Unity Day Around The World – 04.22.12
Posted on April 22nd, 2012
Lecture on: Preparation to the Congress
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Lecture on: Preparation to the Congress
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Question: How can we measure our advancement, in comparison to what?
Answer: I measure my advancement by checking to what extent I justify the friends, value them, and see them as the greatest in our generation, as special people, and to what extent I see the Creator’s image in them and want their attributes to become part of me.
I want to become the result of their influence because this is called the internal perception of the environment. What they imprint in me will be the form of the Creator, the human part in me.
I understand that this is how I should treat them, but at the same time I don’t see them that way. These are two feelings that don’t connect at all. On the one hand, I feel that the friends are great and special and that they are no different from the Creator. On the other hand, I understand that I treat them in a totally different way. This determines my attitude towards the Creator. If I disrespect the society, to the same extent I disrespect the Creator, it’s absolutely the same. If I want to change by the environment, it’s as if I place myself under the influence of the Creator.
If I can combine these two discernments, meaning hating and disrespecting the friends while at the same time respecting and valuing them, I attain these two polar opposite points. One becomes my Keter and the other becomes my Malchut and together they build my spiritual vessel.
By attaining such a vessel, I understand that this is my nature and I can determine that I am in “exile” because now I see the cause that requires my connection with the group and that I should place myself under its influence. On the other hand, I discover how far I am from connection, how I always forget it. I discover the difficulty in attaining it and how reluctant I am to do it.
Thus I see how harmful my ego is by not letting me be included in my environment in harmony, which means to be included and to melt in it as an integral part. This means that I transcend the Machsom (barrier) that separates me from the spiritual work.
[75729]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/19/12, Writings of Rabash
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Question: Why is the spiritual process so physically painful for women? When will we feel the result, after all, the convention does not end, it continues?
Answer: I believe that every person can feel the result to the extent of his desire, to the extent of their constant participation.
We constantly do inner examinations, analyses; it is like we pull and extract newer and newer definitions and sensations from within, which we use to build and form the new sense, called the soul.
It is made from a specific way I combine with others, maybe some more or less pleasant ways, through our different sensations, etc. This is an integral organ. The more active we are in connecting with each other for the purpose of revealing the integrality, the better we will reveal our mutual unity, and to this extent the Creator will manifest in this as a common force according to the law of similarity of qualities.
There is nothing else for us to do but act in this direction. Those who feel it, feel it; those who do not, do not. Today this opportunity is given practically to everyone: both men and women. Try to move more clearly towards it.
[75678]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/26/12
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Rabash describes a person’s spiritual ascent and he brings the example of a two story building: On the first floor there are the friends and on the second floor there is the Creator. We have to unite with the friends so that we will have one heart, one desire, one intention. If everyone lowers his head and annuls himself, if our internality is one collective, we create a system that is adapted to bestowal.
At the same time, we lack the actual power of bestowal, but we do our best to keep the connections among us. Even if we know that we won’t be able to fulfill this, we still do our best to keep the intensity. We mustn’t stop here, we can’t cross the finish line and sit and wait until the Light comes. On the contrary, we must constantly exert ourselves in order to reach the center, which means that everyone annuls himself with regard to the collective goal.
In the center there are all our sparks, all the desires that are aimed at mutual bestowal and mutual love. If we aim correctly at the desirable attribute in order to bestow upon the Creator by it, to give it to Him as a present, then the Reforming Light, which builds the attribute of bestowal, comes into the center, into our mutual connection, into our unity.
In other words, we reveal the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim. Thus the divine attribute Elokim is connected with the structure of HaVaYaH, and it is in this connection between the created being and the Creator that the Light of Hochma can be revealed. The Creator Himself is the Light of Hassadim, and Hochma is bestowal that is aimed at the one who works for it.
Question: Can we compare our conventions to the first floor of the building Rabash talks about?
Answer: Not only with the first floor. In our general global unity, in the global vessel, we want to rise to the second floor too. If I am going to the convention in Brazil, it doesn’t mean that I am not in other places as well. We are all connected to one desire. The moment the first floor is built, the second floor is immediately created as well, and the Light from it descends and lands into the ready vessel.
And so, along with our daily work in tightening our mutual connection, we should advance towards the crucial state in which the final blow is given.
The Torah tells us how the stage of the exile ends: After many troubles and blows, we reach freedom. Therefore our blows in the conventions are the “plagues of Egypt.” Everything is in concealment and in the dark and we cannot tell them apart, but later we will discover this.
So we gather here in order to strike our ego, to neutralize, and to annul it by these blows of connection and dissemination and by being ready for redemption. I look at these actions as the last steps before we reach freedom.
[75606]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/12, Writings of Rabash
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All of our many years of study (we have people who have already been studying for 10-15 years) are only intended to make you reach a state when you begin to work in the group, as you realize that there is nothing else. And everything that you have done over the course of many years was only intended to finally make you understand that the only thing that can change you and reveal to you that what you want is right in front of you, even though it is the very last step.
We usually take a very long time to get there, convincing ourselves and trying to somehow wriggle out of it, go somewhere aside. We study Kabbalah, do anything we need to do in regards to dissemination—anything at all—just to avoid working in the group.
And even once we already understand that there is no other solution, still, at the very last moment, we escape finding reasons to not participate in this process. We cannot allow ourselves to close our eyes, throw ourselves into the group, like in water, and completely disappear in it. A lot more time passes, months, sometimes even years, until a person finally enters the group.
But we can shorten this time with our joint effort, and we will try to do it.
The length of time a person has been studying does not matter, neither does his knowledge, whether he is smart or not, strong or weak, persistent, stable, or lazy. When you enter the group and join its common force, we “disappear” in it, you dissolve in the common qualities of your friends to such extent that you acquire the integration of all their abilities, and they all become yours.
No need to come up with excuses for yourself, such as I am still young, I am not yet ready for this, maybe after some time, at the next convention. Now! There must be no other thoughts! There is nothing else beside this place and this action that we must take.
And the action is very simple—try to perform the so-called First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), rise as much as possible over our egoism without taking any of its persuasions, reasons, catches, and quirks into consideration; we must understand that this points to the faults in our aspiration, our intention.
When my intention and aspiration are not strong enough, I will feel something distracting me. And this every disturbance points to what I need to add to my intention to seriously direct it and make it strong enough in its size and vector. In other words, I need to be aimed straight towards the goal and to have enough strength to direct me towards it.
The main thing is to have patience towards our friends, like we are patient with small children, our favorite small child. There is nothing we can do about it; it is also our egoism, which does not allow us to connect with others and shows us where we must bring ourselves closer and position ourselves.
[75085]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2
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We are usually on one of three levels in relation to our friends:
1. When the friend and the group are greater than us, in other words, we regard our friends and the group as higher than us in order to feel their greatness;
2. When friends and the group are beneath us;
3. When they are equal to us.
If I perceive them as being smaller than me, then I am able to give to them like a big one gives to the small.
I have a certain kind of communication with them in either case, when I either receive the greatness of the goal from them, or ignite it in them by introducing my might, my investment into the greatness of the goal, the greatness of unity. And all this is in order to reach a state of being equal to them. And then we will really be friends.
The comparison must always be the goal. And the state of being below or above them is the state when I adjust myself in relation to them.
[75081]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2
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In relation to our friends, we take into account not their personal properties, but rather something that belongs to our spiritual path. I don’t care about their everyday problems. We sweep all of this aside and forget everything that exists around us. We are interested only in one thing—their aspiration upward! This is their point in the heart and I am dealing with it! This is my tuning point!
The tuning in the group is a very special and fine action.
[75078]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/12, Lesson 2
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Shamati, Article 159: It means that if Israel are under the dominion of a certain nation, that nation controls them and they cannot retire from their dominion. Thus, they tasted sufficient flavor in that work and could not be redeemed.
So what did the Creator do? “The king of Egypt died,” meaning they had lost this servitude. Thus they could no longer work….
Is it good that Pharaoh died? After all, he brought the children of Israel closer to Holiness by forcing them to fulfill two discernments within them. On the one hand, they had pots full of meat, but on the other hand they were slaves.
If we don’t think about spirituality, then we forget the slavery and don’t feel that we are slaves. You work for your ego and you make good profit. Slavery begins when despite that the pots are full of meat; you feel that you have no spirituality because you don’t attain connection and love, the opportunity to exit the ego.
Slavery is felt only when you have two points of discernments: on the corporeal level everything is fine, but on the spiritual level, there is nothing and there won’t be anything. In this case it is called “slavery,” the domination of matter on the spirit. The Creator hears us only when we connect among us and begin to separate corporeality from spirituality, and see that we have to look for the spiritual point in the connection among us.
This is why we are called “the Children of Israel” and “brothers sitting together,” those who feel themselves as slaves in Egypt who don’t have the power to attain connection. At first everything seemed possible, was good and wonderful. Then the troubles began and we see that in different groups. This is the second stage of the slavery in Egypt, in which the Children of Israel groan from the hard work. They cannot connect, but instead of escaping, they continue to work on connection.
If a person doesn’t leave the group because of that, but continues to hit on that one point, trying to achieve connection, then eventually he despairs and cries out because he lacks the powers. If we are connected, we receive a vessel to discover the Creator, but we can’t create it by ourselves because a person can’t achieve spiritual actions by himself.
Then we groan from this work, which means that we understand that we need the help of the upper force. Only it can correct us and connect us. This groan is already a salvation, the great revelation of “there is none else besides Him,” and that only He can connect us. We have attained the desire to connect by our work when we understand that this is the only thing we need without any tempting corporeal conditions, no matter what they may be.
[74787]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/12, Shamati #159
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Question: What does it mean when you have to jump into the “Red Sea” in order to escape from “Pharaoh?”
Answer: It is a state of despair when Pharaoh, your ego, pushes you from behind. He doesn’t leave you, he wants to swallow you, to eat you, and you feel that being in it is worse than death.
When the Twin Towers burned in New York, people jumped from the 50th floor. It was meaningless, but a person simply cannot stay in the fire. For him to stay even a second outside the fire seemed like redemption, and so he jumped.
A person feels the same way while escaping from Egypt. You cannot stay in this situation one second longer, and you are ready to jump into the sea, no matter where, for you it is redemption. When you reach this state the sea opens up.
You overcome the splitting point, the breaking point, and there is no way back. You have already reached the decision and by that have totally killed, cut, and broken the connection with your ego.
Question: Has the ego today reached this state, that you can overcome it only together in a group?
Answer: Yes, this is a collective point in the group that is described as Nachshon that jumped into the water first.
It is the point of “Moses,” that is the center of the group, but which changes its role each time, according to the attribute that is revealed in it each moment.
So the point of Nachshon is revealed in the group, when all the group is convinced that unity, closeness, and mutual support, is the most important thing for it.
At the same time, people don’t mind that they are in the dark. What’s important is to get closer, even if they die together. It is more important than being alone in the ego and existing in it in a most comfortable beastly manner. This is all our free will.
Then the sea is split, which means that you simply discover the next level, meaning the jump into the “Red Sea.”
This is the end of the period when you lived under the control of your ego. From this moment onwards you don’t return to it.
You never return to the previous level. If you think you are in a worse situation, it is only because you were given the next level, which isn’t corrected yet.
[74634]
From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 4/1/12
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The Holiday of Pesach (Passover) begins tomorrow. We have to understand what it is. Firstly, “Pesach” is the most important state. We remember this exodus from Egypt in all the following corrections. Why? Because this is the foundation, from which the ladder of spiritual degrees begins.
Secondly, Pesach is the spiritual birth of a human being.
Thirdly, we are talking about darkness, in which we build the preparatory base for our corrections because we have nothing else to correct except what is disclosed in “Egypt.” These years of preparation, on the one hand, are useful because they reveal our corrupt desires; on the other hand, they are hard because exile is an unpleasant thing.
However, in reality it all depends on how we accept what is happening, trying hard to comprehend, understand, and recognize this state, how much we are aware of its necessity in the group, and how much we can feel blossoming in it.
Similarly, the Middle Ages was a dark period of history, which was characterized by confusion, human brutality, the cruelty of inquisition, religious aggression, and animalistic mores. However, going deeper, we see that it became the preparation for the outburst of the Renaissance, for the development of science and other subsequent achievements.
Until the end of the Middle Ages humanity was obtaining big vessels, desires. Then, a cultural explosion took place, and the Age of Enlightenment began during which we used what we had prepared before. Now, we are approaching a logical result—the crisis of all the desires having been exhausted and there is nothing else to do in our world.
If we draw parallels with spirituality, the current preparation allows us to reach the end of correction and use our desires correctly. After all, we revealed our evil during the period of Egyptian exile. That is why all further corrections are called the “memory” of the exodus from Egypt.
In this case, evil is revealed to us only in the relationships between friends. Consequently, if we correctly perceive the problems arising between us, we prepare ourselves for ascent. We must request correction from these states; however, on condition that we want to unite, we feel the need for it, see that we cannot, and nonetheless continue to push. The less we succeed, the more we press.
We need to reveal bestowal namely in this mutual pressure between us. Even if instead of it, we on the contrary reveal reception, evil, manifested above good, we do not retreat, do not relax, and do not despair. We are going to the end, until the state about which is said in the Torah: “and the children of Israel groaned from the work” (Exodus 2:23)
It will not be just moaning; we will really feel that we are powerless to do anything else. That is when a person raises his hands to the Creator and merges in the collective prayer.
Thus, we should respect the current period. We cannot exit it until we prepare the desire for further corrections. It is impossible to receive revelation from Above, if we do not push, forcing the upper force to reveal us our evil.
[74562]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/12, Writings of Rabash
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