A Light Feather That Weighs A Hundred Tons

Question: What kind of exertion is the means for spiritual advancement, and can I help a friend exert himself or do I steal his work from him by that?

Answer: Exertion is whatever is above my human abilities. I cannot help another and complete his work, but I can set an example for him so that it will be easier for him to exert himself.

So I don’t steal his work, but rather help him. The more we help one another by setting an example so that it will be easier for a friend to exert himself even more, the more efficiently we will advance.

With this, we exchange the corporeal exertion with a spiritual exertion! Then the corporeal work seems very difficult and the spiritual work seems very easy because you add the force of the group to it. The result is that you have to move a load of a hundred tons and you move it, but you have the aid of a million people pushing the load with you.

You don’t have to feel the weight of the load that is 100 tons. These 100 tons are necessary only so that through them you will attain connection with a million people.

Therefore, there is no need for senseless sufferings; all we have to do is to understand why we suffer.

If you feel difficulty, pain, rejection, and sorrow in a certain place, it means that it isn’t the right exertion. As it says: “Thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob.” If with great effort and sweat you carry the load that was given to you by the Creator, it means that you are not exerting yourself correctly, and this burden belongs to someone else and not the Creator.

The pleasure from work is knowing for Whom we are exerting ourselves.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/12, Shamati #117

It Is The Light That Gives Birth To Man

The Zohar is the Light that Reforms, and The Book of Zohar is also called “the Upper Light.” We can enjoy this Light only if we know how to draw it, when we are in equivalence of form with it.

What should we do in order to attain equivalence of form with the Light? The Light bestows, how can I bestow? If I tighten the connection with the friends, annul my ego a bit in order to connect with them, try to be a bit closer to them through different actions, events, and by dissemination, I become a bit more similar to the Light. To the extent that I get closer to it, I am rewarded by it influencing me more.

The Light is fixed in its bestowal, but by my actions I draw myself closer to it and become more like it. Thus, I am rewarded with the influence of the Light, and as a result my vessel becomes the one that bestows.

According to my internal change, when I become the one who bestows in my desires and my attributes, I begin to discover the changes that occur in me. Suddenly I discover such desires and thoughts (in the heart and mind) that are totally different from the ones I had before. Thus I feel more and more changes inside me until I acquire a new state in which I feel: “That’s it, I’ve changed!” This change reveals a new collection of attributes, desires, and thoughts in me that is called a Partzuf, man (Adam), or the Creator, which are all the same.

Since according to this new structure, the sum of the attributes, desires, and thoughts in me, I discover a new internal figure, which is a “human,” and in it, I discover its root, the reason that gave it birth, which is the Creator. Thus we discover our spiritual development.

Let’s hope that by our yearning for the level of Adam, which means that in return for the annulment of our ego, the connection with others and with the whole world, and the study of The Zohar, we will enjoy the Light that Reforms and will receive the form of a “human.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/12, The Zohar

Let There Be Fewer Penalty Laps

Question: Is it important to understand exactly what the Creator wants from me or is it most important to simply continue as best as one can?

Answer: The Creator wants only one thing from you: for you not to leave Him.

There is no thought, desire, or action in the world, which does not lead towards the revelation of the Creator, directly or indirectly. There is nothing besides this.

We would have revealed Him directly, but this is practically impossible to do. And since we are not capable of moving from point “A” to point “B” by the shortest direct path, a number of indirect reasons arise that direct us and make us move.

These events may confuse a person in many ways, placing obstacles in front of him and making him spin around them for many long years before he makes one step forward. Although it would seem that he could have moved directly without going around.

But in everything that is happening in the world and in the whole of the human history, there is nothing besides the movement towards the Creator. Why else should all events occur if everything is defined by the opposition of the Light and the vessel and the revelation of the Reshimot, (informational genes)? Everything is directed only at clarifying and correcting them. Either, we directly perform our work on them, or as a consequence of the separation, nature will make us come to the same result by the path of suffering. However, this will take a long time since the forces of egoism (Klipot) are stretching it out like rubber, turning each point into a long period, in this way depriving us of strength and confusing us.

As it is said: “The Creator created man straight, but people have thought up of numerous retributions.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/12, Shamati #25

A Test For Selflessness

Question: What is love of the Creator?

Answer: Love is an opportunity to fill someone else’s deficiency (vessel) using my own vessels. In our world we love because it gives us pleasure: delicious and familiar food, people that please us, my children to whom I am naturally attached. We call this love.

But spiritual love is not when I fill my vessels by someone or something, but when I fill the vessels of others. This is the exact opposite of what we are used to thinking about the concept of love. The spiritual world is opposite from the corporeal world. If I worry about someone else’s vessels and want to fill them the way he wants them filled, it means that I love that person.

As long as we love each other and everything is fine, we make a covenant with the Creator in order to sustain this relationship, even if everything changes because of different external reasons. No matter what happens—I want to keep the same force of love and connection between us.

The question is how can this be done if I suddenly discover that the Creator is responsible for all my troubles? My faithful and beloved partner suddenly stops looking at me and causes me all kinds of troubles and problems. He betrays me in every way and does everything against me and becomes my chief enemy. So how can I maintain the good attitude towards Him under such conditions?

But the adhesion to the Creator means that I have gone through different states and have reached a state in which I receive nothing from Him, nothing but the feeling of darkness. But above all that I build a relationship of love, bestowal, and connection despite the problems and the sufferings that He causes my ego. In such a case it can be called adhesion.

The vessels in which I attain adhesion have to be restricted and concealed. Above them there is my Masach (screen) and Returning Light, and there is adhesion in the vessels of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

A Covenant In The Returning Light

Question: How can we make a covenant among friends?

Answer: A covenant among friends is possible only if there is an upper party ensuring its preservation. A covenant can be kept only when we all connect with the upper force, which provides the union.

There is no chance that we will be able to keep this covenant by ourselves, but if we connect, we can demand this from the Creator—if we do it for Him.

The result is that “Israel,” the people who yearn for the Creator, the Light that Reforms, the Torah, and the Creator are joined together, and then the Creator keeps the covenant according to our request.

When darkness, separation, and conflicts come, this covenant is revealed and exists among us. But as long as everything is fine, it is impossible to test it. The test is only when we feel bad.

When we feel good, we don’t need any covenant; as long as there is the Light, it connects all the parts. The difficult part is to do so when the Light disappears, to keep these parts together then. This is called a covenant.

But how can you draw the Light in a time of darkness? It is impossible. But we want to reach a state in which even when we don’t feel the Light in our receiving vessels, we will feel the Light in our Masach (screen) and the Returning Light—a fulfillment in the vessels of bestowal instead of an egoistic fulfillment.

Today, I am a loyal slave of my desire to receive, and I want to serve in order to fill someone else in the same way. This will be a pleasure for me. This means that I want to make a covenant.

The covenant is tested only in the dark, when I get no fulfillment but I still want to keep the same good relations that I had before. Instead of my egoistic pleasure, I want to restrict my ego: a Masach and the Returning Light.

This is called a covenant; it is a state in which I don’t work for myself anymore but rather in order to bestow. This means that I keep the same attitude not only when I feel good, but when I feel bad too. When the good state returns, I don’t want to be confused and be enslaved by the desire to receive over and over again, and so I make a covenant for that purpose.

I want to feel pleasure in the vessels of bestowal; I want to restrict my desire to receive and work with the pleasure by building a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above this restriction. I turn to the friend with this Returning Light and connect with him. This is called a covenant.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

An Embryo: A Stranger Or One’s Own, From The Earth Or From Above?

In the News (from New Scientist): “It is one of the greatest mysteries of pregnancy: how a fetus avoids being attacked by its mother’s immune system. …

“The mammalian body usually responds to foreign cells or tissue by releasing chemicals that promote inflammation and summon immune cells called T-cells to destroy the invaders. But during pregnancy, something turns off this process. This means that despite containing genetic material from the father, the embryo can implant in its mother’s uterus and grow there safely without triggering an immune response. …

“Erlebacher’s team [Adrian Erlebacher at the New York University School of Medicine and his colleagues] found that cells of the decidua, the lining of the uterus where the embryo implants, did not produce the usual chemical signals that would trigger inflammation and summon T-cells to the site. Closer inspection of these decidual cells revealed changes to the structure of DNA around the genes that usually produce these chemical beacons, resulting in them being silenced. …

My Comment: Turning off the synthesis of the foreign body signaling protein occurs under the influence of “unnatural” forces of love and bestowal arising in the egoistic body relative to its progeny that develops in it. This is due to the penetration of the upper Light in the desire that It created in the first stage of the four stages of expansion of the Light. And the Light in the desire gives the desire Its property—to create, which is similar to the process of reproduction—gestation and birth.

The process of conception, birth, breastfeeding, and upbringing is similar to the act of creation of the Creator. It occurs in stage 2, Bina that wants to be like stage 0, Keter. Thus, on the instinctive level of the desire (0 – 1 – 2 – 3), the creature, which is forced by the desire, becomes similar to the Creator. And on the fourth stage of its development, it forces itself to become like the Creator consciously, in attaining His attitude toward the creatures and in comparing oneself to Him, in the process of its correction; that is, spiritual reproduction, development of the soul: its conception, prenatal development, birth, breastfeeding, and growing up, up to the full equivalence with the Creator.
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Preparing High Level Experts

The training course for integral education teachers and educators should include, among others: the formation of the integral force as a new and unprecedented component.

If a football team, for example, gets together, it is simply the sum of all their efforts.

But here, since every individual annuls himself before the others, thereby raising all the others and wanting to be equal to them, to attain the common field, the agreement among everyone, we begin to feel that a new force is born among us: a new collective desire and a new mind. It is as if a new collective person is born (let’s call him Adam) who is created between us. And we live our collective life, in collective desires, in collective attributes, and in  collective thoughts.

This must be included in the training for teachers and educators, they must know about this. All the others will feel it instinctively; they will have the feeling that they somehow know it.

Question: Should professionals teach these courses?

Answer: I think that we should invite scientists that will add to the material that we teach or we should use films that present their ideas. This illustrative material will give the students the opportunity to, first, be sure that they are not being taught fragmented and partial material and, in addition, to understand the issues more deeply, to learn to answer questions, and to be more knowledgeable. On the whole, these are the same topics of the integral method but a bit deeper.

Actually the method is very simple. The only thing we need to attain here is integrality, to feel the new integral force.

By the way, this force appears in every integral system, both in a mechanical system and in our bodies. This is because the body constantly monitors the balance of the bodily systems.

The same thing happens in a group when people attain integrality; they begin to reach such a self-sustaining internal balance, which leads to absolute wellbeing and comfort. They don’t want to leave this since it is a good feeling. Through these comfortable states, through the new collective desire and new mind, suddenly most of the problems are solved and most of them simply disappear since the system changes from digital (operating on pulses) to integral, to a round, harmonious, analog system.

The main thing is to explain to people, after several “round” workshops, that they should perceive what is created among them and relate with greater sensitivity to the this new force by which they will solve all their problems and will begin to rise above themselves, above the ego. This force will create a society that is on a higher level than the old one.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/22/12

Faith That Shines On A Dark Night

If the Creator is revealed or at least comes a bit closer to a person according to the equivalence of form one has attained, a person mustn’t allow himself to be lightheaded and to enjoy this pleasant feeling during the ascent. On the contrary, the time of the ascent is the most suitable place for working when we are required to add maximum exertion in order to more tightly hold on to the study, the group, the books, and dissemination.

We should try to maximize this time and understand that no one guarantees that all this won’t stop the next minute. Therefore, you must now, using all the means you have, tie yourself to the state of ascent, so that even if the pleasant state changes into the exact opposite state and becomes dark and unpleasant—a state of fogginess, confusion, helplessness, and powerlessness—then even in such states which are full of despair, you will want to remain adhered to the Creator.

This closeness will not sustain the pleasant states, but although you feel bad now in your desire to receive, you wish to remain loyal and to adhere to the King. So neither the ascents nor the descents will affect you if you feel or don’t feel a filling in your vessels of receiving. On the contrary, it is when there is no filling that you can be sure that you are operating without any self-reward, in order to bestow.

In order to do that you need a “covenant.” If you yearn for bestowal, you discover that you can form such a covenant with the King, and that the Creator will keep this covenant. Thus you can be sure that when the descents come and you feel that you are totally empty and cannot hold on to bestowal, thanks to your earlier work, you will be able to remain adhered even in the “dark.”

Our whole work is actually done at “night,” where bestowal and faith are. As it says: “Say your grace in the morning and your faith at nights,” since it is at “night” that faith and bestowal are revealed.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

Don’t Resist Change

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” item 4: Hence, those who claim that because of our lowliness and nothingness it is not fitting for Him to watch over us, and therefore, He has left us, do nothing but display their ignorance. Try to imagine, if you were to meet some man who would create creatures, precisely so they would suffer and agonize their whole lives as we do, and not only that, but cast them behind his back, not wanting even to look after them, to help them a little. How contemptible and low you would regard him! Can such a thing be thought of Him?

We are very limited in our feelings and cognitive abilities, in our self-perception, and in perceiving what is above us such as the laws of time and place. So of course we cannot accurately understand and establish the right attitude to life and to the Creator.

It isn’t by chance that it says: “Don’t show a fool a job that is half done.” Seeing only a small part of reality, can we determine the general picture? Even in our lives there are different states. Most cannot even imagine in advance that one state will pass and will turn into the opposite state. So if we speak about what is concealed from us, is it possible to come to any conclusions?

I believe, however that it doesn’t stop us. Kabbalsits want to save us hard labor, blows, and the prolonging of time, so they tell us from the beginning that the Creator is good and benevolent and that He is in a state of absolute rest. After all perfection is not subject to change; on the contrary, all the changes take place in us. They will occur one way or the other, but we can determine the form they will take.

You can assess the changes egoistically by measuring how much pleasure they bring you and you can also assess them differently, according to how close they bring you to the One who bestows—to what extent you’ve managed to resemble Him. If you assess the changes according to how much you receive, you will suffer until you learn to assess the states you are in and life itself by other values, according to your closeness to the Creator and your similarity to Him. According to this calculation, the degrees of your ascent as a man (Adam) that resembles (Domeh) the Creator will be built. This in fact is the whole point.

So there is a beginning, the process itself, and an end. The events occur and you have no say, and you don’t determine how you will change either. You only have to determine your feeling: How do you accept the inevitable changes? This is the only thing that depends on you.

People who accept their development as desirable are called “righteous.” Those who resist this development and don’t want it are called “wicked.” Accordingly, we feel good or bad: The feeling of life, our development, reality, everything depends on how you aim or “calibrate” yourself to perceive what is happening. Of course, whatever has to happen will happen, but depending on your internal calibration called correction, you can feel the full range of emotions from minus Ein Sof (Infinity) to plus Ein Sof. Everything depends on the degree of your agreement with what is happening.

It is by that, that the wisdom of Kabbalah helps us. If a person agrees with the changes and the corrections, if he wants to be corrected and to accept all the new steps as desirable, if he even wants to hasten these states so that they will pass as fast as possible and is ready to accept whatever the future brings “above reason”, above all the calculations, since he is already in a state of faith and bestowal, then it doesn’t matter what actually happens at the moment. In this case a person hastens the development, feels it as special, sublime, and wonderful, and this is desirable in the eyes of the Creator.

Everyone should reach this form of development, and until then, we won’t advance since we cannot advance in a bad way. A person can simply stand still, receiving new troubles and sufferings each time on the present level, until he agrees to change himself and to establish the right attitude towards his development. So on every level a person either prepares oneself in advance to the changes or accepts every change as a blow, which cause him to change under the pressure of different forces. In any case, the changes are necessary, and so consciously or under a shower of blows, a person will be compelled to accept the development as a wonderful and desirable thing.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Not A Minute Of Suffering

Question: Should we examine the issue of life and death and the solution to this question in the basic course of integral education?

Answer: I think it is possible because we are speaking about a person’s desire.

We should rate these desires from the level of the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animate up to the level of “Human.” We should explain that every desire takes over the others and thus suppresses them: The higher a desire is, the more real, intense, and dominating it is over the lower desires.

It is very hard to explain what the “human in me” means right from the start. It is above my animal level, above my corporeal life. If I feel that I am human, when I don’t think about the body but rather am filled by some idea, I actually don’t feel my body—it is as if I am floating above myself.

If I descend to the animal level, like an ordinary person in this world, I feel the body. But in any case, while being in my animal body, I don’t feel pain when I cut my hair or my nails because it is at the vegetative level.

If I descend to the vegetative level, I don’t feel the inanimate level, where there are no nerves and so on.

Thus, we can speak about the development from the bottom up and about a person’s descent from the top down by explaining how he gradually leaves this life.

We can explain and show a person that if he is in this social, integral body that constantly supports him, he will not feel even a minute of suffering, not in this life and not when this life is over.

A person who is connected with others constantly becomes healthier by being connected to the system that is full of mutual connection with others, and so even if something happens to him, there is an energetic compensation on the account of others. Thus, society operates as a healthy body. If a thorn enters a person’s body, for example, the whole body begins to work against it, by pushing it out, by treating the infected area, etc. The same thing happens with a person in society—the society immediately feels all the person’s internal problems and provides him with the necessary energy, and he is healed.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 5/22/2012 

The Payment Will Be Just

It is known that “everything comes from above” and that “there is none else besides Him.” But it gives a person the opportunity to work. In spite of being able to attain and receive everything without any efforts, he, in any case, makes the efforts. This is in spite of the Creator not needing anything at all from him, not favors, not bestowal, not efforts and not suffering. A person, nevertheless, is ready to work through all of this since only then is he able to feel that it is real. On his part, he wants with all his heart and soul to be adhered to the Creator in general providence and also in individual providence.

When the reality of the spiritual levels is revealed to a person, then he sees that “there is none else besides Him,” and the creatures don’t achieve anything by their own power from within this perfection that is filled with everything and controlled completely. However, even though he sees that the Creator doesn’t need any action from his side, he clearly feels that he needs to act only because with all his might he wants to adhere to the Creator. And then the truth and faith connect inside him into one complete whole.

According to this, he begins to see the picture of the correct reality, since when he approaches adhesion and connection with humanity, with people, through them he reaches love for the Creator. As it says in the Torah: “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.” All that happens during different times and with different people unite into one for him because all reality is above time, movement, and space and is gathered in one place, one deficiency, in which all of its parts are similar to each other.

Thus, even though it seems to us that in this world there are people who make great efforts and others who harvest their rewards through the others’ efforts, in the end we see that all of this takes place in one Kli, in one desire. There is no disorganization or injustice here, since all of the disclosures connect together in one place and can belong to the Direct Light or the Reflected Light, to general providence or individual providence in the same process.

In the corporeal world, people think that the reward for their commandments await them in the next world, as it is written, “Today you do the work, and tomorrow you receive the reward.” But the next world is the next level that the person discovers here and now. The correct point of view is that the person’s reward is that he connects with others and then there is no difference as to where to make efforts, and the reward may be received in a completely different place. Since for him, all of this connects to one place, becomes one desire. And through the corrections everything comes to equivalence.

But during the preparation period, the concealment operates as long as a person hasn’t attained the same desire. The concealment is necessary in order to give him the opportunity to make efforts. After all, in the meantime, he doesn’t work for the sake of bestowal. As long as he hasn’t attained it, he discovers malfunctions in order to awaken him so he will make efforts in Lo Lishma (Not for Her Sake). But when he arrives atLishma (For Her Sake), he begins to appreciate the efforts themselves as reward, and despite the fact that he sees perfection, he finds a place to make efforts.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/12, Shamati #43

Why Love The Other?

Question: The call or, as you say, the commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” has been discussed many times, and many desired to implement it, until it turned into the appeal for children to be peaceful, rather than the real call for grown-ups to change their relationships. What’s the difference between your appeal and others, and why are you certain that you will be able to realize your fantasy?

Answer: When ordinary people, the 99%, talk about connection, they refer to the correction of human society, similar to how we advise children to be friends and not to argue. When Kabbalists, the 1%, talk about connection, for them this connection is the means for reaching a higher goal: the revelation and attainment of the Creator, the upper force of nature, and reaching the next level of development, the sensation of the upper world.
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Overview Of The Integral Education Course: The History Of The Evolution Of The Ego

Since our nature is the desire to receive and to be filled (to fill our corporeal desires for food, sex, and family; and our human desires for money, respect, control, and knowledge), our ego revealed in these desires was constantly developing and determining the advancement of humanity since ancient times until the middle of the 20th century. So, we have been constantly changing, and at the same time changing our society, developing technology, industry, and family and social arrangements, and so on.

Starting from the middle of the 20th century, the ego stopped its linear growth and started to grow round, which means to become egoistically global. And so, we discover that nature around us is opposite from us, that is, it is altruistically global (in bestowal). These two systems are now in a conflict.

Our role is to make sure that they will not be in a conflict and will not negate one another; otherwise, humanity will begin to destroy itself by summoning an undesirable negative influence from nature. It is important that humanity becomes more like nature and in harmony with it.

This means that the development of the ego has reached its end. For a long time, it has pushed us forward; we believed that it was the way to change the world and to do whatever we want with it, and now this has come to an end.

Now the world, nature, is turning against us, demanding that we change. So we have to switch from changing our environment to changing ourselves.

This is very difficult and it is impossible to agree to it, but we see that many people in the world have already reached this conclusion.

The integral education method is built to tell, explain, reassure, and convince people that it isn’t difficult to change one’s self under the influence of the environment and the society. If we operate this way, we will create a harmonious society and a life that will open new heights to us.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/22/12

Reviving The Routine Work

In order to reach a goal we need the means, and our means is our exertion. The more we exert ourselves and the more focused, clarified, and goal oriented our exertion is, the more strongly we draw the Light that Reforms that advances us.

Therefore, every moment in life is given to us in order to search for and to clarify what is the most effective thing that I should do that will help me draw the Light that Reforms, as it says: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice for it, since the Light in it reforms,” which means that you correct the evil inclination and turn it into a good inclination. In this good inclination, like in a good vessel, you receive the feeling of spiritual life.

This is the formula of correction. So our exertion is to try to discover the most effective means at any given moment.

A person usually floats along the current of life thinking that he advances this way. But the passive floating allows him to advance on the “inanimate” level. Suppose he is in agroup, studying and taking part in different events and all this becomes routine for him. He is in under the influence of the general force field that advances in one general current all those who want to reach the goal, but this is called “Holy still,” and there is no personal advancement here yet. The personal advancement depends on a person’s daily exertion in order to spur himself and add flavor and acridity to this dish by himself: salt and pepper and other spices.

He must understand that he has no choice, and it is only possible to be spurred by these sharp situations into which he is thrown mercilessly, by being shown how opposite and how distant from spirituality he is. If he isn’t afraid of building up an appetite by these not-so-pleasant spices, he is spurred and can already perform some independent actions and not just float in the general current of his society. So we constantly have to exert ourselves, as it says: “You have labored and you found—believe,” which means that then it happens, and the Creator is revealed to a person. But this is only if a person exerts himself above the daily routine. This is a problem for us, since it is very hard to kick a habit. We are used to our daily schedule, the same hours and to the same filling that we receive according to a regular timetable, to the same amount of exertion; “a habit becomes a second nature.”

I have been exerting myself for many years and it seems that I am constantly on track. So I feel less satisfied and begin to complain: What is happening with me, why is there no result?” I don’t notice that I have been floating with the general current. Regarding the spiritual level, it is an inanimate body, a dead body that doesn’t move. This is because I haven’t exerted myself. Spirituality is revealed to a persona according to his personal exertion, to the preparation of his own vessel, his desire. Of course, I am still moving and advancing a little, since I am part of some activities, but the important thing is that above the daily routine and the general current there should be my private clarification, by which a person constantly internally evokes his appetite, by hot spices and unpleasant questions.

He should constantly check and pressure himself by trying to hasten time, and he must really exert himself in order to fulfill the saying: “You have labored and you found, believe!”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/12, Shamati #117

Is Man A Rational Being?

Question: Is man a rational being after all?

Answer: This is a big question. In our time, the consciousness of mankind is aimed at self-destruction. Today we are not rational in any regard.

We call it a “crisis,” but I would call it something else. These are sequential steps towards self-destruction, just like a rabbit that moves straight into the jaws of a snaked as if it were hypnotized, and there is nothing it can do about it. Hypnosis pulls him forward, and he must come to it. I do not consider this to be a rational approach to life.

Today we are simply slaves to our egoism. It has reached its maximum, and it rules over us without any subtleness or other calculations and leads us towards self-destruction so we would finally reach the realization of evil.

I cannot say if this will be reached through enormous suffering. This depends on the people, on the dissemination of the method of integral upbringing and education.

But our current development is not rational. We neither see anything rational in our consumption, communication, arts, sciences, nor in their use.

We see that money rules everything. Mass media is above politics, government, the judicial system, reward and punishment: All are ruled by money. And this is absolutely not rational! This is a purely egoistic category, which does not exist in nature!

We could understand it if it were done for power, knowledge, and fame. If wealth were synonymous with power, fame, and knowledge, then this would be a different story, but it is simply wealth for the sake of wealth. It is beyond the limits of corporeal values and categories. It is becoming something virtual.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/21/12

Preventing The Impending Threat

Question: Suppose we have information about future threats that worry us. We hear it and we agree with it. What can we do in order to prevent it?

Answer: We have many options, and many ways to disseminate. First we have to use all the different protest movements, since they are actually an internal protest against everything that is happening in the world these days: against the rising prices, the uneven share of the wealth, and other such phenomena. This protest is against the current state of society. We can use the protest actions successfully in order to convey the massage to the masses. We can use the concern a person has for children. We see the ugly way children are being educatedthese days. They don’t receive any form of education but merely information, and they don’t want that either. There is violence in schools, drug problems, sexual abuse, etc., families are falling apart and few want to preserve the family.

We must somehow try to show a person that it is certainly possible to live differently, although he has grown tired of all the attempts to do something. It all so simple: He simply needs to surf the net and to reach the course of integral education.

Working with school children, we use a very interesting method: First, the teachers are trained and then they use the integral method in the classroom. We can see the results within several weeks as the children change. Parents suddenly see totally different children who have become better, more pleasant, obedient, and so on. Then there is the need to change the parents, since the environment influences the children. This means that they, too, have to participate in a course of integral education. There is no need to tell them about the future changes, since the moment they begin the course and participate in the workshops, they suddenly discover a totally different existence, a different way of communicating, another life.

Today we are actively and intensively preparing a whole team of lecturers, teachers, educators, and organizers who will be dealing with this. But in the meantime, it is just a drop in the ocean.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 6/13/12