From the “Light and Sun” by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Halevi (one of Noam Elimelech’s students): And what is more when Israel are unified and dealing with the Torah for its sake, they distinguish the names of the Holy Divinity by their speech and thus subdue all those that rise against them, and everything that they say, the Creator fulfills their desire.

We know that there is an additional power in unity, in addition to the usual sum of the individual forces, both evil and good. If we connect and unite in order to evoke and to attain the upper Light that should be revealed, in order to receive the force of bestowal, the attribute of bestowal, the upper force begins to operate among us and gives us the power of the spiritual level.

So if people who haven’t attained spirituality yet connect in order to attain it, by wanting the Holiness and the pure bestowal to dwell among them, they draw this attribute closer to them, obliging it to be spurred and to dwell among them. Thus they grow, by annulling all the evil decree, moving from the path of suffering to the path of the Light.
[85575]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/12

Related Material:
The Creator’s Formula
The Place Where We Are One
Unity Is A New Reality

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Unity - No Comments →

Question: How can one imagine the group in its ideal state?

Answer: A group is one whole. This is its model, its image. Suppose we have some common desire, a common intention, common thoughts, and ideas. Where are they? They are between us. This desire, intention, thought, begins to guide everyone. We begin to support it, and we see that our existence is in that.

With the help of creating this image, we then will transform the whole of our life in order to support this image. We will relate to each other differently, build family and social connections, transform industry, and relate to nature, based precisely from the fact that we have created this united whole, the image of Adam, the image of one person.

Humanity will become free of excess work, will cease polluting the Earth, will stop messing with being a society of consumption of completely unnecessary things. It will be forced to free many people from unnecessary work since nature is purposely leading us toward our dedicating five to eight hours of our time per day to the studies of integral connection, the creation of an integral society.

We will be obliged to do that, and, on the scale of the whole of humanity from young to old. Absolutely everyone, from pensioners to small children, must go through this level of re-education.

Question: In order to build this image, some kind of energy is needed. Where can we get it from?

Answer: Nature gives us energy! It pushes us with a stick toward happiness. Of course, we need introductory explanations, courses, understanding the necessity of these transformations, realization of the fact that, otherwise, each one of us will enter his or her own personal crisis and the crisis of society.

See how the ecological crisis is approaching. The Earth is being depleted. How will we warm ourselves? What will we eat if within the coming couple of decades, we will completely deplete Earth, including uranium, fuel, gas and other natural resources? We must stop at the right time, and nature is slowing us down in advance.
[85180]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/29/12

Related Material:
The Perception Of A Single Field
The New Image of the New Man
A Mysterious “Assent Above One’s Self”

Filed under: Collective Soul, Education, Group Work, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: Is it possible to designate one of the workshops at the convention to discuss the obstacles that prevent us from uniting? On one hand, it is an obstacle, but on the other hand, we need it since we have to be glad that we are opening the walls between us.

Answer: In no way should we talk about obstacles as preventing us from uniting. We call them obstacles because they seem to be such in our egoism. However, in reality, we accept them as a necessary condition for the ascent. It is impossible to rise without them.

We must accept them naturally, with happiness, since this is the only purpose for their existence. If a person is included in our upbringing and education, then, regardless of what obstacles he faces, he has a correct reaction to them, and he certainly is rising with their help. This is very important because the technique of the rise above the obstacles is the most useful one. There is no other way here in order to rise.
[85653]
From the Virtual Lesson 8/12/12

Related Material:
Unity Within The One
Working With Disturbances
Obstacles Guide Us On The Way

Filed under: Conventions, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

In the News (from Simon Fraser University, Canada): “Using scientific theories, toy ecosystem modeling and paleontological evidence as a crystal ball, 21 scientists, including one from Simon Fraser University, predict we’re on a much worse collision course with Mother Nature than currently thought.

“In ‘Approaching a state-shift in Earth’s biosphere,’ a paper just published in Nature, the authors, whose expertise spans a multitude of disciplines, suggest our planet’s ecosystems are careering towards an imminent, irreversible collapse.

“Earth’s accelerating loss of biodiversity, its climate’s increasingly extreme fluctuations, its ecosystems’ growing connectedness and its radically changing total energy budget are precursors to reaching a planetary state threshold or tipping point.

“Once that happens, which the authors predict could be reached this century, the planet’s ecosystems, as we know them, could irreversibly collapse in the proverbial blink of an eye. …

“Once a threshold-induced planetary state shift occurs, there’s no going back. So, if a system switches to a new state because you’ve added lots of energy, even if you take out the new energy, it won’t revert back to the old system. The planet doesn’t have any memory of the old state.

“These projections contradict the popularly held belief that the extent to which human-induced pressures, such as climate change, are destroying our planet is still debatable, and any collapse would be both gradual and centuries away.

“This study concludes we better not exceed the 50 per cent mark of wholesale transformation of Earth’s surface or we won’t be able to delay, never mind avert, a planetary collapse.

“We’ve already reached the 43 per cent mark through our conversion of landscapes into agricultural and urban areas, making Earth increasingly susceptible to an environmental epidemic.

“’In a nutshell, humans have not done anything really important to stave off the worst because the social structures for doing something just aren’t there,’ says Mooers. ‘My colleagues who study climate-induced changes through the earth’s history are more than pretty worried. In fact, some are terrified.’”
My Comment: How can it be done without connection? How can we unite without integral education?—Only it is intended to evoke a desire of community in man.
[85437]

Related Material:
“The World On The Edge”
The Apparent Failure Of The Environmental Summit
How Do We Protect Ourselves From Nature?

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Unity - No Comments →

Question: The first lesson of the Kharkov Convention is called “Unity Within the One,” that is, a lesson about the happiness of unity, about the group that is united by one goal to become similar to the Creator, about how we can feel this now and be confident that we will succeed.

Answer: The problem is that we start to feel all of us, existing together in one single external sphere of nature. This sphere is called the Creator, or Nature. It envelops us all, and we are under its laws.

Therefore, in the end, if we come to similarity with this sphere through our properties, then we will reveal our unity, oneness. Then, it will be unity within the One.
[85655]
From a Virtual Lesson 8/12/12

Related Material:
The Necessary Condition For The Rise
When The Heart And Mind Unite As One
Understand One Another And Reveal The Creator

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

We can attain everything we need to attain, as Baal HaSulam says, with the help of The Book of Zohar. A person who understands the power of The Book of Zohar doesn’t leave it for a single moment all his life. This is because The Zohar is such a great and powerful source that is unlimited in its intensity and in its influence on every one, and it is about this book that it says: “thanks to The Book of Zohar the children of Israel came out of exile,” and not by any other means.

So if we feel that we are in exile, (we will have to feel that, and it isn’t simple at all), we have to turn all the unpleasant feelings in our desire to receive, so that they will serve as an example for unpleasant feeling in the desire to bestow, which we haven’t attained yet and which we yearn to attain.

We can do that if we connect all our desires to receive in the group, and by that begin to switch all the yearnings, the anxieties, and the hopes from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow. This is how it happens if we focus them on the group, on the connection between us.

So we have to first clarify where I am, in what state, what is important for me, what I lack, and what my attitude is towards the group and the Creator. I have to bring all the internal states of my vessels, my passions, my goal, anxieties, and hopes into the group. I enter the group with all that, and then they all take on a different tone; it is as if you enter an elite military unit where everything you had before takes a totally new direction. By the incorporation in the group, all your deficiencies and desires turn into a power pool where you accumulate forces; you receive them from the environment and you can act. This is the switch from darkness to Light, as it says: “and the darkness shall illuminate like Light.”

So when we perform such an internal makeover, by connecting among us and being incorporated in each other, we can thus receive the Light that Reforms instead of the Light that previously just opened our vessels, illuminated from a distance, and as a result we felt different negative feelings. Now, however, we rise above the unpleasant feelings to the connection among us. We don’t want to erase the feelings, we don’t close our eyes and ignore them, but we see the way to advance forward. It is good when there are unpleasant feelings, since they spur me to connect with the group. I come to the group with them and want its help not to dismiss them, but to turn them into a power that moves me forward, that brings me closer to “There is none else besides Him” from where all the unpleasant feelings are sent. Then I will be able to be together with everyone in an act of connection and revelation. Thus we will reach the feeling that we are bringing contentment to the Creator.

We have to try to imagine the state that we are bringing Him contentment in our corporeal life, how unlimited this feeling is, how it raises us above the animal level to the human level, to the level of the one who bestows; what unlimited pleasure there is in the act of bestowal compared to receiving. This is because by that a person is in equivalence of form with the Creator, connecting with the source of unlimited energy. So by bestowing upon someone, a person feels that he has transcended matter.

So let’s read The Book of Zohar with the intention that the Light that comes from it can bring us correction instead of the darkness that it makes us feel first.
[85520]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/12, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
Comments On The Book, The Next 100 Years
Better Less But Together
When Fairy Tales Come True

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Unity, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: What do you consider to be the most important thing? What is your last address to everyone on the eve of the convention?

Answer: I beg you, from this point forward, no matter what you do on the eve of the congress, all the time think that you are doing all of this for the sake of people around the world coming together physically and virtually and reaching unity, equal to the first degree of the upper Light.

It will be much easier after that. This is similar to how a child is born, as birth is the most dangerous, most difficult, most complicated process. And to this day, when a woman gives birth, we do not know what will happen and how. There is something unpredictable in the birth of a person.

It is easier afterward. A child is born, and you start to work with him: to feed, swaddle, take care of him, giving him everything he needs, etc. The most important thing is over.

The same happens here. We have to go through childbirth, and then everything else will go more easily. It is much easier! It is much simpler! It is much clearer! We will have to be both in this world and in the spiritual one—in the world of bestowal in addition to the world of reception. It will be clearer to us what Kabbalists write about. We will start to adapt to what will be in our feelings.

Therefore, let us make every effort to be born in the upper world. And then move on together.
[85591]
From a Virtual Lesson 8/12/12

Related Material:
Don’t Waste Time – Become Included In The Convention Now!
A Prayer About A Successful Birth
Get Included Into The Common Thoughts And Desires!

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

In the News (from LiveScience): “The new research, published in Nature Geoscience July 29, suggests the western evergreen forests, which cover an area from southern Canada to northern Mexico, took up a lot less carbon from the atmosphere during the drought that lasted from 2000-2004. That’s normal, and expected. The question is what happens after that.

“Christopher Schwalm and his colleagues at Northern Arizona University’s School of Earth Science and Environmental Sustainability think that there is a good chance the drought could be the new normal. If that happens, a big carbon sink will be lost. …

“There’s a lot of uncertainty in those measurements, but even assuming the smallest loss and the highest carbon uptake — which is unlikely — it still means a non-trivial dent in the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.

“A lengthy drought will cause a big dieback of the evergreen forests that are familiar to hikers and skiers, bringing in vegetation that will likely more resemble a desert scrubland. Those kinds of plants take up carbon, but not as well as forests do. …

“If people don’t cut back emissions or mitigate the die-off somehow, the result will probably be an increase in the rate of carbon-dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere, leading to greater warming, Schwalm told LiveScience. …

“The study also looked at the severe the turn-of-the-century drought using the ‘Palmer Drought Severity Index,’ which measures precipitation, runoff and other factors. Taking a five-year average, and using indicators such as tree-ring data, Schwalm found that this most recent drought of 2000-2004 was as bad as any since about the year 1200.

“That doesn’t bode well; there is a real possibility given current trends that this drought could be one of those that lasts decades, or even a century, he said.”

My Comment: The strongest influence on an imbalance of the planet is caused not by emissions of gases, but by our wrong behavior. We have to consume only what is needed for normal life (the economy of reasonable consumption), work as much as it requires (a couple of hours a day) and dedicate the rest of the time to communication/unity and leisure.

Thus, on the animal level (our bodies) we consume like animals, in balance with nature, and at the level of human in us, we unite and become filled with the power of connection, which aims at fulfilling all our desires fully. The balance with nature will lead the whole system of “still-vegetable-animal-human” in balance, as organs of one body.
[85200]

Related Material:
The Climate Becomes Unpredictable
Nature In Crisis
Are We Moving Towards Climate Catastrophe?

Filed under: Crisis, Integral Upbringing, News, Unity - No Comments →

Question: During the course of integral education when we begin our practical work, it becomes clear that people don’t understand what it means to “rise above one’s self” or “to unite.” They ask to be shown how it’s done and where can they see an example of such behavior?”

Answer: It’s impossible to see. Maybe it’s possible to draw something abstract so that there’s something to strive towards, but nothing more. Through the training the group develops a common sensation. This is somewhat of an exit from one’s self, from one’s instincts. This exit from one’s self assumes a couple of stages.

One is to “enter” your conversation partner. This is a basic psychological training that is used widely for various purposes. I begin to sense, to study the other person because for some reason it’s something I need to do or it’s of interest to me. Or I may simply want to rise above myself and treat a person with kindness, like relatives treat one another.

However, even when I try to enter another person’s feelings and thoughts, then his heart and mind (his feeling and thoughts) become as though my own. Let’s say that I’m able to obtain closeness to him and his inner environment, but all that I’m doing in reality is substituting my “animal,” my own instincts and rules of conduct for someone else’s, but I don’t actually rise above our general animal level.

We have to imagine something totally different. The exit from one’s self should not be into another person. When I train to sense another person, these sensations shouldn’t ultimately be aimed at sensing all that is within the other person: his subconscious thoughts, instincts, and reflexes. I’m not interested in the “automatic mechanism” that operates within him. Rather I’m interested in each of the friends’ aspiration to ascend above themselves. I try to connect to their aspiration to ascend and reach the next level, which is the human level. I try to be together with them and each one of them tries to do the same in regards to others.

Through this we create a commonality. We create thoughts and desires that are detached from our animal qualities and are aimed at rising above our current level. We wish for our communication to consist of love, understanding, and to be above our world and our life so that each one of us would vanish in this new commonality, in this new picture of a single desire and single mind.

We have to imagine this and to constantly cultivate it in such a way that the sensation of our commonality appears as the heart and mind of the group. This will be of utmost importance to us and our “I” would vanish within this. My desire to ascend would hold the people around me and everything that pertains to my instincts, reflexes, and habits would fade away as something totally useless and nonexistent at the moment. I wouldn’t use them to the point where I would gradually get used to living in this new commonality that I’ve created above my own self.
[85077]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” 2/29/12

Related Material:
A Conscious Birth Of Humanity
The Most Important Thing Is Communication
Mentality Is Irrelevant

Filed under: Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: How can we keep the feeling of workshops during the breaks, meals, and so on, at the upcoming convention?

Answer: We must prepare such external conditions so that they always keep people in this state. A person comes to the convention in the morning and leaves in the evening. During this time, he must go through many spiritual states and, in the evening, leave not as he came in the morning. He goes to bed and literally turns off.

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, it is the same thing; that is, these are three days of very serious work. We must do everything to ensure that the entire convention is held at this pace and in such a sequence that people are constantly moving forward. Even the breaks and meals must influence him in this way, forcing, moving him forward.

A convention is a very serious event. Alcohol is absolutely prohibited. We must rise to a level where it will not be necessary. We have enough adrenaline at the workshops. You will feel that you are all together, in “one skin”; the Creator will clothe into you.

Question: How can I see the world as one creation? How can I see unity above the breaking?

Answer: It should be opened to you not mentally, not in the mind, but manifested in your feelings. The internal connections of the world will be revealed, and you will see this within yourself.

Question: How do I feel the common need, Hissaron?

Answer: This arises out of a total inclusion into each other because all of our left, meaning all kinds of egoistic feelings stem from the mutual inclusion.

Question: What Kli, vessel, would you like to see in front of you?

Answer: One ready to do anything for the sake of unity. Nothing else is needed! With this, we come into accord, in balance with the upper Light. It is manifested in us, and that’s all. The implementation really is not easy, but the principle is very simple: There is a force that will work in you if you give it this opportunity.
[85263]
From a Virtual Lesson 7/29/12

Related Material:
My Spiritual Home
A Spiritual Feeling
A Congress Is A Great Force

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →