Question: We are approaching the final lap before the convention. How do we maintain the intention?

Answer: First of all, we are not parting; we are all together. From today on we should prepare to the maximum for unification; we should give rise to unity and live in it now. Unlike a lesson at school, the convention does not begin at the ring of a bell. It’s already hovering above us, and our friends all over the world are already breathing it. We need to prepare ourselves more and more. We should exert effort toward unity, and each day should be an achievement for us just like in the desert of Arava.

Of course, there will also be descents. Never did we have a successful first day at a convention. Even after the burst of emotions at the cultural program, people didn’t want to come back the next morning. And this is good. It cannot be any other way.

So let’s hope that over the next few days we will undergo the whole necessary preparation, including the mess, rejection, and resentment so that then the three days of the convention will fill us with inspiration and unity. Let’s save time, we have all the necessary means for that. This time we have performed an immense preparation, internal one in particular.

The key is confidence. Let each person hold up his friend—otherwise the common Kli will fall into parts. Grab onto each other and don’t let go.
[62403]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/2011, “The Peace”

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Question: You have said that we are in the process of spiritual birth. How do we complete this birth, and once it is completed, how do we hold on to this state and contribute to further development?

Answer: The process of birth includes two forces: the force of the fetus itself and the force of its mother. The external force pushes to birth, and the inner force connects in one desire. Then, we are ready to be born.

What is born from us is our one, common, whole desire to perceive the reality that already exists between us, but is concealed by our egoism. Kabbalah is called the secret wisdom because it reveals what is concealed from us.

We need external forces to push us in order to reveal it. Either nature serves this function, or we create this pressure by creating our environment. It is preferable for the female part of our gathering to provide us with the external pressure so that we, the male part, would be obligated to unite. All our private aspirations to reveal the higher reality will turn into one aspiration.

Then, we will reveal this reality and be born into a new world similar to the way we are born in our world. I can feel by the questions, desires, thoughts, the common flow, spirit, and mood that the participants of our convention are beginning to feel this reality that has appeared over us.
[62739]
From Lesson 7, The World Arvut Convention 12/8/2011

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Question: All of us that couldn’t attend the convention are trying to unite virtually. How can we make sure that we’re doing everything possible to support our friends at the convention and around the world? What is the most effective way to conduct a mirror convention so that we can share the strength of our mutual aspiration to reveal the Creator?

Answer: Each person exists in separation from the others, within his individual black point. This is the state of all people in the world. If we want to unite, we broaden this point and create a spiritual vessel above ourselves. There are no physical bodies there; we exist only in our thoughts, desires, and aspirations towards unity.

In such a state our world ceases to exist. It is as though we are suspended in the air and our physical location becomes irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if you’re located in Israel or in Rio de Janeiro because the spiritual state is not affected by physical distance.

The concepts of time, space, and motion lose their significance. For example, while reading Shamati articles, you can feel Baal HaSulam or Rabash because Rabash wrote them from the words of Baal HaSulam. If you read the works of the Ari, you can feel him, or you can feel the group of Rabbi Shimon while reading The Zohar. There is no time in spirituality. There you exit from the confinement of your black point.

That’s why we must understand that all of our friends in this world, which takes up a single point of reality, are capable of rising above their current state and uniting with one another. I hope that the time will come when we won’t need these large gatherings. We might still organize these events for the newcomers, but for us, the physical location won’t matter because each one of us will be connected to the spiritual platform, to the spiritual vessel. We’ll be connected with everyone, regardless of whether that person is alive or dead.

Time, motion, and space won’t limit us because they don’t exist in the spiritual vessel. We only have to rise to our first spiritual level. This is the goal of our connection, which is physical for the time being. It’s meant to elevate us, and therefore we shouldn’t pay attention to the bodies, but rise above them.
[62562]
From Preparatory Lesson, The World Arvut Convention 2011

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Question: If spirituality does not become revealed to my “I,” how can I demand something at the convention? How can I demand for the Creator to change me if in principle, “I” do not exist?

Answer: You work on your own until you unite with your friends: You participate in group life, unity, and dissemination. On the other hand, the spiritual vessel we’ll create will be a common vessel. I can only experience certainty and spiritual sensations when in adhesion with others. I can only discover the fulfillment of the vessel of bestowal together with my neighbor, only united.

It is in this way that I make individual actions to raise myself towards unity. And at the convention I don’t see anyone separately: Instead of seeing faces of my friends I want to see a single desire. Together we create something unified over us, a “spiritual vessel,” where we wish to reveal the upper force.

Question: If I experience something similar at the end of the convention, how can I be sure that I have really attained the goal?

Answer: It will manifest as a fact: Either you know that it’s so or you don’t. This is because we attain the spiritual world in actual sensations.

Spiritual attainment is a billion times higher and stronger than your current perception. Right now it’s limited by a central black point of all the worlds, in which we don’t have any spiritual traits. We don’t know the cause or its consequences; we don’t know where our sensations come from and how our desires change. Why does every moment of my life differ from the previous moments? This is unknown to me. Sensations change, thoughts jump, desires alternate, factors of influence are discovered, and I have no knowledge about this process and the outcomes of my states. I exist in a black point.

Only after I enter the spiritual level, rise above my point, and expand the circle of my perception, only then I begin to perceive the cause of all the things that happen to me. I understand how I am to act, I see and attain, I know that I exist in a state shared by everybody. So how do I strengthen it? How do I strengthen the connection between us? After all, its strength determines the strength of my perception of life, the strength of my certainty, understanding, and attainment.

It is in this way that I begin to ascend higher and higher. When I enter the notion of “we,” when I submerge myself in our common desire and sensation, our common thought, I stop perceiving the material life to the point that the death of my flesh does not seem to me as my own death. Only the body dies because it remains only in one central point of all the worlds, the blackest and darkest one, while I have already risen at least to the following circle.
[62565]
From Preparatory Lesson, The World Arvut Convention 2011

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Question: I can understand and feel what it means to give confidence to my friends. I can understand what it is for the entire group to be confident about the successful outcome of the convention. But it is written in the Shamati article No. 72 “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light” that I myself must acquire this feeling of safety. Does this refer to the safety of the “I” that exists in all the friends?

Answer: In spirituality there is no reference to “I.” This question does not exist there at all because “I” do not exist separately.

We already know that the Creator created the general desire, the Kli (vessel). This desire has separated into a multitude of pieces during the breaking, and now every one of us, every part of this single desire, only perceives its current life. We don’t have the ability to perceive anything greater.

However, you still desire to perceive a higher degree than the life in this world, in your little piece of the general desire. For this we need to unite and return to the state of a single vessel, as it was before the breaking.

So, there is no notion of “I” in spirituality, in the sense that we imagine it. There is unity in spirituality. When everyone joins it despite his egoism, a 620 times more powerful vessel is formed. Unlike the initial state, every one of us has acquired an egoistic desire, found himself separated from the others, experienced personal hatred towards the common vessel, towards everyone else, and now is working above this egoistic inclination to reject. This is what gives us a much greater power of unity than before.

The spiritual world is perceived in the common, unified vessel, when we glue its broken pieces together again. And we together reveal fulfillment in this corrected vessel. It’s not I who feels the unity, the spiritual world, and the confidence. If this sensation exists, this is no longer “I,” but “we” together. This is the only way to manifest spiritual details of perception, both in regards to the vessels and the Lights.
[62571]
From Preparatory Lesson, The World Arvut Convention 2011

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Question: What stages should a person go through during the convention?

Answer: First of all, it’s necessary to physically include yourself in the mutual field by trying to do what all the others are doing. We should turn off our thinking, put aside all concerns and desires, and simply dive into the surrounding environment.

I don’t want to think about anything! For the next few days I totally disconnect myself from all my usual concerns. After all, I have the right to do so for once in my life! It’s as if I have no worries: I’m being fed, I have a place to sleep, and that’s all I need in the physical world. Everything else I want to do along with others and feel what they feel.

We can ascend only if we apply a great deal of effort and try time and time again to elevate ourselves. It’s very important to make such physical actions where we totally stop thinking of ourselves and only look at others and do what they are doing, like a small child that imitates adults and thereby grows. This is exactly what we should be doing.

All of my friends are the greatest people of the generation and exist in the world of Infinity. This is what Kabbalists teach us, and this is what I discover upon attaining spirituality. Right now I want to connect with them and not be a smart alec so that I don’t allow any criticism or doubt to enter my mind. We must all do this.

We still have time to prepare. We must all come to the opening ceremony with the feeling that we are one person. There will be more people coming, and we have to sweep them up with this thought and this intention so as to absorb them within instead of them overpowering us.

We need this large amount of people. We can’t conduct a convention in a narrow circle of 500 people. This is not enough. We have to sweep up a large number of people because the only way we’ll earn a spiritual revelation is by taking a step towards the whole world.

The people that are expected to join us are not closely connected to us and aren’t necessarily led here by the point in the heart. These people are interested in the topic and they respect and support us. So we have to be the core within this mass of people, just like the world Kli is the core in relation to all of humanity.

This is why in the days before the convention we must obtain maximum unity between us. And later we’ll simply continue to work on that unity. On the first day of the gathering we will begin to work for the public with the unity that we have prepared. Each time we’ll keep them and ourselves in a greater connection.

We are responsible for this unity and we realize this convention. The word “convention” means a gathering, a connection between all of its participants. From this you should understand what we are here to do and try to direct everything inward toward the mutual desires and thoughts.
[62610]
From Preparatory Lesson, The World Arvut Convention 2011

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Question: After two years of studying, I realize that intention is the main thing on the spiritual path. How do I overcome my unwillingness to become included into the group? It has suddenly pounced on me and won’t let me keep the intention.

Answer: Pay somebody to bring you to the lesson every day. Sign a commitment where you will lose something if you don’t perform certain tasks in the group. If you are capable of building your life only inside the corporeal framework, bind yourself to the group in the same way you are bound to your family or job so that a failure to fulfill obligations will lead to a real loss.

“Marry” the group and provide for it the same way you provide for your wife and children. A person must work on himself. You are waiting until you have a desire to take the spiritual path. Well, you may take your time. Such desire will never appear. On the contrary, it will become even easier to justify your idleness with a sober and realistic approach.

You probably will be sent more sufferings and spite toward this world. One way or another, something will happen. If your desire doesn’t burn now, then wait and see.

The world is going through such stages now that it is much easier for people to rise above everyday life. This is being done on purpose in order to help the spiritually weak layers of society come closer to the upper world. The current crises are required exactly for that purpose, but strong people are being given opportunities to fight their matter during times of material bloom and prosperity.

The spiritual world is built on freedom of choice. If a person doesn’t commit to the group and the group doesn’t commit to him, then he must not be pressured because he is not in the family. He hasn’t taken the burden. Thus, nothing can be done. He is free to make his choice.

What kind of requests can a person who has not bound himself physically to the group make? How can he ask the group to become an elevator raising him to a higher degree? It is silly to complain about a lack of desire. It is better to act physically. Catch a brief moment of bursting desire and sign an agreement with the group, which will obligate you later when desire ceases.

Put yourself into a hopeless position, trick yourself just like a bitter enemy, so as to continue with the path even when you don’t want to. Do you like your boss? Nevertheless, you go to work since you have no choice.

If we don’t work on binding ourselves hard to the group, we won’t be able to build a vessel of mutual guarantee. At the Arava Convention, we achieved an important preparatory step toward the December convention; we gained a common feeling. Now, we must sustain it. We must commit to holding onto this feeling with all our might, bring it to the convention, and with it, light up thousands of participants and the millions of people around the world who are connected to us.

To the degree that each person invests physically into this preparation, he binds himself to the group. It is not accidental that Kabbalists from the groups of Ramchal and the Ari signed customary agreements among themselves. After signing, you cannot escape. You must fulfill the obligation. The same happens in life: You sign an employment contract to receive salary. However, here, instead of money, you will receive a different kind of reward, a higher and more valuable one.

Let us hope to meet at the convention prepared and united. Then, we will be able to actually rise and become a Light for the entire world.
[61773]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/20/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: When we try to realize the force that the upper degree sends to us, we discover that it’s impossible…

Answer: That’s absolutely correct. We are endeavoring the impossible, something that is beyond our ability.

Can we ask a donkey to sing us an aria from an opera? It is incapable of that both by its development and physical ability. But we are in a much more dire situation. A donkey at least has auditory and vocal faculties, while we don’t have anything from the spiritual world. We are absolutely cut off from it.

That’s because the spiritual world is the quality of bestowal. So how can we feel it in the egoistic desire? Can bestowal dress into reception? Can fire dress into water? Of course not.

Therefore, our enormous desire is not just aimed at an abstract idea, but at having the upper Light correct us. Three components must be welded in this desire: Israel, Torah, and the Creator. Stated differently: me, the group, and the upper Light. The Light is what corrects me; I will never achieve anything alone.

Therefore, at the Mutual Guarantee Convention, we raise MAN—a desire, a plea, a need for the upper force to correct us. This is the entire essence and objective of the convention.
[62266]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/11, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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