Question: The purpose of our work at the workshop is clear: We open the heart to each other, we draw closer, connect.

Answer: You are learning to understand what a group means. Before that you only heard what it is. But here, I hope, you began to feel that special properties are embedded in the group, which you won’t be able to scrutinize alone. By listening specifically to your friend—and it doesn’t matter what he is saying for he may not know anything (he may be in the group for one or two months), you will hear in his words what you need to hear.

Question: There is also another form of group work, when the text is simply read and no commentaries are given. What’s the difference? When do we apply this kind of work?

Answer: It is a very serious question.

In general, how do you discuss something between yourselves when you stand in a big circle and say something? You also speak about yourself, from yourself, about the greatness of the group, the greatness of the goal, of the gathering, or about why you came to the convention.

Most important is not to talk about what’s in your heart at the given moment. You do not give vent to what you feel at the moment. As in our world, you do not want to tell anybody about your deepest feelings, personal secrets, and the same is here. That is, I do not talk about my relationship with the Creator as it concerns only me. All the rest—it makes no difference.

Question: When we work independently in the group, who will help us stop on time and talk from the heart, not from the mind?

Answer: Don’t be afraid to err. It’s not important. It’s completely unimportant!

Those who study for a month or two can gather into the group and try to discuss something between themselves, to mumble like children—it’s not important. They will nevertheless grow, if they only do what’s needed. No preliminary knowledge is required from a person, nothing. Most important is to act simply, open heartedly, and naively, and then everything will work out.
[76899] 
From Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Workshop 4

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Question: How should I feel my group as a result of the workshop?

Answer: The group is “one” because only one soul has been created. And the more I reveal the structure of a single soul, the more I reveal the group.

A group is not a material concept, not ten physical bodies sitting in a circle. The group is what we build above our egoism through the connection between us, downplaying our ego and raising the importance of connection, the Creator, the Light. The farther apart we take these two opposite points, raising the importance of bestowal, love, and connection, there above, we begin to feel as one.

Everyone feels not himself but only this collective one, outside of his body, his thoughts and desires. We all feel just this desire and one thought “as one man with one heart.” This is called the group.

If everyone acts like this during the workshop, we build a common locator in our group, which begins to pick up all the other “units” in the hall, formed from each circle or approaching this. And then I will start to feel through this sensor all the souls of the righteous existing in the spiritual world. This becomes my vessel with which I work in the spiritual world.
[78229]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” p. 137: From the aforementioned, you will learn that the Holy Torah, whose Height is endless, did not emanate or emerge from before Him as it appears to us here in this world, since it is known that “The Torah and the Creator are one,” and this is not at all apparent in the Torah of our world.

Question: If the Creator is completely concealed, how can we talk about the real Torah? After all, the “Torah” is correction.

Answer: That is why we are talking about the Torah of our world. The “Torah” is essence, connection with the Creator. The “Creator” is the general Light, but the “Torah” is partial lights that reveal the desire, correct and fill it.

In our world, there is a means that allows us to reach the Light, the Creator. We aren’t locked in desires; we are activated by a slight illumination. Suppose, I am drinking tea and enjoying it; in other words, there is a light, corresponding to my desire, and I work with it: I want or don’t want, accept or reject. We are talking about micro-portions of the Light that can be obtained in the egoistic desires of our world.

Besides that, there is a degree, preceding the spiritual world. This is something completely different, the state Lo Lishma, when in despair, I start using my material, egoistic desires to achieve bestowal. And although my motives are questionable, this is already connection, a possibility to apply efforts on the way.

Thus, I was given the end of the thread. As if Kabbalists left me a “note,” and if I use it as intended, follow their advice, then I establish connection with them, and they help me as the grown-ups help a child.

I was given an initial desire, the point in the heart or troubles, from which I need to escape. I was awakened, and I am not just an “animal”; the mind and desire, Reshimot, inner states and external situation, fear for the future of the world, and my own future wake up in me. The foundation has been laid.

And afterward, no matter what, at some time I will need so-called the help from Above. And searching will help me find the truth—the Light that Reforms.
[78125]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: At the Convention I discovered that I do not have a desire to connect with others. How can I receive this desire?

Answer: It is natural that we do not have a desire to connect. We live in a world where disconnection and disunity grow from one day to the next. People hide behind computer screens and mobile phones, and all other means that create an illusion of connection instead of real unity.

But we like this more! 99% of all devices that are manufactured are designed to help a person avoid connecting with others. They create the illusion that we do not have to meet and look one another in the eyes, that it’s enough to look at a small screen and to press buttons. No one looks at one another. People walk down the street like zombies aimed at the destination point, and they practically do not talk to one another.

The whole world is growing more and more distant from one another. My ego forces me to restrict my connection with others to the maximum, so I need a separate apartment and separate food. I build my habitat so that I have all the household appliances in my home and so I don’t have to depend on anyone. Soon robots will do all of our housework and I won’t need anyone at all. A person feels best when he is alone. And if he suddenly gets bored, then he calls someone or sends an e-mail.

With this form of our egoism’s development, the aspiration to unite is simply opposite to our material nature. And it is clear that people coming to the Convention to unite feel uneasy. Moreover, the more developed a person is, the more resistance he feels, as it is written, “One who is greater than his friend has greater egoism.”

This pushes many new people away, as well as long-time, good, strong students, throwing them out of their boundaries. We must understand that this is every person’s natural reaction. And if someone leaves, that does not mean that he is ready for spiritual advancement, but he simply did not receive sufficient support and a patient attitude from others.

Every person should receive the opportunity to work at the Convention and to participate in some way, and gradually, time will do its work. If a person has a great egoistic desire, he cannot immediately accept the fact that we have to be connected.

The average person will happily agree to sit together with everyone and to sing. But for an individualist, who has strong desires – egoism, pride, and love of power – this is unacceptable and unbearable, and he runs away. Therefore, we have to give these people the chance to “cook over a low fire.” It’s like preparing a dish where every ingredient is cooked separately and at different times, and afterwards everything is combined together in one pot. Likewise, there are all kinds of people in the group, and every person has his own cooking time! But in the end everyone will unite and will cook together.
[78308]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/12, “Questions and Answers about past conventions”

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Question: What role should our American friends play in relation to the world Kli at the upcoming convention in New Jersey?

Answer: I think that of all the countries, the US can influence the world in the most efficient way. After all, we are talking about a very powerful nation that others listen to. All mass media of the world comes together in the US. The US has a great influence.

Moreover, the modern crisis is mainly revolving around it, ant the crisis continues to expand and deepen. And this is why, if we wish to affect the world, the main tool for doing it is here in the US. It is necessary to organize a strong, united American group—then we will be heard and will be able to “sweeten” the crisis so people would understand the situation that they are in and would come to correction, instead of simply tolerating new disasters.

Today, mankind looks like a stubborn child who does not want to do what he needs to do. And at the same time the parents cannot give in because his entire future depends on it. He must finish school despite his lack of desire, and this is why he experiences pressure and misfortunes until he finally passes the exams.

We have spent thousands of years developing egoistically. The growing egoism constantly increased its pressure, and we kept realizing it in feeling and mind. Our desires kept getting stronger and we advanced. However, right now a new stage is beginning: Instead of the egoistic power of reception and hatred, we must develop another power in us: the power of bestowal and love.

For us to feel the need for it, disasters can be sent to us, which are already echoing. We are naturally speaking about a lengthy process, one that does not encompass the whole world simultaneously; however, overall, the disasters are meant to bring us the knowledge that our egoism has completed its development and we should not expect new marvelous results from it.

Moreover, being a part of the world, we cannot make decisions only for ourselves. For example, when things are well somewhere, we also get a share of the Light even though we could be in a very somber state.

But no matter what, we need to understand that the process has begun and is moving forward. All our systems have been expiring and even collapsing for a long time now. Everything people have developed over thousands of years while realizing his growing egoism is beginning to fall apart. However, even though the collapse is already taking place before our eyes, we do not yet realize it and do not understand that it is possible to move down another road. This is where the problem lies: We need a science, which will explain global tendencies to us.

An instinctive development is enrooted in the still, vegetative, and animate nature. There is no choice, thought process, and conscious movement forward. But it is the opposite way with us: Unlike the rest of nature, our development was forced by a single power from one generation to another and over the course of a person’s entire life. Now we must also receive a second power beside the egoistic one, and begin to balance it in order to control our life with two “reins.”

While a single power was driving us, it encompassed our entire world. But now, when a second power is being revealed before us, we must choose between them, we must decide the right way to work with both of them. Thus, for the first time in history, we are receiving two reins in our hands, we can use “both legs” to walk, we can use both powers of Nature: the positive and the negative—to control both ourselves and Nature. This will help us rise to the degree of the Creator, and we are being impelled to do it from Above.

The positive power of bestowal, love, and unity has been influencing us for the past 50-60 years, pushing our development in this direction. We have not been noticing what has been happening, but meanwhile, since the Second World War, full intertwining of connections between countries started to form with greater intensity, and the world seems to have become “rounder,” more interconnected in all its parts. It was the war that initiated this process.

Since then, the positive power was being revealed in the world. So far it has been bringing nations and countries closer, mixing them and creating interactions between them. As a result, the world now appears to be pretty round and integral; however, people do not yet understand the situation that is taking place. This is because it was being formed automatically, mechanically, without people feeling it, instinctively, through force.

But then the modern crisis came, which essentially explains to us that we must control the world, we must make our systems correspond to the two powers, which operate on the global scale.

Still, we do not realize this. The rulers of the world, economists, financial analysts, and merchants – everyone continues to act according to the old rules. This also takes inertia into account; however, it will end, and we will still feel how serious and deep the world crisis is in the next year or two. We will have no more strength left to keep concealing it.

For now, everyone is instinctively trying to mask it and ignore the obvious: both ordinary people and governments. This situation is very dangerous and can lead to an explosion. Kabbalah also speaks about the possibility of the third, nuclear, world war.

And this is why it is very important for us to explain what is happening in the most extensive, simple, and accessible manner: in different forms, in different languages, to every person and everyone together, from one side to another, and in every direction, to give people the opportunity to perceive something and start thinking in this direction. This way we can “sweeten” the current transitional situation so everyone would understand that there is no other solution, we have entered a special historic process.

So, the US is a leading country in the world, both in positive and negative aspects. And this is why we must gain as much strength and influence over public opinion as possible here, to bring to the people the knowledge about the process that has begun.
[77469]
From New Jersey, the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/12, Shamati 

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Question: Do we have to feel the parallel shattering before every new level?

Answer: Of course, otherwise we won’t be able to rise up to it. By receiving corrupt desires, we correct them and build the next corrected level from them.

This new level has never existed before; we are creating something that is totally new. We only receive the material and build new steps from it. This is because we evoke the Light of NRNHY in all the worlds, although to us they only had the faint Light of Nefesh. After all, we bring our desires and clarifications into it. We add our egoistic desire to receive to the desire to bestow, by evoking and correcting it.

The corruption is revealed in us, and we correct it. Now in these desires, which are obtained each time, become 620 times greater than the desire that was created during the descent from the top down, we receive the Reforming Light and then the Light that fills the vessel.

No matter what level I am on, suppose on level 30 from the bottom, I will receive a Light that is 620 times stronger than the level itself because I am adding my desire, the spiritual yearning, my work. This is what happens on every level.
[78059]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How can I advance toward bestowal if my aspiration is egoistic, for my own pleasure, stemming from this world? After all, I can’t do it any other way.

Answer: Don’t worry about that, for you have all that you need for spiritual advancement: a group in which to actualize your desire for the spiritual, where the Light (Creator) is revealed. What else could you possibly need? You have a system that helps you grow, like a caring family!

You receive support from our great world group, from lots of friends. Besides, the whole world in general supports you by revealing its worthlessness with each passing day. These conditions are so favorable that we really have nothing to complain about. It’s even a bit upsetting. Are we really so powerless that we must be clearly shown the breaking of the egoistic world to convince us that there is no other path but this? This speaks to our complete feebleness and inability to resist our desire to enjoy; that’s how small, destitute and hollow we really are.

In the times of Baal HaSulam, the world surged, chasing after pleasures and wealth, and aspiring to develop science and new technologies. But today the world feels only disappointment, as if we are being deliberately supported in our path.
[78119]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How do we learn to attract the Light to correct us?

Answer: The difference between our state and the spiritual degrees is that even while living in a lie, in egoism, we can attract Light towards us from there. You cannot do this on a spiritual degree because everything obeys simple laws there: You are already inside the system and you receive only what you are entitled to according to your place and state.

But we get concessions in our world. And even though we think that it is cruel to us, it is very gentle with us. In it, we are like infants, who can scream and falsely demand things that they are not entitled to, and receive them even though it is a lie.

This is the entire meaning of existence of our world. I do not wish to connect with my friends when I am in my normal, regular egoism. But I hug them, sit with them, I try to connect and attain unity. And even though all of this is built on absolute egoism and there is nothing here but it, it is like child’s play in a sand box or with Legos, which he uses to learn. As a result of my efforts, I suddenly acquire a mind, proper perception, and sensation, I begin to grow, I acquire a certain understanding and definitions.

But mainly, my games become much closer to reality, and little by little, I learn to connect with others, cancel myself out, yield, study, read primary sources, and attract Light. And then I suddenly begin to feel the importance of bestowal and I believe that there is really something in it.

The external world is also helping us in this with its crisis and suffering because it is already hard to envy when you see the state that regular egoists of this world are in. This world is really a find for us. All the other degrees already are a system; only this world is a unique place. This is why the entire freedom of choice is revealed specifically on this lowest degree. Our work lies in always making this choice in the dark.

And then we will have another job: analyzing the quality of connection, when we constantly are raising our spiritual “qualifications,” adding details as we are revealing the wealth of the manifestation of the King, His revelation. But no one will give us concessions any more, as it is now.

This is why this period of preparation is so long, exhausting, and just drags on, because later we will use the entire degree of this world for the rest of the ladder. This is exactly why we can correct the entire 125 degrees only by living in this world. And even on the very last degree, I must first feel like I am in my lowest state possible, the state of a “market merchant.”

I am not speaking about the physical world, a certain special reality, which is becoming established in my brain. I must feel like I am completely separated from others in it, but at the same time attract Light with different, false efforts to connect.

And I will also need this corporeal degree, even when on high degrees in the World of Atzilut. Without it I will not be able to correct the actual point of creation, “created out of nothing” (Yesh Mi Ain). It is impossible to unite with the Creator without adding to every degree from the separation you have experienced between this world and all the worlds.
[78122]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: You said that we must constantly return to the corrected state and to keep it in mind. What is that state?

Answer: The point is that when a person attains an integral connection with other people in a group that isn’t too big, he remembers that, he has an impression called Reshimo, (reminiscences). This impression is emotional and it is stored in him as a memory, but it is an active memory.

This means that with the help of any state that resembles it we can always fulfill the Reshimo and to actually begin to experience it anew, to live in it and to immediately feel in it the ease, the lack of restrictions, warmth, security and the exit from any crisis, etc.

When a person begins to exit himself and connect with others, he sees that all the problems he felt before were felt by him because he had a different perception of reality, “for himself” and not “from himself.”

So the main thing is to leave a very accurate impression of mutual cooperation with the world around him, with the environment, in a person and to teach him habits and how he can return from different states to this basic state. Then we will return to it on different, higher levels, despite the possible interruptions, with the help of different environments, in any environment.

Question: How often does a person have to return to the corrected state during the day?

Answer: He should constantly be in it. I try to turn any state I am in into the corrected state.

Question: How can it be intensified, how can it be stronger and more powerful?

Answer: It is possible to intensify it by the resistance that I feel in order to return to it. Eventually, when I overcome the resistance I feel, it becomes a coefficient of intensity. My experiences of cooperation, the oppositeness of the states “to me” and “from me” will accordingly be clearer, more distant and stronger.

Question: When you describe this phenomenon I see it as an individualistic process, but we are always saying that it is a group process.

Answer: It is a group process, but we are talking about an individual effort within the group process. Later, when the process stabilizes as a group process, everyone will begin to feel a unified partnership. This is the state in which individuals become one whole, just like many drops merge into one in which no division is felt, but rather is the feeling of one big unified drop.

But we are saying that these states are constantly changing—groups break up and reconnect. We are not speaking about one group or about the fact that humanity has become such a group. Therefore, the individual component of my work with all of the environment becomes the main thing here.
[77166]
From “A Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/27/12

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Question: What are the 125 degrees actually?

Answer: Your whole desire to receive is divided into 125 degrees of thickness: how cruel and tough you can be on the zero level that is hardly revealed, like a mosquito, up to a wild beast on the level of minus Ein Sof (Infinity).

These are the 125 degrees that we count from our state up to the world of Ein Sof. 5 worlds times 5 Partzufim times 5 Sefirot, this is how the Ha-Va-Ya-H is divided.

We have to correct this whole desire to receive. It wakes up at another part of the 125 degrees each time by being added to you, and you have to correct it. Therefore, you constantly feel a growing darkness and you correct it, and from this darkness you attain the “dressing of Hassadim” where you discover the Light. The darkness is the same Light but without the dressing of Hassadim.

First, in the world of Ein Sof the Light doesn’t need the dressing of Hassadim. But later after Malchut of Ein Sof decides that it receives only in order to bestow, the Light disappears and illuminates, which means that it is awakened in the vessel, (since it actually doesn’t disappear at all, but we only say that it does), only in the dressing of Hassadim. To the extent of the dressing, you receive the Light. It is as if you have a certain lamp and according to its strength you discover the power of the Light that you receive.
[78017]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/12, The Book of Zohar

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