Question: During the course of integral education when we begin our practical work, it becomes clear that people don’t understand what it means to “rise above one’s self” or “to unite.” They ask to be shown how it’s done and where can they see an example of such behavior?”

Answer: It’s impossible to see. Maybe it’s possible to draw something abstract so that there’s something to strive towards, but nothing more. Through the training the group develops a common sensation. This is somewhat of an exit from one’s self, from one’s instincts. This exit from one’s self assumes a couple of stages.

One is to “enter” your conversation partner. This is a basic psychological training that is used widely for various purposes. I begin to sense, to study the other person because for some reason it’s something I need to do or it’s of interest to me. Or I may simply want to rise above myself and treat a person with kindness, like relatives treat one another.

However, even when I try to enter another person’s feelings and thoughts, then his heart and mind (his feeling and thoughts) become as though my own. Let’s say that I’m able to obtain closeness to him and his inner environment, but all that I’m doing in reality is substituting my “animal,” my own instincts and rules of conduct for someone else’s, but I don’t actually rise above our general animal level.

We have to imagine something totally different. The exit from one’s self should not be into another person. When I train to sense another person, these sensations shouldn’t ultimately be aimed at sensing all that is within the other person: his subconscious thoughts, instincts, and reflexes. I’m not interested in the “automatic mechanism” that operates within him. Rather I’m interested in each of the friends’ aspiration to ascend above themselves. I try to connect to their aspiration to ascend and reach the next level, which is the human level. I try to be together with them and each one of them tries to do the same in regards to others.

Through this we create a commonality. We create thoughts and desires that are detached from our animal qualities and are aimed at rising above our current level. We wish for our communication to consist of love, understanding, and to be above our world and our life so that each one of us would vanish in this new commonality, in this new picture of a single desire and single mind.

We have to imagine this and to constantly cultivate it in such a way that the sensation of our commonality appears as the heart and mind of the group. This will be of utmost importance to us and our “I” would vanish within this. My desire to ascend would hold the people around me and everything that pertains to my instincts, reflexes, and habits would fade away as something totally useless and nonexistent at the moment. I wouldn’t use them to the point where I would gradually get used to living in this new commonality that I’ve created above my own self.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 2/29/12

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Question: How can we keep the feeling of workshops during the breaks, meals, and so on, at the upcoming convention?

Answer: We must prepare such external conditions so that they always keep people in this state. A person comes to the convention in the morning and leaves in the evening. During this time, he must go through many spiritual states and, in the evening, leave not as he came in the morning. He goes to bed and literally turns off.

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, it is the same thing; that is, these are three days of very serious work. We must do everything to ensure that the entire convention is held at this pace and in such a sequence that people are constantly moving forward. Even the breaks and meals must influence him in this way, forcing, moving him forward.

A convention is a very serious event. Alcohol is absolutely prohibited. We must rise to a level where it will not be necessary. We have enough adrenaline at the workshops. You will feel that you are all together, in “one skin”; the Creator will clothe into you.

Question: How can I see the world as one creation? How can I see unity above the breaking?

Answer: It should be opened to you not mentally, not in the mind, but manifested in your feelings. The internal connections of the world will be revealed, and you will see this within yourself.

Question: How do I feel the common need, Hissaron?

Answer: This arises out of a total inclusion into each other because all of our left, meaning all kinds of egoistic feelings stem from the mutual inclusion.

Question: What Kli, vessel, would you like to see in front of you?

Answer: One ready to do anything for the sake of unity. Nothing else is needed! With this, we come into accord, in balance with the upper Light. It is manifested in us, and that’s all. The implementation really is not easy, but the principle is very simple: There is a force that will work in you if you give it this opportunity.
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From a Virtual Lesson 7/29/12

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Question: Could you give a specific example of a correct family relationship? I do not yet fully understand it.

Answer: For example, the wife thinks that her husband is not supporting her; she feels lonely. However, she needs to treat him and speak with him like she feels his support one hundred percent. Instead of becoming upset that he gives her no support at all, she thanks him for being so helpful and supportive, and how will the husband respond?

At first, he will be shocked because he thought that she was going to start fighting with him. He will think that she is being sarcastic, but this situation is not just turned upside down, here we have an opposite that comes from another opposite, and from another opposite. This is because she sees faults in you, then she applies them to herself, and tells you what she would have actually seen in you if her egoism was not getting in the way.

Question: I do not understand how I can say the opposite from what I feel!

Answer: Please understand that we do not see the world. We only see ourselves! Every person has a filter before their eyes that only allows me to see what is good and what is bad for me.

This is so that I could distance myself from the things that harm me and become closer to the things that are good for me. I see the world very selectively.

I do not know and am not familiar with the real world, which exists outside of me on the other side of my hands that I am using to cover my eyes. I do not understand it and do not know anything about it.

It presents itself to me the way my egoistic desire paints it, but when I begin to perceive this egoistic desire as an enemy and I wish to see the world as good, then I wish to remove these egoistic, distorting glasses, and to do this, I speak well about all the things I see as bad.

This does not mean that I am lying to you because I treat you as a mother treats her child, and I like all of your qualities. This is how I will see you once I remove the egoistic glasses because only a perfect world exists outside of me.

Question: But I am still wearing these distorting, criticizing glasses!

Answer: However, you wish to see beyond them. Rise above your knowledge. Your natural egoism is soldered in these lenses. This is why you only see faults in your partner when you look at her.

If these were regular glasses, you would simply take them off and throw them out, but these lenses are implanted in you, and this is why you must accept everything that is bad as good. Remember, you are looking through distorted glasses.

“Love covers all transgressions.” This means that there will be no crimes left, only love, instead of them. You love everything in your partner. You simply do not notice any faults in her because habit becomes second nature. Try as hard as you can until it becomes a habit!

Let us decide that, from this moment on, we will behave at home as if we were both perfect and there are no contradictions between us, like we really want to do as much good as we can for one another and be like one body, not physically, in bed, but emotionally, internally. You will see all this materialize after a multitude of these kinds of exercises.

However, naturally, here you cannot do it without social pressure from the environment. You never leave this never-ending seminar. You simply exist within it, and then you will suddenly see the nature inside and outside you begin to change. You will see the world to be different, as well as yourself and all your relationships. Everything will change. As it is written, “I saw an opposite world.”

This seems to be a psychological exercise, but there is a lot of depth to it. We need a collective force to influence us and help us begin these exercises. However, there is a very important condition here: The teacher in this group needs to come from the community of Bnei Baruch.
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From “A New Life” 7/12/12

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Question: Is it worthwhile for a husband and a wife to live separately during the Convention?

Answer: I think it is better to live separately to completely disconnect yourself from any earthly connections. You should leave in a way that no strings are left attached to become included into this spiritual action and that’s it! So men and women should, perhaps, stay in different rooms the way it is usually done in the army, in a boarding school, or any other similar facilities.

Question: And what about the animal desires?

Answer: There will be no animal desires as they will be neutralized by the enormous power that will rule over everyone. You will get disconnected from all earthly desires.

If the convention is good, you won’t feel the need in anything besides the feeling of connection. You will feel disgusted by everything else. You will repel everything that distracts you. If the convention is serious and strong, it will happen this way.
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From the Virtual lesson 7/29/12

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Question: How should we imagine this single field that exists outside of us? What do people need to do when training in groups of integral learning?

Answer: Let us imagine that we are connecting to the desire of another person. In other words, we do a regular psychological practicum. I try to determine the desires, intentions, and thoughts of a person.

What are the stages that people and groups experience while they gradually enter these states? Primarily, people need to feel each other, like during regular psychological training. How do I feel the person with whom I am speaking? How do I connect to him? How do I determine what his desire is, to become involved with him, and reach a good attitude toward him, to learn to love him and communicate with him?

In other words, his desires, which are referred to as his heart, and his mind that leads these desires, must become critical to me, the way a mother feels regarding her infant when she desires to fully serve him with both her desires and her mind. The heart and the mind is what a person has. This way, it is as if I were taking a step toward all the participants of the group, radiating kindness at each one of them, and everyone does this in relation to everyone else.

This common attitude in the group, which we are constantly developing, must create such a level of reciprocity in it that begins to create a certain field between us. This field of mutually good attitude must acquire a certain foundation.

Why do we do this? We are not just doing this to have a good relationship between us. We now want to lift them to the next level so that we could exist in this mutual field of kindness, a field of mutual attitude toward one another and so that we would maintain it.

This common, good field between us—let us refer to it by its mutual quality of bestowal—needs to be created through our mutual guarantee when I think about you and you think about me. We must develop ourselves constantly this way through a good attitude. We must perceive this mutual warmth from everyone toward everyone in order to create something mutual, even independent from us, like a mutual child of ours.

We can refer to this common image of us, already independent from us, one we already are beginning to work for, a group. Life in this image, this group, must be the main thing for us. This group is what we actually assume a society to be.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 02/29/12

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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Series “Introduction to Kabbalah”

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Question: When we are talking about the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature, we can “feel” them with the help of our five organs of perception. When we talk about the general field, which is revealed among us, it turns out that we have nothing to study it with?

Answer: That is why we have to create it by ourselves.

Man does not differ from an animal by the fact that he has an additional pair of hands or legs, but by the emergence of this new spiritual constituent, created by himself—spiritual because it exists outside of us, outside of the body, so to speak. However, this is where we differ from the animal level.

Otherwise, what can one say when comparing us to animals? What is the difference between us? The gadgets, which I create next to me?! This is not a level of a higher development, only adaptation and nothing more. However, spirituality is the next level of development.

A person begins to attain the essence of nature itself, because he or she comes into balance with it. He begins to feel its thin spheres that are driven by nature: the mind, the force that lies within nature, that moves electrons, creates all of the matter, and moves it. Meaning, that we begin to understand and feel the basis of that life, which controls the whole of the universe, and on which the universe rests.

This is what physics is talking about today. By the way, quantum physics turned out to be the most advanced, even though it studies the smallest, basically, mechanical particles. Finally, through this fine mechanics, the scientists are arriving at the forces, which stand behind it, and begin to perceive the program, the mind, and all sorts of contradictions that we cannot resolve with our linear mind. We must transfer into a quantum mind, into such attainments of nature, which actually are located above our egoistic, direct relationship to it. Life itself compels us towards this.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/29/12

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Question: You say that in the current extraordinary circumstances, we need help from the women. What kind of force is this, which we will not be able to manage without?

Answer: Someone once said that behind every successful man stands a woman. Apparently, the greater his success so, to put it mildly, is the more serious her approach.

So, I would like to ask all our women, those whose husbands study with us and the single ones, at every opportunity, show the men that women expect unity and correction from them. Let them see that a great anxiety about the existing threats lives in every woman, so that we rise above the current state and correct it.

Every woman needs to show this. And in the family, of course, the maximum effect is achieved when the husband feels that his wife is expecting real spiritual actions from him.

It is important that every woman applies efforts. After all, women have a special talent that allows, even without words, at the level of feeling, awakening men to bring in a desire and send them in the right direction. This is not just a woman’s, but a mother’s property.

A man, not being able to give birth, remains somewhat of a “child” and thus has the opposite tendency—to obey. So, we, men, really need female support.

Question: By nature, a woman feels a characteristic need. What should it be aimed at today?

Answer: The world is in crisis, and this crisis has arisen for us to correct it through unity. First, we unite in groups, then in the people of Israel, on the “territory,” from which comes the Light that Reforms, and then in the whole world. We should take care that correction is spread in this order. A wife requires this from her husband, and, in general, every woman from every man, gently but persistently. They know how to do this…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: A person learns by example. What kind of examples should one see all around?

Answer: One should see solidarity and a good attitude toward others, above self-love. Indeed, the work is precisely in rising above the ego.

In life, typically if I’m at odds with somebody or if I don’t care about them, I don’t even notice them. I couldn’t care less about my coworkers—my relationship with them doesn’t extend beyond a friendly greeting. In light of the above, if we want to escape all the troubles, we must extend deliberate bonds above our ego. On the level of this world we perform the same work as in the spiritual: We begin to express a slightly warmer attitude toward one another. Why? Because our duty is to establish a connection. After all, therein lies the special power that is capable of mitigating our problems.

Such must be our approach: above the isolation and indifference we form—perhaps not love—but a mutual connection, so that we could feel as one nation.

It’s no accident that the crisis is demolishing borders and clearly demonstrating that all people are interconnected as though we all live in the same country. If we were to combine all our systems into a single whole, we would rise above the crisis.

It follows that I must find strength and direction in my environment, which must convince me of one thing only—that our unification will neutralize all problems. Everything that’s fraught with negativity today will instantly turn positive, as if by the wave of a magic wand.

Question: So all we’re talking about are positive relationships?

Answer: Yes. That is sufficient. I don’t care about anybody else, but together we start working on building a better society through the connection between us, one that’s brimming with life, prosperity, and optimism.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How do we really address the Creator without making an idol for ourselves?

Answer: Man makes an idol for himself instead of the Creator because it’s easier for him that way. Egoism is always trying to switch the goal, the means, and the values with which it would be much simpler for it. He searches for some kind of fulfillment for his pride, a quick fulfillment or compensation.

Our ego is unconsciously avoiding suffering, which is imperceptible to man who is incapable of catching it by its tail. And if he has already gotten stuck in it, he can’t make correct conclusions.

This is a problem. Only if man receives the correct definitions from the environment, friends, and books, and listens to the teacher’s advice, then possibly, he may be able to keep safe from the “evil eye.” It’s written that in most cases death comes from the evil eye, meaning that when man looks at the spiritual, he does not look with a kind eye, but with an evil, egoistic one, turning it to his benefit. This indicates that he is unable to cleanse himself from his self-interest and thus “buries” himself.

So how does one save oneself from the evil eye, which kills man? Try to look at the world with the eyes of another, meaning, with the eyes of the friends. And then you will see it objectively, regardless of your ego.
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From the lesson on a letter by Baal HaSulam, 8/8/12

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