In the News: “Americans have a third fewer close friends and confidants than just two decades ago — a sign that people may be living lonelier, more isolated lives than in the past.

“In 1985, the average American had three people in whom to confide matters that were important to them, says a study in today’s American Sociological Review. In 2004, that number dropped to two, and one in four had no close confidants at all.

“Close relationships are a safety net, Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham, N.C. says. ‘Whether it’s picking up a child or finding someone to help you out of the city in a hurricane, these are people we depend on.’

“The study finds fewer contacts are from clubs and neighbors; people are relying more on family…. The percentage of people who confide only in family increased from 57% to 80%, and the number who depend totally on a spouse is up from 5% to 9%, the study found. ‘If something happens to that spouse or partner, you may have lost your safety net,’ Smith-Lovin says.” (Source: USA Today)

“In this age of email, instant and text messaging, cell phones, and our super-sized-surpassing 300 million citizens–nation, the very idea that we are becoming increasingly isolated and disconnected from each other seems absurd. However, all of our cyberspace playthings are not satisfying our needs for closeness and friendship. Developing social networks beyond the family is a necessary survival skill. Feelings of isolation and loneliness in the extreme can lead to physical and mental illnesses. What accounts for so much social disconnectedness? Networks beyond the family is a necessary survival skill. Feelings of isolation and loneliness in the extreme can lead to physical and mental illnesses. What accounts for so much social disconnectedness?

“Most of us have little leisure time. Friendships require time and commitment. At the end of the day, most of us retreat home and want nothing more than to close the door on the outside world. We go indoors to be entertained by our electronic gadgets. For the most part, we are not hanging out or walking around the neighborhood to visit with neighbors. For that matter, we probably have not uttered a full sentence to the person next door since we moved into our house or apartment. Privacy and a do not disturb attitude are the mottos of the day.

“Traditionally, women have been responsible for developing the family’s social diary and maintaining friendships with other couples. Sustaining such a social network takes a great deal of time and energy. Most women today are working full time.” (Source: American Sociological Review).

My Comment: All these symptoms will grow until we understand their purpose: to show us that the only solution to all our problems is in mutual guarantee.
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Question: Out of all the material published by you and Anthony Kosinec, it was  easy for me to synchronize all your teachings with the Holy Quran. This made it clear for me that both the Torah and the Quran came from the same source. However, I don’t see you talking at all about the devil or how he can affect our desires. Could you please explain from your teachings where you can position him or his effects? (Saudi Arabia)

Answer: All positive (giving) and negative (egoistic) forces exist only in a person himself. There is nothing outside a person but the concealed correcting force (the Light, the Creator), which manifests to the extent of our aspiration to become similar to it in our relations.

That is why “love thy neighbor as yourself” is the general rule of the Torah (the method of correction). There is no doubt that the Holy Quran is also a consequence of the same laws of nature (the Creator) that the Torah (Kabbalah) speaks of.
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The laws of nature are irreversible. We’re unable to add anything artificially because the conditions within our society’s political, industrial, familial, and social systems force us to come to a mutual and integral interdependence. We will be forced to do this regardless of whether we’re rich or a regular worker, a jobless person, a student, or an elderly person.

Nature is locking us into a single general system and forces each person, in accordance with his status, qualities, and interrelations with the society to gradually transform. We can’t remain in our previous state.

Do you see what’s happening in the world today? Could anyone imagine that Germany would give Greece 500 billion dollars and then pardon the debt? Can you imagine Germans giving 500 billion to Greece? There is also Italy and Spain on the line. No one knows how this will end. However, people aren’t out on the streets protesting, they’re not trying to overthrow the government, and they’re not demanding their money back.

Imagine that we have 500 billion in the bank saved up by all of the country’s workers. This is the government’s fortune, and instead of putting this money into realizing the country’s needs, we give it to someone who we don’t even wish to know.

Why doesn’t this result in a civil war? I know Germany, I’ve been there and I’ve talked to the German people. People aren’t particularly happy with the situation, but no one is really opposing it. This is because people understand that for the politicians and the economists having to come to this decision was a lot more painful than for the rest of the people.

They are “sitting” on this money, and with its help they rule over the people and the nation. But if they’ve decided to part with this money, then things must really be bad. We are really that interconnected that I have to give to other countries and pardon the debt, just as I would give to my own nation. They realize the depth of the interconnection and see that the law of nature connects everyone and that this tie cannot be undone.

This is an inner tragedy for those who had to make this decision because parting with 500 billion dollars isn’t easy. Just imagine what your family would say if you took all of your possessions and money from the bank and gave it away?

What we are talking about here is a sense of total connection and necessity. The politicians see no other way out. We, the “small people,” don’t see it, but they do. This is why the biggest tycoons and billionaires will part with their money just as these politicians did, otherwise they won’t be able to exist. They will understand the necessity of this action. Totally paradoxical things are happening right before our eyes, we simply don’t realize it yet.
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From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/30/2011

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The society of mutual guarantee is built in such a way that it obliges me to be its active participant all the time because with every effort directed at benefiting it, I receive huge fulfillment and enthusiasm. Every person working for the good of the society and helping it deserves respect and encouragement: medals, prizes, and praise, all of which give him huge pleasure.

I’m not filled by the dollars that I have in my Swiss bank account. I’m filled by the feeling of what I’ve got, a feeling of dignity, importance, usefulness, and wholeness. This is much more! And nobody can take this away from me.
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From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/30/2011

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Question: You spoke about the importance of the last three days before the December convention. What is the best way to organize preparation during these days?

Answer: There is a notion of three days of transition from one state to another. During these three days, one must leave the past state and from a neutral state gradually transition into a new one.

This is why we really advise people, who wish to properly connect to the convention (essentially, convention is our unification), to try to keep this thought, this feeling, to be in anticipation of general unity, especially within the three preceding days. This will help them experience unity with higher intensity and reveal at least a part of the upper world in it for themselves. This is exactly what we expect from our mutual action.

A convention is not a regular event when we gather, sing, attend lectures, dance, and participate in the gatherings of friends. A convention is first and foremost our uniting into a single desire of mutual bestowal. Once we form this desire, we will immediately feel the next level of our development in it, which exists beyond our world. Essentially, this is what we aspire to.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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According to our attitude toward the environment, we can see how effectively we are working to raise the importance of the friends in our eyes. We must understand that we cannot estimate their true height, but only the height that we ascribe to them. My estimate of the environment is completely subjective and depends on me alone.

We need to form an image of the group before us in order to advance. They cannot interrupt me in any way, everything depends on me. Then we begin to see that it isn’t an external environment but the internal vessel that was built by my efforts. I use this vessel and bring it to the desired form, designing and shaping this vessel like dough. My whole spiritual advancement depends on it.

The higher, broader, and more important the vessel is within my reason, the greater is my advancement. I will feel that this vessel is mine because I have built and shaped it myself. I could have built it another way, underestimating and humiliating the friends, but instead I built a powerful group, where each member is the greatest in his generation. And now this whole spiritual vessel belongs to me.

I feel all this in my reason because I do all of it myself. Furthermore, I am constantly developing this attitude towards the environment because there are always foreign thoughts and desires that divert me: Envy, lust, and ambition “take a person out of this world,” meaning from the state he is in. This is an invitation for me to develop the importance of the environment and to rise to the next degree. This is the way we advance.

If a person understands that the external environment itself doesn’t exist, but is only an image created of his own world he built, he receives this vessel in order to work with it within reason. In his attitude to the Creator he has to be above reason.

But the environment has only the form a person gives to it. The environment is like a springboard, means to advance, and according to the height a person raises the importance of the environment to, he rises himself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) (abridged version)“: The Torah was not given to our fathers because the commandment of “Love thy friend as thyself,” the axis of the whole Torah and around which all the commandments revolve, cannot be observed by an individual, but only through the consent of an entire nation. And this is why it took until they came out of Egypt, when they became worthy of observing it. And then they were first asked if each and every one of the nation agreed to take that commandment upon himself. And once they agreed to it, they were given the Torah.

We learn about the structure of the spiritual world, the creation of the soul, which is the only creature, and about the shattering of the soul that got divided into many parts from Kabbalistic sources like “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha),” “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“, and the Ari’s “The Tree of Life”. We can say that these parts of the soul also existed before, but they were merged together in one intention, in one thought, in a special state.

In the first state there was the one notion of Infinity, which included the vessel that was equal to the Light. Their equality, connection, and adhesion were provided by the power of the Light. All the souls, parts, and desires were there previously, but the Light held it all together and so they remained imperceptible.

Then the second state was created: the shattered vessel that is totally different from the Light and exists under its own authority—the desire to receive in order to receive. Thus, the shattering of the vessels brought the creature to the state of “this world.”

Finally, as the third state, the vessel once again becomes equal to the Light. We reach adhesion, but by ourselves now.

Eventually, we go through this whole process consciously, we understand and feel it. The descent into our world was prepared from Above, and the present state of ascent is the time of correction. Therefore, today we feel that we are at a very special point in history, which Kabbalists designate as “1995.” It is the border after which the general spiritual ascent of humanity begins.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Toldot,” Selected Excerpts
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Spiritual work, the revelation of successive movements, one by one, from the “minus” (what I lack) to the “plus” (the one who can help me) is not easy at all. It seems irrational from the outside. No matter how much we advance, we always forget about that because our egoistic feelings and mind are not built on this principle.

Everything is arranged differently in spirituality. I make efforts and find a completely different place. I get disappointed, reach total despair, and the moment after that, if I do not run away, then I find. And I find something that I absolutely did not expect and didn’t think that this should get.

The spiritual world that we discover has no analogue in our world. A tiny hole like the eye of a needle opens, like a small pupil in our eye, a focused view that requires nothing else. And through it, we break into a new world!

The Creator, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), opens this hole, and we expand it. This hole is created by everyone compressing their egoism to zero, and all our points in the heart connect together. Having united, these points burn the wall, the boundary between us and the spiritual world. If they unite, they turn into the point through which we enter the spiritual world.

This is why we have gathered here to try to achieve this condition when “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” join together. It is necessary that everyone reaches the same frequency and sways together, everyone with only one thought, the unity of our points in the heart, above our ego, above this corporeal life.

We have the right to forget about this corporeal life once for 24 hours, disconnect from all the worries, and wait for the upper force that sustains this life to come and meet us. By our desire, we will force it to get closer to us.
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From Lesson 2, Arvut Convention at the Arava Desert 11/18/2011

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