Question: What should I do with the hate towards the friends that I reveal on the spiritual path?

Answer: Learn from the authors of The Book of Zohar. Gathering together in order to “engage in the Torah,” that is, discover the Creator, they felt hatred towards one another first. This was the result of the great work of connection they did previously. Each time a new state, a new desire to receive, a new Reshimo (the informational gene), was revealed to them—and everyone felt it as corrupt: “I hate the others and I love myself, I want everything for myself.”

This is the right preparation: the revelation of new conditions that I have to correct now. First I discover the corruption and then I work on the correction, for which I need the Torah. It says: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” When the evil inclination is revealed, I can turn to the Torah for help.

If you don’t discover the evil from the start, you don’t reach the Torah either. In this case you don’t learn the method of correction, but theory. The “Torah” is the Light that Reforms that you draw from the writings of Kabbalists to the extent that you discover the evil within you and suffer because you don’t want it. This is because you yearn for bestowal, and the evil that is revealed to you disturbs you by not letting you reach it. It’s not that it brings you misfortunes or bad luck in this life; it prevents you from reaching bestowal in particular.

So the preparation for the lesson is the most important thing, as Baal HaSulam writes in “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 17. This is how one should approach the study. Wherever people study you can check: Do they reach the recognition of evil? Do they not just beat themselves on the chest and confess, but truly discover the evil in them?

A person doesn’t discover this with regard to his neighbors, colleagues, or family members, but only in relation to the friends, when he hates them instead of loving them. He tries to connect with them with all his heart, with all his might, but he cannot. Instead, he feels how hateful and repelling just the thought of it is.

There is no greater rejection and disapproval—after all, it is as if you are being forced to love. It comes to very difficult sensations. And it is then that you should engage in the Torah, that is, the method of correction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Question: What can we say to a person who is sitting in the shelter today under the missile attack in the southern part of Israel?

Answer: That he should join the dissemination of our message because this is the only means by which the world will become a better place. Through our message it will receive the “Light,” that is, the force of correction. There is no other way and no other action that will draw the upper reforming force. The wisdom of Kabbalah is based on drawing the Light that Reforms.

Of course, we should provide additional explanations, but on the whole, we should understand that the masses will approach spirituality quite easily. They won’t feel any ups and downs and will have no difficult questions. Unlike us, they don’t have a “plus” and a “minus,” but only a “minus,” emptiness, which is filled by unity. Eventually, they will agree to connect in order to fill themselves.

Thus they can spare themselves of many unpleasant situations on the path and achieve in ten lessons of study what you did in the course of ten years. When you look at their group, you will wonder: “For fifteen years I learned to hate the friends, whereas they love each other after several lessons.”

This is what you will see. After all, you are performing corrections and they are not. They simply learned how to receive pleasure correctly, they caught the right direction: “To connect? Then let’s connect, as long as we receive pleasure.” But you, looking at them from the side, will envy them.

We should refer to scientific research and logically convince a person that we must unite. Then a person will understand the reason for everything that happens—our imbalance with nature—and will agree to connect in order to reach equilibrium with it.

I should have a balanced attitude towards the whole world, including the ecology, the family, the friends,and so on. I have to become the one who bestows, meaning, a well-functioning, corrected part of the whole. It is enough that I agree to move in that direction, and the trend will immediately change. Eventually everything will work out. The clouds will clear and we will see the blue sky, so to speak.

Question: So who should a person connect with?

Answer: With the world, but first, with the group. It isn’t enough to love the world while being detached from it, like the celebrities who tell us on TV: “Who loves you more than I do?” This means that we will have to gather people into groups.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Question: What should we focus on while reading The Zohar: the Light or the deficiency?

Answer: What can you do with the Light? We only know that there is a great, perfect force in nature that is good and benevolent to the good and to the bad, that is, to those who want to advance according to its laws and those who do not.

We are actually in a field of Light where the attribute of bestowal is. It is similar to the laws of physics that determine the behavior of any force field, such as electromagnetic or gravitational. In order for this field to influence us most effectively, we should keep its conditions and resemble it. Then, it will operate on us most strongly.

Our sensitivity to this field depends on how much we want to correspond to it. All the still, vegetative, and animate nature move naturally toward the Light, whereas man does not. He needs to determine his attitude to the Light by himself each time, as if to turn himself and place himself under the most suitable and effective influence.

Thanks to the fact that a person turns in different angles with regard to the Light, he studies the Light, gets to know his nature, desire, and the order of his development and its form. He understands why he has to turn himself specifically this way. As a result, the attributes and desires are evoked in him that oblige him to look for the appropriate influence concealed in the Light.

By doing all this work, a person studies creation and the forces that operate in it: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. There is nothing else besides that. The mind he attains during this process belongs to the upper level, to the Creator. This is because neither the Light nor the desire belong to the upper level, to Godliness.

The mind of the Host who creates and controls everything is what manages both the Light and the vessel. As a result of a person’s turning his vessel each time relative to the Light, he begins to understand creation and to know the mind that is above the vessel and the Light. This is the chance we were given: to attain the acting mind. It is like looking at a table and by that attaining the mind of the carpenter. This is all our work.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, The Zohar

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Question: What can a person do while reading The Book of Zohar in order to stay in contact with the group throughout the day?

Answer: You receive some medicine in the morning, an injection. Suppose I have high blood pressure. I take a pill in the morning so that I will feel good the entire day. The pill does its job because it works on the same level: the still, the vegetative, and the animate.

On the other hand, our spiritual development depends on our efforts. My healing depends on my participation. Why? It is because thanks to the healing, from the animate level I attain the level of man.

So, it isn’t enough to get a “pill” in the morning, for example, half an hour before reading The Book of Zohar, when I am very enthusiastic and moved to tears by the strong emotions. It isn’t enough. I have to organize a daily schedule so that I will be under this influence all the other 23.5 hours.

In our world, the pill has an effect on me for 23.5 hours if I suck on it for half an hour. Gradually, as the digestive juices are extracted, the pill releases all the substances it contains so that they are absorbed by the body for several hours.

We have to do the same. However, a person cannot do that because he is constantly on his level, while here, he has to be between two. Two levels, as it says in The Zohar, are the letters of the upper “Hey” and the lower “Hey.” The upper “Hey” is Bina that operates on me, and I am Malchut, the lower “Hey.” What should be between us? It is the Creator.

So, I have to place the Creator before me, which means that all the awakenings that my Malchut feels, my desire, as a result of receiving half an hour of “infusion,” all its potential preparation for correction, all must be revealed practically during the 23.5 hours. I have to assist it by trying not to detach myself from the goal of “Israel (one who yearns for the Creator), the Torah (the Light that Reforms), and the Creator are one.” For that, I received the injection.

Of course, I can only do it with the help of the group where we are in one thought and thus influence one another. There is no other choice. A person cannot do it by himself. Even if he writes himself a thousand memos and puts them everywhere, he won’t see them. Even if he takes a servant to remind him, he won’t hear him.

It is possible only in the form that is above him, when the force that obliges him to hear, that is, to establish a connection between the two letters of “Hey,” comes to him. You can do that only in the group.

Therefore, mutual guarantee is expressed when you are in this activity, in absorbing the medicine that is already within you. If you swallow it and don’t use it, it is as if you received poison from a snake because every medicine is poison. It isn’t by chance that the symbol of medicine is a snake coiling around a cup of poison.

If you don’t use this means correctly, it becomes the potion of death. Then you will discover it through suffering and not by the Light. This is mechanics, and it must operate this way. There is nothing but the laws of nature here.

This is the root of all the mistakes people make throughout their lives and throughout human history. You could write entire novels about it, but humanity already has no time to read them….
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2012, The Zohar

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Question: Is a person really able to kill anyone just for an ounce of pleasure?

Answer: This might look like an exaggeration, but this is really the truth. If we were to put a person in special circumstances where he would not be punished for it and would be sure that he would receive an ounce of pleasure without any undesirable consequences, he would absolutely do it.

Man reaches such level of egoism that he is not able to consider anyone else—this is the way man is made. It says nothing about whether he is a good or a bad person; this is just a natural consequence of our egoistic development.

This is true in regard to every person, but we should not wait to get to this point. If we already see the tendency of evolution and the process as a “wise person” or “a sage who sees the new state that is just now originating does,” it means that we can conjecture how this process will end.

Why should we bring humanity to a point where we begin to consume and heartlessly destroy one another? Even now, after a small blow, we can already understand that we should not act this way and change our behavior like a smart child.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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Question: How is it possible to make independent decisions and at the same time to annul oneself before nature?

Answer: It is the same thing. To annul yourself, meaning your egoistic intention, and to implement the Creator’s commands with all your heart and soul means to be independent.

A person needs to ponder about why this is so. This allows him to call himself “a free nation in its own land” since he ceases to be a slave to his desire (the word “land” or “Eretz” comes from the word “desire” or “Ratzon”).

He wants to be a slave of the altruistic intention and that is called to be a “slave of the Lord.” He sells himself to be a slave of bestowal since in the meantime, he is not able to bestow independently. But this is already his first step towards independence, and afterwards he will become completely independent.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, Shamati #9

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Question: I know that you pay close attention to the daily routine in the group and to the way your students care for their physical health.

Answer: This is true. If people in the group were free from unnecessary work that only pollutes the environment and spent two to three hours a day working for the benefit of integral society, they would have a lot of time during the day and would absolutely participate in sports and physical exercises.

Part of physical activities would take place outdoors: in nature, on beaches, during picnics, camping, and different outings that under certain conditions can last for a few days. We already practice these things. We never neglect the importance of physical development.

In our group we have wonderful massage therapists, chiropractors, dancers, and so on. We see that within the group there’s a life of its own, with friends helping each other resolve health problems. We pay a lot of attention to this, and I consider this to be an inseparable part of the integral process.

Besides our meal breaks and other events, at least thirty minutes a day, three times a day (if not more) we devote to physical exercise. At any given moment one can have coffee or, if they want, smoke a cigarette. No one is limited in any way. However, physical exercise, running, speed walking, massage, and so on are absolutely necessary.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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Question: What is meant by the term “previous reincarnations”?

Answer: I spoke about the field through which we are connected to each other. Reincarnation means that genetic information gets passed down from one generation to another, but so far we are only uncovering the material part of it. However, it also contains sensory and rational information of the previous generation’s world-view that passes on to the descendants.

This is why even infants of the new generation are a result of the previous one, and they have everything in them that all the previous generations have gone through. Thus, the development of mankind takes place through the chain of generations. And just like we pass down from generation to generation the material achievements of technology, science, and art, we pass down our inner emotional and intellectual development as well.

This can be verified on newborns. We see that today, children have perception corresponding to that of our generation. But if we were able to give birth to a baby that belongs to, say, ten generations before us, we would see just how different he is from a modern newborn in his potential and developmental ability.

This phenomenon can be called reincarnation because a person carries over information from the previous life into this one. And what is a previous life? It’s the life passed down to him from a previous generation.

Suppose a hundred years ago people possessed a certain level of intellect and feeling. They developed within their generation and passed away. Their children now belong to a different level of development. Why? Because one generation passes down to another not only the physical matter formed from the cells of their father and mother, but also a certain inner human message. This progression of the generations is what we call reincarnation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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Question: In the process of communication, people often become subconsciously aggressive. Should we somehow let a person know that he is aggressive at a given moment, even if subconsciously, without noticing it, or should this be left as material for integral work and clarification?

Answer: I think that all of this will begin to straighten out in the group, even when it starts studying the introductory materials.

But there are people who don’t respond to this, who don’t hear. They need to be placed in separate groups. That’s a different matter.

Usually, the general aggression subsides quickly in the face of the great goal that you set before people, when they approximate themselves to some new whole, in order to discover a perfect world and harmony. When you explain the structure of the universe to them, perception of reality, here they begin “to stumble,” meaning that there is no room for some petty, personal aggression.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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Question: What do you have in mind when you talk about life outside the body?

Answer: Even now we are living a life outside our bodies. I live in my feelings, desires, and thoughts received from the environment. They are not mine but obtained by me from the surrounding environment. Of course, they exist within me, but I call them “out of body” because I live by interests received from others who impress upon me and advise what’s worth living for, what to think about, and what to feel.

I don’t even realize that if I lived in a forest, my understanding of the world would be completely different from the one I have right now. It’s as though the environment gives me a different view of the world and forces me to perceive it one way and not another. And indeed, this is a big problem.

Suppose my environment makes me think that being a cannibal, or killing people, or taking advantage of them is normal, while you see life completely differently. You have a completely different attitude to animals, yourself, the world, and family. We live within the model of perception that society instilled in us throughout our development, and accordingly, this is the way we see the world.

When I travel to a different country, sometimes it really strikes me that people think completely differently there and gravitate towards different values. Thus they have another way of looking at things, and they don’t see what I see. They judge people differently than we do. And if we get acquainted with history books or law codes of different countries, we will see just how different we are.

I’m not even talking about cultural differences or specific cuisines. I am interested in a person’s worldview and not in what he likes to fill his stomach with. What’s important is a person’s understanding of historical events, of human life, of good and evil, his or her attitude to reward and punishment, to what one should achieve, and what kind of life one wishes to build for oneself.

Some people are prepared to spend day and night playing cards and enjoy having others serve them, while for others it’s important to make their contributions wherever possible, to take interest in achievements of science, and to reveal something new for themselves. The outlook on such things can fluctuate from one extreme to another.

We see that the problem of society is that we don’t understand each other. What do wives usually complain about to their husbands? “You don’t understand me!” And this is actually the case because we really didn’t receive an upbringing about how to live in a family.

When I was an adolescent, I wasn’t educated about what a woman is. Is it some living creature that exists by my side? Does she have certain demands, a unique personality? What vision of life does a woman have as opposed to a man? A woman is a completely opposite world, not dependent on anyone. Do I understand her? Do I wish to understand her? Do I take her into consideration? Am I capable of doing this?

Since we haven’t received any internal models of what a woman is, what type of mentality she has, and how she sees the world, we don’t have an ability to take her into consideration. A man truly doesn’t understand her, and this is why each of their meetings abound with mutual attacks. They try to get along somehow, yet they aren’t capable to actually understand each other, that is, to become included in one another. And this is a big flaw in our upbringing.

Statistics on divorce rates and on those unwilling to even start a family attest to this. We see a similar situation in child education: We don’t know how to approach a child correctly. We all know that there is an increase in child abuse cases, and it is all because parents don’t understand them.

In regards to my own children, I have sensed just to what extent I don’t understand them, how unprepared I am for being a father. After all, a father is an educator, a creator, someone who shapes the child for their life to come. But I wasn’t able to do that due to the fact that neither the feeling nor understanding of everything that pertains to children was developed in me at all, while it’s absolutely necessary to teach that.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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