Questions I received on the upcoming Congress and inner work:

Question: What is the best way to prepare for the upcoming Congress?

My Answer: You should study the materials from the last Congress (February 2008) and participate in the preparations for the upcoming Congress. Go through the materials about the Congress, and finally, you should be systematically present at our daily lessons (held between 3am and 6am Israel time), or at least at the third part (from 5am until 6am Israel time).

Question: I am trying to find the best way of studying for me. Can a student who’s attracted to his own sex and who studies Kabbalah regularly over the Internet, participate in the Congress that will take place in Israel (to actually come and be there together with everyone)? Can he participate in the Congress preparations? Can he sometimes attend a congress in other countries?

My Answer: Yes.

Question: What is the correct way to unite with the common system?

My Answer: Through the quality of bestowal.

Question continued: Is a person capable of this?

My Answer: Yes, if he does it through a group, by receiving Ohr Makif from above.

Question continued: What kind of force is this, and where can it be found?

My Answer: Only in the study of Kabbalah.

Question: If I understand that everything I do is for the Creator’s sake, and my intention is “for the sake of the Creator,” how can I use Kabbalah to achieve my purpose in life?

My Answer: If you’re already at a point where everything is for the Creator’s sake, then there’s nothing more for you to do…

Question: How is it possible to go from external love to inner love?

My Answer: The same way it is possible to go from egoism to altruism.

Related Material:
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Wondrous Wisdom: “Perceiving the Spiritual”
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Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Transforming Egoism to Altruism”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Time of Ascent”

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A question I received: What is your opinion of how Americans are reacting to the crisis?

My Answer: I have two comments on this:

1. Americans are hoping to wait it out, and for everything to quickly end of its own accord.

2. They are placing big hopes on Obama. The public expects that once he comes to power, everything will be fixed within a couple of months.

But neither of these will happen! There may be short periods of “intermission” – but they will be followed by another blow! In addition, the crisis still hasn’t been expressed in a multi-faceted fashion; people still don’t see that it is interconnected with everything, including the high divorce rates, depression, the ecology, natural disasters, massive famine, and the outbreaks of violence and infection that are happening everywhere. We’re only reacting to it now because it got to our wallets. However, the crisis in science, upbringing, the family, and so on has been going on for a long time! But like true egoists, we only react when something goes wrong with our money! However, now we also have to feel the other facets of the crisis, which we did not react to previously.

Related Material:
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News Report (from CNSNews): “Where Did the Bailout Money Go? Banks Can’t, or Won’t, Say” After receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it. … The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers. … no bank provided even the most basic accounting for the federal money. … Garrett, the New Jersey congressman, said the nation might never get a clear answer on where hundreds of billions of dollars went.

Gazeta.ru reports that the situation in Russia is similar: President Vladimir Putin stated that the financial sector received five trillion rubles in aid; however, most of this money never reached the economy.

My Comment: Indeed, these are the natural actions of our egoism. The people who got their hands on this money are unable to let go of it. The solution is to immediately create a different system of all our interactions. It must start with a global education and upbringing. But for the time being, we should institute a wide-ranging social regulation, as Baal HaSulam advises in the article “The Last Generation” (meaning the last egoistic generation).

Related Material:
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News Report (from Psychological Science): (By Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University) When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ – your toe is flattened in both cases – but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless. Intentional harms are premeditated by another person and have the specific purpose of causing pain. In a sense, intended harms are events initiated by one mind to communicate meaning (malice) to another, and this could shape the recipient’s experience.

My Comment: This comes from the Upper Root of our relationship with the Creator: if we desire to receive without paying attention to Him, the Giver, then we perceive what we receive as this world – bitter, difficult, and temporary. However, if we desire to feel what we receive together with Him, the Giver, then we feel the Upper World, which is eternal and perfect. Then, when our world disappears (when the body dies), our perception – the sensation of the Giver we attained – stays with us forever, as do He and we.

For example, suppose I receive a present. I enjoy it. But then I begin to feel that it has a defect. This helps me to think about the Giver. My egoism cannot stop thinking about Him and asking, “Why isn’t this gift perfect”? As I think about the Giver’s action, I start to scrutinize this action (which is the thought of creation). I examine: what is happening to me from the moment when I started being aware of receiving something from Him, and what is His goal for doing this?

As I reveal His behavior, I begin to understand Him and see that He is kind, good and loving. I start to feel something new: I forget about (and lose the perception of) the gift itself – of our world and our life. What remains is only He and I (without the gift) and our relationship, the sensation of the Upper Life that emerged by virtue of the gift. But we don’t need the gift any longer.

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The year 2008 ended with the financial crisis. But in truth, the crisis began decades ago – in art, science, the family (divorce), education, the general depression, drug abuse, and useless professions. However, like the true egoists that we are, we reacted to it only when it got to our wallets. The crisis was revealed through none other than the relationships we’ve created, which became global. We discovered that we are interconnected and interdependent – and full of hate for each other. When this happens in a family, the couple gets a divorce, but what are we to do? Therein lies the real crisis, and our future depends on its solution.

2009 will be the year when we will realize that we are all one family. People will recognize that their egoistic nature is evil; they will begin to open their eyes and to think differently. This will make it easier to live through the hardships. People will feel that Nature, which created the egoism within us, is forcing us to change. By correcting our relationships, we can accelerate and mitigate the course of the crisis. Suffering and the will to survive will force us to start observing the Biblical commandment of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” – and then he crisis will be replaced by a world that’s good and full of Light. This is what I wish for you in 2009!

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Two questions I received on feeling repulsed by unity:

Question: All of this hugging and singing at the Congresses and friends’ assemblies seem ridiculous and artificial. It’s simpler for me to study over the Internet and to work on dissemination than participate in such actions of unification.

My Answer: You are absolutely correct – these actions look childish, awkward, artificial and fake. But this is exactly what we have to do. All the participants understand that they are playing – playing against their own egoism. By performing these actions and making efforts, they draw the Upper Light that corrects them. Our game is like the game of a child, and it’s the most serious thing you can do because this is precisely how a person grows! The difference is that a child is forced to play by Nature, in order to develop, whereas we must be the ones to force ourselves to play. This is our freedom of choice: in choosing the spiritual development.

Question: I’ve been listening to your lessons for a long time, and every time you say that we are one soul and all human beings are involuntarily connected with each other, I get very irritated and disturbed hearing this again and again. Why it is so difficult to accept and understand this?

My Answer: Because it subconsciously humiliates, obligates and limits your egoism.

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A question I received: As the population grows and develops, does this mean that the egoism also increases since it is distributed according to the number of people (for example, seven billion)? What happens to the egoism if the population is reduced, for example, after wars or natural disasters?

My Answer: The common soul divides into whatever number of souls it takes to overcome the egoism of each one. A war brings about suffering, which allows people to overcome egoism. Therefore, the population is reduced. This doesn’t happen because of the war, but because the souls do not need so many bodies.

Whether people live or die is determined by the necessity of the soul’s correction. However, in our world we are only able to see the result of this action – the body’s death, rather than the real reason for it. Thus, we draw our conclusions according to this degree of concealment of the world from us.

Related Material:
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News Report (translated from Pravda.com.ua): The Ukrainian Secretary of Finance, V. Pinzenik stated: “The world can come out of the crisis if we all reach out to each other. The key problem facing the world right now is egoism. In a normal situation, egoism is the right thing. But in the current situation, the world will not come out of the crisis unless people forget all about egoism for a year. The problem is in people’s heads.”

My Comment: Actually, egoism has never been “the right thing,” but the world has never known another nature. However, now that we’ve revealed our integral interconnection in one closed system, we will be forced to subdue every person’s individual egoism in favor of the system’s existence. We must forget about egoism forever. And the problem is not just in people’s heads. We don’t know how to get rid of egoism. Therefore, humanity will still have to go through the following stages:

• Finding the correct definition of “What is egoism?”
• Recognizing that man’s egoism is the only source of evil
• Recognizing that egoism is our entire nature
• Recognizing that it’s impossible to get rid of egoism
• Discovering that Kabbalah is the means to replace egoism with altruism
• Applying Kabbalah and attaining the integral existence of all people

Only the dissemination of Kabbalah is able to reduce this path of suffering. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see that people are beginning to open their eyes! They have never done this before!

Related Material:
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News Report (from The Economist): The cimarrón is one of at least ten alternative currencies in different parts of Venezuela. … But none of these tokens can be exchanged for the bolívar, the country’s legal currency. Their use is limited to “prosumers” – you have to bring something to sell before you can actually buy anything with them. … ‘It’s magic,’ says Pablo Mayayo, an Argentinian who is advising Venezuelans on these schemes. ‘When you take away money… people relate to each other in a different way, by co-operating, not competing.’”

My Comment: Kabbalah states that progress is programmed by nature and determined by the egoism that continuously grows in us. Our egoism cannot be stopped, but it can be corrected. Then, instead of using it to harm others or for illusory self-benefit, we will use it to benefit everyone. This is the principle of a closed system, and today we are revealing that human society is just such a system.

Therefore, any movement backwards, our attempts to reverse history, are opposite to nature and will inevitably bring about an even greater crisis.

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News Report (from Leadership Nigeria): Pope Benedict XVI yesterday warned that the world was swimming toward ruin if self-interest prevails over solidarity during tough economic times… Benedict said, “If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart.”

Related Material:
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