Lo Lishma (not for Her name) is when I agree to be partners with the Creator. I have no other choice since after all I want to attain everything that exists in the world. This is the way I begin, like an egoist, like all of us.

But afterward, I despair at acquiring what is desired. If they were corporal acquisitions, I would apply more effort since I know this does the trick, or I would go study at a university if knowledge were needed, or I would steal it, but one way or another I would attain what I wanted.

But if my goal is above this world and I want to reach the root of my soul, to discover the goal of my life, where it comes from and what the plan for it is, then I will not be able to find that in this world. And it is here that we see that we have no choice, and we can’t manage through our own forces, and thus we reach the wisdom of Kabbalah.

And here I am told, “Do you want to attain that? It’s possible, but in order to do that you need to bestow to the Creator.” And then I perceive the Creator as a partner, like the taxing authority, where I think I can gain for myself on the condition that I allocate to Him the percentage He deserves.

If this is His system, He created the world, and I am in this world as a worker, as an implementer, then it’s clear to me what the Owner requests. As it is written: “The shop is open
and the owner gives credit. The book is open
 and the hand writes.
 And whoever wishes to borrow 
may borrow.” Thus subconsciously, I feel that the Creator is my partner Who will ask for His part.

Lo Lishma, is my partnership agreement with the Creator. In truth, I would like to gain everything for myself and not share with anyone; I would like spirituality to continue like corporeality, with the same conditions. But there is no choice, I am forced to share: “Tell me how much You need, I agree.”

Even if it were 99%, but if the one percent that remains is dear to me, then I am prepared to work for it. The worker in the factory works for pay of 1,000 dollars a month, while the owner of the factory can make millions. Here, it is the same thing. Therefore, I agree to a partnership deal with the Creator, and this is what each one of us does. We don’t have to lie to ourselves. Our ego doesn’t understand another way.

And here is the key point: How should I relate to this partnership? Do I bring my egoism to this partnership and divide: That’s mine and that’s Yours?

Sometimes I want to take everything for myself. Sometimes I actually agree to give everything to Him, but of course, that’s on condition that I also get something from it. Subconsciously I mean it, in my agreeing to give everything, in all of this there should be some gain in it for myself.

In as much as my state of Lo Lishma seems to me as a perfect state, when I want to give everything to the Creator, I see myself in my imagination as adhered to the Creator, and thus everything that He receives will be mine. Thus I am prepared to give to Him like to my baby, where I am not sorry for anything that I give Him since nature obligates me to feel that it’s mine. It’s as if it is I, myself, and even more important than myself.

Whether I want it or not, I have no choice other than to be situated in this kind of unconscious partnership, that is beneficial to the ego, like with income tax. And if it’s possible to somehow conceal the taxes, then it’s clear that it won’t work with the Creator.

Thus, if we are on our own, our desires to reach bestowal to the Creator is egoistic, it’s a ‘fixed’ game from the beginning. We can agree to bestow only from desperation, a lack of choice, or from the expectation of receiving payment. Everyone wants such a powerful partner who controls everything; it’s a very profitable alliance. This is the basis for all religions.

But our goal is to recognize the egoistic alliance in this point, and to correct it. Since it is especially in this point that we battle: if my relationship to the Creator will become my “potion of death” or the “elixir of life.” Will I go from Lo Lishma to Lishma or stay completely within the deadly ego? Here is the critical point.
[67036]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is the “prayer of the poor” that doesn’t go unanswered?

Answer: The prayer of the poor is a plea of a person who understands that no one can help him but the Creator. He feels that he has no rights, no merits, no good deeds, no support, and that he has nothing. Even his egoism no longer sustains him and this is called total poverty.

In this case only the Creator (through the group) can help him. This plea for help is the prayer of the poor for bare necessities, only to save his soul.
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabalah Lesson 1/30/12, Writings of Rabash
[68282]

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It is impossible to attain true love without the basis of  hatred. Without hate there is only beastly love, a game of hormones: One shot and you love; another shot and you fall out of love. In our world, love is actually a pursuit of the fulfillment. When you want to eat, you love pie, and when you want to start a family, you love your spouse and children. These are simply different kinds of fillings that can be reconstructed if we implant certain electrodes in a person’s brain.

True love is built only above hate. Otherwise it is impossible to feel it. In our world, there is no love; we are talking about human love, not animal attraction that brings egoistic pleasure.

Question: It reminds me of cartoons where the characters find themselves in the air above an abyss and they still keep running for a while before they look down.

Answer: Exactly, they discover that they are hanging above a chasm, and then they fall. This is exactly what is happening in the world today. This is really a nice description of the crisis. This is why those in power are afraid to look down.

Question: How can we hold on to something in this situation? How can we reach true love?

Answer: Actually, I am a small person and I don’t feel sublime things, but am only confused in my present state. So what should I do?

The answer is simple: You need a group. This is both the diagnosis of the disease and its cure.
[68209]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Hate is inseparable from love. This principle should be engrained in me so that it becomes my program in relation to the world, through which I look at everything. In this form, I always will be in the middle line, in the middle third of Tifferet, Klipat Noga, in the point of my free choice.

Otherwise, I cannot orient myself and do not know where I am: in the area of bestowal or reception, or in a complete fog. Until I form two opposite lines, I am not in the world, which can be a reality.

So we go through so many ups and downs until we begin to understand the weakness of being only in the right or only in the left line. To be just in the right or just in the left is an egoistic state, Klipah Ishmael or Esau.

And if I am in the right and in the left line in order to connect them and rise above them so that the right line is always a bit higher than the left one (as there is always an inclination to the right), then I build the middle line.

But they both are present and support each other. Through this system of two lines, it is possible to see the importance of bestowal, in comparison to reception. And if there is no reception, how can we check?

Therefore, hatred and rejection must exist. A person, who is not in close contact with his friends, does not want to connect, and stays on the sidelines, might have excellent relations with others, might be a good friend, quiet, and calm, but not be involved in the work.

On the other hand, someone, who is argumentative and volatile and who cannot get along with anyone, may be able to establish inner contact with friends. Not only do we need to consider this criterion check judged by such outward appearances, but everyone needs to examine oneself inside.
[68195]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, Writings of Rabash

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In the News (from Time Business): “Capitalism needs a fundamental overhaul. …The most rational arguments have pointed out that not only is capitalism the best system yet devised for enhancing the well being of the greatest number of people, but that it is also immensely supple and flexible. But a surprising number of attendees (and these are the world’s most direct beneficiaries of the current system) seems to agree that something is wrong.

“The Arab Spring must end happily. …The powers at the very core of the World Economic Forum are interested in the Arab Spring as a matter of paramount global importance. (That said, among the regular attendees, the Eurozone is of far more interest. At one panel discussion on ‘The Future of North Africa,’ the auditorium was about 10% full. For a ‘Future of the Eurozone’ panel taking place immediately after, it was standing room only.)

“The Eurozone crisis will continue to muddle along, but muddling may be enough. The European finance ministers in attendance are all staying on message: Eurobonds are not happening, austerity measures are the way forward now, greater fiscal union is the end goal, and Greece will not default or leave the Eurozone. Interestingly, for the first time in a long time, most of the policital/policy/media hive mind is cautiously optimistic that the Eurozone may actually be starting to heal itself.

“China is still the star. Brazil has come to Davos in a big way. As has Mexico, and India, and Azerbaijan. But the panels on China are packed, and everybody wants to talk about China, and while the cult of the Chinese technocrat has long been on the rise, we are now reaching the full flower of absolute reverence. American business people speak in hushed tones about the new generation of Chinese leaders as if they are supermen: They are well-educated, worldly, wise, and compared to the haplessness and paralysis that western governments have demonstrated over the past two years, they are paragons of good governance.

“Americans and Europeans are pointing fingers at each other. Why is the global economy not in full recovery? The Europeans complain that none of this would have happened if the Americans had not taxed the global financial system when its housing bubble burst. To which, the Americans respond that that may be true, but they claim to have put their house in order and the only thing that’s holding America’s economy back now is European uncertainty. Then, arguments commence.”

My Comment: So far, most important is to demonstrate to the world that somewhere the smart guys are concerned about it day and night
[68231]

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The state of an integral society is not characterized by everyone’s individuality, but precisely by whatever appears between us, above us, as if outside of us. At the same time we ascend above our beastly level to the next one called “Man” or “Adam” in Hebrew.

It is not for nothing that Adam is described in ancient sources as a single collective image from which we allegedly arose, having divided internally after his fall from virtue (the origin of egoism) that tore this image into a multitude of parts. Every particle is each one of us.

And now, in spite of this egoism that exists between us as a dividing, repelling force, we need to rise above it. We do so not by destroying it but on the contrary, by using it for an ascent because without a mutual repelling force between us, we won’t have a stimulus to overcome it precisely through an ascent above it. And by ascending above this force we unite.

In other words, even though the force of our egoistic separation seems to cause harm, in reality it is to our benefit. It involuntarily elevates us above ourselves, above our beastly level—the egoistic path of development that in our time is coming to an end. We call it beastly because it develops in us instinctively, just like all the previous stages of development, which we underwent in the process of evolution.

Now a next phase of humanity’s development is emerging, a conscious one where we reveal in ourselves the collective image of “Adam,” which we need to assemble, rising above egoism, connecting among ourselves, overlaying upon one another into one single mechanism, and completing each other. Egoism will help us in that, and we must have a correct attitude towards it.

We can observe this picture from an example of a correct family, where two serious grownup people with a high level of awareness understand both the differences between them and the possibility of creating a common field of mutual overlay with each other. The overlay of one circle over the other, their common intersection, the shared segment between them, is what we call a family. The ideal scenario is when both circles overlay on one another completely.

However, we don’t simply overlay each other on an animate level, but rise spiritually to a state of “Adam,” towards an emergence of a certain third element between us, the result of our efforts. The overlay of one circle on another doesn’t mean that one suppresses the other or that both disappear. A certain third, middle, element arises, composed of the two others, from their aspiration to be together in spite of egoism, which is against that.

This is a complex state. We need to outline and describe it, and to attempt to bring a person into it emotionally.

The integral upbringing means the creation of this third state within a person. It is buried deep inside us in its embryonic form, but we need to consciously extract it from ourselves and to rise to that level.

In the course of our evolution we developed from inanimate nature towards the vegetative and animate levels of nature. In our day, a human is no different from an animal with the exception that we developed science, technology, and culture.

But here we are talking about a completely different level of attainment, sensation, and penetration of nature: the birthing of a state of “Adam,” which never existed in us before. Each of us carries only a fragment of the common state towards which we need to arrive by gathering all these fragments into one.
[66825]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Question: The aim of the psychological portion of the integral upbringing course is to teach people to communicate with each other, to hear one another, and to develop a meaningful and deep contact between themselves. How can this be done?

Answer: We need to understand what interpersonal contacts are.

They say that it’s not a family if there are no children. What do people live for? Suppose today a couple likes each other physically, they are satisfied with each other physiologically, they are comfortable together. Comfortable for now….  A child is somewhat of a middle ground, something common that binds them together.

When a person tries to establish contact with someone else, he or she should clearly see what they have in common with each other, what mutually ties them together. It isn’t just some junction, but a common emotional, physiological, physical, social, and cultural realm where they don’t simply touch but as if overlay over one another.

Each individual represents a “circle,” and the extent to which he or she can overlap with the “circle” of another person defines their ability to establish a deep and multidimensional contact.

First and foremost, we need to understand that in our time, contact between two people is such that their individual circles don’t touch each other because their egoism has grown to its ultimate state, and whatever my circle encompasses doesn’t fit into any other circles. I feel so exceptional—a personality, an egoist—that I cannot perceive another as an individual who has their own interests and needs. To me, another person is just an object of consumption. If that interests me, I enter into contact with him, but I don’t treat him like a person, an individual with his own inner world and circle of interests, but interact with him as a consumer with a source of pleasure, and nothing more.

And this is how we communicate with each other. It’s convenient this way: Everyone has their cell phone, computer, and email. We hide behind them and thereby mask our absolute separation from each other.

We see how different communities gradually disappear, and we are hiding behind our monitors, seemingly socializing, while in the meantime inventing new standards of rules and behavior for ourselves. But all of this happens virtually, without adjoining emotionally with any other circles. We invent a new language, hiding behind some other forms, other shells, present ourselves online completely differently from the way we actually are, use emoticons instead of our own face, or sign in with different names. In other words, people are playing without revealing themselves under any circumstances. And egoism goes along with this, it feels good and comfortable.

Our main task is to reveal whether people have something in common, and not just two people, but everyone. It’s because we’re talking about an integral society towards which nature is pushing us, either through suffering or by our voluntary realization and drive towards this bright state of humanity. That is why having revealed what all of us share in common, we will then be able to make contact on an emotional level; we will not conceal ourselves from each other but on the contrary, will try to open ourselves up.

Each will reveal their inner “I” and place it above the external one, above this image, above their first and last name, above their occupation and all kinds of external habits, customs, language, and everything else. One’s emotional world will rise above their usual physical state given to them by nature. This is what we need to develop in a person.

For that we need to show people that by unifying between ourselves, by superimposing our individual circles on one another, by bonding with each other into a single mechanism, we will not turn into robots or become vulnerable, like in the famous Russian saying, “Open your soul so that someone could spit into it.” We are doing it so that in our unified integral movement, when we are like a single unified analog mechanism, we will reach a special goal and give birth to something new, just like a couple that unites in order to bear offspring.

Except here we are all giving birth together, creating a completely new state in humanity, where we won’t have to hide, fear, or strive to snatch away from each other so as to raise ourselves. On the contrary, our ascent will be mutual, precisely through this common “offspring” of ours that we will nurse and cherish, constantly raise and develop.
[66828]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The Virtue of the Little”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let Us Make Man,” (Start with: “It was said above”), Item 183, Lesson 51
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, Item 23, Lesson 14
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“Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 74, Lesson 34
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