Question: With us, it is customary that the men’s group works separately on love toward friends, and the women’s group conducts its own work. If love of friends relates both to women and men, in what way do we do this work?

Must there be separate circles for men and women or can they be mixed and these subjects be discussed?

Answer: What exactly do you want to talk about? Is it about unity, about love of friends?

If I love a friend, I don’t pay attention to his outer appearance. His yearning for the goal is what is important to me, his connection with the Creator. In this case, some kind of unisex appears before me, not a man and not a woman, but something yearning for the Creator, and that’s it!

I understand that the physical appearance of a woman before a man disturbs him a lot. For a woman, it is less; for a man, it is more. In this case, it is necessary to separate the circles. There is nothing else to be done. We still have not reached the desired correction or the required power of yearning forward. The Creator, in the meantime, is less important for me than this physiological being that is shining in front of me. I cannot elevate it higher within me than her physiological body.

What is there to do? In a case like this, the women need to be distant from the men to help them so that nothing will distract them from work between them. However, in the future, we will look at each other as follows: a physiology, we need children, so we mate with each other (excuse me for talking this way), whereas, in love for the Creator, we are emotionally connected. This means that we separate the beastly level from the human level and exist on two levels.

Question: Which subjects are better to discuss in separate circles and which in mixed circles?

Answer: About love for friends and everything that is related to mutual closeness, it is better, in the meantime, to discuss separately, and all the rest that touches upon work with the external public—the understanding of particular articles, various subjects that don’t belong to love, to unification, and to mutual closeness—it is possible to discuss together.

It is even possible to discuss the greatness of the goal together. For men, it might be seen that it is not serious to talk with a woman about the greatness of the goal. However, it is necessary to get used to it gradually. This is because, ultimately, as we move forward, you will see how much a woman can stimulate and inspire a man to attain the Creator, to give an undetectable push, to remind, or even to show him how much she is faithful to this in comparison to men so that he would be ashamed.

I know this for myself. Very often, I have gotten from my wife, seemingly offhandly, very valuable advice. I don’t know if she understands exactly what she is saying, but the Creator speaks with me through her.
[141193]
From lesson 5 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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At the upcoming convention in Saint Petersburg, every nation must show and demonstrate what it has attained rapprochement within it, between its groups, and its members.

This is required to stimulate and inspire each other, to show an example to each other, to consult with each other, to share their capabilities and attainments and to push each other towards even greater inner unity in every nation, in every region. It could be that we will even begin with some kind of shared unification between us, even though this is not yet seen clearly inside. It could be in another year or perhaps two years.

In the meantime we don’t feel a need for unification. And if there is no pressing need for this, then nothing can be done. When you will more or less find your regional capabilities, suddenly the feeling will appear with you: “For the puzzle I am assembling, I need the European group, but it doesn’t exist! Where is it?! I cannot do without it.”

When you feel that you require this, then you will begin to pressure them and they will feel this from you. Today, in the meantime, all of the activities are realized artificially.

The Europeans have not reached the European convention because they don’t feel the necessity in this.

The discovery of the Creator through unity must be a permanently close distant goal for everyone. You cannot place other goals before you. You will become confused! After all, your attempts and efforts will not be a realistic solution.
[141188]
From lesson 5 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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Question: What is the role of the Americans in the general correction, and how is it possible to realize this role in this present series of conventions?

Answer: The role of the Americans in the general correction is very great. According to the higher plan, America grew and became a nation that has become most influential in the world, even negatively, and we hope that someday it will be positive.

Hence we need to understand that there is an opportunity from above in the hands of all of our American friends. It is the invitation to give a good example of unification to the world.

After all, our world is deteriorating rapidly into a dangerous stage, in fact, toward all-out war. So, our American groups should carefully think about what is happening and try to prevent the threat.

It is no coincidence that America is opposite to the state of unification. It has attained great success in elevating private interests and cultivating individualism. So, now, on the contrary, the Americans must stand against this, rising to a level of unification.

As a result of this, all of our American groups must unite within each of them and between them. They must become a unified American group, and, even within it, they must continue the dynamics of the various parts between them, sometimes creating tense relationships with all that is derived from this, and even when the power of separation flares up between them. However, above it, they will be ready to activate the power of unity.

Together with their opposition to unity—to friendship, to the good force, to love—America must give an example of connection. Very important work has been imposed on the part of the American world Kli. All of us hope that our friends in America, and, first of all, in the United States, understand this. They must understand that our whole world Kli requires this of them.

If they will act in the right way, then they will influence all of the American people and, through it, the entire world, by giving it the right direction.

So, our convention in America is so important. It truly can change the fate of the world if only our American groups will understand that it depends upon them.
[140975]
From lesson 2 of the Convention In Toronto “Day Two” 8/06/14

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Question: You gave a task that the women shouldn’t gossip or slander. There was half a day of excellent relationships between us, and after that, various kinds of interpretations and evaluations began, and ultimately, everything was broken. How do we rise above this?

Answer: You must understand that the Creator wants to raise you to the next level and arranges situations like this for you so that you will work on it.

Question: What exactly can I do when I see that everything is falling apart, both inside and out?

Answer: Show an example of the opposite, which works on you positively, for everyone around you are ideal, and, in your ego, they only seem to you as imperfect. However, don’t let it turn and manage you. Rather, in spite of it all relate to them with absolute love.

Speak about this amongst you. In what way does the Creator work with you? How does He plays with you, and you are fools dragged around by the Creator. He shows you how weak you are in your unity in order to oppose participation in His exercises.

This is nothing more than an exercise. Unfortunately, you don’t perceive that everything comes from Him. What is the connection here to some woman who said something hostile about her friend? All of us are puppets on strings, robots. That is how you must perceive everything.

I must look at the group as an ideal collection of “gears” that the Creator manages ideally and I see that everything is imperfect so that I will be able to make this situation into an ideal one in my thoughts and feelings, and the next exercise also will be directed toward an even more ideal state.

That is how I constantly raise myself from this level. If you were to react correctly, then the changes in states would not happen after half a day, but in another hour, and afterward, every minute, and after that, every second. You would quickly complete the work of this system.

If a person doesn’t feel he is in front of the Creator and between them is this world—like a semi-transparent screen through which he constantly wants to see the Creator—if he doesn’t direct himself in this way, then he has no correct reaction to reality. He is immersed in a game with this screen on which are stuck all kinds of decorations, our entire lives, and everything that we imagine to ourselves, and we participate in this illusion.

However, if, through this falsehood, he constantly tries to see the Creator, who is deliberately arranging all of this for him, this already becomes a proposal to direct himself permanently toward the Upper Light.
[140707]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 3

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Question: How is it possible to overcome the sensation of the lack of equality between new students and great and experienced friends?

Answer: I don’t understand where the sensation of a lack of equality appears. The person does all that he can exactly like everyone else. He tries to work on himself all the time so that through nullification of the self he will be connected with the others.

What is the difference if he is great, small, a beginner, or experienced with some special characteristics? It doesn’t matter. If everyone around me is greater, then it is better for me because from them I get good examples and am eager to advance. When I think about my spiritual realization, I help the entire world, for each one of us is not like the others!

In my time, I was like a baby in the hands of five or six Kabbalists who had studied with Baal HaSulam. What was I then? Who was I for them? Nothing, but they treated me supportively and kindly.

I saw that they didn’t tell me everything. They were quiet about many things. However, gradually it became more and more clear to me what was happening, and I had no complaints about them. When I was in a spiritual descent and went into a low mood, they encouraged me by promising me that, in a number of weeks, everything would be revealed to me, and, even though this was a lie, an impression remained with me that they were like loving caregivers.
This is how a group must relate to each of its members.
[140901]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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Question: How can one consistently be in inner work, in inner prayer, to pass toward unity?

Answer: It is impossible to be consistently in inner prayer. Even the greatest Kabbalists went through great descents and ascents, and the higher that a person is, the greater his descents. So, it is necessary to understand that this work continues until the completion of correction.

We correct the general shattering of the Kli, and it is natural that the greatest shattered states are the strongest. In fact, the more complex shattered states are microscopic. First, we simply don’t pay attention to these contradictions, and, after that we reach a state such that our sensitivity rises all the time. We begin to be involved with our states in that we receive them with great sensitivity.

With great Kabbalists, all kinds of changes are made with great regularity because they are correcting themselves all the time, and the imprecision seems immense, great, to them, and this is the work of correction! This is life.

Every time you feel that you are working on the next level and, after that, on the next level, and so forth. The problem is not that as if you have come to work, have obtained a position, for example, that of a clerk, and begin to rise on the organizational ladder higher and higher. Here, internal work is done in your spiritual collective with the Creator. Indeed, the work on this connection gives lots of different discernments, but it is the same.

The great Kabbalists describe this in their writings. At first glance, it seems that very extensive material is found in their writings, but if we sort them, then there is nothing unique here. It is always talking about desire, about Light, and  the connections between them.

So, what is required of us is only the right intention.
[141004]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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Question: We are shaping a unified field between us. However, one way or another, each one invests his own thoughts. How does one determine the right choice toward the group, toward the unified field?

Answer: A person within himself cannot determine anything, only if the influence of the friends directs him can anything be determined. Otherwise, he will be only in continuous contradictions and oppositions.

He must constantly be under the influence of the group, in other words, participating in all of its events. We must methodically renew and increase our influence on each one of the members of the group.

We must place a goal before ourselves: create the right field around us so that it will get to the friends, will arouse them with the right work, and they will feel the kindness, the serenity and tranquility, and confidence in our work.

If one falls, the others help him up. The Creator constantly makes adjustments so that each one of us will come to his place and carry out his work. The concern about this must hang in the air.

Once, in the conventions in Israel, we threw big balloons into the air, and each one made an`effort to let no balloon fall to the floor. Specifically in this way, the unity, the Arvut, the mutual support, is revealed when you are not only not “drilling a hole in the boat,” but also are concerned all the time that the others won’t do this.

The main thing is to support the elevation of spirit and the excitement of the friends. The Creator gave us work, “Friend, this is your part, and, as long as you have not glued all of the pieces together, you will not get a soul, for it is one. It is because none of us has a soul, rather only its shattered parts.”

It is necessary to understand that the Creator gives us a place for work. So, be involved with it. Yearn to attain connection with the fragments of the soul of the friends and make it so that they will love you.
[141000]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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A group of Kabbalists is not built through a chance gathering of people. Rather, it is gathered from Above. The global nature builds everything, including the group around and within us.

It is up to me to relate to a group as a community of people from this world that are gathered following the influence of the upper power that creates unique conditions for us so that we will try to connect between us through a network of higher relationships. It is up to me to relate to a group as an offering from the Creator to insert me into a higher society, and don’t ever forget this.

So, it is up to me to accept everyone who comes to a group as a desired component, cultivating this relationship all the time, sharpening, and considering it more and more.

I have no other way of communicating with the upper force except through the group. If I want to speak with the upper level, it is up to me to turn to a group as a model that offers to be connected with me. Only through it I can explain it to the highest level, the “Creator” who created me, all of us, the entire world.

This relationship to a group is very important! It is to be understood that through it, I am speaking with the Creator. From here is our obligation to pray for the many, to turn through everyone to the Creator, to relate to others with love. In order to be directed to the next level, to the Creator, there must be relationships of equality between us, despite our differences.

We try to create a single whole from ourselves in which personal desires, intentions, yearnings, and connections don’t exist. Rather, everything is mixed into a single drop so much so that within it, we lose ourselves and acquire the intelligence of the next, higher level, its desires and thoughts with which we become a single whole.

According to the law, “ten turns into one.” Then it splits again into ten (the ego grows) and again is connected into one, and that is how it is in all 125 levels of our ascent.

This means that on every level a matrix is given to us, and if we work with it correctly, then we communicate through it to the Creator. This is not like what we do when we are communicating by telephone or through the computer. Rather, we rise to this level emotionally and are included in a direct connection with the level. So, the Creator, meaning the next level, begins to live within us.

The one difference is that on our level, in concealment, if we don’t feel the Creator, in the next level, we feel ourselves and the Creator as one whole, including the intellect of the entire universe, a general gathering of communication, the program of creation. This state is called “adhesion” to the Creator, and after it, there are 125 further levels in which adhesion with Him grows.

It is up to us to realize this possibility given to us in this incarnation of life, to relate seriously to a group and tune into the realization of our relationship to others permanently. Indeed, all the rest of our deeds are much less useful for ascent to the next level than what we can do in a group.

Even when we go out to the wider public with various activities, we require them only so that the need to connect will grow between us. Going out to humanity can be implemented through various communications media.

All of these are helpful since first and foremost, what is important to me is direct, clear, and correct communication with those friends who are gathered by the upper force, and it is up to me to work with them against my will. If this were given to me to decide, I wouldn’t ever choose them. I don’t know why I am required to attain the upper level, so they give me a group in which it is up to me to direct and arrange myself correctly.

Together with this, it is up to me to understand that all the rest are absolutely correctly directed, and I become a single string among a hundred strings that are tuned to the others. Yet, first, I sense myself tuned in the best way, and even though an awful, terrible sound comes out of me, it seems to me as something pleasant.

Like a mother who looks at her infant and he seems the most beautiful to her and the entire world is worth nothing compared to him, so I also relate to myself as the favorite. All of the rest seem to me not tuned at all, so much so that it is up to them to tune themselves to me.

However, in reality, our tuning must be completely the opposite. It is up to me to accept them all and each one as a completely tuned instrument or absolutely correct collection of characteristics. I am the only one who is not corrected, and this is not only in a group, but also in the entire world, in the entire universe. I am the only one who needs correction. So, everything was created for me. When the person relates to the world like this, he can say, “The world was created for me!”

Relationships like these in a group place us in the right state. I thank the higher power that brings me to a group. I am thankful that it shows me how I criticize everyone, and reject and hate them. I relate reasonably to part of them because I must be connected with other people, receive from them, so that I can feel myself better.

Gradually, I tune the string a little further and a little further. I bring it to the ideal sound in relation to the tuning fork. The tuning fork is the general movement of the group in which the higher sound has been felt already partially. When the general movement enters into harmony, the higher essence is revealed in it.
[140651]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 3

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Question: When our friends go out to the wider public to arrange a workshop, what can we, those who are not with them, add to their intention, to their message?

Answer: Internally, we must gather together and think about them. This is what is called praying for their success because, as a result of this success, they will bring us “booty,” in other words, the desires of all of those people who want to feel themselves a little better, a little happier, and more successful in this life. It is not important that these desires are egoistic; we take them.

With this, we perceive them. We begin to feel a need to give people all that they want: happiness, connection between them and all the rest. Their desires begin to work in us, and this means that we have something to elevate to the Creator. Otherwise, we don’t rise to Him.

As Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “No Time to Acquire What is Given,” we cannot ask for ourselves in any way. Even if I want to ask, “Give me the possibility to bestow to you. Give me the possibility of fulfilling the others. Give me the possibility to…,” I cannot say “me” because, this way, I place myself opposite the entire system, I don’t enter into it like a gear.

I must say, “Give to them” or “to us,” but in no way to “me.” This means that, if I pray for something, I must pray for the others so that it will be good for them. Then, I am participating in this correctly.

So, if we now are thinking that our friends will succeed in going out to the public and will connect with it so that the public will feel warmth from them, that their inner desire is revealed to the friends (even if they don’t feel this obviously), that they will bring them to us, then it will become a prayer to the Creator.

So, we ask and entreat the Creator spiritually, even though the public is asking for something completely materialistic. The Upper Light comes precisely through a prayer like this.

Question: What is preferable: to read a segment, to be quiet for 30 seconds, or maybe to sing a song? What do we do so that all of us are thinking about them for at least a second? What does it mean to pray?

Answer: Prayer is your desire that the friends will succeed in doing this action, that this will give contentment to the Creator. This is prayer. We open the heart and not the mouth.

I don’t understand what you are imagining to yourselves as prayer, as a spiritual activity. Is this when you disperse clouds with your mind or light candles or fall on your knees?

A spiritual activity is when you very much desire something in common with the others, and, in this activity, besides you and the group, the Creator participates.
[140561]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day One” 7/13/14, Lesson 1

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Question: What does internal contact with the audience mean?

Answer: Creating internal contact means feeling the audience as naturally as a mother feels her child. A father feels him through his head and a mother through the umbilical cord. This connection remains.

In the spiritual world, intrauterine spiritual development of the fetus leads to birth, but birth is not a departure from the higher Partzuf but an even greater connection with it.

In our world we are detached from our parents, from our mother, and we begin to develop independently, growing distant from her. But in the spiritual world, no! We get even closer, clothing the higher Partzuf: on NHY, on HGT, on HBD.

This means that in the spiritual world an even greater deepening happens within the Upper Partzuf; it is not birth outside of it, but an even greater entry into it.
[140555]
From the Convention In Sochi “Day One” 7/13/14, Lesson 1

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