Question: Our task is to transform common people’s routine desires into a plea to the Creator. How do we do that?

Answer: A mother clearly understands why her baby is crying, although the baby does not realize why he cries. The same principle applies here: We have to transform people’s desires, otherwise they won’t match the Light. People cry about troubles in their material lives, but the Light won’t respond to their complaints since He was the one who created them.

It is said: “Come to Pharaoh since I hardened his heart.” It’s the Creator who arranges our troubles and I cannot ask Him to release us from hardships, why then would He have sent them? We have to refer to Him with a different request—our appeal to help us rise above our woes and allow us to choose going through anguishes because only by doing so can we perceive Him. This is how we rise to bestowal beyond receiving.

But we are incapable of achieving this state! We are deeply sunk in egoism; we suffer; we strive to at least rid ourselves of pain as we are unable to sense enjoyment.

We should demand from Him: “Give me the power that allows me to stay above my pain.” We particularly need to be aware of our unwillingness to experience pain and our desire to stay above it: Let my body suffer, but I still can be a step higher than my body; affliction will help me escape my egoistic desires. If suffering vanishes, I will return to the Pharaoh; however, if affliction persists, I will do anything in my power to try to avoid pain.

So, suffering is a necessary prerequisite to make me run away from the Pharaoh, from my egoism. But where do I run? I beg the Creator for deliverance: “Give me a chance to escape and rise above the Pharaoh.” Even though I deal with a tiny part of the common evil, this is the kind of work that I have to do consciously. My job is not to stay a miserable animal, but rather to rise to the level of a human being. I have to realize that the human is higher than the animate level. We should draw a rigid and obvious line of separation between these two states.

• The animal in me suffers. Let it suffer! It’s just my egoism, it’s Pharaoh, with all its pain and darkness that thickens to the degree of the “Egyptian darkness.”
• I am above suffering striving for bestowal.

But where do I get energy to accomplish this? I am so weak that I run away from the slightest pain. The more I advance spiritually, the more sensitive I become, and things that were quite easy for me previously turn out to be unbearable. I cannot tolerate anything at all, even physical trouble.

This is what we work diligently with: We strive to rise above our desires through which we tend to suffer more and more. We find Egyptian darkness in the place where there previously was the Light, but in fact nothing changes except our assessment of events.

This is how “good” Pharaoh becomes “bad”; a bright sunny day turns into unbearable darkness.

Such a state seems exceedingly dreary and gloomy to us; we have to rise above the growing pain and regard suffering as help.

It is said that “Pharaoh brings the sons of Israel to deliverance,” but only on the condition that they really strive to get elevated above their egoism.

They understand that affliction helps them rise above their troubles and separate themselves from egoism since nobody is able to voluntarily approach suffering; instinctively, people retreat from trouble as far away as possible.

So, the Pharaoh helps me by pushing me away, whereas the Creator helps me by hardening the heart of the Pharaoh. My task is to ask the Creator to grant me power to stay above and to regard bestowal more important than receiving.

Otherwise, I will simply be crying out in pain like a person who is not focused on growing and instead sobs about the multiple problems in his life. This is what we see today while the humanity is going through a crisis. People have nowhere to go; they are helpless, and therefore, they don’t want to know anything, “Give us an anti-depressant, alcohol, painkillers, sedatives, drugs” – whatever helps them disconnect from their pain.

We ask the Creator to keep us above our pain so it doesn’t deafen us, but rather, gives us another shape. Our work is to plead: “Give me a chance to bestow and enjoy it.” We shouldn’t bestow for the sake of receiving; we have to learn how to enjoy bestowal. If we do, we’ll go beyond knowledge, and attain bestowal for the sake of bestowal, thus acquiring contentment through a great sense of belonging rather than through fulfilling our egoism. It doesn’t matter if we suffer within our egoistic desires; we enjoy in our sense of belonging to Him. Those are two different kinds of vessels. Similarly, people in this world are proud and enjoy serving those who they consider worthy and great.

This is how we prepare ourselves; others will follow. In fact, an enormous desire to be pleased hides behind the “façade” of our civilization. Our goal is to correct this desire; otherwise, people will continue to suffer uselessly.
[74888]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/12, “Questions and Answers Regarding the Brazil Congress”

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Question: In every practical work there are certain stages: a beginning, middle, and an end. What are the stages of the integral process? What do we have to take people through?

Answer: Integrality is already Ein Sof (Infinity). You know how to calculate an integral: from zero to infinity. So each time you try to put the puzzle together, to compose questions, and to find the solutions and the answers to the questions, you immediately discover a deeper layer of what’s going on. Nature is infinite in its depth, while we only take the first layer off and then the second layer, etc. and they are revealed as deeper and deeper each time.

We see that even what worked well and systematically in the previous layers and most important cyclically (since a cycle, the repetition, whether it is clear or static, is a result of every process and every plan that is scientifically based) then in the deeper layers that we discover the attributes, the laws, the previous patterns, as a whole don’t work anymore, but there is something else that works. If we return to the previous stage, we see that it works there, but in the deeper level it doesn’t work because totally new relationships appear there between the entrance and the exit. This is really an amazing discovery in the depth of the psychology of human consciousness.
[76843]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #17, 02/28/12

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Question: When there is a certain discussion in the group there are different mechanisms of resistance that stand in a person’s way. So does it mean that most of the time we will be busy dealing with this resistance mechanism?

Answer: No. I believe that it shouldn’t be here. During the preparation stage a person has to reach the feeling of despair from working with his ego. He has to understand that there is no life in it.

We should understand that if I want to attain the next stage of my development, the next dimension, the exit into the level of harmony with nature, I have to be disappointed with my egoistic development and not blow up the ego. Otherwise, it will simply kill me. It doesn’t allow me to integrally communicate with others; it won’t give me the vessel with which I can feel the harmony of nature and enter this dimension, this level.

I have to leave the ego at all their previous levels of development. The turning point, the bifurcation point, the splitting, the crisis, that we are going through today lead us to the fact that we will really “break” and leave our ego below. Humanity is facing a big problem: feeling the immense ego we’ve attained, being disappointed with it, and leaving it because we are compelled. This is called the phase of “the recognition of evil.” We have to go through it.

If we are talking about a group that already begins to feel the next level of human development, it should be people who are ready to leave the ego. They should understand that they have to totally change internally, like inserting a disc with a new program into a computer, erasing the old program and installing a totally new program. I am ready to be “operated” anew, to be fully “upgraded.” I am ready for that because on the level of the recognition of evil I found out that my ego only harms me; I perceive it as bad.

When people reach the recognition of evil and agree to try, even theoretically, to rise above their ego, they do it in the group with two guides that direct them a little, and at the same time cooperate with them. The group begins to gradually feel where these psychological “exits” are above their ego, to the new altruistic psychology, to the level called “nature.”
[76923]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #17, 02/28/12

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Question: What can we tell people who are still not sure of whether they should sign up for the upcoming convention?

Answer: It is very important to unite on the corporeal level to be able to move on to uniting the souls, in other words, to the correction of the common soul, which broke and separated into billions of pieces. A convention is necessary for a person. If it happens, let us say, once a year in your region, then you must try to participate in it.

It is hard to believe that the Creator would give someone a disturbance a person is not able to overcome when it comes to coming to the convention. After all, there is none else beside Him. Everything comes from the Creator. So can it be that a person’s correction is so hopeless that the Creator will put a hopeless obstacle before him and cut off all the ways? I cannot imagine this.

Simply, the analysis of the situation is entrusted to the person himself. He feels like there are “guards” on his way, who push him away—but this is done only so he would realize how necessary the convention and how important the goal are.

So less indecisiveness. Who knows when the next time will be and whether there will be a next time. I am ready to give you everything. Just come, and we will unite. It is the key to the correction of all the negativity that manifests in us because we are opposite to the Source.

Question: Can friends, who have lost their inspiration and strengths, use the convention to ascend?

Answer: The convention is a place of healing. We all unite physically and virtually—on the plane of this world—to overcome ourselves and attain a real unity. Even if we do not yet understand what it is, we still play pretend like little children.

So, a convention heals and raises the level from the corporeal to the spiritual. A convention generates a force that can heal anything. We need to see the source of energy and information in it, in other words, the manifestation of Light in our world. There is no better illustration of unity in the chronicles of the correction of the world than a convention.

And this is why I recommend everyone to participate in it, and be as friendly and united as possible. You already need to invest into the preparation and establish the closest contact possible with the venue, the theme, and the entire process the convention will take us through. Bring those who deserve it with you, and we will be able to ascend to a spiritual degree. It is like the miracle of the exodus from Egypt—let it also happen here.
[76972]
From the Brazil Convention 5/3/12, Lesson 1, Shamati #8

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Question: While studying in the group, people feel a kind of embarrassment because new tools, mechanisms, and experience are required in the mutual integral cooperation. A person has gotten used to living and working according to a certain program.

Suddenly he discovers that the program has changed. People remain in the circle and their role is simply to carry on a conversation between them, to get to know one another, to see other people. A person begins to worry and to ask: “Tell me what to do? Where are we headed?”

Answer: The point is that they find themselves closed among themselves, and we must develop a new approach to a new integral dialog with one another.

A person really feels concern and uneasiness. He suddenly sees that he isn’t ready for the mutual integral cooperation because he was taught differently.

The interesting thing about the mutual cooperation is that we don’t just discover our interdependence, but that there can be no hierarchy here, and this is very complicated. We are used to thinking that someone is a bit above me and that I am a bit lower, I can hide and when the time comes, I can come out and declare that I don’t exist. This is our ordinary social communication.

Here, however, we have to establish a new infrastructure that has to be among us and not in each of us. We don’t have to arrange people hierarchically, as each one represents a small individual part, which together make up all of society. In the mutual integral cooperative society, it is what we form outside ourselves, something that is around us, that is external, among us. Each one enters this society as a small integral part and dissolves among the others.

Therefore, people find it very hard to experience this exit from themselves: I am in society, as part of it; “I” and “they” are the same thing. There is no such thing as “I,” and later there is no such thing as “we” either, because “we” is just a sum, a number, while an integral is the sum in which all the elements add up so that they are not separate entities that come together, but rather a totally new whole in which the individuality disappears and the unity appears.

This is a difficult experience and not everyone can easily become accustomed to it, or shall I say, bear it. One must go through much pain, because you seem to be cutting yourself off of yourself. You enter a group and lose yourself inside it: “Where is the ‘I,’ where are all my elements, my basic inclinations?” It is as if you don’t exist and the result is something general. Moreover, it isn’t our “sum,” we don’t arrive at some common opinion, but suddenly there is a partnership born in us, which exists on its own.

I understand the people who reach that and who feel a little bad, you have to get used to it.

They need a serious theoretical preparation and practical studies. We have to show them that this is what our society that was born of one element, of an initial drop of semen somewhere in the past generations, should be like. It has grown to several billion people who now have to reunite. They don’t destroy themselves and their functioning on the corporeal level, but they should all come to the state in which they will all be one image of one single creature.

Nature compels us to precisely this closeness, to where we feel everyone else as one whole, including ourselves of course. There will be no integrals, no differentials, and no sums. It will be something that is totally new, a new society that grows from the terrible separated state of the global crisis.
[76839]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #17, 02/28/12

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Question: I do not understand the function of the mind. How do you cancel it and what do you do with it?

Answer: You only need the mind to properly express feelings, different relations, draw conclusions, and then once again activate feelings. The mind works between the feelings: feelings – mind, feelings – mind. The mind expresses what I am feeling, the conclusion I am supposed to draw from this and how to connect to new feelings. The alternation of mind and feelings happens the same way as the alternation of ascents and descents. You can control it, we will get used to it.

Question: We know that the mind serves the feelings. How do you understand whether you are speaking from your mind or your feelings? What is the difference?

Answer: If you need to express feelings after experiencing them, you express them with your mind, generalize them, differentiate between them, and only after that do you express the prepared thought.
[76817]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 4

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Question: We, the men, understand how to interact in the group and what to aspire to. The question is how do we, to bring the Light that we attract to them at home in our families?

Answer: Free your wife of this suffering. I understand that you quickly want to tell everything all the good things that you learn. Take a break. I am serious, do not do it. All these things can only be realized in the group, and not outside of it.
[76814]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 4

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Question: I would like you to be with us as long as possible.

Answer: First, when people treat each other nicely, they think that it’s good to be near each other. I don’t know whether this is a better place—to be next to you.

Second, if you talk about me, the teacher stays with his students as long as they need. As soon as this need disappears, there is other work, he is transferred to another place.

So, there is nothing terrible here. You have to think only about how to realize what’s written in the primary sources and that’s all. Whether there is a teacher, no teacher, it doesn’t depend on us. And the most important is what we are doing now. If there are such groups, if women actively help them, support, directing towards the center of the group the desires to reveal the Creator, then everything will be fine.

There is no need for a teacher: The Creator, the Light will teach you. In reality, this is what we are trying to “catch” here—the method of working with the Light.
[76894]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Workshop 4

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Question: Everyone in my group wants to unite. Everyone tries, makes an effort, but nothing comes from it for anyone. This feeling very much interferes with my concentration, and I don’t know how to deal with it.

Answer: The process isn’t easy. Even in our corporeal world, we don’t grow up simply. Look at how much time passes until a person grows, until he turns into an adult.

On the spiritual path, we need to gather a great many discernments and feelings. All of our feelings are based on disappointments and on attainments.

We simultaneously walk “on two legs,” on the left and right, in minus and in plus. It is only when we attain a certain size, a certain value between the minus and plus, that we exit to the next level.

This means that we need to go through great disappointments and attainments; otherwise, we don’t advance. Thus, the one who advances is only the one who walks the path, who overcomes it. One simply must move forward. The training, the exercises, that you are beginning now, must be organized without stopping.

I am sure that each one of you gradually will begin to feel the appearance of unity, the shared force that is specifically created on the surface of our mutual feelings. This will be revealed. One simply must work constantly on this.

This is the system for the inner development of the additional sensor, of the spiritual sense. It is specifically developed within a group, and only in this way.

We will develop this system even more. We will make it more accurate and more complex. You will get these tasks. You will feel that you are changing.

You know that, when one prepares the dough for bread, one kneads it for a long time. You must “knead” yourselves, until an image of “man” comes forth from your attributes.

This work needs to continue for a few months. As much as we aspire to this more strongly, it will yield results more quickly. However, only in this way will it be realized.

All of this is described in our sources. I am not saying anything new. We simply are beginning the most serious and broadest implementation of this system.

It is very good that today you are either experiencing something or not experiencing something. Don’t forget that, but also, don’t remain there! Simply write it down in your notebook and move forward.

You will see how, gradually, time after time, your state will change. The accumulation of these impressions, in the end, will produce within you intellect and sensation, and will enable the mutual discovery of the next level, the force of the Creator. He will be revealed.

In any case, even if you felt nothing that you had hoped or wanted to attain, you went through some kinds of stages, through some kinds of feelings, and this already is quite a bit. You must value this!

The main thing is not to degrade. All the discernments are positive, and man must undergo them.
[75901]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

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Question: During the workshop, I constantly felt shame that we were sitting and playing like children. After all we are grown-ups. What can I do with regard to this?

Answer: This game is nature’s most important and mature component. Whoever plays is the one who grows. And the one who doesn’t play, he already is considered as dead because his growth has stopped.

Do you know what the game symbolizes? The game is when I imagine the next level of my advancement and yearn for it. Actually it is a sign of growth.

Exactly the same game is found in vegetative and the conditions of development of the animate. The same element exists in them.

While working on my doctorate in philosophy, I had a question on the theory of games.

In order to grow, the plant needs to create within itself the suitable conditions for that, to develop within itself the forces of growth. Thus it grows.

The same unique principle of the game operates also in spirituality and also in our world, at every level of the worlds. Every one! Thus the game is the most esteemed component of nature.

It is not a football game, but a game of the next level, a game of growth.

This is the most honorable engagement of a person, since in this way he grows.

You pass through a very broad variety of states, of feelings. You need to accumulate all of this within you in order to feel the Upper Light. It is surrounding us, but we can’t “grasp” it. We need all of these feelings, which need to accumulate in us more and more. It will gradually accumulate in you, will assemble into one sensor, one detector, one sense, and then you will discover it.

This is actually the task of the creation of the soul. The soul is like a sensor for feeling the Light. That’s all. On the one hand, under the influence of your yearnings, the attribute of bestowal and love is created in you, and on the other hand, according to your yearnings, the Upper Light operates and bestows on you and promotes you.

Thus there is nothing to be embarrassed of. Grow!
[75938]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

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