Question from Moscow: What does it mean to desire to unite? And what does unity feel like?

Answer: Apparently these questions are coming from our Moscow group in anticipation of the upcoming convention in Moscow. What does it mean to unite? Why? Why are we holding this convention? The question is correct.

Why should we unite? To be frank, this is impossible to explain. If a person has a Reshimo (informational gene) that remained in him from the unity he once experienced while being in the common desire, where he once revealed the Creator and then lost this sensation, and now this Reshimo is awakening again, then he desires to return to this state. “I want it!”

For example, some people like eating frogs. Well, what can you do…. I don’t have this desire, but to them it is a heavenly delight. That is exactly how the desire for spirituality emerges. It awakens—and that’s all. What can you do?… One person starts feeling a desire for frogs, and another—for spirituality. This desire awakens from the inside and it does not depend on us.

Why would someone start feeling a desire to eat frogs? It’s because he once tasted it and felt a pleasant taste, got used it, received the corresponding upbringing—and now he desires this.

But another person was in spirituality at some point and a Reshimo has remained in him, and now it awakens. That is why it is impossible to explain what unity feels like to people who don’t have a Reshimo from the spiritual state. But it is possible to show them that it’s worth it to unite with one another because that way we will come out of the general crisis, and therefore, it’s worth it for them to join those who are setting out to correct the world’s current state. After all, they will also benefit from this.

This is what we have to tell people. They don’t understand what spirituality means, or the Creator, adhesion, unity, the feeling of perfection, eternity, harmony with nature, the upper spheres…. This is meaningless to them so they will tell you, “Leave me alone! Just give me something in this life—peace, safety, good health. I don’t need anything else!” Every person speaks based on his desire.

When you are speaking to that kind of person, you have to show him that he also won’t be able to fulfill his desire unless he goes together with everyone toward unification because this is what the global, integral nature demands. We have evidence to rely on and ways to explain this to him. Therefore, you tell him that the world requires unity because this is what nature demands. You have to speak to a person on his level instead of telling him about the Creator and spirituality. Due to having no other way, he will also join in. But every person has to be addressed according to his or her desire.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/11, The Zohar

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Question: Why is it much easier to read those parts of The Zohar where Baal HaSulam explains it using Kabbalistic terms?

Answer: It’s because then it’s clear to us that these are technical definitions and not earthly images. However, everything depends on one’s level of qualification.

If I invite a specialist to fix my computer, I show him the images on my screen and tell him that I don’t like the color shades or display quality, but he doesn’t look at the actual picture. A computer specialist looks at the electric signals, the forces that create this picture inside, at the quantity of the colors installed in the system. He doesn’t care about the picture itself because for him it’s nothing but an external reflection, a symbol for what’s happening inside, which indicates the computer’s proper or improper functioning.

On the other hand, when I show him this picture and ask how to fix it, he explains it to me in technical terms: “Here you need to replace HGT, NHY, reconcile the forces of the right and left lines…” and I don’t understand what he’s talking about either.

We are confused not by The Zohar speaking this way or that, whether it’s the language of legends or the language of Kabbalah, but by our inability to correctly discern the actual picture and realize what it’s talking about. Every word of The Zohar indicates a desire which must be corrected. There is nothing else to it besides that.

The Creator gave rise to desire. This desire must be brought to correction and fulfillment. Until it achieves its correction followed by fulfillment, we’re only talking about this desire. As soon as it becomes corrected and fulfilled, we stop talking about it and begin to discuss the next degree, a deeper desire which follows right after.

This is how we correct desire after desire, layer after layer. This phased approach to the whole power of the desires within us, which we correct step-by-step, one after another, is called Mishpatim—judgments or reincarnations of souls. “Reincarnations of souls” means that I am always undergoing these inner transformations.
[42584]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Why was it necessary to withdraw from the Creator to the utmost point in order to get corrected and come to adhesion with Him?

Answer: It is not sufficient to descend through all of the worlds to this one. We have to descend even deeper. Only when we enter the group do we start attaining what a “broken man” is. Then, we fall lower and lower, much deeper than when we just started to study.

After all, previously, we were not familiar with our evil inclination and didn’t feel bad about it. At that point, we still thought that the desires we had were good, and the more our ego evolved, the more energy it provided for us to advance.

Then, we begin to want to unite with the others and reveal the internal essence of the group. We do this while constantly thinking about it in order to find the internal connection between us, which does exist, but is concealed from us. It’s only then that we discover that we always forget about, reject, and hate it. Thus, a person gradually starts attaining his nature.

This is still a descent since he hasn’t revealed all his evil, and all ascents and descents are defined solely by how the creature feels about it. A person doesn’t see himself as more distant from the Creator just yet. All of his understanding and experience is based on the degree of his being distant from Him, as if he is moving further and further away.

Hence, he feels an even greater void, bitterness, and frustration. He doesn’t understand how it can be that he works and studies so much, only to feel worse as the world is becoming still darker for him. Yet, he finally realizes that this is how the created being is revealed, and it is necessary to go through it.

In the end, he agrees with it, which is regarded as “unconditional acceptance.” He is prepared for whatever may come and thinks that it’s all right if he feels lower than low; most important is not to give up!

In that case, he receives an even greater burdening by the ego while, simultaneously, he gets an opportunity to correct it. Here the advancement is based on two opposites since when he starts correcting, equalizing himself with the Creator and coming closer to Him with every new step, he must reveal his opposite nature in the “left line.” Then, in accordance with that, he will plead for the Light “in the right line” and correct himself in the “middle” one.

That means that over the course of this entire ascent to Malchut of the world of Infinity, to the very last moment, the adhesion regarded as “Rav Paalim UMekabtziel (He Who Blesses and Adorns Her),” he will keep revealing increasingly greater evil. It cannot be avoided.

Otherwise, we won’t find in ourselves the need for the Light. We need room where we can make the Creator within ourselves. This space is supposed to be opposite to the innate properties of the Creator, and then it will be up to me what to do in it.

That is why we find this void, all the places that comprise it, and all of its parts as separate, opposite, and distanced from one another, like the broken parts of a construction set. We, however, begin to assemble it, looking for matching pieces and placing them in the correct sequence, in the correct order of cause and effect, so as to align all the details that were taken apart.

Thereby, I reveal how the Creator feels about me, that He is good that does good which created the point of “existence from absence” that I need to correct in myself. This awareness that I am created “from absence” helps me understand the “existence from existence” (Yesh Mi Yesh) which created me.

The entire process that this point created by Him passes through is necessary solely so that I may attain the infinite Light. All these stages were pre-set long before, during the plan of creation, preceding the creation of this point “from absence,” as it is said: “The end of an action is in its initial thought.” Thus, it arrives at the attainment of the force that created it and to the understanding of what the essence of this entire correction process was.
[42523]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/2011, ”All Who Suffer for the Public”

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Question: Why does the greatest advancement happen precisely while reading The Book of Zohar, without understanding anything, just by keeping intention?

Answer: The study of Kabbalah does not require any special mental abilities because it is not learned with the mind. On the contrary, people who consider themselves smart, who are good at studying, who grasp things quickly and have a keen mind, usually do not advance very well in Kabbalah. That’s because the mind and the sensation of their mental abilities stops them, carrying them away to the path of the rational study of this science instead of attaining it by being loyal to the group. This is a problem.

I would say that it’s precisely the regular, “average” people who are more successful in spiritual advancement. The brilliant smart-alecs who come to study the science of Kabbalah usually stumble right away. I see that its as if they jump head-first into the deep sea, and “resurface” from there many years later, once the water washes off all of their pride, feeling of superiority, and power.

Let us hope that we belong to those who are successful in attainment rather than those who have a brilliant mind.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/11, The Zohar

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