Question: If we are the ones who correct the shortcomings of the wider public, including them in our desires and elevating them, then what is left for the rest of humanity to do?

Answer: Obviously we don’t resolve the work for them.

Question: Is this saying that they will also pass through the same states on the way to connection?

Answer: They must pass through those same states through which we pass, but on the smallest scale.

Suppose that for fifty years I developed and built a computer. Eventually I brought it home and turned it on. But the moment that I turned around, my grandson immediately sat in front of the screen and began to press the keys of the keyboard. I am fundamentally a person who is used to the right approach, carefully learning the instruction manuals, and he throws them up in the air: “Grandpa, everything is very simple here! I will just try a few things and then I will explain everything to you.”

He learns instinctively, interactively, feels within himself, and easily guesses how we get the result. Apparently the computer is built for the way he thinks and not the way I do. For me this computer was produced from suffering and effort and my grandson doesn’t need to make the effort; instead he grasps everything naturally. In other words, I made a great correction so that my grandson would get everything ready-made. And now he can work more efficiently than I can on the device that I built.

Lurking here are two opposites, two levels. We carry out greater and more difficult work, and apparently others only reap the fruit and rise more easily to the level of their generation.

For them everything will be much simpler, natural. We invest years in order to attain some kind of result, in order to find the form of the workshops that will raise new questions, and they will immediately get it and understand that certainly this is what should be done. Following the trouble that we take now, sweating and being in doubt, with them the complete picture will be immediately managed in their heads.

Question: If this is the case, is it necessary for the whole world to participate in at least one workshop and then everything will begin to be arranged by itself, or must we direct people again and again?

Answer: They will get feelings and intelligence “automatically”, regardless of the forms that this process will take.

In general, in the way of spiritual advancement, every level is the opposite of its predecessor; therefore, it is impossible to speculate, to assess a particular state based on another state. In my estimation people feeling that connection in the form of the workshops makes it possible for them to solve all problems in life. And so they will themselves seek and adopt the method through the Internet, television, and so forth without much talk, like children who don’t need instructions to operate a computer. And the current fashion is transient.

Question: So it could be that it is up to us to bring into public awareness an expansion of the information touching upon the new method as quickly as possible?

Answer: No. If we ourselves don’t make more of an effort, other people will also remain “outside of the business.” The grandson is smart because his grandfather and father took the trouble throughout their lives, they “gained” his new mind, new understanding.

It is up to us to make an effort to a particular level and then suddenly there will be a breakthrough, and a buyer will be found for our “merchandise.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A workshop is a Partzuf that we build in a connection between us, and, specifically in it, we feel the spiritual world. If we don’t build it then we don’t feel anything. This is our common Partzuf about which the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks: Rosh, Toch, Sof, ten Sefirot, and so on.

When ten people are nullified toward each other and begin to discuss some subject, they create a connection between them. When they insert the problem into this connection, they are lifted above it, and in this form, they find the solution but on a spiritual level. Specifically, the connection and not the attempt to be clever should give the correct decision.

In fact, we haven’t reached this yet because in the groups, the communication between people is still not right. I ask some question and you begin to go into it deeply instead of connecting above it. You see the connection is more important than the question itself.

You want to find the answer by way of your intellect. Yet, in fact, it is necessary to find it from the connection. Therefore, don’t pay attention to the question itself. If you connect correctly, you will receive an answer without lengthy searches and philosophy.
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When a person begs for mercy for himself, he is in a desire to receive and thinks only about himself. And the more that he prays for himself and tries to influence the Creator to improve his personal situation, not only does he not come close to the Creator, but also he moves away from Him, through awakening greater and greater egoism.

All of our thoughts in every circumstance go to the Creator, for we are found in a single system; we are embedded in it. It’s impossible to think about something, to decide something, and to do something without influencing the entire system, for from the start we are found in it with every cell in our body and with our heart, with all our thoughts and desires. Before we even begin to understand what we are thinking about and what we want, this has already gone into the system! We are already within it! And that is how it is for every person, all people in the world, all the still, vegetative, and animate nature, everything!

It’s only with the human that a completely different account is made, for we have been given the possibility of influencing the system through choice. Therefore, when a person’s thoughts are directed towards himself, then the system is influenced negatively. And if he continues to pray for himself, with this he invites a terrible negative awakening from the entire creation. The clearest discovery of ego is in this, when a person wants the Creator to do something for him according to his personal understanding and desire without realizing that the Creator gives him the best possibilities for correction at every moment.

So it’s not just that he has an effect on the entire system, rather he arouses immense upheavals in it, causing it to move backwards against the tendency towards the goal of creation that was activated in the form of the evolution of all of humanity. The moment that a person revives and begins to think: “Me, world, creature, Creator, my condition,” he must direct himself first towards a connection with the Creator through the group. Otherwise, all of his influence on the system of creation will be negative, and first and foremost, he will cause his personal movement to be backward.

So the best starting point for everyone is the constant transmission of bestowal through the group on all that is around us. This is called the “prayer of the many” because we are asking on behalf of the many. Such a prayer doesn’t indicate that many must be gathered together, there is no importance in this. One person is enough, only he should ask for many in such a way that he can ask for them as he would for himself. And “many” is at least ten. And then the influence of the person on the system will be positive and with it the Creator will be revealed. This is a very simple general rule.
[127257]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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The main thing is not to forget the most important thing: We have to attribute all the discernments, all the questions, and all the excuses only to the connection with the group. Everything else belongs to the corporeal world. I may think of sublime things, but it makes no difference since it has nothing to do with spirituality. Only one thing belongs to spirituality: my connection with the group, which is called the form of the embryo. This is the only thing that belongs to spirituality and it’s the only thing that takes on a form of in order to bestow, and nothing but that!

Therefore, I ask, listen, and think about some of the questions in the workshop, but there should only be one discernment in my thoughts: my current connection with the group, its style, and its manner. This is called a form, and it’s the most important thing for me at the moment. The only thing I care about at any given moment is my connection with the group by which the form of my spiritual Partzuf, its height, etc. is determined.

No matter what we discuss, this is the only thing I think about. This connection is more important than anything else, like the placenta or the umbilical cord are for the embryo and nothing but it. This means being constantly part of the source, as a result of which the stabilizing force and the delaying force are valued only with regard to this one discernment with regard to my connection with the group. We mustn’t forget that since otherwise it’s as if you are hanging in the air engaging in abstract philosophy instead of with specific clarifications.
[127684]
From the Unity Workshop 2/18/2014

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Before our world was created, the spiritual Kli was created, and now in our world, it is up to us to restore it, to connect it anew from the shattered parts. These parts are us, and the shattering is in the mutual rejection between us. Parts of the Kelim, meaning us, receive an awakening from above, and, in this form, we ask ourselves questions about the meaning of life.

The meaning of life is found above our lives because we don’t ask about this in the framework of this life. We think only how to get along better in life, and, when we begin to ask, “What is the reason for living,” this is already a question beyond the limits of our world. This is already a question directed at the source of our existence, at the Creator.

In general, all of humanity is in a movement toward unity, but in a most unpleasant way and not with the greatest speed. All of us have advanced in such a form and reached this moment where our development has brought us to the finish line where all of us must begin to connect.

There is a group, all whom received the awakening from above, and it is up to us to realize the method of correction in ourselves, to connect with the Creator minimally. This is because connection with the Creator is possible only to the degree that we accept shortcomings from the entire world.

We receive the usual shortcomings from the entire world; in other words, all six shortcomings that Baal HaSulam enumerated, desires that are relevant to a person, to his body, which are food, sex, and family, and in addition to this, there are desires that are related to the connection of the person with society directed toward money, respect and information.

All six desires are active in every person in our world, but they are discovered in each one differently, and in each one of them, there are a multitude of different components, smaller desires.

All of human development first was directed toward developing desires related to food, sex, and family in humans, leading them to the growth of desires for money, honor, and knowledge so that they would pass through them and discover lack of fulfillment in them. Yet, in the meantime, it is difficult to say that all of humanity is found in such a condition.

Food, sex, and family are corporeal desires that don’t require any correction, in principle. However, in the higher desires for wealth, honor, and knowledge, a greater ego is discovered within humanity. Also, this ego is generally only preliminary, required so that a lack of true fulfillment would be discovered in it as well. This is the crisis. The lack of true fulfillment is the feeling of the crisis.

Therefore, we now are in a stage where humanity is passing through different crisis phenomena, and these crisis phenomena change all the time. Some of them have more of an influence on the economy, others on ethics, and part of them on politics and on the family. In general, there will be many and varied crises, and, accordingly, we must understand how we need to work with people.

In principle, the method is the same method, but the approach to people must be according to their needs. In other words, for every civilization, for every culture that exists in the world today, there must be a unique approach. Therefore, desires are developed in different nations, in different people and areas, according to the place in which we must work.

Look, for example, at how Latin America leaped with a desire to realize spirituality and how much Europe lags behind it. There is no singular approach. We don’t know why it happens this way.

Accordingly, it is up to us to be sensitive to the pulse all the time, to see where to invest more efforts, where there is a greater need, an opportunity for more exposure. The world is in a global connection. Yet, nevertheless, many changes are taking place in all the different parts of the world.

Therefore, it is up to us to concentrate on a place where there is a need for correction, for spirituality, for inner change, or, as Baal HaSulam writes in the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, where the question: “What is the reason for my life?” “How can I be fulfilled?” exists; when a question like this appears, people already are prepared for us to turn to them.

As we already have said, this question can expand into different areas, beginning with everyday problems in life to higher, more psychological, more internal problems. Therefore, this places a difficult problem before us.

The idea is that we cannot connect to the Creator if we don’t function as a conduit for His connection, for His bestowal, for His control of the entire world in order to pull all of humanity after us. You see, the entire system is undergoing a shattering only to be able to begin to feel the Creator through this shattering so that we will rise to His level. That is how the entire problem of His relationship with the creatures will be discovered and resolved. The “good and benevolent” is expressed in the creatures rising to His level and becoming like Him. This means everyone together, without exception.

In this way, it is up to us to have our hand on the pulse; and, besides this, it is up to us to be very sensitive to all changes, no matter how small. We now also are found in the higher world, in the world of Infinity (Olam Ein Sof), surrounded and penetrated with the Ohr Ein Sof, with the light of the Creator. There is no difference between our place now and in the future. Nothing changes except our feeling, our senses. The sensitivity is changed. It is up to us to develop and discover it in order to feel the Light. We are found within it, and nothing exists outside of it. So, all of the changes take place within us, and there is no need to travel anywhere. It is necessary only to work all the time on increasing sensitivity to the upper Light within us. This is our goal.

The problem is that, without movement, matter doesn’t exist. Matter exists only in constant motion, in change. Theoretically, if the movement were to stop, everything would disappear immediately. We see this with the atoms, with the elementary particles from which the atoms are composed. If we want to feel the upper world, we must increase our sensitivity to the changes that are taking place in us. Sometimes, it seems to a person that nothing is changing, that everything has frozen, has stopped, that there is no movement. The feeling that life has frozen is intended to show us that we must increase our sensitivity to all movement, and all the movements take place within desire.

At the moment that we begin to be integrated within a group that requires us to concentrate on the Creator through the connection between us, we immediately receive a countless number of changes at every moment. You will begin to feel that every second is an infinite unit of time, from beginning to end. During that second, we pass through a multitude of changes. This sensitivity to change is what we must discover.

I hope that the mutual integration between us through which all of us together are passing—among all of the various continents, civilizations and cultures—will embed in us the fundamentals of greater sensitivity to changes, and, inside of us at every moment, we will begin to feel tremendous changes in desire, direction, emotion, and perception. All the time, more and more, we will examine and direct them at every moment toward the Creator through the group, and, in this way, we very quickly will move the rest of the required way for the first discovery of the Creator.

Discovery of the Creator takes place specifically within these incessant changes because permanence or fixation doesn’t exist. The moment that you stop, everything disappears!

Therefore, the incessant changes guarantee that we are feeling the upper world, feeling the Creator. In our world, our feeling can be something permanent, but, in spirituality, this cannot be. Therefore, come, and let’s remember well that this condition can be fulfilled only if I am linked through the group, locked all the time on the Creator.

So, how do we raise sensitivity to the spirituality in which we are found? If I go out of myself and try to listen to what the friend says, suddenly I find myself in an empty void within the friend. So, within this empty void, how can I feel all kinds of changes and movements so that I will enter into his inner desires directed toward the Creator so that we will yearn for Him together?

We discover and attain the Creator to the degree that we are sensitive to Him; in other words, when the surrounding expanse is revealed to us and we try to feel its characteristics, the changes in it, its vibrations in regard to us, or more correctly, our vibrations in regard to it, our changes in regard to the characteristic of bestowal and love.

Our entire world was given to us in order to direct ourselves toward a particular wave, toward the characteristic of bestowal and love, like in a radio receiver. In the beginning, a rough, approximate tuning is made between the friends. As we continue, we connect to greater and greater external circles of our world, and, as a result of this, we direct ourselves more and more precisely, emotionally discover more of the characteristic of bestowal and love, and in such a form, we begin to feel the Creator more and more clearly.

For our entire world, all of the creatures, the fragmentation and the corrections are required only in order to direct ourselves toward feeling the characteristic of bestowal and love, the Creator, and as long as all of humanity has not entered into this system of mutual feeling—of mutual vibrations, of the tuning of the self—we cannot discover the Creator at all, not any person in the world.

The Kabbalists carried out great work in the past, but they reached a very limited range of attainment because humanity was not at all ready to begin to feel this yet.

However, as of today, we already have been able to determine that humanity is ready to integrate into clarifications of feelings of mutual bestowal and love and from them, to become aware of the Creator. In other words, today, the general rule, “From the love of man to the love of the Creator,” is being actively realized specifically by tuning into a high sensitivity to bestowal, to mutual connection, mutual integration according to the principle, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Our mutual tuning leads us toward the Creator, and, through gradual expansion of our circle of sensitivity, to all of humanity, in this way, we discover the Creator within this new sense of bestowal and love.

That is how the general rule of “From the love of man to the love of the Creator” is realized, but it is specifically through feelings, through increased sensitivity.
[127064]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/2/14, Workshop 4

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From the book, Likkutei Halachot: The essence of love and oneness is in the desire where each one wants what his friend wants, and there is no difference in their desires, all are included in one desire, and through this they are included in the higher desire—unity.

I don’t know what this higher is. It has no form; it is not found. There is no higher by itself. Where is the spiritual ladder found? Was it in Jacob’s dream as the Torah tells us?

The ladder doesn’t exist without us. I create and build the higher the moment that I connect with the friends; with them I reach a complete degree of unity, and then a higher level that didn’t exist before is presented to me. So the Creator is called, “Come and See” because we build and create Him ourselves; we give Him His form.

Therefore it is written, “The essence of love and oneness is in our desire, where each one wants what his friend wants, and there is no difference in their desires so they are connected with each other, and included in one desire; through this they are included in the higher desire, and by reaching one collective desire we discover the higher—our unity.” Then we understand that we have reached the higher level.
[126784]
From a Preparation Lesson for the Arava Convention, 1/30/14

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We have already experienced the first feeling of connection, but the question is how do we continue using our experience? If we simply enjoy the pleasant feeling and the tranquility, then we are clearly using the illumination that comes to us. As a result of the loss of the illumination, we feel a descent. As Baal HaSulam said: “Shame on he who does not constantly step up his efforts, but makes a complaint, separating himself from the Creator.”

Therefore, we must constantly work on increasing our desire and efforts on this inclination in different forms among the men and the women, in different circles. We know that Ramchal’s students took turns in studying continuously from The Book of Zohar. There was always a small group that was responsible for keeping the general state every hour of the 24 hours in a day. We may also have to do something similar in the future. We have an opportunity to organize this duty around the clock all over the globe, in all our groups on every continent. It makes no difference whether it’s a big group or a small one, any small effort that one small individual makes is like a great effort that a grownup makes.

Now we should fear the descent back to the domination of the ego. We feel good and pleasant; we have experienced some unusual feelings and we are starting to enjoy and to analyze them, but no matter what I feel, what is important is to constantly remain above my feelings and my calculations and to yearn only for bestowal. When I am in bestowal, I don’t feel myself and I don’t even think about it. I only ask for bestowal: For whom am I doing all this?

I live thanks to the intention to bestow and not in the state itself. In the spiritual world, the state itself is not included, only what you add to it, the acceleration, and the derivative.
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From the Talk at a Meal 1/27/14

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Question: We have tried to reconstruct the experience we had in the “aquarium” together with our friends who came to the convention. We held endless workshops and discussions. We had a certain feeling of connection between us, but each one felt it differently. What was it? How can we reinforce and keep this feeling that we all loved so much?

Answer: When people connect they go through special experiences. It happens in different kinds of connections, good or bad, no matter what their goal is. The connection itself gives a person a feeling of power, development, joy, and an outburst of energy.

But if the connection is aimed at everyone’s ascent above himself and at being able to dissolve among the friends, the spiritual force is revealed in it. The Light that Reforms operates on us according to everyone’s efforts to ascend above his own self, and it conveys the upper force that connects us and that makes us feel the connection. If everyone wants to annul himself with regard to the connection, the connection becomes very powerful since it is aimed at the Creator. This matches the attribute of the Creator, to connect above our ego, above ourselves.

According to our yearning “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me,” we begin to receive the illumination. This special action of the Upper Light raises us higher to new states in which we begin to feel certain spiritual revelations. We don’t know what we feel exactly and cannot decipher it, but we have a feeling of a more sublime state that is different and unlike anything we felt in the past.

It is a special pleasant excitement, but it can also become unpleasant. Everything depends on how a person holds on to this state and continues his work in the group. What you feel is the continuous affect of the Surrounding Light to the extent that you want to annul yourselves and to devote yourselves to the group without any excuses, simply because this is what Kabbalists advise us, what the teacher says, and what the books say.

If you want to change and connect into one body so that everyone will not feel himself anymore, but only the collective “us” between us, the upper essence, then you receive the effect of the Surrounding Light. This is a special force that begins to operate on you and brings about changes in your inner software.

It isn’t that you just expand your perception, feeling, understanding, and mind. The essence of your perception changes and becomes integral. This is something that didn’t exist before. You begin to feel that the space that surrounds you is transparent, homogeneous, in which there is one force that operates. A person feels that he belongs to this integral system.
[126563]
From the Talk at a Meal 1/27/14

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The Raspberry Ball

The “raspberry ball” is totally, absolutely losing all individual attitude to the friends. We take off all our garments of the physical body, and inner qualities of everything that we have received from nature; only the spark remains, the Reshimo, inherent in everyone, everyone’s spiritual core, his aspiration for unity.

If I still distinguish a different attitude, differences between us, then it is not a group. The group is when all the friends are equal, when I see no difference between them. They are all Reshimot; everyone is striving to reach unity.

During the first stage of the introduction to mutual guarantee, the Creator just brings us to connection and it is a rather theoretical state. On the other hand, to form the raspberry ball, we should already actively connect with everyone. The work with the raspberry ball starts with the efforts not to see any differences between friends and ends when all of them unite into one.

If we are united as a homogeneous group as the landing party, similar to other connections that people create in this world, it is not yet “one.” Indeed, in a physical unity of this kind, everyone wants to reach a goal; everyone has his own goal, and everyone is ready to unite for the sake of his individual goal.

We do not act like that. Here, everyone has to cancel himself for the sake of unity with others, giving up individual goals.

In this self-annulment, we don’t lose our mind or feelings but gain the mind of the entire group that is called “as one man with one heart.” One collective desire is revealed in which everyone feels his individual properties. Like in the system of cogwheels, he begins to spin with everyone, without pressure, and from here he understands how they rotate and why. This means “to know what the friend has in the heart.” Everyone knows this differently, according to his properties.

Thus we come to the raspberry ball.
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All of our lives must be directed towards the one cause from which this life is derived, that is, towards the Creator. And He is the goal we must achieve. And all the events in our life in our world are in sum derived from that thought of creation. And if we direct ourselves correctly at every moment towards that unique goal that is shaped by the thought of creation, we advance on the “royal road.”

Clarifying the direction and being conscious of this way is possible through the means that are given to us in this world. This world is created and stabilized in such a way on all of its levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human and the relationships between them all only to give us the unique possibility of correct action, meaning that we direct ourselves towards the Creator at every moment.

And the means that helps us to direct ourselves towards the Creator from every circumstance that happens to us in this world is the group. The group is like a mini-humanity within which we find ourselves in the right environment that we have constructed for ourselves. The more we organize it in an ideal, correct, good, and true form, through this we can rise higher and higher. The group is a level that is above me towards which I elevate myself more and more upward through the society.

Work in society is interesting and unique in that it becomes the intermediary between us and the Creator and between us and humanity. I cannot find the Creator by myself because I must reach equivalence of form with Him for this. In order to become equivalent to the Creator I must achieve “for the sake of bestowal,” essentially I must be in the intention to bestow. And this is possible only if I insert myself into a group and lose myself there. If together with the group I go out towards the Creator, surely I will be found in bestowal.

In order to bestow to the Creator by way of the group, I must carry the entire group in the direction of bestowal to the Creator. Therefore together we must mold the group in this direction with such a goal, with such a mission, to be connected in order to bestow to the Creator. This must be our shared goal.
[126246]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/14, Workshop

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