Question: How do I look at the world through the group?

Answer: Our problem is that we cannot convey our feelings to one another, and this is a matter of feeling.

Just imagine: There is nothing but the desire. We study that the Creator created a desire, the four phases of the Direct Light, and then it was drawn downward and shattered. This is how “this world” was created. What is this world? It is what the desire feels in its shattered, separated, opposite parts that hate one another.

It is the same desire, just shattered. The inanimate, vegetative, and animate, and human levels that we feel here in our reality are the same shattered desire that feels this way. The “corporeal matter” is the desire that has the instinctive desire in order to receive. Therefore, we should have a stabilized realistic perception of reality and not a false one. The point is not that it is imaginary or not imaginary. If I know that it is imaginary, then it is okay. The main thing is that I don’t live in the illusion of the external world.

We feel the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human levels and we feel them in their shattered form. This is reality on the lowest level. Now we have to start collecting all these things in our perception and find the system that connects all of them. This is the system of the upper Providence, the goal, the process, and the trend. This is our work: to make efforts like a child, who through his efforts wants to understand the reality he is living in. This is the whole process we go through.

In this “every man shall help his friend.” We should support one another. This support is sometimes felt as negative and sometimes as positive. The main thing is the perception of reality, to be aware that everything that I feel, I feel in my senses, in my desire. My desire includes the parts of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human and so I feel reality this way.

If I begin to correct myself, to connect it all into one, I feel that reality begins to take on a more unified form. The moment I manage to connect these parts just a little, I begin to feel the power that operates them, which is called the “Creator.” If they are connected just a little, in a minimal way I already begin to feel the power that moves the system, which is Godliness, the upper force.

Then I begin to see how I relate to it through all of reality and how through reality I can bring this reality to connect. Then I understand the idea of the group most clearly.

On the level of the speaking are the most active parts that can share the same thoughts I have. I feel separated from them and at the same time we can work on our unity. It is as if there are other conscious parts beside myself who are aware that they should connect. We should work together against our mutual ego in order to connect. But if we connect ourselves, the parts that are distant and dispersed in my field of vision, if we begin to connect a little, everything else—the animate, vegetative and inanimate—also come along.

The main thing is to connect to the group. These are parts that are also ready to be with me in the same general system, in my perception, who also share my ideas and my feelings. Of course there is a great rejecting force among us, but we understand that this rejecting force is the corruptions in the system, which we must overcome. We should use them and by them we should get closer. By that we correct the whole thickness of the system, on the levels of the inanimate, the vegetative and the animate—so that it will all be connected.

This means that the negative relations among us are clearly what we should correct in order to be one, the one mechanism. Then I relate to these things with love and understanding and good will. It is like symptoms of an illness, that I should only pay attention to, and together with everyone else, with all the parts that share my thoughts, to start treating them. We should understand that there is no more than that, and nothing else will suddenly become clear. We will discover that nothing is revealed except the relations among us, and that all the rest of the world is only a result of what will happen among us. There are crises, and there is helplessness, there are great problems and all this is because we are not constantly connected to the extent that we can be connected.

If we constantly keep the connection among us according to the conditions that are revealed in the system, the world will advance in a really nice form of “I shall hasten it.” If we cannot, we will be behind in the process of development, the world will suffer more and we will suffer and it will hate us and blame us for all the troubles it is feeling, and rightly so.

So we should continually reinforce the form we’ve reached and by that express our mutual guarantee. I should worry not about being dependent on others, but on the fact that everyone depends on my worrying about them. There are two levels in this partnership:

1. I know that I depend on them and that I will advance if they will hold me and give me power.
2. They will give me power, they will wake up, they will be active and ready to the extent that I worry about them. This is called tipping the scales in my favor and in favor of the whole world. If I bestow upon them, the more I bestow upon them the more they will be in this process.

So I cannot say; “It’s their fault that I don’t wake up and that I forgot and have drawn away from correction, from the path of correction,” but: “I didn’t worry about them and so I didn’t feel the cooperation on their part.”

So immediately after having reached such a special level of connection—we should now continue seeing this system and the mutual worry for mutual connection, for mutual guarantee. Mutual guarantee is the main thing. Everyone is responsible for the whole system. It is like Baal HaSulam says, if someone falls from this, to this extent the system isn’t whole anymore and is weakened and the others cannot fulfill their role as they should.
[71003]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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Question: Is the level we’ve reached in the convention the credit we should work for, or is it the result of our previous efforts?

Answer: There are those who received it as a payment and there are those who received it as a down payment. Everyone has both aspects to some extent. Much of what we have received is in order to fulfill from now onward, like a down payment. We were given the opportunity to feel something in the unity, in the connection. We were given different special things from Heaven on purpose, and thanks to them we felt new phenomena in the connection among us. We should understand that this is a real gift. Now we have to process this gift internally and to fulfill it.

I personally see it more as credit for the future that we should fulfill now. I don’t underestimate all our exertion, but according to the state we were in, we didn’t deserve it. We received this credit because we made efforts, but we received it not as a payment, but as a down payment, with which we should now work.
[71000]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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Question: Why do we speak only about the feeling of deficiency? Why do we forget what is expected at the end of the process, about the benefits we will reap?

Answer: In other words: “What will I get from all this?”

Actually, this is also true: We have to increase the importance of bestowal in our eyes. It is called “Lo Lishma” (for oneself). Because on one hand, I want to reach the goal, absolute bestowal, in which my “self” will dissolve leaving no traces, and on the other hand, where can I get fuel for that? How can I make even one step towards that which simply annuls me?

Therefore, we should nevertheless imagine something related to receiving. We cannot advance without it. So lie to yourself, but as if to a third party, as if you are lying to someone else. “Yes, I am advancing towards selfless bestowal, I will have nothing, I don’t need anything, I only want to be incorporated in others, to love others without any consideration of myself, without any benefit for myself…. But on the other hand, I will feel wonderful, I will attain the spiritual world, eternity, and perfection.”

Lie to yourself so as not to remain powerless. And it isn’t really a lie because the Creator is good and benevolent and the goal of creation is pleasure. But it is pleasure in such desires that do not seem attractive at all today.

Besides, as Baal HaSulam says, we should keep the balance between the force of reception and the force of bestowal. I should give as much as I receive. By doing so I bring all of nature to balance and this balance is the healthiest state. It is about our health, about the ecology, as well as about human society and family life. Instead of getting divorced, people will live together in peace and raise children. A person will rise above his short life and will see the whole infinite process, the great path, part of which he is travelling now.

When you reach balance with nature, your eyes open and you see everything. So start balancing yourself now, look for the balance between reception and bestowal with yourself, with the friends, with the family, and with the world. This is because you are discovering one of the 125 degrees, the lowest degree, the zero level.

All our history, all our evolution, brings us to the state in which the imbalance is revealed openly. Everything may be expected in the future: plagues, wars, and so on. It is all meant to show you how imbalanced you are. Many scientists are already talking about the need for balance (homeostasis).

So balance yourself in the present state, and you will rise to the next degree. There again you will have to balance things. Eventually you will see that all this is one complex, nature, the Creator, one force. Then it will be easier to reach balance with it. This is all our work.

So whoever wants to be healthy, satisfied, and happy should establish balance.
[69437]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/2012, “The Peace”

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Question: Can we discuss everyday life problems in the integral education course, connecting them each time to integrality?

Answer: If we’re saying that the general and the particular are equal, it means that we can tie this to family. Very much so! In other words, you immediately transform from a classroom, a group, into a family and establish integral conditions within in.

At the same time, nobody probes into another’s private world. What we’re doing is creating a family, something common above us where you and me are we. Then we automatically connect children to it and they, too, become part of this integral system. Completely new relationships within a family arise.

The most important thing is not to pressure anyone because normal, correct development requires an inner harmony between a person and their inborn qualities. I shouldn’t conceal, destroy, and diminish them, or anything else of that nature. I need to reach such a state where, conversely, my inborn qualities will blossom in me completely.

We don’t understand why we should preserve all our negative qualities: deception, envy, jealousy, hatred, a hundred types of fears, and so on. But they all have their resolution, their realization precisely in this final state. As a person develops, he gradually sees that these qualities are necessary for him, that he applies them, except in the opposite form, when these fears force him to be integral and bring him “outside of himself,” instead of pushing him inward.
[69309]
From a “Talk About Integral Education” #8, 12/14/11

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Question: The majority of people aren’t capable of expressing their thoughts and desires. They simply have a collection of some prescribed clichés. A person doesn’t think about self-expression and instead is concerned with avoiding saying something inappropriate.

In the course of integral education, can we talk about how important one’s inner self-expression is since whatever one feels, thinks, and sees is more critical than the collection of stereotypes and clichés?

Answer: I approach the world seeing that everyone has blinders on: People are unsociable, they don’t want and are afraid to open up because they will immediately receive a negative reaction.

In this regard, we need to leave them alone. Let every person live “inside himself” just the way that they are. We don’t need to break him, don’t need to drag him, kicking and screaming, out of his “cage.” He doesn’t want to come out, yet you open the door, break it down, and drag him out of there, while the miserable fellow digs in his heels and refuses to leave.

This is not good. Through this you invoke resistance, and people stop trusting you. You barge into a person’s private life making it neither lighter nor better, just more difficult. This person spent their entire life hiding, he or she knows that opening up means making oneself vulnerable. And here you are, pressuring them.

What needs to be done? We need to create a common integral level above the person, above us, and then we will be able to peacefully ascend onto it. I remain as myself with my own qualities, but at the same time I connect with the others on this common level. I can talk about general love, general interaction, and universal mutual guarantee because in this case they are not egoistic and personal to me. We are not touching egoism yet.

It is as if you’re taking them on an adventure on a magic helicopter and they participate in this game. They agree to ascend, agree to play, agree to interact. This isn’t forcing them to open up and allowing themselves to be vulnerable; it doesn’t pose a threat to their narrow inner egoism.

Allow them to gradually feel this state through, to exist and linger in it for some time. Let them warm up in it a little, to thaw, “squeeze,” and “probe” each other, to understand that this is possible. Then, from within this state, they will begin to influence themselves on their own and you will see that they’re different.

They will suddenly discover that they don’t need to take care of this “cage” in which they exist and in which they constantly hid from the others; it stopped being important to them. But this is something that they’ll decide on their own.

Question: In that case what should we talk to a person about?

Answer: About the goal, about what’s ahead of us. We need to exalt the goal so that goodness beckons us forward instead of evil pushing us from behind. Precisely this!

A person develops when you feed them, when you take care of them. Then he becomes “plump,” like a child, and grows. He requires the kindest possible impressions.
[69312]
From a “Talk About Integral Education” #8, 12/14/11

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Question: There was an incident when in a group psychotherapy discussion one woman said that she cannot allow herself to bear a child because she won’t be able to support it, to afford to even buy a baby stroller, to which one man replied: “You give birth to that baby, and you’ll see that someone will bring you the baby stroller, they’ll give it to you and all will be well.”

In an integral society, while a person is pursuing his correction, sooner or later he will arrive at a point where nature will supply him with everything. How can this be explained to a person? Should a woman be thinking about a baby stroller before she bears a child, or should she first give birth and then see what happens?

Answer: The fact of the matter is that we cannot tell a person about the system that exists above him. We strive towards it—it is the system of “Adam.” In many techniques and practices people take advantage of the fact that they aspire towards its level and attempt to draw the forces from the future upon themselves. But to tell a person that they need to act in a certain way, to aspire towards it, and they will see that it works, it is all unsubstantiated at a given moment, and this is why it is difficult for us to work with this.

To the extent that a person includes himself into the integrality of society that creates a field of mutual guarantee around him, to that extent he can act in this manner because he feels himself in the arms of society. But for that he needs to connect to it, to actively participate in it, and to perceive this society as perfect. And then naturally he will evoke the forces of nature and the movements from society, which will indeed bring him a “baby stroller.”

But to talk about the fact that we exist in this single unified field, that we evoke it, and that correspondingly, it reacts to us… Certainly, psychologists and sociologists can talk about this. That really is something that we can understand and sense exists: This is our collective mind, our collective desire, our subconscious influence on each other, the common opinion. But we still need to work carefully with it because we are dealing with people who aren’t capable of immediately perceiving these subtle matters.

Therefore to simply say “Just give birth and you’ll receive a stroller…”  Where from, exactly? What are you basing this on? With this you will simply discredit yourself in the eyes of others as an impractical  person, someone who is detached from reality. I don’t think that this is the right approach.

First and foremost, we need upbringing, and the practical application comes a little later. We need to lead people to the point where they are able to see what your basis is and they can begin to suggest solutions on their own. Don’t impose certain behavior on them. They will see for themselves based on your explanations that here it will probably work out.

And this is what is referred to as “educate your child according to his ways,” that is, make it so that a person will probe and feel out his own path. You educate him or her, and thus they choose their path correctly.
[69316]
From a “Talk About Integral Education” #8, 12/14/11

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Question: Our goal is adhesion with the Creator; it is the top priority for all of us. According to the law of equivalence of form, the goal itself already unites us. But we see that this is not enough in order to advance, and that we should make greater efforts in connecting. Are these efforts the only means we have to advance towards the goal, or are there other means?

Answer: First of all, the end of the action is in the initial thought. The final result is adhesion with the Creator. That means that we have to be in equivalence of form with Him, because adhesion is achieved only according to the equivalence of form.

Equivalence of form means to be like Him. Like Him is pure bestowal. That means that I have to go through the phases of correction in which I gradually advance towards the state of “like Him.” For Him it is 100% bestowal and for me it is expressed in receiving in order to bestow, which is the highest level. Below that there is to bestow in order to bestow. But now, I am even further below, in bestowal in order to receive and even in receiving in order to receive.

On my present level, instead of discovering unity, the connection, the one system of souls called “Adam,” in which I feel the Creator and all His bestowal, His whole appearance, I discover a shattered, confused, and destroyed world. But I should understand that it was given to me like a Lego to construct, like a puzzle to put together. After all, “one sees through his own flaws”: I see before me this shattered world; because I am broken, so it seems to me that the world is broken.

So I have to view everything before me as a copy of my internal system, my feeling and mind—to the extent I am broken, I see this world as broken—instead of seeing in it only the upper divine system that operates and exists in it.

This means that all our work should be aimed from the inside out because everything that seems to be existing on the outside is the imprint of my internal attributes. I need to correct myself, and then the world will be corrected. It isn’t as “world reformers” claim that we should carry out this or that reform. There is nothing to do in the world except for disseminating the method of correction and integral education.

Actually, when I disseminate and deal with education, I also take care of the parts of my soul, which at the moment I feel as detached from me. Therefore, I should take care of them this way, as if they are on the outside, and bring them the knowledge, and the method of education. But then, I discover that everyone is like my group, inseparable parts of the one, unified system, together with me.

Therefore, we should try to see the whole world internally. After all, it is all one, one whole; there is no this world and the spiritual world, but rather one system that in the meantime seems to me to be out of order. So what should I do in order to see it as one vessel? This is what our actions are aimed at. If we approach our work plans this way, our dissemination, our internal work, and the different connections among us—we will succeed.
[70997]
From  the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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Question: Are women able to pretend amongst them and should they do so, like the men in the group?

Answer: Yes, women should also pretend amongst them. They should unite in order “to pressure” the men despite their ego. For that purpose they have to pretend.

We all have to pretend because we’re all in the egoistic desire, and emerging from it means playing altruism, bestowal and love, and the universal bond.

These attempts summon the upper Light’s influence upon us. Hence, our whole life is truly a game. This is serious business.
[69732]
From the Lecture on Unity Day “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/2012

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Question: What does it mean that the Creator loves man who breaks his heart in order to reach the “palace” of the King? Who breaks my heart and why? What does a person do at that time?

Answer: Of course, we are not talking about the heart as an “engine” working like a pump. The heart is our egoistic desire. All the egoistic desires are called the “heart.”

To “break” the heart means to attain that same point in which we were once as a single, unified picture of Malchut and then shattered into numerous parts. My feeling of detachment from all the others is called my “broken heart.”

That is the state we should attain. From then onward, a person begins his correction. How? The Creator is called “the healer of the broken hearted.” The Creator is the Light, the attribute of bestowal, uniting our hearts together, and they return to life. He revives them, and then these hearts become one vessel, one desire.
[69736]
From the Lecture on Unity Day “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/2012

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Question: What are we doing wrong if we can’t attain what we desire?

Answer: You have everything you need. You only have to aim yourselves correctly using different tricks and every possible means that will help you imagine the connection between us as a vessel in which we receive the filling.

Look at your life and imagine that everything that you want is attained, not thanks to the money in your pocket, but thanks to the connection. You should feel that all the means for attaining the fulfillment are in the connection: the fork you eat with is the connection, the glass you drink from is the connection, and so on. Otherwise, without our connection, you will get nothing. You need it in order to breathe, in order to live! Life is only possible through our connection; it is the vessel for the filling.

Here the key is mutual guarantee. A minute from now you will forget what I’ve said if everyone doesn’t think about it and worry that others won’t forget. We will be able to eat only if we feed one another.

This is the whole problem you feel about your desire. You really want to, and you are not the only one! Everyone wants this, but the point is that everyone thinks about himself, without thinking about connection. Thinking about connection means to worry about the success of others.

It isn’t like the connection in the mafia where people connect for a collective profit. A Kabbalistic group is not a group of criminals. It is a union for the revelation of the Creator, the attribute of bestowal. Therefore, in this group everyone worries only about others and not about himself. Only thanks to this do we build our “boat.” Its sides are created by my concern for others. The moment I stop worrying about others I drill a hole in the boat.

We forget that, and it is all called mutual guarantee. Let’s hope that we manage to clarify this concept and actually attain it. If we attain it even to some extent, we will already move on to bestowal.
[69382]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/2011, TES

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