Question: There are certain states or circumstances where a person doesn’t get a chance to sleep. Does this matter? Is it worthwhile to take a thirty minute nap?

Answer: This depends on the person. However, if a person is working hard on himself, then I would recommend taking a break in the middle of the day to rest. I would also recommend practicing a specific technique that teaches a person to sleep for about fifteen or twenty minutes and feel really well rested.

This is necessary in our work because we are in a constant state of inner concentration toward ascending, uniting, and we apply efforts beyond the typical mental and emotional efforts. Therefore, we must rest. It’s more important to rest during the day than to get a full night’s sleep.
[72458]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

Related Material:
Taking Care Of Your Physical Health
Gentlemen, Let’s Be Well!
Health, Not Wealth, Makes Us Happy

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

Question: In case it transpires that some people in the group of integral upbringing have psychological disorders, how do we interact with them?

Answer: We mark them out immediately and try to understand the extent to which they can conduct themselves in a general framework and the extent to which work on themselves can negatively affect their psyche. In that case, we will remove them from the group, gently and carefully, for some period of time or permanently.

We have psychiatrists who can give their conclusion after observing the person from aside for some time and using references from their friends and close ones. Undoubtedly, if a person with a damaged mentality stays in a group for a long period of time, it may give a negative result, a surge of very bad energy.

However, we rarely come across such problems; there are very few of such people. As a rule, they become balanced somehow.

We remove them for some time and then we give them the opportunity to return. Then, we remove them again, and they come back again. This happens a number of times. They cannot advance at the same rate as the group. That is why it is beneficial for them to be distanced a little bit. However, in general, most of them find some strength to compensate.

Question: People today often encounter deep depressive states, not simply a bad mood, but the deepest depression requiring anti-depressants, hospitals, and so on. If we come across such occurrences, do we recommend that the person go to the doctor, or do we try to correct it through the integral system?

Answer: In clinical cases, only a complete change in environment can help, where you take the person together with a particular group to nature, to the beach, or the river, and there you begin to carry out very serious sessions with him plus a lot of sports in the fresh air.
[72364]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11 

Related Material:
Taking Care Of Your Physical Health
Balance Means Health
The Brain Distinguishes Between The Sacred And The Profane

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

I don’t correct myself, but rather my incorporation in others. There is nothing to correct in me, except for my connection with others.

Who are the “others?” Here we should understand that the “me” I was yesterday is not the “me” I am today. I have to clarify the relationship between me and others according to the different states I am in. Every day a person starts a new leaf and the corrections are always with regards to the mutual connection between the Partzufim.

It says that the love among people is aimed at the love of the Creator. The love of friends is the same vessel, the same attitude in which I express my bestowal upon Him. After all, the Creator is the general law, the general attribute that I discover in the mutual connection among all of us.

There is nothing except for the general vessel. In my attitude to the friends, in my spirit, in my heart, I create the Creator. Until then He actually doesn’t exist.

Question: We are having an exercise in the group: Everyone should think about everyone worrying about everyone else in their thoughts. We remind each other to think about that and add, “with the help of the Creator.” Does this bring us to true love?

Answer: Yes, if you mean that everything can exist only with the help of the Reforming Light, then you really are creating the necessary conditions for fulfillment.

Love has no limits; it spreads until Ein Sof, (Infinity) and onward. Each time we define it differently—when we exit our present desires and intentions. The current exercise is effecitve against forgetfulness: A friend reminds another friend about three conditions: me, him and the upper force, the Reforming Light. In other words, the Reforming Light brings us back to one another. Once the Light resided in the connection among us and now when it “welds” us anew it fulfills the necessary condition of the correction in order to reside among us again. This is called a Mitzva (commandment) in the language of Kabbalah.
[68654]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
The Light Will Complete The Construction
Strike The Long-Awaited Goal
My Desire, Your Light

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: What is Europe’s role in the correction of the world?

Answer: Europe has a very important role in the correction of the world. I am very happy with the news about the growing integration in Europe. Just recently there were talks about disintegrating the EU and about throwing Greece and other countries out. But today it turns out that it is impossible to separate. The Europeans examined the situation and discovered that the disintegration of the Union would lead to total collapse.

So they are already speaking about building Europe similarly to the US, with a federal government for all. And all this is happening in Europe where nations dislike each other even today.

This is how the upper Light conveys the idea of integration to us, and although they are not too thrilled about it, they are making a new plan from hopelessness. I have been writing about this in my blog for several years, and now the unification of Europe may actually be realized.

Now that they have taken this new direction, we will see what the trend will be, to what extent they will advance, and what changes it will bring about. The Europeans still need an integral education system, of course, but we may be able to offer it to them because they are already prepared for that in a way. Otherwise, how will they manage to unite in the background of all internal conflicts?

One way or the other, it is a very important change of direction.

Question: How is it possible to hasten the integral upbringing? After all, it takes a long time.

Answer: Ordinary education takes a long time, but not integral upbringing. After all, it is realized in large groups of people who suffer and who immediately receive support from nature. It is enough to perform minor actions towards connection and the corresponding upbringing, and by that you will already be more balanced with nature, at least by one or two percent. In response to that you will certainly begin to feel positive changes.

The moment the process reaches the masses, it will immediately ease the feeling of crisis. After all, the “crisis” is the lack of the connection that we should have reached. This is what creates the negative feeling in the current situation. Therefore, the moment you take the first steps towards connection, the crisis will stop.

Then everything will work out. You will understand how to divide the resources and the services. Crime rates will decrease, people’s health will improve, suddenly you will discover new financial resources, and so on.

So it isn’t only about integral upbringing. After all, because of its lack a person spends great sums of money in order to satisfy his or her needs.
[72695]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2012, Writing of Rabash

Related Material:
The Future Of Europe
Integral Education Is A Quick Process
Civilized Cohabitation Or European “Bazaar”?

Filed under: Crisis, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, World - 1 Comment →

The Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Taanit 7: He who engages in the Torah for its sake, the Torah becomes the potion of life for him, and he who engages in the Torah not for its sake, it becomes the potion of death for him.

If there is such great danger concealed in the Torah, perhaps it’s better not to engage in it? After all, if you study correctly, you “rise to heaven,” and if you don’t, “you sink into the ground,” into the abyss.

The problem is that if you don’t study correctly, the Light concealed in the Torah puts you into states that are opposite from the truth, but you don’t even notice that. The Torah doesn’t bring you death, but rather “the potion of death,” when you don’t feel that you are dead. You can study the Torah day and night, memorize page after page by heart, and at the same time be dead, meaning not understand that this is totally opposite from the goal for which the Torah was given.

The Torah was given to us so that we will reach the love of others. It says: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice because the Light in it reforms.” What does it mean that it reforms? It’s the “great law of the Torah”—”love thy friend as thyself,” or in other words, the general goal of everything that we do according to the Torah.

In every precept we perform, in every detail, we must advance towards the love of others. Only through the love of others will we reach the final goal, the love of the Creator and adhesion with Him, according to the equivalence of form between a person and the Creator.

Therefore, before the study, we have to prepare ourselves and keep all the necessary conditions so that the study of the Torah will bring us the desired goal: adhesion, that is, the correction of our intentions from egoistic to altruistic. This work is clarified only in the group, where we can check ourselves practically.

Each time we will discover hate among us and will get a chance to rise above it towards love. To do that, we need to organize ourselves correctly: We want to connect in order to reach adhesion and to discover the Creator in it, thereby bringing Him contentment. It’s possible to discover the Creator only in our collective vessel of bestowal. It’s necessary that we prepare ourselves for the lesson in this way so that we’ll approach the study correctly.

Question: If the potion of death doesn’t let me feel that I am dead, does the potion of life enable me to feel death?

Answer: I feel that I am living from the “potion.” It isn’t an ordinary existence anymore. In the intention of in order to bestow, above my nature, I attain life. The potion has the effect of making me lie to my egoistic desire and not to myself. On the other hand, the potion of death drowns me in the lie, which I don’t notice, and then I see myself as “righteous,” although I haven’t even entered the rank of “wicked.”

Question: How can the wisdom of Kabbalah save a person from the potion of death?

Answer: It can do it by the Light that Reforms. If you arrange all the conditions for yourself correctly, if you enter the group and disseminate, which is an inseparable part of the preparation these days, and if you participate in everything that the group experiences in order to reveal the connection, then you are preparing correctly for the study, and your intention during the study is not to read yet another paragraph, but to receive the Light that Reforms. It isn’t by chance that Baal HaSulam wrote in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 18: “…that while practicing Torah, they did not set their minds and hearts to draw the Light in the Torah….”

Everything is solved by the preparation. The right study is the study that you have prepared yourself for correctly. Then you read the text correctly, with the right intention, in the right group, with all the necessary conditions. And what do you get from the study? You get the chance to work and to rise: the feeling of hate and rejection of the friends….
[72543]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2012, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
Being Forced To Love
Taking The Medicine Together
Don’t Play With Fire

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

Question: How do you relate to the missile attacks in the south of Israel?

Answer: During the operation “Peace for the Galilee,” my teacher, Rabash, was very worried about the situation. He listened to the news every hour, and when he was asked why, he replied that he was worried about his children.

This is an example for us—we also need to worry in this way. A person needs to feel that all the people in the world are inseparable parts of him. Then he will worry about them just as he worries about himself, being in concealment and not feeling the oneness of the world within him.

One should not wish for anyone’s death, even for the death of one’s bitter enemies. We want them to become corrected and in general, we wish only good for everyone, and especially to the citizens who find themselves on the firing line. Of course, one shouldn’t allow anyone to take his life away, and thus in the Torah there is a law: For the sake of self defense, it is preferable to kill before being killed. But this is on condition that it’s really necessary and there is no other choice. In this situation, death serves as a correction. However, if you are able to correct the person during this reincarnation, do it.

In addition, we must remember our friends in the South of Israel. Together with them we pass through the process of our and the world’s correction. We must be with them in mind and soul.

Before the lesson, I watch the news in order to know about events that took place in the previous hours. We all need to be connected to this. We hope that all of this will be included into the framework of correction. If we exert effort faster, the states that come upon us by the path of suffering will invert to the path of the Torah. Then everything will be arranged in the best possible way, and we will acquire life without limits, in the entire world. We are able to initiate it, and there is no doubt that the Light can do this.

It’s very good that the friends join the lesson from the shelters. Rabash and myself did the same thing during the Gulf War.

And in general, we are in favor of a cease fire, in favor of ending all the conflicts in the world, in favor of destruction of all weapons, and in favor of man’s correction. This is mutual guarantee. Since we have become, against our will, guarantors of each other in a system that ties us together, the time has come to open our eyes and feel it in action. There is no other choice: We have to feel that we are each other’s guarantors.

However, when the mutual, inner connection appears before a person, he goes into shock. It turns out that it is all me: my parents, my children, my friends, strangers, and those I hate. It is such a huge variety of so many relations, and all of them are me, one Partzuf, the 10 Sefirot.
[72445]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
Why Are The Guns Roaring?
No War!
“These Are My Children”

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Israel, Mutual Guarantee Movement, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: In the process of any activity there are criteria of work effectiveness. It’s very important for people to understand whether they are doing their job well or not, in order to increase its quality accordingly, to add efforts, and so on. What can the criteria of effectiveness be in integral groups so that a person aspires to carry out his activities better?

Answer: We have a very serious self-evaluation system for this. Because you are constantly in a small society, you can always control yourself within it: How congruently connected to it you are, how closely you interact with it, how much it influences you, whether you place yourself under its influence, how much you can influence it, how much you can lower yourself relative to it, and how much you can feel yourself to be the voice of decision making in order to influence the society.

It means that all of these criteria are the environment and I: I am above it in order to positively influence it; I am below it in order to receive positive influence. And it’s the same for the environment relative to me: It influences me from above, and it wants to receive from me my share of participation in it from below.

There are very simple, direct methods of evaluating one’s states. A person can say where he is practically every second.
[72370]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

Related Material:
The Group: An Inverted Amplifier
What Determines The Group’s Charter?
Rising Above Your “Animal”

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

Question: At school, the teacher usually asks a question and a student answers. You have a completely different approach: You ask questions very rarely and, as a rule, wait to be asked questions. Why?

Answer: This is because I basically crave, aspire for my explanation to evoke in a student emptiness, empty places, meaning questions in order to know, to learn. A correct explanation does not “shut him up,” does not give him fulfillment. It reveals a little bit of what I am explaining and then a student suddenly runs into: “But why is it so? What if it’s not so, but different?”

It’s as if I instill into my explanations my questions, the opportunity to ask, and perplexity brought about by them, and I do it in advance. I want them to find defects in my explanations. This will help them grasp my explanation, understand it better, and to absorb it. This is very important.

That’s why if I am explaining and everything is clear to everybody, and there are no questions, I consider that I haven’t explained anything at all. I feel very bad then. When there are many questions—“this is not so, not from here, not like this”—then this is the material that will be absorbed for sure.

Comment: A question though, is not always a question….

Answer: Turn it around, do what you think is necessary so that the audience will learn from it. A lot of people ask, but they don’t know how to formulate the question exactly. We understand that the teacher must help the student here and to feel him or her.

I believe that if I transmit the information in 15-20 minutes, and then questions take up twice as much time, then this is a lesson truly absorbed. This is very important. It’s as if you are throwing them bait, and they swallow and clutch at it. With the help of this bait, they necessarily must approach you, hold on to you. It’s because the question and answer or an explanation begins with the fact that you have something and they don’t. You are trying to pass on to them what you have at the given moment decided to pass on.

The transfer has to consist of you giving them the information, and them, in response, asking any kind of questions from the entirety of the material that they have heard (only heard!) in order for them to experience, master, and completely absorb it inside. And this is only being reached with the help of questions, questions of various kinds, and from various kinds of people.

Question: What is the characteristic of an answer with which I shut off the interest of a person?

Answer: I never do this. I try to give an answer in which I purposely touch upon another, some kind of a crafty aspect. The student immediately has a reaction here: “Really? And how does this work?” This means that the answer leads him to other questions.

I want for the entire material, which I gave them during the first 15 minutes, to later be penetrated with questions from all sides. Then it will stay in them. I help them with my answers to ask a new question. The correct answer carries the next question in itself, and a correct question is already half the answer.
[72257]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

Related Material:
Work During The Lesson
How To Start Hearing The Teacher
Spirituality Cannot Be Expressed In Words

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

Question: You are saying that the force of reception will continue to grow as the force of bestowal keeps developing in us? Will it not diminish?

Answer: A new force of reception will grow in you as much as the force of bestowal will develop in you. It is not the force of a little egoist, which you were using on the animate level or on the level of a person of the “old world.” Now two forces are developing in you together, forces of a person of the new world.

Until now you were developing instinctively, like any animal. But unlike an animal, you have developed to such a level of egoism that it has simply become unbearable. And now you are trying to develop the force of bestowal with the help of the environment.

Bestowal assumes more than a gift; it is giving, mutual participation, closeness, support, mercy, to the point of love. Love includes all the other manifestations of connection and the ability to feel the desires of another. This is called the force of bestowal.

The moment I begin to develop this force within me, a second force begins to grow parallel to it, the force of reception, and it helps me to bestow. Because I do not have anything myself, I am unable to give to others, there is no way for me to establish a connection with them. But by using my entire force of reception, I can bestow to others.

I have only the force of reception by nature, and I have existed with it from the beginning of the universe until now. And now a question arises: How can I learn to bestow to others, to society, which will not accept me otherwise and will think that I am a savage, a nobody. I will feel shame in front of my children, my wife, relatives, all the people I care about, my closest environment, which even an egoist has.

I feel like everyone regrets my existence. And then I begin to understand that I need to begin to bestow. But how can I bestow? I can bestow through the force of reception that I have and connect to bestowal.

I have a big egoism that enabled me to win, to build, and do things. And now I use the same force to benefit others. This is called the force of bestowal. But these are very internal things, which a beginner probably cannot understand. They will not summon an inner response, a reaction, because we are not built this way. From this point on, we already need the force of correction contained in the Light that Reforms.

So, our conclusion is: By acquiring the force of bestowal, I develop an inner ability to see the entire world as if it were transparent, to see through it, to know what happens, to fix myself, my family, my immediate and distant social environments, and to arrange my life in a perfect way.

It enables me to attain the state of absolute happiness. I feel included in the eternal reality, and I rise to the human degree that gives me the feeling that life is worth living, existing, and continuing our species, having children. I feel satisfaction and fulfillment in life.

And all this happens by acquiring the force of bestowal though the proper environment.
[72141]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

Related Material:
An Egoist Who Values The Power To Bestow
Balance On The Level Of Thoughts
An Ounce Of Pleasure

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

Question: You say that all of our development is meant to raise our consciousness about who we are. So, who are we?

Answer: First of all, we are not animals existing inside of our bodies and only caring about how to fulfill it. Second, we are not simply egoistic creatures obliged to please our ego, which plays us and pushes us toward various false goals, only giving us suffering throughout our whole lives. It is written: “A person dies without having achieved even half of the desired,” meaning that no one is left satisfied about his life and while dying, does not take anything with him. Now, we have arrived at such a state where we are left with nothing, even prior to death.

However, we are creatures who have an absolutely unique potential, and we are located at the very top of nature that created the entire universe and, as a result of this wondrous process, developed life on earth along with us. This is what the goal of human development consists of.

This development, by the good or forceful path, must end with everyone attaining the whole of all-encompassing nature, identifying themselves, and reaching balance and perfect connection with it, which in Kabbalah is called “adhesion.” All of the person’s qualities have to be used for the sake of bestowal, serving the force of bestowal, like all of nature.

Then, we will see where our development has been leading us, in the form that existed before the planet earth was formed and afterward, in the periods of the formation of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and then the development of man. All of these forms up until today, when we have begun to enter the new world, the world of bestowal, all of the past development in our egoism, in the world of consumption where we search only for how to receive more, all of it was only preparation for the human level that we now have to develop within ourselves.
[72068]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

Related Material:
Balance Means Health
The Fundamental Difference Of A New Life
From The World Of Consumption To The World Of Bestowal

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