Question: How will the changes happen in the education system—by the initiative of the government from above, or pressure from the masses from below?

Answer: Leaders are only afraid for their “seats” and nothing else. If the masses come out to the streets and start shaking those chairs, and they aren’t just setting cars on fire but starting to making more serious actions, then the leaders start listening to their demands. In the end, they will have to agree to them. The question is: Will we be able to offer them our explanation of the necessary measures? We have to try to do that as much as we can.

One way or another, we have to get through to the leaders, but from both sides: from below, through the masses that go out onto the street, and from above directly. After all, we are talking about a global study of the world, about changes in education, and about building a worldwide system of upbringing in which everyone will study while receiving a specific salary for it, the means for sustenance.

This learning will take place instead of work, but in reality it will become people’s work in the spiritual sense. Every person will attract Light to the extent of his forces and capabilities, and this will be his reward. After all, the Light holds all of the abundance there can possibly be.

How many people are required to provide the vital necessities for all of the earth’s inhabitants? Clothing, food, construction, service—everything that’s necessary within the framework of a normal existence? For example, people will work for half a day and will study for half a day. And this will be done by everyone.

However, this can only be achieved through the leaders, or more precisely, through the public opinion, through people who think, including scientists, sociologists, political scientists, and all those who rise above the mass, but not too high. After all, the very top is occupied by the “destroyers,” whereas we are talking primarily about the university circles.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/11, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Kabbalah Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Politics, Q&A, Society, Suffering, World - 3 Comments →

Question: Now that the crisis is intensifying all over the world with natural disasters and wars happening more and more often, how should we treat people who have experienced misfortunes considering that we feel their pain when we see what kind of suffering they are going through, but aren’t able to help?

Answer: The crisis is not moving in any single direction. It’s not just an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, floods and tornadoes  in America, fires in Russia, or national revolutions in the Near East. These are local events and that is why we worry only slightly when we hear about them, not taking it too close to heart. Our egoistic nature does not allow us to empathize with others any deeper. But if I’m afraid that the tsunami will reach me, then it’s an entirely different matter.

However, this crisis is multifaceted. For now it is being expressed as several separate catastrophes here and there, but in essence it is preparing ground for a fundamental worldwide jolt that will be common and global. This is exactly what people who understand what is happening are afraid of.

This will be a global economic crisis. When economic connections disintegrate in conditions of our total, universal interdependence, it will be a huge problem. This will be an immediate blow to everyone, causing people to go crazy because they won’t know what to do. Let us hope that before this happens we will be able to exert a positive influence on the world and prevent this kind of turn of events.

We shouldn’t think that in order to influence the world we have to enter the mass media or get the world’s leaders on our side. Rather, we are operating internally. We are connected with the world’s inner forces, the global, integral system that operates inside of the world. If we correspond to it and go together with it, then we act according to the laws of nature. We bring the force of unity and love into this system. It comes from us, from the part of humanity that desires a good connection between people.
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Economy, Egoism, Inner Work, Love, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Spirituality, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

The essence of the global crisis is that humanity has “gotten stuck” or “bogged down” in nature and does not know what to do. Nature has turned its harsh side to us, threatening us with crises in various areas, and we don’t have an answer to that challenge.

On one hand, we developed inside of our nature and have reached a completely lawful result. If we had a chance to turn back time a few centuries and do it all again, we would still take the same path.

That is because this is our very nature—the growing egoistic desire with all of its derivatives. Scientific and technological progress, industry, culture, education, and human society are all natural results of egoism, and nothing can be done about them.

Until now we have developed the way our nature ordered us to. So how can we now influence it and correct it in any way to change the direction? Has anything like this ever happened in history? Never. In the best case scenario we can recognize the results of our development—whether they are good or bad, depending on the observer’s point of view. Meanwhile the train moves farther and farther along, and maybe we really don’t have another way out?

Scientific research of the manifestations of the crisis is a useful thing, but what does it give us? We are looking out of the window of a train, watching the view that is flying past us: At first it glitters with different colors, the sky is clear, and the green fields are filled with sunlight. But then, the colors start to wither, the grass becomes replaced by sand more often, and there are increasingly more glimpses of garbage dumps, dirt, and waste drains, and the sun becomes obstructed by smoke and smog. Can we do anything or will the train ride down this track until the end? Should we put a veil over the window and come what may?

There are many uncertainties here, but the science of Kabbalah does not even discuss this route and where it will lead us. It deals with the root of the problem: We are riding down the train of our egoism, which is constantly growing.

Development is necessary, but will we direct it in a different vein? Let’s reject the egoistic path in which we are unable to agree on anything and inflict so much harm to ourselves and nature. After all, every person thinks only of himself, and that is why we inevitably destroy our lives and the surrounding environment.

What if, instead of that, we will unite in love? Would we then treat nature and the environment differently? Would we still exhaust the earth’s abundant resources? Would we burn such inconceivable amounts of fuel? Would we throw out food when there are a billion people suffering from hunger? Would we give birth to one child here and to ten in another place? Would we then be able to reach balance?

Or maybe we wouldn’t have to look for balance between us? Maybe people’s attitude to each other and to the world as a whole would correct this world? And then the train itself would change and would ride forward differently? By correcting our attitude, maybe we would ensure an abundance of natural resources and crop yields so there would be more than enough for everyone?

Baal HaSulam wrote the following in the newspaper “The Nation”: Our planet is sufficiently rich to feed all of us. So why do we need this tragic war for survival, which complicates our lives from one generation to the next? If only we would achieve unity, compassion for one another, and love, then everyone would have enough of everything. That is because then the upper Light would fill all of our necessities. Nature itself would change from the inside.
[43407]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/11, The World’s Problems, Overpopulation

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Economy, Egoism, Society, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

We must properly assess our current state of affairs on the earth. The defects are intended for us to correct them, to use them as a means for ascending into the upper world. Otherwise, what am I living here for? Why am I experiencing all of these troubles and attempting to resist them? I want to overcome them. I am aware of the situation and grateful for the crisis because by correcting it, I will enter the upper world. If not for this crisis, where would I work, where would I change myself in order to rise to a higher level?

We are talking about a means that enables us to improve and correct ourselves. We are revealing the illness, but now, by working on the treatment, we will attain our nature and understand what we lack in order to acquire the Creator’s nature.

Obviously, the crisis is not a reason to get enthusiastic, but the revelation of evil. However, we should have a practical attitude to it. Suddenly I am discovering that I am cruel, greedy, and love to rule over others, that I don’t have a care in the world for anyone else—and I evaluate these revelations as a means on the path. I am happy about the flaws that become revealed because I realize what they are intended for.

That is why we shouldn’t silence or conceal the world’s problems from ourselves. On the contrary, we have to expose them to people, and not in order to scare them, but to cure the illness. We have to show everyone that we have just one way out: to treat the crisis practically, to use it for making qualitative changes.

Then we will suddenly feel that we are doing wonderful work on correction, whose result will be eternal, perfect life. What can be better? We won’t want to remain on the animate level, being born and dying over and over again. Besides, that’s impossible because through our development we have already reached the need to ascend to the next level, into a higher dimension.

We are not just explaining the nature of the crisis to people, but are pointing to its higher goal. The issue here is not that it is educating us and bringing us closer, forcing us to unite. All of these are just means, a ladder by which we will ascend to a new level of being.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/11, The World’s Problems, Overpopulation

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spirituality, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

Question: Even if my intention is egoistic, if I start thinking about the benefit of others and the well-being of the world, can this already be considered an action?

Answer: Of course. Do you really think that giving out bread to the poor is a real action? This will only cause more poor people to exist in the world.

Your action is to attract Light. It, and nothing else, returns you to the Source. So what else is there to think about? Especially at a time when the whole world is in trouble and in danger. We only need the Light. The lack of Light is the reason for all the wars, crises, catastrophes, and other problems.

Precisely the lack of good actions by the Light evokes troubles at the four phases of development—still, vegetative, animate, and human. The evil we encounter is a projection of the lack of Light.

Punishment does not come from above. If I have to reach a specific reward, the revelation of the Creator, similarity and adhesion with Him, and I don’t do that, then I experience the gap that this creates as punishment or lack of goodness. And vice versa, by attaining this, I will feel a reward.

Thus, I feel reward and punishment in the same desires. If I have corrected and filled my desire, this is the reward, but if I cannot correct and fulfill it, this is punishment. There are no penalties from above. I do not receive a speck beyond what I inflict upon myself. I create my own punishment.

Therefore, we have just one task—to attract the Light. Especially today, considering everything that is happening and accumulating in the world. There are no other means.

I am constantly in touch with people who are “in the know,” and I read all kinds of articles, visit websites, and follow the newspapers, but I don’t see a solution offered anywhere. They cannot offer anything and they don’t even want to think about this because they don’t have the slightest connection with correction.

Just yesterday I was talking about this with a famous writer and he did not say anything—he avoided answering. This indicates a lack of sensitivity, a lack of understanding the corrections.

“The world is round and we have to unite,” I say to people. “That’s right, we’re also acting in that direction,” they respond. People don’t even realize that in reality they are going in the opposite direction. After all, in the end every person is just strengthening his own party or movement. There is no one to talk to.

Therefore, we have to create conditions in our midst for a positive force to emerge. Only then will its waves ripple through the whole world. Nothing else will help. We do not depend on others, but we have to help them so that later on people will quickly catch these waves, understand their message, and feel that they are coming from us.

The materials have to be disseminated ahead of time, but in essence the source of these waves is us. And therefore, the most important thing is to unite, to merge with one another more and more.

I place great hopes on the upcoming conventions. They are the means by which we have to bring to life unity, consolidation, and mutual care for the world and for our correction, which will help the world.

The time has come for the Creator to become revealed in the creatures. The means is simple and it is in our hands. All we have to do is use it. We ask the world to wake up, but are we awakening ourselves?
[43306]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, “Peace in the World”

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Kabbalah Dissemination, News, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

Question: What should we expect from the upcoming conventions? What intention should we build?

Answer: We are approaching very powerful changes due to our unification and I hope that the upcoming chain of conventions will help us to keep the intention together for a whole month without leaving it. Work, family, children, personal problems—despite all of this, unconsciously, in some corner of my mind, I leave a place for the most important thing and constantly worry about our unity, about how we advance from one convention to the next, from one day to the next, in our intentions and our inner solidarity—until there, inside, we will reveal the Creator.

We have been studying this theoretically for a long time already. So let’s truly wish for Him to be revealed. We have heard about this thousands of times—so let’s make the effort.

We cannot fall into doubts, “Again? How many times have we been through this?” We are at the threshold of a breakthrough. And the world is also demanding this. After all, it doesn’t have the slightest chance of finding any solution. In the Internet we see what kind of “solutions” are being offered in response to the modern crises, how people are trying to conceal and silence them because they don’t see any way out.

In a form that’s comfortable, clear, and close to the people, we must inform the world that there is a solution, and the faster we start realizing it, the less suffering this will cost us.

Therefore, our intention at the conventions is to start “permanently living” in the group that is bringing the whole world the solution to the crisis. There is nothing more important that we could possibly prepare or do for the world.

Right now we are at a very important point: There is a sick patient lying in front of us and his illness is almost fatal, but we can create a medicine and cure him. Then he won’t just be healthy, but will rise to the Creator’s level, to a new, eternal dimension.

Therefore, we must attribute the greatest possible importance to our efforts and our status—the ascent we are starting during these days. We have to hold ourselves accountable for what kind of task we are carrying out. Who are we to receive such a great mission—to actually participate in correcting not only the world, but all of reality?

We need to be a little bit prouder; that will help us to feel our responsibility.
[43215]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/11, “Peace in the World”

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Unity, World - 2 Comments →

Nature controls us with the help of four categories: mercy, truth, justice, and peace. Of course, the best one is peace, which means perfection, and it can be achieved with the help of the quality of “truth.” However, we are incapable of making this come true because according to the truth, a person must be completely pure of the egoistic desire and be entirely in bestowal. He must receive only whatever is necessary for his life and bestow to others with all his might.

We still haven’t attained these states. Our society is incapable of this. We do not belong to the still, vegetative, or animate levels, which operate according to the laws and forces that nature awakens in them. Unlike those levels in nature, we are egoists and as such, our desire for pleasure desires to absorb and use everything.

As a result, we cannot affirm the category of “truth.” But without it, humanity faces a problem: If we don’t give and provide each other with everything, then society is flawed and therefore experiences all kinds of troubles and disasters. When there is no balance, people feel disadvantaged or, on the contrary, privileged.

Therefore, in order to avoid destroying the environment completely, the category of “mercy” awakens in us. “Mercy” is a sort of compensation, a way for the powerful to make up for things because they have the ability to use all of society for the sake of their own interests and then to allocate a little bit to the weak. That is how we use the categories of “mercy” and “justice.”

Of course, these compensations are inadequate, yet with their help we have been able to balance society out. Humanity has done a lot for the sake of this balancing act: charity and humanitarian organizations, all kinds of revolutions, public health services, education systems, and so on. However, nature demands much more from us. Lately we are finding that it requires us to create a system of mutual bestowal.

According to all the indications, today we have to rise to the level of “truth” and “peace”—in other words, to live by the principle, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his necessity.” On the the still, vegetative, and animate levels, this principle is maintained by nature absolutely and instinctively, whereas people have to come to this by reaching total correction, by ascending above their egoism and establishing the appropriate interconnections within society.

Today humanity is at an intermediate phase. We are no longer animals or primitive barbaric tribes living in a natural communism, yet we are still not corrected either. Right now we are at the beginning of realizing the crisis of our nature, our egoism.

So let’s listen to what Kabbalists say: They explain to us that there is a way and a means that can help us to create the perfect society.
[43222]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/11, “Peace in the World”

A Social Agreement To Cease Hostilities
Is True Equality Possible?
Learning Isn’t For Us, Is It?

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, History, Society, World - 1 Comment →

Question: How can we disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah to the masses whose points of the hearts haven’t awakened yet? How do we withhold the Torah, meaning the method of correction of the evil inclination?

Answer: In the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam writes that, basically, everybody has this point since after the breaking of the collective soul, its parts have intermixed and become included into each other. However, some points are so big that when they awaken, they start pulling a person to the right place where he can receive correction and fulfillment. Whereas the other points are hidden, and such people are 99% of the population of the world.

We should address them according to their present desires. To those who come to study with us, we tell about the desire to go straight to the Creator and give the method of revealing Him in mutual connection with others. As for the other 99%, they have no relation to it, nothing in common whatsoever. They don’t need spirituality; they look at us in total surprise, unable to understand what we are lacking: There is soccer, there is the Internet, everything is fine.

And still, they do have problems and experience grief. Today, the entire world is sinking into a whirlpool, and it’s not our fault. Because of us, the Creator wouldn’t stir crises, cause disasters, and put humanity under the threat of exhausting our natural resources. He does it because of them.

We advance without needing this crisis since there is a force that is leading us forth. But for them, there has to be a force that will be pushing them from behind. This force is suffering.

Thus, when we address the masses, we have to offer them a method of how to resolve the global crisis in all areas of life, including family, education, drug abuse, depression, economy, climate change, and so on. We possess a method that makes it possible to correct all that’s bad so that we may feel good in this life, in this world.

We don’t say a word about the future world since people have no need for it whatsoever. If they hear anything about the spiritual side of the issue from us, they will write us off as mystics or madmen. Hence, we need to approach them adequately: without mentioning Kabbalah, the Creator and the created being, the purpose of creation, and so on.

We simply have a method, an instrument that can correct the current bad state, the crisis that is consuming the whole world. We have something to offer them; we know what to do. Nobody knows but us.
[42958]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, “The Freedom”

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Dissemination, Society, World - No Comments →

We are all egoists. So how can we organize regular life in human society in a way where we won’t eat each other?

That is why people have agreed that we can’t manage alone, after all. Other people serve me in one way, and I serve them in some other way. Without that we just can’t manage. Once we understand this, we come to an agreement: Let’s do this without waiting for a disastrous situation. Let’s do it out of mercy: I give a little bit to you, and you give a little bit to me.

Suppose I am driving in a car and someone in front of me suddenly stops. Then I also have to stop. If there is someone standing in front of me in line, then I have to wait. I spend time, gas, and money on others because we have all agreed on mutual sympathy and have to pay for it.

We create funds to help one another, such as medical funds and retirement funds. A person understands that it’s worth it for him to pay the medical fund even if he is healthy because his egoism recognizes how it will benefit from this. That is how we make concessions ahead of time because we need each other. This is “mercy”: We are willing to bestow to others in specific ways because we won’t survive without them.

As a result, people divide into two categories: Some promote “mercy,” wishing for everything to be “pretty,” while others support the category of “truth,” which says: “Mine is mine and yours is yours.” So whose side is truth on? The answer is: neither.

However, if every person clings to what is his, then society is torn apart to pieces, whereas if we add mercy, then we can somewhat soften or sweeten the situation. As a result, human societies throughout history have differed from one another by the correlation of these two approaches.

Society can be softer or harsher. In its pure form, capitalism does not like to play around: If you earned it, receive what’s yours, but if you haven’t earned it, then you can starve to death. Others understand that this is not a solution because hungry people will come and rob you, and maybe will even murder you. So it’s worth it to give them something “out of mercy.”

That is how humanity develops, but it cannot achieve piece on this path. Granted, truth is the lot of the strong, and mercy is the lot of the weak, but justice stands in the middle as the foundation of the scale so our cups could sway to and fro.

That is how society keeps itself back from self-destruction, but this does not bring it any closer to real peace – to conciliation and mutual completion.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/11, “Peace in the World”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Economy, Egoism, History, Society, World - 2 Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Thus you find that the attribute of truth has no practical ability to organize the path of the individual and the path of the collective in an absolute and satisfactory manner. Also, it is completely insufficient for organizing life at the end of the correction of the world.

The Creator seems to be playing with us. On one hand, He says that everything needs to be done according to the attribute of truth: Everybody has to give as much as possible and receive life necessities, according to his nature which he did not choose. At the same time, bestowal, even wholehearted, also depends on the innate qualities and differences.

It means that everyone is unique in reception and bestowal. How do we solve the problem and remain in the category of “truth”? What criterion should we use? Working hours or output are not suitable because everybody is different. The Creator created us so that we are simply unable to draw comparisons between ourselves. How can we establish the correct interconnection between us?

For example, I may spend hours to get a smile from someone, while someone else smiles right away. Everybody has his own character, habits, mood swings, and a thousand other internal parameters. How do we work with each other?

Does the Creator “trip us”? “You have to be equal,” He says. But we are different! How is it possible to evaluate a human according to a benchmark? Where would a suitable criterion be found?

It is time for us to build a human society in which all of us will be connected like cogwheels. Nobody knows how he is supposed to rotate in relation to others. What example can be used? How would it be realized? The task seems simply unreal, and this is a very big problem.

All of humanity has to understand the difficulty that lies here and its cause. Today, we already understand that we have entered a new epoch and must unite in an amicable way. There is no other choice: We have to reduce consumption, limit our evil inclination, our egoism, to begin to decrease the standard of living in one region and share the released surplus with the other. But how?

Each of those who succeed in economy, industry, science, culture, and so on can stand up and say: “I have achieved everything with my own hands. I worked on my success, so let them do the same.” And it would sound fair.

In other words, a person says: “Go to the Master who created me. He put me in such conditions, and I have achieved everything.” That is, direct all your claims with respect to our inequality to the Creator. It is He who created people different and requires them to achieve unity, without which it’s impossible to continue our existence.

This is the problem we have yet to resolve.
[42892]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2011, “Peace in the World”

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Society, World - No Comments →