Question: When uncorrected egoists gather in a group, there are people among them who dominate, take leadership positions, and begin to appropriate and redistribute the group’s intellectual, emotional, and other resources. What is the right way to work with such phenomenon as leadership in an integral society?

Answer: It means that this is a “community,” not a group! From the start, we establish a set of conditions according to which a community can be called a group, regardless of whether it is big or small. This can be ten people, twenty, thirty, or a million.

A group is a community where no one person stands out. Every person must integrate so much into the group that he becomes absolutely whole with it. His interaction within the group consists of his entering it and taking the place he feels he needs to take to bring it to absolute harmony.

In this way, everyone searches to answer the question: “What can I do to make the group harmonious, homogeneous, to make sure that the relationships between everyone are equal? If I see possible imbalances, I can fix them, make them smoother with my attitude and participation so that there are no differences and no one is bigger or smaller. Only this connection has to exist, reaching such a level of unity where we feel that something absolutely new appears.”

This unity is something new that is born from individualities. And it has the right to exist.

We support this existence. We cherish it. It is like our mutual child. We think about it in such a way that it seems to begin to separate from every one of us and exist outside of us. In the end, this unity pulls us in so much that every one of us loses his own egoistic individuality and acquires an integral individuality within this unity. This integration does not exist without me, and my participation consists of making it whole.

At the same time, everyone receives the influence of the common mass that supports and obligates him or her as if we were in one boat. Here, a little effort really leads to a great result.

Question: What do you do with those who aspire for power and possess leadership qualities?

Answer: This manifestation of the aspiration for power, these leadership qualities, is an aspiration for power over yourself.

Question: How do you make a person who strives to rule the group change his direction? After all, people like this literally can fight to the death?

Answer: It is through discussions. Make a video of your group, then watch it with the objective of bringing everyone to integral, absolute, and harmonious interaction. Discuss who needs to be moved, who needs to be raised, who needs to be eliminated, who needs to be brought closer to whom, and how we create an absolutely integral mechanism so that we will connect like cogwheels and spin in unison, no more and no less? Everyone needs to make an effort in this direction.

Question: Is this the goal?

Answer: You have said that every person goes to work and makes an effort to achieve something. We are attaining this!

Here, we are revealing our own egoistic nature, and here no one can say that we are not egoists. Everyone reveals enormous internal, egoistic resistance. Everyone has this area of work.

We need to help each other in this and understand people who jump ahead. Something is happening with them. They are failing to understand something. They have different moods. We are constantly smoothing things out and integrating between us, without lowering or oppressing anyone else (only one’s self).

We do not point anything out to anyone. We only discuss things externally, and everyone treats everyone else absolutely objectively: There is one object and another object. People are not ashamed of either their negative or positive qualities, understanding that they come from nature. What does not come from nature is that we must bring ourselves to integration through mutual help.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #10, 12/16/11

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Question: We have discussed how important it is to introduce integral signs of distinction and awards.

Answer: We must take encouragement into consideration, but not corporeal encouragement. The encouragement should be various signs of distinction, incentives, certificates, diplomas, or anything that gives people the desire to continue to ascend and attain the goal.

This also marks a certain degree that he has completed. It is actually very difficult to define yourself in relation to others in an integral movement because a person is constantly doing inner work in correcting himself and including himself into a single organism.

It is a very good when society encourages you. When the encouragement comes from your spouse or your children, the person feels enormous strength from being respected and valued by his relatives.

Question: What do you mean when you say “non-corporeal” encouragement?

Answer: I refer to non-corporeal rewards, not money, but signs of distinction. There can be no other kind of encouragement here. For example, an instructor who completes a course well will receive a badge and a certain rank, perhaps even epaulets or something similar.

Question: You said epaulets, and I thought of the army. People invest so much effort for stripes that are meaningless. Can we introduce the same?

Answer: Yes, absolutely, any incentives. The goal is what matters. When a person strives toward a goal, even if it is for stripes, he does not care about the stripes once he achieves the goal because the goal is what matters to him. However, right now, we need to encourage people like little children because we need them to attain the goal.

Question: Can it also be a roll of honor as under the Soviet rule?

Answer: Of course. By the way, the Soviet system had a very correct disposition, just an incorrect realization. This is why everything failed. If everything had been based on education, real and true education, instead of repression when people were forced to unite, driven into Kolkhozes and places like it, then they might have had succeeded even back then. Now, it is a necessity; back then, it was just an opportunity.

Question: So, all that had a purpose?

Answer: Absolutely. People had a goal. First of all, there was a certain equality. There was a common culture. There were certain false ideals, but still ideals. People were brought up in a completely different way. Despite all the deformity and ugliness of the way things were imposed on people, the actual theory was integral and correct.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: I feel that all the systems of society and the world are corrupted, and by participating in them, we become its partners. Would not our connection with society, involuntarily involve us in these systems and interfere with our correction, which we must realize? Were the Kabbalistic groups that lived earlier separated from the corrupt systems of society? Shouldn’t we live separately as a society of correction? Or will it be a regression and sever connections?

Answer: We can correct ourselves only by helping others! The corruption of the world was set initially in order for us to feel it, become aware of it, and find the way to correct it. Correction means bringing everyone into a single integral system; read what Baal HaSulam writes about it.

Question: What is needed for you to visit South Africa in the near future?

Answer: This is what is needed: the group is waiting for me there, students, and many people who are ready to hear me. If you have this, I am ready!
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Question: Could you please give some historical dates for a better orientation to the history of Kabbalah?

Answer: Adam: 5772 years ago, or 5772 – 2012 = 3760 BCE – the date of his revelation of the upper world.  Hebrew chronology begins from this point.

It should take 6000 years for all people to reveal the upper world; that is, all of humanity will reveal the upper World in the remaining 6000 – 5772 = 228 years.

Additional Dates:

    1392 – 1272 BCE:  Moshe (Moses)

              1312 BCE:  Mount Sinai – the Revelation of the Creator

   1354 – 1244 BCE:  Joshua

    1244 – 889 BCE:  The Elders

      889 – 352 BCE:  The Prophets

      352 – 312 BCE:  The Members of the Great Assembly

                  1-2 CE:  Rabbi Akiva

            2^nd Century:  Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of The Zohar

 312 BCE – 218 CE:  The drafters of the Mishnah

         218 – 636 CE:  The drafters of the Talmud

        636 – 1140 CE:  Gaon.
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Question: We have discussed that when we form groups of integral learning, we need to pay attention to preliminary testing and conversations, to assign people with similar qualities (such as age and gender) to certain groups. What other qualities are we talking about?

Answer: I do not think that education, mentality, age, or literacy matter very much. The interesting thing is that everything becomes eliminated in groups of integral education. For this reason, when we speak about uniting all our qualities into one common quality of bestowal, love, mutual guarantee, and so forth, everyone feels antagonistic about it. So it does not matter if someone is more or less educated or has certain mentality. They are just external expressions that are not observed here.

I can only say one thing: When we study together with groups from around the world, connecting and exploring the common method for many years, we observe the kind of unity where there is no difference between people who physically are in the same classroom, in a group with me, or people whom I only see once a year.

By the way, every year I visit our main groups in Russia, North America, South America, and Europe. I do not see a difference between them because we study a single method, and all the groups develop parallel to one another. When we have conventions attended by our friends from all the continents, five to eight thousand people gather in one place, and we do not perceive any differences between us.

Of course, the language barrier still gets in the way since we are still in Babylon that is not yet corrected, but we’re almost there. Once it becomes corrected, a state of absolute and real homogeneity will appear.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: In addition to integral learning, will there be people who have lost their jobs going through professional training to acquire new professions?

Answer: The courses of integral upbringing are the place for acquiring the profession of a teacher, an educator, or an instructor. There are a number of opportunities here, depending on a person’s skills.

There are people who work at the site, in a group, and as leaders of discussions and games. There are people who teach different subjects. All this can be taught because we add a little science, technology, culture, and psychology to integral education. Basically, a person can become an expert very quickly.

A person can become a first-class teacher in one and a half years or, at most, in two years. For the preparation of different types of teaching assistants and instructor aides, it would take even less time. Everything depends on the person. Moreover, there is work for different people with different skills and inclinations.

Our first objective is to turn our students into teachers, educators, and instructors for women, men, children, the elderly, and so forth, who speak in different native languages since we are still divided by language. There is nothing we can do about that.

There is a huge scope of activities and there is a huge demand for people. Even if there were ten times more people right now, there would be a place for everyone to apply themselves. In any case, these people will come to us from among the unemployed. When they find a new way to apply themselves, and, at the same time, they are satisfied by a normal, comfortable and regular existence, then you simply fill their lives with meaning, while curing society.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 1/9/12

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Question: I have many qualities that I do not like. They weigh on me heavily and I do not want them. What can I do?

Answer: Instead of eliminating the bad qualities, you should turn them into their opposite. But you need the Light to do that; “here, you cannot get by with gifts instead of a fight.” I must change internally in such a way so my bad quality is turned into its exact antithesis.

Question: Suppose, I have a “short fuse” and I’m already itching for a fight, when I fly into a rage at someone,  I  get angry at myself for being angry. What would be my correction in this case? Will I stop getting angry?

Answer: No, you will be angry, but for different reasons because anger itself is not necessarily bad. All people are different, and the Light gives everyone his own line. You cannot correct what seems bad to you now to what seems good to you now because you are guided by egoistic criteria. While egoism sits in the judgment-seat, you cannot see the truth.

Only the Light will show you what is good and what is bad, and then it will give you an opportunity to decide what you prefer. It leaves the middle third of Tifferet, the middle line, with the scales set in the middle. It is said that a person always should see himself half-guilty and half-righteous. This is what you will feel with the help of the Light.

But now you are in the “bubble” of egoism, and if you decide yourself, you will be like the “world reformers,” all those smart people who from morning till night utter proclamations and warnings, building a system of education on the fear of punishment. They have nothing, but this. They are egoists, and so is their following.

Unlike them, we do nothing without the Reforming Light. The desire to receive has no mind, feeling, and strength for the correct decision, only fear remains, and it runs away from the truth. As a consequence, conflicts are exacerbated, and people grow apart.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/8/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: We have achieved a certain power at the Arava convention. How can we use it to help every one of us to raise their inner bar? How do we keep this spirit so we can advance and for everyone to make an inner effort?

Answer: There are three conventions before us: in Lithuania, Brazil, and the US. We are speaking about adjacent events, which will take place within a two month period and will concentrate on one topic: our unity and mass dissemination, which comes from it. In other words: internal and external mutual guarantee.

From now on we must help with the right organization of these conventions, so they would not turn into “events of local significance” as we strengthen the connection with the degree we have achieved in the Arava. A regional approach is not enough; every convention must be universal: Everyone sits in front of the screen; everyone participates in the conventions and advances. Then these conventions will help us all rise to a new degree together.

This cannot be done in turns; we cannot allow ourselves to take turns playing with a toy, like children do. This will harm us. All the groups were connected to us during the Arava convention: we need to continue this way.

The program of any convention pertains to everyone without exception, and for this reason all our groups, all our friends from around the world, must do everything in their power to make every convention as powerful as possible. This pertains to external forms, and mainly the inner essence and preparation for the action. A person must enter the convention one hundred percent prepared, so full that adding a drop becomes impossible. This pertains to all the participants, no matter where they are.

Everyone must receive the content and schedule of the convention together with the preparation materials ahead of time before every convention. A person must strive and aspire towards it; we do not have other methods of advancement.

The program of the convention must be well planned to avoid listening to the same thing several lessons in a row. You must hear new things, and I still have things to tell you, but in reality the only way you will hear something new is if you will be ready for it. Only then will I be able to uncover more and more, due to your union and your new desire.

I really hope that you will become serious about it. This refers to common work; the responsibility is not limited to the organizers and physical participants. There were hundreds of thousands of people with us in the Arava; It is a great power.

So, this week we will repeat materials from the Arava Convention, and then we will move on to a very fast and intensive preparation for the convention in Lithuania. Moreover, we need to prepare a complete program from the beginning of the convention in Lithuanian through the end of the convention in New York, including my meetings with the Columbia and Chile groups, as well as the convention in Brazil.

There will be an enormous amount of hours, which are an incredible opportunity to break forward. Everything depends on the preparation.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: One of the Russian millionaires proclaimed that if a person wants to live adequately, then instead of working eight hours a day he or she should work twelve. So people who have the power and resources are heading in a completely different direction.

Answer: Business owners will not be able to do this anymore because they won’t be able to sell goods produced by workers who are engaged in manufacturing for twelve or even eight hours a day. Nobody will buy them! There is a crisis, people come out into the streets, and purchasing power is falling. They will be laying off people and won’t expand their operations further. There is no and will be no need for that.

Question: What will ultimately compel a person to pay for integral education courses?

Answer: The government must do this. We will have to work only to furnish ourselves with all necessities, and everything else will have to be directed towards upbringing, towards rising to the next degree. This is a law of nature.

Look at what’s happening in the Arab countries. 100,000 people are marching onto the streets and the government cannot do a thing. What will these governments do? They have nowhere even to run, they’re killed right on the spot. Even a billionaire, where will he run to? Right now there isn’t a place in the world where one could escape to. All transactions, banks, and enterprises, everything is in the open. Today, any person stands before everyone as if naked. Everyone sees everything, everything is photographed everywhere—it’s no longer the way it used to be.

Suppose you will escape somewhere into the tundra, will live with some old lady in some little hut. Is this your future? Here is the catch.

Look at all the rulers of the Arab countries. They have armies, money, and power—everything. And where do they end up? And because of what? How many people are heading out onto the streets? They can no longer quell them because a different time has come. Governments don’t have the ability to do as they wish even with the help of the army and secret police. It’s impossible!

And how did the Soviet Union fall apart? This is entirely incomprehensible. Where is the army, the KGB, and the enormous masses of people that were engaged in preserving the regime? Suddenly it was gone. Somehow, it’s not even clear how, it disappeared. Who is to blame? Nobody, only time and the development of society.

And the same thing here. It is expected that within the next year about 500 million jobs will be eliminated. Do you understand what mass of people this amounts to around the whole world? They’ll simply force their governments to unleash a nuclear war because there won’t be another way left.

We need to explain to these millions about what nature is demanding from us. We need to provide them with necessities, while they will receive satisfaction from integral upbringing. It’s simply a necessity that stems from objective laws of nature.

Question: So in the integral education groups we can discuss what’s happening in the Arab countries, can’t we?

Answer: Not only in Arab countries, but everywhere. We can bring these events as examples: Look at how this isn’t helping; see what’s happening with dictators, with the suppression of people. And what could happen with the others? Berlusconi left already. What will happen in Spain? In all countries? Hence the conclusion that on the whole, the number of disgruntled people is growing, even if they live on unemployment.

In America unemployed people are standing in lines for free lunches. Many cannot feed themselves to the end of the month. There are problems with financial aid, with healthcare—with everything. Everything is coming apart at the seams. It’s impossible to just continue printing money.

Soon it will resound in China because China is a manufacturer of goods. Who will buy them now in America, which is its core market? Literally all countries are drawn into this process, and in all the countries much of the workforce is being let go.

Can you imagine if 100-200 million is laid off in China? Today they are living in cities with populations numbering in the millions. You won’t be able to drive them back into villages. You can’t once again turn them into uneducated peasants satisfied with a cup of rice a day. In China, in one factory alone up to 50 thousand people are working away. This is a terrifying problem.

There is no other choice. To prevent the unleashing of wars and annihilation of “excess” people, we need to show that integral upbringing is in harmony with nature and that precisely this is our salvation and the correct path. Even after a war you will remain in ruin and will have to do the same thing nevertheless, except now suffering will urge you towards it.

Therefore we need to unfold and show this entire picture to people.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #8, 12/14/11

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Shamati #25 “Things that Come from the Heart”
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Questions and Answers 
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