Question: Today an expert has to study his whole life in order to “catch up” with the changes in his field. One way or another, science discovers accurate absolute laws. Do such laws exist for those who yearn for spirituality? For example, are there clear, unchanging formulas without which we will not attain our goal?

Answer: What are you actually studying in the lessons? We can describe our egoistic desire as a “box.” This is the material. Above it there is the intention of in order to receive, and that is the problem. The material of the desire is stable, unchanging. It is only the intention that changes by changing all of our reality.

So ignore the material, it is unchangeable. But if you change the intention, then the feeling within the material will change drastically. You will be able to do that only by evoking it to change.

Today we fill ourselves by the egoistic intention. It is among us in our mutual relations. The desire to receive is aimed at itself; it wants to receive in order to receive. As a result, we all feel reality in the form of “this world.”

There are five phases between the intention of in order to receive and the intention of in order to bestow, or 125 steps. It is only about the intention! If I learn to use it correctly, a greater desire is revealed time after time. This is how I transcend the “Machsom” (barrier), I restrict myself by keeping myself from treating others badly, then I build a good attitude towards others, and then I bestow upon them. Then it turns out that others, and in fact the whole “field of work,” is actually myself that is gradually revealed to me.

All this is according to the stabilization of the intention. There is nothing we should worry about except the intention. The only remedy is to evoke among us a concealed internal power that will change our intention. Then, gradually, in our environment, we will discover the worlds of Assyia, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Ein Sof. We will discover them here, among us, and not somewhere in unknown distances.

I should only discover an attraction, a vector inside my desire that is aimed at changing the attitude to others, which is the intention. Let’s hope we succeed in preparing and doing that in the Arava convention in the desert.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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Question: Why do the daily lessons start at 3 A.M. Jerusalem time? Is there a special reason for it?

Answer: This is how we studied with my Teacher Rabash.

Question: Many of your students come from the orthodox Judaism and follow its main principles: observe Shabbat (Saturday), eat kosher food, and so on. So when in one of the morning lessons you said that “the orthodox cannot be my students,” it confused us.

Answer: I do not have a single orthodox student! Many of them listen to the lessons from home, but are not in direct contact with me.

Question: What is Amalek: a historic personality of a force within us?

Answer: Everything is within man, including history.
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Question: Suppose that during the time of our interaction we are singing, having put our hands on each other’s shoulders, and someone accidentally squeezes my shoulder until I feel pain. Can I tell this person that he is hurting me? Or must I endure it and work with this pain?

Answer: In this specific example, I would say that you need to endure it.

I must understand that this person is expressing himself in this way. I must rise above my feeling so that my kind relationship towards him would result in the neutralization of pain.

We know that all of these are perceptions, and I would not have felt pain if a person close to me would cause me this, for the sake of saving him. Isn’t it so? I would not have felt pain then. I would understand the necessity for this and it would neutralize the pain, meaning that the goal would justify the means.

This is how one needs to come to this. However, since we are still talking about the levels of our development, then in the process of interaction, perhaps, it is possible to somehow tell about one’s feelings.

But in general as people develop, they arrive at such a state, when any relationship, however it may be on the outside, is perceived by them correctly.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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Question: There was a psychological experiment in training sessions for couples: A person was supposed to give the most pleasure to their partner with a single touch of the hand. There were three options: The first option was to try to please the other. The second was to touch hands without intention. And the third option was to receive the most pleasure from touching the other person.

The experiments concluded that the person receives the most pleasure by pleasing their partner, and when another tries to please him, it feels very unpleasant. What is this phenomenon? Is this something that has to do with integrality, egoism?

Answer: First of all it doesn’t matter who is sitting before me: whether it’s a woman, a man, a child an elderly person, a girl, an old woman, or even an animal—I should completely separate myself from any difference between us. I have to imagine an object before me with whom I have to establish contact.

Moreover, this contact is above our animal existence where I absolutely don’t care who and what the other person is in terms of their animalistic essence. Only one thing matters: What their current position in relation to me is, what they generate from themselves despite their nature.

It’s not contact between two animal objects, but two desires that want to integrate, give pure and abstract pleasure and fulfillment to one another. In other words, regardless of what and who you are, I come from a feeling of only wishing you good. In this case, when we rise above our animal inclination, our beastly state, the conditions set by nature, and begin to interact between us, this is where the experiment begins.

Either I wish to receive pleasure from an object (there is just an “object” before me), or I wish to convey my good attitude to this object, to fulfill it, wanting it to feel it, even if it’s through touch. By abstracting ourselves from our own ego, we want to suppress our sensations so as to make them neutral, meaning turn them into abstractly-egoistic, abstractly-altruistic, and abstractly-neutral states.

This is the beginning of our experiment, the primary purpose of which is a state whereby we rise above age, sexual, racial, national, and other differences and start contacting the essence. You are a desire and an intention (mind), and I am the same. This is how our mind and desires for integration can interact between them, independent from our external shell. This is what we try to do.

This is the initial direction for working in the group, especially a mixed group. At first we work a little with mixed groups, but then, once the people begin to understand that the opposite sex impedes them from concentrating on the level above our world, above our natural qualities, we can separate them. People will no longer have preconceived opinions regarding our actions towards them, and then we will divide them into a men’s and a women’s group.

And afterwards, once they are able to rise above it and work on purely integral level, we can once again combine them. But this is not a simple moment and requires many months of serious effort.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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Question: When we record a group video training session and then have the group watch it, people start pointing a finger at each other, laughing, and so on. When we discuss a person, should everyone be their own judge or should other people judge them?

Answer: If people are not yet ready to see themselves from an abstract perspective, objectively, and do not understand that we are all little animals, then you need to show them complete strangers, even a group they do not know, and train them this way, use others to form an objective view.

You can assign numbers to the participants in the video and then discuss every one of them in order, talking about how to advance them towards unity, towards mutual guarantee.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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Question: Feedback is very significant in psychology. I might have an idea of what is happening to a person, so I ask him: “How do you feel? What do you like?” This dialogue helps me learn about him or her. Can elements of dialogue be included in groups of integral education, or integrality actually operates there?

Answer: In our groups, individual development is connected to integral because the individual level is being adjusted to the integral one.

There is no individual level. My individual development depends on how integrated I am with the others, how much I complete them. At the same time I must understand and feel how I complete every one of them. In other words, I sense people and our community, I constantly feel and measure where I can add something to make it perfect, and I try to complete it with my participation, with my desire and thoughts. The essence of every participant, the general total power of their desire and thoughts suddenly begin to manifest in relation to me, and I become the group’s balancing element.

This is the way every person feels during the process of common studies. Moreover, the state of the group does not matter; what matters is how a person perceives it. The group can be in totally different states, but a person understands it one way or another and constantly changes himself according to it.

In other words, there is an opportunity here for constant inner movement. A person goes through so many changes that he becomes a general integral element of the entire group. He is obligated to constantly change as he feels all the nuances of the changes in the group. He is like its collecting element. And every person in the group is like this.

Moreover, this absolutely does not depend on the objective state of the group. We cannot speak about objectivity here because every person sees the environment only through his subjective prism.

This way we make every person equal to this small common society. The person and the entire group come to such unification when every person becomes equal to everyone. Inside him a person gradually accumulates a certain volume, a sum of different changes, sensations, and thoughts, which exist in everyone. This way we reach a state when the general and the particular are equal, and reach complete group unity. When every person becomes equal to everyone, all the “singles” add up to a single whole.

And this one single whole already exist as if outside of them. This is the final accord of all the transformations they undergo together and individually.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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Question: Your students are very open people who treat each other with a lot of care. But the people whom we will invite to learn will only reach this state in the future.

Answer: Our groups are groups of people who willingly strive towards integral interaction. But if we are speaking about the masses whom we will be lucky enough to involve in integral interaction, these people will not come very willingly, that is, not in full consciousness, but instead, it will happen to the extent of the social or personal need. Of course, there will be very big imbalances and an ascent.

This is why the first stage of their development, which includes the preliminary study of the material, training, and the understanding of everyone’s inner psychological process, will take a long time.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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Question: If in the beginning of the 20th century neurotic symptoms were expressed as sexual deviations, now they are rather expressed as hypochondria, a fear of getting a disease. How can I work with the fear that I may become ill? What attitude should I have?

Answer: I should explain the meaning of a disease.

A disease is a dysfunction in the harmony of an organism. When systems work out of harmony with one another then various problems begin to appear. This is a disease.

If we achieve harmony then it establishes itself and governs on all levels including the physiological one.

This is exactly the way we can cure ourselves from serious chronic and even untreatable illnesses.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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Question: Since I came to the convention I am talking with the “Pharaoh” in me; I ask him questions and he answers me. He says: “whatever you do, you are enjoying it.” I go to work in the kitchen, Pharaoh says: “it doesn’t matter, you are still enjoying it.” If I clean the toilets, I enjoy that too. Finally I say to Pharaoh that I have one goal for which I came to the convention, another goal to reach the state in which everyone is connected. Pharaoh in me says that even this connection I am waiting for, is eventually for me. If so, what should I do?

Answer: Enjoy! I say this seriously. If I can do different things for the society, both physical and mental, to think about them all the time and to enjoy it, that’s wonderful. Who says that we have to suffer?

But after several such actions, you will suddenly see that you don’t enjoy it anymore. Suddenly you will ask: “What do I need all this for, why?” and so on. Then “Pharaoh” is revealed.

At first there are the “seven years of satiation,” everything is nice in an egoistic manner. Indeed, your Pharaoh is right, he says that whatever you do, you do it for him. So do it for him, like in Egypt in the first seven years of satiation where everyone works doing everything for Pharaoh and then eventually discover that it is the force of evil.

Why does the evil Pharaoh suddenly appear instead of the good Pharaoh? It is because we advance toward the Creator. As we advance, the desire that previously looked good begins to seem evil. The group is good, the study is good, the friends are good, I want to be with them and to be on duty, to clean the toilets, to work in the kitchen, everything is nice and I enjoy every minute that I am in this society—this is how every beginner who comes to the group feels. Then suddenly he begins to feel disrespect, to explode, not to care about anything, he doesn’t feel like doing things and doesn’t want anything: “What duties? What for?”

Why? This is because the “seven years of hunger” begin. What is hunger? A person doesn’t feel pleasure in being in the group, in being with the friends—and this is advancement.

Everything is revealed according to the order of the degrees. We should be happy and serious and follow that line carefully, and accept whatever is revealed along the way. The Torah tells us about it; after all, the Torah is an instruction (they have the same root in Hebrew); it tells us where you will get stuck and what you should do on the way to the revelation of Godliness.

So you have no choice, you have to enter Egypt, you have to do this kind of work, and you have to come out. Only then do you receive the Torah, the instruction of how to advance more clearly.

This is because the Torah is only about the correction of the desires. You correct your 613 desires from the intention of “in order to receive” to the intention of “in order to bestow,” and then you discover the Creator.
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From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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Question: When you are incorporated in a collective action, you sometimes feel united with the friends even in your thoughts, but at the last moment you feel that something is missing, an effort within an effort, the last drop. How can we achieve this last drop so we can come to the general cry, so that we will be able to open our hearts once and for all?

Answer: That last drop is exactly the point of birth, the point of the exodus from Egypt, and it’s the most difficult. A person is ready to go almost to the end, and then he sees a wall in front of him, something he can’t overcome, and suddenly he has endless excuses. His evil inclination tells him, “You still have to take care of this and that, you haven’t studied all of the Study of the Ten Sefirot yet, you don’t know all the Shamati articles yet, there is still so much you have to do,” and so on.

And it’s the same in relation to the friends, meaning that when you actually reach the point that you can now break your ego and connect, to make the welding point between you and the friends, you can’t do it. To create a point of soldering means that this drop of glue will now fall on the connection between you and the friends, and glue you together in a single adhesion. You can’t do that. At the last moment you suddenly pull back.

Only a general effort will help here. Therefore the prayer of an individual doesn’t help. A prayer should be the “prayer of the many,” when you pray for the friends and not for yourself, and when the entire group or most of the group prays together. But you are telling us about an individual effort. You can tell me about an individual effort for another thousand years, nothing will happen to you. The direction is familiar but it’s wrong because you don’t worry about the connection with the friends.
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From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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