Question: What should our approach to consumption be in order to maintain the well-being of our bodies?

Answer: I suffer from a light form of diabetes. I like sweets, sugar, and it’s the cause of my diabetes. In nature there is no sugar, only sweets like fruit and honey. If I didn’t abuse sugar, I wouldn’t have gotten sick.

There are a lot of foods that we produce only for the purpose of filling someone’s bank account, and as a consequence, for filling the hospitals with patients. Humanity must review all of its actions and gradually exclude from consumption all things that contain poison. First we have provide the necessary replacements and then stop the production of harmful things.

Just as we battle smoking, we have to battle everything else that’s harmful to our health. Nature contains a selection of ingredients such as fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, water, and so on. These are the things we should limit ourselves to. If it doesn’t exist in nature, then undoubtedly it’s harmful to your health. We should find the correct use for whatever does exist in nature.

Comment: Today, such a diet will end up being much more expensive then a regular diet.

Answer: I’m not saying that we need to return to being vegetarian, all natural, to pure biology with no genetics. We have no choice in this matter because we won’t be able to sustain all of humanity. However, we need to conduct more research and create the necessary technologies. For example, I have a friend who grows fruits and vegetables in the Arava desert without any chemical pesticides; instead he uses special bacteria that eats pests.

There are different ways to go about it, but most importantly everyone has to be provided with food. Then gradually we’ll move into being ecologically friendly.

The integral education has to cover all aspects of our lives in order to lead us toward correction and development. By doing so we will ensure health as well as a balanced approach toward all types of human activities. This revolution in our consciousness and interrelations will eventually effect technology, economy, agriculture, and all other aspects of our lives.
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 11, 1/9/12

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Question: The course of evolution of human egoism can be studied through the example of the four phases of the development of nature. Should we study other subjects in this evolutional context?

Answer: No, from the point of view of the development of egoism, evolution and history are historical forms that gradually accumulate and change thanks to egoism, and do so suddenly, by a leap. Any kind of social activity, interrelationships, engineering, or technology is replaced within a few years or decades by another kind since one obliges the other.

Social relationships change, and thus the post, telegraph, telephone, notaries, parliamentary interaction, and so on emerge. That is, everything changes on the entire level, on the entire dimension of human interrelationships.

We are not simply studying history, but social, political, economic, public, and technological development, as well as instruments of work and production, and agriculture. It is because agriculture determines migration, which determines demography, which determines something else. All in all, everything is so interconnected!

Also linked to this are the glacial age, the minor glacial age, the period of vegetation, and so on. We connect ecology with it, including the climate. We see that all of this is one, whole system.

Question: Why do we need to feel these phases?

Answer: If one does not know what happened yesterday, tomorrow he cannot think correctly. One must see the entire huge system that has always been moving and has brought us to our state today. Although it continues to move our still, vegetative, and animate states, it leaves to us the fourth level of development as free will, because we must complete it ourselves.

It turns out that one can make some approximations already and see that we will be moving forward. However, if one does not add his personal participation by exercising his free will, interacting with others correctly, and voluntary restructuring himself and society in advance, before receiving blows from behind, then his still, vegetative, and animate components push him forward harshly and summon corresponding actions within him. These may be terrible diseases, earthquakes, upheavals of revolution, and so on.

We do not have a clear view of this process as the necessary empirical material has not yet accumulated. However, we can make an approximation as to what kinds of blows we will be experiencing that will push us from behind, “toward happiness by the stick,” so to speak, if we do not forestall it through our unification, with mutual participation and aspiration toward harmony and unity.

This is why it is very important to study the past.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #12, 12/16/11

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of The Ten Sefirot,” Item 115: That such a person, who is still short of one commandment, will regard himself as half unworthy and half worthy. Meaning, one should imagine that the time when he was granted repentance was in the middle of his years….

Thus, in the first half of his years he is unworthy, and in the second half of his years, he is worthy.

Question: If a person wants to complete the whole process in this lifetime, how should he make an effort in the work?

Answer: During the preparation period a person hates everyone. Then the transgressions become mistakes and he connects with everyone. But this isn’t a complete correction yet. He is still in a state of Hafetz Hesed. Eventually, on the next level a person connects until he is in adhesion.

So the whole process is aimed at unity, and a person can reach the greatest unity from the greatest separation.

Every change is called a “reincarnation.” A person can live for 80 years without even starting to change and not go through one reincarnation. A new car, a new apartment—these things have nothing to do with reincarnation. The beastly body lives and dies, and this has nothing to do with reincarnation either.

On the other hand, everyone can end the process in one lifetime. Whether a person will do it is another question. It depends on him—he needs to want to end it. There is nothing else in creation except for the desire. If a person’s individual desire is small, he should find ways to increase it; he should find assistance in the wisdom of Kabbalah and in the Light that’s in it. There are no other options.

Some people come to us once a week, some come only on holidays, some come everyday, others come here in the morning and in the evening, and yet others try to spend the whole day doing what’s important. There are people who spend the whole day here because it is convenient and it feels safe, they feel like an embryo in the womb. Others want to fight their ego. It all depends on a person’s intention and on how he uses the means at his disposal.

Question: What does it mean “the middle years”?

Answer: It is the symbolic age of 40, that is, the stage in which a person ends his correction in Bina. Bina is called a blocked “Mem” (ם), whose numerical value is 40. Only after this level is it possible to move to receiving in order to bestow.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Question: In the psychology of family relations the period of people demonstrating their best personal qualities to one another ends relatively quickly because we actually don’t have that many of them. Eventually we begin to discover and to accept each other’s weak  points.

Answer: When we reveal man’s essence, we fail to find a single positive, decent quality. Let’s look into the source of such seemingly positive movements like love and compassion. A person helps others, feels love and compassion, makes personal sacrifices, but all of this stems from his egoistic qualities. We can’t attribute these qualities to his personal virtue because he receives them from nature.

If I am created with all of these nice qualities, people say about me: “What a special person!” But if nature granted someone with a different set of qualities, we say: “What a horrible, ugly person!” However, neither I nor he have anything to do with this.

This is why upon marking out a person from all that’s inherent in him, we must simply distinguish an empty outline and attribute all of this not to him, but to his inherent qualities. Initially, a person has neither positive nor negative qualities. We have to accept a person for his readiness to be corrected and not pay attention to his characteristics.

No matter who you are, when it comes to interpersonal relationships, an ascent above oneself has the ultimate value. All of a sudden you reveal that all of your positive qualities are actually worse than the negative ones because they appear to be good on the outside, but in fact stem from a deeper egoism.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #13, 12/18/11

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Question: In psychology, a crisis is described as a painful phenomenon, but if a person overcomes it and does not give in, he transitions to a new level, where a large quantity of energy is released and a person begins to live a new life.

Answer: Even more so, any disease is also an act of healing. Suppose some malfunction occurred. Now it is being corrected, compensated in some way. And the timeframe when it is being compensated and corrected, we consider it to be a disease. In reality, however, this is already the correction.

We purposely have vaccinations; we inject a micro-disease into the organism in order to stimulate its positive reaction, to prevent it from threatening external influences.

If we collected all these critical, painful symptoms together, we would discover that we need to relate to them as to the birth of a new state, as to health improvement, to correction, to our adjustment, and to our rise onto the next level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #13, 12/18/11

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Question: Suppose in the process of interaction with a person, I feel an unpleasant sensation from him. Could this be an invitation for me to make an effort to connect with him?

Answer: You have to connect with him, put him in front of yourself, and then as if instead of yourself. This is your internal work. Again, it depends on at what level it is performed. Sometimes, we must specifically oppose each other in order to dig deeper, to come into greater contact. Essentially, we need contradiction to feel each other better.

Contact does not mean blurring the image. On the contrary, this image should become clearer. I have to see in a person everything opposite to me and at the same time, his desire to be with me. When we put one on top of the other, we get a dipole: the opposite qualities with the positive qualities above them. This dipole structures gives perfection and sharpens the senses, perception, and adhesion.

This contradiction is opposite to the regular reactions of our world because we add a positive level here. This does not exist in our world.

In our world, we are willing to accept some agreements and concessions, but they are carried out at one level: the egoistic one. Here, we try our best to take ourselves and the other to the next level of coordination with each other, in no way removing or erasing our initial negative qualities. They continue to develop in us rapidly.

It turns out that the group where members have a good connection with each other is advancing, developing, and discovering inside it strikingly wild qualities and original instincts: hatred, envy, and jealousy, and it’s all for nothing, as they say. We understand that all this is for us to rise above and to use them correctly. Thus, nature helps us in our inner development.

Conversely, the group that grasps the materials poorly and puts little effort into connecting with each other does not discover resistance and new negative qualities in its efforts to unite. Thus, their dipoles are small.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #13, 12/18/11

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Question: Is the information about the crisis, which has now entered the active phase of development, negative or not?

Answer: We have gone through the period of intrauterine fetal development. Now, comes the period of birth: contractions, dramatic events, and even risk to the mother and her baby. However, we believe this is necessary for birth, for the appearance of a new human in our world seemingly from another world, from a state that is completely opposite to us. Why should we consider this a crisis?

If you were to show what happens to a pregnant woman to a creature from another planet, how something is born from her, with screaming and labor pain and people bustling around her, he would think that the woman was dying, that something is happening to her, and that has no joy in it. However, a husband with flowers and relatives are standing behind the door. There is something strange about this picture.

So, we relate to the crisis as the husband with the flowers. Others relate to the crisis like the alien.

Comment: When you begin to reveal truth to a person, it is painful for him or her to receive information.

Answer: However, it is not accidental that nature erases women’s memories of childbirth and how hard it was. Women are ready to go through this again.

We see that there is a process that we have to go through, and nothing can be done. So according to what we experience, we should exalt the next degree: what we achieve through this crisis.

The very word “crisis” means birth, ascent. Hence, we should treat it as such.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #13, 12/18/11

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Question: Today the issue of cancelling grades is becoming relevant and there is much talk about it because people understand that grades cause harm and make our kids technocrats.

Answer: Like in any crisis, the damage is evident, but no one knows how to correct the situation. Eventually, one damage will be covered by another: Grades will be cancelled, but new frameworks will be built and then we won’t even have what we had before. Currently, if we consider the lack of understanding of the real reasons for what is going on, more is not necessarily better. All these additions are not adapted to nature. If we just give more freedom to kids, it will not add anything. Without integral learning, that is adapted to nature, no good will come out of these changes.

Question: But the experts are right, they say that we’ve changed and the world is now mutually connected, and we should work in groups, cooperate, develop children’s creativity, their creative thinking, their ability to study and research things, and to develop the human being in them; how is that different?

Answer: In Kabbalistic terms this is called a “shell.” It means that it is impurity. Experts are suggesting that we use the potential of becoming equal to the Creator in order to gain personally. The moment they approach this, they will encounter many crises that will be worse than the pervious situation. Such tendencies can be compared to “the connection of the evil” that is bad for them and bad for the world.

If the goal is not the union with the Creator, then the result will be the same as in Russia, where the attempts to reach unity led to the opposite results. Eventually, this will also bring us to the desired solution, but it will be a long and difficult road. They can try new ways, cancel exams and have kids sit in a circle, but one way or the other if they don’t get a teaching kit from us but act according to their egoistic understanding with no connection to the Creator, the results will be negative. Eventually such criminals will come out of schools that compared to them, today’s graduates will seem like angels.

The whole idea is using the Godly principle, the spiritual principle for personal benefit. If we bring the world our method, it will be totally different. Then the Rambam’s principle, according to which we should develop the “women and children” gradually until they acquire knowledge, will be enacted because the right method will lead them forward. But if they decide to use their own forces, they are expected to fail after a while.

It is true that experts have begun to penetrate the essence of the problem lately and to express wonderful ideas. But there is no choice: If people don’t have the right intention, then they are all doomed.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The coming European convention is a great hope for connection and for being able to sense the revelation of the Creator in the connection among us, the revelation of the spiritual world. First, the Reforming Light that operates on us will connect us and we will feel the adhesion among us, which we attain in order to bring contentment to the Creator. Then according to the equivalence of form, it will be revealed in us and we will feel that “Israel (those who yearn for the Torah), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator, are one.”

We yearn for the union of all the souls into one soul that is filled with the upper Light, to feel it, to discover it and to live in it, first by ourselves because we already have the desire for it, and then to help the whole world attain it. Eventually everything that is revealed in our world—all the suffering, the crises and the troubles—are nothing more than forces that hasten the development of humanity towards this perfect state.

Therefore, when we yearn for this perfect state, we want to achieve two goals: love of the Creator and love of humanity. We want to bestow all the goodness that we achieve by our work and our attainment on both humanity and the Creator. After all, we are in the middle, between them, like the middle third of Tifferet that has nothing and doesn’t want anything for itself—Hafetz Hesed. We only enjoy bringing pleasure to humanity and through it, through all this general soul, to the Creator.

This is the vessel we have to prepare. This is the state we have to reach. Therefore, while reading The Zohar, we want to approach it. Let’s think about it!

If a person imagines the next state he wants to reach, it is already a prayer. After all, I don’t know where the Creator is, how to raise a request to Him, MAN, who it goes through, what this MAN actually is, or what desires it is. That’s the way it is in our lives: If we want something, we imagine that we already have it, and yearn for this imaginary picture where we are in the desired state.

They say that if you want to be slim—don’t diet, don’t listen to all kinds of advice, and don’t take diet pills and exercise, etc. nothing will help. Only constantly think that you are already slim. Then you will see that you don’t feel hungry any more and you will really lose weight.

It is really so, and it is the same with everything: You must imagine that you are already in the future state and you will really advance towards it. The yearning that is aimed at the goal will bring you there.

It is the same with us. So let’s imagine that we are really in the good state. There is no need to evoke any deficiencies, troubles, and worries, but only to yearn for this whole state, and try as hard as we can to help ourselves to actually reach that.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, The Zohar

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Question: What is the meaning of “to enjoy being connected with others”? How can we explain it?

Answer: It is impossible to explain since we do not sense it in our world. To enjoy being connected with others means to reveal the force that exists between us.

Currently it exists in the egoistic form, in its opposite; now I can enjoy being above others, being better than others, that I look positive in their eyes, have their respect, etc. For this I work all my life. Besides the things required for fulfillment of the animate existence, everything else I do is only for the purpose to look great in the eyes of other people and to have their respect and honor.

If not for this pressing necessity of my egoism, I would buy one pair of pajamas and wear it my whole life since it’s the most comfortable. I would wear slippers all my life and would live my life the way that is most comfortable for me without concern about my neighbors. I wouldn’t care about any extras since I wouldn’t be receiving from any attitudes and values from the outside world about jewelry, hairstyles, cars, etc. I would not have any needs except for the corporeal ones.

If we were able to develop just the spiritual needs, leaving only the requirements for our animalistic, physical needs we would pretty quickly achieve the revelation of the next rung of our development, meaning our next level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of the Integral Society” 2/5/12

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