Question: What should a person do in order to annul himself? How can this be implemented practically in the group?

Answer: This is why there should be one instead of ten. Instead of millions or billions, there should be one. This means that we should feel like one. If you cannot annul yourself before the friends, you will not be able to advance, and to allow the Light to be revealed. The first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) is the condition according to which everything operates, and then comes the next part, the next stage.

Question: What should I do in order to annul myself? What should I think about?

Answer: You should think that you want the friends to attain everything, and this is the only thing that makes you happy. How does a mother think about her child? “I want him to have everything. It doesn’t matter what will become of me, what’s important is that he will be okay.”
[76449]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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The ones who are given the chance to slip are those who have attained the specific degree and must reveal their evil inclination that can be corrected. But when we are shown a bit of our ego, we immediately want to run away and hide. Your heart is being hardened, your energy and inspiration are taken away, and you accept it. You are no longer in the right kind of spirit; you walk around all beat with a sour expression on your face.

I understand that people experience different states. But the group is able to create an atmosphere, where a person can easily overcome these descents within a blink of an eye—overcome them on the spot and begin to value bestowal over his attitude.

You must be grateful for having your spirit taken away from you, and that your ego is no longer participating in your spiritual action. Indeed, in this case your actions most definitely will be for the purpose of bestowing.

I do not want to do anything, I am not in the right mood, and I don’t feel the importance, but with my mind, I understand that if I were to do this, it would be an action of bestowal. I do not have any energy or desire to do this, but I can ask for it. And when I am not even able to ask for it, I can come to a group that will awaken me and give me a little inspiration.

But I do not ask for fuel, for the right spirit! After all, if I were in the right kind of spirit, my ego would immediately want to do these actions. The thief will run in front of everyone shouting: “Catch the thief.” This is why I want to keep my bad mood! Of course, I do not try to remain in despair, but I do not ask to have it corrected. I want for my egoism to stay distant from what I am doing now.

And then, whenever I do something—it will be an action of bestowal. After all, this bestowal did not happen out of my desire to enjoy, but only because I received strength from Above: the sense of importance and the ability. The Creator did all this through me: He robed in me and carried this action out. This is pure benefit called similarity to Him and adhesion.

And let the feeling remain as bad as it was. I do not ask to have it corrected. This will protect me from adding my egoism to a spiritual action. For this reason, as you continue going forward, the animal inside you will keep feeling worse, but at the same time, the man in you will keep feeling better because you are able to do actions of bestowal over all these unpleasant feelings. So you divide in two parts.
[76523]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What we did in the workshop is actually working against the ego. But as time passes the importance of this work seems to fade. How can we constantly see the importance of this group work?

Answer: All our study is based only on the annulment of our ego, to start feeling ourselves as integral, and in this integrality, to give the opportunity for the Creator to be revealed, to express our desire for that, and to be happy that you give Him this opportunity. The next stage is adhesion. This is how our study session and every workshop should end. We can have the workshop for hours and include many more activities, but in the meantime we will focus on this.

On the whole, this is the basic pattern according to which we should behave. It’s needed only in order to feel that we exit ourselves in some way. Then, after we begin to feel the Light that fills everything, the study becomes practical. We begin to see and to feel it inside us in different changes of form. Then we begin to notice it according to the intensity, the direction, the color, the attributes, and the feelings. At this point we have already started the formation of our vessel. But this is the first stage.

Everything that involves the ego is constantly growing, and if we later see that dealing with it is less important, it’s because we don’t deal with it. We will have such workshops together and make them part of our daily study. The time has come for us to include them.
[76510]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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Question: What is our practical work in attaining the love of friends?

Answer: There are two approaches to everything, the approach of Malchut and the approach of Keter, either from a deficiency or from wholeness.

I can approach the love of friends from blows and deficiencies, from feeling despair of attaining anything by myself, having understood that I need partners. I can’t understand anything by myself and I need the friends to help me understand, to give me power, to spur me. The more I know myself, the more I see clearly that I cannot accomplish anything, that I cannot sustain myself, not in my thoughts and not in the right feelings that are necessary for attaining spirituality. There is nothing spiritual in a person except for this point, and this point cannot provide any filling. So I begin to realize that all my abilities, my whole vessel, my capacity, and my power, are revealed only as a result of connecting with others.

After all, what can a single cell do in a person’s body? A person discovers that no spiritual power, neither the power of reason nor will power can be sustained and have a hold in him, because a power can only exist and have a hold in the connection among foreign desires. This revelation leaves him no choice but to look for a connection with others.

It is a very long way, because this is advancing by the way of suffering. But there is another way, the “way of the Torah.” Following the way of the Torah a person knows in advance that he must connect with others; he is told that connection is for his own good, and he is given different examples, just like a child. Imagine that a small child was allowed to do whatever he wanted to, how much suffering and how many blows would this poor child have to experience in order to find the right way in life. It would be absolutely terrible.

But the world is built so that a child is surrounded by people who love him, protect him, care for him, explain things to him, don’t allow him to do bad things, and push him towards the good. Thus the child advances. This is a quick and safe way to grow as a human being, and this is what we wish for our children.

It is the same when it comes to spiritual advancement, we can learn everything from nature. Therefore, there is one way for spiritual advancement, except for learning from bad experiences and bitter mistakes. Instead we can learn from a teacher and from books, from the advice of Kabbalists. If we really accept this advice as a law, as operating instructions, (“Torah” comes from the Hebrew root “instruction”), we can advance relatively easily. Eventually, however, a person advances somewhere in the middle, in the way called Derech Eretz, (Middle Way). The ideal way is not only in following the advice of Kabbalists, and it isn’t only by suffering, but between these two ways.

The group can set an example for a person as to what he should do and how to advance. It empowers him, supports him, and pulls him forward. Many don’t understand this or understand it theoretically, but are unable to implement, listen to, and accept it. The repulsion from others is so strong that it hides their common sense and obliges them to look for different excuses and come up with theories for their reluctance to connect. Yet all the work is done only in the group.
[76619]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: When a person starts saying something, I form a certain attitude to it, perhaps, disregard, maybe, hate. How should I respond correctly to the friends’ words?

Answer: If I am in the group, then I am engaged in spiritual work, and that is why I must regard each of my friends as a great sage, as a great Kabbalist, as a representative of the Creator, who is in front of me now. And if he just, so to speak, is saying nonsense, I have to see it as I don’t understand what he says: I don’t understand. What he says is absolutely true, absolutely correct, divine ideas, but I don’t understand them; this is how I should accept and relate to him, not condescendingly, not like to a small child whom I love and so I forgive him, etc., and naturally not with hatred or impatience.

I must treat him as the greatest in my generation. I have to approach everything from below; this is the condition of my being in the group. Only then will I begin to feel that the Creator substituted these phrases on purpose so that I properly formatted myself and directed towards Him, to “there is none else besides Him.”
[76387]
From the Unity Day Around the World 4/22/04, Preparation to the Congress

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By eliminating our own “I” and giving the opportunity for the upper Light to flood everywhere, fill everything, and manifest everywhere, we are bringing enormous joy to the Creator, attaining our purpose, and starting to become equivalent with Him. We overcome our old nature, annul it and become nothing. This is what our spiritual development starts from, as a beginning, as a seed inside a mother who begins to develop it.

Right now we need to think about what pleasure that we bring Him so we would receive delight from that, so that the aspiration to please Him would become our fulfillment.

In this manner, we gradually enter the upper Light. It’s still barely discernible, but we are already figuring out which occurrences in our sensations we will go through in order to begin to reveal Him in action.

If my fulfillment will come from providing a place for the Creator to appear and reveal Himself, from delighting Him, from pleasing Him—then this will be all of my joy. Our work begins with this. From this starting point onward, we find ourselves in a state of “There is none else besides Him,” annulling ourselves and creating an opportunity only for Him to fill all of our feelings, all our thoughts. And indeed, in this case only He fulfills us.

We need to be confident that by moving in this way we’ll gradually start to enter into even greater contact with Him, we will begin to feel more clearly that which fulfills us. Out of nothingness, out of concealment, His properties and His ruling over us will be revealed more and more. We will begin to feel how desires and thoughts are created inside us. And we will go along with these desires and thoughts, understanding that everything comes from Him, and agree with it. The main thing is to show and reveal the Creator within us more and more through our common unity, through everyone in the world. We’ll try to bring up the whole world toward this state. And we’re confident that we’ll achieve this.
[76350]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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The Creator is not attained without a group. On the other hand, a group without the Creator is not a group, but “a seat of the scornful.” So I, the group, and the Creator make up one whole. This is what is meant by “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are One.”

The Torah is the force that welds us into a group if we want to unite in spite of the repelling force. So the Giving of the Torah and mutual guarantee are connected. After all, mutual guarantee by itself is impossible. We don’t implement it but demand that it be implemented. This is called “the miracle of the exodus from Egypt.” We only participate in it; the changes are not performed by our power, but only according to our desire.

Our job is to want so badly, as much as we possibly can, and then the answer comes. At the same time we are already making the “golden calf,” like in the time of the Giving of the Torah. It happens, but we don’t forget to cry out! We have to be prepared and to demand the maximum, as much as we can. To demand and not to think about what will happen later. A general demand is required here. Then we will receive the power of unity, and if our egoism rises the next moment, as the system is programmed, it isn’t our problem.

Our collective problem is to demand the correction of the egoism that is given to us now, only that, and no more. A person is assessed according to the current circumstances. We must only feel what is necessary as much as we can in our readiness to attack.
[76357]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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Lecture 1: Talk in Colombia

Lecture 2: Group and Spiritual Development 

Lecture 3: Conversations from Colombia

Lecture 4: Conversations from Colombia

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Question: How can I prepare for a workshop correctly? What do I, as a participant, pass to the whole group during the workshop?

Answer: As a leader, I “throw out” a question, or an idea, or a state. We should discuss this state.

Everyone should think about what he would say about this state, and how he will complement, not repeat, but add to what has been said so it becomes a joint whole opinion on the given topic.

Question: What should I watch out for at the workshops? What is not allowed to say?

Answer: It’s not allowed to say negative things, but only positive things.

In general, the whole convention is based on the fact that we rise above all our negative issues: personal, group, and world. We think only about unity and live only by this. That is why we don’t touch any problems. We will mention them a little bit at the lectures, but the workshop is built only on ascent.

We talk only about the degree to which we have to rise. We imagine it; we constantly try to adapt to it. Cancelling ourselves, by the connection between us, we try to feel what this higher degree is, the Light that surrounds us, what quality this is, etc. That is, in no way you should fall below the level to which we want to ascend.

Question: How can we find out whether the workshop was successful or not?

Answer: The workshop was successful if people leave it with the feeling that they have obtained the most important thing.

Question: What can individuals or groups who connect with us virtually do during the workshops?

Answer: They should participate with us in the workshops.

He, who is sitting alone in front of the computer, will feel our atmosphere. He will listen to the focus group; we will broadcast it specifically for individuals.

As for the groups, they also discuss the same questions that I “throw out” to the groups in front of me. It doesn’t matter for me who is here in front of me or who is in the world.

The groups around the world discuss the topic of the workshop and do the same things as the groups in front of me. If he is alone, he listens to the focus group and seemingly participates together with it.
[76458]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/22/12, Preparation to the Congress

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Question: What exactly is our work in unity?

Answer: I have to yearn for a connection with the text that we study, to want that everything it says to be fulfilled in my connection with the general vessel, with the whole desire. I want to discover all the phenomena The Zohar talks about in my connection with the group.

The Zohar talks about the still, vegetative, and animate levels of the desire, nothing more. So there, it speaks about the sages, land, trees, animals, and donkeys—everything applies to the four phases of desire. We shouldn’t be distracted from this internal meaning and imagine an external picture.

Even if it “diverts” us, we have to hold on to the internality as hard as we can, and we always keep this struggle inside us with mixed success. The main thing is to try, which means that you are performing corrections and raising the internality over the externality, raising it higher and higher.

These are the greatest corrections, which only we can perform as the lowest level of the system. Until now no one could do that, not even the great Kabbalists of the past. We, in our generation, perform this most important work by raising the internality over the externality at the base of the system.
[76319]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/12, The Zohar

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