Unselfish Love

Question: Should friends maintain a connection between them that is similar to that between a mother and child?

Answer: Yes, it is a special internal unity between you and your friends that stretches deep into your most internal feelings, thoughts, and relation to the goal.

Comment: Often, it so happens that even if I demonstrate my internal concern to somebody, I don’t receive the same attitude in return. So, I end up in having a very weird connection with this person.

Answer: You don’t receive anything in return, so what? It is not written anywhere that a friend has to love you. Love is the feeling that if I love my friend, I am happy. It’s not about being loved and therefore feeling good.

You should not have claims against your friends for neglecting you (as you think they do.) Not at all! These reproaches have to be directed not to them, but to the Creator. You always talk with the Creator, not with your friends. This is the problem that is constantly overlooked.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 4

Chance To Help Humanity

Question: When I deal with the general public, it’s quite hard for me to feel them. Even though our knowledge about these issues is vast, maybe there is a shorter and more sensory, psychological way to approach them? My inability to find connection with these people hurts me a lot.

Answer: I understand that you cannot descend to the street level. It is very difficult. Often, it is much easier to ascend than to descend. However, this stage has to be covered.

For example, Baal HaSulam ascended on his own, but in order to write The Study of the Ten Sefirot, he asked the Creator to lower him. In his article “The Prophecy,” Baal HaSulam wrote: “…even if I descend from my sublime degree, I must make a heartfelt plea to the Creator, to grant me attainment and knowledge of the prophecy and wisdom, and the words by which to help the forlorn people of the world, to raise them to the same degree of wisdom and pleasantness as mine.”

Lowering to these people is very difficult! It’s anti-spiritual! It’s against the entire creation; it’s hard even in this realm! A real teacher who can lower to the level of a child and talk with him as an equal is a rare and wonderful professional. Usually, it is done mechanically.

In the workshops, you should practice to think as common people do, sense them and talk with them at their level. At the same time, it is quite dangerous. Try doing it very accurately and measure your ability to play as if you are one of them.

You have to learn how to transition between our level and lower degrees. You should dynamically switch between various levels and be in different states: become as a man, a woman, a child, a more or less educated person, or an ignorant one. You should play these roles very seriously and feel their reaction, needs, demands, and opinions.

At the same time, you have to remain at your own level and still be “dressed” in their image. This is called “Levush” (clothing). Only then you’ll establish a good contact with them.

Let’s say, your level allows you to define the other people’s degrees. How can you descend from your level and make contact with them? This process is called a “descent,” “clothing,” it is a pedagogically spiritual maneuver. Teachers use this method subconsciously. In our system, it should be accurately measured.

You must make a special Zivug de Aka’a (cohesion with the Light); i.e., you should transform yourself into a lower state and make contact with ordinary people in a way that both of your states merge. It is a very interesting job that we will have to learn to do. That’s why we are called “the teachers of humanity.”

It is very good that we already have a demand for this kind of work. Try talking about these issues with each other. This is actually all that the The Study of the Ten Sefirot is about. All our work is about it too. Then, through working on these states among you, you’ll start feeling them internally.

Also, it’s interesting because when one goes through these states, when one dresses in numerous new Partzufim, one becomes “round” and equal to the world of Infinity. This is the type of connection among people through which unity, love, and complete merging occurs.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 4

A War Between Good And Evil

Question: Do you feel that the warm unity that is being revealed in the people of Israel in the latest war is only a small taste of that complete connection that must exist between all people?

Answer: Very much so. A connection like this must exist between all people in the world, without exception. Everyone must feel that others are like his blood brothers. And the people of Israel must show an example of this: giving power and energy to this, helping others to organize.

This is specifically what the anti-Semites say, except differently; for after all, they still have not received any help in this from the people of Israel. And so they are asking for something good from us, but they blame us for being the source of all suffering.

Question: How does the connection of the people of Israel that is created in a time of war influence the world?

Answer: It has not yet influenced the world because we have not attained true unity. In the meantime, we are far from the state of being like one person with one heart. We must organize according to those processes that bring the people to general unity. And likewise, it is necessary to explain to the whole world that we are building an example for everyone.

The process that Israel must go through to unite as one nation is intended for other nations. And this symbolizes being “a light to the nations,” “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Without the inclusion of all peoples in this process, creation will not become a single integral system.

The people of Israel were already in a state like this. Now it is charged with an additional task: not just to connect between us as we once were, but specifically to bring the entire world to connection. So this is called the “complete redemption,” “the last generation.”

All of humanity must attain the same connection that once existed among the people of Israel. We are not just returning to that state. We are not connecting just to be united between us but in order to connect others. This is another task from the start, a new level, a new direction, and a new goal.

So we must disseminate this knowledge to all of the people of Israel, and to the whole world as well. This is specifically what we intend to do: to unite in order to unite the people of Israel and the whole world after it. We need to remember this goal from the outset, as it is said, “the final act is in the initial thought.”

So we must disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah and all that it says about the correction of the world and the mission of the people of Israel. And we will see how much this will be accepted in the world.

But if we don’t do this, then the whole world will join to support Gaza. Imagine the whole world siding with Gaza, connecting to it with all their heart and soul, and sending battleships, weapons, missiles, and aid there. What would we do then?

And this is what will happen if we don’t translate this war between good and evil inward, by directing against our evil, against the opposition to connection. This war of Gog and Magog was described clearly by the prophets. It was said that the whole world will join our enemy, and for example, the enemy that we see at the moment is Hamas.

Yet in fact no enemy exists, we materialize it through our separation. If we want Hamas to disappear, we only need to unite. Hamas has no other role besides the unification of the people of Israel.

All wars and suffering are directed only towards one goal, to obligate us to feel the power of unity and to rise to the level of a single consciousness. But we see that the moment that the war ends, the situation calms at least a little, and it becomes a bit quieter, we immediately fall from the level of unity.

And who has the responsibility for the people of Israel not descending from this state of unity? Those with have the method of Kabbalah, of unity. This means people who are studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and understand the whole program, the process, the powers of correction; they are the ones who are responsible for everything that is happening and must bring the method of unification to all of the people.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 8/12/14

On The Threshold Of A Grand Event

Question: What do we do when the feeling of unity begins to subside?

Answer: I advise everyone to seriously engage in even greater unity. Moreover, it should be distinctly aimed at creating one single desire directed at connection where the Creator will appear.

You must develop this thought in you, seek it constantly, analyze, collect, process, and refine it. It should constantly churn inside of you and you need to “suck” it like hard candy.

Strive to support each other and treat each other with great sensitivity. Do not distract one another from thinking about spirituality. Reread what Kabbalists write about the conditions of uniting at Mount Sinai in order to “be as one man with one heart.” These are the conditions for revelation of the Creator.

The entire world group stands at the threshold of this event. What is required in order to come to it? Find materials about standing at Mount Sinai and read them, trying not to perceive the language of the sources as religious.

Constantly remain in an increasingly more precise, pointed, common, mutual, and intertwining intention so that all your intentions will connect between you and create one single whole through which the Creator will be revealed. You can achieve this.

Do not confuse this most important goal with going out to the broad public. Going out among the people is meant only to “tighten” you a little more, to give you additional spiritual needs.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

The Conditions For Feeling Love

Question: Why is it that when I discover at least some love for the friends, I don’t find a place for effort?

Answer: Such a thing cannot be. Specifically with effort above your ego, in yearning to connect with the friends, love is revealed in theOhr Hozer (Returning Light) above the Masach (screen), above theTzimtzum (restriction). That is how the conditions for feeling love are discovered.

And this doesn’t relax a person like physical love does; on the contrary, he constantly holds onto the tension. He enters into or goes out of love, adjusting it qualitatively and quantitatively, in order to be in it all the time above his ego, in opposition to it. These complex aggressive actions don’t relax a person. It is necessary to activate them all the time.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

Equal Rights, But Don’t Mix

Question: Can a married man and an unmarried woman discuss the greatness of the goal in a single circle?

Answer: This is not easy, but it is possible to delineate the wisdom of Kabbalah with all the rest and orient yourself so that the entire difference between men and women disappears: with whom you are dealing with, how, and why.

But this requires serious, permanent work. For spirituality there should be a particular time, for materialism, another time. It is even necessary to give the body what it requires. Everything depends upon who the people are, what the connections and situations are.

I think that nevertheless it is better to conduct discussions in separate circles to prevent problems that can appear between the sexes and can very quietly lead people away from the goal, confusing them, and making them unable to separate from obsessive, disturbing thoughts. As a general rule, all kinds of arguments, issues, and conversations arise.

I am in favor of giving people equal rights, but not mixing. Give women all kinds of preference in all kinds of things, show them signs of attention and respect and in no way show disrespect.

Respect their readiness to invest themselves in the common goal, ask them to help you so they will not distract you; they are stronger than men in this regard.

And women must understand that the purity and morality of the group is in their hands. If they want, they will behave so that the men will not even look in their direction. In such a case you will truly have a strong and good group.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

Small Portions Of Light – The Force That Revives The Spirit

Question: Why is it that when you begin to talk about the inclination towards love and bestowal the listener is fascinated?

Answer: It is because there are small portions of Light in our world with regard to this. If a person focuses on their frequency, he begins to feel them and is attracted to them. But before that he needs some psychological exercises that will eventually help him feel the Light.

Small portions of Light have a healing effect on a person and so he wants to feel the same way personally and in the family because there is nothing better for the body and the soul than the attribute of love and bestowal. By that a person gets rid of all the flaws. If we could teach people who have cancer about love and bestowal, we would discover that this is the medicine for them.

Comment: This is why I am a great admirer of this program that gives people small portions of Light. Although you repeat the words love and bestowal many times, it is as if a person hears it anew each time. It is a paradox that always amazes me. Although I have been hearing this for many years, I always have the feeling of something new.

Answer: This is mainly felt by people who really understand that there is nothing to look for anywhere else. This is where a special natural attribute is revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/14

Salvation Is In A Group

Question: If physical lust and greed take a person over, tearing this life apart and destroying it, and as it seems to him, spiritual life as well, how can the group influence this?

Answer: It is very difficult to contend with jealousy, sexual attraction, and other particular disturbances. It is desirable to transform thesedisturbances into positive desires.

How is it possible to do this? Try to make a connection like this in the family that will completely satisfy you; even though that “lust” may appear while studying Kabbalah, this arousal is not at all hormonal, rather it is much higher. But anyway, that is what must be done.

Envy can be converted into a positive movement.

When you begin to learn more, realizing yourselves in connection with other people, you will gradually begin to feel that all of this is being given to you by the Creator. Ultimately our movement forward is based upon receiving all kinds of disturbances and using them correctly.

The disturbances seem physiological to us, but this is not so. You will never be able to calm them down or nullify them by any physical means but only through spiritual correction. It only seems to you that if you play them out until your senses are dulled, or what is called being “completely detached,” that this will help you. This won’t help!

Salvation is only through more rapid advancement in a group that will influence you so that no possibilities remain, not only to act but even to think about this. It is very important to place yourself in a framework like this so you won’t have the power or thought of carrying out these activities.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

On The Other Side Of The Ego

Question: By nullifying himself a person must nullify his ego, transforming his essence. But terrible fear appears in me: If the physical ego disappears, what will be left? Does spirituality blur and obscure then?

Answer: This is a very good and genuine feeling. If you feel this way, it is a sign that what is appearing in you is the correct impression of how much you are a primitive, small, and simple egoist. And if the ego disappears, then what will be left? Not your “I” or anything?

All of the spiritual perspectives are found on the other side of the ego. Through rejecting it, you will begin to feel a new dimension.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

An Honorable Privilege To Serve People

Question: The last war [in Israel] has brought about a special change in the younger generation and suddenly there is a different understanding, a great desire that did not exist before. A couple of months ago words like “unity” and “connection” did not appeal to young people, but the latest events have made them feel the connection between people and it is as if this feeling has been imprinted in them.

On the whole, it is actually the same generation that fought the war and if not they themselves, it was their friends. My daughter’s friend couldn’t wait to be recruited and was eager to reach the front and to do his share. For some reason he had the feeling that if he didn’t participate in it he would be missing something.

Answer: A person feels that he doesn’t get what he deserves. When he reaches the front, a soldier feels that he gets something for being there and not that he gives. It is a new phenomenon that we didn’t see before in wartime or in military operations. It belongs to the next level of a human being who begins to feel his giving as receiving.

A soldier who reaches the front and receives a weapon to carry out orders should feel that he sacrifices himself when he serves the nation. However, he suddenly feels that he receives since he acquires a feeling of belonging to his people and to the action that unites everyone. He receives the force of unity from that.

If he doesn’t go to the front, he doesn’t have this strong impression; it is as if he remains empty and he lacks this. So he yearns to be in the center of events in order to be with everyone not just physically, but mentally. It is then that he feels a filling. He understands that this is the only place that can fill him.

This time the feeling was very clearly expressed. Let’s hope that it will be enough to help us move forward this time without war.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 8/12/14

A Ring Of Unity Is Closing In On Us

Question: Why is anti-Semitism increasing throughout the world and how does this hatred towards the Jewish people connect with the eternal connection that exists within it?

Answer: This eternal connection among the Jewish people was created at the time of the exodus from Egypt when the people of Israel were hated and enslaved. The pressure and the blows helped to consolidate us, to agree to be as one person with one heart, and to reach the source of unification, the required power and intensity.

In this manner we began to feel the higher power, the central force that manages nature. It is possible to call this force the “Creator,” meaning nature. The name is unimportant; the main thing is that this power was revealed to us. We were already in this state, but afterwards, as a result of various events, we lost this power that united us and from this unity we descended to a state called “exile.”

We have already been in this exile for two thousand years. But now, according to a process through which all of nature is passing, we have reached a kind of limit when the people of Israel must return again to unity and bring all of creation to it. All of humanity must live in total unity and not just the people of Israel.

Therefore, nature is awakening the people of Israel and the whole world to this. It is impossible to believe, but people who have never seen a Jew in their life, somewhere in distant Oceania or South America, nevertheless, feel themselves belonging to that process. Everyone blames Israel.

Question: But this hatred is the opposite, against unity.

Answer: The hatred is derived from there being no unity among the people of Israel. This is the reason that all of the nations of the world feel bad. All of nature, the entire earth, must attain balance.

The world of the still, vegetative, and animate are in balance and harmony, in that, they support each other mutually. And only the human, because of his ego, departs from this balance and doesn’t want to be connected with all of nature. The human doesn’t even feel that he belongs to nature and is a part of it. The ego obliges him to think as if he exists on his own.

In the past, the people of Israel attained this power of unity that exists in nature and used it. We were connected among us, with all of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate, and likewise with the higher power that manages all of creation. This higher force is called “nature,” “Creator.”

Today we live in a world in which the higher power is again approaching us, this force of the universe is beginning to influence the planet, all of human society, as if a ring of unity is closing in on us. From this we feel ourselves dependent upon each other.

This is a cyclic process as usually happens in nature: sometimes this connection is revealed more and sometimes it is weakened. And as of today we are at the peak of the revelation of this power of unity. It is approaching us again, just like there are periods of maximal solar activity or some processes within the earth.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 8/12/14

A Spiritual Plague

Question: Every day we bring our desire to the morning lesson and especially during the study of The Zohar. How can we gather and raise our demand, our request to the Creator, during the lesson so as not to concentrate on the picture described but to see above it?

Answer: Of course, we shouldn’t concentrate on the pictures that are described, but  should come to the lesson with the impressions that we accumulated during the day:

• To what extent have I managed to overcome my clinging to my rigid perception by thinking that I bestow unto people and that they bestow unto me;
• To what extent have I tried to feel the Creator in all that, and that everything stems from Him;
• To what extent have I tried to see only the positive side in everything so that I can advance spiritually, despite different negative feelings, impatience, disruptions, and anger;
• To what extent have I tried to direct everything to the importance of the connection with the group in order to find the connection with the Creator.

I have to bring all the impressions and the experiences that I accumulate to the meeting with the group and during the lesson try to focus all my efforts on the unity with the Creator through the friends, which means to feel the spiritual body that is among us between me and the friends.

If I have not accumulated negative potential, I have nothing to bring to the lesson. I need to come to the lesson like to a special event in which I correct what I couldn’t do by myself without the connection with the friends without opening The Book of Zohar with them and receive through it the Light that glues and welds us together.

It is because I have tried to do it without the physical connection with the friends, without reading The Zohar together with them, but I did not succeed! Or I might have succeeded a little, but only to learn that I still lack their participation and so I have to come to the lessons. I come not because I am forced to and am obliged to, but because I yearn to do so. I have prepared myself for it.

It may seem that I speak about some ideal state, but we have to aspire to that. Of course if I come to the lesson like that, I will expect a lot from it; I will tremble and be afraid to miss this opportunity. This is what we have to attain and we can do that only in the form of a virus, by infecting one another by it. If this is the spirit among the friends, a person will see how everything works out for him and he how succeeds in everything he does.
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From the Talk at a Meal at the Toronto Congress, 4/8/14

Everyone Has His Own Disturbances

Question: The Creator gives everyone his or her own obstacles. I am forced to work 12 hours per day. How can I invest myself in the groupmost qualitatively in my remaining free time?

Answer: My teacher Rabash also worked 12 hours per day paving roads. This was

very hard physical work: hauling, pulling, pushing, moving from place to place, and digging. In those times, except for a shovel and a crowbar, there was no technology. Workers paved the highway from Jerusalem to Hebron from five in the morning until seven in the evening.

Certainly, on the one hand, you could try to find an easier job where you could improve your situation. On the other hand, if you invest not just effort but the right effort in the group, then everything will be changed: The Creator will give you more options. It could be that now the Creator is giving this to you so that you will transgress less.

No one knows. Here we want to see the big picture: Why is this given to a person in this way. We cannot interfere with this. But in principle, a person is able to choose lighter work for himself, but on condition that he will invest all of his free time and energy in serious spiritual effort.
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From the talk at a meal at the Toronto Congress, 4/08/14

A Prayer From The Bottom Of The Heart

Question: We have done great external and internal work in dissemination. What do we lack in the group in order to reach greater unity between us so that we will be able to reveal the Creator?

Answer: There is one word that replaces absolutely everything:prayer. I rarely speak about it because prayer should burst out by itself.

It is the feeling that you are totally dependent on the Creator and that He is the only one who manages you: whatever you think and feel, whatever you ask for and receive, everything except for the one point of turning to Him, although that also comes from Him—when you thus connect to Him and still want to do something external to Him in accordance to what He does for you—this is called a prayer.

This should be our common state because then it will focus on Him. But it comes from each of us separately and it is focused on the opposite direction. This is the point of recognition that you cannot go out of your way and with that you turn to the Creator so that He will unite all our points together, melt them and connect them into one drop.

I hope that we will recognize and understand that we need this prayer.

The force that destroyed us on purpose and has created all the conditions for the recognition of the oppositeness from the Creator is also the force that will correct this state of oppositeness and will give us a sense of the Creator.
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From the talk at a meal at the Toronto Congress, 8/4/14

Number One Willingness

Question: In one of our meetings six or seven years ago, you said that if we continued to study the wisdom of Kabbalah and accelerated our efforts, it would eventually bring us to a meeting with the Creator, to the end of correction. Has anything changed since then?

Answer: During this time, we have been through innumerable changes which you cannot even dream about. Don’t you see how the world is changing? Five years ago, we said, “Look at what will happen in a year.” In fact, it has not been one year but five years, but it has happened. If it were sooner, it would have been better, of course, but the world cannot do anything.

The point is not the world, but us. We are the only ones who can hasten our development. The world is simply matter, and there is nothing in it. People will grow and change according to how we “feed” them, but we go through all the changes consciously.

Here, the concern and our inner perception and recognition of what is happening to us is essential, but it takes time because we are wasting our resources on actions that are totally irrelevant and inefficient.

If we clarify what is happening among us correctly only in the perception of our getting closer or drawing apart, in our right inclination aiming at creating the spiritual basis for the perception of the Creator and for uniting to Him, we will begin to advance much faster. We must try to look for the internal hearing and the internal sight, the internal senses. However, they are not in each of us, but between us since they are not corporeal senses but actually integral senses that appear in the connection between us.

If there is no such connection, it means that there are no such senses, but, the moment that there is a connection, new spiritual bodies begin to appear among us just as matter began to develop in the past. Our spiritual, corporeal senses gradually are developed in these spiritual bodies so that the general entity called “the soul” can appear.

This is what we must develop, and we already are approaching that at least in our recognition and our feeling. Previously, I couldn’t convey any feelings and thoughts in words, but now I can because you already are experiencing the correlating states. You already can understand that and experience it.

Now, we can understand one another better and justify one another no matter what state the other is in since we have been through the same states ourselves: descent, detachment, weakness, humility, and so forth.

Unless we can justify every state the other goes through, we will not be ready for the connection with the Creator since, on the whole, it is the Creator who summons all these states in us, and we must justify all His actions and, thus, all of our actions too. This isn’t easy.

I saw how my teacher Rabash went through these states. He seemed holy! However, in fact, to me, he seemed totally different, and I couldn’t do anything against it until I understood that it is the Creator who is doing all that to him for me, and it doesn’t even happen to him but in my consciousness since the whole world is inside me.

However, we already have come close to understanding, to recognizing, and to justifying these states. We are ready for them, and can experience them and agree with them. This is very important.
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From the Talk at a Meal at the Toronto Congress, 4/8/14

Results From America

Question: How do you summarize the results of your trip to the American continent?

Answer: This was a good trip. We met with our groups, with our good and faithful friends in Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

The groups have grown and have advanced very, very much. We see and feel this about them. They have become more faithful, sensitive, understanding; they study together with us and connect to us in all of our activities, thanks to the virtual connection. The Internet is truly correcting the world tremendously on the level of the still.

In Mexico we organized a very important and big convention. All the local groups and individuals came to it and created an unprecedented warm and friendly atmosphere. A strong and united group was created and I hope that they will continue to work in that direction with our help.

At the convention in the United States there also was an unprecedented surge of connection, unity, and sense of understanding. This was truly something really special, something I didn’t even expect. All of our friends there are closer to each other. This was a very great correction and I am full of hope that now they will continue on together.

Now there is a convention in St. Petersburg ahead of us, on the way to which we must consolidate internally among us for worldwide dissemination. There is no convention that is dedicated only to connection and unification among the friends and with the Creator; every event must integrate its entire height in the process in that we activate three levels: the lower, the higher, and the level above the higher. And we who are found in the middle must work on our mutual relationships with the two adjacent levels.

I very much hope that we are hastening our development and will succeed.
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From the Lesson about the Importance of Dissemination, 8/12/14