Question: What actions are not permitted in and will not be tolerated by an integral learning group? For example, in a psychotherapy group, physical violence is forbidden. Are there any such limitations in a group of integral upbringing?

Answer: I have not encountered any, so I do not think there are any. I assume that expressions of negative energy are possible, but possibly in a clouded form.

I think that everyone will forgive them, and even the victims will be forgiving if the given behavior leads to the realization of evil and further correction. This happens between people.

We begin with a very low level, the egoism, habits and philosophies acquired from our past society. Everything there is in it and is still subject to correction. There is nothing that can be done here.

That is not a reason to expel a person from a group. I think the group will understand if there is an objective reason. Sometimes, people fall back into drugs, alcoholism, and so forth.

The only thing we try to do is to make sure that there are equal relationships in the group. In other words, there needs to be the least possible “animal” relationships because we primarily want to elevate the group spiritually. There needs to be the least possibility of sexual relationships, especially accidental ones. It is, of course, all right when people find each other, like each other, and really intend to connect, but this also introduces a certain amount of dissonance.

At first, I would create groups for men and women together, and then I would separate them for some time because the method of unity is still different for men and women. Then, once they are able to rise above them, they no longer see the gender, but they see something common instead. This is not at all a simple level. Imagine: A person needs to rise above his nature, his natural instincts, his sexual drive, his very basic foundation.

However, once he rises, these boundaries literally can disappear. I say “can” because I have not yet observed it. I think that, in the end, it can be a mixed group once again going forward.
[70908]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: We have achieved a certain power at the Arava convention. How can we use it to help every one of us to raise their inner bar? How do we keep this spirit so we can advance and for everyone to make an inner effort?

Answer: There are three conventions before us: in Lithuania, Brazil, and the US. We are speaking about adjacent events, which will take place within a two month period and will concentrate on one topic: our unity and mass dissemination, which comes from it. In other words: internal and external mutual guarantee.

From now on we must help with the right organization of these conventions, so they would not turn into “events of local significance” as we strengthen the connection with the degree we have achieved in the Arava. A regional approach is not enough; every convention must be universal: Everyone sits in front of the screen; everyone participates in the conventions and advances. Then these conventions will help us all rise to a new degree together.

This cannot be done in turns; we cannot allow ourselves to take turns playing with a toy, like children do. This will harm us. All the groups were connected to us during the Arava convention: we need to continue this way.

The program of any convention pertains to everyone without exception, and for this reason all our groups, all our friends from around the world, must do everything in their power to make every convention as powerful as possible. This pertains to external forms, and mainly the inner essence and preparation for the action. A person must enter the convention one hundred percent prepared, so full that adding a drop becomes impossible. This pertains to all the participants, no matter where they are.

Everyone must receive the content and schedule of the convention together with the preparation materials ahead of time before every convention. A person must strive and aspire towards it; we do not have other methods of advancement.

The program of the convention must be well planned to avoid listening to the same thing several lessons in a row. You must hear new things, and I still have things to tell you, but in reality the only way you will hear something new is if you will be ready for it. Only then will I be able to uncover more and more, due to your union and your new desire.

I really hope that you will become serious about it. This refers to common work; the responsibility is not limited to the organizers and physical participants. There were hundreds of thousands of people with us in the Arava; It is a great power.

So, this week we will repeat materials from the Arava Convention, and then we will move on to a very fast and intensive preparation for the convention in Lithuania. Moreover, we need to prepare a complete program from the beginning of the convention in Lithuanian through the end of the convention in New York, including my meetings with the Columbia and Chile groups, as well as the convention in Brazil.

There will be an enormous amount of hours, which are an incredible opportunity to break forward. Everything depends on the preparation.
[71105]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: After the Arava Convention, we are returning to our groups. What would you suggest in order to strengthen the connection we attained even further?

Answer: We need to carefully consider what took place at the convention, the feeling generated there. If we watch everything that happened over and over again, we might be able to feel those things once more, to relive them, in order to proceed forward with them. Most important is not to descend from that level, to realize that the obstacles are particularly designed for us to ascend. We can’t spend our whole life being at a convention, that doesn’t do us any good. It is no coincidence that everything is arranged so that now, after the convention, we can include in the degree that we attained all the rest of the masses who couldn’t participate in it, who couldn’t be inspired themselves.

We are situated at the fourth degree of sensitivity of matter (material desire), at the speaking degree. The animate, vegetative, and inanimate now need to join that same degree in order to build this degree in its complete form. This is called “obstacles,” coming from all of humanity, meaning from the animate, vegetative, and inanimate degrees. They have to bring us the complete comprehension of the progress we have attained and we must view these obstacles as “help against him.”

Overcoming these obstacles can be divided into two stages:

1. I try to constantly remain in the perception of reality that other than the group, nothing exists. There is a system, I observe it, and through it I view the world. This system is the group, and everything taking place in this world is only the result of the quality of connection among us. Hence, I want to try to constantly remain in this perception. That’s because it’s true, it’s correct. The more we try to feel it, we will see that truly, that is how the world is governed.

2. I can maintain that to the extent I ensure that everyone is a part of it, all the friends. Here, there should be mutual concern. If I am concerned for them, I receive the concern from them, and then I don’t exit the perception of the system.

That means, I should constantly maintain myself viewing the world and feeling the world through the prism of the group, accordingly regarding all my parts, all my friends, in order for that perception not to dissipate from them either: for us all to be together in such a perception of the world. If I want to maintain this form and if I am concerned for them, I receive the Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) from them. And this means that I sentence myself and the entire world to a scale of merit.

That’s actually a person’s point of scrutiny and the point of choice. For now, that’s how it’s becoming clear to us. If I can’t scrutinize anything with such an approach, I shouldn’t go out to the world. We should maintain it as much as possible. Going out to the world, other than through this system, eventually causes us problems, collapse, confusion, unpleasantness, until death. All the troubles come only from our suddenly ceasing to see the single, unified system, even minimally. Parting with it is death, that is, the lack of connection between its parts plunges us into spiritual oblivion.
[71008]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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Question: How do I look at the world through the group?

Answer: Our problem is that we cannot convey our feelings to one another, and this is a matter of feeling.

Just imagine: There is nothing but the desire. We study that the Creator created a desire, the four phases of the Direct Light, and then it was drawn downward and shattered. This is how “this world” was created. What is this world? It is what the desire feels in its shattered, separated, opposite parts that hate one another.

It is the same desire, just shattered. The inanimate, vegetative, and animate, and human levels that we feel here in our reality are the same shattered desire that feels this way. The “corporeal matter” is the desire that has the instinctive desire in order to receive. Therefore, we should have a stabilized realistic perception of reality and not a false one. The point is not that it is imaginary or not imaginary. If I know that it is imaginary, then it is okay. The main thing is that I don’t live in the illusion of the external world.

We feel the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human levels and we feel them in their shattered form. This is reality on the lowest level. Now we have to start collecting all these things in our perception and find the system that connects all of them. This is the system of the upper Providence, the goal, the process, and the trend. This is our work: to make efforts like a child, who through his efforts wants to understand the reality he is living in. This is the whole process we go through.

In this “every man shall help his friend.” We should support one another. This support is sometimes felt as negative and sometimes as positive. The main thing is the perception of reality, to be aware that everything that I feel, I feel in my senses, in my desire. My desire includes the parts of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human and so I feel reality this way.

If I begin to correct myself, to connect it all into one, I feel that reality begins to take on a more unified form. The moment I manage to connect these parts just a little, I begin to feel the power that operates them, which is called the “Creator.” If they are connected just a little, in a minimal way I already begin to feel the power that moves the system, which is Godliness, the upper force.

Then I begin to see how I relate to it through all of reality and how through reality I can bring this reality to connect. Then I understand the idea of the group most clearly.

On the level of the speaking are the most active parts that can share the same thoughts I have. I feel separated from them and at the same time we can work on our unity. It is as if there are other conscious parts beside myself who are aware that they should connect. We should work together against our mutual ego in order to connect. But if we connect ourselves, the parts that are distant and dispersed in my field of vision, if we begin to connect a little, everything else—the animate, vegetative and inanimate—also come along.

The main thing is to connect to the group. These are parts that are also ready to be with me in the same general system, in my perception, who also share my ideas and my feelings. Of course there is a great rejecting force among us, but we understand that this rejecting force is the corruptions in the system, which we must overcome. We should use them and by them we should get closer. By that we correct the whole thickness of the system, on the levels of the inanimate, the vegetative and the animate—so that it will all be connected.

This means that the negative relations among us are clearly what we should correct in order to be one, the one mechanism. Then I relate to these things with love and understanding and good will. It is like symptoms of an illness, that I should only pay attention to, and together with everyone else, with all the parts that share my thoughts, to start treating them. We should understand that there is no more than that, and nothing else will suddenly become clear. We will discover that nothing is revealed except the relations among us, and that all the rest of the world is only a result of what will happen among us. There are crises, and there is helplessness, there are great problems and all this is because we are not constantly connected to the extent that we can be connected.

If we constantly keep the connection among us according to the conditions that are revealed in the system, the world will advance in a really nice form of “I shall hasten it.” If we cannot, we will be behind in the process of development, the world will suffer more and we will suffer and it will hate us and blame us for all the troubles it is feeling, and rightly so.

So we should continually reinforce the form we’ve reached and by that express our mutual guarantee. I should worry not about being dependent on others, but on the fact that everyone depends on my worrying about them. There are two levels in this partnership:

1. I know that I depend on them and that I will advance if they will hold me and give me power.
2. They will give me power, they will wake up, they will be active and ready to the extent that I worry about them. This is called tipping the scales in my favor and in favor of the whole world. If I bestow upon them, the more I bestow upon them the more they will be in this process.

So I cannot say; “It’s their fault that I don’t wake up and that I forgot and have drawn away from correction, from the path of correction,” but: “I didn’t worry about them and so I didn’t feel the cooperation on their part.”

So immediately after having reached such a special level of connection—we should now continue seeing this system and the mutual worry for mutual connection, for mutual guarantee. Mutual guarantee is the main thing. Everyone is responsible for the whole system. It is like Baal HaSulam says, if someone falls from this, to this extent the system isn’t whole anymore and is weakened and the others cannot fulfill their role as they should.
[71003]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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Question: Is the level we’ve reached in the convention the credit we should work for, or is it the result of our previous efforts?

Answer: There are those who received it as a payment and there are those who received it as a down payment. Everyone has both aspects to some extent. Much of what we have received is in order to fulfill from now onward, like a down payment. We were given the opportunity to feel something in the unity, in the connection. We were given different special things from Heaven on purpose, and thanks to them we felt new phenomena in the connection among us. We should understand that this is a real gift. Now we have to process this gift internally and to fulfill it.

I personally see it more as credit for the future that we should fulfill now. I don’t underestimate all our exertion, but according to the state we were in, we didn’t deserve it. We received this credit because we made efforts, but we received it not as a payment, but as a down payment, with which we should now work.
[71000]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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There are two feelings simultaneously getting along together inside of a desire to enjoy: above reason and inside reason. Inside reason, I develop the perception of the vessel, desires, and above reason, the perception of Light.

I join the whole world to this desire and I do not separate this world from the spiritual one. I perceive everything as one whole and I relate it to matter, which is impressed by the Creator. I need to feel it with my matter, so that the whole of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, which I now feel, and which will yet be revealed to me in all of the upper world, all of this belongs to me, my vessel, my matter, my Malchut.

While the Light—the Creator’s actions, the upper force, fulfilling, bringing to life, and controlling—remains above the perception of my vessel. However, all of this is also attained inside of me and is not left somewhere high up there in the unknown.

“A judge has no more than what his eyes see.” We only talk about matter and form clothed in matter. Matter is the desire of the whole of humanity (it is not important, whether it understands it yet or not), and of all of the upper worlds as well. While the form clothed in matter is the Light filling the desire or the quality of bestowal clothed in the quality of receiving.

I relate to the quality of bestowal as much higher above reason as possible. I want for it to become manifested in me from the highest possible level of faith “above reason” acting in my matter, which must be clarified as accurately as possible “inside reason.”

However, both of these actions are inside of me and there is nothing else besides this: the matter and the form. Matter is the desire to enjoy, while the form, which it takes on, is the form of bestowal. I relate to the first one inside reason, while I relate to the latter one above reason.
[70807]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 87: As long as one has not been awarded the complete, clear, and absolute attainment, love is completely beyond one’s ability, since it depends on the understanding of the heart, and no labor or coercion will help here.

Obviously, what you are told and what you think is not enough. Sometimes, a person imagines that he has already attained love and infinity. It happens to everybody. How can we tell such illusions from reality? How can we check whether it is in fact a spiritual revelation?

Revelation means that a person has obtained the property of bestowal. He checks himself and acknowledges his love for the created beings and his group; he sees that he attains the Creator (that is, the property of bestowal “clothed” in him) from within, due to the general interconnection between his friends. Hence, he feels that he rises above his egoism, the receiving desire, by staying in touch with it, but at the same time being outside of it.

At this time, he is comprised of two parts:

• the previous body: egoism, the desire for pleasures;
• the new body: the desire to bestow that includes the power of giving, which eventually becomes his soul. He lives in it and wants to expand it.

Both parts exist as one and cannot live without each other. They can be compared to dumbbells: A person feels that he is torn between its two parts, two spheres, and brings them into balance. At first, step by step, he annuls one of these two parts and enhances the other. As a result, additional power is being given to the left part; it becomes heavier and triggers an adequate enhancement of bestowal. As a result, the magnitude of both parts grows, and a person advances as if stepping in turn on each foot: The desire grows on the left side and bestowal develops on the right side.

These efforts lead to revelation that occurs in the middle, thanks to the “thickness” (Aviut) and purity (Zakut) of the desire. Besides, a person understands that in order to reveal anything, he needs its lower part—his egoistic desire, resistance. He starts to value resistance since with its help he connects his Aviut with the desire to bestow and from the two layers creates a screen (Masach), on which spiritual images appear.
[69404]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Question: Why do we speak only about the feeling of deficiency? Why do we forget what is expected at the end of the process, about the benefits we will reap?

Answer: In other words: “What will I get from all this?”

Actually, this is also true: We have to increase the importance of bestowal in our eyes. It is called “Lo Lishma” (for oneself). Because on one hand, I want to reach the goal, absolute bestowal, in which my “self” will dissolve leaving no traces, and on the other hand, where can I get fuel for that? How can I make even one step towards that which simply annuls me?

Therefore, we should nevertheless imagine something related to receiving. We cannot advance without it. So lie to yourself, but as if to a third party, as if you are lying to someone else. “Yes, I am advancing towards selfless bestowal, I will have nothing, I don’t need anything, I only want to be incorporated in others, to love others without any consideration of myself, without any benefit for myself…. But on the other hand, I will feel wonderful, I will attain the spiritual world, eternity, and perfection.”

Lie to yourself so as not to remain powerless. And it isn’t really a lie because the Creator is good and benevolent and the goal of creation is pleasure. But it is pleasure in such desires that do not seem attractive at all today.

Besides, as Baal HaSulam says, we should keep the balance between the force of reception and the force of bestowal. I should give as much as I receive. By doing so I bring all of nature to balance and this balance is the healthiest state. It is about our health, about the ecology, as well as about human society and family life. Instead of getting divorced, people will live together in peace and raise children. A person will rise above his short life and will see the whole infinite process, the great path, part of which he is travelling now.

When you reach balance with nature, your eyes open and you see everything. So start balancing yourself now, look for the balance between reception and bestowal with yourself, with the friends, with the family, and with the world. This is because you are discovering one of the 125 degrees, the lowest degree, the zero level.

All our history, all our evolution, brings us to the state in which the imbalance is revealed openly. Everything may be expected in the future: plagues, wars, and so on. It is all meant to show you how imbalanced you are. Many scientists are already talking about the need for balance (homeostasis).

So balance yourself in the present state, and you will rise to the next degree. There again you will have to balance things. Eventually you will see that all this is one complex, nature, the Creator, one force. Then it will be easier to reach balance with it. This is all our work.

So whoever wants to be healthy, satisfied, and happy should establish balance.
[69437]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/2012, “The Peace”

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We have come back from the convention in the Arava desert, where we rose to a very high level and began to feel the real essence of the group. From now on, we can look at the whole world, all of reality, all of life through this group, so everything taking place in this world will be a result, an imprint of our connection with one another.

In reality, Kabbalah says that first there was a single reality, one spiritual system. Then it broke into many parts, which feel that they are separated and do not belong to one another, that they are unconnected.

Next, this sensation of a lack of connection disappears as well and is replaced by the opposite feeling: the desire to use others in every way possible, since they seem completely alien to me, and to mercilessly exploit them for one’s own benefit. Because of this, our desire started being called egoistic.

Accordingly, I began seeing a different reality: Instead of the spiritual one, where everything within my field of vision was connected together and was mine, the world became disconnected, partitioned, fragmented, and threatening to one another. And it was so to such an extent that I began perceiving all these parts as not living in my heart, but as external, felt through vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. It’s as if they are living their own life, separate from me, and therefore I can use them. There is me and there is them. That is how we start relating to one another.

We have to return from this broken state to the sensation that everything assembles together again, connects, grows closer, depends on one another, and connects one with the other. Reality becomes closer to me and enters my feelings, uniting into one whole. Then I begin to see that there is a group of people in it who are close to me in spirit, and in connection to this, are called my friends. Together, we make joint efforts, trying to unite and to really become the image of one man with one heart.

This kind of unity is called mutual guarantee. Like in a human body where all organs are connected together and work in total harmony, we too want to unite our thoughts, hearts, and all our actions so all of this would exist as a single organism, one system.

We see that the whole world is also moving closer to this opinion and understanding, even though it is doing so under the influence of material blows, which are far from the spiritual goal. But we want to help everyone else come closer and turn into our partners in seeing the causes of what is happening, so we would all unite together.

Then we will understand that all of human history is a goal-oriented process, leading us only to unity. As we advance toward unity, we will begin to see that the world was not created of iron and stone, the way it appears today in our five senses, but that it submits to one goal, one process. Everything else is just matter that carries out actions according to one program, which aspires to bring everything back to a single form.

The more we yearn for this program ourselves and desire to become active, involved, sensitive, and useful participants in it, the more we bring our consciousness and involvement to a higher level, thus bringing ourselves and the whole world to unity.
[71037]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “Purpose of Society”

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We do not need to correct our inner nature; I will remain like this no matter what I do with myself. There is no commandment to correct animate qualities; they do not interfere. Instead of the force of repulsion, I need to get the force of connection; that is all. I have to work only on the connecting glue between us, not on myself.

That is why all our work is concentrated in the group, and the direction can be only at connecting our breaking. Any calculations with respect to the person are prohibited. There are plenty of those who sit and eat themselves up: “Who am I, what am I, and why am I like this?” In spiritual work, nobody is interested why you are like that, and the Creator is not interested either!

We all are different parts of one mechanism: one is a cogwheel, the other is an axis, the third is a filter, the fourth is a pump, the fifth is a generator, etc. Everyone remains internally the way he was; we just need to put it all together into one system. And you are sitting there and crying about what is going on inside of your pump; do not worry, it is in perfect order. The whole problem is just that you do not connect it properly with others.

This is exactly the opposite direction of the way the world thinks. That is why all the work lies in achieving love of your neighbor as yourself, the great rule;  you must include everyone into one mechanism, one system.
[70811]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/12, Writings of Rabash

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