A question I received: If Kabbalists wished to tell us about the Upper World, then why do they describe it using the words of our world and thereby confuse us?

My Answer: Kabbalists communicate with us in the “language of branches.” The science of Kabbalah is written for those who have a point in the heart, meaning for the people who yearn to reveal spirituality, the Upper World. They don’t know what it is, but nevertheless aspire toward it.

You can take a Kabbalistic book and read it as though you are reading about something existing in this world. Yet by doing so, try to constantly imagine that whatever you are reading about exists in the Upper World in the form forces and properties, reception and bestowal, and nothing else. This is why Baal HaSulam defines each word of our world by providing its meaning in the Upper World.

If I aspire to see this picture, then where is it? It’s not somewhere in the heavens; it’s within me. That is, a Kabbalistic book talks about my inner forces, about the world within me. In general, the book talks only about me; everything exists within me: people and animals, the sun, the moon, and the spiritual Partzufim.

However, when I imagine all of this within myself, I also have to wish for the Light to come and correct this picture within me, to let me see and feel these forces of love and bestowal. I desire to reveal not only this bestowal, but also the force that governs it all: the Creator.

To achieve it, I have to imagine that the people surrounding me in this world also exist within me. There is nothing else; everything is merely my inner forces. Start imagining that you now connect with all of these people, that is, with all of these forces within you. When you begin to constantly work with the book in this way, it will direct you toward bestowal. This way you will awaken the real picture and draw it closer to yourself. This is called “attracting the Light that Reforms.”

A Kabbalistic book not only helps us reveal what exists within each of us, it also teaches how to sharpen our vision so as to reveal all the worlds, the entire universe, and all of reality within ourselves. There is nothing outside. That’s why Kabbalah is called an inner science.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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A question I received: What is “mutual guarantee”?

My Answer: Yesterday during the Lesson for Children I gave the following example: Every person possesses a very small egoistic force. We can’t reach the spiritual world with it because spirituality entails total bestowal. The spiritual world exists one degree above our world, which means that we have to be stronger by one degree than we currently are.

How can we transform a small, egoistic force into a big, bestowing one? By uniting! We have to unite in the form of a mutual guarantee, that is, to unite overriding all the borders. How?

Suppose there are 50 people, of varying stature. If everybody incorporates himself or herself into the smallest one, he becomes a giant, his height reaching 60 feet and weight 2000 pounds. And what will happen if everyone joins the biggest one, who is taller than everybody else? The result will be the same: There will a 60 foot, 2000 pound giant. In other words, there are no small or big ones in mutual interconnection; rather, everyone becomes equal.

In that case, when will they enter the spiritual world? If they are incorporated into each other, they will do it together. This is what is called “mutual guarantee.”

This is how we should relate to our common spiritual vessel (the soul, Kli). There is no difference between the souls that comprise it, neither in their “height” nor in their “weight.” If new students connect to us, they become worthy of receiving everything that we achieve. Such is a special, miraculous force that mutual guarantee contains.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/10, The Zohar

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There is a psychological barrier on the path to the spiritual goal. If I wish to attain bestowal, I must not ask about anything else but how to bestow. Moreover, this isn’t bestowal as defined by my egoistic mind and my current desire. This means I can’t demand anything which is within my current understanding; it would be opposite to true bestowal and the spiritual state. Only when I move into the spiritual state and receive this spiritual attribute, will I begin to examine myself there with my new mind and new heart. Then, I’ll feel and understand within the desires of bestowal.

I simply cannot know about bestowal in my egoistical desires; it won’t work. In fact, the very first phase of entering spirituality is called “crossing the Machsom” (the barrier before the spiritual world) precisely for this reason. The perception of the quality of bestowal is completely separated from anything that’s taking place in my present desires. Therefore, it is above reason (above my current understanding) that I demand the quality of bestowal. I just want to know how to receive this attribute, even though I don’t know what it means. At present, I don’t have any connection with it, any point of contact with it, or the  ability to test it. I simply accept it in whatever form it will be handed to me from Above.

Such an attitude doesn’t seem to fit a serious, evolved, intelligent person. However, it is quite the opposite. Those who possess advanced perception, mind, and comprehension of all the processes that we go through, examine their egoism and see how we are entirely controlled and enslaved by it. They understand that we have no choice but to rise above it by cutting ourselves off from our present desires and limited egoistic perception and mind.

Therefore, during the lesson, I’m only asking for the Light to work on me. It doesn’t matter what it’s doing with me. I’m like an infant who doesn’t understand anything, but lies in the arms of its mother, completely compliant with anything she is doing with him. I have to attain such devotion to and annulment before the Upper One. I beg, “Heal me!” Beside this, I ask nothing more.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: If we are unable to control our states, how can we make them change?

My Answer: We have to ask the Upper Light to give us the ability to learn what bestowal means. I’m not asking for anything more. We are not to know, discern, nor manage states in the sense that we imagine it in our mind. This is possible only to the degree that I rise above my reason, above the approach I’m used to. I can rise to pure bestowal when I don’t request anything else besides it. I have to exist in bestowal rather than request understanding or sensation.

The complete and perfect spiritual vessel is a single and unique desire. I have to ask only for the property of bestowal (faith above reason) so as to know what it is and to exist in it. Then, once I receive this property, I will sense, see, and manage everything.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 10 
During the studies we keep our intention on the unity in order for the light to connect us to one another. In this unity we will reveal the Creator.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 50
Out of all the confusion, we must clarify what’s good for our advancement and see the greater desire which is good for us.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 37
Baal HaSulam gave us Kabbalah in such a form that prevents the possibility of materializing the spiritual concepts during the study.
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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article “Sometimes We Call Spirituality A Soul,” Vol. 1, Page 31  
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We can’t even imagine how much the environment in which we grew up has shaped us for life. We were constantly exposed to examples of how to profit in our egoistic desire. This is how the others conducted themselves, and from them we learned to do the same. We never received a single example of how to perform acts of bestowal! That is so even when we were taught “good” behavior or it was explained that certain behaviors were in our best interest.

In other words, we were constantly receiving egoistic examples. The program of reception aimed at securing an egoistic gain was simply “embedded” into us. Then a habit became a second nature, and now I can’t see the world in any other way. Possibly, if I saw the world in waves of bestowal, instead of  reception, I would see a completely different picture. Who knows, maybe I would see something which I presently cannot discern?

I simply grew up and became like I am. Now, an enormous work is required in order to transform my nature. But perhaps the time will come when children will be growing up in a different way, in an environment of teachers, parents, family members, and society in general in which everybody relates to each other completely differently: altruistically. Then children would be influenced in this altruistic manner.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/10, Article, “Concerning the Importance of Society”

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A question I received: We have to rise MAN (Mayin Nukvin, a prayer). Is this action performed within the desire?

My Answer: MAN means that I’m asking for the force of bestowal. From within Malchut, I turn to Bina and ask Bina for the ability to bestow. However, I have to reach the state whereby becoming filled with this prayer (MAN) is enough for me; I feel joy from being able to rise MAN.

How does the Torah describe this state? It is when you come into the “daylight.” A “day” is when you have nothing and have been wandering in the desert, looking for MAN (the desire to bestow), and you find it. When you do, it enlivens you, satisfying all of your tastes. It contains everything that you desire.

What kind of “taste” is it? Where is it coming from? What is MAN? It comes to you from Bina. It is when a mere possibility to make a plea to the Creator is enough for you: “I have the connection with Him. I can ask Him. Nothing else is important to me.”

Yet, don’t I want to have the desire within which I can reveal the Creator? No. I’m satisfied by merely having an aspiration to Him. This constitutes my fulfillment now. The connection with the Creator through the group fulfills me.

"But what kind of connection is it? How can you have anything? You have nothing." True, but can I appeal to Him by rising MAN? When this is possible, that’s enough. This is called “wandering in the desert,” acquiring the properties of “Hafetz Hesed” (he who doesn’t want anything). In the desert you are deprived of everything, you truly desire nothing for yourself. Yet thereby, you acquire the correction by the property of bestowal, similarity to the Creator, and this is your fulfillment.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/10, The Zohar

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In order to understand and feel where we are, we have to grow spiritually. In the material world, a drop of semen starts to grow in the mother’s womb and then, after coming out into this world, continues to live in a larger space, ultimately becoming a human being. Similar processes take place in our internal spiritual development.

At a certain stage of our earthly lives we begin to sense a drop of spiritual semen that is called “the point in heart,” a desire toward spiritual development. This means that the point has unwrapped itself. We didn’t exist in this world before our parents gave birth to us. Similarly, we are brought to spiritual birth by our father and mother (also called “Abba ve Ima” in Kabbalah).

Spiritual growth happens under the influence of a force called the Upper Light. It leads us through concealments and revelations of the Light. It “shakes” us by revealing itself and showing us reality and then hiding it from us again. It plays with us and  increases and decreases our aspiration toward it. The Light influences us by altering the states we go through: good and bad, and in clarity and confusion. If our reaction is right, we develop: one more moment, one more day, and one more week.

Our development can last for thousands of years or we can complete it in a year or two. Everything depends upon the individual. All we need to know is how to react to the force that triggers our development, and to start connecting everything to one source: “There is None Else Besides Him.” He hides behind our visible wrapping of reality.

I start to discern Him and dig deeper into this reality. I do this in order to feel this power and understand how it works through all the “coverings” of this world including: close friends, strangers, nature, and even myself when it changes me internally.

With the internal changes, I begin to sense myself as a black box that understands and feels to a small degree the influences it undergoes. I begin to understand that my only task is to react to what’s happening to me. Impulses come from a visible reality, from those who are close to me, from strangers, friends and enemies; all of them are shadows that block the Upper Force from me.

If I manage to connect with the Creator through this concealment, it is called “a shade of holiness” since I build my relationship with the Creator through the resistance of concealment. At this point I begin to understand the show He is playing for me, and through it, I attain Him.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/10, Shamati #8

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A question I received: How can we demand correction at present when we are entirely in egoistic desires?

My Answer: Of course, we can’t demand correction at present. If I’m an absolute egoist, how can I ask for correction? However, what’s demanded from me is to ask for a bit of bestowal to the extent that I’m able to ask while still in egoism. This means that while you’re in Lo Lishma, (that is, in a lie, in the ego, in your desire for pleasure, and in thoughts about yourself), you are making a weak cry that you want to be giving.

Of course, it’s a lie, and you don’t want to love others, to give to them, and become similar to the Creator. You simply don’t know what bestowal is, and because of this, you are able to say these words. If you knew what it was, you’d run away immediately. The truth is concealed from you so that you don’t know what you are asking for. Bestowal is so opposite to your nature that it’s really death for your present desires and qualities.

In the science of Kabbalah, we study the relationship between Lights and desires. There is a vessel or desire with the Light opposite to it. Beside this, there is another state in which desire is not true but false, and the Light which is opposite to it is not Direct but Surrounding. This is exactly the state that we’re in now. However, for now, we ask that this Light come and bring us this desire to give as if we want to become giving, and it works because of this.

The system is designed such that, from our current state in which we do not want the next state, but nonetheless are asking for it, we can come to this next state, we can start wanting it, receive it, and be in it. This is caused by Reshimot, the spiritual genes, which remain in us from the corrected state that later shattered. These Reshimot awaken Lights in the World of Atzilut that are far from us. We can attract them to influence us, and then they are called Surrounding Lights.

Certainly, we’re in a lie and don’t want bestowal or to love our neighbor. It is true. The Torah does not hide this fact from us. On the contrary, it tells us that the Creator is concealed and the spiritual world is concealed because if you saw it, you would never want it.

Thus, spirituality is concealed so that you can imagine that it’s good for you even in your egoistic desires. When you imagine some egoistic reward for yourself, as if you want the spiritual world, the Light still influences you and changes your desires and thoughts from receiving to giving. This is how it works. The system was designed exactly for this process.

It works in this way not only in our state when we ascend from this receiving level to the first degree of giving; after crossing the Machsom (the barrier to spirituality), we ascend from state to state according to the same principle: by desiring the undesirable. Although, at those stages “a person’s soul teaches him,” and we have some support because we are already in the spiritual world.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, The Zohar

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