Question: What does it mean” half of the half” with regards to the work we have to do?

Answer: A person has to prepare his “half” and the Creator completes the other half. But how can you do that, after all, even in preparing my desire I cannot manage without Him?

To prepare my half means to try and find the deficiency and the right aspiration. But I don’t have that at all. I have to look for the right deficiency instead of the black false bubble I am in where I imagine this false life that doesn’t exist at all that will later seem like a dream.

How can I want and try to wake up from this deep sleep and to feel willingness for it by myself, because this is the only thing I need! But without this willingness, I will not be able to receive the upper world that is revealed at the end of this dream because I have to develop a deficiency for it.

People with a great coarse egoism come to study Kabbalah in order to attain the upper world . It isn’t enlightened “spiritual” people for whom meditations are enough who come here . The people who come here want to receive and to gain big time, to discover the spiritual world. Here it depends on whether a person can hear what he is told and bear all the conditions.

Two natural spiritual laws operate here, which you cannot change in favor of your egoism. We are told that we have to do “half of the half,” but this doesn’t mean that there is some concession here. A person must perform his half, and then he will receive the other half from Above. The other half will change him and will turn him into something that is totally different.

When he is 100 percent ready to change, it means that he has done his half of the work. Then 100 percent of this change is performed from Above; this is the half that the Creator is responsible for.
[66591]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Bring Your Half Of Infinity
Come To The Lesson To Attain The Force Of Correction
An Appetite For Spirituality

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: The elderly have an especially emphatic fear that arises in any group: What if I won’t have enough time to reach the sensation of eternity and perfection? How to handle that fear?

Answer: We need to set very concrete tasks before them, not prospective ones, like for the youth, and to set defined goals that are attainable and realized very quickly. At the same time, we need to tell them about the entire global picture of nature’s system, its eternity, its life cycles, as well as our life cycles within it. That is, here we need to provide serious psychological support from the very beginning.

Question: During one of the programs you explained that a fear of death paralyzes a person’s life, impedes him. It manifests less in young people and more at a certain age.  How does the methodology of integral upbringing regard attitude to fear? How to work with it?

Answer: I think that a correct clarification of our place in nature is the key to understanding a person’s place within it, the place of death and our biological life. We need to bring a person to the next level of understanding, not even feeling yet, but simply understanding of this.

A person will reach the sensation of eternity and perfection when he or she will be integrally connected with a certain critical mass of other people who are also attaining this integration. Then it is as if we rise above ourselves, creating above us some image of one person with one heart and mind. And our physical body exists nearby as an animal that accompanies this one image, the way our dog or cat lives alongside of us.

We need to focus people’s attention on that and to try bring them to this kind of sensation. In principle, psychologically it’s not that difficult considering that there is no resistance on their end, but on the contrary, support and anticipation of results. They represent that part of humanity that joyfully strives towards integration and closeness, understanding that all else passes and vanishes.

Elderly people easily part with everything for the sake of achieving the feeling of ascent above death, rising above the very factor of the seemingly inevitably impending end. We need to give them a feeling as if they are in a plunging airplane set to crash into a mountaintop, but suddenly some great force force lifts it up, and it speeds upwards with boosted power. I think that such sensation can be created in them quickly.

Besides, the courses for the elderly naturally need to be easier. They don’t require great theoretical and practical studies; they will gladly just participate. And I think that precisely the egoism and fear that appear in all older people, the desire to achieve a result that uplifts them, all that will provide a very serious basis for movement to other groups in society.
[65742]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: We spoke about the fact that in the integral upbringing courses people meet for seven to eight hours a day, and together they first go through the preparatory informational stage, that is, receive an education, and then proceed to the practical part, the upbringing, where now in their psychological interaction they go through various states. Aside from study and upbringing, is there room in this program for joint celebration of holidays?

Answer: Constantly. After all, in spending seven to eight hours together, they need to participate in some sort of a meal at least once, perhaps even twice. There should be a lunch and also a small break, like an afternoon snack. There need to be breaks for rest and a constant change in activities; otherwise a person will simply be unable to handle it, especially the elderly—they’d all be falling asleep.

Since they have free time, we need to break their day into morning and evening lessons, and in the middle to give them some time for rest, for housework, for their natural needs. After all, this is a special age group whose physiology may not be fully healthy anymore.

Our task is to have a person connect to a group and thereby acquire for themselves a new society in which they live and not merely pass their time, but find there their bright future. We need to create for them an atmosphere of joyful anticipation that would psychologically support and indeed heal them. Starting with the very first hours of them being with us, we need to work specifically on that.

We should organize dances for them, some kind of special evening functions. In other words, there needs to be a special approach here.

I would like to emphasize once more that their disposition towards our methodology, their desire for it to come true, and their goodwill will play a positive role within other age groups. Elderly people can and know how to influence everyone. We are well familiar with this age: In reality it is quite active. We only think, based on their physical guise, that they are passive, but in fact their influence is very strong.
[65745]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

Related Material:
A Fear That Uplifts
The Value Of Life Experience
The “Golden Age” Groups

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What is unique about teaching integral approach to the elderly?

Answer: I think that they will receive it with greater understanding because a person who has already lived a lifetime understands to what extent one is not the master of one’s own life. It’s as if it passed by above him, commanding him, and not him being in command of it.

People of that age agree more with the fact that nature works on us, and now, when they don’t have that much time left to understand, realize, and possibly correct that in some way, they are more diligent, sensitive, and compassionate.

Besides, the enormous hard-won life experience gives a person a completely different approach to what is being offered. From the very beginning, a person is open to learning, so naturally, his participation in the studies is most amicable. We are offering a person to achieve harmony in that short segment of time that he or she has.

These are people who live and measure themselves not relative to some achievements, but relative to the end of life. Generally speaking, this constant subconscious sensation in a person determines his or her entire behavior.

And here is where we need to imbue the endpoint of their life with joy, attainment, and ascent towards a new state that exists beyond the end of corporeal life. We should give them a sensation that it’s as if they’re flying and about to crash into something, and suddenly a motor appears that carries them up above the obstacle. It is precisely a sensation of this possibility that will give them strength, and then, of course, it will be very easy for them to work in a group.

I hope that these groups will be a serious help to us because in principle, the more groups of this kind we can create, the easier it will be for us to include ourselves into all of humanity.

By the way, longevity inherent in our time (life expectancy is more than doubled compared to the previous centuries) means an accumulation of life experience by an individual. At some point, people lived 30 or 40 years and died young, without gaining any experience in life. From the ancient times and all the way until the 18th century, a person lived no longer than 35-40 years. It’s hard to believe now that there was once such a short life cycle. A person practically had no time to attain anything in life, grew old very quickly, and died. Everything somehow broke off very abruptly.

We need to take advantage of the fact that in our time, the developing ego offers us an opportunity, in accordance with its development, to simultaneously live through and internalize the experience and the point of view that develops in a person by the age of sixty and beyond. Today elderly people comprise the vast majority of humanity. We need to take advantage of this group, which is sympathetic to our methodology and its outcome, and through them create in all of humanity a certain correct background for integration.

Therefore, under no circumstances should we pass these groups by, although our usual automatic attitude towards this segment of the population is: “We’ll create all the necessary conditions so they wouldn’t bother us. Let them sit somewhere on a bench and calmly live out their life.” No, we need to build very powerful groups out of them, and they will disseminate this method, its usefulness, and a life-saving solution that it offers to mankind among their children and grandchildren.

Question: We know from experience that the majority of the elderly really love to tell the story of their life. Should we give them an opportunity to share their stories?

Answer: Only if it helps us in the capacity of a psychological example: What you related, what you saw, what you lived through. Naturally, the elderly love this, but their stories need to be accompanied by investigation and analysis: Why this happened, what it provided, what this should teach us today, and so on.

Elderly people passing time in various gatherings is their own business, but we need to take it into consideration and teach them how to relate to the lived experiment of life.
[65654]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

Related Material:
The “Golden Age” Groups
Equality In The Group?
A Person’s Age Is Not An Obstacle In Studying

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can we ask for the desire to bestow if our nature is the desire to receive that only wants to be filled?

Answer: This is exactly all of our work. We should understand that the filling is always there and it never changes. It doesn’t get transferred to us not because of some action on the Creator’s part. It’s all inside me already, and I only have to discover the suitable desires for the revelation of the filling.

That filling is bestowal. The Creator wants to give us the attribute of bestowal that would fill us just as it fills Him.

The Creator created the desire to receive “from absence,” but it’s only “one gram” of desire. Except for this one gram, there is no more desire to receive. Everything else develops inside it under the influence of the Light, the force of bestowal. So when the created being feels the filling on its last, fourth, phase of development, it is filled with the attitude of the Creator towards it. Then it restricts itself because it feels shame.…

The created being doesn’t get a filling of more than that one gram inside the desire to receive. This is because inside the desire to receive, there is nothing but that one gram. All the other things in it are added thanks to the attribute of bestowal.

The attribute of bestowal turns the desire to receive, which wants to fill itself, into a desire to fill others. This attribute of bestowal is the only addition to the “existence from absence.” So it all depends on and is measured relative to the attribute of bestowal, relative to the Creator.
[66467]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/2012, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Did He Really Leave Me?
Fulfillment From The Feeling Of Love
The Benefit Of Spiritual Shame

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: There are those who see a threat in Baal HaSulam’s approach, who prefers internality over externality. How is it possible to reach people who “lean towards externality?”

Answer: The nation is not able to understand what relates to the inner essence. The external forms fascinate it, and it needs to hold onto something. You say: “Concentrate on internality, and there you will discover everything.” But for them, this is nonsense. No one works with his heart. It’s difficult and requires a certain level of development.

Only now we are entering a period when the new generation will need to develop the heart. Until now it was the “stony heart,” and now there will be a need to soften it, beginning from afar. We are speaking about a big job, large-scale processes that we need to go through.

We hope that our approach, imbued with love and unity, will help us in softening the hearts. Then, as people advance forward, we will be able to talk about deeper issues. After all, the message of unity gets a response only in the heart of man. Even if in the meantime, it is externally, the heart begins to work nevertheless.

This is the way. Also, if you open a place for the Light in many hearts, it operates very quickly. It is a matter of a few months. Just begin, and you will see.

Thus, I am very optimistic. If we create an education kit and begin to distribute it among the nation, we will be able to see a completely different picture already this year. The most important thing is to find correct and understandable ways to transfer the message, to upgrade them from month to month so that they are more internal. And then we will succeed.
[66496]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/2012, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
Words That Come From The Heart
Who Said That We Must Unite?
Find Your Evil To Walk Away From It

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What should be the structure of the integral upbringing? How should we start the education of an adult person?

Answer: Certainly we should be engaged in the education of adults, but we still have to put the maximum attention on the education of children because changing the adults is very hard. On one hand, they feel the entire corruption of the society where they live, and they would like to change it. However, changing the society means changing a person. It’s very difficult to change a person. By taking care of our children (something which is important to us), we will be changing ourselves as well.

Most of us are someone’s parents. When we are involved in building a completely different society for our children, as it is said, “If not for us, then for our children,” when we take care of the next generation and educate it, we will simultaneously start re-educating ourselves.

Question: Does it mean that the course for adults should include a course for the preparation of educators for the kids as well?

Answer: This is a must! The course should include the topics on interaction between the spouses, interaction of a person with the society, with the boss, with employees, and with the children, as well as child education. A person should be connected with everyone in the integral way.
[66135]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

Related Material:
It Starts With The Individual
School: The Mirror Of The Vices Of Society
Everyone Needs Integral Upbringing

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: Why does Baal HaSulam write in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” about the forbidden part in the wisdom of Kabbalah: that Kabbalists can reveal what belongs to “Flavors of the Torah,” but cannot disclose the part that belongs to the first three Sefirot or the “head of the Partzuf?”

Answer: Even if Kabbalists tell about something that is “forbidden,” we won’t understand anything. It is like talking about anything next to a baby without needing to be careful because the infant still will not hear or understand anything anyway. He doesn’t connect the words he hears to any meaning. Just like when we read The Book of Zohar, single words are understandable, but for us they add up to senseless sentences

“The secrets of the Torah” are not information that is carefully hidden from us. It is simply our brain, which at the moment is on an ordinary beastly level, cannot perceive them. So for us it remains a secret, as does all of reality. Please, it is all revealed to you, look! Do you see anything? Who is to blame that you don’t have the means to perceive? Develop them and you will see reality. It is the same when it comes to the “secrets of the Torah.”

We study in “The Study of the Ten Sefirot” about what belongs to the head of the world of Atzilut, the head of Arich Anpin, and we know that there are the parts of RADLA (Reish delo Eiyada), parts of its “brain” (Mocha de Avirah, Kruma de Avirah) that are concealed from us in the upper Light. But we study everything that belongs to the “flavors of the Torah” and not its “secrets” in this system. The difference is that the “flavors” relate to the thoughts of the created being and the “secrets of the Torah” relate to the Creator’s thoughts.

There would be no point mentioning all this, if there weren’t people who claim that it is forbidden to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because it is a secret. There are no secrets in it; on the contrary, the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals reality to us! It doesn’t reveal some “forbidden secrets”: In order to reveal the secrets you have to reach them yourself by preparing your vessels, your desires, your vessels of perception. If you prepare all the desires that belong to the seven lower Sefirot (ZAT) in the full height of the spiritual ladder, then you begin to discover their upper part (GAR). You will be ready for this revelation and will discover this secret yourself. [Read more →]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Q&A, Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Suppose I witness someone being bullied on the street or at the metro. What should I do? How should I relate to what’s going on before my eyes?

Answer: We are only talking about behavior in an integral society, in groups where we study and practice the introduction of integral relationships. On the street, however, we do not display it in any way. People will not understand us yet.

Everything depends on the society. Suppose that you want to help an old lady who slipped and fell on the ice. There are societies where people may accuse you of something inappropriate. Even the old lady may think that you have decided to use her somehow, to rob her or something like that.

There are also societies where a number of people will rush to help her at once. Meaning, that it depends on where the person is.

So your reaction on the street should in no way be different from the reaction of other people. It would look very strange and incomprehensible to others.
[66264]
From a “Talk About Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

Related Material:
Moving Ahead Of The Blows
Where Is The Truth? – In Nature
Stanford Prison Experiment

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - No Comments →

Question: We are talking about the need for balance. How exactly should we reach balance?

Answer: What in me are not just thoughts, desires, and deviations? Can I cut off all this from myself? No. Can I suppress them all? It isn’t a good idea; it would take great efforts and a lot of time, and eventually I would see that my innate attributes wouldn’t disappear even after fifty years.

So what kind of education are we talking about? What does it mean to “be human?” how can I transcend myself?

We have to take all our attributes and just balance them. I don’t need to regret something bad in me; I just need to balance it with something good.

I don’t need to erase anything; this already calms me: After all, I don’t have to feel guilty because I am that way. If I erase anything in me, what will I be left with? All that will be left is to put an end to my life. This is what pushes people to commit suicide: They discover that there is nothing good in them. There can be various external reasons, but the conclusion is the same.

But we approach the issue in a totally different manner. A person should preserve everything that is in him, and advance by his properties adding positive discernments, good attributes, to the negative attributes. Balance, don’t destroy. By destroying, you become a “reformer of the world,” in fact it is doubly bad because one becomes a damager of the world.

We have to balance every phenomenon about ourselves, but not erase it. Otherwise we disturb the general balance. Similarly, we try to balance blood pressure and other physiological problems, as well as problems in society and the family.

We mustn’t oppress anything. After all, it isn’t by chance that the desire to receive was created in this form. It stems from inside and is revealed in our Reshimot (informational genes), which we cannot erase. Their chain continues to evolve, and the only thing we can do is to balance them, to correct the phenomenon by using them correctly and revealing their positive side.
[66294]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, “The Peace”

Related Material:
Check For Balance
Conquering My Nature
An Egoist Can Do Morе

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Egoism, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →