Question: Quite often during our discussions in the integral education groups, we slip into the usual, ordinary state. We begin to compliment one another and so on. How should we escape from such states so that we will not waste our time?

Answer: There has to be a clear plan in front of everyone or a big screen with the text, and you should know that you must flow along its path as if you were in a little, common boat. Imagine that we are in the huge sea and this text is our guide.

Together, we read the same article and its study is a certain step forward on our part. The article is divided into parts or sub-steps. We read one or two sentences and discuss what they say and how they help us unite, rise, and correctly use everything that exists within us. At the same time, the text itself must direct us and give us clues as to what we should do. Essentially, it should play the role of a teacher.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/2/12

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Question: In the past, in Ukrainian villages, they would build a house in one day. All the villagers would come together and build it. Is it possible in a Kabbalist group, when people would gather and give all their strength and all their energy in order to help others in some way?

Answer: I think that now the Creator will bring us to this. He will invite very big changes in the economy. Masses of people will become unemployed. They will understand that in order to survive, they will need to unite and in this way will find a correct system for connection and unity. With our help, they will find it, and specifically in this form they will exist, doing everything together.

But since this will already be unity at a higher level, it will feed everyone with enormous energy. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the book The Last Generation. Thus, I think, that we are approaching this. Or through our dissemination and consciousness, or via big blows, in any case, humanity will quickly discover that without the correct connection and unity, including the previous studying, education, and knowledge, it will be impossible to do anything.

This is what we see today in Europe. They wanted to connect between them without any inner preparation, and now are separating. And this was a great problem for them. These were normal blows: Everything will fall; everything will collapse just to show people the necessity of unity.

The movement itself is correct, only not in the capitalistic ideology where each one takes for oneself all that he can, but a different ideology. Thus, we will be building together.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Workshop 5

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Will the time come when egoism is not against me, but “for” me, together with me?

This will happen when I move egoism completely away from me, put it in front of me, and separate us by restriction and the screen. Then, I will be able to begin to work with it like as help, and not against, but “for” me.

In other words, it is when we reach the state called Hafetz Hesed, the properties of Bina, and then rise further to the property of Keter.

After I fully master the property of Bina and I have the screen for this, when I can do with my egoism whatever I want, then I am starting to use it in the positive area. In the first stage, I only cancel egoism, and in the second stage, I begin to work with it for myself. This “beast” is already so tame that I simply use it for myself, and the darkness becomes the Light.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 2

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The main and only role of the group, I would say, is to increase the importance of the attribute of bestowal in my eyes. Many articles speak about it. If I have to acquire this attribute and to yearn for it, but I cannot do it by myself because I don’t know about this attribute, then I need some external source that will spur me in that direction. This is the group.

So the role of the group is to raise the attribute of bestowal in me, or the Creator’s greatness.

In order to discover the Creator, we have to prepare a place for His revelation. Now this place of connection between us is egoistic, and so the Creator in them is concealed. This is why our world, our state, is called the concealment of the Creator.

In order to reveal Him, we have to create among us attributes of bestowal that are compatible with Him. The place for the revelation of the Creator is the altruistic connections, the attributes of bestowal among us. They are first revealed in the group where we can develop them by constantly raising the attribute of bestowal and thereby become attracted to it.

Originally this attribute is called Shechina, which means the place for the revelation of the dweller (Shochen in Hebrew). The root of the word Shechina (in Hebrew) means a place to dwell (Mishkan) or a vessel.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Workshop 4

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In the article “One’s Future Depends On and Is Tied to His Gratitude for the Past,” it is written: The praise and gratitude that one gives to the Creator for the past expand the feelings, the Kelim, his properties, and his abilities to feel and appreciate in heart and mind the Creator’s influence upon him. And one is elated by every single point of the interaction between them, begins to feel and understand, attaining to Whom he is presenting the result of his labors, and in accordance with that, by expanding his properties, he soars ever higher to new sensations.

This means that gratitude is necessary for us. We do not influence the Creator, the Light, in any way. We don’t understand what happens within Him further. We speak of these sensations only from our own attainment, from our feelings, from what are, through human language and within our experiences. When we speak about something or someone, we speak of how we envision this object. This is why Creator is called “Boreh” (“Bo” – “Reh”),  “Come” and “See.” It is because when you come to these properties, you discover Him within them, and based on these properties, you render your opinion.

Therefore, gratitude is necessary in order to expand our Kelim and to change their properties.

Each of us has a point in the heart, and right now we are feeling something inside this point. But we cannot sense any picture inside it, since everything is compressed into a single point. We need to expand and unfurl it. How can we do this? On the one hand, we do it through the gratitude to the Creator. But in order for this method to affect us, we need to broaden this point by gathering within ourselves the points of our friends.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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The sum of our gratitude for the past gives us the total vessel (Kli) for the disclosure of the Creator, total sensitivity, power, intensity, suffering, movement forward. Why is gratitude so important? Because in this way a person already has a positive attitude to the Creator, to the Light; he sees It positively, and the Light shines on him as It is ready to shine the Light.

When we give thanks for the past, and everyone makes such an effort connecting with the friends in the group to gain the strength to relate to the past correctly, then we unite and form the common desire to understand and reveal the Creator. This is on the one hand.

On the other hand, this desire is filled with gratitude, awareness, and appreciation of the past because we begin to feel that it was absolutely necessary in order to come to this current state where we start to enter the upper world. Why is this state that we obtain by nullifying the negative past a means to reveal the Creator? Because it gives us absolute confidence that the world is ruled by only one positive force. Thus, we can feel like a baby in its mother’s arms. Nothing else is necessary; everything is in complete order. A baby can smell his mother, and he feels safe in her arms.

Once we reach this state of security and confidence, the world becomes infinite; it simply gives way. A person feels that he is unlimited. Nothing constricts us; we are under no authority, pressure, or constraints, neither conscious nor subconscious! And that is why the upper world is revealed, the total, true universe in which we live which has been compressed to the level, the size, of this world by our constant, alarming, apprehension of something unpleasant, and by lacking the proper characteristic of the Creator who rules and dominates everything. Thus revelation occurs. It is possible to bring yourself to the full revelation of the upper governance only by working on yourself, your past, present, and future. By this, we completely eliminate time, the most limiting factor of our world. Completely! If I think that I am in one constant force that controls everything and keeps everything in an absolutely positive state, then there is no time. What changes? There is no motion or movement, no top, bottom, no coordinates, just one simple space, the world of Infinity.

Of course, we need to grow to this state. I also don’t know what it is yet. But at least, the expansion of the sphere in which we exist by obtaining guarantees, security, the feeling of oneself in the mercy of the quality of bestowal which gives us this movement outwards to the expansion of the sphere.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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To approach the Creator is good, and to distance oneself from the Creator is evil. So, we have to tune in and perceive everything only in this way. Through this system of coordinates (good, evil) approaching or distancing ourselves relative to the Creator, we should perceive life. And you will see how fast you come to a completely different frame of feelings, quite a different assessment of values, as if from one language to another.

Therefore, no matter what happens, you must evaluate everything in terms of closer to or farther from the Creator. After your evaluation, you control yourself; getting closer to the Creator, you feel good, distancing you feel as evil, or not quite yet.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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During the workshop, imagine you are in your soul and that the ten people sitting with you in a circle aren’t just people but a connection that creates the vessel of your soul. We discover such a connection among us as we receive material, a desire, the general collective vessel, in which the Light is revealed.

The desire and the Light together will give us the feeling of the spiritual level on which we will feel a special force that builds and sustains this level, which means the Creator, and which includes all the desires and the Lights. We have to imagine all this during the workshop.

A soul is our mutual bestowal. You are sitting in a circle of ten people and you have to imagine a network of mutual bestowal that connects you all. Each one feels that he annuls himself in it and that he is incorporated in the general desire. There is no I, you, or he that bestows upon others; everyone bestows upon everyone. To the extent that each one totally disappears and instead of ten people and the field among them, there is only the connecting field that remains and the people seem to disappear.

This field is called a spiritual “vessel,” our attitude, the desire to bestow upon one another. Accordingly the Light dresses in this desire of mutual bestowal.

This desire of mutual bestowal is called a “soul,” and the Light that fills it is called the “Light of the soul,” its life, its vitality, NRNHY. There is no other reality! It is into this reality that you enter more deeply each time and begin to feel that this is where all of humanity is, all the forces, and all the relationships. This is where you discover the Creator.

You become unlimited, because before that you annulled yourself and entered the field that connects you. By that you erase all the boundaries: It isn’t by absorbing an unlimited amount but by being incorporated unlimitedly in others, as if getting lost in them.

Thanks to that you begin to feel this whole vessel. This is called a desire to bestow that actually reshapes you and gives you a limitless form.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/12, Writings of Rabash

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To actually achieve the desired result in spiritual advancement, we need to use all of the allotted time.

This is not a couple of hours a week, a few hours of dissemination or any other activities. We have to continue the same work that we did during the workshops; it continues in everyone internally during the breaks, during the meals, while travelling—no matter what! This is the most important thing!

After all, a morning lesson or a meeting like a workshop is like recharging, like connecting to the power source. When you connect to the group, you attract the upper Light to yourself; you charged yourself and can go safely in your life for 20 hours. Then come back again.

This is required once a day! Otherwise the spiritual connection is cut off. At least an hour a day, but there must be a connection to a physical or virtual group, to the Light; you recharge yourself and continue the rest of the time to work on this charge.

Now, we are gradually switching to a different kind of work, which is much more difficult than sitting in circles with each other. In this work, there are thousands of various disturbances. But we understand that these are not a hindrance, that we are surrounded by the Creator Who wants us to be connected to Him all the time through these disturbances. And then we will see that these are not disturbances, but opportunities to connect, to amplify the signal. Let’s try!
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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It is known from the science of Kabbalah that we are in a constant state. Only our sensitivity, our perception of this state, changes.

How can we improve this sensitivity? If I were to add the sensitivity of my friends to the sensitivity that I received today—that is, to the point in the heart, if I connect my heart with their hearts—this will be enough for me to begin to feel the true state I am in.

How do we connect our hearts? Our attempts unfortunately lead nowhere. We address this request to the Creator, to the Light. I try repeatedly, but little works.

Why? It is because our attitude toward this is egoistic. We want to receive all the time, to increase our sensitivity of this world we are in, but we can see from it only a small, faint fragment. We want to expand our egoistic properties and absorb the upper world.

We should come out with a different attitude. This is correct attitude to the connection between us, to the feeling of the upper world, based on the property of gratitude.

Gratitude! Any human action, no matter what, should start with it. It is said that, even if a sharp sword were to be raised over your head, you still have to give thanks and firmly hope that this is only for the better, and thus the Light works on you so that precisely such critical conditions put you in the right attitude toward the upper governance.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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