s even more correct to say attempts and not efforts—that through them we invite on ourselves the influence of the Creator. It is only by that.

Furthermore, the Creator is the field of bestowal. Just as there exists a field of gravity, a field of reception, there also exists a field of bestowal. It fills everything by itself and is permanent; its tension and intensity is identical in each point.

This means that the Creator relates to everyone, both small and great, in a completely identical way with love, with the attribute of bestowal. However, each one according to the measure of his efforts, yearnings, and exertions, invites upon himself greater impact from this field.

Question: Do the forces that throw us from the goal determine in which place and in which attribute we need to be located within this general system?

Answer: No one throws you. Besides that, this field is constant and permanent. It is revealed to us more and more in its increasing strength, its intensity, its illumination, its emanation, and its bestowal.

To the extent that its influence on us grows, we begin to feel worse and worse about ourselves since we exist in attributes that are opposite to it. The field affects even more a person who makes efforts and really becomes closer in similarity to the attribute of bestowal. He feels even worse with himself than do others.

Here the strength of the group is required in order to hold on and understand that it is the Creator who bestows on him in a special way, rejects him in a special way, so that in the end, he will attain the maximum desire through which he can be born, which means to come into initial contact with the field. At the time of the first contact with the field, it will, in any case, continue to operate and affect him. In any event, it will continue to reject him, but it already will be on the next level.

There, the rejections are of a different nature. They are more qualitative. It is not that the forces grow, but that the field operates in a wiser way, in a more meticulous way in order to invite and awaken in you a more qualitative development, the realization of this entire system, the same way as in school you go from grade to grade.

Question: Is the demand for the Creator like huge greed, hunger, or thirst?

Answer: The demand for the Creator is a necessity.

Question: The great need is not clear, for what?

Answer: No, that doesn’t exist: “It’s not clear why.” Gradually becoming closer to the Creator, you begin to understand what the attribute of bestowal is, and you begin to desire it. Otherwise, what do you need?

Advancement is progressive. It must be realized before you are born. You need to reach the point of your birth through two states:

• I am not able to do anything by myself;
• Only the Creator can help me attain the attribute of bestowal.

You must know, more or less, what you want: how much you want that world before you are born in it.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 3

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