In a person’s attitude to the Creator, we first must develop the importance of the upper inside us, which is called “make yourself a Rav,” so that the Creator becomes great in our eyes. Now He is concealed and we don’t feel that He is important. And to the extent that we gain faith in the Creator, although we don’t see Him, but  we develop the feeling of His importance with the help of the group, the Creator seems great to us. Then we are ready to do all manner of actions in order to connect to Him. This is all our work with the Creator.

I come to the group, begin to study, listen, and get a chance to discover the upper reality. In the meantime it is concealed from me and I don’t feel it, don’t understand, don’t see anything, but I already have an urge for it, which is not quite clear yet, and I want to fulfill it.

It is hard for me to live without fulfilling this urge; I feel that life is empty and meaningless. Everything that I have has lost its meaning and has become tasteless. I am told that I don’t feel the Creator since my attributes are opposite from His, as I have certain attributes in my current reality that I have not chosen.

According to these attributes I perceive the reality according to the law of equivalence of form. We know that it is possible to perceive a certain wavelength only by the right detector. I see colors and hear sounds only according to my senses that can perceive and discover them because they have the same attributes as the observed phenomenon. Everything is according to equivalence of form.

So according to my attributes, I perceive only a tiny fragment of the world that is before me. This fragment is the world that I feel and see. There can be millions of other phenomena around me that I don’t perceive, since I haven’t developed the feeling and senses for them.

This entire reality is called the “Creator.” He created this whole reality, but He shows me only a small fragment of it in which I can live and develop independently in order to discover and to feel Him.

I develop my senses by myself, and so I understand what I do and what I feel. Thus it becomes my system because I develop my own system by myself by developing and improving myself. By this, I build the Creator’s image inside me, until I feel all of reality completely. This will mean that I have recreated the image of the whole external reality, the image of the Creator, inside me. Therefore I am called Adam, a whole human, that resembles (Domeh) the Creator.
[98655]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Instructional Part Of The World
Breaking Through The Narrow Confines Of This World
Reality Is Indivisible

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

It is never revealed to us in advance what we have to do and how to do it. The Creator is concealed, His system is concealed, and I am given several means with which I can try to recreate the system inside me. I am only given a certain part of the Creator’s system as an example and asked to create it by myself. Then I discover that I have the exact opposite attributes with respect to the properties that I have to create. But this is also help, since I am shown the exact oppositeness! I have to find this oppositeness, to understand and feel it, and from the opposite property to guess the right attribute.

This means that I learn why I am corrupted this way and why I must agree to the opposite despite my reluctance. In order to do this, I have to annul myself, lower my importance and to increase the importance of the Creator. I am in a struggle and don’t agree to trample on myself.

For example, there are people whom I hate the most, who have caused me so many problems, that I don’t want to see and who ignite anger in me when I see them. Now I have to develop a different attitude toward them, the opposite attitude. I begin to discover that my intentions are opposite from the intentions that are presented to me as desirable.

I am brought to the group and told to connect with them and to love them. If I begin to love them, I will correct my perception and my senses and will calibrate myself to the feeling and the revelation of the Creator. I can feel Him in my friends, in this corrected relationship that I create. Instead of the friends, I will feel the Creator. There are no friends; there is only the Creator.

All this is thanks to the fact that I have broken my ego and inverted it, twisted it inside out, by having changed my attitude towards my enemies from hate to love, from rejection to connection. But I do all that in order to build a system of compatibility to the upper force. By developing and increasing the Creator’s importance in order to bring Him contentment without any connection to myself, I bring Him contentment in a way that He doesn’t even see me, just as I don’t see Him now. He doesn’t feel that it comes from me, just as I don’t feel that everything comes from Him. It is as if He, as if, ignores me, just as I neglect Him now because of the concealment and by that He lets me feel that I really conceal myself. I am ready for Him to ignore me and that He wouldn’t know anything about me, since then my bestowal, my attitude toward Him will be just like His attitude toward me, according to the way it seems to me now.

By all this we learn the right attitude toward the Creator above our corrupt desire. This means that we correct our desire and our attitude and by that attain bestowal. This means that we develop the feeling of the importance of the Creator in order to connect to Him.
[98652]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Concealment Isn’t In The Creator, It’s In Us
The Joy Of Bestowal, From Which The Concealment Retreats
What Is The Creator’s Image Built Of?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee Movement - No Comments →

Question:  When the addition of ego rejects and throws us off the goal, we go to the group to receive help. At the same time, how can we not erase or extinguish this new situation? Because it needs to bring us benefit.

Answer: It depends on the group: it should be like a commando, it needs to value the toil.

Question: What out of all this depends on me?

Answer: I am happy about my connection with the group, and I am sorry that I am not yet in adhesion with the upper. You need to imagine the desired state and then the lack of being in conformity with the current reality inside you; you will invite sorrow that should later become pangs of love.

Let’s assume that I attained some spiritual state, and then what we call, “I hit my head” and suddenly I forgot the goal and found myself some place, in the movie theatre. I enjoy eating popcorn, drinking Coke, and seeing an interesting movie; this is not suffering, but pleasure from disconnection from the main thing. Moreover, I enjoy not only beastly pleasures, but rather that I’m disconnected from spirituality.

But then the lack of meaning in my life again reminds me of His existence, and I begin to return. I go back to the group again, listen to the friends, and annul myself to them from lack of choice until they again begin to influence me with the importance of the Creator, the importance of the goal. They wash my brain with blatant propaganda that is mixed with a lie, but I intentionally go through all this and eventually the goal becomes important to me.

Then I receive with love everything I experience: the forgetfulness, the pleasure at the movie theatre, and the descent of the value of spirituality in my eyes. Whether I want it or not, this comes from the Creator and I had to go through this in order to be corrected.

Now I begin to collect inside me other sufferings, torments of love, because I as if want to reach adhesion and connection, but meanwhile I don’t have even suffering for that, I am still not even sorry that I am not there, I don’t have a real deficiency or even a lack for the deficiency. I only have a tiny bud of something, and from this great distance, I begin the path.

The question that arises is: What am I suffering from? That the Creator, so to speak, is rejecting and throwing me out? Or that that I still did not achieve the goal? And here the main thing is to worry that my suffering will always be sweet. Because whatever happens, I receive everything from the Creator; therefore, every state needs to be justified and joined to the goal where all these situations receive sweetening and correction.

Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 5: I am glad in those revealed corruptions and those that are being revealed. How much I complain and I regret the corruptions that still are not yet revealed, and will be revealed, because corruption that is concealed is hopeless, and a big salvation from Heaven is its revelation.
[98721]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9 

Related Material:
If The Intention Is Right, The Desire Doesn’t Need To Be Checked
Humiliating Pride And High Self-Annulment
The History Of The Connection Between Us

Filed under: Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: When one passes to the next spiritual level the aspiration for money is transformed into some anti-egoistic property called a “screen” (cover). Then into what does a sexual desire transform?

Answer: Neither sexual desires, nor desires for wealth, power, fame, or any egoistic desires of our world become transformed into the next level. All of them are only egoistic desires at the level of our world. Therefore, we simply perform a restriction on them.

At the next level, new desires appear: desires to become closer and their opposite desires for rejection. All desires directed toward rejection are those of egoism that have to be corrected. And if you want to eat two dinners or enjoy something else, these are not the desires that a person needs to correct.

Question: Do they have to develop to their maximum?

Answer: When you are engaged in spiritual advancement you are obviously limiting them. This means that when they awaken you have to realize them in some way. However, they are simply the means for your soul to advance forward, just as is your body.
[95843]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 3/11/12

Related Material:
The Magnitude Of Spiritual Desires
Burning With Spiritual Work
Don’t Get In The Way Of The Creator’s Work!

Filed under: Body and Soul, Egoism, Q&A - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-01-25_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’25.1.13′]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

Baal HaSualm, Shamati, article 9, “What are Three Things that Broaden a Man’s Mind in the Work.” The Holy Zohar interprets what our sages had written: “Three things broaden one’s mind. These are, a handsome woman, a handsome abode, and handsome Kelim (Vessels).” It says, “A handsome woman, this is the Holy Shechina (Divinity). A handsome abode, this is one’s heart; and handsome Kelim, these are one’s organs.

We must explain that the Holy Shechina cannot appear in its true form, which is a state of grace and beauty, except when one has handsome Kelim, which are the organs, elicited from the heart.

This is about our vessels, which are desires that must be transformed since we currently don’t use them correctly; we use them for our own benefit. A “woman” that is handsome to the desire to receive is ugly for the desire to bestow and must be transformed not to be graceful or beautiful, but modest, which means that she is totally in Hassadim. A “handsome abode” is the whole human heart and “handsome vessels” are the external desires.

This is how the five levels of our vessels are termed. The vessels are corrected by envy, lust, and honor, the attributes that take a person out of the egoistic world by evoking him to rise to new values.

Today, it is not in our power to perceive and to identify any aspect of spiritual life. We cannot attain such values, discernments, levels of attainment, feelings, and understandings. However, we can “expand our mind,” which means to start bringing the attributes of bestowal into the desire to receive.

How can we fulfill this? The point is that bestowal is essentially an intention and not a desire. Therefore, it is possible if I first stop working with the desire to receive and restrict it. As of today, it isn’t the place in which I receive pleasure or sufferings. I “close” it, and this attribute isn’t in me anymore.

Then, I develop the option to receive something on the side: “I will use you now as I see fit.” When different pleasures come along that I previously used to receive in this desire, I reject them now one by one, from the smallest pleasure to the biggest one.

What do I need this for? Is it because I am simply “on a diet?” No, I reject the pleasures because I want to resemble the Creator. This means that I must recognize the importance of the Creator and not receive anything. I receive this recognition of importance from the group, and I begin to value the Creator, the attribute of bestowal. Then, I really don’t use my desire to receive. Let the pleasures come, above my desire. I want to develop and to build the desire to bestow above it.

Thus, I already stabilize the human image inside me, the image of Adam that resembles (Domeh) the Creator. I use my desire to receive, the pleasure, the group, and the force of the Light that comes and fulfills all this as means to bestow upon Him.

Bestowal upon the Creator is the means that allows us to bring Him contentment. Is that the goal? No, that is also a means. The goal is to attain adhesion with Him since it is that which He really enjoys.

This turns into the means to attain a higher goal along our way, and it is so until we reach the end.
[98567]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9

Related Material:
A Beautiful Woman, A Beautiful House, And Beautiful Vessels
What Is A Spiritual Vessel (Desire)?
Climbing The Steps Of Desires Toward The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception - No Comments →

Question: At what point does a personal relationship with the Creator appear in the created being?

Answer: It already was awoken in Ein Sof (Infinity), in the four phases of the Direct Light. Otherwise, phase one (Hochma) wouldn’t have given birth to phase two (Bina).

Question: Is that the point in the heart?

Answer: No, it is a result of those stages. The point that awakens in a person’s heart is a spark of the general Returning Light that was in the soul of Adam HaRishon (first man) at the time of the shattering.

Question: So, when does a person begin to feel the Creator’s attitude? Because then everything becomes clear.

Answer: Everything would be understood by the ego, and we shouldn’t let this happen. If I show you that I feel absolute, endless, unconditional love toward you, then you will begin to disrespect me and even hate me. Because you are a desire to receive, and, when there are no limits to this desire, when fear doesn’t limit it, it “goes wild.” Eventually, you would begin to treat me badly. It really is so. So, instead of love on my part, you would see what seems like a bad attitude and unpleasantness.

Question: However, still, we have a point in the heart with which we have to start the process, but we get stuck since we have no basis.

Answer: There was a general vessel of Adam HaRishon and it had a Returning Light. Adam HaRishon wanted to receive all the great Light in order to bestow, but couldn’t keep it in the Returning Light, and everything was shattered.

There are only Reshimot (spiritual genes) left from the desire and Reshimot from the Masach (screen), and they are the ones that awaken and are called “a point in the heart” (•). This point doesn’t come from the Creator; it is part or a spark of the Masach.

In spirituality, there is no difference between the state and its Reshimot, which is also a full picture of reality that is not yet clear to a person.

So, we must draw the Light that Reforms (the Surrounding Light) to the Reshimot, and then we will see the picture of the spiritual world. It is a very simple action. You are in a group and study from the sources, for example, from The Book of Zohar, and by that, you summon the Light upon yourself and it operates.

Question: Is there something concrete or visual for me in this work? Can I feel how our “points in the heart” are attracted to one another and how the Light unites them?

Answer: If you nullify your ego and the friend seems more important to you than yourself, if the group provides you with such importance that you want to jump inside it and disappear without hesitation, to be swallowed in it, if you exert yourself in that and make efforts “by the sweat of your brow,” then to the same extent, you summon the Light that operates on you and bestows upon you from the Reshimot and builds the spiritual level.

Question: Will we become one whole so that everyone will feel it?

Answer: Of course, whoever participates in this process, whoever does this, feels it.
[98564]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9

Related Material:
A Voluntary Righteous
Reshimot: Memories About The Future
To Wish For Bestowal

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

As it is written, “Make yourself a Rav and buy yourself a friend.” It refers to the types of connections that we can reach between us and between us and the Creator. Our correction from the shattering depends on this connection. To the extent that we connect and leap over the shattering and correct it, then, in the corrected vessels, in the connection between them, we discover the spiritual reality.

In the corporeal reality, we live in our desire until we fulfill the corporeal Reshimot (spiritual genes) on the animate level. When one Reshimo exhausts itself and another one comes along, we feel it as our death, and the birth of the new Reshimo is called another life, a new “reincarnation.”

However, we constantly can renew the spiritual Reshimot by correcting the connection between us each time. If a person understands that he can fulfill these spiritual Reshimot, can clarify and correct them, then, in the corrected Reshimot, he feels his next level of existence, which means the spiritual life.

Corporeal life is fulfilled by one Reshimo on the animate level, and, when it is completely fulfilled—which means that it goes through the phases of Ibur (gestation), Yenika (suckling), and Mochin (mind)—a person dies. However, on the level of “speaking,” we can fulfill many Reshimot by constantly changing them; we can feel our advancement in them toward the attainment of the spiritual world.

In contrast to the corporeal world that is felt in the corporeal Reshimo, the spiritual world is felt in the corrected spiritual Reshimot, which means in the connection between us. It turns out that we are living in two worlds simultaneously: in the corporeal Reshimo, in feeling our body, and in the corrupt spiritual Reshimot by feeling the corrupt connection between us.

If we correct this connection, then, in the corrected Reshimot, we discover the spiritual level; instead of a shattered world, we feel the corrected world. Accordingly, we feel the new corrected desires and, in them, the Light that fills them according to their level of correction.

So, the only thing we need is to provide the basic necessities, the minimal existence for the Reshimot on the animate level, and to advance as quickly as possible by correcting the Reshimot on the level of the “speaking.”
[98558]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Writings of Rabash 

Related Material:
When Everything Is To Our Benefit
A Nation That Has No Rest
Life On The Degree Of Bestowal

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Unity - No Comments →

Question: Due to recent changes (from the women’s convention), a big importance of women’s unity has emerged.

There are women who are more active and less active in our group. For the active women, we organize certain activities and separate workshops, thereby creating a few circles in the women’s community. As a result, there are many unhappy women who think that we have split this community. Is it right to do this in the women’s group?

Answer: I believe it is incorrect. The mass should be as uniform as possible. I do not divide anyone. Some women participate less, no matter for what reason, some more.  I never look for reasons, especially if we are talking about women, not men. Men can be pressed, but women should not be, and in general, women should be treated as equal to men. But they must not make any divisions between themselves. Absolutely no!

Question: So, on what principle could the women’s group be formed?

Answer: According to the principle of the circle—everyone is equal. If I want to advance towards spirituality, I do not need earthly levels: What honors I would be rewarded, how many stars they attach to me? What is important for me is spiritual ascent, and I do not ask anything for myself. If it is possible to invest my efforts, I invest them, if there is no opportunity, then there is none. But a person should wait for the highest reward for his invested efforts, rather than have power and position in the group. What for? This is incorrect!

There are people who have organizational skills; it is another matter. We appoint them to be responsible for this or that because we benefit if they are engaged in these duties or something else, but in any case, we should not divide the group.

We have people who work very hard for the group. So what? Are they supposed to get more? For what reason?

As for women, they are mostly not free; they have a husband, family, children, and parents. So, we cannot demand the same things from them as from men.
[98640]
From the Virtual Lesson 1/20/13

Related Material:
The Ideal Women’s Unity
Women Will Succeed!
Open Sesame!

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Q&A, Women - No Comments →

Question: During the workshops and lessons at the Arava convention was the first time I was awarded with strong hatred for the group. It is difficult to overcome. How can I work with this; is it through work in the intervals between the congresses or work during the congresses? In other words, when we face this at a convention, do we overcome this by means of our work in between the congresses and there must be a constant effort to control oneself?

Answer: The effort should be in place. You need to prepare for falls in advance. There is nothing wrong with them. On the contrary, you need to meet these states with joy, despite the fact that you feel, “How can it be? I don’t want that!” This inner struggle is very good and essential.

In any case, do not try to remove it, do not erase it, but also do not dwell on it inside, do not beat yourself up, but rise above it correctly. It should be understood, in spite of feeling hatred, that the Creator sent it so that I recognize my egoism, how much more it is revealed in me now, and that is why, instead of love and agreement with the group, I feel hatred; I must rise above it and ask the Creator to help me. Don’t try to rise and get out of the pit you fell into by yourself, but ask the Creator to help you get out of it together with Him. Then you will have some contact with Him. This is why He arranged this fall for you.

We need to prepare for falls. Our workshops are especially good preparation for them.
[98637]
From the Virtual Lesson 1/20/13

Related Material:
After The Convention: Under The Creator’s “Millstone”
A Baby’s Efforts Accelerate His Birth
A Smooth Path Without Any Ups And Downs

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Workshops - No Comments →