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