There are different materials, for example dough, clay or marble, and there is what we make of it. In “Safra Detzniuta” there is an example of a farmer who comes to town and is surprised to see in the market rolls, pretzels, cookies, and other baked goods made from the same flour he produces.

According to evolution, the contact with the upper Light brings about many different forms, but the material that takes on these forms stays the same, and that is the desire to receive. So there are never any restrictions on the desire itself. We don’t do anything at all with it; our actions are only with regard to the forms.

Now our desire has an egotistic form that is aimed against the goal of creation. So we have to restrict this form, but not the desire. Only in this way will it receive a new correct form and we will be able to use it as we please.

Another problem is that we have to agree with the fact that we receive bad and corrupt forms. It is written, “a man’s heart is evil from his youth.” The Creator on his part, created the evil inclination, and we have to demand to advance to goodness.

Thus we have to show great restraint, to be tolerant toward all the forms through which the correction is performed. Some forms are even worse than the previous ones, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Impatience, outbursts, negative feelings, hate—can reveal things we’ve never encountered before on our way to the goal. Baal HaSulam brings the example of a fruit, which as it ripens goes through stages that are opposite from its final form. It becomes more sour, more bitter, less attractive, and only in the last stage does it begin to take its final form. A month before it ripens it can be poisonous. This is just as the darkness becomes thicker before dawn.

So we have to be very patient with the intermediate forms; they serve the development, although they may seem awful. We appreciate a person for his efforts, whether he does as much as he can do or not. The main point is that he shouldn’t be harmful and critical and as for the rest we can wait.

All our studying, all our advancement, all the understanding and the feeling do not appear in the material, but in its forms. This is what we study all the time. The desire is irrelevant. I look at the forms and at the differences between them.

These forms come to us from the Creator, from the Light, but they can appear in us as positive or negative. We are between the two contrasting forms: the angel of life and the angel of death. These two angels are the first nine Sefirot, and the material of our desire is Malchut. We receive the positive forms from them in our desire and the negative ones out of necessity and so we advance.

One cannot exist without the other. Every form should include the two forces that operate on the neutral matter of the desire to receive, meaning the two opposite changes that influence the data.

The desire was created as “something from nothing,” and we study everything that is in it, everything it goes through by the principle of formal education, of knowing the forms that come from the Creator, from the Light. We never study and explore the Light itself, but the forms of the Light on the material, on the desire; just as we don’t feel electricity by itself, but what it brings about, which can be measured and studied.

Eventually, we never attain the phenomenon itself, and we don’t know what the desire to receive is in itself. We only attain its reactions to the Light, and thus learn about the influence of the Light on the desire, when we deduce one from the other.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/11, “The Freedom”

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Question: The idea of self-fulfillment isn’t prominent enough in our message. When a person hears about connection, he is afraid to lose his “self”.…

Answer: On the contrary, today a person is enslaved to the modern destructive environment, and on this background, we offer very sensible things: Let’s work according to every individual’s abilities and provide every person with the normal basic necessities. Then we will not have to waste our resources on wars, conflicts, and credit bubbles. Besides, we will finally have some free time.

It is true that there is a problem here: What are we going to do with the spare time we will suddenly have? How will we fulfill ourselves?

But just a minute, how exactly do we fulfill ourselves today? Is it at work where we grind away ten hours a day for the landlord? On the contrary, when a person has free time, he will be able to finally reach self-fulfillment and to fulfill the human in him.

Today, because of the distorted habits we’ve acquired, we don’t know what to do with our spare time. We are simply programmed like robots: After working for many hours sitting in front of the computer, we come back home and sit down…in front of another computer. Look at how cunningly society has implanted the program of slavery in us. I eat what everyone eats, I sleep when everyone sleeps, I do what everyone does, and this is—my “free” life.

Do you think that there is no life without filling the egoistic desires? How can you get up in the morning and not chase another portion of pleasure?

But who told you that you wouldn’t be able to do that in the new society? Run, do whatever you feel like, just don’t use your ego.

The moment we understand that the ego is destructive and that it leads us to ruin, to a collision with nature—what will we have left? We will only have to balance it.

Today it is burning in you in the wrong way. You get up in the morning and you think about how you will “fix” others today, how you will use them in your favor. But you can use your desire differently, without hurting anyone. If you don’t intend to harm others, if you think positively—it isn’t egoism in its present form anymore.

Here we come to the communist view. The Soviet Union gave communism a bad name; they used it as a cover up for its unsuccessful attempt to build a new society. Still, communism in its true meaning is the best and most advanced social structure.

“But what will I do with my communist freedom,” you ask? “What will I ten hours a day?” By this you already admit that now you are a slave. After all, only a slave doesn’t know what to do if the master doesn’t tell him anything.

We actually want you to have all this free time, so that you will be able to create the human form in you. And you are saying: “I don’t want to! What is this is self-fulfillment? I understand if you tell me to run to work in the morning”—and so the merry-go-round of work days and evenings in front of the screen go by, until life is over. This is understood. You have gotten used to this slavery.

But a free society will intentionally leave you with spare time and tell you: “Give your body all that it needs and beyond that—build the human in you.”

The term “human” is love of others, and you don’t want to raise that in you. During all the time that you could devote to that—you are busy destroying the world. After all, beyond the basic necessities, most of our resources are spent on ammunition and other destructive “toys.”

Marx, the founder of communism, understood this. He was a true scholar, an economist, and he had a deep understanding of the system. We, unfortunately, don’t understand him. Eventually, however, even the bad example of the Soviet Union will help us acknowledge the good in it. People are beginning to understand now that the whole story of the “victory of capitalism” is not that simple.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, “The Freedom”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: You need to determine further that we distinguish two forces in that force called the “will to receive”: 1. The attracting force. 2. The rejecting force.

These two forces are always combined in us and never act independently. What’s more, the whole essence, all the attributes in all the creatures, on every level of the spiritual and the corporeal worlds, eventually depend on the combination and adaptability of the rejecting force and the attracting force.

In our world we see that cooperation between the particles of the atom determines the state of matter and the type of matter: gases, liquids, metals, rocks, minerals, etc. Mutual relations between people are also assessed by the combination of these two forces: of hate and rejection and love and connection. It is the same with regards to our mutual connections with the Creator.

We reach perfection when we discover our full force of rejection and above it the full attracting force. In other words, when we work by the middle line, we use these two forces, until we achieve the ideal unity between them. All the other factors serve and assist us in the intermediate phases.

So a person becomes a man when he can use these two opposing forces, the drawing and the rejecting, like one whole thing. He combines them by the middle line.

In our world this is impossible. What is more, here they both act on the egotistic side. In the spiritual world, however, they are indeed opposites, one is for connection and the other is against it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about the spiritual unity of these two forces: how to use both of them efficiently and to reach positive results, while no one neutralizes the other or “pulls the blanket” over to its side, as it happens in our world.

For example, friction and the weight of matter inhibit the rotation of the wheels of a car, and so energy is required to move it forward. If the attracting force is stronger than the stopping force, the car moves forward, and if not, it stands still. So the result always depends on the calculation: how much stronger is one force than the other.

In spirituality they actually connect: the hardness of the Masach (screen) and the coarseness of the desire operate as one. They create Zivug deHaka’a between them, which means that first the action of Haka’a takes place and then the connection. The vessel reaches its spiritual realization according to the level of the connection and acquires the spiritual form. Only so is it possible to reach the right result. It depends on the internal matter of the desire, that rejects, and on its external form, which attracts us forward.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “The Freedom”

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Question: Where does the freedom of will lie?

Answer: A person in our world has no free will. He is born in an already completed state and develops the innate qualities with which he was born and which he did not choose himself under the influence of the environment. Neither his inner parameters nor the external ones that influence him are not chosen by him, and that is why there is no freedom in that.

The freedom exists only in selecting a specific environment so that it would shape me to be the way that I want to be. I choose my environment in accordance with the kind of individual that I wish to become.

There is a problem here too: On what basis do I think that precisely this environment suits me and not another? Basically, there are still many more internal clarifications here until a person develops fully and understand what he needs. In principle, one understands it in his heart, he senses it: Where exactly is my freedom of will. And this isn’t easy. But we must bring practically every single person to this state.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: How detailed and broad should the basic course on “Evolution as Development of Egoism” be?

Answer: It should be as detailed and extensive as possible because all the other courses will stem from it and will be parts of the main course.

After this follows a course on the freedom of will: Does it exist, what it actually is. This course is very broad and contains many topics. We don’t just study whether or not free will exists and how and where it can be realized, but also precisely in which elements of nature it exists, does a human being have it, on what level of development, how to tell the difference between freedom of will and its absence, and so on.

After all, we don’t know where our desires arise from. It seems to me that they are my own, but in reality they come from outside. Where from? Why? Desires arise within me under the influence of the surrounding society: I watch TV and suddenly begin to desire what is being shown to me, and this is unconsciously perceived by me as my own desire. The next day I already want to acquire that which I saw on TV yesterday, and I believe that I’m realizing my own desire. We all understand that this is how we get bought and how things are sold to us.

All this must be explained because it’s tied to decision-making, to awareness of where my freedom of will lies, and whether I can be free from all the possible ideas and values imposed upon me, which in truth are neither values nor ideas, but simply business.

Every topic that we develop and teach provides a person with a vast realm of activity, and that is why the information has to be conveyed using a lot of examples and discussions. Sometimes when you just offer the material to a person from the lectern and head-on, he doesn’t absorb it. However, through some explanations, games, and situations he begins to understand what he was being told then.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: I know from experience that a person is prepared to study if you explain to him why that’s needed. So why does he need a course on the evolution of egoism?

Answer: From this course he will learn not only the beginning, but also the end of this whole chain. He will feel himself existing within it. He will see where all of this is headed. On the basis of that he could make correct decisions regarding all his personal states.

Comment: Let’s say I learn how the planets got formed. How is this related to my life?

Answer: It’s a part of an overall worldview that slightly raises a person above his animal part. When he turns to look back a few billion years, and when he looks forward to tens or maybe even hundreds of years ahead, he begins to see this practically endless axis of time within which he exists at this moment—a small, weak, and dependent element. And from here a question arises in him: “Who am I?”

When he sees his pitiful condition upon this axis, it will be possible to start raising him above it into a new state where he will feel: “All of this is below me, I can be in control of it all, I am actually on a higher level and can exit the boundaries of time, space, and history.” This is the beginning of that enlightenment that will appear within him.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: Is it possible to give the notion of religion a modern definition? After all, soccer and basketball today captivate people the same way.

Answer: No, that is not really religion after all. “Religion” is something that answers my questions about the meaning of life, about reward and punishment.

Suppose I live a regular life of seventy years from birth until death. Besides that, I ask questions about the cause and the outcome of my life, about my destiny. In other words, I wish to attain that what exists above me, something that cannot be revealed through regular sensations.

Soccer does not answer these questions. It only allows me to fill my seventy-year existence with something, along with other pleasures from food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge. However, I wish to rise above these things.

I understand that they are summoned to confuse and “deafen” me. I do not wish to go any deeper into this mire than my life’s necessities require. No matter what, I only use food, sex, family, money, respect, knowledge, envy, and passions in order to reveal the essence.

This is the kind of attitude that I must develop toward life. What should be important to me are cause, destiny, and consequence, not what lies beneath them.

Naturally, today we fulfill ourselves with corporeal pleasures in that segment between birth and death. This is why mass media shapes social opinion, even though who are they, in essence? What do they understand? We see the results of their actions with our own eyes. However, the public does not care who shapes their opinions. Let soccer do it.

Still, at least this is the lesser of the evils. Mass media lulls the masses and feeds them substitute goods. For example, the Internet is a real sedative with plenty of benefits. People would lose their minds without it, not being able to apply themselves. A person pounds the keyboard, chatting with virtual friends, and searches for nonsense on the net while the clock is ticking, and death comes nearer. Just imagine what we would do today without the Internet.

However, when a person rises to the level of questions about the meaning of life, he begins to research what this life is for. He wants to know why he started researching, why he is living, why he was given an opportunity for an analysis, who set this up, and what will the result be like. The person is not just curious; he is searching for purpose. All of this falls under the notion of “religion.”

This does not refer to philosophy or fantasies, but to the highest evaluation of our lives, an evaluation that takes place in vessels above our body. It is these vessels that we must develop, new vessels where it is really possible to study cause, destiny, and consequence.

All of this is programmed in me from the beginning. I am only given a small spark that I blow up to open myself up. How do I do that? I do it through a united environment, the group, which will drag me up from this world with its influence.

When I am among my friends, I gradually grow new vessels inside that are different from anything that I experience in our world. They do not stand against it; the world stays as it was. My animal body with its five senses does not change.

At the same time, I develop in a spiritual environment and manifest five new senses together with my friends. They are called KHB-ZON in the language of Kabbalah. I discover “religion” in them: the upper force as the origin, its program, and the purpose of this program.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Kabbalah answers the question about the meaning of life. In reality, this question is very important. It is because in my search for an answer to this question, I primarily examine myself. Do I have the right attitude toward life in everything that I do?

I have the desire for pleasure that obligates me to create a family, have children, and care for them, my work, my future, my parents, my close environment, my city, my country, and maybe even the entire world. All this is only so that I suffer less.

In this way, in the end, I am only driven by different degrees of suffering. In the best case scenario, I am driven by how I can benefit from it. However, what if I should rise above all this? What if I stopped depending on suffering or pleasure and became objective, like Man with capital “M”? Perhaps I would then become free of all these bonds. After all, nothing but animal instincts impel me to start a family, and social instincts make me follow social laws. What would I do if I were not driven by suffering and pleasure?

Today, I resemble an animal that is being directed every step of the way, spurred and forced to slow down with the two reins of pain and sweetness. I am like a doll, a puppet, a fragile mechanism that lacks any opportunity to do anything on its own, even a tiny fragment of its way.

So, can I take over these reins? If not, can I at least analyze the situation, understand why it is happening and for what purpose? On the other hand, should I even strive upward? Perhaps it would be best to close my eyes and submerge myself in religious and other practices. Maybe it would give me peace for the rest of my life if I disconnected from the essence.

This is where a person who does not give up and reject what matters most manifests himself. Regardless of the pleasure, suffering, shame, pride, and other methods that drive and control him in life, he still searches for independence. “Whatever happens, will happen, but I must find the essence. This is where I feel like a person. There is no other way.” Abraham searched for people like this in ancient Babylon, and he found several thousand.

This is the criterion for humanity that helps determine the level its animal element reaches and the level to which it is ready to become Man.

Are we able to accelerate human development through dissemination and education so that he would come more quickly to these fundamental questions? Essentially, in our days, this is what “social” work is.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Question: As part of the integral upbringing there will be a course in integral economy. What will it be about?

Answer: Today it’s clear to experts that we have to come to normal, healthy, balanced consumption, when each receives what he is entitled to and not more than that. We mustn’t allow luxuries on nature’s account and waste natural resources and its treasures.

Balance is the understanding of what a person needs in his world. Otherwise there will be a catastrophe and we, having no choice, will follow the same direction but in a bad way, without the understanding of what is going on.

If we follow this way, we should expect many disasters and wars that will bring us nowhere. They will only compel us to get wiser and to understand that we have to move over to the good side, in order to advance not by sufferings, but by connection and mutual guarantee, meaning by the reason. Actually, throughout history we’ve advanced by sufferings. Did it make us wiser in any way? Do we know how to advance? This means that it’s a long and very hard way.

On the other hand, following the good way, we use education and this is totally different. Thanks to education, you begin to understand what’s going on, you acquire tools that you can use, see how to act, and discover the laws of nature. Of course, the wisdom of Kabbalah should be part of this, otherwise where will we get the knowledge? Only the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about an integral world, and the integral world is the upper world.

We’ve ended development on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. Then there is a borderline that separates us from the level of man. Everything below it belongs to reception and everything above it belongs to bestowal.

You don’t reach bestowal through sufferings. The difference between the animate level and that of man is in our consciousness, realization.

A person should understand where he is, meaning in which world, which system; he has to realize what nature is and then to reach the level of man. The difference between the animate in you and the man in you is in your consciousness, in your feeling and your mind. You have to acquire this addition.

Now we’re still part of the animate world, and we’re even more corrupt since everything we do harms us. Our whole life is made of different attempts to control each other and to harm one another. Thus we destroy ourselves, our health, all our lives, and the whole world.

From the side we seem rather strange, and only if we know the result of our development, will we be able to agree with the intermediate phases that we have to go through. So our consciousness separates man from beast. It says: “Know the God of thy father and worship Him.” We have to know the Creator, nature. This is the whole difference.

In his article “This Is for Judah,” Baal HaSulam wrote: “Thus, after all the inquiries and scrutiny, we find that the only need in man’s wishes, which does not exist in the whole of the animate species, is the awakening towards Godly Dvekut (adhesion). Only the human species is ready for it, and none other. It follows that the whole issue of presence in the human species is in that preparation imprinted in him to crave His work, and in that, he is superior to the beast.”

This is the only difference. In every other way, even if we differ from the animate world, it is only in the negative sense. What clever creature would ruin its home, as we do with our planet? What sensible creature would create such an economic system as we did? As for today, we have safes full of bills that have no backing. So today, in order to be saved from the troubles, we only need realization, change of consciousness.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: What message should we convey to people in a course of rational economics?

Answer: We must relay very interesting statistics to them: the amount of resources humanity must spend, the efficient way to use natural and human resources, energy and so on. In other words, we teach people a course of harmony with nature, when we don’t take anything unnecessary from it, like animals.

After all, in our regular lives we are no different from animals. So why should we take from nature more than we need? An animal digs a hole for itself, stores food, procreates instinctively, raises its offspring, kills other creatures and eats them—but never in excess of its needs. And we must act the same way.

Everything must function only in harmony with nature. The only difference is that in our case this harmony must be something we achieve consciously, as opposed to harmony on the still, vegetative and animate levels, which is maintained instinctively. We must create harmony ourselves.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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