Question: How can I determine that The Zohar is influencing me?

Answer: The signs appear when I begin to feel how important the group becomes for me, how essential the concern for the friends, for their existence, and the connection with them become for me—just like the goal itself, since it is by this means that we attain the goal.

This means that there is no goal that is revealed within the means as we may think now. After all, the Creator (Bore) is “Come and See” (Bo – reh). The right order of the connection between the souls, which we discover, is the Creator’s image.

This means that the group is not the means for the revelation of the Creator. The group itself becomes the Creator. It is revealed as “He and His name are one,” in adhesion with one another, where it is impossible to distinguish between them.

And there, we have no way to differentiate between “I” and the “group.” It is such unity that you melt into it and you cease to exist there. And the right order of the connection between us connects us to form a network and creates a schema of the upper worlds and turns everything into Malchut of Ein Sof (infinity). Accordingly, we ascend the levels of the revelation of the Light, the force of bestowal that flows within the system as an eternal stream of vitality and energy.

One cannot exist without the other since all the phenomena of the Light are the same vessels that operate this way from the inside. There is no Light that appears as something foreign in the system. On the contrary, the system itself begins to illuminate, as it says: “Darkness shall illuminate as the Light.” This is called Light. Nothing comes from the outside. It is the correct actions of the vessels that illuminate. There is no Light outside the vessel.
[84249]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/12, The Zohar

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Question: The integral education courses for couples give me hope that by going through this process and building a new man within me, I will correct not only the relationships within my family, but also all the connections in the system and achieve success in every way. After all, the system of family ties will become the school through which I will be developing. Are there any differences in how this process takes place in a man and a woman?

Answer: It turns out that we should keep the family together because through it we can achieve success in life. We not only correct the relations within the family, but also obtain an additional benefit, as if this whole process has a higher purpose.

It’s not the problem of a married couple, but the global problem of corrupted connection between all of us, and we’ll have to solve it in some way. The relationships in the family may become the laboratory within which we can learn how to improve our relations with the world to succeed in everything.

There are some differences between how this process takes place in a man or a woman, but they are so internal that we can’t understand them now, everyone from his or her side, looking at the other. If we begin to delve into the psychology of the other and try to figure out what is going on inside another person, it will only confuse us. We don’t know what is really happening there.

We just need to acquire the correct approach that will allow us to build relationships with each other according to the principle: “Love covers all transgressions.” And this doesn’t mean that we want to hide the wrongdoings committed in relation to each other: our hatred, pride, ambition, carelessness, and disregard. We don’t hide anything.

But if I want to change something and build, I shouldn’t sink into mutual fights and blame of how much each of us is an egoist, meaning how bad he is and doesn’t notice his evil, but sees it in his partner. In fact, he doesn’t see another’s vices, but rather his own egoism, transferring it to his partner and recognizing his reflection in it.

Instead of distinguishing faults in myself, I see them in my spouse as if in a mirror. I don’t notice this in myself. It turns out that we need to develop a good, positive attitude, love, flexibility, attention, and a mature elevated approach in relation to the other. We need to agree in advance that it will be above all that we see with our egoistic eyesight.

“Love will cover all transgressions,” that is, I cover all the evils that I see with it. As a result of mutual exercises and workshops, I start to develop new good qualities in myself that before were dormant within me: sensitivity, agreement, consent, and ability to compromise.
[84054]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/18/12

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Question: What condition is our group facing now in order to rise to the next level?

Answer: The main thing is to use the two forces correctly, the two ends. On the one hand it says: “And his heart shall rise in ways of the Lord.” Since if a person isn’t proud that he is following God’s way, he will not be able to resist the egoistic forces, the “shells” as he goes out against the world opinion.

But on the other hand, if he is not modest and humble, this pride will not be the right pride. This is why he has to be submissive before the Light that Reforms and understand that only the Light performs the changes and can give him the desire to bestow.

After every success a person has to say, it isn’t I and my own power that did this, but everything was done from Above and its success was predetermined. So instead of feeling proud in one’s achievements and accomplishments, he has to be proud that the Creator has chosen him and has raised him to this level, so that now he will be able to use it in order to bestow and thus get closer to the Creator.

He shouldn’t aim the success towards himself but rather from himself towards bestowal.

Thus we begin to learn and to use the success we have reached to advance correctly. After all, this state, like we are in now, when a person feels that he has attained something, can be a great obstacle for one’s advancement.

A person falls off track because of the imaginary failures or successes. These are two polar states. As a result of the failures he loses hope, despairs, escapes, and feels disappointed. But when he succeeds, it is even a greater problem, since it can draw him even further from the Creator, as it says: “He and I cannot dwell in the same abode.”

There are people who are more immune to that and there are those who are less immune. But if a person doesn’t forget the importance of the goal and he is clean with regards to it, it guards him. Otherwise he can be bribed by a good job, a respected name, a good reputation, or by being successful in the eyes of others. It will not be a clean calculation that is only aimed from him outward.
[84028]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/12, Shamati #219

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Question: How do we combine the studies, the integral upbringing courses, and regular life in view of the pressing deadlines?

Answer: The pressure will be intensifying, time will be intensifying, states will become ever steeper, sharper. People will become more confused and lost. We must prepare for it by the fact that entrance into the integral level completely elevates a person above all of those problems. This means that our salvation is only in unity. In unity lies the salvation of the world. That’s why our congress, which I am hoping that we’ll be able to carry out successfully in Kharkov, will be very good preparation for that salvation.
[84038]
Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/12

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Question: Should we aim towards the preparation of versatile experts on integral methodology, or should the preparation of people be according to the cultural characteristics of each country?

Answer: I think not. The general system is very simple: rejecting what we have now and training in order to rise above it to unity.

After we rise to unity, based on it, we continue to exist on its level. We don’t descend downwards. We have risen, connected together into something integral; we feel warmth in it, kindness, reciprocity, support, mutual guarantee, and now we swim on this level, on this warm wave. Based on that, we will solve all questions. We will understand that all of the questions arise only for us to unite more strongly on this wave and to rise higher thereby. Each connection is an ascent.

And then we’ll see that all of our past problems were not problems; rather, they were unsolved due to our lack of understanding—the unsolved urges towards unity. But now we have united and that’s why we don’t need to solve them. And everything that will emerge in us tomorrow, let’s solve it every time only based on our common integral force—how to rise above all problems ever more.

It will then be unimportant what mentality, people, or nations and cultures will be uniting into this. They may even tell each other about their distinctive qualities: how I look at the world, how you do, how he does, and how each one experiences these problems. After all, in the end, humanity must come together into one united image, into a single unified human! That’s why we do not need to prepare separate experts for each culture.
[83967]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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Question: There is a method of treatment in which two expert psychologists, a man and a woman, work with a married couple, and thus mutual cooperation is created between the two couples. How does this look to you? Would it be worthwhile to begin the work in integral education specifically in small groups like this?

Answer: No. I think that first of all, we need to separate them, but not in different groups. We need to attain a situation in which each one of us is a separate egoist and now we rise to a community, where there are no married couples, nothing. There is only our mutual “me” with 10-15 participants. It doesn’t matter how many.

And afterward, in the way that we connected together and understood that this is the reason we rise, and for this we exist, and now let’s see how is it possible to make a group like this in the family and to always be included in it?

This is to say, it seems that the family exists not in order to mutually support obtaining food, in reproduction, in supporting the family home, which is all at a basic level, but in order to support each other in spiritual ascent in spite of all our contradictions. We have enough of them, and we are thankful that they constantly appear, since thanks to them, we are able to realize the spiritual growth.

But this will happen when we are rid of all our present problems. When we are able to find our mutual integration, we will understand that in fact our family is in a wonderful state. This means that we were given opportunities for very fast and endless advancement. Let’s now just continue in each family what we did in the group.

Question: In order to perform this work, do we, in any case, group these people together or not?

Answer: When we collect a few married couples in a group, then first of all, we conduct a preliminary conversation with them, which should give them psychological guidance so that they will stop feeling that they are couples. One needs to “dismantle” their relationship, and raise them above themselves and create community, a group.

After a group has been created and all the material absorbed, everyone understands that only in this way is it possible to solve problems. Since a wife and husband, is also a group. So, try now to go down to your corporeal level and begin to raise your problem or simply not to awaken it. And try from this moment to solve each problem and even the smallest as a means of strengthening your bond, above you.

In this way, you send them on a liberating voyage, in that you give them the feeling of unity and a system of rising above all the problems.
[83913]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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Question: What does it mean that I have to address all my questions to the Creator?

Answer: We’re not used to remembering and thinking about the upper force. It isn’t because we’re not religious; religious people don’t think about the Creator in the sense I am referring to. No one thinks about Him.

To think about Him means to realize that only He does everything. We can speak about it using high words and read about it a lot in books, but nothing helps.

We, meaning all of humanity, all the souls, all the desires, the general network, the system, Malchut, the Shechina (Divinity), exist within one force called the Creator. We have to discover that we are within Him. This is the only problem we have to solve: the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, and this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah deals with.

The revelation of the Creator to the created beings can either be through the path of suffering and great troubles when out of the great sorrow and hopelessness, the ego shrinks and restricts itself so as not to feel the suffering. It gives up its desire to enjoy and is ready for everything but only not to suffer.

But imagine what terrible troubles and suffering one has to go through in order to give up his desire to receive. It isn’t about suicide, but about an action that is a billion times greater than our life. Yet under the pressure of the great sorrow the ego can shrink to such an extreme that it can restrict itself until it doesn’t want to exist.

We’re not talking about the tiny desire we are in at the moment, but about a desire that constantly grows and suffers so much that it restricts itself. Then the desire grows even more, the suffering becomes even greater, and the desire restricts itself again.

This is called the path of suffering. If we follow this path, then “death is better than life,” and it will be impossible to die.

But it’s possible to advance, to restrict the desire to receive and to correct it so that it will bestow by discovering the Creator that is in it by an external force called the Light that Reforms. That is, with the help of the same Creator, it’s possible to turn to Him in a special way.

This method can’t be revealed independently. We see that even when people hear the explanations, they still don’t understand what the Light that Reforms is. The uniqueness of this method is in the fact that instead of suffering as a result of the influence of the Creator who makes me feel bad as He approaches me, I ask Him to correct me.

I want to be like Him; I want to be good. I take preventive measures and the Creator helps me! But I have to ask, I have to be ready for this bestowal. After all, if I just cry from my desire to receive, nothing will help. How can the Creator influence me by the Light that Reforms if I don’t ask to be reformed and my desire to receive restricted?

I have to turn to the Creator so that He will help me restrict my desire to receive and turn it into bestowal that is like Him. It shouldn’t be at the cost of suffering but by His action.

Thus we were given the opportunity to turn to Him through the connection between us. If we arrange the connection among us, the form of this connection will be the form of bestowal we want. We build this connection like children who by playing seem to be doing something. We all know that we are egoists, that our connection is egoistic, and that everyone wants to succeed and to profit from it. But still, we are all asking the Creator together so that He will do it and change us.

This request is egoistic since it’s impossible to cry it out differently from the dark, from exile. But eventually it’s fulfilled because the upper Light, the Creator, takes the state you are calling Him from into account. He understands that you can’t turn to Him with a more spiritual, altruistic request since you are in your ego and only want to receive.

It is like a baby who cries and doesn’t understand what he wants, but the mother must understand and take care of him. We too have to cry: First we should try to do everything that we can and then cry. This is the Kabbalistic method. Don’t wait to be pitied from Above for no reason. The Creator knows no mercy since mercy is bestowal.
[83984]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/12, Shamati #72

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Question: On one hand, we say that we always have to turn to the right line, to start everything from the right line. On the other hand, they say that first you need to reveal evil. How is this possible, if evil is the left line, and the right one is joy and perfection? How is it, on the one hand, you first need to reveal, “I created the evil inclination” and then correct it? On the other hand, first of all, we must always turn to the right line.

Answer: As soon as we turn to the right line, the left line, the true evil inclination, resisting the right, is revealed to us. It is with this approach that there is a prayer, and the Light that Reforms descends, the power of the right line, from which the middle line is formed. Our entire ascent and progress occurs only in the middle line.
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Our desire was created as existence from absence, which means that it exists only because of the force of existence in it. The force that stems from the Creator gives the desire life and builds the opposite form in it.

Question: How can these two forces stay together?

Answer: The one Force sustains the two of them so that the created being could exist, so that there will be something besides the Creator. He constantly sustains our being since without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Just think of how the term “existence from absence” sounds: Existence is being sustained above nonexistence, above nothing.

Question: How is this expressed in the group among individuals who are starting to unite?

Answer: They only have to take the connection between them into account. Nothing else is relevant to their force and their abilities; nothing can be changed except a prayer for the connection.

When they feel that everything depends on their mutual connection, it is already a good clarification. Then, as a result, they sign a treaty of mutual guarantee.

Question: But the ego doesn’t disappear and isn’t annulled, is it?

Answer: Yes, it grows. How can these tow forces exist without one another? How can one be measured without the other?

We think that love and hate can exist independently and that love by itself is enough. But it isn’t so;  even when you love someone very much, you suddenly discover that some “spice,” some roughness is missing so that you will have a true contact and a real connection. The feeling of connection is always composed of the negative and the positive that covers it. Otherwise there is no connection. A connection can only be between two distant opposites and and it lies namely in between them.
[83987]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 

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Question: Typically, a woman is consumed with housework and a man generally comes home in a negative and irritated mood. It seems that a woman has no strength to deal with this kind of a situation because she has no resources from which to draw the strength that is needed to deal with it. What is the solution?

Answer: The men finish their day incorrectly. They should gather together, sit in a circle, and set their intention for a proper return home. They need to rise above themselves by reminding themselves of why they are in such a state and that their stress is actually due to their advancement.

They need to feel like pioneers and elevate their state despite the fact that it is so intense. This is a special state, and they are special because they were chosen among all of humanity to actualize the method of becoming an integral human. I think that this will alleviate some of the inner tension, and they will be able to come home in a normal state.

The women should support one another and understand the men’s state. We should work with women separately and teach them how to neutralize this state.

I understand all of this because I’ve experienced it myself, only in my time, there was no integral method. I experienced very unpleasant states that were impossible to deal with. There wasn’t all this advice or special unity gatherings or psychological workshops and preparations. However, today, everything is all possible.
[83910]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/31/12

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