Our entire soul is built of concealment—from the fact that we conceal our will to enjoy in all kinds of ways. The first concealment is a simple concealment. But then I begin to research what I restrict, in which desire I make myself modest, and what I want from myself.

My entire reception can only be for the sake of bestowal, meaning that I build four levels of concealment: concealment upon concealment upon concealment…. And that is how I attain greater importance of the Creator.

But we will never be able to understand His true height this way (or maybe in the new reality, after the end of correction). After all, for now it is entirely composed of what we are able to perceive inside of the concealments we have built.

We cannot value anything that becomes revealed to us clearly, but only by concealing it from ourselves. When a person becomes revealed to us and we start receiving from him openly, we stop respecting him because I now have everything he has. He became revealed to me and treats me simply, and I also treat him simply.

All value is born from concealment. But in spirituality, we do not play “political games,” but reveal ourselves. Precisely others have to make a concealment on themselves in order to attain us.

For example, a teacher in relation to a student opens himself up and comes closer to him. But the student has to make a concealment on him by himself because that is the only way he will be able to receive something from him. Otherwise the teacher will seem simple to him and he won’t be able to absorb his wisdom.

This is why Kabbalists have always carried themselves very simply, while the student’s responsibility is to make a concealment on that.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/11, Shamati

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In the News (Gallup News Service): “About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word. This percentage is slightly lower than several decades ago. The majority of those Americans who don’t believe that the Bible is literally true believe that it is the inspired word of God but that not everything it in should be taken literally. About one in five Americans believes the Bible is an ancient book of ‘fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man.’

Belief in a literal Bible is strongly correlated with indicators of religion, including church attendance and identification with a Protestant or other non-Catholic Christian faith. There is also a strong relationship between education and belief in a literal Bible, with such belief becoming much less prevalent among those who have college educations.”

My comment: Obviously, a wide-spread and long-term systematic education is necessary to instill in people an objective view of the world, to raise them from their childish level of perceiving the world to the level where they don’t reject the Bible, but rather understand it sensibly: as the wisdom of a highest level, the next state of humanity.

Humans are created in the property of “reception” (egoism) and sense themselves in it. They call their feelings “this world.” The Bible talks about another way of perceiving the world, in the property of “bestowal” (altruism), and about a sensation in it called “the future or upper world.”

Kabbalah provides an opportunity for a peaceful transition from the perception in the property to “receive” to the perception in the property to “bestow.” Otherwise, the transition will be tragic.

Since we completed our development in the property to “receive” and exist at the beginning of the transition to the property to “bestow,” Kabbalah is being revealed to us today. It suggests that we use it to learn what to expect and how to plan the future.
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Students usually have a hard time grasping the concept of the “reverse order of the Light entering the desire.” But in reality it is a very natural process.

If I am at degree zero (Shoresh), I understand and attain only the minimal Light of Nefesh. When my desire grows and attains Level 1 (Aleph), the Light of Nefesh passes into it, while the Light of the next degree (Ruach) enters degree zero.

When I was with the Light of Nefesh, meaning with little reason, little strength and calculations, that was the only way I could sense my relationship and connection with the Light. That was all I had.

Now I’ve reached a greater depth of the desire and attained a greater Light. But this Light doesn’t pertain to my current state. At this degree where I’ve ascended with my new, stronger desire, I receive the weakest Light, Nefesh, because I’m only beginning to learn about this new desire.

Yet now I also feel and understand my previous state better. I feel that it was the beginning, the springboard from which I ascended to my present degree. That is why I now attain in it a greater understanding, which is called the Light of Ruach, compared to the Light of Nefesh that I had before.

Suppose that I grew from one to two years of age. At the level of a two-year-old child I don’t yet know the world and myself and I possess a very basic perception and reason (the Light of Nefesh)—I simply exist. But my understanding of what it is to be a one-year-old, including all the previous forms and states, is already better. In them I already have a kind of attainment, the Light of Ruach.

It follows that the more I grow, the smarter I become, only not in my present state. It’s because in spirituality, we always advance by faith above reason, without fully understanding the process, but merely entering into a new state every time. And when I ascend onto this new state, in it I will acquire the Light of Nefesh.

But I have already attained the previous states and recognized their necessity and inevitability. I know why they actualized in me the way they did, why I underwent the entire string of these states. That is why in these state I sense NaRaNHaY (Nefesh-Ruach-Neshama-Haya-Yechida).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: I think that I have already torn myself away from my ego. What do I do next?

Answer: You cannot tear yourself away from the ego. It is a great and lengthy work that continues through all the degrees of your spiritual ascent. This is because the higher you ascend along the degrees of the spiritual worlds, the more your ego grows.

You are presently in a state where, indeed, you barely feel the ego at your current degree. What can you do about that? I think that you don’t study enough. If you study more, together with us and more intensively, your ego will have no choice but to grow quickly.

The growth of the ego depends on whether or not you have the tools to work with it. If you’re connected to the group, to dissemination, to our lessons, and to my blog, then your ego will grow every second, and you won’t be able to escape it. You will discover that it’s terrorizing you, and then you will be able to work with it. However, if you’re weak, you will not be given this kind of ego, and you will sit there peacefully and think that you’re already an angel.

In reality, this cannot be. If you don’t feel the blows of the ego every second that arise in us so that we could correct them, all that it means is that you’re not yet sufficiently connected with the group and the study.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 7/17/2011

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If a person does not aspire to fulfill himself egoistically, if he does not wait for the Light to come and fulfill him without any preparation, but understands that the Light is a sensation within a desire, such a person wishes to change himself and is called a sage.

He understands that he was allowed only to experience an initial, small impression, and he will only experience all the other phenomena under the condition of developing his desire according to the four phases of the Direct Light. There, at the last phase of the development of desire, he will feel that he bestows, and in accordance with it, he will experience life in bestowal called the upper Light.

So, a sage is someone who sees a “newborn,” a new state that is being born. With his actions and the help of the Light influencing him, he reaches such profound changes in his desire that he transitions from reception, the desire to receive pleasure, to the desire to bestow and the sensation of love, which is life.

His desire changes, and he begins to feel himself coming closer to the action of bestowal which initially repulsed him. At first, he forced himself to act. However, by exerting effort and attracting upon himself the influence of the Light, he came to a point when he actually started to desire bestowal.

This is a miracle of the Light. It acts in response to our efforts, even without our initial desire, and changes it. This way, the desire goes through qualitative stages of development and becomes a new desire.

A person who is wise enough to see the “newborn,” the new desire being conceived in him, the need to bestow, exerts effort and understands that he is working against the constant Light, the “Good Who does Good.” He uses the Light that Reforms. This way, he goes through one state after another, stage after stage, and comes to the Light of life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, Shamati #122

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We are used to seeing clear, familiar phenomena of our world, which do not change. On the other hand, some phenomena do depend on the way we use them. For example, there is electricity which we can use to produce different and completely opposite actions such as to acquire cold and heat. Fire that can heat or burn is another example. Basically, everything depends on the way it is used. In other words, everything depends on the user, the desire (Kli) that this force clothes into.

It is the same regarding the upper Light. It contains everything, including the desire itself, all the phenomena that can happen in it, and all the impressions it will perceive from the Light.

A common beginner’s mistake is to think that the Light is something specific and constant that is always good. But this is not always so. There is even the notion of Pulsa de Nura (lashes of fire), a curse. Overall, all the best and all the worst things come from the Light. It is like electricity: Everything depends on the way it is used.

For this reason, the definition of the Creator as “Good Who does Dood” refers to the Light, a phenomenon that can be accepted and revealed only in the desires to bestow. It is impossible to receive and feel this goodness in an egoistic desire. It simply does not exist there.

Since the desire to bestow is not limited by anything, and the nature of the actual Light in its root of the “Good Who does Good” is unlimited, the phenomenon called Light and life can only be experienced in a desire that is fully directed toward bestowal. All the other, opposite forms are not called life and Light.

We would like to reach the sensation of the Good Who does Good, but we do not understand that this means nothing other than the sensation of bestowal and love. It is like when a drug addict thinks that good states only exist under the influence of drugs, not understanding that there is a way to receive pleasure from other things.

For this reason, our objective is to prepare the desire, the vessel, in order to perceive the quality of bestowal. As it is written: “Wisdom is given to sages.” This means that it is given to those who understand that they do not exist in the quality of bestowal, and that this is the only nature they need to reach to receive the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), the Light of life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, Shamati #122

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Question: In his article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Baal HaSulam writes that we have to act without any payment, without any compensation, and without any admixture of self-love. How can we cleanse ourselves from the expectations of reward, of good results?

Answer: You have the tools: the Kabbalistic method called the Torah and the group. If you want to unite with the entire group and build a future world in it as a proper example for everyone, do this.

How can you unite? You can unite through the Torah. The Light in it reforms. Everyone should feel how much he is disconnected or connected with others. Each must try to check all the time whether he gives an impulse to connect.

Finally, our aspiration is necessary during studying. Where is the prayer during the lesson? Where is the prayer that motivates you to unite?

There is a common network; however, its threads are cut off, and we have to reconnect them. We come to the lesson to study the broken ties between us and to understand how to weave them back together. These are the results that we should expect from the lesson. Are we expecting them?
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Opinion: (Мikhail Koroliuk, Executive Manager, IFC Solid, expert.ru): “In 2008, we entered a credit cycle contraction phase, and it will continue until 2015 at least. During this time, the world will be shaken by credit and bank crises, and the policy of “tightening the belt” will lead to weak economic growth. The European credit crisis will reach the heart of Europe, the USA will struggle with its colossal cumulative debt, and China’s debt problems will surface as well (the next major world crisis may start particularly there). So, it’s still all ahead of us….”

My comment: Somehow everybody believes that fate itself will solve our problems, without us making any effort! “We’ll get over it, even if we do nothing.” Thus we are heading toward a war. We are becoming increasingly opposite to nature that manifests to us as a unified system.
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We have to gradually bring our explanations to every person, in his language and on his level of understanding. The explanation has to come gradually, until people start being able to feel that precisely the connection between us gives us the sensation of a different life, as if we are on a different planet, in a different dimension.

It is impossible to talk about this right away. We always have to address separate individuals and groups of people on different levels of development, according to the desire that they are experiencing right now. Therefore, at first the explanation must be presented in a language that they understand: “You will feel good. There won’t be wars, terrorism, or drugs. Your children will be more successful, there will be fewer divorces,” and so on.

Different layers of the population have to be addressed in a form that’s suitable for them: some are more inclined to watching movies, others listening to music, others yet, reading books, and others can be approached through science, the economy, and anything else.

The environment has to be similar to a sphere that radiates many opportunities upon every person to understand what is “the global world” in which we exist. Just as the world is global, so the system of upbringing has to be global, meaning it must include all forms of influence, on every level, in all forms, and in every language—from the side of everything that surrounds a person.

This is the system of upbringing that we have to build. Without it humanity won’t advance. It will be affected by all kinds of problems and disasters, and it will be forced to build itself in this manner in any case. After all, by that it realizes its independence because by building an environment for itself in order to change and become corrected, it realizes its freedom of choice. And therefore, it builds itself on the Human level.

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Opinion: (Мikhail Leontyev, analyst, essayist, the “Golden Pen of Russia” award winner, ruskline.ru): “The algorithm of the future financial collapse is evident. Europe will sink first since it isn’t prepared to handle such challenges, although European financial policy is more responsible than the American one. Yet, the European model is not designed to solve crises. It is meant to make people happy….

“It is impossible to effectively synchronize financial behavior of such diverse economies consolidated into one system. They can be synchronized solely by capital mobility, and what we see today is the result thereof…. We can drive Greece to bankruptcy and discover that France and Germany have collapsed because they financed Greece. It equally concerns Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Belgium, and the others. And next, it will inevitably lead to the collapse of the United States. In any case, it’s clear that the process won’t stop in Europe. It isn’t a secret that Americans are simply printing money today. By doing so, they are essentially turning the world’s money into nothing for ultimately, all the world’s money is the American money. There is no other money in the world….

“Therefore, there is no way out of this deadlock. The only question is who will go first and who will be second. Although, it doesn’t really change anything. In order to exit the crisis, the expenses of the world’s main financial subjects must be brought to balance with their revenues. Macroeconomic equilibrium will be restored at any cost ….and that is exactly what we will be witnessing soon.”

My comment: But the analyst doesn’t go any further, into the cause and the goal of the economic crisis. The economy is a projection of our nature and our egoistic relationships. If we don’t change them, we will not be able to form a global, integral financial connection and synchronize the economies of all world countries. For that, we have to first synchronize ourselves, meaning we have to reach mutual understanding of our common goal.

In other words, only having unified in the Creator will we comprehend how to build an integral economy. Until then, our mind and qualities will be unable to create such a system.
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