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Preparations for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk: Lesson Preparation

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Preparations for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk: Questions & Answers

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: This is the key to understanding the weakness of world-reformers throughout the generations. They regarded man as a machine that is not operating properly and needs mending, meaning to remove the corrupted parts and replace them with good ones.

And that is the tendency of all world reformers—to eradicate any harmful and bad in the human species… and it is true that if the Creator had not stood against them, they would certainly have by now cleansed man entirely, leaving only the good and useful.

But don’t we want to correct the world? So, what makes us different from others?

Comment: Only the Light that Reforms corrects and we attract it.

Answer: True. We do not make the correction but draw the Light so that it does its job. We seem to open the valve which was blocking its path. That is why we do not belong to those “world-reformers” about whom Baal HaSulam writes. After all, they want to do all the work themselves.

This is a fundamental difference. Take a look at what happens to the world: No matter how much people strive to solve its problems, all is in vain. In fact, it is necessary only to allow the Light to correct the human being and accept the result. Do not do anything else—only let the Light work. Any additional action is not just unnecessary, but harmful.

This is what we should understand and then all our deeds will be aimed at bestowal. By adding the correct intention to them, we allow the Light to work on the world, on the entire still, vegetative, animate, and human nature; the Light will adjust everything according to our strengths, our desire, to the opportunities that we open before it.

We do not interfere in the process of correction; we do not know what is good or bad, what the order of actions is, or how to implement it. We just want to open the path to the Light and that is all.

Of course, we would like to know more, to understand what is happening, participate in work, take part in the process, to be active… However, all these impulses should be directed only at one thing—to let the Light in.

If we act in the wrong direction, if we want to perform this work ourselves instead of allowing the Light to do this, then we are only causing a bad addition to our activities until we learn the lesson and understand what is required of us.

That is why, if we want to advance, in principal, we have to focus on the correct intention and actions and only those that give the Light the opportunity to correct.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Rabash, Letter 16: It is known that it is impossible to see a small object and it is easier to see a large object. Hence, when a person commits a few lies, he cannot see the truth—that he is walking on a false path. Rather, he says that he is walking on the path of truth. But there is no greater lie than that. And the reason is that he does not have enough lies to see his true state.

But when a person has acquired many lies, the lies grow in him to the extent that he can see them if he wishes. Thus, now that he sees the lies, that he is walking on a false path, he sees his true state. In other words, he sees the truth in his soul and how to turn to the right path.

It follows that this point, which is a point of truth, that he is treading a false path, is the medium between truth and falsehood. This is the bridge that connects truth and falsehood. This point is also the end of the lie and from here on begins the path of truth.

Thus, we can see that to be rewarded with Lishma (for Her Name), we first need to prepare the biggest Lo Lishma (not for Her Name), and then we can achieve Lishma. And similarly, Lo Lishma is called a “lie” and Lishma is called “truth.”

The disclosure of falsehood is the very point from which a person can start correction because he will see that he is in falsehood and can no longer endure this condition. A lie is what that goes against the truth. A person has a point that does not allow him to agree with a lie, “You can kill me, but I cannot accept this!”

This is the point of truth, where the truth and the lie converge. A person stands in the middle and cannot agree with a lie whatever it may cost him. If I stay at this point with a lie, I disappear from the universe!

My desire has only one point like this, which came to me from the desire to bestow upon the Creator, where it is felt that “He is first.” At that moment when I finally clarify my nature, I feel that there is His desire inside of my desire. Then I can no longer remain in my desire because it will be a complete lie to me. I see that there is life; its source is in the spark of the Creator hidden within creation. This point is the beginning of the birth of the human being.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World:” Therefore, we must understand and be very careful when casting a flaw in any item of Creation, saying it is redundant and superfluous, as that would be slander about its Operator.

Humanity is beginning to realize after it has suffered from “clever” theories that required eradicating “extra” for the sake of everyone’s welfare. Once, there was an opinion that our body had “unnecessary” parts. Up until now, we have practiced social regulation by artificial, contrived criteria. In education, culture, economy, politics, trade, in all areas, we resort to unnatural measures and forms of governance. The consequence of this is the distortions that raise the level of our suffering to the world crisis.

In fact, we need to learn the correct development from nature. It is perfect initially and we are its consequence. Our thoughts and feelings also stem from what it has given us. So we just have to imitate it, take its example.

Indeed, many of the latest technologies are based on the knowledge of natural systems and mechanisms in the attempt to reproduce them artificially.

We must do the same thing in society, in our social, economic, trade, and other relations. If we had copied nature on ourselves, we would have gotten rid of all the problems.

It is common knowledge that the Creator did not complete Creation when He created it. And we can see in every corner of reality, in the general and in the particular, that it abides by laws of gradual development, from absence to completion of growth. For this reason, when the fruit tastes bitter at the beginning of its growth, it is not considered a flaw in the fruit, since we all know the reason: the fruit has not yet completed its development.

And so it is in every element of reality: When some element appears bad and harmful to us, it is but a self-testimony of that element, that it is still in the transition phase – in the process of its development. Hence, we cannot decide that it is bad and it is not wise for us to cast a flaw in it.

We can say that the world is evolving and we are discovering more complex things in it or we can say that we ourselves are developing and that is why we see the world in more advanced and complex ways.

Whether we are talking about the world outside or the world inside of us is not important. The final conclusion can be simple: “Don’t touch Nature. Don’t stir it with your “dirty” hands and your stupid mind that is able to see just what is within a millimeter of your nose. You better take care of yourself. You have the globe. So, try to live in peace with it and if not it will not be good for you.”

With our corrupt mind, our “dirty,”—that is, egoistic—hands, we interfere with the matters of the Earth, the wealth and resources of which are limited. They are given to us only to move forward in a balanced way according to nature, not adversely against this universal all-encompassing system.

If we do realize our negative attitude, nature immediately begins to defend itself automatically and we encounter the consequences of our increasing error in its response. This causes great suffering, crisis, and the threat to our very existence: the danger of annihilation.

All this because we do not understand: Nature is perfect, and we just need to learn how to join this system fully in a balanced way.

Question: Does this mean that we need to adopt vegetarianism, naturalism, environmentalism, and other methods of this kind?

Answer: If they had stemmed from deep, thorough studies of nature, I would have agreed with them, without even becoming familiar with them completely. The entire point is in the rational, exploring approach.

The principle is simple: The human being is not prohibited from doing anything that does not disturb the natural balance. Of course, we can eat meat and fish, cut down trees, plant plants, and enjoy life. However, we must always know where the boundary is beyond which there are actions directed against balance, and how well we fit in the system of nature.

How can I check this? It is only through my egoism. Where I use it, there, harm begins. After all, nature is an analog system that is entirely altruistic and based on mutual bestowal. All its parts, similar to the organs of our body, care only about the welfare of the whole. This is the way we should see nature in order to check ourselves. Do we act in a similar manner? Do we seek perfection or not?

This is what it means to act not artificially but naturally, to be in constant love and bestowal, which is the law of nature instead of egoism that seeks its own advantage. Thus, at our level, we can carry out the law of nature, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” the law by which its every part lives.

A predator, devouring prey, never does it for the enjoyment of the suffering of others. He just hunts for food and nothing more. The deeper we understand nature, the more convinced of this we become.

Accordingly, we need to understand what and how much we must receive from nature. There is no problem if we use it only to live with it in balance, in other words, if all our actions are for the good of others, for the benefit of the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

How is this achieved? First, we need to correct our own nature. After all, what the lower levels perform instinctively, we must realize in what is called “above reason,” above egoism, and for this we study the method of integral education.

Question: In nature, the strong eat the weak, and it does not disturb harmony. However, this causes a devastating effect among people.

Answer: Uncorrected egoism acts in us. However, in fact, this law should be carried out differently among people, the strong helping the weak in correction. The wolf eating the sheep brings correction, for example, helping the population get rid of the weak animals. Thus, we must help each other according to the same principle of harmony and balance, only it is not eating, but equal love toward everyone at the human level, commitment for the sake of others.

Question: How can we measure our strength or weakness in this context?

Answer: It is through service to others. Either I serve them or use them.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: We say that the principle of love for the other as for oneself is the law of Nature, but can we learn this from it?

Answer: If we could learn this from nature, we would not need integral education.

However, it is possible to learn from nature how to build integral systems. We see from their example that we are not able to integrate into nature and we are unable to identify ourselves with it.

The problem is that no one knows how to establish balance with nature, how to achieve similarity, unity with it. Humanity cannot find the answer to this question by its own power. Here, we are needed, the carrier of the Light that Reforms. We explain to people that the world is integral, that it represents an analog system similar to our body, all the parts of which interact harmoniously with each other, while a person is like a cancerous tumor devouring everything around.

Modern scientists conduct remarkable studies on this topic. The disease is clearly marked and it is clear that it progresses threatening to destroy the entire human race. What if we die out like mammoths? What if it happens in my generation or my children’s generation? What can we do?

It is becoming clear that there is no remedy. After all, it also has to be received from Nature. However, researchers learn from it only in the negative. They state our oppositeness to it and do not know how to become integral.

An indifferent conclusion follows: “Whatever.” Everyone finds his niche, his argument, his justification. Economists say one thing, sociologists say another, politicians, a third, and there is still no solution. They see the negative of our world (–), opposite to perfect nature (+), but cannot figure out how to achieve a balanced state, how to come to equilibrium. This cannot be learned from nature.

That is why the world needs the method of correction, the wisdom of Kabbalah. It teaches how to develop in three lines when the Light is opposed to our ego, and we know how to form the middle line between them, how to balance them.

People without the point in the heart (●) cannot know that because the human ego is manifested in them, while in us, the higher ego resists love. We try to come to love and discover hatred, one that is unknown. It is possible to get along with their hatred and that is why they do not have vessels, the tools for the solution. They are like helpless children and only we can solve today’s problems.

Thus, it is our duty to reveal the difference of potentials to humanity, the entire gap between plus and minus. It, itself, will not clarify the problem to the end because it does not have a solution. Why do we need to reopen the wound? Similarly, spouses avoid problem areas in order not to quarrel for nothing.

Only we can understand the disease and establish its final diagnosis because we have a cure for it.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What type of connection should be formed in the “tens” in order to feel the inner connection with the teacher within this unity since only through him can we establish connection with the Creator?

Answer: Working in the group of ten, you do not have to think about the teacher. I say this not out of some kind of modesty, but because this is not the right approach. The teacher must be high enough in the student’s eyes and respected enough so as to become a magnifying glass through which you look at your path to the Creator and can advance. You use this lens, your teacher, as glasses, but he does not become your goal.

You look not at the glass, but at what is behind it; however, you can see this only with its help. This lens focuses your line of sight on the Creator correctly; this is the role of the teacher and the group.

I see all my students united in one circle, in one body, and I speak addressing this one person. If you try to be included in this common body and connect with them in the way I see them connected, you will receive spiritual information from me. We will meet inside this common body, and there we will really understand each other.

If you want to understand what I am saying, you can understand this in your mind or feel in your heart, but to understand truly you need to be precisely in the center of the group, as if you are walking around the room trying to hear a faint sound and suddenly you find the place where you can hear it well! And if you step a meter to one side or the other side, you will hear nothing. Try it!

It’s necessary to feel the importance of the teacher but only to the extent that is required to perform the work in the group for the sake of revelation of the Creator. The teacher is your instructor, a guide on the spiritual path but not an idol or a king replacing the Creator by Pharaoh’s example.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: It’s unclear how there is still a hierarchy in which there are those who dominate and those who are dominated in a closed, healthy system that is totally connected and all its parts are equal. The hierarchical mechanism is based on linear domination and on an accurate order of cause and effect. So can a linear mechanism be part of a round network?

Answer: It’s hard to perceive the dualism of spirituality that is caused by the fact that we are under the influence of two forces. We are influenced by Malchut of Ein Sof before the first restriction where everything was one with the Creator and everyone was equal.

After the first restriction a line was created through which we descended from the world of Ein Sof into this world by 125 steps and then return through it to Ein Sof. But what is the difference, for example, between level 80 and level 81?

On level 81 there is a stronger connection and also a stronger influence, so on level 80 the world of Ein Sof, which means its infinite mutual connection, seems to us at an intensity level of 80 units out of 125. On level 81, the world of Ein Sof is revealed to us at the level of intensity of 81 out of 125.

But these two forces operate in every state. So, on the one hand, we have to constantly see the world of Ein Sof as the goal in which we are incorporated in the Creator in adhesion with Him. On the other hand, we can advance to the perfect “round” state only with the help of serial linear actions.

It’s a wonder that after taking a step I incorporate into wholeness in the world of Ein Sof! Then I start to work with my desire to receive again, with the Masach (screen), measuring everything accurately which means that I don’t operate in Ein Sof anymore, but in a line. I draw the Light that Reforms, perform a spiritual action, take another step, and then there is the wonder again, I am in the breathtaking world of Ein Sof again!

In what way is the new Ein Sof greater than the previous one? There are more whole attributes in it, round attributes, although I managed to reach the round wholeness by the straight linear way.

Thus we get the outline of creation in which straightness connects the circles. On every level, the first three Sefirot are connected with all the ten Sefirot of that circle. This means that we are always both in a straight state and in a round one.

It is a person who connects the linear advancement with the round one. The creation is linear and the Creator is wholeness, round, and a person’s work is to connect them, and to turn the darkness into light, and the bitter to sweet. A person attains the Creator forever after he turns the line into a circle in the point of connection between the line and the circle.

But he attains Ein Sof on every level, even on the lowest level. In the meantime, however, he finds it hard to see as if looking at it without glasses.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/04/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment”: By accustoming oneself to serving people, one benefits others and not oneself. Thus, one becomes gradually fit to keep the Mitzvot of the Creator with the required condition—benefitting the Creator and not oneself.

I cannot perceive, I can’t understand, I don’t get this principle. I understand that I should “work for the created beings,” to connect to humanity. After all, we are all here together and it’s only as a result of the shattering that the tear between me and others was created and I feel detached from them. This means that I have to overcome to correct the shattering and to connect to them.

But what does that have to do with the Creator? Perhaps He is somewhere on the outside and I can reach Him through humanity? Or perhaps I discover that He is in the unity with others in the group among us and that He even fills this whole space.

Still, it’s hard to focus on the group for the sake of the Creator, what does that mean? It’s a very vague demand, I understand that I have to correct my mutual relations with other people, but how can I also establish a relationship with others in addition to that? Our problem is that we don’t depict the right picture, and the confusion continues in our imagination for a long time.

The Creator is the absolute, the finite, the whole, the attribute of bestowal. The connection between me and the group is the vessel for receiving the attribute of bestowal. We want to attain love and connection between us. We want the world to become round, global, and integral but for the sake of the Creator, which means that the attribute of bestowal will connect to us, so it will dwell among us and dominate us.

Therefore, we mustn’t attribute any personality or image to the Creator, since it’s called “idolatry,” and it leads us off track in a totally different direction. The word “Creator” is made of the Hebrew words “Bo-Re,” (come and see); if you enter a group and reach connection, then thanks to the friends you discover the attribute of bestowal that is called Creator.

Therefore, it says that “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one,” which means that I, together with the friends (or with humanity) reach the Creator. In other words, I and the friends are called Malchut or Shechina, and we discover Zeir Anpin that is revealed in Malchut, according to the connection that was attained in it.

This is where the meaning of the formula “working for the created beings for the sake of the Creator” stems from. We mustn’t imagine that the Creator is someone or something; the Creator is not a personality or a phenomenon, but an attribute that is revealed in us. If I depict something else it means that I engage in idolatry and that I make an idol or an image. If we constantly hold on to this principle, there will be no problems.

After all, we want to establish a system that will include all the vessels and the Lights, this is Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity) in which we are united, connected as the Light is revealed in the vessel. We were created there in phase one, in phase two we correct our attitude (and nothing else! only our attitude), in phase three we perceive and understand the world we are in.

There is no image external to us for which we have to work and which we have to reach; we only imagine the intentions and the calculations in this schematic way: First (1) we create a vessel, and then (2) to the extent that we can connect according to the law of equivalence of form we discover the Creator in this vessel, according to the principle of “come and see.” But the place remains the same place, the same desire, the same Malchut, that remains unchanged.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13

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Opinion (Alain de Benoist, French academic, philosopher): “The Earth is the finite (exhaustible) space. In the end, there cannot be endless material growth in the finite space. Therefore, we must give up the idea of the quantitative growth. All the classical economists argue that growth is a natural phenomenon, considering that natural resources are infinite.

“In our time, a state is powerful if it is able to meet the challenge of time. If growth leads to disaster, then the countries that have implemented a policy of rational economic downturn will be least exposed to it.”

My Comment: There is no need to induce artificial recession; we need to change society gradually and gently by introducing integral education where individual and social changes will bring about changes in all the structures (political, economic, etc.) in a natural (optimal) way.
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