Question: Is it possible to transition to bestowal without any pain and suffering?

Answer: Yes. It is possible to make this transition without suffering if you do it under the influence of the environment.

The environment is able to imbue me with an aspiration to any goal, even the most unrealistic one. If everyone around me thinks about it, I will also start to aspire to it. Then it won’t be at all difficult for me to value the quality of bestowal. I will see it as a great reward instead of my current egoistic reception. However, the condition for this is that others around me also think and act this way.

A person is much like a computer whose old program can be erased by society and a new, more advanced program with new data can be installed. I advance to the degree this happens.

The only reason I need a mind is to follow those who show me the spiritual path. However, following them is not that simple because you don’t do it by turning into a robot, but on the contrary, you grow!

You constantly receive interferences on all levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human, which impede you from following the spiritual path. You have to lower yourself and come down from the height of your enormous egoism in order to be able to follow the spiritual teacher. That is why you have to have a great mind in order to decipher all of the shrewd tricks of your egoism. Then you will avoid following your egoism and will advance by faith above reason, by following your teacher.

We receive states that are so confusing that we start to look down on the teacher and even to hate him. However, if you are able to ascend above this and turn yourself into “nothing,” to “dust under the feet of the righteous,” it means you are following a righteous person on the spiritual path. This causes you to be great like that person because you receive everything that is in his mind. You receive this through him from the Creator.

When it says that the nation followed Moses like a flock follows a shepherd, it doesn’t mean that they walked like animals. Rather, it is talking about a special form of advancement where you nullify yourself before the teacher, Moses, and through him you nullify yourself relative to the Creator. In the same exact way we go from love for the people to love for the Creator. Otherwise, we cannot change.

You change your previous form and acquire a new one, which is similar to the Creator. This does not belittle you in any way. If you nullify yourself in the spiritual world against the Klipot at the height of the Worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut, and you follow your teacher, then you rise to the height of those worlds. We are talking only about the height of your opposition to the interferences that are sent to you (that emerge).

This is called “walking by faith above reason.” I don’t have the knowledge that my spiritual teacher does, and thus I nullify myself in relation to him. I cancel my mind and receive new knowledge from him. It is knowledge of the Upper Level, “faith.” The lower part of his spiritual Partzuf, AHP, becomes immersed in me and I accept darkness as Light even though it appears dark inside my egoistic desire. That is how I can advance along the spiritual path.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Pictures from the concluding lecture and concert of the Mega Kabbalah Congress that took place July 25, 2010 Tel Aviv, Israel.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 237: When the Creator, Bina, wished to create the world, which is ZA, He elicited one flame of the harsh spark and blew wind into wind, and the flame was darkened, as well as burned. He elicited a single drop from the sides of the deep and put them together—the drop and the flame—and created the world with them, ZA.

The Upper Governance descends to us from the system called GAR of the World of Atzilut. Below it, resides Zeir Anpin whom we call the Creator because he is the Upper One in relation to Malchut of the World of Atzilut, the place of the gathering of all souls.

At present, however, our souls are broken and they reside below Malchut. When the broken souls desire correction, they raise their prayer to her. Yet, how do they know what this correction entails? They wish to stick together! They say: “We are willing to pledge for each other and unite!” Malchut means assembly of all souls that yearn for the Creator (Isra-El). Only he who wants to be with the others without any exception will be able to enter Malchut; and the one who doesn’t will not.

The condition is very clear and simple, and everyone is welcome. The door is open, come in! But at the entrance, you will have to meet the condition, and if you do, you will enter; if you don’t you will not. If you wish to come in, prepare yourself.

All souls who enter Malchut come together and raise a prayer to the Creator (Zeir Anpin). This prayer is a request to become similar to Him. In the beginning, with the help of the group, we raise our first prayer to Malchut. From Malchut, we raise the prayer (MAN) further, to Zeir Anpin. Zeir Anpin collects our prayer and raises it to Bina (Ima Ilaa), and there, he receives the force, Light, and anti-egoistic screens on our behalf. Then, he descends and passes this force down to Malchut, who passes it on to the souls included in her. In this way, everyone who has entered Malchut is granted the entire Light promised to him from Above.

This is what all of The Zohar is talking about. And this is the only system that exists in Universe.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar is the crown of the science of Kabbalah. It is no coincidence that it holds a special place in the treasury of humanity’s heritage. And it is not by mere chance that it rouses such respect and fear. There is a great gift in this book which we received directly from the Creator. It is a special and wonderful force capable of bringing us all to goodness, eternity, and perfection.

This is precisely why today, when the whole of humanity is at the turning point of its development, this book is being revealed. No other book (not even any of the other Kabbalistic books whose purpose is to raise us to the Upper World) can compare to The Book of Zohar in terms of its influential power. It engages, captures, and attracts the reader to such an extent that one wishes to return to it, to place oneself under its influence, again and again.

For a reader who has already delved into it, it becomes a source of energy, strength, and life. This book reveals the secrets of both the Upper Worlds and this world, which science is still unable to discover today. With the help of The Book of Zohar, we can understand what happens to us, reveal a new life for ourselves, and unite with a source of goodness and perfect fulfillment.

The purpose of this book is to prepare the reader for studying The Book of Zohar. The Guide to The Book Of Zohar is meant to be studied independently, as its title denotes, as a guide to The Book of Zohar, and it does not require any preliminary knowledge in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

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From Rabash’s article “Who is He Who Causes Prayer?”: A person must say: “If not I, who will help me, and if not now, then when?” Therefore, it is forbidden to slow down even for a moment, and we cannot await a more appropriate time to begin engaging in spiritual work.

This means that we should always be ready to turn to the Creator with an appeal and to constantly clarify and refine it, until it receives a reply.

However, after one’s action, one should believe that it is not man who calls out to the Creator, but on the contrary, the Creator summons him. And the reason for their closeness comes from the Creator rather than from man…Thus, before praying, one must first thank the Creator for summoning one in order to bring one closer to Him.

In this manner we establish ourselves directly along the line, where the Light spreads out to us in all of its stages. And if I remember, understand, feel, and hold onto the thought that spiritual awakening comes to me from the Creator, it means that I already have an initial connection. With the help of this initial spiritual awakening from the Creator, I can appeal back to the Creator with my own request.

Thanking the Upper Force for the awakening that it sent to me means to enter into the first contact with it, choosing the only correct direction to the Creator: from all directions, a “full 360 degrees.” Making the choice of this direction is the first action that we are able to carry out.

This is similar to the parable about the King’s son who dug a tunnel under his father’s house in order to take a pound of gold from the father. And this tunnel was from two sides – from the inside and from the outside because the father, in turn, was also digging a tunnel toward him with the desire to give sooner.

In other words, the Creator first gives us an awakening, and a prayer is born inside us. However, this prayer will not be a simple request; a real desire will be revealed in us, and in response to this desire we will be given the force of bestowal from Above.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/10, Article, “Who is He Who Causes Prayer?”

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Matter of Root and Branch”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Lech-Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 240
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 5, Lesson 4
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 3, Lesson 4
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We are created from the material of “the desire to enjoy.” Therefore, we need energy in the form of “pleasure” in order to perform any physical or mental action. In other words, nothing moves in our world without an egoistic stimulus. Consciously or unconsciously, we weigh everything in our “desire to enjoy,” and in the assessments of this desire each thing acquires “its own” qualities: color, weight, height, and distance.

In order to be successful in this world, we need to have the right scale of values, or in other words, the right set-up of “the desire to enjoy.” And this is what we teach our children: to strive for the good things and to avoid the harmful things. To distance oneself from evil means not to have the energy to work for it.

However, there is no motivation in our “desire to enjoy” for reaching the spiritual, “the desire to bestow”! After all, the spiritual world is opposite to me; it is the desire to bestow rather than to receive pleasure. This attribute doesn’t exist in me at all. Therefore, I do not feel the spiritual world. I can “see” only what I evaluate in “the desire to enjoy” as more or less valuable, determining it as something close and important to me or distant and insignificant.

In spirituality, “the quality to bestow,” all the criteria, thoughts, and actions are based only on bestowal. Yet my “desire to enjoy” does not understand what that is. Bestowal passes through me like an invisible illumination, which I do not sense in any way. Whole worlds and actions are performed beside me, and I do not notice them in my “desire to enjoy” just like an animal doesn’t understand the sensations of a human being.

What can I do if I am created this way? All the worlds and most importantly the One who controls me, the Creator Himself, remain unnoticed by me! In order to feel them, I need to begin to value “the quality of bestowal.”

This is why we are given the environment: the books, the teacher, and the friends so that they will instill the importance of bestowal into me. Although I personally don’t think so, they tell me this, and their opinion is important to me. I am created to absorb the influence of the environment, and what is important to the people that surround me becomes important to me.

Thus, even bestowal, which is of no value to me, begins to be important if everyone talks about it. It becomes important in my “desire to enjoy” as a good acquisition. I am willing to exert effort to attract the Upper Light which brings me “the desire to bestow” because this is important to my “desire to enjoy.” In Kabbalah this is called spiritual work for oneself, Lo Lishma.

However, the Upper Light that I draw changes me and replaces “the desire to enjoy” with “the desire to give enjoyment” (from Lo Lishma to Lishma). I then enter the perception of the Upper World.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/10, Shamati #15

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