Question: Even if we gather all the information about the development of the crisis and the rapidly changing world, most people aren’t able to perceive it. They don’t want to hear it or to change anything, and they continue to live as before.

Answer: This is natural; they exist in their individual egoism. All this information is foreign to them, which is why they shut themselves off from it. They have, if not aggression, at least a defense mechanism against something that isn’t simply new but completely opposite to their internal properties.

For that reason, we need to choose a very soft, simple, and, perhaps even in some ways, a playful approach to entice and engage them, and to clothe the integral knowledge in attractive forms.

These can be videos, movies, and various acting scenarios that illustrate the history of humanity and tell about our current states, not directly scientifically through tables and graphs, but conveying the information emotionally in a way that is close to a person using examples from life’s situations. Through that, they will learn.

People perceive information quite differently through the examples of others rather than themselves. This approach allows one to overcome one’s personal barrier; he or she learns from this and gradually begins to understand that what is said in general is talking about him or herself.

All sorts of explanations in the form of movies, videos, and theatre skits are discussed. Here, a person gradually adapts everything to himself and realizes that this is talking about him, about our world, our life, our lack of correspondence to the external universal human and civilization systems. So, here, we need to find a new form of approaching people.

For the first time in our lives, we’re encountering a teaching that goes “against” a person. Previously, we always were taught: “You need to know this in order to succeed, to be strong, knowledgeable, sensible, to overcome, rise up, and win over the others.” And now, we’re teaching that a person needs to be the same as the others: “You need to be connected to them on the same level; the most important thing is not to be above them, but to be together with them.” In other words, here, we’re basically playing against our egoism, which means that we need to be much wiser and more cunning than our egoism in order to outplay it.

In principle, the integral method is “help against you,” that is, against your egoism, and nothing can be done. We must understand that the same approach must be taken here as with a small child who needs to be taught things that he has absolutely no desire to accept, that is to approach him with some alternative methods. Gradually, he himself will realize, “This is exactly how I need to behave; this is how I need to relate to something.”
[79496]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing”, 5/20/12

Related Material:
“Eurozone Biggest Threat To Global Outlook, OECD Says”
The Eternity Of The Integral Process
Mutual Understanding Beyond The Language Barrier

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

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 138: Yet, you should know that the distance between the dresses of the Torah in this world and the dresses of the Torah in the world of Atzilut is immeasurable. …

“Dresses of the Torah” stand for imaginary pictures. In fact, there are no dresses whatsoever, but rather there exists the Light and a vessel that portrays its own “reality” against the Light to the degree of their similarity. The Light stands for absolute bestowal, and the sensation of the vessel depends on the level of its correspondence to the Light.

This is what is meant by dresses of the Torah, the wrappers that conceal the Light from the vessel, from the person. And of course, at the level of this world where one is maximally corrupt, these screens that cover the Light happen to be the greatest possible cover-ups.

Yet, the Torah itself, meaning the Light within the dresses, is unchanged at all between the Torah of Atzilut and the Torah of this world, as it is written, “I the Lord change not” (Malachi 3:6).

The Light constantly remains in complete rest; however, it descends to a person depending on one’s level. It goes through the “dresses,” which are intended to help in a way that a person acquires them, and covers his ego, and by doing so reveals the Light, since he manages to change the type of dresses from obscuring to revealing.

This is so because the concealment is the reason for the disclosure. After its correction, during the disclosure, the concealment is to the disclosure as a wick is to the light that grips it. The greater the concealment, the greater Light will cling to it when it is corrected. Thus, all these crude dresses that the Torah is clothed in, in this world, their value is not at all inferior to the Light that clothes it, but quite the contrary.

Let’s mark the Light with red and the dresses with blue. The lower we descend through the worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya (ABYA), the more dresses we find. The Light of Infinity is constant; everything depends on the place where the receiving person is. Of course, major dresses of the world of Assiya finally disclose the most powerful Light to a person. It is called “the opposite order of the Lights and vessels.”

Answer: Concealing screens. In spirituality, there is a law of similarity of properties: If you possess a certain negative potential (-), the Light will manifest itself negatively (-) so that there is equality between them (=). Otherwise, you are unable to stay alive.

The Light has to diminish itself to your degree. That’s why the system of worlds (Olamot) exists—the system of concealments (Alamot): The Light decreases to the extent that you can tolerate it.

Question: What turns concealing dresses into revealing?

Answer: A person does. By rising above reason, one makes a decision to create a dress and demands that it hide his egoism; at the same time, he strives to be above his ego and to rise to the level of bestowal. This is how a person acquires a screen and starts working “on top” of it.

In the same way, the fire clings to the wick: The depth of our desires, our separation from the Creator, and our aspirations eventually transcend into the Light. There is no Light on its own. Our efforts enhance the thickness of the desire, and the darkness starts to illuminate. Without the wick there is no fire since fire cannot burn in a void; it needs fuel, which will shine and illuminate as the Light.

Question: What do we need for that?

Answer: We need to accept concealment as the biggest help that allows us to gradually move on and approach the giving force.
[78400]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The Center Of The Group Is The Place Of The Correction
I, My Environment, And The Light
In Darkness As In Light

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work, Q&A, Torah - No Comments →

Question: What is Shechina?

Answer: Shechina is all the desires created by the Creator united into one equivalent desire that merges with the Creator in the same kind of bestowal as He is. That is, the desire to enjoy is fully corrected to bestowal.

But in relation to us, Shechina is “in the dust.” The Creator created the desire to enjoy, and brought it to the final correction: the final, third, corrected state already exists. However, we feel like we’re outside of the Shechina, to such an extent that we are hidden by concealment, fog, and deception.

Therefore, we feel as though we don’t belong to that common, corrected desire, and we need to work hard to unite with it. Imagine that everyone is completely corrected but you, and you see the world completely corrupted. Therefore, you must correct your perception and join the rest of the world, the Shechina.

You should ask the Creator to make you equivalent to Him; that is what it means to belong to the Shechina. But how does one ask since it cannot be done artificially? The request comes from the depth of the heart in a way that it cannot be stopped.

Imagine that all the desires of your heart were visible to everyone on a big screen, as if the sensors to a cardiogram were attached to your heart, showing everyone your desires, your thoughts about others, and your dreams about the future. And you were unable to stop this broadcast, and you had no control over your heart. Obviously, you would feel ashamed if you related these desires to yourself. But if you link these desires to the Creator, knowing that He sends them to you, that you have nothing to be ashamed of, then you are not ashamed of the desires waking up in your heart. You only feel ashamed about something that you could have done to correct your heart but haven’t.

And then you start checking that. You see that the Creator sends us different desires, making us think about forgery, theft, murder, violence, about ways to deceive and use everyone. You would see such pictures if your heart were displayed on a screen. But all these thoughts are awakened in you from Above, and you are not the master over them.

And along with that, you would see that you had the opportunity to make every picture like the Creator, but you didn’t use it. And now you are ashamed of the fact that you didn’t correct yourself or ask about correction. Perhaps, you didn’t even make an effort to correct anything, or possibly tried and realized that you cannot do it, but didn’t ask the Creator for help.

All of these states which you could have corrected but didn’t, cause a feeling of shame in you now. This is what you feel ashamed of but not about the most terrible pictures that unfolded in your heart and come from Above.

If you try bringing everything that you have in your possession into equivalence with the Creator, then you begin revealing all the details: where it comes from, why, what for, how to ask for help, and how to make it work. But if you have no intention to correct yourself, then you do not even open the package sent to you or realize what comes to you.
[79451]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/12, Shamati #50

Related Material:
All Desires Are Needed, All Desires Are Important
A Beautiful Woman, A Beautiful House, And Beautiful Vessels
A Gift Is Appreciated Only as Much as the Receiver Values the Giver

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: Why does it say that a person is responsible for his own exile?

Answer: Once we existed in the upper world in our roots, but because of the sins of Adam, the “first man,” who received the Light egoistically for himself, the “shattering” occurred, and we found ourselves here in this world. Instead of feeling the five stages of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity): Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet (0-1-2-3-4) and the five spiritual Partzufim: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, Malchut, we found ourselves feeling the corporeal reality that is perceived through the five levels: the root, soul, body, clothing, and palace.

We feel a reality that actually doesn’t exist and we don’t know that there is another reality that is real and that was created originally. We are in exile from it, as if we were exiled to some distant foreign land, as they used to send criminals by ship  to Australia in the past.

Being in this world, a person doesn’t feel that somewhere in his homeland he has a home and a happy life. He has already gotten used to this exile! But there are people who feel that they are in exile, and who are told a little about their homeland where the real life awaits them. Then a person understands that he is in exile. He has to worry about holding on to the first piece of information that doesn’t evoke any feelings in him and to begin examining it and tightening the contact with it.

This is a very fine string that was thrown to us to hold on to, which sometimes totally disappears and is sometimes evoked in our feeling. From this moment onward, everything depends on a person’s work. The Creator has given us the end of the string, He has started the connection, but it is only possible to tighten it by a person’s desire, by his concern and fear that he might lose it.

It all depends on how important a person sees this connection without fearing any interruption. He should be ready to give up everything for it. Suppose you could call home but it costs a thousand dollars for five minutes. And you are willing to work for a whole month in order to make this call.

Then you rise to a new level of connection, and you are allowed a videoconference, but this costs ten thousand dollars. Again you are ready to work only to be able to make the call. This is how you advance until you suddenly discover that you can be constantly connected. But the advancement is made by concessions that express that you appreciate the connection with the Creator more than anything in this world, more than any possible pleasure, by acquiring a Masach (screen) over the first, second and third level, one level after another.
[79353]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, Shamati #61

Related Material:
The Spiritual World – The World Of Qualities
Science: The Moment Of Truth And Limitations
A Live Thread

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: When I want to pass an exam or find a job, I automatically get a passionate “prayer,” a powerful craving for the desired result. Why doesn’t this happen on the path towards the Creator?

Answer: Putting it differently, when will you finally get a real reason for turning to the Creator?

Say, something very unpleasant happened to you. For example, someone has dealt you a serious insult, so much so that you’re ready to disappear on the spot just to prevent others from finding out. At the same time, there’s nothing you can do about it. And it is here in a completely hopeless state that you receive “a gift from above”; you begin to feel that there is none else besides Him and that the Creator sent this to you for a specific purpose; you only need to turn to Him and ask that it wouldn’t be happening.

You turn to Him with this request and suddenly feel shame: “What do I want? To avoid misfortune? Or to be with the Creator? Let the fear and shame remain if only through that I would maintain a connection with Him.”

This is how we move forward: We need the fear, which we cannot handle, coming from our egoistic desires, and then we will truly have a need for the Creator.

Are you ready for that? Do you want this to happen? Without any reservations or concessions?

Question: So there’s no way of escaping disturbances?

Answer: Join a group, and together with the friends you’ll fly forward like a rocket. Because then, instead of shame and other “animal” troubles, you’ll receive other disturbances caused by the inability to love your friends and unite with them. You exert efforts but aren’t able to achieve that.

Either way, disturbances are necessary since you won’t turn to the Creator as long as you see even the tiniest possibility of correcting yourself some other way. Only complete helplessness gives rise to your request to Him. And this means that you need to grow your desire, striving for unity and elevating it above all the others. Then you’ll discover that you can achieve anything except for that. And the gap between the desired and reality will evoke a cry to the Creator.

Question: What exactly needs to happen in a group so that the situation would reach the necessary escalation?

Answer: Exert all possible efforts and obligate the group to influence you. This is precisely what we call “mutual guarantee.”
[79340]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Dividing The Spiritual Work
The Creator Governs With Love
Asking The Light For Acceleration

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee): With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

There are two discernments here.

First, mutual guarantee and mutual concern free a person from worries about himself. Each one leans on others and everyone feels good. This is the “psychological therapy” to get rid of fear.

Second, we actually connect in order to be connected with the upper for ourselves. We want unity because we see it as a way to reach this connection. We always yearn upward and every action we take below should be aimed at the final goal and not for self-sedation. Different from a football team that connects in order to succeed, our connection is in order to raise us upward. Even if by that we get rid of all our problems, it isn’t the tranquility we are looking for. We are simply changing the previous troubles and the problems that push us to unite, to troubles and problems of a different quality that are created when we unite with the Creator.

This is called “upper fear,” and this is where love resides. Fear is a vessel, and love is its filling. Now I feel fear in facing the Creator, not in facing the threat of troubles, shame, despair, etc. I exchange all that to fear of being close to the Creator, to the desire to go to Him, to be close to Him in bestowal. This is my goal.

When will I yearn for it? When it doesn’t matter what is behind me, as long as it increases my attraction forward.

Thus we exchange the corporeal problems with spiritual problems called “love pangs.”

Question: But if the friends absolutely support me, don’t they extinguish my main problem, don’t they blur my desire to approach the Creator?

Answer: If I enter the group correctly, I acquire new fears instead of the old fears. No one is promising me a tranquil life; there is a restless adventure that I anticipate, which mountain climbers, pioneers, and world travelers experience. Their concern is the anticipation, they are constantly advancing toward something better; so I also feel a deficiency on the spiritual path, but I anticipate the joy, and this anticipation is better than the joy itself.

We know from experience that the pleasure disappears immediately, but the anticipation can make a person feel alive for many years. In spirituality this is really a filling, which we summon with the help of the Returning Light, above the desire to receive, clothed in bestowal.
[79343]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Raise Your Desires To A New Level
Dividing The Spiritual work
A Candle In The Heart

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: There is such a notion “long range.” Where eventually should our actions to organize the workshops lead?

Answer: We do this just to go into the world. We need to work out this system, firmly grasp our unity, the center of the group. We have to feel how we begin to see in it the manifestation of the higher state, the upper Force, how it affects us, how we cling to it, and it holds us, not letting us go. Each of us should understand clearly how he works on all his egoistic manifestations, rejections, etc.

When this method is correctly established in us, we will look at the world differently. We will see everything that is against us like help “against us,” not just “against.” And then we will be able to bring this into the world.

After all, everything started from resistance movements in all the countries. That is why, we began to go out and make circles.

And now, we make these circles, these “round tables” within ourselves. We need to work them out spiritually on a different degree, to go into the world, and to start to disseminate them there, not as we did this before, but in a more intensive bright form, connected with the upper root, so that the world feels that it’s not just an agreement between us but there is a force with which to solve problems. That is important.
[79130]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

Related Material:
The Height Of Unity
At The Epicenter Of World Correction
The Reaction Of Healthy Egoism

Filed under: Group Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A, Unity, Workshops - No Comments →

Question: Why after actively participating in the workshop is there the feeling of extreme tiredness?

Answer: Working in the seminar consumes a great amount of energy and nerves, both mental and emotional. A person expends a lot of effort.

After the workshop it is good to eat together, to have a small amount of alcohol, about 50-100 grams, just in order to get energy. Not for a good mood!

The good mood and the other things need to come from the unity between us. We drink a little not in order to be happy or become relaxed and calm and not to make it easier to become integrated into each other. It is just the opposite. It is preferred that it would be difficult for you to become integrated with others. You need to overcome all of that. This is that same mountain that we need to climb in order to reach the palace of the Creator. Thus we are talking here only about obtaining energy.

After the workshop, the best thing is not to talk to anyone about anything, but to immediately go to sleep. You are taking with you the most precious thing that you acquired in the workshop. Then, for you, sleep will be a continuation of the attainment, and the morning lesson will be a continuation of the sleep.
[79051]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

Related Material:
A High-Quality Action
The Reaction Of Healthy Egoism
The Complex Process Of Spiritual Growth

Filed under: Inner Work, Q&A, Workshops - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33: So is the matter before us: All these images and changes begin and end only with the impression of the souls. Yet, by the will of God, they appear as though they are in him himself. He does that to enhance and expand the attainment of the souls to the utmost, in accordance with the Thought of Creation, to delight His creatures.”

The gap between me and the desired picture, which I imagine, should be filled with knowledge. We must make efforts to understand and clarify and thus expand our vessels.

Eventually we attain a reality that is 620 times greater than the initial reality, and this addition comes from the head of the Partzuf. The desire that was created by the Creator stays the same, but it receives an additional understanding and recognition, and by that it grows qualitatively. Thus I attain not what I have received from the Creator but the Creator Himself.

Question: If I fill this gap with knowledge, what is the role of the feeling?

Answer: The Creator wants only one thing from us, that we will build a mind above the feeling so that we will understand, attain, and reveal Him. By that our vessels of feeling expand as well, because the mind operates on feeling; if I know whom I receive pleasure from, then it is 620 times greater.

Before I was offered a candy, but I didn’t want to taste it. Suddenly I discover that someone I respect gave it to me and so the candy immediately tastes differently.

It all depends on our evaluation. Suppose you were served fine, vintage wine from special reserves, and you are also told about its history, of course you will pour it and enjoy every sip. But what if suddenly it will turned out to be a mistake and that the wine was actually from a barrel that was intended for an ordinary supermarket?

Our tastes and preferences depend on our values, it all depends on our evaluation. If I value something, I feel its taste. Then according to this taste, I evaluate other things. However, without any initial evaluation, I am like a computer without software, just a piece of metal. Of course there are genetic discernments of tastes, but the filling of my desire is what determines the set of values.

Therefore, the addition of 620 times provides me with a mental evaluation, recognition, of the one who brings me the pleasure.

Question: How should I establish the right evaluation if I see before me a picture that is totally opposite from the right order of priorities?

Answer: This picture was given to you on purpose so that you would correct it. I have to see the importance of the one who sent me this corrupt form that allows me to be corrected. Without the broken puzzle I wouldn’t put the separated parts together and wouldn’t acquire the mind of the artist through this process.

I exert myself in order to put the pieces together and eventually, by completing the original picture, I discover its message: “I love you.” What is more, now I know who is saying this to me and what His words mean.
[79259]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/12, Baal HaSulam “600,000 Souls”

Related Material:
Not In Quantity, But In Intensity
The Taste Enhancer
The Void Where The Supreme Thought Dwells

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