Question: In a few days I will come to the convention where I will meet people whom I have never seen before, who speak different languages, and belong to other cultures. What do I have to convey to them and what do I have to receive from them in order to hold on to the thread that leads into spirituality?

Answer: You have to give each other mutual support, the understanding that if we inspire each other, then we will attain the goal. Don’t count on the Creator or some “kind God.” We see that the whole world cries out to Him, but did this ever help anybody? You can only turn to the group.

When you turn to the group and desire to reveal love and unity among all of you, that will mean that you have revealed the Creator. The Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, or the Temple is the common Kli, the common soul of the group, the nation, or the whole world. It is our unification. The Creator does not exist outside of the creatures. He is called the Creator (Boreh) because you reveal Him (“Come and See,”  Bo–Reh) inside of the common, integral, connected Kli or desire.

With this intention I come to the group or travel to the convention where I want to tell everyone, “Guys, do we want to reveal the Creator? Then where can we see Him? Where is our unity!? How does each one of us inspire and get inspired by the unity between us, meaning from the Creator, from spirituality? Can every person receive such a force from our common unification that he will fortify himself and become included back in it even stronger!?”

This will mean that we have made contact with the Creator. The Creator is our common force, the force that consolidates us!

Say there are ten of us and each one has a force of 100 pounds. Do you think that we have a common force of 100×10, meaning 1000 pounds? That is not so. Because we have united together and canceled our ego in order to come closer and unite, instead of a thousand pounds of force, we have received a million! That’s because we worked against egoism, against hatred for others, and have attained love for everyone. This effort had to go somewhere. We didn’t just add or sum up our pounds because we had to exert a great amount of effort to achieve this.

Suppose we are collecting money for some shared activity in dissemination. I don’t just throw money into the common pot, but I work against my ego and various calculations. If I simply spent that money, I wouldn’t even notice it. But I cannot force myself to pay it to the group, to the common affair. Anything but this! I am ready to burn it, to spend it so tomorrow I won’t even remember where it went, yet I will know that I still did something for my own enjoyment.

But when I give money to the group, it costs me 100 times more, so it’s as if I’m not giving $500, but $50,000! That’s the kind of effort I make. Therefore, if unification is created for the sake of revealing the Creator, mutual bestowal, then inside of it I reveal enormous forces. This isn’t just us “pitching in” to the common fund because besides our personal contributions that fund contains one more additional, “consolidating” component.

There is one more “bonus” or addition to the account whose might is a billion times greater than the sum of the contributions. This is the force that each person receives from the group because it divides into everyone, but does not get any smaller!

That is why we get together at conventions and other meetings: in order to extract that common, “consolidating” component. Each one of us receives it for himself, for his own correction.
[33698]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: What is a group?

Answer: A group is the desire of each one of us to find oneself united with others and the Creator. It is written: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” A group is those who strive to connect with one another for the purpose of revealing the force that fills them in this connection.

“I” is my spiritual movement ahead; it is just this movement, nothing else counts. My “I” can be egoistic, set against: “I do not want to connect,” or on the contrary: “I want to connect.” I only take this into consideration.

A group is all the others who want to be together with the same movements, even though they could possibly be set against. And here we are trying to do this together in order to reveal the Creator in our desire, according to the law of the equivalence of form.

We can never reveal Him any other way, but only as the property that we will create between us. This “tool” of ours will elicit what is happening outside of us. We are creating a detector that discovers the Creator to the extent of the sensitivity that we have attained between us.
[33196]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Question: How do we accelerate our advancement?

Answer: It is very difficult. I know through my own experience. I think the only possibility is through luck

. The mind does not work here, and nothing will help. Here, what is needed is called “good fortune” or luck, “Mazal” in Hebrew.

Or more simply, cancel yourself, turn yourself into a small cogwheel, a mechanism within the group: “I will do everything like my friends say; I do everything they want, with less of my own thoughts.” Take some kind of work and perform it automatically, without activating your feelings or thoughts, just invest yourself in it, and cling to your friends. That helps.

But overall, it is very difficult. Properly incorporating yourself in the group is the passport to success. You do not need anything else. Once you tune yourself into the group, you discover that it is completely corrected, that all the worlds exist in it, and the Creator is inside it.

Your friends do not even feel this, but once you cancel yourself in relation to them, you begin to discover it among them. And suddenly you see: “Holy smoke, where am I? Our world turns out to be the world of Infinity? Where did all the negativity go? There is none of it here! Everything is beautiful, in absolute perfection.”

This is how you see the world once you correct yourself. This is why in Hebrew “world” is “Olam,” from the word “Nehelam” (disappearing). It is relative. Just like the theory of relativity, everything depends on the “user,” the observer.
[33199]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Question: As we progress, we discover tiny, pitiful “selves,” low despicable characters within ourselves. How do we recognize them? And how does the other “self” emerge?

Answer: I discover such a low, unworthy character within only relative to the Creator. As to everything else, my character doesn’t matter.

What do we reveal evil in? Suppose I love to eat. Is it evil, egoism? No, it isn’t! I love to party. Is it good or bad? Is it egoism? No, it isn’t! Egoism surfaces where I must unite with the others in order to reveal the Creator, while I don’t wish to do it. Egoism is the rejection of friends in the group. Therefore, to reveal it is not a simple thing to accomplish; one needs to sweat to come to that.

This is exactly what we stumble on! Whatever gives us pleasure that is not connected to this type of egoism isn’t harmful. But as soon as a problem with egoism, which we need to work on, arises within a group, that’s where it comes to a halt and gets stuck. This is the type of characteristic that must be corrected.

Nothing else needs to be fixed. Keep partying, eating two or three portions during dinner, sleep ten hours a day. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is only your relationship with the friends. Such is the specific and selective way to filter my nature:

• What connects me with the group needs to be corrected.
• What lies outside the relationships within a group and between the groups concerns only myself. One person needs to sleep ten hours, another one needs to eat five meals a day, and so on. It doesn’t matter.

So, egoism can be only between the friends. It can show all its faces only there. This is the only thing to pay attention to. The friends, too, can be evaluated only by how they work among us. But until a person develops such an awareness, such understanding, and hears and accepts it, years may pass. He may hear about it, but still doesn’t adjust internally, register it, or perceive this.
[33202]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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In our work, there should be a clear division of categories:

1. Relationships between the friends in the group itself.

2. Relationships between the groups. We are physically connected within our group, and virtually with the other groups. This difference exists to this day. It won’t disappear until we find the inner connection between us, not virtual, not through the Internet, and not through other channels.

3. A person’s connection to family and the surrounding world.

First of all, we should pay attention to our interconnection in the group. If the group doesn’t achieve the correct interconnection, everything else fails.

Furthermore, we are people with families. Within the group, we should practice the following policy: It is desirable that each of the friends look after the others so that all of them have a normal, comfortable existence. In other words, I should make sure that my friends have decent family relations, as much as it is possible. After all, we live in a transition period, and a husband and wife may not share each other’s interests.

If a person falls into a descent, we must support him. But we should merely support, while he has to take care of himself. If he doesn’t, but rather falls to the hands of his friends: “Do with me as you please” (so to speak), then this is not a true member of the group.

Besides, we must ensure disciplined attendance of the lessons. If anyone has an opportunity, I advise visiting us for a week to see how it is done. An hour and a half before the lesson, students on duty start calling all the others to get them out of bed.

Some have to be personally delivered to the lesson. It can be very difficult to get up, almost impossible. During the time I was my teacher’s student, we had a few students who, before going to bed, tied a rope to their leg and threw the other end over the balcony so I could tug on it until the person woke up.

This kind of reciprocity is simply necessary! And only if a person is adamant, if he writes a statement refusing to comply, then you can leave him alone for a while. Yet later on, still remind him, bring him over, invite him to a dinner, and so forth.

We should understand human nature. A person is as he was made by the Creator. Hence, we should act accordingly.
[33207]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Kabbalah describes sensing desires and the Light that fills them. Their gradual manifestation in relation to us builds spiritual worlds. The first in line is the world of Assiya with it being a small sensation. We perceive our mutual state not as dynamic; it is rather stationary and hence, it is called “still” nature.

Subsequently, we start to slowly realize that the states are mutable. It turns out they have their own dialectics and development. Thus, we transition to the vegetative degree which is characterized by consumption, secretion, and growth. We begin to feel the dynamics, our participation in the process. While sharing the same space with all the other desires (souls) and the Light that fills them, we can already exercise our influence.

Then, we feel the states at the animate level within this space. Now we can act autonomously and move from place to place. A plant, despite the fact that it can grow, is stationary, whereas an animal grows, moves, and bears living offspring. Thereby, we practically reach a condition similar to our world. Suddenly, we start feeling alive, existing in our world, but only in the property of bestowal.

Later on, the time comes for the next property. It unfolds when we learn this entire space so well that we start sensing its entire plan, Nature’s plan, from beginning to end and engage in it. That is the point when we get truly familiar with the primary thought regarded as “the Creator.”

We study all this in the wisdom of Kabbalah. The worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Infinity, all of them are the attainment of the space in which we exist. As we attain the spiritual worlds, our world with its corporeal affairs remains in our perception. It exists until we have reached complete and absolute knowledge, wisdom, and oneness with all desires and the force that fills them. Afterward, when we reach the last level, the world of Infinity, everything in it starts to interconnect and falls together; the space folds up.

And all of this is based on the prayer of the many. This means I never stop at a personal perception of what is happening with me. Having caught myself at the initial, egoistic analysis, I must straighten myself up and place myself in the right position.

To accomplish that, I make a preliminary analysis of any spiritual action: I realize that I am within all the others and that the Creator evokes hate in me, in the group, toward the others on purpose so that I can rise above it and with His help arrange everything correctly and well. I perform a calculation: Why do I need everything to be structured well?

I draw the Creator and evoke Him to appear and reveal Himself, up to a state when there is absolute peace between us, when we are as one man with one heart. We need the Creator not to install peace between us like a mother who is supposed to show up so the children don’t harass each other. He instills quarrels in us so we may call on Him and force Him to reveal Himself among us.

And when we finally achieve peace between us, it signifies that the Creator has really revealed Himself between us. And if we are still experiencing some tensions, it means that we haven’t yet revealed Him enough between us. In this way, we climb the 125 rungs until we fully achieve this.
[33211]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Everything depends upon the environment. It has to make me more sensitive to the challenges that the upper force, which exists between us and motivates each of us toward integral unity, constantly sets before me.

On one hand, I can be very keenly, very perceptually tuned to its finest vibrations. On the other, under the influence of the surrounding environment, the society that I belong to, the group, I can comprehend how to react to its influence correctly. This is how we should act all the time.

The Creator changes me to a certain degree, so I start to feel the environment and myself a little differently, and I harmonize to it accordingly. And then it is He again, then I; His action, my action again. It becomes like ascending using two legs. This is how we move forward by way of the inner attuning of our “instrument” to a dialogue with the Creator.

If we perceive Him correctly, we start working in sync, which is exactly what is regarded as “the work of the Creator” since it is He who works. As to us, we just need to react and tune ourselves in correctly. We don’t have to do anything except to build a correct environment for ourselves: the Creator on one side, the group on the other, and me in the middle, automatically reacting to everything.

I myself cannot influence me, just as I cannot work on myself; hence, what is needed here is the collective prayer. Don’t focus on yourself. Who am I to focus on myself? I cannot do anything with myself, can I? All of our life demonstrates that we ourselves cannot change, no matter what we do.

What we are is what we will be unless we start changing ourselves under the influence of two reasons:

1. The Creator, the integral force that fills all space between us.
2. The group, all the others except for me. They form particles filled with the Creator, inside which I reside.

Essentially, I have to find harmony with the other particles. They are harmonized with each other and the Creator, and only I in relation to them am not in balance, in the correct state, or integrated. This is what a person’s job, his attuning himself to the group, is.

While I am moving closer to it, I start feeling the upper world. I feel the Creator’s presence not somewhere “out there,” but between us. In the void between us, where all these “elementary particles” (our desires) are, I start feeling everyone’s desires, while the Light is between them.

The force that fills us, the integral desire consisting of individual interconnected desires, is called a Kli, vessel, or Malchut. And the Light that is revealed between us in our shared aspirations toward spirituality is what we call the Upper Light or the Creator. That is what we feel, and that is what the upper world is.
[33214]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Question: If the environment doesn’t convince me that bestowal is good and enjoyable, I will never achieve it. However, on the other hand, if I don’t seek bestowal, the environment won’t desire it. How do we break free from this vicious circle?

Answer: We should agree to play a game with each other. Rabash writes about it in his articles about the group and its purpose. Nobody arrived here with a ready-made desire to unite with the others, but we decided that we wished to act that way.

You are complaining that it’s impossible to advance without desire, but if you did have it, you would advance egoistically, in this material world. However, how do you advance transcending this egoistic desire? You need to rise above it, and that is why we make a pact in our environment that we value bestowal above reception.

We understand how it works in theory, but in reality we don’t feel it. Hence, we need to play the game of bestowal which is described as, “I labored and found.” We pretend that the goal is extremely important to us, even though in truth we don’t see any importance in it. We are not deceiving ourselves. We admit it, but say that it doesn’t bother us.

I am immersed in my egoism in this world, but in order to raise myself to the next rung, to ascend into the upper world, I play this game with the friends as if it is vitally important for us to reach this future world, the degree of Bina, love and bestowal. If everyone before me pretends that it is important, I will accept is as truth. Otherwise, we will remain in our ego forever. If I don’t force values upon myself that are more exalted than the ones I have today and don’t accept them above reason, I will never achieve them.

If the environment constantly plays like this for me, this game will eventually become my second nature. However, you don’t want to play it. Instead, do you wish to remain “honest,” without corrupting your heart? Since there is nothing else in the heart except egoism, that’s where you will be stuck!

Yes, I admit that there is only egoism in my heart, but I pretend in order to be above it. I can’t order my heart to feel differently, but I wish to receive a new heart, a different one. Now, I act as if I don’t have this egoistic heart, as if I stepped out of it and started to treat everything solely with bestowal.

I rise above everything I have within. There is some savage being living inside me with whom I don’t wish to deal anymore. Let him suffer there inside me, but I, myself, am moving into another system, another body. The environment will affect me and so will the upper Light. However, I have to pressure myself so I may come to it! I don’t want to hear any arguments; I don’t let such people even come close to me.

We must agree that all of us together are sort of playing, working, for each other. If I don’t do my duty, I weaken everybody, and the harm that returns to me increases manifold. Therefore, I should not fear to meet the conditions of mutual guarantee; otherwise, I will suffer immensely. Arvut (mutual guarantee) is a horrible weapon, a double-edged sword.
[32797]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter No.13

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Question: Sages said that we should expect salvation from the Creator every day, but how do I keep this hype up so as to always feel as if I am about to get a revelation and not let go?

Answer: You should make this anticipation pleasant. A person can think about pleasant things all the time. However, if you get tired of thinking about it, it means you don’t take pleasure in it.

We are made of the desire to enjoy, and if we are enjoying something, we strive for it. If not, we try to get rid of it. Hence, we should do our best to make our thoughts about the revelation of the Creator and the spiritual world sweet and delightful. Then, we won’t be able to stop thinking about it.

I have to constantly tell myself that it brings a fulfillment that will compensate for everything I lack. It will satiate all my desires, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Spiritual revelation is the answer to everything. Then, I won’t forget about it, but always desire it instead. This thought will constantly haunt me in the background of everything else.

If thinking about spirituality is a heavy duty for me, it will certainly take a tremendous effort. However, it isn’t a job. It has to be enjoyable, like a “salve for an exhausted soul.”

After all, you have never before felt the love of friends as a sweet spiritual fulfillment. You simply enjoyed spending time with them. However, imagine that it will bring you to some very exalted, incredibly enjoyable, and fulfilling experience, to an indescribable feeling of peacefulness that you have never felt before, as if you were in tranquil, gentle waters, and then you will start yearning for it.

Obviously, for now, it is an egoistic aspiration, Lo Lishma (not for Her Name), and you simply seek pleasure. However, it still will allow you remain in this thought and, simultaneously, you will start discerning truth and lies, advancing thereby.
[32800]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter No.13

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Question: Why do such notions as unity and mutual guarantee seem to us as flat and lacking any volume?

Answer: This is incorrect. Unity and mutual guarantee are corrections which connect us within the system. They contain Partzufim and Sefirot, worlds and Lights, but we do not see them.

For example, what does unity mean? We are opposite, repelling and hating one another, but we have to rise above our desire and unite in similarity, pushing away our differences. Every one of us has a point which is capable of uniting with others. We connect these points and try to increase their quantity and quality.

In this process we annul ourselves and above it, we reveal our connection and mutual guarantee. We want to create space between these points, but by what means? We create that space by adding Aviut (coarseness) to them because there should be something from Pharaoh.

We treat desires of the still, vegetative, and animate levels as a kind of necessity, but we work with the rest of the desires by connecting them with the points. Being connected with the points, these desires pass Aviut to them and create a place where the revelation occurs.

Then, desires which oppose unity increase, and this causes friction and arguments between the points. Some of them do not want to be together, and others attempt to take control. We have to work with these desires. At first, we have to restrict them, but later, we have to attach them to the points.

Then, the work in three lines begins. We constantly reinforce our unity and, together, we build a place where the system of the worlds and the Creator become revealed. Hence, on top of that dimension, the notions of unity and mutual guarantee include the entire reality, including this world.
[32775]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/2010, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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