Opinion (Shawn Tully, senior editor-at-large, CNNMoney): “From a quick look at the headline numbers, France doesn’t appear nearly as stressed as the derisively titled ‘PIIGS,’ Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. …

“A deeper look shows that France is mired in no less than an economic crisis. The eurozone’s second-largest economy (2012 GDP: 2 trillion euros) is suffering more than any other member from a shocking deterioration in competitiveness. Put simply, France’s products – its cars, steel, clothing, electronics – cost far too much to produce compared with competing goods both from Asia and its European neighbors, including not just Germany but even Spain and Italy. … Even tourism is suffering because of the France’s high prices. …

“In fact, it’s France – not Greece or Spain – that now poses the greatest threat to the euro’s survival. …

“It’s unclear when the crisis that’s going mostly unacknowledged by investors and the Hollande government will erupt into a panic. The chance that France will lower labor costs by the 20% to 30% needed to restore growth is practically zero. Reforms can only happen when the economy is expanding and citizens feel good about the future, the antithesis of the gloom now enveloping France.

“France is heading towards an economic Bastille. The longer it stays on that path, the more possible that the eurozone regime it labored so hard to create will crumble.”

My Comment: The roller of evolutionary development inevitably pushes humanity to become aware of a new system of global interconnection. In our unity, we must reveal the property of bestowal without nullifying the will to receive but above it. In this case, we will have two properties at the same time and will be able to reveal the property of Creator in their being opposite and complements.

Only in connection with each other can we be in two opposite properties (desires, vectors): the natural—to receive and the acquired one—to bestow. We develop them as two planes: the lower one, the desire to receive, develops through the revelation of broken Reshimot naturally, and the upper one, the desire to bestow, we develop by our efforts. Their relative location is called “faith (bestowal) above reason (reception).”
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Today humanity finds itself in a new completely unknown system. In order to understand it better, we will give an example of how half a century ago, a person who was accustomed to certain familial, societal, and economic relations suddenly arrived in a foreign country, let’s say from America to Russia, somewhere where everything was different and he simply did not understand why everything is arranged and structured in such a way.

Americans wonder why in Russia it is so difficult to implement a certain project. Since with them there would immediately appear some entrepreneur who would take the new idea, execute it, and profit from it. And in Russia, it was impossible, and therefore all remained in a very poor condition.

Conversely, when you a Russian comes to America, he sees huge individualism, competitiveness, and all in all no one caring about each other, each one is a narrow individualist who is only interested in his “I.” And this is the social norm.

Thus, this misunderstanding of each other amazed people, who found themselves in a different system.

And now, all of humanity is “entering” a new system, as if they are riding a train that rolls on and suddenly enters a huge unfamiliar park, a completely new civilization based only on mutual understanding and mutual cooperation. Together with this, the nature we were born with its movements and yearnings is not taken into account, only this reality that was prepared for us. But we don’t immediately find ourselves in this rigid system that is completely, mutually connected where we can only succeed by grasping the integral perception; nature gradually brings us to this in that it presses on us along the way of evolution.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/5/13

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Question: I have a growing business, a chain of shoe stores. I don’t try to save money on training employees because it’s very important to build relationships with customers. But so far, no coach can help me teach most of the staff just to smile. What can I do? How can I teach them to smile, be friendly, and customer-focused?

Answer: About 30 years ago I came to America for the first time, and I was surprised to see a smile on every face, but in most cases artificial. But in recent years, all this is gone. I often go there and see that people stopped smiling. The American image of the past is gone. People are tired, depressed, insecure, and unreliable inside.

In the world, smiles are disappearing. This is due to the growth of egoism that demands for itself or may not demand anything at all. We are not in the mood to smile. A smile is the result of at least a little bit of excess energy in a person. And today it doesn’t exist in the world.

What can we do? We search for resources, reserves. And precisely here integral education gives a person a sense of the overall system, general dependence. You inevitably become kinder, happier. People not only begin to smile; they feel the need for each other, understand that one can’t live without it and that there is no existence without it! We find ourselves in such an environment where only our combined strength, mind, and thought can bring us to a good, kind state.

In the beginning, it’s realized against one’s will because of the need to be connected with each other with good ties, and then you become aware that this good interconnection has a special feeling, a miracle that is capable of creating something.

After all, good relationships don’t just cheer you up, they heal, they give you a different perspective on the world and life. They shake down all of the problems around you, the world suddenly starts to become smoother, and everything is settled and arranged. Life becomes easier and lighter. This is why modern employees must be taught good relations with each other first, and then, within these good relations, develops professional skills.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/5/13

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When I try to imagine what my spiritual level really has to be and whether I can rise to it by my feelings, my knowledge, and my efforts, I see that I cannot. If I come to the right conclusions, I discover that without the Creator’s help I will not manage. After all, I have to correct my intention in order to bestow upon the Creator and I can reach that only through the love of others, by connection with the friends.

Here I see to what extent I work in the opposite direction, forgetting all about the love of others, unable to constantly think about mutual guarantee, about connection and about the love of friends.

It seems that love of friends and the correction of my desires are two different things. I have to love the friends and then I will be ready to do them a favor and to get a bit closer to them. But the correction of my desires and the revelation of the Creator are intimate personal things that belong only to me. I cannot connect these two conditions, and this is our main problem.

So we have to constantly work on the connection of “Israel, the Torah and the Creator.” The Torah is revealed only by the Light that Reforms, which connects all these components. After all, the important rule of the Torah is “Love thy friend as thyself.” The Torah is all the vessels and all the Lights in which love is revealed—from such a strong connection that turns to love.

We have to imagine a common vessel called the “Torah,” which is all the desire to receive that was created and that is shattered to pieces that are very far from one another filled with mutual hate. I want all this to be covered with love; I really want this! So I need the Creator and I focus on Him through this collective desire.

In that case I really need the Creator. I summon Him not just so that He will bring me pleasure, but as a result of an unbearable pain that is caused by my inability to connect to the general love in the relations between us.

This love has to be expressed towards the group in some way, towards the friends, even if it is not openly but more internally. This already depends on a person, on time, on the height he is on. The Kabbalists of Kotzk used to express an opposite attitude externally; we follow the instructions of Rabash to display love and  concern for the friends openly.

We have to constantly worry only about the general vessel, about the general connection that draws the Light that Reforms and the Light that fills the vessel. The Creator is revealed only in that vessel, as the one who builds and sustains, heals, and fills it.

All this takes place in that state; the trouble is that we don’t imagine it correctly, but think that the Creator can be revealed inside us, will enter our individual hearts. This is how every egoist thinks, since he is used to drawing all the goodness and all the achievements to himself.

This is the whole problem. Only by mutual guarantee can we support one another in order to remain focused on the center of the group, the nation of Israel, and the whole world as one system in which everything takes place. There is nothing but that.

Otherwise we are simply not living in reality. All the other perspectives except this one are called “an imaginary reality.” It isn’t even as imaginary as our world but actually fictitious and totally egoistic.

So we have to discover the snake that stands in our way that constantly takes us back into our impure heart. In that case, it is impossible to manage without the group’s decision that this has to be our only concern, and only through the help of the friends can I remain focused correctly on the group in order to see my correction in it.

This is the reason we cannot think about the Creator’s benefit, about true bestowal; it all depends on one another, and our thoughts are aimed in the direction of receiving and not bestowal. The revelation of the Creator seems like a sweet candy.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Unfortunately a person often defines exertion incorrectly and wastes a lot of energy doing things that don’t help him advance towards spiritual revelation and to bringing contentment to the Creator. He initially takes upon himself different difficult tasks, but by that, only fights windmills, fighting imaginary enemies and unreal forces that stand in his way.

It is not easy to unveil the forces that stand in a person’s way. They are very close to a person, and he cannot discern them since he thinks that they are him, himself. They cling to him so strongly that they force him to think as if they are an inseparable part of him. He cannot keep them away from him in order to see that they are his enemies, as it says, “The enemies of man are living in his own house.”

The main thing is to locate the enemies that stand in your way to the Creator. When a person begins to locate this and gets closer to the real discernments, he sees that all he has are his enemies. He has nothing of his own, no allies that he can trust and count on for support along this path by relying on their help in a pure correct way. It is because all the close forces are revealed as opposite from him.

Some of his desires, thoughts, and attributes laugh at him now; others intentionally place obstacles along his way, making his future path more difficult, but at the same time they disguise themselves so cunningly that he believes that they are doing him a favor. Others weaken him by holding him back, putting spikes in his wheels, thus inserting a force that operates against him and makes him stop. Thus they operate against a person under different masks, disturbing him in different manners both directly and indirectly, cunningly and by using terrible tricks.

Eventually a person discovers that he cannot count on any of his attributes, desires, or thoughts. So on whose help can he count, with whom can he advance? It turns out that there is no one! Only if he turns to the group from the point in the heart will he be able to come up with the right thoughts and forces on which he can rely along the way.

He turns to the group from his point in the heart since it is the only pure point in him, and he tries to use it only with regard to the friends, realizing that there is nothing more he can invest in them except this spark. He is careful not to turn to them with all the other thoughts and desires, like a person who is ill and is afraid to infect people who are close to him with his virus.

Then he receives from the environment everything that the others have for advancing towards the right goal. By his self-analysis he has already clarified what his real perception should be, which includes only the right attributes that were received from the environment. By that, the environment becomes a “burial society” that helps him bury all his natural egoistic thoughts and desires and receive from the environment, and actually from the Creator, new attributes.

By lighting the spark in his heart with their help he begins to build his spiritual vessel. This means that he absorbs the powers and desires of the society, of all the others, and thus attains his first correction.

Unless a person totally changes all his attributes to the attributes of the society, he will not be able to build the vessel of his soul. We should understand this since we know that the desire to receive is not refined and does not change, but a person restricts his initial desire to receive and its natural form.

When he receives a desire from the environment, he acquires his first ten Sefirot, the attributes of bestowal. To the extent that he annuls himself, he receives from Above attributes that come instead of the ones he has stopped using. Thus instead of a restricted vessel he receives a new vessel.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: How can a society help a person acquire its values and how can a person check whether the values of society are right for spiritual growth?

Answer:

• If people gather together and do their best to follow the advice of Baal HaSulam and Rabash,
• if they try not to invent a new method but constantly work according to the sources, which determine everything,
• if there is no one among them who tries to be above the others, meaning trying to lead everyone by suppressing the others with his strength, intelligence, or special abilities,
• if everyone tries to annul himself before the group, as everyone brings into the general “cash box” everything that he was endowed with by nature, all his abilities, to help others, as we are definitely unequal and there are those among us who are seemingly more capable and successful, but each one gives to the group his best.

So in that, all are equal, no one stands out, and everyone tries to be equal and to annul himself before the others. Then this is a society before which you can annul yourself with your eyes closed and be certain that they can undoubtedly change their corporeal vessel into a spiritual vessel. This is what I recommend that you all do!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What criteria should guide the employer when hiring people?

Answer: For at least for half a century, there is technology, according to which not only technical skills are needed but also people skills, but not those of 20-30 years ago.

Today, it has to be a friendly group in which people clearly understand what they should achieve together. They relate to each other kindly and constantly maintain a positive atmosphere at work. Only in this way they can work effectively and realize the most unexpected solutions. Suddenly, everything becomes connected, integrated in a single kind, mutually complementing interaction, and they succeed in everything.

It turns out, that it is not professionalism that affects the quality and output of their product, but their relationships. They determine success more than professionalism.

That is why, when hiring a person, the employer must take into account not only his professionalism, but also many other factors.

If a professional, even if he is a high-level specialist, is an individualist, he will be in the way of others; if he tries to climb the ladder ruthlessly using people as “stepping stones,” then the whole enterprise will be doomed to failure, and vice versa.

Thus, when considering candidates, the employer should take into account the two main criteria: professionalism and a person’s capacity for interaction in a group.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/5/13

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Rabash, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God”: What does it mean that the Lord heals the brokenhearted, since we know that the main thing in a person is the heart, that “a heart” is the vessel that receives the Holiness from Above. This is as we learn from the shattering of the vessels, which means that if a vessel is shattered, it cannot contain anything that is put in it. In addition, if a heart is broken, it means that the desire to receive dominates the heart and so the abundance cannot enter it, since everything that the desire to receive receives goes to the shells and this is called “the breaking of the heart.”

The Creator can’t help a person unless the heart feels that it is broken, since until then, there is no one to help. The heart is broken at once but we correct it in small parts, and this is indeed a great easing in our work. After all, we don’t have to make great efforts in order to correct everything all at once from our current egoistic state straight to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

Instead, we can perform a gradual correction, in small portions, as if we are transferring the King’s treasure, moving one coin at a time from one place to another. Still, it’s hard for us to make the first move since it means moving to the opposite intention: from in order to receive to in order to bestow. So it can’t take place unless we clarify our desires and our intentions, unless we differentiate the desires and the intentions, unless we understand what is in our power and what is not, and where it is our part and where it is not.

We must clarify all this so that we can discern exactly what a broken heart is, and what exactly needs to be corrected. It takes a long time to clarify this discernment. This is because we forget about the group, about others, and about the fact that the desire has to be collective. Everyone begins to think about himself, about how he feels inside, and this has nothing to do with a broken heart.

The heart is broken since it can’t connect with others. This is what the shattering is about, but we don’t think in this direction at all. We try to imagine our personal shattering, and it takes a long time until we locate it correctly. But the moment this happens, it becomes clear that it’s a simple and concrete problem that needs to be corrected.

It takes a lot of work for the vessel to understand that nothing can happen to it individually, but only collectively, that it’s only part of the general vessel and one part in the Light. But the moment there is a diagnosis, there is no need to call the doctor and immediately see how the correction and the filling appear in that place.

So it’s very important that we reach the general thought, the general feeling, so that everyone will feel that he is in a force field of mutual guarantee. All our searching is done in the totally wrong place, we are searching inside ourselves instead of searching between us, and thus all our powers go to waste.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/13

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Question: (From a letter) Why should I go to work? What is the point? Of course the salary is important. But I could eliminate the cost of travel, stop buying clothes that I am constantly updating so as not to wear the same thing all the time, and stop buying expensive prepared meals—it turns out that I spend two-thirds of my salary just to be able to go to work—so wouldn’t it be better to become a janitor sweeping floors in the morning and having the rest of the day free, easily living on one-third of my current salary?

Answer: These sentiments belong not only to simple workers, but also to people in high positions who force themselves to go to work from fear of losing their jobs, or out of a sense of responsibility, or because talking to people gives them energy to live.

But still, we are moving in the direction of human transformation, people develop absolutely new demands for new kinds of fulfillment. This is not for financial fulfillment; there is a changing inner need to change the quality of life. It is no longer determined by what you eat or drink, taking a walk in the evening, or buying something new. Its feeling arises in us as a new emptiness.

Question: But work fills the emptiness in us in many ways. Maybe the problem is that there is no time to just sit and think about something else, something more important?

Answer: But this is not a treatment, but just a distraction, like an analgesic drug, which will not solve the problem.

We see that many people are willing to work for free, just so their work would give them some kind of fulfillment.

We have new desires, new voids, that we must fill through society due to the integral connection we find ourselves in. Our past egoistic desires are transformed into new ones, which require being fulfilled through society and interconnection. We are still only in the beginning stages of this new integral egoism, but we can already feel it.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: Why will inner integral changes benefit business people?

Answer: It will be very easy for them to find a common language with coworkers. They will enjoy the actual process of working together. They will find the motivation that is evading them today.

Today, the absence of motivation appears on every level of business: lack of desire, depression, fogginess, and apathy toward one another.

As the integral system begins to become more and more apparent, people lose their connection with one another, they become absolutely indifferent toward work, and they are unable to do anything about it even though this can get them fired. A person feels like he is not fulfilled and even his salary no longer matters to him.

We need to raise the awareness of everyone about the kind of system that they and the entire world are living in: all the little parts of the world spin in complete dependence on one another, like cogwheels. In an integral mechanism, any movement by any of us ideally determines the movement of everyone, and all inputs and outputs are absolutely and specifically connected between them.

This is why I recommend holding special events, workshops, where we can explain to people where mankind now stands.

During the workshop discussions, people gradually begin to feel this new unity, a new dependence on one another, where no one is above or below, where everyone is equal and interconnected, and everything depends on everyone. And this does not manifest through slogans or decrees, but in the actual collective body. People begin to feel motivation, a life force, a special attitude towards one another. They properly complement nature, the surrounding reality, and what exists between them.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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