Question: Egoism is the engine of progress. How do I get to the essence of it?

Answer: Start relating to it properly: Egoism is assisting you; it is “help against.” It unfolds so that you transform it into its opposite, and then it will become a helping hand. If we look at things properly, life will stop feeling like tough resistance and an “unbreakable wall.” On the contrary, you always keep playing with your egoism, constantly “juggling” it. You befriend each other, and it already knows that it’s the right thing to do.

And suddenly, behind egoism the Creator appears. It turns out that He is pulling the strings, and now He becomes your partner. Try to view everything not only from below upward, but also from above downward as well, not from creation’s point of view, but from the Creator’s angle, meaning how He has to restrict Himself, what He should send to you and how.

Suppose you have received something from Him. Now you consider how to work with it from below; besides, you can take a glance from His point of view and visualize how He sends you certain conditions and how they descend downward until they form the exact situation you find yourself in.

And what am I supposed to do now? You must appeal to Him from below upward, give Him credit for everything, and patiently start studying while discerning how to arrange things so as to reinforce the awareness of two principles within:

1. There is none else besides Him.
2. Good Who does good.

This is the key. After all, no matter what the Creator is giving me, every case comes down to this, and this is what I must be aiming at all the time. As a result, each time, my response should be as follows: to carry these two principles (1, 2) from state to state, enhancing them more and more. This is the sole purpose of all that happens.

Clearly, in order to implement this, I need a guarantee, support, the Light that Reforms (Surrounding Light, Ohr Makif – O”M), and in general, the Kabbalistic method. But one way or another, everything occurs solely in order to give me a chance to come closer to revealing the Creator, as there in none else besides Him, who is Good Who does good.

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Question: Do we draw the Creator by actions that are aimed at the revelation of spirituality? In other words, do we raise the actions or do we lower the Creator?

Answer: There are no such terms as “up” or “down” in spirituality in the simple sense of the words. We can divide them according to quality: Up means a higher quality and down means a lower quality.

I want to be connected to the Creator in all my actions; I want to feel how He manages me from the inside, I want to feel that all my thoughts, feelings, and decisions stem from Him. He is inside me, as the hand wearing the glove of the puppet, the puppeteer.

No matter what I do, it is Him, but everything depends on the extent to which I discover that “there is none else besides Him.” Therefore I ask and yearn for it in order to discover Him in me.

But I can do it only when I am with the group, because it is impossible to discover the attributes of bestowal alone. I am an egoist, an individualist, which means that I have to be with a group and to adhere to it.

I am included in a group, connect to the friends, and try to be with them in one desire, one inclination. Through them I ask for all of us, because I cannot ask for myself, since it will be egoism again. I ask for all of humanity—that the Creator will be revealed in us and that we will all feel Him and feel how He operates in us. This is how I want to see what joy and contentment we are bringing Him.

This is fulfilled by the law of “the end result is in the initial thought,” since in spirituality there is no time and no sequential actions. There is a static state, and it is only with regard to us that it is revealed this way, so that we will perceive it gradually.

We must understand the whole formula of creation from the beginning to the end, since otherwise it won’t work. We have to be moderately involved in it, since even our slightest participation is made of the same ten Sefirot according to the law of “the general and the individual are equal.” So we have to feel ourselves deeply, the group, humanity, and the Creator together in one general picture and to complete it.

Question: What is the Creator’s joy?

Answer: The Creator’s joy is the state in which we are all connected, adhered inside Him, enjoying the same wholeness that is actually the Creator Himself.
[95574]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Question: How is awe of the Creator demonstrated in our work with the world?

Answer: Awe of the Creator is expressed in awe before the world, whether we can correct it. I really should be afraid of whether I am doing everything to make the world not only avoid suffering (although this is the initial stage of awe), but also to come to the Creator the easy way. After all, the Creator is not interested in having someone suffer for even a moment, and the suffering of the world depends only on how I will lead it to the Creator. I am responsible for it. This will gradually appear before us like a great mission with great responsibility.
[95571]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Question: If each of us is making efforts and takes his point outside, at what moment does the adhesion of these points occur between us?

Answer: Be always prepared for duality. If I intentionally seek to measure something, to feel, then, on the one hand, I will be pushed away from this, and on the other hand, I have to build attraction in me. On one hand, I will not understand, and on the other hand, I might understand something. And all this will exist in me in equal proportion. If I work for the group, on the one hand, I have to look at it as something absolute, a unit that is in perfection, in the world of Infinity. Each of the friends is an angel who has completed all his corrections. All the friends are united. There is an ideal in front of me, and the Creator is inside of it.

This is how I should imagine everything that is outside of me. Then I will have something for which to strive, for unity with friends, to be included in them. I see them as great; I develop envy, jealousy, and the desire to integrate with them.

On the other hand, this group influences me, and I have to see and feel it as it usually happens in this world. In this case, I have to communicate with them as with equals, and perhaps sometimes as a teacher to students, and so does every one of us. I have to excite, organize, and motivate them towards the goal, make comments about shared work, about unity, etc.

Thus, there is a kind of “scissors.” On one hand, I relate to the friends as great, perfect, and connected to each other. On the other hand, I relate to them as those whom I can point out, I can cheer; I have to organize someone whom I can influence.

I must be prepared to treat the group in two ways, and it should not disturb me. In spiritual work duality always emerges. But in any case, one does not cancel the other; there is time for one and for the other. Because of this, you need to learn to bifurcate, to look at things more “slanted,” and then between these two oblique directions, you will find out how to see the higher system.
[95568]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Instead of holding on to the principle of “there is none else besides Him,” my thought depends on different factors, which I see before me. Instead of looking ahead to see beyond people, beyond the mechanism, beyond all the natural phenomena, and to see just the Creator and myself, I, like a shortsighted person, look at objects that are close to me and see them as the factors my freedom depends on. Just like Don Quixote, I fight windmills, lifeless “scenery.”

As a result, the Creator has to intensify the evil and the sufferings, so that I will have to take a better look at what my life depends on. He does it so that I will not be able to stop this search.

We see this in the example of the state of Israel: Ahmadinejad, the Hamas, threats, missiles, Mubarak instead of Sadat, Mursi instead of Mubarak…the Creator constantly hardens the heart of Pharaoh. Why is that? Because the Jewish People don’t want to see the real reason for what is happening. In the meantime, all the minor reasons were only meant for one thing—to bring Israel to the Creator, so we have to be grateful to them for that. They are merely means.

Accordingly, the people are required to be a bit more clever in order to see who they are dealing with and who is managing the world. The troubles only remind us what the goal is, and it is easy to get rid of them if we turn to the Creator. But we don’t turn to Him in order to receive “rewards,” but in order to correct ourselves, in order to adhere to Him and by that bring Him contentment. Then the current “reminders” will be annulled, and then the “angel of death” will turn into a “holy angel.”

Question: So whom are we working with, with the group or with the external world?

Answer: All of reality, including the external world, including me and the group, are in the Creator. The external world gives me a negative impulse (1), by constantly evoking me to turn to the Creator (2). But I know that I cannot turn to Him directly. First I have to turn to the group, and then together with it to the Creator. Only then will I have a vessel, a desire for it, while nothing will help me if I work individually.

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Question: One of our friends from the virtual group was going to come to the congress but at the last minute he returned his ticket. How should we support friends in such groups?

Answer: This should be regarded simply: The Creator wants to show him whether or not he chose the right path. Let him check.

You have to treat him as a friend: There are ascents as well as descents, and they both come from the Creator. You have to truly be helpful and supportive of a friend and the rest is up to him.

It is said that one should be lifted twice. If you see your friend with his “donkey” (egoism) and this “donkey” is weighted down by his load, meaning that the egoistic desire of a friend didn’t withstand the load and fell, then you must help the “donkey” to free himself of this load, to lift him back up, and load him again. If the “donkey” falls again, then you have to repeat this action. However, if he falls for the third time then you can leave him.
[95516]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: Why do we speak about the end of the consumerist society? Why does the era of consumerism have to come to an end?

Answer: There are two reasons:

1. The first reason is external: We are running out of natural resources.
2. The second reason is internal and it is the main reason: Our desire is changing—the foundation of human nature.

We can analyze economic theories, propaganda, and advertising, we can invent different tricks and technologies, like three-dimensional movies, but all that will not help. A person will simply lose interest in it, like a cat that doesn’t care about the TV set it is lying on. Instead, we will simply pay more attention to society, to those around us. All this is because the desire is changing. There is nothing we can do about it, since it is desires that motivate a person.

This, of course, will not happen all at once. Today it is still possible to promote consumerism by different “special offers.” Still, compared to the past, things are changing. The rate of suicide and divorce is rising, and disappointment and despair are spreading. It is in fact the beginning of a new trend. A person, of course, will still need food and other basic necessities, but the problem is not in such things, but in the desires that we are using incorrectly.

One way or another, the desire is changing very slowly. The question is why does it lag behind the parallel external changes? Why do we encounter problems like the crisis if instead we can leap to a new level by a quick change of our desire? Isn’t it better for people to switch from consumerism, to more social activities of their own freewill? Why do they still want to buy like before, although the previous system is collapsing?

The reason is that this is how they will recognize evil, so that the current situation will leave a bad taste. Otherwise, they will find a vessel, the desire, for something else. They have to feel that they are in despair—that the world is full and at the same time that it is empty. If the previous desires simply disappear, a person will not learn a lesson from the past and will not understand the problem.

Therefore, the desire is changing much more slowly than the external conditions. These conditions have to pressure us and gradually evoke the right response.

Then integral education appears, which explains that the desires in excess of the animal level, meaning basic, rational needs, can be met only in the context of human relationships. The current crisis is meant to show a person that he can meet his needs only in a new integral way. By that, his desires are not restricted, but they actually improve, become updated, and rise to a higher qualitative level. Then he will not settle for something transitory and ephemeral, but only for something that is more emotionally meaningful. A person develops, becomes sensitive to, and wants to enjoy other experiences, which are closer to spirituality.

So it is actually in personal relations, in the family and in educating children that the current crisis is revealed most intensively.
[95474]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: What does it mean: “to connect with the friends’ sparks?”

Answer: To connect with the friends’ sparks means to connect our desires to the Creator. After all, the friends have come here since there is a spark in their great desire that yearns for spirituality, for equivalence of form and connection with the Creator. I am also here because of that desire; it is what has brought us to the group.

We have to connect in these desires, to connect only by the reasons that have brought us here. Let’s take only the ones that have brought us here out of all the thickness of our desires and discard all the rest like a bag full of liquid garbage, and connect the sparks from which our spiritual vessel will be created.

It will be only its upper part, and everything else is formed from the garbage we have discarded when we have annulled these desires. It isn’t easy to discard them, since we have to annul each of these desires one by one.

When we try to connect and want to love, hate is suddenly revealed in order to show us that there is no natural love in us. In the meantime it seems that you love everyone naturally and that you treat everyone nicely, as is accepted in our world—they don’t work on love and so they don’t discover hate.

In order to reach love, we must first discover the opposite—hate. But we don’t work on hate, we aspire for love, the more you yearn for love and really work on it, the faster you discover that you hate and that you don’t love. You are told the truth from Above.

To discover love means to see the friend as the greatest in our generation, and to look only for the positive attributes in him, to try and feel that his desires are more important than your desires, just like a mother feels towards her child.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, The Zohar 

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Question: If love towards friends means to prefer his desire more than mine, what desires are we talking about?

Answer: As Baal HaSulam writes in his article, “The Last Generation,” one needs to be concerned that each person in the world will have his necessities for normal material existence met. And if the friend himself will relate to it like that, he will not need any extras.

And all the rest needs to be directed toward the support of the friend on the spiritual path. So what does it mean that I love the friend? How can I fulfill his desires? If I worried about food for him and anything he needs for his existence, in the other things, I support him spiritually: showing him my awakening and transferring to him the feeling of the greatness of the Creator and the importance on the spiritual path that awakens me and fulfills me in force. I act towards him as toward my child, which I want to attract to a beneficial action, and therefore I show him my interest, the desire, my appreciation. Exactly in the same way, I must show an example to the friend. It means, that I supply him with spiritual nourishment besides the corporeal nourishment, it means, that I love him.

Precisely this attitude, we must develop in our group. To give a friend the feeling of the greatness of the goal and my personal example of the loyalty to it, this is called to love the friend. And by that I prefer his desire above my desire. I take into consideration what he needs, the necessary corporeal means, and all the rest is toward his spiritual development. All this I must supply to him.

I must worry that he will arrange his life in a normal form, to help him find a job, etc. And from a spiritual aspect, I must encourage him with the greatness of the goal. And by that, I prefer his desire above my desire, I am worried for his development, and not mine. If I worry for a friend, this is the best thing for my development. But all of that I do in order to reach the love of God.

One must connect to a whole one: Israel, Oraita, and Kedosh Berach Hu (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator). Otherwise, it turns out that I simply love the friend in a natural egoistical love like for my child.

Precisely this form of work is called “the work of God.” If I relate to a friend in this way, through him I direct myself to the Creator. Love of others is necessary only in order to reach love of God. Through this man reveals the concealment that was made by the Creator, so we will practice in the love of others and reach the love of God.
[95465]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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