The ninth session of the seventh round of the public educational workshops at Congress 60, Damavand Branch, commenced at 3:30 p.m. on February 14, 2026, with Dideban (Watcher) Mr. Amin serving as the Guest Speaker, Traveler Saeed as the Guardian, and Traveler Mehdi as the Secretary. The agenda was: Guide’s Week (DST, Newcomers, William White, Jones, Sports, and Music Guides).
I am very happy to be here with all of you. I would like to congratulate all the respected Guides in every branch on Guide's Week. Today, guidance in Congress 60 has expanded into many different areas—we have different guides for different matters including guides for family section, guides for curing addiction, guides for curing nicotine addiction known as the William White program and guides for healthy nutrition and weight loss (known as Jones’s program). I hope the guides will be successful in their service, and I hope they will train capable travelers who will be beneficial to themselves, to Congress 60, and to humanity. These positions [like being a guide] are truly valuable and are not entrusted to just anyone. When God grants someone the opportunity to show the way to others [to guide them], that person has been placed on the path of guidance.
All of us are travelers in life, and those who show the way [to us] play a truly significant role. When we look back at our childhood and adolescence, we realize that our teachers and guides had the greatest influence on us. Whether they guided us well or poorly, both leave a lasting imprint on our minds. If I have achieved anything in my life, it is because of my teachers and guides. Each of them shaped a part of who I am today.
A person who is blessed with good teachers throughout life and is willing to accept guidance is truly fortunate. Without a guide, it is very difficult to move forward. My only regret in life is the time I spent receiving education without truly benefiting from it. I invested my time, energy, and resources, yet returned empty-handed.
It was Congress 60 that taught me a person must first be tamed before they can truly benefit from a teacher or a Guide. Even in the darkest places, there are good teachers—but one must be ready to receive the light.
Worldview education prepares a person to learn [anything]. That is why members of Congress 60 succeed in any field they enter. They have learned how to be students of learning, and they are always ready to receive knowledge. I entered university when I was nineteen, but I understood very little of what I was studying. Years later, at the age of forty-two, I began my PhD. Although the subjects were far more challenging, my level of understanding had increased many times over. Why? Because the soil of my existence had been plowed, my mind had become calm, and I was no longer focused on finding faults or getting caught up in the margins. That is the miracle of Congress 60.
The First Journey [to cure addiction] is about becoming teachable. It means putting aside the grandiosity. Grandiosity or ego is an endless mine of misery; the greater the ego, the greater the suffering.
Interestingly, in Congress 60, those with higher academic degrees or greater intellectual ability often will get liberated from addiction with difficulty, because they constantly analyze [the teachings] and do not accept [the instructions]. But the one who humbly bows their head today will one day see many heads bow before them—not out of fear, but out of respect for the person they have become.
Being liberated from addiction has nothing to do with intelligence or talent, it is totally related to the person’s acceptance [acceptance here means being surrender to one’s guide].
Mr. Dezhakam discovered the path to recovery. It was a path that had never existed before. For years, I tried to quit smoking, but I was never successful because I simply did not know how. When I finally recovered through the correct method, I came to understand what true knowledge really is.
Everything spins around accepting this truth that [simply] "I don't know." If we truly knew [the knowledge], we would have solved our financial, family, emotional, and professional problems. But as long as we believe the world is bad and wrong and other people are bad and to blame, nothing will change.
The answer is simple: we simply do not know. Even something as simple as eating can become a problem when we do not know the right way of eating. Mr. Dezhakam once advised me to eat with a fork, and that one simple change helped me lose weight.
The same principle applies to negative behaviors. A person who understands the principles of wrongdoing may continue for years, while someone who does not know what they are doing may destroy themselves within just a couple of months. That is why both knowledge and guidance are essential.
One of Congress 60's greatest achievements is the training of teachers and Guides. The Guides are the generators of Congress 60—they produce energy.
There was a time when I believed a teacher had to know everything, and that belief kept me from teaching. Later, I realized that a good teacher is not someone who knows everything; a good teacher is someone who can share what they have learned with love and simplicity.
In Congress 60, no one is permitted to become a Guide unless they have first walked the path themselves. A good teacher is someone who may know only ten things out of a thousand, but teaches those ten accurately and effectively. A poor teacher may know a hundred things, yet be unable to communicate them.
When I began teaching, I discovered that I learned even more myself. As I taught my vessel [of knowledge] is emptied by sharing, but it was refilled once again. Some people ask, “When should we make the Eighth Valley Pledge?” The answer is: whenever you are ready and have the desire. There is no need to wait until everything is perfect.
It is like a musician who must play what they have learned so that their weaknesses can become visible. In the same way, if a teacher refuses to teach because they are afraid of saying, “I don’t know,” they are trapped in grandiosity and ego. A student who refuses to accept guidance is also trapped in grandiosity. Both must pass through this stage.
If a person can move beyond grandiosity, they can become both a good student and a good teacher. I have always seen that the most respectful and humble students are the best learners.
Now I would like to talk about betrayal and heartbreak. Human beings are very sensitive creatures, and when their emotions become disturbed, every aspect of their lives can become unsettled. We function properly as long as our emotions are in a balanced state, but as soon as negative feelings enter, everything can change.
In worldview, there is a concept called “the Obstacles to Love.” It teaches us that human beings do not truly own anything, because they did not create anything themselves. When you did not create something, you cannot claim complete ownership over it. Things are only placed in our care for a period of time, and eventually they will leave us.
If we understand this truth, many sufferings will disappear. But if we fail to understand it, we will experience many difficulties. I myself have suffered whenever I tried to possess something and make it completely mine—whether in family relationships, marriage, parent-child relationships, or other connections.
In the path of recovery and education, one of the greatest challenges is heartbreak. It may come from the past or happen in the present. A Traveler may feel hurt by their Guide, by another Traveler, or by their family, but the nature of all these experiences is the same.
Heartbreak can suddenly drain a person’s energy. Sometimes a person is on their journey and suddenly believes that their Companion has betrayed them or no longer cares, and this thought alone can take away all their energy.
This usually happens when feelings and trust have been formed between two people—such as the relationship between a Guide and a Traveler, or between a Companion and a Traveler. When trust is created, a connection is formed, and energy begins to flow between two people.
This energy is like a two-way road. However, negative forces try to break this connection, just as water used for irrigation can be diverted away from its original path. When the land does not receive water, it becomes dry, Human relationships work in the same way. Love and attention are like water and sunlight. Sometimes a single look, a smile, or a kind word can have the effect of hours of irrigation. But when this flow of love is interrupted, the soil of our emotions becomes dry, and sadness and sorrow appear.
Sometimes we ourselves are the cause of that sorrow, perhaps we are bad-tempered, perhaps we constantly focus on negative points, or perhaps we give so much negative energy that the other person begins to distance themselves from us.
In Congress 60, we learn not to search for faults in others, but to first look within ourselves. If a bond of love has been damaged, the first step is to examine what mistake we may have made. If we correct it, the connection can be restored. And even if it does not return, we will still have inner peace.
Sometimes a bond of love is disrupted because a third person enters the relationship. It can happen between two friends when someone comes between them, or in emotional relationships. In such situations, a person may feel as if they have been “cut off,” and it is natural to want to react with anger.
However, this reaction is exactly what leads to failure. The more we become angry, the more energy we send toward that disrupted relationship [the new relationship], and the weaker we become.
This is where we must create an antidote. A damaged relationship is like a poison that enters a person’s emotions, and our natural reaction is often to respond with our own poison—anger, conflict, humiliation, or cutting off the relationship. But this approach does not work.
An antidote can only be created from the same poison itself. This means we must have patience, control our emotions, and not allow another person’s actions to disturb our inner balance.
When the antidote is produced within us, those behaviors no longer have the power to break us, and we do not lose our energy. If we can be patient, continue to offer our love [to our beloved], and stay away from anger and hatred, the negative energy of others will no longer affect us. In this situation, our love reaches the person we care about, and they will eventually be influenced by it.
This is the strategy for overcoming negative forces—forces that gain strength by breaking or diverting the bonds of love. Achieving this is not easy, but it is the only fruitful path.
If someone is struggling with heartbreak, betrayal, or disrupted relationships, they can use this worldview to revive the bonds of love within themselves. If we do not create the antidote, we will not be worthy of receiving love. The person who can create this antidote is the one who possesses patience, forgiveness, and generosity.
Thank you for listening to my words.
Following this, the ceremony continued with the farewell of Agent Traveler Ahmad and the introduction of the new Agent, Traveler Mehdi.
Translated by companion Neda
Revised and edited by Elahe
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