Question: I will be connected to the North American convention virtually, together with other friends. How can we create a powerful unity on the path to the convention? How can we raise its importance so we all disconnect from corporeality and feel the single world Kli?

Answer: First of all, I would advise you to attend the New York convention after all. This is necessary without a doubt.

Secondly, I suggest you read all of Rabash’s and Baal HaSulam’s articles about the group. Unification, the change in a person’s attitude toward the group are what’s important.

Thirdly, dissemination also plays a big role in the preparation.

Thus, we are trying to help the Convention, to prepare and bring several more people to it who are in doubt as to whether or not they should attend. We should bring together as many people as possible to take part in it.

Besides, North America will be preparing with the help of South America, thanks to our meetings in Columbia, Chile, and Brazil. This will be real, practical preparation, including not only lessons and lectures, but also participation in seminars.
[75973]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we measure our advancement, in comparison to what?

Answer: I measure my advancement by checking to what extent I justify the friends, value them, and see them as the greatest in our generation, as special people, and to what extent I see the Creator’s image in them and want their attributes to become part of me.

I want to become the result of their influence because this is called the internal perception of the environment. What they imprint in me will be the form of the Creator, the human part in me.

I understand that this is how I should treat them, but at the same time I don’t see them that way. These are two feelings that don’t connect at all. On the one hand, I feel that the friends are great and special and that they are no different from the Creator. On the other hand, I understand that I treat them in a totally different way. This determines my attitude towards the Creator. If I disrespect the society, to the same extent I disrespect the Creator, it’s absolutely the same. If I want to change by the environment, it’s as if I place myself under the influence of the Creator.

If I can combine these two discernments, meaning hating and disrespecting the friends while at the same time respecting and valuing them, I attain these two polar opposite points. One becomes my Keter and the other becomes my Malchut and together they build my spiritual vessel.

By attaining such a vessel, I understand that this is my nature and I can determine that I am in “exile” because now I see the cause that requires my connection with the group and that I should place myself under its influence. On the other hand, I discover how far I am from connection, how I always forget it. I discover the difficulty in attaining it and how reluctant I am to do it.

Thus I see how harmful my ego is by not letting me be included in my environment in harmony, which means to be included and to melt in it as an integral part. This means that I transcend the Machsom (barrier) that separates me from the spiritual work.
[75729]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/19/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: From what I understand, when we speak of fulfilling desires at the “human” degree, we’re talking about fulfilling the desire for connection with the Creator. Should I also be fulfilling a person’s corporeal desires, like his desire to watch football?

Answer: The fact is that all unfulfilled desires of our world, meaning suffering, are aimed only at revealing the Creator to a human being. And only if we continue toward this goal will these desires be fulfilled.

We see that the world is full of pleasures, opportunities—anything you can think of—and still people suffer. We see that despite the fact that there’s an abundance of resources in the world, half of humanity is hungry. We see that despite the great advances made by medicine, people are sicker today than they were in the past. We see that although people are given all the means to lead a normal life, they still get divorced and don’t want to raise children, suicide rates are rising, and so on and so forth.

Why is this happening?! What is the problem?!

So you let a person watch some football. Then what? It is better to teach him something that will actually allow him to come closer to the source of fulfillment because any fulfillments that I can give him, besides whatever is necessary for our physical body, will only divert him from the goal, causing him to suffer in the end.

There is nothing else. There is only one goal. And all of humanity must aspire to it.

If we fulfill our physical body on the animate level with all it needs for survival, all our remaining motives, all our remaining desires must be aimed only at achieving the goal. Otherwise, if I use them in some other direction and not toward the goal, I receive feedback that will trigger suffering in me, to make me correct my direction.

Therefore, if I give a person anything other than his bare necessities, something additional, like letting him watch football, my actions indirectly cause him to suffer. I’ll buy him a ticket to see a game, and he will definitely receive some blow from fate because he’s not moving in the right direction. This will happen all the time. That is why humanity’s suffering only increases as we develop further.

And we have no other means of doing good to a person other than to give him a normal, sensible standard of living: food, shelter, family, health, and everything else, but only in order to achieve the goal. Herein lies the program of creation.

And If I lead him away from this path, I am to blame for him failing to achieve this program of creation. And both of us will suffer for it. I cannot act in any other way.

That is why all my work in this world amounts to helping people to feed and take care of themselves only so that they understand how they can truly achieve happiness. All other paths only lead to misery because the Light’s influence will be opposite in order to guide the person to itself thereby.
[75893]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

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Question: During the workshop, the work was very intensive, but now I feel that I have lost the sensation that I acquired over the course of the workshop. So do I have to play this game my entire life?

Answer: You don’t have another choice. You play this game one way or the other!

You either play a game that the surrounding society presents to you, the society that doesn’t know itself what game it is playing. Or you play a real game offered to you by people who attained the upper layer of the universe. For you it is a game that tells you what you can attain. And so you choose. There is nothing else: You have two games to choose from.

One game is this life, and everybody plays it. They curse this game, not knowing by whose will they ended up here and when they will finish it, because they constantly lose in between.

Another game offers you an opportunity to attain a completely different level of nature, of the upper, spiritual matter, and do it in the course of your lifetime, even during its relatively short part. You only need to yearn for this revelation, to change your properties into bestowal and love: not to use others for your selfish interests, but to try to have a good, benevolent connection with them. That’s all. There is nothing else!

The theory is very simple. And practice depends on you. Choose which game to play. You either learn from people who want for you to do good and to create a world similar to the force of bestowal and love. Or you will learn from the examples of the surrounding world: mass media, TV, newspapers, and soap operas.

That’s the choice you have. The surrounding society shapes you anyway: either the group or the “street.” Only that! Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
[75890] 
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1 

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Question: In the convention in the Arava desert you said that our work is very serious, but at the same time joyful. How do these two things go together?

Answer: The main thing in spiritual work is the greatness of the goal. Rabash wrote that inspiration, the greatness of the goal, the yearning for it, it all stems from the fact that we feel that we are on a special mission, have a special responsibility, a big goal before us, and have to naturally perceive all this with gratitude and with joy. If it weren’t for the joy, we would have no power to do anything.

Therefore, we must constantly feel inspiration, which will be cultivated naturally within us if we begin to appreciate the cause we gathered for. Together with inspiration, with the feeling of joy and the greatness, we need to feel some concern that we might not be able to do it. Without this opposite part we will take our current actions lightly, while it is actually a very serious matter.

All our other studies: the structure of the worlds, the souls, the Lights that enter the vessels, and other processes that take place there, they are all theoretical. The realization of this theory takes place in the group, and this is the practical part. Here we can see and feel to what extent this method is working internally, if we really take it seriously: on one hand, in great inspiration (it is like Keter), and on the other, in fear and some concern regarding the success of the mission (it relates to Malchut).

The greater the gap between these attributes in us, the gap between the concern and the great inspiration, the stronger and bigger our vessel, in which we perceive the revelation of the upper Light. The capacity of the vessel depends on the gap between the two attributes.
[75317]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2

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Question: Why is the Creator concealed from me? What is He afraid of?

Answer: During the preparation period a person sometimes feels that the Creator is concealed from him, and sometimes he doesn’t feel anything. As a person advances he feels how much he needs the revelation of the Creator so that he will be able to bestow.

A person understands that without this revelation he will never be able to bestow. Only the revelation of the Creator in contrasts to my ego will provide me with the attribute of bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason.” Then I will be able to restrict myself, and will receive a Masach, (screen) and the Returning Light, and will be able to bestow, but it all depends on the level of the Creator’s revelation to me.

I am waiting for His revelation, not in order to receive pleasure from Him, but so that I will be able to work above my desire to receive. This is the state we should reach and we are almost there. We have to feel that the revelation of the Creator is essential, so that we will be able to attain bestowal and connect among us and bestow upon Him.

First different thoughts come up, searches and then feelings. It is the state of the “posterior,” which is a state of deficiency, of necessity. The “face” is already the filling, the revelation. But in spirituality the filling and the revelation symbolize the ability to bestow by which I am filled.

I am not filled in my vessels of receiving as I previously thought. New vessels are depicted in me and by them I feel a deficiency for connection, for bestowal, a yearning to see everyone and all of reality as one. By trying to actually implement this I suddenly understand that I can’t do that and that I want to do something else, but I don’t have the “hands” to do so.

I cannot perform an action of bestowal. It is like wanting to do something in this world but not having the tools to do it, and so I feel totally helpless and powerless, lacking the understanding and the resources to carry it out. I feel like a fish that has no fins that cannot do anything and cannot change anything.

I understand that I need a certain force, in order to discover all three discernments: right, left and the middle. Then I will discover how to work with the right and left lines in order to build the “head” between them, the mind. My fulfillment is when I will be able to fulfill this action of bestowal above myself. I have to imagine exactly how to put all the components together, in order to feel the importance of bestowal, who I bestow upon, what do I bestow, and by what do I bestow. This means that I clearly understand this action.
[75389]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/12, Writings of Rabash 

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Question: When I leave the group, good feelings remain in my memory. However, when I return to it, a certain fear appears within me that forces me to clarify what I am afraid of.

Answer: You are not sufficiently connected to the group. You don’t have anything to fear if you are small among them. If you are still afraid, you need to make yourself even smaller, up to the point of a fetus within a mother’s womb. Then, you will have nothing to fear.

The entire problem is that you trying to guard yourself, and fears appear along with all kinds of doubts, worries, and so on. To the extent of these fears, doubts, and worries, you need to understand that they are given to you so that you become more deeply integrated in the group. Then these fears, doubts, and worries will disappear. By annulling yourself before the group, you will find yourself within it under its protection. The group becomes a womb for you, as something big within which you exist.
[75502]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2 

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Question: If the Creator manages all the opposing forces that appear during this time, why is the transition between two degrees so dangerous?

Answer: Our main work is concentrated specifically in the transition between the degrees, not in the fixed state. When I am on a certain degree, I work only in order to delve into these states, to understand and examine them.

In our world, we think that the main thing is the achieved state, not the transition to it. However, in the spiritual world, what matters is the transition, not the state itself.

We remain in a certain state only for the period of time required for us to discover it. It could last for a second, then the transition, again, a state lasting a second and again, the transition. There was a Kabbalist who told his students that he went through 400 ascents and descents in a few minutes’ time.

In the spiritual world, we feel an inverted and different dimension into which we break within the framework of time, movement, and space. It is specifically by this that we penetrate the space between the seconds of our world. In our world, the seconds move directly one after another. Spirituality is found between them because spiritual life takes place specifically in the transitions, not in the states themselves.

A static state is a dead one, and it doesn’t count in spirituality. It exists only in order to complete the degree, which includes in its sub-degrees a great many internal transitions. This is why a person, who is in the spiritual world, is constantly going through changes and has no rest.

The spiritual concepts do not exist within our coordinates of time, movement, and space because in our world, there are no breaks between the seconds, there are no gaps either in time or space. Whereas spirituality indicates that you find an interruption between one second and the next, and penetrate its depth, thus entering the spiritual dimension.
[75516]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/2012, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Is it possible for us to change the world right now with sufficient speed and effectiveness?

Answer: To change the world means to explain how it is currently and how it should be. By correcting myself and beginning to be an integral part in this entire space within this system, I thereby change the world. When I explain to the entire world what is happening to it and how we need to change in order to bring the world into balance, I am altering it.

Basically, I am providing explanations so that people would change themselves. There is no coercion in it. I cannot force them, I can’t come up with some new society, stick them in there, and then the world would become better, by no means.

We are at a stage where there can be no other change. Nature has always driven us forward. We thought that we were changing the world, but in reality, we were simply pushed toward happiness with a “stick.” We were always trying to do something, and ultimately, we have come to such a state where we improve the world only by improving ourselves with our awareness, with a rational understanding of nature, and with our connection and balance with it.
[75583]
From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/26/12 

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Question: How can we increase the importance of the goal before the coming conventions in South and North America? There are many serious interferences now; how can we rise above them?

Answer: It is good that there are many interruptions. A person needs two discernments. On the one hand, he feels the interruptions: how he disrespects everyone and how much he hates to be with them as his pride raises him above everyone else and he draws away from them.

This can happen both to an individual and to a whole group and by that actually destroys it. The question is whether a group can recover. The convention gives such a chance to groups that are in a difficult situation and that hardly have any positive forces that can connect them.

There are groups that connect only on a negative basis: against the teacher and against what he says, or against another part of the group. This is the only thing that keeps them together. The convention is an opportunity to enter a bigger and stronger environment that is above the individual group. In it the problematic group can be corrected, if they are ready to annul themselves: each member individually and the group as a whole.

They will come to the convention like to a Mikveh (ritual purifying pool), but in order to do that they have to “make a sacrifice,” to bring their ego as their sacrifice. If they are ready for that, the convention will heal that group.

If not, we will see how as a result of the convention, they will draw away even further and they may even go their own way. I believe that the convention should be strong enough, so that everyone will have clear discernments: that he either annuls himself and advances towards the goal with the help of the environment, which we build together as a factor in its development and as the representative of the Creator, or he leaves the way by clarifying that it is not for him.

Let’s hope that this is what will happen. Enough of the childish games and the struggles over control and honor that are tearing up the groups. It is time for serious advancement and time to stop acting like kids who are fighting in the sand box. It is time for important actions and the responsibility that humanity demands from us.

If you are ready for that, that’s great, let’s work. If not, it is better if you just disappear. It is one or the other. So the convention should help everyone clarify where he is and to what he is prepared to dedicate the rest of his life.

When the whole global group connects during the convention, it is a very strong environment, which is most efficient for advancement. Therefore, it is a good idea to be included in it these days and to take part fully in what is going on: both physically and internally with all of one’s soul. By that a person puts himself under the strongest possible influence for advancement in our world.
[75726]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/12, Writings of Rabash

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