Seeing The World As Paradise

Question: We have created a weapon so powerful that all of us have the opportunity not only to nullify and dissolve, but also to develop, to grow for the good of the society.

We have learned to feel ourselves as a single whole. What do we need to add to feel the Creator more clearly? Where must we make an effort besides in the lesson, besides praying for the success of our friends?

Answer: Everything that I feel around me is my soul, it is all me, but, in my perception, all of the people are detached from me by my ego. If I neutralize it, I will stop feeling them as contrary and opposite to me. I will begin to wish for them what I formerly wished for myself, meaning the best. Then, I will be using myself, my ego, in the right way, to correct it.

It is not about having the right attitude toward others, not about love of others; rather, it is to correct my ego within me.

How can I correct it? It is only according to the examples that I see: This one, I don’t love for this reason and that one for other reasons. That one is distorted, this one is repulsive, evil, and so forth. My ego portrays an emotional picture for me of my relationship toward everyone. I criticize everyone, just like everyone else does, for they have something to criticize others about, as it is written, “With his own blemish he stigmatizes [others] as unfit” (Talmud Kiddushin 70a).

I criticize the world that is portrayed to me as terrible, and I see it as getting even worse because the ego is growing. We perceive the world this way, according to how the ego portrays it to us: people fighting, someone kills someone, everything possible. That is how the ego draws a picture of the world for us, not within us, but outside of us so that everything will be perceived more vividly, clearly, and juicily.

In order to correct the ego, a very good indicator has been given to me. I must bring myself to such a state where I see the world as the Garden of Eden (paradise): People love each other, they are only doing good for one another, and they merge into a single whole of mutual love.

In addition, it is the same thing in the still, vegetative, and animate nature. It depends on the internal correction of the person. The world itself doesn’t change; it is permanent. The person is the one who changes and sees the world differently. This is the entire correction.

When you are together, do you perceive a situation like this where you don’t see anything negative in the friends?

At first, one seems lazy to you, another seems dirty and disorganized, and a third is noisy. One annoys everyone with his pomposity and another through his shouting. No one knows his place. That is how you evaluate everyone at first.

Can you now say that these people are closer to you, that you don’t see any distorted faces, any harmful gazes? This is because when you live with someone, you no longer pay attention to his defects and perceive him as some kind of general image. For example, a little child doesn’t see his mother, but knows that there is someone big next to him: This is his mother.

Can you say the same thing about your relationship with the friends? Has some kind of change taken place in them, at least partially? Do you feel, even egoistically, that you can’t imagine your life without them? Do you feel that fragments of you are scattered throughout Russia, as if your body has been torn to pieces and scattered to different locales?

A person’s sensation must be precisely like this, really to such a degree that you will begin to feel each other, experiencing parallel states, and, after that, a single common state of ascent or descent. You even will begin to feel each other’s physiological states: how this one has a stomachache and that one a headache.

There was a time in ancient days when these were the requirements of a doctor. This is because medicine was not based on all kinds of devices, but on the doctor’s feeling the state of the patient because he was a divine doctor. Correction was a profession where one corrected another. So, by feeling him, he had to work together with the Light to convey it to the patient, to help him. This was a completely different medicine.

In this way, it is necessary to scrutinize what we are missing all the time so that the situation of the separate bodies will disappear and everyone will become “like one person with one heart.” They will move in sync. They will understand and feel each other where everyone must optimally be at every moment. This is not Brownian movement; it is not chaotic. Rather, it is internally coordinated because a single Light acts upon and influences everyone.

If we direct ourselves like this, we will raise our sensitivity. Then, we will begin to feel how one force is working within us and is gathering us together to the degree of our sensitivity toward it, to the required degree, by our inner yearning and constant attraction.

This is all of our common work that only can be done collectively. One person can jump, walk, make an effort, but, for him nothing will come of it. Essentially, he is doing everything right, but the proof that he is doing this for the sake of the Creator, is when he carries out these activities together with others, wanting to connect with them.

Why? It is because the ego was created specifically to separate us, and, through nullifying it, a person directs himself toward the Creator, toward resemblance and equivalence with Him. The ego is a helper that we cannot do without.
[142480]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2