Question: What can I do if not only don’t I have the desire to ask for the connection with the friends, but the opposite is true?

Answer: It is a sign that you haven’t prepared yourself. First, you must lower your pride, to subdue yourself to the environment, and to begin feeling that the friends are great people moving forward. While you are somewhere far behind, all alone, like a sleeping baby who was forgotten in his carriage.

Everyone has already moved forward a long way, and you, because of your pride, think that you are so special that you advanced forward by yourself. However, it isn’t so. It is they who moved forward, and you were left behind. First, you must acknowledge this. The detachment from the connection with the environment is the first reason for all the failures.

The problem is that you don’t have a deficiency, that there is no pressure. It is because you are not clarifying what is important. You constantly must make such efforts. If I constantly think about something, it becomes the most important thing for me and I don’t forget it during the study.

Besides, all the groups should work on this in order to awaken in everyone the importance of the spiritual goal. This is called the “mutual guarantee“—when we inspire one another to feel that there is nothing more important than bestowal. However, if everyone is under a kind of general anesthesia, a person cannot go against the power of the whole group, so he, too, falls asleep.

The problem is that you are used to advancing on someone else’s fuel, instead of each spurring others and then receiving from them much more that you have invested. The group should work as an amplifier of the individual passion of every individual desire.

However, I see that everyone is waiting for me to obligate this boat to move by my shouts and pressure. Without it, it is rocking on the waves, waiting to be pushed forward. The moment I stop pressuring, everyone immediately looks at me to see why I left. It is impossible to advance this way.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/12, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society. Meaning, because each person in the world draws his life’s marrow and his livelihood from all the people in the world, he is coerced to serve and care for the well-being of the whole world.

What was clear to Baal HaSulam almost a century ago still is unclear to people today. We have reached such a state in our evolution that we all are dependent on one another in a tight way, directly.

Question: Why is it still unclear?

Answer: See for yourself: Everyone “pulls the blanket” to his side and doesn’t understand that eventually, he is causing himself even greater harm than in any other way.

The entire point is that if I invest in the well-being of the public, I don’t see any self-benefit in it. If I take something from the public, I see a real benefit from it.

However, Baal HaSulam says the opposite: The system is already “closed.” It is “tied up” in a perfect, whole way inside itself. So, if you work for the public, you get a return that is ten times greater, and if you take from the public, your loss is ten times greater. However, we just keep on going, not understanding what is going on.

Question: What conceals the truth from me?

Answer: It is my ego. There is an integral system that is being revealed today. Actually, the system of Ein Sof (Infinity) is being revealed to us, of the Shechina, the vessel of the general soul in which we are all connected.

Up until now,  let’s say until 1995, everyone grew in his private desires for ages, in the root phase and phases one, two, three, and four. Now, a person discovers that having no choice, he is connected to everyone, and everyone is connected to him.

The strings of mutual connection make a great, complicated integral system, and there is even a certain scientific field that studies this. Before, each part was not connected so tightly to the others. It developed individually, and that was the general trend. However, since the 1950’s, we have begun to feel the global trend, and today, everyone has reached his personal limit and only needs to develop in mutual connection with others. There is nothing left but that. This is the trend until the end of correction.

We are still locked within our egoistic desire and want to fill it like before, but this system is not active any more. Before, I used to fill myself as my ego grew, and it took me from one level to another, from the root phase to phase four.

Today, I continue to operate like in the past, but I cannot because I cannot fill myself—my desires don’t develop in the previous direction anymore. From now on, they can develop only in the direction of togetherness (∑), of unity.

This means that even the egoistic benefits, at first sight, are possible only by connection, only by using connection. This is what is being revealed to us these days.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/12, “Peace in the World”

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Question: Kabbalists attribute envy to the qualities that help a person exit this world and enter the spiritual world. Indeed, why should I envy others? After all, everyone is special and everyone is following his own path. Why should the uniqueness of another make me jealous and empower me on my way?

Answer: I evoke the envy, lust, and desire for respect in me on purpose. It isn’t about just any ordinary person who envies the success of others or who is after respect. In this world we envy all kinds of nonsense and really want frivolous things. I, on the contrary, take only what is necessary for living and disregard all the rest. When I have all the basic necessities, I build myself for the spiritual work and in this framework I use tools like envy.

Otherwise, I will have nothing with which to advance. Envy, lust, and respect are the three egoistic approaches, and what can I work on without them inside of me? It’s these three qualities that take me out of this world; it’s like exiting the worlds of BYA into the world of Atzilut.

So if I want to work spiritually, I look at the work of others and annul myself before them. Then I see them as the greatest in our generation: They have advanced far ahead, they have attained the end of correction, and I envy them. If I don’t envy, I am powerless and can’t move. I receive all the powers to advance from my ego. The right advancement with the right intention, which means the form that is dressed in matter is brought to me by the Light while the matter itself by which I ascend is my own ego.

Question: But how can I guard the right intention from the envy?

Answer: It’s according to the envy, the lust, and the desire for respect that the intention is built. You turn the envy to envy for the Creator, the desire for respect to respect for the Creator, the lust for an urge to adhere to Him. Otherwise, what do you correct? What do you build, an airy castle in the clouds?

Question: But still, when I envy, its fire consumes me.

Answer: No, you allow yourself to evoke the envy, the lust, and the desire for respect only after the restriction, when it isn’t for you anymore, but in order to understand, to determine the “work space.” Everything must be under control; otherwise, you mustn’t even start.

In short, try it. Don’t be afraid to fall into envy. Start working on it. You’re lucky if you envy the friends; it’s good. After all, we have no other force to advance. If I lived alone without an environment, I would be like an animal. On the other hand, if the society spurs me and stimulates me by constantly showing me that the friends have what I lack, it helps me advance in life. I just need a special environment that provides me with good examples, which I envy.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/12, “Peace in the World”

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The current egoistic education erases a person’s uniqueness. Movies newspapers, the media, and the Internet all aim at that.

You assume that the Internet helps you keep in touch with others, but the truth is that it helps you be like everyone else. It locks our whole egoistic integral world in itself in the worst way possible, and as a result we are all connected to one another and are all identical.

We must admit that the Internet assists our development and brings us close to the end of correction since it reveals the evil—but in an evil way. We see standard examples through the net and consume a standard meaning. The “virtual machine” duplicates us like parts on the assembly line.

In spirituality it is the opposite; you don’t resemble others in any way. You are absolutely special and no one can intervene. After all we all have different directions; we work on different frequencies, and we don’t meet, don’t touch each other’s qualities. Everyone has ten Sefirot, but they are divided into another ten and then more and more. Eventually everyone makes a huge tangle of interwoven connections, each according to his measure and to his quality. You can resemble another, but you are not equal to him in any way.

Question: But does the environment influence a person in spirituality too?

Answer: There the environment only inspires you to use your uniqueness and nothing more than that. In our world advertising constantly imposes something upon you, while in spirituality the friends only spur you by envy, lust, and the desire for respect and you operate on your own, internally. It is as if they give you a battery, but the engine, the means for perception, is yours.

Question: In our world I also use the desires that are awakened in me by myself, isn’t that so?

Answer: No. Here you are attracted to duplicating an example that is shown to everyone; you are presented with a certain standard and whether you like it or not, you fulfill it by the way you dress, in your behavior, and mainly in your inner perceptions. The example influences you whether you like it or not.

Therefore, we develop the integral education, according to which the example is a “round” system, in which we are all connected to one another. Thus we have to expel all the other examples. Otherwise, we will simply not survive.

Question: But according to the integral education I will also want to be like someone else.

Answer: Everyone needs to be like someone who is more successful. For example, when you engage in bodybuilding in our world, Schwarzenegger is the example you follow and the incentive is the environment that respects him.

You put your desires under the external pressure and fulfill them. In other words, the ego pushes you forward and you sculpt yourself according to the generally accepted model—according to the example of Schwarzenegger. You have been told that you should be like him and you work on yourself in order to equalize your form to his.

On the other hand, in the internal work you fulfill your attributes when you focus them anew from egocentrism outwards. This allows you to use them differently, and to be in contact with those around you. You get an opportunity that you didn’t have before and build something new.

Although the group is homogeneous, you connect to every member by your attributes and these connections are different for everyone. After all, everyone has his own internal structure.

You are told that you have to reach an equivalence of form with the One who bestows. But where is He? You are called to connect with the friends as one man in one heart, but where is the example? What is the standard?

You hear from the environment very clearly: “If you don’t do that, you are worthless.” So what should I do? After all, there are no examples I can follow. You have read each article a thousand times and you still don’t understand anything.

It is all so that you will look for yourself. The environment only challenges you and that’s all. The friends don’t stick posters like those of Schwarzenegger on the wall. There is no actual example and you don’t know what to do. It is a real problem.

So you are constantly searching: “Perhaps this way? Perhaps that way? What does the Creator look like? What is the attribute of bestowal? How can I transcend the mind? I don’t know anything! So let me see and hear something at least!” But no. It is impossible to perceive spirituality in our sensory organs.

This is exactly what “self-fulfillment” is: No one is pressuring you, not even the teacher. During the lesson he can speak openly, but never personally to you—never. It is forbidden to invade a person’s inner world.

Question: Does this means that I have to despair that I don’t find examples?

Answer: Search; don’t give up. The example is in the group, and you will find it if you dedicate yourself to this search. “I have to find it. The Creator’s image is concealed there, among the friends, in the connection among them.” You don’t see it, but if you focus, it will appear like in a three-dimensional picture.

This is your internal work and no one has access to it. Only you build the attitude to what we call a “group.” You enter it and operate there until you find an image, a form, the attribute of bestowal, its limits, its imprint, the impression it leaves.

Question: But is this example concealed from me?

Answer: And how will you see it without an equivalence of form? The Creator is before you. The attribute of bestowal, the upper Light fills everything. If you want an example, bring yourself to the minimal level of compatibility with it, make efforts (this is called a prayer), and He will help you.

Then you will see Him, but through your inner sight, much clearer and “juicier,” than you temporarily feel in all your senses, that penetrates far and deep and is a thousand times clearer than our ordinary sight by which we only see the externality, without learning even the least bit about the internality…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/12, “Peace in the World”

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Question: How can I hold on to the right intention?

Answer: Make efforts with regards to the group, the study, the friends, and the whole world in order to constantly keep the intention. Your intention is like a prisoner that you must constantly guard so that he won’t run away, or like a baby for whom you constantly care.

It takes great efforts. But if you look at the world as an intended outcome by understanding which intentions go into the spiritual account, which do not, then there is hardly anything left of this world.

This is what it looks like from spirituality. It seems that so many things take place on this corporeal planet, so many events, and so many people are active on it, but this is all only to make a person feel despair and confusion by this chase and to recognize that the world is operated by intentions and not by apparent physical actions.

Intention is the desirable outcome of an action or for whom I perform a certain action. But if it’s about an intention, we don’t refer to a simple physical action anymore, but take into account the quality of the action, its internal direction, who it’s aimed at and in whose favor. The immediate intention ties you to the quality of the actions.

The action can be just a desire. I can now sit quietly on the couch with a cigarette and a glass of beer but perform very complicated work internally, by yearning to collect all my thoughts and desires that are now going in different directions and revolving in a closed circle and to focus them in the right direction.

If you look at a person through such a filter, you’ll see what state he is really in. Then you’ll see that he is performing spiritual work. But if you look at the action itself, at how he sits on the couch with a cigarette and a beer, you may think that he is just a bum wasting his time in vain.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/12, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: Different parts of a general mechanism can cause different damage when they are not functioning properly. What parts are critical to society?

Answer: The approach is simple: I am the critical part because all the others are absolutely corrected. There is nothing to think about—only with this point of view can you see the correct picture.

The general system works; it has everything necessary and moves in the right direction. However, “everyone judges according to one’s own flaw,” and as a result, I see an uncorrected world. And I see it not just on television, but in my feelings: The salary is not enough, there is an overdraft in the bank account, health is deteriorating, relationships with people are getting worse, the appliances at home break down…. In short, I feel that I am in a broken world.

I have to say to myself: “This is all because I ‘spin’ incorrectly, meaning I interact incorrectly with other ‘cogwheels.’ The problem is not in politicians and tycoons but only in me.” There is no sense in looking for other problems in the system, attempting to fix other people’s desires and properties. Everything is perfect. The problem is me myself.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/12, “Peace in the World”

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Question: Quite often during our discussions in the integral education groups, we slip into the usual, ordinary state. We begin to compliment one another and so on. How should we escape from such states so that we will not waste our time?

Answer: There has to be a clear plan in front of everyone or a big screen with the text, and you should know that you must flow along its path as if you were in a little, common boat. Imagine that we are in the huge sea and this text is our guide.

Together, we read the same article and its study is a certain step forward on our part. The article is divided into parts or sub-steps. We read one or two sentences and discuss what they say and how they help us unite, rise, and correctly use everything that exists within us. At the same time, the text itself must direct us and give us clues as to what we should do. Essentially, it should play the role of a teacher.
[88134]
From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/2/12

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Question: How can we measure to what extent the Light that Reforms influences us?

Answer: At the moment, it is impossible to accurately measure the influence of the Light since a person doesn’t have the tools to measure it yet. The problem is not with the Light or the upper level but with the person himself.

We may say that a person is influenced by the Light that Reforms to the extent that he yearns for the Light. But a person cannot measure his yearning, although it is his own desire, his efforts, his tension. The reason is that he is constantly in a state of ascents and descents and cannot count these moments and his efforts, neither the ones that he does consciously nor unconsciously.

All this accumulates eventually. It is an accumulative process, as it says “many pennies make a large account,” and when eventually there is a large account a person feels that another portion of the Light that Reforms comes.

The truth is that the Light constantly influences us, but we only feel this influence after a certain portion is filled and attained on our level of sensitivity. Thus it seems to us that the Light comes in portions, while in fact it constantly influences a person.

The Light influences us even when we don’t think about it and develop naturally. The Reshimot (informational genes) emerge one by one, and the Light influences them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fulfilled, and we wouldn’t develop. By the blows of life you become wiser, you understand more, and get closer to bestowal, which means that the Reshimot come out perpetually, and the Surrounding Light operates on them.

But the Light that Reforms is the Light that you yearn for, and you perform special actions so that it will influence you and hasten the natural emergence of the Reshimot and the influence of the Light. Although it is the same action, the difference is that you summon it and demand it and that it doesn’t come by itself.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/12, Writings of Rabash

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During the study you should combine both corporeal and spiritual aspects to your attitude with the material—both feeling and understanding. We have to combine the mind with the feelings and include all the means that we have in the world: our mind, our perception, our ability to analyze and synthesize, which means to summarize and to clarify.

But this doesn’t mean that a person with a great potential to study can penetrate the material more deeply and someone who cannot study will penetrate it less. Everyone will have relatively enough abilities: mind and feeling in order to attain the goal of creation—his own end of correction. By incorporating with others he reaches the general end of correction just like everyone else.

But now it is about the work, the exertion. It doesn’t matter what I leave the lesson with, I also have to try to understand it—I have to understand the inner spiritual meaning by my corporeal mind.

This means that I have to try to feel the phenomena that are not part of me yet: love, bestowal, giving, incorporation in the desires of others, connection, something that is outside me, outside my feelings. I have to exert myself emotionally to be outside myself, out of my skin.

Then I hear what these phenomena are called and how they are explained in the books, about how a Kabbalist connects them in the system and what weight he gives them: what is higher, what is lower, external or internal, what expands in height or in width. Now I have to try and connect to these phenomena, which are not somehow felt inside me, by using my mind. However, even though I don’t feel them, it helps me approach them and hold on to them at least by some means of perception, even though it is logically. Thus, I expand the vessels of my soul.

The more efforts I make in order to connect the phenomena that I don’t feel, the more I expand my ability to perceive them and approach the spiritual feeling. Although I use corporeal means, my exertion determines the whole work. So, no matter how much everyone understands eventually, one can philosophize beautifully about it as if he already understands everything, while another does everything in his power to understand and doesn’t succeed, but the efforts are what count.

You shouldn’t try to be stupid, but the wise aren’t more successful here than others. The advancement isn’t determined by individual actions at all, but only by the exertion itself, both in the feeling and the mind. It makes no difference whether someone was born more emotional or wise, it is only his exertion. The exertions should be without any special tricks, just consistently growing exertion. These are the ones who succeed, as it says: “Everything is found on the outside!”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: Let us say that we are discussing a certain integral system in a group of integral education. I cannot restrain myself; I wish to explain the way I see it, but someone else also wants to express himself at the same time. What should I do in regard to my desire? Should I restrain myself and let the other person speak?

Answer: The way you express yourself does not really matter here because you are beginning to transition to the field of feelings. When you begin to work with them on the level of the integral inner composition, you will see that your feelings and thoughts add together with the others. Suddenly, others begin to express your thoughts and feelings, to the point that you do not really need to speak. It turns out that when you include yourself this way in everyone else, you begin to influence them.

You can reach a state where you will begin to feel and perceive one another without words, without the help of your body since you will perceive and feel like you are inside that system you have created between you. And you will not need any physical, verbal communication. You will feel and perceive like you are together in one system where there is no need to descend through our bodies and discuss things on the corporeal level through physical communication.

In other words, we will feel so strongly that we are together in one desire and mind that we will not feel a need to communicate through our bodies. It is just like a mother feels her child, the way we feel people who are close to us even by their movements, or we simply feel what is happening to them.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/2/12

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