Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.08.13
Posted on March 8th, 2013
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Question: When do I begin to bring contentment to the Creator consciously?
Answer: At the stage of spiritual maturity (13 years), when I already have vessels of receiving that are ready for correction in which I can receive the Light with the intention of in order to bestow; to the extent that I receive, I actually bring contentment to the Creator.
Until then there is only the preparation, the state of “smallness” in which we are not required to do “mature” things yet and are treated forgivingly. We demand from a child because we want to educate him and not because he must. He doesn’t have to fill all the requirements.
Question: How many years does it take to reach maturity?
Answer: There is no time in spirituality. “13 years” is a level and we really yearn for it, really want to enter the state of Ibur (gestation), to enter the upper system, and to feel it as a womb, a friendly environment, an environment in which my friends think only about how to help me and the teacher guides us towards the goal. I adhere to them and through them, like through the umbilical cord, am “nourished” by the Lights that influence me. This environment is a womb for me, something round, whole, a round sphere that I am in. I am also like a sphere and I don’t limit anything, but constantly restrict myself in order to adhere, nothing more than that.
I value the wholeness of the external environment, the friends and the teacher, and they reflect and project the right attributes on me. Then my “piece of flesh,” my desire, begins to take on the form of Adam, a human being. The environment imprints its form on me, not the environment that I see today, but a different environment that I value more and more.
Thus I develop like an embryo, constantly adhering to the environment, although I am constantly sent different interruptions and complaints regarding the whole group or each of the friends. I accept everything in “faith above reason” and continue working not towards the Creator but rather towards the environment, the friends among whom I already identify the inner essence.
Then, after I feel them, I want to receive their imprint, their impression. I wait for their bestowal because I discover wholeness in them. I want them to “imprint” themselves in me forcefully. I am ready for that and I make efforts so that it will happen. I actually match myself to them and ask that they don’t leave, that they will work with me and imprint themselves in me.
Everything depends on the Ibur, it is the most dangerous stage in our development. If it is successful, then the rest is much easier. Every time I receive a greater defending force, a stronger force of inner overcoming that allows me to overcome all the negative things I see in the group. It is because I look at the desire to bestow of the friends through my ego and I discover terrible things.
But I continue to rise in faith above reason and tell them to continue working on me, to process me, to continue imprinting me with their stamp. I want it! I lower my head before them and I am ready in advance to accept everything that comes from them.
If a person really wants that, he receives a full imprint and then he is ready to be born.
Question: But, at the same time, I still don’t reach an equivalence of form with the environment.
Answer: True, but not more is required at this stage. It is as if I am standing before a puzzle in which one piece is missing—my part. And I shove my piece of clay in the gap so that its shape corresponds to the contours of the other parts.
The Creator is revealed in this puzzle when it is whole. We design the correct desire, build the corrected Malchut, and in it we discover the Creator according to the principle of “come and see,” Bo-re (Creator in Hebrew). There is no other way; we can only do it together, only if we put together at least one piece of the human puzzle. The bigger this piece is, the greater the revelation will be.
Question: How important is it that I enter this puzzle consciously?
Answer: You must agree that the group will imprint itself, its external form, in you. In order to do that you have to agree with the friends on every issue that is related to spirituality, value them as the greatest in our generation, ask them to influence you, and lower your head before them since the Creator lives in them.
Question: But if I see something that is totally opposite…
Answer: This is exactly our work. The egoistic desire remains (in black), but on the outside, it takes on a form, the form of bestowal (in red). This is our spiritual education, which is a “formative” education. Simple matter that is a desire to receive isn’t enough. Everything depends on the form; when two different types of matter make different forms, we receive an education which means that we begin to understand reality.
Answer: Because here the evil inclination is increasingly revealed to me. Each time new “thorns” are revealed and I have to take on a new form each time, to give in, to annul myself, and to look at all these problems in faith above reason.
Only yesterday everything was fine but today it isn’t anymore, and I have to work on myself again in order to see, in the obstacles, the right forms that belong to the embryo’s body. The next day, the hardships increase and demand that I change my attitude. Thus I constantly rise above the interruptions in faith above reason and correct myself.
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Question: How do you suggest we prepare for the convention in Germany at the end of the month?
Answer: We should understand that on the first level we are in now we are operating in the framework of time, motion, and place. These are corporeal limitations against which we are powerless for the time being and are under their strong influence.
When we get to the spiritual levels it will be much easier and we will not have to feel the corporeal presence. We will already live in a different reality; the spiritual life will be part of the corporeal life.
In the meantime I don’t see any way of leaping over time and distance. This problem is only on the current level of preparation.
The first spiritual level already brings us together internally, totally freeing us from corporeal limitations. But in order to break through to the spiritual world, we have to work on this current level and to connect as if time and place do not exist.
It is exactly for this reason that we have workshops and conventions, which unite us, connect us physically, and strengthen the ties between us. There is no other choice since this physical feeling still operates on us. It isn’t by chance that this world was created, and it isn’t by chance that we feel this first level in it. Without any contact between the shattered desires, without being able to feel one another, we wouldn’t be able to advance.
It is just like a corporeal couple in which a man and a woman have to be together, not just next to one another, but actually enter one another. We have to learn from these corporeal examples that the new continuity is born of this close connection.
So we have to come to the convention and reach this strong embrace. It doesn’t matter if we actually embrace one another or not, what’s important is that we will actually feel the closeness by sitting next to each other, by studying together, by eating, singing, dancing, and having discussions. There has to be a physical contact of at least two or three days a year or every couple of months. This already leaves an impression that enables us to later feel it over and over again as and to feel one another better.
If we never see each other, we don’t use the means we were given. It is impossible to advance without it. Kabbalists were always together. Baal HaSulam brought equipment for tanning hides to Israel and wanted to open a small plant for tanning in Jerusalem. He thought that his students would work on these machines, make a living, and also study there.
Tanning is a dirty work accompanied by a terrible stench. It is impossible to be near a tanner because of this smell; Baal HaSulam wanted to open this plant so that people would keep away from his group. Usually such plants are far from the living quarters of a city.
He worked as a rabbinical judge in Warsaw, but he decided to deal with this dirty work because he dreamed of a close Kabbalistic group.
This means that it is impossible to succeed without physical contact. I cannot imagine a student who refuses to come to the convention and meet with me although he can. If a person has a will, then he will be ready to walk for a month if he has no money for a plane or train ticket. I remember that many times on the way to Rehovot (where I used to live) my car would get breakdown since it had a problem with the carburetor. Then I would leave the car on the side of the road, hitchhike to a certain point, and then walk the rest of the way. All this is also part of one’s exertion.
But without physical contact, without sitting next to each other at the table during the lesson or in a workshop, singing together or dancing, it is impossible to advance.
[102023]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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The correction that we need to make is divided into many acts, small parts, and gradual changes that create the feeling of time for us. Time is created as a result of this; time is due to the fact that we work today and we expect to get paid tomorrow. If this is the way a person feels, then that is actually a corruption.
The correction is to imagine to oneself that right now you already exist in a corrected and complete state where there is complete abundance. What is missing is the clothing on the Light, our attitude, intention, and the attribute of bestowal. If you acquire it, then you discover that the concealment was only towards you and that you always were in the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) but you weren’t able to feel and understand it.
And all of this is because you didn’t appreciate the attribute of bestowal. You didn’t think it was worth anything or even less than that. Thus, you didn’t feel it or you even felt the opposite attribute: instead of altruism and bestowal, you felt the attribute of reception, the ego.
Thus, all of our work is to transform the work itself into the reward. And every moment the opportunity is given to us to make an effort that allows us to draw more Light that reforms, and thus to attain even more attributes of bestowal and be thankful for the evil that is revealed. The evil indicates the place where the correction is needed, where, for us, bestowal is lacking.
[102020]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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According to the Creator’s part, you are always in a corrected state. But according to how you see it and understand things, it appears very different and this is the flaw. Absolute good comes from the Creator, but He has to hide it and reduce His bestowal upon you so that it will not seem so bad. It is because you are opposite from Him and you receive everything in an opposite manner.
So the Creator cannot pour infinite bestowal upon you since you would feel an infinite minus and would not be able to bear this horrible state. Therefore, the Creator has to diminish Himself, by reducing Himself to practically zero level, leaving only a tiny spark to sustain life, a tiny drop of Light. And even this minimal Light is perceived by you as a cruel world full of evil and pain.
Gradually, through the study and the influence of the friends and the teacher, according to your efforts, the Light comes, reforms you, and changes begin to occur in you. Then you gradually find out that you are actually in a good state and that you feel it as bad because of your uncorrected attributes. Then you begin to work in order to change yourself by using all the means you have: the group, the study, dissemination, and the teacher.
If you work correctly and make efforts in order to see yourself in a state of bestowal, love, and connection, through the teacher, the study, and by yearning for the Creator, then it operates on you. It is not immediate of course, but gradually you discover that bestowal and love, the best attitude, surround you; finally you understand, feel, and interpret this correctly.
Thus you rise to your first spiritual level. You agree with the Creator and see that all the powers you have invested were for the correction of your perception, for the correction of your vessels. You didn’t have to pay anyone, but you corrected yourself. Thus you have corrected the vessel of perception and now you feel a whole state.
You have to feel the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), the perfection in the current state without changing anything in it, except for your inner attitude. If you don’t feel that, it is a sign that you are cursing the Creator instead of thanking Him and blessing Him.
We can say that about every state, no matter how terrible it is. Nothing changes in reality, except for our attitude, which is called the correction of the vessel of perception.
[102017]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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In the News (from BBC News): “More than 500 years ago, tens of thousands of Jews fled Spain because of persecution. Now their descendants are being invited to return.
“Before the infamous Spanish Inquisition of the 15th Century, some 300,000 Jews lived in Spain. It was one of the largest communities of Jews in the world.
“Today, there are about 40,000 or 50,000 – but that number could be about to swell dramatically.
“In November, Spain’s justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon announced a plan to give descendants of Spain’s original Jewish community – known as Sephardic Jews – a fast-track to a Spanish passport and Spanish citizenship. …
“Anyone who could prove their Spanish Jewish origins, he said, would be given Spanish nationality.”
My Comment: We will hear many similar “invitations” from different states and communities, resulting from the US plan to eliminate the state of Israel. If the people of Israel carry out the plan of its correction and build a society of mutual guarantee as an example for others, in this case it has a reason for existence. There is still a hope that we will be able to do that.
[102106]
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Happiness is a feeling of the fulfillment of desire. It is possible only when there is a desire, hunger, passion, and it is fulfilled, realized. But as soon as a desire has been fulfilled and realized, the feeling of happiness gradually disappears. Thus, two constants are needed for happiness: a) desire, b) fulfillment.
In order for fulfillment not to cancel the desire, they need to be separated, to be in two objects. For example, a mother and a baby; a mother can endlessly enjoy a baby because she fills the object outside of herself.
If we create a connection above our mutual rejection, we will be able to fulfill each other and enjoy our actions indefinitely. There is only a purely psychological problem of understanding that the goal of creation is in pleasure and that the means to achieve the eternal and infinite pleasure is in “love thy neighbor as thyself.” This state is called the upper world. When we feel it, the sensation of our temporary flawed world—what is felt only in oneself—disappears.
[102039]
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Question: How can we come to the European Convention in order to create a common field there?
Answer: We must make every effort to succeed.
We must rise above all our differences and laziness, rejections and other things; just close your eyes, strive to organize the convention, and participate in it.
We have only three weeks left, even less. Let’s make this convention really successful. After all, you only win from this: both in material and spiritual matters—I promise you.
I am looking forward to seeing you and hope that no one is left behind a computer screen, and all together we take part in this convention.
[102008]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13
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Question: What is the difference between spiritual cooperation and a corporeal, egoistic union?
Answer: A union of egoists will produce an egoistic outcome. Suppose a group of people get together to beat up someone. In this case, they certainly would get some benefit for themselves. The same thing is true in business and everything else where the strong win over the weak.
And how is an altruistic connection manifested? How can they connect at all? I want to give, you want to give, he wants to give, but where, and to whom do we give? Can we give to someone on the outside? Then, we would not be understood at all.
When altruists come together, they create an altruistic field between them where they discover a good force called “Nature” or the “Creator.”
They reveal this force between them, between their mutual altruistic movement, and it turns out that their achievement is felt as attainment of eternal life beyond our world, above our world. They exist in a new dimension, in a new field created by them as part of a “spiritual bubble,” and they exist in it.
Out of this “spiritual bubble,” which they created between them through mutual altruistic movement, they do not see our world the way an ordinary person sees it. They do not see matter and images, but the forces that are behind our bodies and the objects of this world. They have a completely different perception of reality.
They feel the matter of our world not only through their five senses, but also through the general property of bestowal that they have achieved, and they see the forces that govern the universe. This is called: They have reached their soul. That is why a union of altruists, in contrast to a union of egoists, takes them to the next level, the next dimension.
Question: Do they set this goal, or is it the result of the action?
Answer: They set an absolutely clear goal for themselves: to reach the level of the property of bestowal, the level of the altruistic upper world. This is the goal from the side of the Creator and from the side of man.
[102005]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13
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