What is the prayer of many? First of all, we understand that the movement forward is a movement towards each other, to feeling others like oneself. This is achieved by connecting common yearning. We need to unite our points in the hearts in a single aspiration, relate them to the Creator, desire Him to correct them to raise above our egoism in order that it remains below, and the points in the hearts exit it, rise and form the property of bestowal.

The property of bestowal can only be common, not individual. It’s manifested only in the connection with others, through the so-called “crimson ball,” a feeling of warmth between us. And all this is recorded according to the statement “the book is open and the hand writes” because in addition to our personal debt, a general account is also written. One can pay for the other and even more than that.

This means that the group can take responsibility for the weak, pull him towards itself, heal, soothe, and approve. Just as in our world, in the spiritual world there are different gradations of human, and the group can pay for him. But later, he has to pay back. This is the system of complete interdependence like in the family: small children grow up and begin to help the elderly; everyone does his part, and everything is divided equally.

So, the calculation is carried out only through the common treasury, and nothing is accepted from an individual, the Creator does not make any transactions with you. Even with the world, He makes calculations only through humanity, through the entire mass of people, through one collective desire. He influences this desire. He is in it.

The common desire is divided among all of humanity and the people aspiring for the Creator with whom He makes His own calculations. He does special actions with them in order to pull them towards Himself, to guide and drive them towards the goal. As for humanity, the Creator is pushing it forward for the time being, causing an awareness of confusion in it and gradually pulling it towards us. Part of humanity diffuses and enters our area, joins us, and the 90% remains. This is a huge amount, and it stays unchanged because the part that leads everyone forward must be strong in quality, and the rest in quantity.

Thus, we need to pray, ask for the strength to lead, to help, to shape that huge mass. The responsibility for this lies with us; we have to ask for everyone. This is the basis for a prayer.

The Creator created the desire to enjoy. This is the desire of 90% of humanity. And our desire in this mass, meaning of those who yearn for the Creator, is artificial, not belonging to this world. Now it appears in us, and we want to get somewhere. The property of the Creator is manifested in us and that’s why we are drawn back to Him, to our source. Others also have the points in the hearts due to the mixing, the breaking of the vessels, but they are hidden deeply. We were awakened just in order to pull them to us and correct them; otherwise, we would have never felt the movement towards the next state.

That is why our prayer should be for all of humanity, for having the force, skill, and knowledge of connection with the Creator in order to draw all of humanity towards us and correct it, thereby bringing Him pleasure. The task of the Creator is to be revealed in the desires of humanity, to fulfill their desire. This is on one hand.

On the other hand, we are called the head, meaning that we are aware and understand; we are associates, assistants, of the Creator. We realize His goal. He wants to be revealed in humanity because it has real huge desires, not like ours because we’re not the greatest egoists. Of course, egoism is growing in us as well as all kinds of understandings of its estimations since we have duality, and we move forward, but the biggest egoism will be revealed in all mankind.

This is immense universal egoism! The whole universe is a huge mass of inanimate matter, which we don’t feel or know, including dark matter, all that we do not see, and it is an analog of the egoism that exists in humanity. They are both inanimate matter.

That’s why the correct prayer rises only through the group and only for humanity! I ask the Creator to help me as part of the group to correct all of humanity so that He can be revealed in it. Thus, by my participation in this, together with the group, I bring Him pleasure, the realization of His plan.

Why is this so difficult to express? It’s because it refers to the property of bestowal that we can’t yet describe properly. We depict everything by means of our egoistic language: I ask the Creator to give me the strength to correct others so that He is revealed in them seemingly to receive pleasure. We have no other possibility to express all this, so the prayer should be like that.

In the meantime, we take a loan, and gradually, especially in the group, make a clear calculation how much we can begin to return what we have taken from the store: for each given day, for the lesson, for the gathering of friends, for the convention, for everything! What do we give? What do we return? Do we correctly realize that excitement, that possibility that we get every time?
[98070]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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In the News (from Royal Meteorological Society): “Rapid climate change in East Africa about 2 million years ago may have influenced human evolution according to researchers from Rutgers University and Penn State, including Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, Katherine Freeman and Clayton Magill, graduate student in the same department.

“’The landscape early humans were inhabiting transitioned rapidly back and forth between a closed woodland and an open grassland about five to six times during a period of 200,000 years,’ said Clayton Magill ‘These changes happened very abruptly, with each transition occurring over hundreds to just a few thousand years.’ …

“According to the researchers, many anthropologists believe that changing experience and challenges can lead to advances in evolution.

“Magill stated that ‘Early humans went from having trees available to having only grasses available in just 10 to 100 generations, and their diets would have had to change in response…. Changes in food availability, food type or the way you get food can trigger evolutionary mechanisms to deal with those changes. The result can be increased brain size and cognition, changes in locomotion and even social changes – how you interact with others in a group. Our data are consistent with these hypotheses. We show that the environment changed dramatically over a short time, and this variability coincides with an important period in our human evolution when the genus Homo was first established and when there was first evidence of tool use.’”

My Comment: Rather than going the way of his internal development, putting on the clothes of the Reflected Light (OH), acting anti-egoistically, the human being preferred external development, creating around himself the environment (houses, clothes, courtyards, and walls) that isolated him from Nature, the Creator.

Today, we find that this tactic has not led us not to freedom, comfort, or security; Nature becomes more and more aggressive, and no shelter can help us. On the contrary, instead of isolating ourselves from Nature, we must change ourselves to become similar to it, changing our desires from egoistic to bestowal, connection.

Thus, we reach harmony with the fundamental law of Nature, the Creator, and will perceive all His actions on us as good. That is, if until now the acts of Nature, the Creator, made us detached from Him, then today we must begin to bring ourselves to conformity with Him.
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In childhood, parents give a child everything possible, but to the extent of his growing up they begin to demand more and more from him until he becomes an adult and he himself has to give.

We are now entering the next stage of growing up; therefore, we must be in constant prayer. We will never be able to unite if we do not try to connect with the Creator because direct efforts, not through the Creator, lead to nothing.

Any connection with anybody, with studies, with the work within the group, with the organization of events, even just washing the dishes or cleaning in the group is an empty activity if it does not pass through the Creator. Everything that relates to our common life should pass only through the Creator, only attracting Him, meaning, the property of bestowal. It is necessary to try to rise above oneself and operate only in this way. This is called a prayer.

It is said, if a person behaves in this way, it means that he prays all day long. This is good! Whatever I do, everything passes only through the upper. If I stick to this, my actions are performed only as calculations: I pay for what I do, for the opportunity that was given to me. Then “the book is open and the hand writes” but in the opposite direction: I pay next to what was given to me, and I make a payment. A person must feel in this way.

Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva depicts two kinds of people: the first are the “open store” type, which regard this world as an open store without a shopkeeper. But the law of development acts in every creature, and according to this, it takes from a person, so in the end, he will have to pay for everything.

In what form? In the form of suffering if you do not want to move forward consciously. Suppose, you have to perform an action, but you have not done it in the way you should have done, through the group, because you cannot be aimed at the Creator if not from the group, if not from the general Kli, vessel.

A personal address to the Creator is considered egoistic; it gives nothing. This is religion, not Kabbalah.

As soon as you can aim at the Creator through the group, at the general force of bestowal in order to attract it, and the one thing that you ask is to get closer to Him or to bring Him closer to you so that this force is in your actions relative to the same group, and through it, relative to humanity‑if a person focuses on this, he works fully on himself in the general Kli, vessel, and begins to feel the new world concretely. It approaches him; its network begins to open before him, and a person sees how it works.

The second type of people are called “those who want to borrow.” They take the shopkeeper into consideration, and when they take something from the store, they only take it as a loan. They promise to pay the shopkeeper the desired price, meaning to attain the goal by it. And he says about them, “All who wish to borrow may come and borrow.”

The difference between the people of the first and the second type is that they are moving forward differently: consciously or unconsciously. The first ones advance through punishment, and the second ones with understanding and revelation.

Those who move consciously reveal the entire system, which raises them to the level of the Creator, to the level of that single force. They begin to feel how they exit the body, that is, a gradual separation from their egoism because all that we feel, including our body, is the feeling in the ego.

This gradually dissolves, dissipates. We enter such a subatomic level of sensing matter when it practically does not exist. Instead of it, we see and feel forces, that is, not the image, but its essence, the sum of forces that control this image. We already deal with a more inner essence of man and with the whole spiritual system.

When this system becomes clearer, we begin to work with it, not with faces, not with bodies, not with the still, vegetative, and animate matter. Working with a spiritual system, we start seeing in Kabbalistic books the structure of connection between us, between all the elements and forces because the primary sources describe only this.

Any force is broken down into five parts: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. It consists of five parts because all these forces are manifested in our egoism.

The system of the upper world is revealed between us up to its complete realization. We ascend through it, master it, and begin to manage it. It gives us a sense of the upper, external world. At the same time, the feeling of the body and connection with it is lost.

The fact that the body lives, gets sick, or dies is necessary because through it we must sense and feel ourselves in this world. When we finish our part in the general correction, we do not need to be connected to this world through the body because we complete our part of correction. The body is our representative relative to those who still sense the upper world in the form of this world.

We have to reach this state to fully reveal that judgment is the judgment of truth; everything is corrected and ready for a meal, and then the whole world enters the corrected Kli, vessel, and complete attainment of the Creator fills all our common desire‑one general soul.

A prayer is based on this idea. It is a person’s constant aspiration to work on the moment in which he currently is.
[98067]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Rabash. “Shlavei HaSulam,” Article 13, “Maoz Tzur Yeshuati” (The Stronghold of My Redemption): But the main thing is that a person should first have the desire to sacrifice his desire to receive. And since the desire to receive is the essence of the created being, the created being loves it and it is very difficult for him to understand that it must be annulled, since otherwise it is impossible to attain anything spiritual. And in corporeality we see that a person has a desire and a deficiency as to what concerns him that comes from the internality of his body. There is a desire that a person acquires from his externality, which means on his part. This means, that if there weren’t people on the outside who generate this desire in him, then a person would never feel that he lacks anything. Only people on the outside generate this deficiency in him.

Question: In fact, in order to feel the friends’ desire I have to ask the Creator for help. Why can’t I adopt their desire by myself?

Answer: Every action is done by the Light. We live in a world with precise laws and the energy in them evokes different phenomena. This energy is in matter. Why do electrons, protons, neutrons, and other particles move? Where do they get the power to do so? After all, everything in nature aspires to be in a state of absolute rest, balance, equality, harmony, and mutuality. So why is the structure of matter in perpetual movement?

It is because there is energy that pushes matter towards the goal from the smallest detail about which we know nothing up to whole worlds. At the same time, some of the actions are absolute and are perpetually applied, like the movement of a train on the track, like physiological or astronomical processes that don’t need our approval.

But there is also a different level in which the actions must be conscious. Here the created being must understand, recognize, and know the Creator who sustains the force, the energy that moves the whole world. Above still, vegetative, and animate nature on the human level, there is a particle of desire, a point in the heart, in which the created being must ask to use the energy of the Light. Without this request the Light will not appear and will not operate.

There are times in which the energy of the Light operates without our recognition when no one is aware of the existence of the Creator. Billions of years of history passed in these “inexplicable” phases. But afterward there comes a moment in which the created being has to develop until it reaches the state in which it can get to know the Creator.

Here there is a problem as the created being feels that he is stuck on something on the way and life doesn’t flow onward. Now he has to activate the force of the Light by himself, to understand each time, to know it, and to get close to it. From now on the work is done together as “partners.” The Creator is ready to do everything‑like parents caring for a baby‑if He is asked correctly and it is to their advantage. They have everything you need; you need only to make the correct request, and mom and dad respond immediately to whatever it was.

We know in advance what the Creator has to do, we want it; we accept it, and ask Him to perform this action. Then He responds without any delay, since He is ready to help us in advance, like a father ready to help his beloved son. This means that our work is to reach a prayer: “Do such and such.”

So what is the right request? What is the request that we expect from a child? We want him to ask to grow a little, to get a bit wiser, to grow stronger, to succeed a bit more, to get closer to the state of a “whole person.” This is also what the Creator expects from us—only this request. We have to understand what it means to grow, to be kind, to be smart and healthy and to ask for that. This request is much more egoistic than our ego in this world, but because we work despite our animal ego, it is called bestowal.

What bestowal? To whom and what do you bestow? You simply ask to be like Him…

So why do we have to do this against our ego that constantly “holds us back?” It is because otherwise we wouldn’t arrive at the clarifications: “What does it mean to be like Him; to be great in bestowal?” If everything went smoothly, we would stay on the level of the still nature, we are constantly “stopped” and we have to resist that, to look for solutions, to discover, and then compare different attributes; this makes us wiser and helps us develop.

This means that the evil inclination was especially created to develop us. After all, I can be a small beetle, a mouse, a cat, a dog, a slave, a servant, a nobleman, a minister, and even the king in the King’s palace. Now, too, I am in the King’s palace, but how do I see it? How do I see myself? A small beetle that lives under the stairs.

So only thanks to the resistance of the desire to receive can we acquire more levels of understanding. Therefore, the ego is called “help against.” Without its resistance we wouldn’t be able to acquire anything. This means that we need to recognize the help and what is on the other side, and then we will reach what we desire.
[98022]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/13, Writings of Rabash

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A Kabbalistic group is based on the laws that belong to the next level. That’s why we meet together to re-create these conditions. We play as if we were in the forthcoming reality and build the relationships and connections that, in the end, will turn into the worlds that we study in Kabbalah.

The world of Assiya is the first one that we need to enter and start feeling among us. To be in this world means that we become completely adequate to its level internally (in our desires, thoughts, hearts, and mind). Rabash’s articles explain the ways to reach the unity and to start sensing spirituality among us.

Of course, we don’t “rise” anywhere. We ascend to our personal spiritual height to the extent of the level of connection that exists among us. Later, our sensations will change, and our “fitting together” will become stronger and deeper. We won’t treat each other egoistically any longer. We will decrease our egos. We’ll annul our egoism and expel it from the liaisons among us according to the principle, “What you hate, do not do to your friend.” As a result, we’ll start sensing the upper world.

Afterward, we will unite even more and enhance our mutual interconnection. We’ll create a reciprocal system according to which we will be able to sense a new type of fulfillment in the form of the Lights of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. It all depends on how much our egoism grows and in spite of it, we connect with each other, how we try to neutralize the egoism and even use it to join the two opposing forces and create a bond.

Imagine thousands of people from our groups all over the world will feel the mutual interconnection: who is where and how they are interconnected. This serious, multi-polar system is an integral society. Our egoism keeps growing and we become more united and “penetrate” into each other even more.

And our egoism grows not only in quantity but also in quality: It appears to us in all sorts of new, completely unknown forms. Suddenly, we begin noticing repulsive nuances in others that we haven’t seen before; it means that our egoism is elevating and is triggering these sensations in us! Suddenly, we recognize that our friends’ egoism has increased by a thousand times, and we don’t know how to approach their shaggy and prickly personalities. We still see ourselves as kind and wonderful. We don’t know how to treat our friends, nor do we know what to do with ourselves.

If we look at this picture from Above (from the Creator’s side), it becomes obvious that He is the One who provokes these situations in order to promote our advancement. On the part of the Creator, they are inevitable, whereas, on our behalf, we should continue correcting ourselves in order to rise even higher.

Rabash’s articles give precise advice on how to connect with friends. They all derive from the only principle, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” because it is the law of the upper level at which we all are entirely united through our desires and thoughts.

Our actions complement each other and create one general desire that was initially created by the Creator. At this point, each desire appears to us 620 times bigger. Thus, we feel everyone as if they were us. Besides, each of us feels 620 times bigger as if we were “multiplied” by others. It’s impossible to describe this formula since it defines the qualitative state called the world of infinity. We still need to reach this.
[97483]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Arava Convention Day One, Workshop 1

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Arava Convention Day One, “Only Questions,” Workshop 1

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Arava Convention, Day One, Workshop 2

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Arava Convention, Day One, “Only Questions,” Workshop 2

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Arava Convention Preparatory Lesson

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Arava Convention Day One, Lesson 1

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Arava Convention, Day One, Lesson 2

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Arava Convention, Day One, Lesson 3

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We are in a very special state now between the two conventions, the women’s convention and the men’s convention, when we have to bring all our deficiency together. On the women’s part there is already a big deficiency. On the men’s part the deficiency is relatively ready, but it isn’t gathered and organized enough. But there are still a couple of days to get ready and to reach the convention in the desert correctly, which means as “one man in one heart.”

I think it is possible. We see by the advancement of the world and our own advancement, according to the discernments that we have accumulated, that we are operating correctly and that there is no other choice. We were given a rare opportunity; a special treatment from Above and comfortable conditions that actually support what we are doing.

We don’t have to run forward with our eyes closed. Day by day we realize that this is the right way. We see how the whole world is drawn into this process and how necessary it is for us, to the world, and to the Creator. Finally there is a concentration of right decisions, which is a result of all the years the actions we have performed, of many states, discernments, and impressions we have experienced every moment, everywhere, and by each and every one of us.

We have to bring all our experience and the discernments that each of us has accumulated during this time together and to concentrate them into one sharp desire. Then in response to this desire that is yearning for its correction, for the attribute of bestowal, we will be able to receive the upper Light that will influence us and raise us to the first spiritual level.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we know that our actions are in favor of the Creator?

Answer: If the Creator is a certain form that I put together inside me, then I have to know what is in His favor and what is not. If the form I am putting together is a total form of bestowal, then it is in its favor to bestow.

The Creator is inside me. A person doesn’t know anything about what is outside him; the world that seems to surround me is an illusion. It is a lie that was created so that by my attitude towards it, as if towards an external world, I will be able to learn it in greater details, by bringing things out of myself.

If I could take out my feelings and my thoughts and see that I spread all over the world, then it would be the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). Then I would discover that our world doesn’t exist, that it is all parts of my vessels. In fact, there is nothing, not all the images and people around me. All this is me, called “Adam” (man) who is standing before the Creator’s force. Now I don’t see Him, but I was given a chance to start feeling Him.

We will never be able to know about anything outside ourselves since everything is only “from Your actions we shall know You,” and in order to do that we have to acquire spiritual attributes by ourselves. It is in that the spiritual world is different from the corporeal world.

There is a region in us that is like a white spot, in which we don’t feel anything now. This region is gradually being revealed and it is called “the upper world.”

There is also a region that I feel as “this world,” and then I begin to feel bad in it, as if it is crowded and too narrow in this circle. I begin to search; perhaps there is something outside it.

Some of my senses tell me that there is something beyond my boundaries because this part of my senses is concealed: I feel that I live in them and die. There are also different discernments in me: still nature, the vegetative, the animate, and the “speaking,” which I also feel as “this world.” They also appear and disappear, are born and die. I see their life and death, and by that I begin to think that everything is temporary and expendable; everything changes and then I feel a kind of emptiness. So I begin to search and to investigate what is beyond the bounds of this corporeal life.

If I don’t break out of my boundaries, how will I be able to discover what happens there? This is how we enter the upper world that is beyond the bounds of this world, but both this world and the upper world are all a desire to receive, and if we unite them, the outcome is the world of Ein Sof.
[98027]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/13, Writings of Rabash

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