Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

To Keep People From Leaving Lectures

938.05Question: What is your reaction to the fact that ten minutes into a lecture a couple of people may walk out, and twenty minutes later another couple of people leave?

Answer: It does not bother me at all. I know there are not many people who want to listen to Kabbalah. This requires special development, rising above one’s habits.

A person must be free internally. And if he is constrained within his narrow framework, attachments, and education, then of course he leaves. In particular, I know this even from my relatives.

Question: Still, what advice would you give to a teacher if people leave his lecture?

Answer: At the very beginning of the lesson you can say: “If it is not clear to you, if it is unpleasant for you, you can safely leave. I give you permission.” By doing this, on the contrary, you will loosen the situation. And they will feel close, they will understand you.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/14/20

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Contact Of Hearts

527.02Question: You can listen to another person in order to get information or for the purpose of empathy and understanding the other person. What does it mean to “hear” from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: From the point of view of Kabbalah, this is the contact of hearts, when I want to feel what my friend is feeling. Listening and feeling are two different things. When I feel another, I don’t need his words, I just “drink” everything that is in him, and it enters into me and fills me. And listening is just like listening to a radio.

If I listen to a friend as a Kabbalist, I do it for a specific purpose: so that my attention would help me now connect with my friend and have common feelings, thoughts, desires, and aspirations appearing between us. Then we will work together on one common goal to which we strive, to reveal the Creator.

Question: In integral education courses, we usually sit in a circle and discuss a given topic. During that time, each expresses his opinion, and the rest listen. How can I hear another?

Answer: You have to enter this person and feel that you have some common spiritual and life goals with him. Then it will work.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/14/20

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Can Your Students Hear You?

938.04Question: The process of comprehension of information is very time consuming. And if you are also listened to in translation, as by your students for example, how realistic is it to hear you? After all, this information passes through the translator. Do you think you are being heard?

Answer: I hope they hear. The rest depends not on how much they hear, but how much they follow the guidelines.

In Kabbalah, you may not hear much or even understand the language at all. The main thing is that you really want to understand the upper purpose that we are talking about. And then this desire opens a channel for you to connect with the upper force, and you will begin to hear.

It all depends on your desire only.

Question: So hearing is not at all what we understand in our material sense organs?

Answer: Of course!
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/14/20

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People As Far Away As East From West

551Question: Western people are subject to a lot of psychological pressure and stress. They cannot concentrate on anything for a long time, unlike Eastern people.

Recently, special meditation practices have been developed for Westerners, which involve a large number of actions. A person does not just sit and concentrate on one thing, as in the Indian teachings, but on the contrary, performs many actions to calm down.

Do you think Westerners should practice meditation?

Answer: I do not think this will help much because Westerners and Easterners have completely different psychological models, personalities with different goals. What is created in Western society can only be applied there. Neither the Native Americans, nor the Indians of Asia, nor the Africans can have this.

It is possible that something Western can be, somehow, applied in Russia, but also here we see that this lasts only in a special group of the population that is similar in its level of intelligence and mentality to the West.

In principle, each continent has its own internal prerequisite, which method of attitude to the world, to the development of itself and society is chosen by the population. Europeans are Europeans, North Americans are North Americans, although, in principle, they are the same Europeans who managed to suppress the culture of the Native Americans.

South America is South America because the psychology of the indigenous peoples there dominates. When you come to one of the South American countries, you immediately understand that this is a special world. It is the same in Asia and Africa.

You cannot make one type of person into another. The only thing we can do is leave everyone with their own perception of the world and lead them to understand the need for the proper integration among all. At the same time, everyone remains in their own culture, as it was once said in the Soviet Union: “national in form, but socialist in content.”

It is the same here. The content should be Kabbalistic. This is an aspiration to a common world, to connection, kindness, and love but in the form in which a person understands the language of nature, and can correctly understand others.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/27/20

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Interaction Of A Lecturer With An Audience

269Question: Let’s suppose people are suffering from being lonely and you are invited to give a lecture on how to get out of this state. Should you know everything about this subject before talking about it?

Answer: I will tell them that a person exists one-on-one with his soul, with his requests. He comes into this world and leaves it alone. And the thing he can get in this world, he will not get anywhere else. This is why our world is so important.

And loneliness is given to us so that we understand ourselves more, to feel this world through it, etc. That is, I would praise the quality of loneliness and explain how to use it correctly.

Question: Is it better to prepare for a performance alone or as a team?

Answer: It’s better in a team of course. You are going to speak in front of a big audience after all, and advice from many is a desirable thing in this case.

Question: Do you think it is imperative to rehearse your performance?

Answer: No. But I used to sketch out several sentences for myself, often two or three lines.

Question: How can you win the audience over?

Answer: Show them that they are very important to you, you are not indifferent, and you want to tell them something useful for them. Show a little warmth.

Question: What is the best way to end the performance?

Answer: By the fact that only good lies ahead. This is very important for a person.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/14/20

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Principles Of Effective Learning

283.01Remark: There are several principles of effective teaching.

First, it takes time to grasp the practice of a new skill or craft. It is said it takes at least 10 years to become a specialist.

My Comment: Yes. It is even longer in Kabbalah. Knowledge cannot be acquired without effort.

Remark: Second, you need constant access to the best teachers.

My Comment: For this we have our sources instead. Since the death of my great teacher Rabash, I do not see who can replace him. It is impossible. He was the last of the Mohicans, and now we are moving toward complete correction according to his method.

Remark: I meant that today, thanks to the Internet, you can learn from the best teachers.

My Comment: This is not the point. There are simply no teachers on the level of Rabash in the world.

Remark: Another important principle is the visual assimilation of information. They say that 50 to 90% of the brain’s resources use visual perception. But you rarely use tools like presentations or even blueprints in lectures.

My Comment: The point is that spiritual states cannot be represented graphically. Therefore, they are almost never used in Kabbalah.

There was a period when many new students came to me, and literally in every lesson I drew, sketched, and depicted for them. But they have moved forward and they do not need these blueprints today. They perceive them internally, speculatively.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/24/20

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A New Page Every Day

219.01Question: It is generally believed that at the beginning of each session, it is important to briefly repeat what was said in the previous session. Why don’t you do this?

Answer: Because I don’t want a person to start a new page by repeating the past from the old page. He does not need that. He needs to come up empty. Empty!

In Kabbalah, it is not like in all other methods where they first repeat previous material and then go further. We start every day anew.

Sometimes it happens that we did not finish a topic for some reason. Then we might repeat a little. But in general, no. It is said about this: “Every day will be as new in your eyes.”

Remark: In conventional methods, in order to understand that students have memorized the material, it is very effective to have surveys, tests, exercises. You never check knowledge, you do not conduct tests or exams.

My Comment: I don’t want to force students to memorize. I want them to just feel that they have to change internally. Can I run tests on their internal changes?

Remark: Sometimes you give homework, but you never check it.

My Comment: What for? I believe that if a person wants to be my student, he must constantly think about what he heard from the teacher.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/24/20

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Information Is A Message

254.02Question: Any speech addressed to several listeners can be considered a public speech. It can be informative, entertaining, or promotional. Which of these can your daily lessons be related to? You do not just transmit information like at a university.

Answer: On one hand, my lessons are public performances because representatives of all nations, professions, and strata of different countries from all continents connect to them.

On the other hand, these are lectures because during a lesson we perform analysis of material with questions and answers. Usually, the lecture is held on a specific topic, which is divided into several small topics of interest to Kabbalah students.

Any information passes through a person’s desires and thus forms and changes him. My task is precisely for a person, by working on himself, to begin to change.

Question: But are you interested in him knowing the subject?

Answer: Sure. This is the most important thing. I teach not for gaining huge knowledge but quality of perception. The result depends on the person. And I must give everything I can in the form closest to correct perception.

Question: Does it make a difference whether one is listening to your lectures live or recorded?

Answer: It all depends on the perceiver. When reading books or watching recorded movies we can cry, laugh, worry. They affect us perhaps even more than scenes from real life.

Question: Indeed, a book was written a few hundred years ago and now a person reads, experiences it, and even cries. Is there some kind of energy in the book?

Answer: It is information, it is energy, it is a message!

Question: But when this happens online, does nothing really change? Let’s say we are talking now and someone will listen to our conversation in a week. Does it have the same effect?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. This information is in the air, and those who connect to it perceive it as if we are talking to them today.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/14/20

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In The World Of Infinity

537We do not have any attainment in the world of Infinity because all our attainment is possible only in the place that has an end. The sensation comes only at the border where everything ends. Therefore, in the state of infinity, we cannot perceive or understand anything.

It is as if I were thrown into the open cosmos and there is nothing but darkness, not a single ray of light, and it is not clear where the top, bottom, right, or left are. I do not understand anything, I am spinning in zero gravity and I do not feel where I am or what is happening to me. This is called the world of infinity.

The central point in the world of infinity is the point where everything ends: both desire and light. It is like a black hole.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/20,  Baal HaSulam, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Envy Increases Wisdom

629.3Question: What does the expression of the sages “Envy increases wisdom” mean? What is it about?

Answer: It means that when I look at the sages, my envy of them pushes me toward studying and learning in order to become like them.

It is written that “envy, lust, and honor take a person out of this world,” that is, elevate him to a higher degree than the one at which he is now.

Remark: Aristotle noted that people mostly envy those who are close to them in time, place, age, and fame.

My Comment: Naturally, after all, I cannot envy those who lived a few thousand years ago.

I must have some common levels of understanding and feelings with a person I envy. Julius Caesar or Tamerlane are too far away and incomprehensible to me. I have to imagine the object of envy, understand what I would feel in his or her place, and then I can envy.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/7/20

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