Question: How can we become similar to the Creator if we sometimes think that His actions are wrong?

Answer: Not sometimes, but constantly! What good is there in this world? Even the most evil villains can’t bear what’s happening in it. And yet, this world is created by Him.

The fact of the matter is that we regard this world as being a 100% opposite to the Creator. Why? It’s because we are opposite to Him. The Creator shines within us and His Light is absolute goodness. But when the Light falls on our “light-sensitive film,” it makes a negative that is opposite to the original. So, the more Light we receive the greater the darkness becomes, and vice versa. This is the way we see the world.

The Light draws various shapes on the screen of our desire to receive, and all of them are drawn on the negative. They are opposite to the Light. This is how the world is outlined within us.

How can we achieve similarity with the Creator? How out of our oppositeness can we see Him and not an imaginary picture? For that, we have to transform the “frame” and to reverse its contrast range. And if we do it with the first “frame,” we attain the first spiritual degree. Then, we will work with the second, the third, and all subsequent “frames.”

So, the entire Torah correlates with a person and lives within him. Every person is a small world.

This way, it all has to do with the “technology”: how to work internally so as to transform the imaginary darkness into light and the imaginary light into darkness. For this, I need to turn my own properties into their opposite: to transform a negative into a positive. This inner transition is the Torah, the Light that Reforms. This is what I need.

I feel the Creator within me. Even now I perceive Him in the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and in people. Everything around me is the Creator who “translates” Himself for me and copies Himself within me. I only have to decode this picture.

I work not with the world, the friends, or the Creator, but rather with myself, within myself. While doing so, I’m allowed to use the shapes, seemingly external ones, so as to decode the original image.
[99507]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, “A Speech on the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
The Correct Attitude Towards The World
We Ruin Our Own Lives
The Burden Of The Efforts You Haven’t Made

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: What results from integral education workshops?

Answer: People begin to feel each other better and begin to reveal an integrated system that truly binds them together because we are in a system of the forces of nature that connect us. Until now, the principle of this system was, “who is faster, who is better, who is stronger, who is smarter,” and now it is interconnection. Interconnection makes people equal.

Today, you can be smart or rich or special in something, but, still, you do not succeed in life because success—content, happiness, a sense of a result—comes from the right interconnection. We must lead people to this.

They will begin to feel how interconnection, goodwill, a sense of common destiny, and a common movement give a person the fulfillment that makes him want to be in the team.
[100192]
From the KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

Related Material:
A High Salary Does Not Help with Depression
There Is No Harmony Without Integrality
When There Is No Vitality

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Evolution, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Unity, Workshops - 2 Comments →

Question: How would you characterize modern business?

Answer: The issue is that businesses are no longer able to remain as they were before when both the worker and the owner sought to gain and mutually to help each other. They knew that their mutual enterprise would bring them profits. Even if the profits weren’t equal between them, they both still had an interest in it.

Today even though the owner thinks about profit, he no longer receives the same pleasure and fulfillment he once did. This has more to do with the pressure of the environment and the loss of the former interest in work so that today, all in all, the internal fulfillments disappear.

The same thing happens to the employee. He goes around and does what he is asked to do, but he doesn’t feel that the work itself gives him satisfaction. In the past the majority of people were satisfied with their jobs and engaged in them with enthusiasm and passion since people were not as egoistic.

All of us develop in the general stream of humanity according to the growth of the ego that for centuries steadily increased.

A human being is a special “animal” who from generation to generation discovers a new ego. Thus children don’t understand their parents and the parents don’t understand their children. This is something that doesn’t exist with animals. In the world of animals, the development of the ego actually doesn’t exist at all. Compare any animal to what it was a thousand years ago and the difference is not great, whereas human beings understand each other less and less, even in proximate generations.

Moreover, the growth of the ego occurs in the form of sharp increases, exponential growth. From the slow development that lasted thousands of years, the ego suddenly rose sharply during the Middle Ages.

As long as the ego simply rose higher, it was good for everyone, there was a mutual interest to fulfill it and somehow to work with it. But beginning in the 50’s in the previous century, the interest began to fade: we closed space programs, we began to see the crisis in all areas of life, in science, in technology, in the family, in education, and in all areas of human activities. This means that our ego, in general, suddenly became unknown to us. Suddenly we lost the exact direction in life.

The reason for this is that the ego turned into being integral. Instead of growing in a linear fashion, it suddenly became “rounded,” and we don’t understand how to work with it.
[100118]
From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

Related Material:
Integrality That We Cannot Escape
There Is No Harmony Without Integrality
Business In The Integral World

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What is “round” egoism?

Answer: At present, all humanity has become a common globally interconnected system. Our dependence on each other is manifested in everything: in business, culture, communication, politics, and the economy. But we do not know how to work with it because we are small individual egoists. And now, as we are entering this new system, we do not understand its laws because we are transitioning from a linear, discrete system to an analog system.

In a discrete system, everything depends on me, on my actions, and in a mutually closed, interdependent system, little depends on me. It turns out that if I relate linearly, directly, discretely to my enterprise, business, I see myself dependent on many factors, which I cannot calculate.

That is why politicians, economists, and investors get together at all sorts of G8 and G20 summits and cannot find any viable solutions to continue a normal operation of the system. After all, the law, which we suddenly face in our development, became integral.

An analog system is different from a discrete system because all the factors in it are dependent on each other. But we cannot take into account such a volume of data because within ourselves we are not like that; we have not ascended yet to that level. That is why we have lost the reins, the steering wheel, the ability to manage, and the world around us becomes unmanageable; we do not know exactly where we are being carried. There is no clear entrance-exit; there are just some consequences that we have not foreseen. It is very difficult to live in such a world.

That is why it is necessary to think about how we can still adapt to this new state, a new system, in which we suddenly find ourselves. It is the next level of our development, which has never existed in human history. But now it is already a given.
[100114]
From KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

Related Material:
There Is No Harmony Without Integrality
Separated Parts In An Integral System
Which Businesses Will Succeed?

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Egoism, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: What is a harmonious business?

Answer: We can only imagine purely theoretical analog and discrete systems that many of us have learned about in college. But when we find ourselves in the analog system, we feel helpless because we don’t correspond to it on the inside, because in this system one needs to consider the desires, intentions, feelings, and attitudes of everyone around.

We are used to operating like in the army, following orders. This is the way our enterprises, businesses, the education system in schools, and other organizations and systems operate. But today we see that this doesn’t work because apparently a person needs to change in order to suit the integral system.

A person doesn’t change automatically. The external system that he is entering is round, and the person is linear, and in the end, he isn’t able to operate in this new system. He doesn’t understand how to operate within it.

In order to correspond to the integral system, the person must become integral. He must feel like he is a part of the group, meaning at least part of the group where he works. Moreover, he must feel this part internally; in other words, he constantly needs to be changing and be connected with everyone.

He must feel satisfaction from work, which he is not getting now. And he can’t be forced to feel it simply because the past systems suddenly stop working and no longer affect him. The only way to influence him is through the feeling of integration in the team, the common movement, the feeling of community. No matter where he is, no matter the team, he must feel the foundation, the wholesomeness of this system, and his dependence on it and its dependence on him.
[100111]
From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

Related Material:
Integrality That We Cannot Escape
Which Businesses Will Succeed?
Business In The Integral World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Letter 47: Therefore, turn away from all the fictitious dealings, and pay attention to think and to come up with the right inventions to connect your hearts as one heart… and start connecting lovingly to the right extent, and then you will find a taste in it.

Question: What are “fictitious dealings”?

Answer: Fictitious dealings are all sorts of efforts that are not aimed at attaining the spiritual goal. This includes any effort that is above the effort to provide the body with the basic necessities and dedicating everything else to attaining the goal.

Any effort that is even a little bit off this track is fictitious, which means that it only seems to you that you will gain from it, but in fact, it immediately pushes you to the path of “in its time,” the path of suffering.

It seems that there is a spiritual goal before me (!), and if I work for it, I will gain something. I exert myself and gain from it. If it is a real goal, which means that it is on the path to the Creator, then I work correctly.

But this goal may not be directed towards the Creator (!), and I don’t know the right direction, and it seems that this goal is real. If I invest my powers in it, then, in return, I receive sufferings that push me from behind instead of a gain. These are called “fictitious dealings.”

It seems that I profit from them and that I yearn for the real goal. Even material profit: physical profit, money, respect, knowledge, all these eventually lead me, after many efforts along the way, to a void, to sufferings.

This fictitious goal, the fictitious dealings, can be very complex and complicated. It may take 30 to 40 years for me to finally realize that the goal was fictitious. It isn’t just one business and may very well be many dealings. Everything that you do beyond the basic necessities of the body belongs to these fictitious dealings.

Dealing with the basic necessities is a must, since you have no choice. All your attention, 100% of it, must be focused in one direction—on the Creator. Then, to the extent that you have to exert yourself for your family, it is already a necessity because all your thought will be focused on the Creator.

It is not clear that this goal is fictitious. It is a big question for you. Even if you are aware of it rationally, you disagree with it emotionally. Then you find yourself in an inner struggle, not knowing what to do. You make different concessions, forgive different minor weaknesses, thinking, “Well, never mind, I was a bit distracted.” Fictitious dealings appear in many different manners.

So, how can we clarify which dealings are fictitious? Everything that does not relate to the group, to the teacher, to the study, to dissemination, to the inclination to unity with the Creator—are all fictitious dealings! If you focus all your efforts on the goal, then the family worries are also included in it. Then you discover that the Creator has arranged all these things for you in the most perfect way, but only if your family doesn’t object to your path and allows you to study.
[100015]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Don’t Slip Into The Swamp Of Life
An Insurance Policy From The Creator
The Simple Law Of Mutual Guarantee

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - 1 Comment →

No one can tell me what I should do. I need to clarify this and to decide by myself which goal is fictitious and which goal is real. I have to take the responsibility for the steps I take. Otherwise, why was I given this life?

My life is like being in a middle of a swamp in which there are only a few places I can step on to cross it and not sink in. It has to be my decision. No one else can move my feet and put them in the right place.

If I slip, I will drown in the swamp of life for several decades. If this happens, I have to understand that it had to happen. I should do whatever is in my power to clarify everything in advance. If later I still make a mistake and drown for several decades, it is a sign that it had to have happened. I don’t know why and for what reason now, but I will find that out later. It is like it says about the direct and the indirect Providence, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before”.

Question: How can I make my own decision if I am totally under the influence of the environment, in a spiritual society or an external one?

Answer: This is all your freewill—to be impressed by the spiritual society as much as you can and not to go around with “your nose up high,” considering yourself superior to everyone else. Otherwise you will not be able to be positively impressed by them.

But this doesn’t mean that you can come to the friends and ask them what you should do: whether to go abroad to make money or not. You mustn’t let others decide for you. Your decision has to be the result of you inner clarifications, the result of your efforts to subdue yourself before the society, which means before the spiritual idea, before the yearning for connection and unity, for advancement towards adhesion with the Creator above reason. This is what the society, the collective force, means to me. To the extent that you subdue yourself before the spiritual idea, you will decide what is important for you in life.

Then I look back and don’t see my body! It already disappears somewhere in my previous life, long since eliminated from my path. I have to provide it with some basic food and I do that. Basic necessities mean that I do something since I must, since I have to take care of the body. I force myself to think about my animal body, which is called a basic necessity. But in all my other thoughts I am in the group, in the connection, and then I make the right decision.

This connection sustains me and doesn’t let me leave. I am so strongly adhered to it that I can worry about some basic necessity only by forcing myself. We can test this by how happy I might feel if I didn’t have to take care of my body but could only worry about the group and the Creator 100%, not leaving even 1% for myself.

But when I begin to worry only about the basic necessities of my animal body, I suddenly realize that it isn’t mine! Then dealing with my body and my family become spiritual work. I felt that they were mine as long as I received some egoistic profit from them, but if I don’t receive any profit from these necessary dealings, it is simply a game that I was given, a means for spiritual clarification.
[100012]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Dangerous Fictitious Dealings
A Road Covered By A Shadow Of Bestowal
The Point Of Freedom: The Beginning Of The Soul

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: Does an awakening from Above occur every minute, and what is the correct response to it on our part?

Answer: It isn’t only the awakening from Above, but it is actually all our existence that is possible thanks to the upper Light, which constantly sustains us, like a magnet holding a piece of iron in the air, and performs all sorts of actions on us.

There is no doubt about it, the matter of creation wouldn’t be able to exist, wouldn’t change, and wouldn’t feel itself without the upper Light. The Light does everything.

The right response on our part is to try to increase our sensitivity and our refined understanding towards what the upper force does with us, to understand how we should respond in order to be exactly like it, and to adhere to its attributes, to the changes that it makes and to its influence on us.

This means that in every bulge or indentation that the Creator makes in me, I immediately join His action and dress in it, like the desire of Nukva on the desire of the male. It turns out that we constantly cooperate in the general action, like partners. Thusly I should try to operate throughout my life, and then I attain the state of wholeness called adhesion.
[100010]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
What Do You Do When The Creator Is Everywhere?
On A Direct Wave To The Creator
The Light Operates Without Any Days Off

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Letter 11: And I am asking you to do your greatest efforts in intensifying the love of friends and to think of ways to increase the love among friends, and to annul the passion for bodily pleasures, since this is the cause of hate. And among those who bring contentment to their Creator there can be no hate but rather greater compassion and love among them, and it is very simple.

And you should listen to my words from now on, since your life depends on this.

Question: How should we correct our attitude towards the friends that arouse hatred in us?

Answer: You should love the friends that you hate now, and that’s it. You have to reach a state that they become important for you, dearest, closest and most desired. But at the same time, the hate towards them should be kept.

The hate remains below, and you have to constantly worry about correcting it and building the love above it. This is how the spiritual tension is determined. You discover spirituality in the point between hate and love, between these two forces!

There is not just love or hate. Both love and hate come from the Light that illuminates one way or another, but you find and discover yourself in adhesion to the Creator, between these two feelings.
[100006]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Allergic To Love
Go For Love
Taking All The Sparks Out Of The Thickness Of The Desires

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: We should know that spiritual matters are not like corporeal matters, where giving and receiving come as one. In spirituality, the time of giving and the time of receiving are separate. This is because first it was given from the Creator to the receiver; and in this giving He only gives him a chance to receive. However, he has not received a thing yet, until he is properly sanctified and purified. And then one is rewarded with receiving it. Thus, it may take a long time between the time of giving and the time of receiving.

Question: Why is there a disparity between the time of giving and the time of receiving?

Answer: Giving is bestowal and receiving is bestowal. But the giving prepares the “vessels” in us, the details of perception. After all, there is no concept of “time” in spirituality, but when it comes to our “matter,” to our desire to receive, the upper bestowal cannot be in contact with it.

There is a “shell” between them that keeps the dualism of their relationship—separation and mutual connection.

How does the Light reach the vessel in the first place? How can the connection between these two opposite attributes exist? There is nothing like it in our world. When fire and water come in contact, one of them annuls the other, but they both belong to one world and the inner nature that is aimed at conquering, at mutual annulment, is concealed in them.

On the other hand, when a spiritual force reaches a corporeal force, they cannot come in contact, they cannot “get to know” one another.

The first attempt to come in contact would evoke mutual annulment in them. We know about such phenomena in physics. Contact between opposites is simply impossible.

This is the reason for the “shell” that should be highly respected, which is wonderful, powerful, whole, and very complicated.

It is exactly what creates the right connection between “Holiness,” which means the attribute of bestowal, and the egoistic desire that simply wants to receive pleasure. The “shell” brings the “lie of the truth” and the “false truths” to life, what “has not been said to the end,” and “what has not been fully clarified,” as areas that “coordinate” between the poles that cannot be tied into one. We use such tricks in politics and in other fields.

So the time of giving is not the end of history. All of creation—its essence is in the difference between the time of giving and the time of receiving.

The chain of events from the top down into this world and the ascent back from the bottom up are only so that from state 1 we will reach state 3, and they are the perception of the Creator’s message to the created being. You also see how long it takes to “digest” this idea and to respond to it.

Question: According to what formula does the connection between the opposites exist? How is the string from the upper to the lower actually drawn?

Answer: If we speak about an initiative that comes from the upper, it is possible only if we annul ourselves and receive His desire as the one which determines things instead of our own desire; this is the connection.

Using the same technique, we bring different parts in contact, equalize their ranges, and use a certain link as a “coordinator” between them.

We have to create a certain place in which this equivalence takes place.

In spirituality it is the seven lower Sefirot of Bina, the “mother’s womb,” the lower third of Zeir Anpin to which Malchut connects.

We have to design this special “adaptor” which in Kabbalah is also called YESHSUT, or the system of TzeLeM.

One way or the other, the task of the two sides that are connected is for each side to annul itself in order to connect to the other. But while the upper can do that since it is perfect, the lower, being totally imperfect, attains it, accepts it, and annuls himself before the upper.

It is about simple things. In everyday life we constantly renew our place on the scale of connection and communication. In media, instruction, education, and culture the connection is built even instinctively by itself. If I want be in contact with another, I have to withdraw from my uncompromising stance to some extent, and to accept the other’s opinion.

Question: How does the lower become adapted to the giving of the upper?

Answer: The upper descends to the lower and gives him what he wants, but in this “package,” in this message, there is the whole inner force that develops the lower.

After all, the lower only wants to “fill its belly.” He doesn’t want to grow and doesn’t know what it is. But in the “milk” of the upper, which means in the Light of Hassadim, there is the “blood” that operates, the Light of Hochma that raises the baby. The lower would not be able to grow without the “blood” in the “milk.”

First, during the time of Ibur (gestation), the lower annuls himself before the upper and agrees to receive everything from Him. Then he receives the “blood”—the direct bestowal of the upper. Then the lower becomes more independent and the upper intentionally designs a system in the lower one that matches it and that is used as an adapter between them. It is exactly like the mechanism of lactation, feeding milk. In fact, it is about the same “blood,” about the Light of Hochma, but it receives the “dress of Hassadim.” Now the lower can compare the attribute of bestowal that is typical of the Creator and the attribute of receiving that is typical of the created being, and when he grows, he receives them both simultaneously.

But at this point, the lower is still small because he annuls himself with regard to the “milk,” and agrees to receive it from the upper…
[100054]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
A Strong Connection Is Like A Shared Child
Preparing To Receive The Light
The Impure Forces Are The Creator’s Assistants

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →