Question: What laws of nature are we referring to?

Answer: The first requirement for observing the laws of nature is studying the human being, his environment, and their influence on each other.

This also pertains to the laws of nature because we are a part of nature. So first, man needs to be studied. Every person must be a psychologist, both for himself and for human society, to know how to coexist with others and avoid throwing themselves at people without thinking about the consequences.

We first learn who man is, a human being, why we develop the way we do, and whether we have the ability to resist the development of the crisis. Will it benefit us to stop it? Maybe nature is advancing us towards something new, something even better? We simply need to understand what it is pushing us towards and willingly move towards this goal.

We also need to understand why we cannot see this future picture now. We used to always see a future, and developed according to our aspiration to reveal something new and rise higher. But today it is the other way around, we are becoming disappointed and constricted; we no longer want anything.

This form must be useful and desirable for future development, where we need to abandon our current state and rise to a completely different one. This is why we feel so much disappointment, tiredness, and weakness in relation to our current state, we do not wish to continue and remain in it.

The next state must be very different. It is like leaving the past, diving into a ritual purifying pool, getting washed, putting on new clothes, and coming out into the new world! We no longer wish to be connected to this world, we have soiled it enough; we have been divorced and harmed ourselves and others, those near and far from us.

If we were to take a critical look at this world, we would see that there is nothing in it we could take with us to the new good world. What would I want to take with me from this life when a beautiful perfect world awaits me? Do I have a family I could take? No. Children, friends, and work: no, no, and no. So what can I take then when I am switching to a perfect life?

This is why we critically reevaluate our entire life and overall do not find anything in it but disappointment. But maybe it is some kind of a transition toward a completely different state? But we don’t yet see it, and on the other hand we are already disappointed with what we currently have and no longer want it.

We do not see a solution for the current situation. This situation is happening around the world; more and more people are living in the moment without even planning for the future, following the principle of: We live because we live.

This is a special state; this is why we need to learn from our small experiment, where it is as if we were abandoning our entire past life and moving into a new dimension, a new level of existence. We are jumping to a new degree, being born in a new world.

There are other integral laws operating in this world; nature is already beginning to show us the interdependence of everyone and everything in a closed round world, a world of equality and connection, with laws that exist in a good, close-knit family. This is what we seem to be coming to now.

We will check: Is this just a dream or is humanity really moving forward; we must come to this either consciously or through forces that will obligate us.

Naturally, it will benefit us to study all these laws, since we will know how to transition from one state to another in the most favorable way. Until now we were developing by nature pushing us from behind, by adding new desires to the ones we already had.

But not today, today we have come to a dead end and we must evaluate our next step on our own: its purpose, the reason for it, and how to take it. Once we reveal it and see this new life, we will also need to look for ways to attain it.

In contrast to the past generations where the times of transition from one state to another and from one social formation to another occurred by instinctive development, today we must develop consciously. Our job is to understand nature and its laws, and we will transition to a new state once we carry out these laws with understanding and the knowledge of ourselves and of human society. It is as if we were giving birth to ourselves.

This time we must be on top, so we could look at ourselves and our state from above. This has never existed before. We have always flowed with the current of life, on and on: another revolution, another new car, and another new opportunity. But today we must rise above this life in our awareness to see the entire planet and all of human society with a global view, from above, and then we will evolve further.

This is the first time that nature demands us, all of us together and every one of us individually without exception, to attain the precise understanding of who we are, the world in which we exist, and the state towards which we are developing. This is the first time that I am required to be human, one who understands and knows the essence of life.

This is why our course is not only intended to simply occupy your time, but it must help us completely change our lives and raise it to a new level, towards perfection.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 1, 12/27/11

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Question: There are thousands of students worldwide that read The Zohar with us during the morning lesson. This is a very powerful and high quality force. Why don’t we feel the results of our studies? Why doesn’t the correction come now? Why do we have to wait for the Arava congress?

Answer: We don’t have to wait for the congress! The correction can come right now. It really can! Everything depends on our efforts, not on the time or place.

However, since we exist in the spiritual framework that’s called this world, we can be impressed, not by changes in desires and intentions, but by external actions.

After all, what are our bodies, hands, legs, and all the matter we see around us? They are our desires. Only these are desires on an inanimate level so we can work with them even without intentions. We set them up and receive impressions for them.

However, these are desires! And we use them because we exist in them. When we advance to a higher degree, it will no longer matter whether we’re at a congress in the Arava or in the middle of a noisy market place.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/12, The Zohar

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Question: You gave an example that in an integral society while I pour a cup of tea for myself, I first have to make sure that everyone else has tea. How should I understand this?

Answer: I gave the example that half of the world is dying from hunger, while the other half is throwing away two-thirds of what they are consuming. So why should we live in such a world? Isn’t this where the terror comes from, all other problems and wars, the senseless waste of energy, pollution of nature?

Question: But now, if I want to drink a glass of water, how should I act correctly, according to your example?

Answer: Let’s study how to be concerned with each other within our group. Afterward, we will move from the group to the nations, and will begin to build relationship systems between them, which will allow us to progress toward a more balanced life.

Obviously, if you are pouring a glass of water for yourself, then you will ask those around you if they want a drink. You will not go passing out water on the street. The water will get there due to the fact that we will build special systems for this.

But I want them to be there! After some small changes occur within me, some understanding attained through the course, and after practical studies, I agree that the society must become more balanced and reach a more or less similar standard of life.

As a first stage, let’s arrange for everyone to have a necessary set of things: X, Y, Z. We will set an objective so that in five years we provide everyone with a roof over their heads, a full provision of clothes, food, and everything that is necessary for the home.

We provide all of this on the basis of surplus, because if you make the calculation it will turn out that we have 90% above what we need. If I love you, then you can come and take half of the clothes in my wardrobe. Believe me, I won’t be sorry. Or, I could take 10% less salary for the sake of someone else and I also would not feel sorry.

Such systems need to be built on government and world scales, but not by force, not under compulsion, but by preliminary education. The Bolsheviks once tried to impose this by force, and everybody knows what came of that. That is why first people need to be educated in order to gain their support for what we are doing.

Each time we have to demonstrate the positive results we are reaching: where the rich who are sacrificing for others are, where the poor who are receiving are, how balanced everything is, and how happy everyone is. Thanks to mutual care, we will be able to get rid of the surpluses nobody needs. We will stop producing thousands of needless medicines, which are now being produced by someone for the sake of their own profit, and are poisoning humanity.

Why should we throw away such huge sums on arms, the military, and much more? There are numerous things that we will have to correct now that we have reached this new era. We will not be able to continue this way. The crisis will lead us to such a state that we will have to tighten our belts. We will not have the means to support the excess, egoistic systems we have built. That is why they are being hit by the crisis and are beginning to break down.

We have to show this together: what harm is done to us as a result of the lack of care for each other and what treasure is revealed before us thanks to our good relationships, a goldmine of good relationships.

However, first of all, integral education is necessary. The whole point is not to redistribute the surplus and offset the shortages. The point is that there is an internal tendency, which exists and has brought us to the necessity of uniting. The network, which connects us all, is being revealed; it obliges us to be in kind relationships.

For this reason, the common global crisis is occurring on all levels of our activities in everything that connects us with each other. The crisis is the lack of correct connections between people. This is the explanation for all of the separate crises: in the family, education, culture, in everything, and now the economy. Because of the wrong connections between us, we are all suffering.

These crises, that is, the external connections between us, will not improve until we sincerely invest in them and build trust in each other. Only then will we be able to develop the systems which will lead us to balance.

We see that there is a global, integral form being revealed in our external world as well as in our internal states. Meaning, we have nowhere to run. It is not in vain that we have entered into this crisis; we no longer are to develop simply under the pressure of nature.

Now we have entered such a situation that as long as man does not think about and discover his evil, decide that he must change, and see it as a choice between life and death, until that happens, he will not agree to a new education. He has to see that there is no way out and that he needs to educate himself in a new way and to build new systems.

Then he begins to search, what can help him with this? At this point, everyone must have their say: the psychologists who will advise working through a group, sociologists, political scientists, pedagogues, educators, and sports trainers. We need to build such systems so that a person begins to understand the need for change based on knowledge gained and he or she knows how to realize the changes practically. For this purpose it is necessary to provide a place for education.
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From KabTv’s “A New Life” Episode 6, 1/3/12

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Question: What feeling indicates that I am progressing?

Answer: We advance in the form of turning wheels: some of the wheels go forward, and another moves backwards. Some of them move from bottom to top, some move from top to bottom. The wheel advances forward, and its parts execute various actions.

If a person measures himself in relation to a goal, then he understands that he progresses. But if he measures himself only in relation to ascents and descents or in relation to other states, then it sometimes seems to him as if he is moving backward or standing still.

There are many possibilities to measure the advancement. But the most definite examination is: Do you feel today, as compared to yesterday, a greater necessity to find connection with group? That is the surest examination.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, The Zohar

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Question: A woman once said that her freedom is limited by certain obligations for her children, family, husband, household, etc. She feels most free within these obligations. But if all of this were to be taken away, her feeling of freedom would disappear.

Answer: This is true. When a person lacks strict boundaries, it is hard for him to determine where freedom is, and he simply feels lost, because absolute freedom appears to him to be an absolute lack of freedom.

Freedom, like any other feeling, is defined between the negative and the positive in it. Therefore, within certain boundaries and the opportunity to remain, act, and comfortably exist within them, which means managing them, performing any obligations and enjoying achieving them, this is perceived as freedom.

But the thing is that when we become integral in our society against our will, according to the plan of nature, we are unable to feel capable of creating the right framework because it is being violated all the time; on one hand, we become more interconnected with others, and on the other hand, we do not feel like we can do something on our own within our own framework because we depend on a huge quantity of external factors.

This is why the only way to surpass our boundaries is by entering the integral system, which gives the feeling of freedom.

Nature inevitably pushes us towards feeling “cornered” into a state of need, in a constant struggle for survival within our own framework, everywhere: in our families, at work, at home, on the street, anywhere at all.

It is here that we need to show people that freedom is only acquired by correctly interacting with others: globally and harmoniously.

A person, especially a woman, cares only for her boundaries, her comfort within these small boundaries on the animal, egoistic level of existence. When she has a home, a family, children, responsibilities, and she is able, capable, and equipped to provide for the wellbeing of her entire small household; then of course, she can have a complete feeling of confidence, freedom, and realization.

It is not as simple with a modern person, even a modern woman. She aspires to get into business and realize herself. But still, the determinant, basic orientation of the female character is directed towards the family, and for things to be right in it.

However we see that families are broken. The latest statistics are just menacing! The number of divorced and single parent families is greater than 50%!

Here we observe a tendency to push a person out of his little family circle where he feels comfortable leaning on his relatives, where it is enough for him that he could only care for his household and getting whatever the household needs. Despite his mind, man is being pushed towards something greater against his will.

We are tied up with everyone else. Our inner wellbeing depends on the entire world. Thus integral upbringing is simply necessary here to compensate for insecurity, fears, and absence of freedom.

As we rise to the next level, we specifically acquire freedom, despite our current egoistic beginning.

When I connect with others, I acquire something in common with them, common desires and common understanding that when we decide everything together, by interacting with each other, and in no other way—that is when I feel free.

My freedom depends on me. It does not depend on others, because everyone else in the integral group begins to appear absolutely corrected to me. They are already integral in the state of mutual guarantee, connection, and I alone am only beginning to feel where I still need to add and adjust myself. And in general every person feels this way in relation to others.

A person acquires a completely new need to constantly strive towards a proper relationship with all the people.

This is a whole new level. It is still egoistic, but at the same time it is a different and desirable level where I feel that I lack fuller integration. It is in it, after breaking into it, performing a psychological turn around inside of me like by pulling a trigger, and by changing to the opposite, I suddenly actually acquire freedom.

It is like when an embryo is born from a mother’s womb, it turns head down and seems to lose everything it had, after which it appears in a new world; we need to turn upside down, begin to understand the world in another way, and then we will be born in the new integral world.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: In the post “Are Mass Protests An Effective Means Of Reform?” you write: “…no country today is capable of controlling its domestic affairs, and all of them together cannot deal with anything as well. No one can do anything, and that includes all of the countries and governments. And there is no solution to the situation besides drawing closer to nature.”

Are you saying that after we come closer to nature, the next thing will be for all the countries of the world to get together and come up with a plan that will benefit all, and then take it to the public of each country for more detailed solutions?

Answer: Today it’s already clear that all countries are totally dependent upon each other. However, nobody knows how to govern the world in which everything is globally interconnected, and this lack of knowledge is called the crisis. The exit from the crisis is in learning how to be interconnected as nature itself is. Then we will be able to make correct decisions and act accordingly.

Question: What do you actually mean when you say “the preceding development is over”? Will there still be money being made, businesses opening up?

Answer: Everything will happen according to the law of evolution, the only difference being that until now we developed unconsciously, as dictated by nature, and today we develop against our desire, which means consciously.
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Question: We have to reach a deficiency for the desire to bestow in the Arava convention…

Answer: We don’t need anything but that. It seems that this is only half way, but in fact, it is half of the coin, the other half of which is provided by the upper one. It is enough for us to desire to unite so as to reach mutual bestowal in order to bestow upon the Creator.

We call it “a need for a deficiency.” But we don’t feel a desire to attain unity yet so that thereby we could bestow upon the Creator. Therefore, we build a compound deficiency made of a double filling. We do not intend to settle for a need for a deficiency so as to feel this deficiency during the next convention.

The need for connection will bring us to bestowal in the group. And there is another need: to bestow upon the Creator. Both relate to the same intention.

Question: We have to yearn for perfecton and this will provide us with the right desire. How can we make sure that the picture of perfection doesn’t hide the need for a deficiency from us?

Answer: We want to attain the desire to bestow in order to unite. Thereby we can carry on our desire to bestow upon the Creator and to reach adhesion with Him. One way or the other, it is all dressed on one “skewer” and is on one line. You shouldn’t draw any differences here. Think about this a little and you will see that there is no problem here.

If you mention the word “bestowal,” you continue to draw the line towards the Creator, without stopping on the way. Bestowal requires connection with the friends because only that will summon the reforming Light that brings the attribute of bestowal. Why do we all need this attribute? Do we need it in order to have a nice beastly life? No. It is in order to reach bestowal upon the Creator. Why do we need to bestow upon the Creator? Perhaps He doesn’t need it at all? No, He has no such deficiency. Our goal is to reach adhesion with Him because by that we bring Him contentment. We please the Creator not by bestowal, but rather by adhesion.

Question: How can we tie a need for a deficiency with a need for adhesion?

Answer: We need the influence of the Surrounding Light so that we will understand that bestowal is the solution for all the problems. It brings us to everything we want to attain. I want to desire to connect and this is what I ask of the Creator, of the Light that Reforms. But what for?

I want to desire to connect in order to reach adhesion with the Creator. This adhesion is part of my way, part of the calculation. Therefore, the plea cannot be whole if the three elements are not welded into it: Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. This is the nature of our desires, and we only need to understand it. Then you will see: You need to add the Creator to your plea. Otherwise there is no reason to connect in our world. You don’t want it, you didn’t come to study Kabbalah in order to connect with others in social protest.

Therefore, when you discover your desire fully, you reach the formula: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” Just part of the sentence, part of the clarification isn’t enough. When we go out to the desert, we cannot cut our request in the middle of the sentence. If the request is whole, it must end with the word about the Creator because it is from Him that you get the power to perform changes, the power of the reason, awareness, and understanding. Everything comes only from this source, and so our requests have to end with it.

Otherwise, it is like sending a letter with no addressee. If you do that, no matter what you write, you will clearly get no reply and the letter will be lost mid-way.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Question: Do we have free will when it comes to unification?

Answer: Our free will is in the desire to unite. When we fulfill this free will, the Light comes and unites us. So your desire is fulfilled when you come to unity.

Here we have to discern: Your job is to ask, but you don’t carry out the unification itself. No matter what we do, whether we dance or are deep in thoughts, we prepare ourselves for the influence of the upper Light, preparing the deficiency, the vessel for its presents, for the life that comes from Above. You should be like a small child who can’t perform a certain action but waits for an adult to do it.

This is what is missing in our request: We don’t expect help. This expectation should be revealed more clearly.

In the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 17, Baal HaSulam says: “Hence, the student pledges, prior to the study, to strengthen himself in faith in the Creator and in His guidance in reward and punishment.” What does it mean to “pledge?” It means that he is constantly “engaged,” constantly providing his half, and then the other half comes from the upper Light.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is the meaning of the expression “There is no coercion in spirituality”?

Answer: There is no coercion in the spiritual world because eventually it all depends on a person’s exertion.

In this world receiving rules, and in the upper world, bestowal. In both cases I am obliged to obey, and this is coercion. After all, these are nature’s laws.

Take the law of gravity, for example, this is a fixed force that immediately pulls me to the ground. Can you resist its coercion? “I don’t want it to operate on me, I have my own plans.” That won’t work. The law operates, whether you like it or not. It is the same with the laws of bestowal and receiving. All of reality is full of coercion.

You are free only when you choose. What kind of a choice is this? The choice is to switch from receiving to bestowal with the help of the group, the Reforming Light, and the teacher. Actually, receiving and bestowal are one law, one force. Your choice is in how to obey it: positively or negatively. You make that choice by yourself.

So what is your choice? Is it worth it or not to join bestowal? You know everything that happened previously and something of what will happen in the future. We can’t yet feel and touch the place where the choice is made. Yet actually, an amazing void opens up for you there.

We often mention the fable of the worm that lives inside a radish. When he makes a hole in the skin, a whole world is revealed to it. It is a very narrow opening, and it is the worm’s choice to be born or not. Every time you make that choice, another small part of you is born, and you enter the new world that is already prepared for you.

Although it is a very slight and fine action on my part, it is as if I operate a huge system by simply pushing a button. The place I make the choice is exactly the “spirituality” where there is no coercion. I open up a new world for myself, and my attitude towards it becomes free.

The law operates in both places, but when I enter the world of bestowal, I acquire freedom: All this is mine—the corrected desire to receive with the intention of in order to bestow, and I control it. I am really free; with this desire, I can carry out any action of bestowal that I want. This is the only thing that I want, and there are no restrictions.

Therefore it says: “There is no coercion in spirituality.” I am born, and I transcend from a rotten apple into a wonderful world, sunshine, fresh air and singing birds. When I go through this narrow passageway, I acquire a new attitude that is based on bestowal and I become adapted to the big world. In it, I am free.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: The Creator limits my freedom according to nature’s laws, but what if I don’t want that? After all, He didn’t ask me. Where is democracy?

Answer: Actually, the Creator develops modern people differently, and accordingly they ask the relevant questions about Him. This is the way it should be. This is why our world is changing, so that the questions about Him will be evoked in us. As a result, all the questions and claims should be aimed at the Creator. It is all meant for a person to reach despair.

On the one hand, it seems that there is freedom in this world and that I can do whatever I want to. On the other hand, my “childish” mind gradually perceives that the world is controlled by a system of laws and that I can’t do whatever I want to at all, even if I really want to do so. There is a difference between what is desirable and what is.

Gradually I understand that it is all about the laws of the world, which are ironclad rules. They are revealed to me more clearly and oblige me more and more. As a result I don’t feel so comfortable and so good, but on the whole this is how I learn.

At the beginning a child enjoys everything and his requests are fulfilled. Later we begin to limit him. We teach him the rules of life and demand things from him. This is how he grows.

You are talking about democracy, about freedom. But what kind of freedom is this? Freedom from what? Freedom for what? Freedom under what conditions? After all, you are not living in a vacuum; you already have certain attributes, you are already something.

“Freedom” for you is when you immediately get everything that you desire: “I want a palace!”—here you go. “I want to be strong and clever”—here you go. This way you are free of any limitations, you are omnipotent.

But you didn’t choose your mind and personality, which means that you aren’t really free. Furthermore, your desires depend on the values that you were raised with, which isn’t freedom either. There are already preliminary conditions instilled in you, which influence you. So what kind of freedom is this? It isn’t the way you imagine it. You simply haven’t clarified this.

On the other hand, the Creator really wants you to be free. Then you will be free of what he has inserted into you and instead, you will build the opposite attributes above that. You will find true freedom among the 613 “sins” and the 613 “commandments,” which is something new, a third factor, the middle line, the spiritual world. It doesn’t exist without you. If you don’t create it, it will not exist.

In the meantime, don’t forget: You are a created being and thus not free, you are limited in your qualities and in your desires.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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