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Question: When I meet people lately, I see that they are not looking for success like they did before and are not trying to achieve something. It is as if the ego has stopped growing and is even going backward; people agree to have less, why is that so?
Answer: It is not a simple question. Why has the ego stopped growing? Moreover, why does the ego “concede and give up,” growing weaker? Does it really grow weaker?
The point is the ego changes; it becomes “round,” integral. We are moving from one type of ego: the simple individualistic “straight” ego with the approach of “grab as much as you can” to another type that we don’t understand yet. It has not been fully revealed in us yet. It is a kind of an integral ego that is accompanied by a general mutual connection. We already feel it and don’t know how to manage and cope with it.
Up until now we have developed technologies, science, and knowledge, but now it is time for attainment, which is characterized by a new kind of desire. Once the world was dominated by power, then by technology, and then it was science’s turn, then information became the key, now the main thing is the understanding. All the previous methods will not help us anymore; they cease to be effective.
This has never happened before. All the previous levels used to support the new, more advanced levels, but today it is different. It is as if everything that we have achieved is gone, slipping away between our fingers, no longer causing any inner responses. It is actually so. It is because the “world” is vessels, desires, with the Lights in them. These vessels disappear and gradually turn into different vessels. For the first time there is not a discrete attribute that is revealed in them, of a vessel and another vessel, but the connection with the first ten Sefirot, the first spiritual level.
So we cannot identify this state. We don’t have the necessary inner pattern of perception, the “sensor,” the right sense that enables us to see the new reality. So people stop their chase and nothing attracts them anymore. They feel the outcome of the process: the vessel beginning to “round,” to connect to the ten whole Sefirot.
For the first time the first level of the upper world is revealed, for the time being in the vessels of posterior, but it is already being revealed. By being incompatible with it, we encounter emptiness, and the suffering will grow even if we don’t learn how to adapt ourselves to reality. This situation can actually make people feel helpless, not wanting anything, not wanting to work, as the soul feels hopelessness and a person feels despair.
The linear advancement allowed us to find a replacement for something we despaired of. The ego’s protective force still pushed us forward. But today, many don’t have the energy to get up in the morning and to start a new day, “I don’t need anything and whatever will be will be.” This actually stems from disorientation in the network of the global connection that is being revealed now. A person doesn’t feel the network yet, but he sees that the previous vessels don’t work any more. This is really a very sad situation…
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
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Baal HaSulam,”A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“:The proof is that anyone who is drawn to the secrets of the Torah is also drawn to the land of Israel.
This happens according the laws of root and branch. All the worlds are arranged according to the same “pattern,” and the difference between them is not in the system but in the “matter.” We can, for example, build a house from Lego blocks or build a structure a more sophisticated structure for an exhibit from plastic or wood, stones or concrete… In fact the whole world is our home.
Therefore the same law applies in the upper worlds too. The parts there are of different material, but the external relations between them are the same. The structure of the lower world has the same structure as the upper world; in both worlds we sit and study the wisdom of Kabbalah.
Accordingly, the way we yearn for the desire to bestow in spirituality is the same in our world: People with the point in the heart yearn for the Land of Israel and not for any other place. They feel good in this place. What people with the point in the heart can fulfill and carry out here, they cannot carry out anywhere else. Of course, we try to overcome the distances that separate us, the different languages and other differences in the collective work of the global group, but we are still attracted to this land.
As for the other inhabitants of Israel, they found themselves here not according to their heart’s call, but as a result of many moves on the global “chessboard.” They will awaken with our help, but they don’t have the inclination and are not attracted to it. Give a person enough money, and he will leave this land. On the whole, as Baal HaSulam says, the Israeli nation is like a bag of nuts, and this nation lives here since it is forced to by external circumstances, and not because of an internal attraction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
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Rabash, “What is that A Man Must Give Birth to a Son and a Daughter in the Work”: But when a person, after his great efforts, sees that he cannot exit the domination of the desire to receive for himself, yet he sees that he is working within reason and that only the Creator can help him.
As the sages said “a person’s inclination grows daily, and if the Creator didn’t help him, he wouldn’t be able to overcome it,” he doesn’t have to believe in “above reason,” as ordinary worshippers who observe the Torah and Mitzvot, who believe “above reason” that the Creator does indeed help them, do. But rather as people who want to work in order to bestow, for whom it is within reason, to such an extent that they have to believe above reason that the Creator can indeed help them exit the domination of the desire to receive.
It says that, “there is none wiser than the experienced.” We need real vessels of perception and not imaginary ones. First we need to attain everything that we need within reason, and only then work above reason. We have to do everything that we possibly can to build and to attain our vessels of perception.
So it is impossible for a person to say in advance that he believes in everything that is written in the book and only waits for it to be fulfilled. He must first exert himself as much as he can.
There is a law that “Nature abhors a vacuum.” So we have to understand that there cannot be a vacuum. It is an undesirable state and whoever creates a void means that he desecrates (from the same root in Hebrew), that he brings about corruption. So we must do our best by our exertion to collect all the necessary data and reach a certain decision.
If we complete our part and see that only the Creator can operate from there onwards, then we have to continue our work in faith above reason so that He will fill the void that is left. Otherwise we will not be able to carry out this mission.
A religious person says in advance that everything depends on the Creator who does everything, and there is nothing a person can do but pray. He believes that everything is in the hands of the Creator and everything is for the better. But if he determines this in advance, he cannot do the first part of the work and will not reach the recognition within reason and so he will not be able to later continue his work above reason so that the prayer will be above him.
We, however, have to fulfill “you should do whatever is in your power,” and only then can a prayer burst from inside. It is because we discover a new void that the Creator can fill by our exertion, and this will already be “above reason,” in vessels of bestowal, in the head of the spiritual Partzuf.
This is the big difference between people who work below reason and those who work above reason. The difference is that those who want to work above reason must first reach reason and to know from their clarifications and experience that it isn’t in their power to perform any spiritual act. I strongly advise that you hurry with this clarification.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13
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There are two types of work: in feeling a deficiency and in feeling complete wellbeing. After all, we were created of matter that is always in a state of emptiness. So we aspire for a connection with the Creator who created us and who has everything that we lack.
If we include these two forces inside us—the natural force of receiving, our matter, and the force of bestowal, the small “spark” that is in us and which we want to develop so that it will dominate all our matter—we will have to clarify two things: On the one hand, with regard to the matter, we have to clarify the spark of bestowal, and on the other hand, with regard to the spark, we have to clarify and examine the matter. In other words, on the part of the created being, we have to study the Creator and also our own desire.
So we do one type of work with our desire to receive, which is a work of requests, prayers and the sorrow of Shechina (Divinity), the destruction of the Temple. If we don’t feel all the hardships of this state to their full severity, we will not be able to reach the right prayer, which means to reach such an intense request that will summon a response of bestowal from the Light.
This is because the Light only bestows upon a whole desire. The levels of the whole desire are called “spiritual levels,” and we have to attain at least the lowest level.
The other type of work is when we are before the Creator who created us, manages us, takes care of us, corrects us, and raises us to His height of perfection. Then our work is in gratitude and praise.
These are two opposite forms, and in both cases a person has to make sure that one will not annul and cover up the other. Both forms are essential for a whole true measure. The clash between them, the tension between them, creates a point that will draw the Light so strongly upon itself that it will raise a person and turn one end of his work to Keter and the other end to Malchut. So the first level of a person’s spirituality made of ten Sefirot is within the desire to receive, from requests, begging, a broken heart, and also from gratitude and blessing the Creator, which means from the point of Keter. This is how we should advance.
A person constantly forgets these things and is confused. He thinks that the confusion is coincidental and stems from the daily hardships of life. He supposes that if he lived by himself somewhere on a desert island in the middle of the ocean far away from the daily interruptions, he would advance quickly and successfully along the spiritual path. He, however, has to worry about endless things and go through life dealing with different problems, both internally and externally.
But this is a wrong attitude since everything belongs to one system. There is no justification to move or to change the external conditions. A person should try to make efforts to constantly remain in the spiritual work without changing anything externally so that through the environment that he has now he will be able to bring the Creator contentment.
We should understand that this is the environment that the Creator has prepared for him. Later a person will understand to what extent these conditions were the most suitable for his advancement.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Opinion (Christophe Bernard, Chief Strategist of the Vontobel Group): “Money serves as a foundation for trust. We take for granted that we can go to a bakery and exchange it for bread. A banknote itself costs nothing, in contrast to silver and gold coins, which have material value. …
“The current situation is quite new because the relationship between currencies and gold was destroyed only 40 years ago, but gold as payment was introduced in the time of Croesus, the king of Lydia, in 560 BC and since then has maintained its purchasing power. In Babylon, an ounce of gold could buy 350 loaves of bread, about the same as in our days.
“The attachment to gold is unreasonable in our time because the amount of gold that can be extracted is limited, and if the amount of money depended on it, it would slow down economic growth. …
“If since 2008, the central banks had not flooded markets with cheap money, we would not have a depression with unpredictable consequences. So far, these measures were correct. But I wonder how they are now going, on the one hand, to reduce the mountain of debt and, on the other hand, to reduce incredibly inflated balance sheets?”
My Comment: Gold and silver were used as a payment more than 3,000 years ago; we read in the Torah that Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah for 400 shekels of silver. And even before that, in ancient Babylon, that is, 3,500 years ago, gold coins were in use.
The strategists writes, “The attachment to gold is unreasonable in our time because the amount of gold that can be extracted is limited, and if the amount of money depended on it, it would slow down economic growth.” But precisely this economic progress has to be gradually stopped! And it is no longer progress, but accumulation of empty monetary mass.
What will banks do with cheap money? Either we will do this ourselves or Nature will correct everything itself: The entire mass of money will be reduced to the mass needed for existence. There is no need for a big mass of money, and no more gold is mined!
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Question: Why will inner integral changes benefit business people?
Answer: It will be very easy for them to find a common language with coworkers. They will enjoy the actual process of working together. They will find the motivation that is evading them today.
Today, the absence of motivation appears on every level of business: lack of desire, depression, fogginess, and apathy toward one another.
As the integral system begins to become more and more apparent, people lose their connection with one another, they become absolutely indifferent toward work, and they are unable to do anything about it even though this can get them fired. A person feels like he is not fulfilled and even his salary no longer matters to him.
We need to raise the awareness of everyone about the kind of system that they and the entire world are living in: all the little parts of the world spin in complete dependence on one another, like cogwheels. In an integral mechanism, any movement by any of us ideally determines the movement of everyone, and all inputs and outputs are absolutely and specifically connected between them.
This is why I recommend holding special events, workshops, where we can explain to people where mankind now stands.
During the workshop discussions, people gradually begin to feel this new unity, a new dependence on one another, where no one is above or below, where everyone is equal and interconnected, and everything depends on everyone. And this does not manifest through slogans or decrees, but in the actual collective body. People begin to feel motivation, a life force, a special attitude towards one another. They properly complement nature, the surrounding reality, and what exists between them.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13
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The Torah, “Exodus (Ki Tissa),” 31:12-31:13: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “And you, speak to the children of Israel and say: Only keep My Sabbaths! For it is a sign between Me and you for your generations, to know that I, the Lord, make you holy.
Saturday is the symbol of the end of correction. The six weekdays preceding Saturday allegorically symbolize the six thousand years during which the ego is revealed in us.
The Jews have been keeping their calendar since the first day that the ego was revealed as evil. This occurred in the year zero, and since then they have been celebrating this day as the new year.
Thus the Jewish calendar is spiritual since we celebrate the day that a man called Adam was the first to discover his ego and managed to correct it. He understood how the other part of the world that is concealed from us is arranged, why our world is so egoistic and is built on negativity and on the abuse of others, and how it should be corrected. After having discovered this system, Adam described it in the book The Angel Raziel, which means “the hidden force” (angel is a force). We have been keeping record of the chronological events since the day of the revelation of the spiritual system until the end of correction.
Adam was the first to perform a spiritual correction and attained the equivalence of form with the Creator, and is therefore called Adam HaRishon (the First Man), which means the first to resemble the Creator (stemming from the same root in Hebrew). It takes six thousand years until the general equivalence of form and similarity to the Creator to be attained. At the same time, this period can be shortened since we have free will during the last phase, which enables us to shorten it. But if we don’t use it, the initial date will remain unchanged.
Six thousand years repeat on every level of correction in the spiritual form and thus create six small levels. The seventh stage symbolizes the seventh millennium, which means the “end of correction.” Hence, the term “week.”
There is no astronomical concept of week in our world. There is a day, a month, a year, etc. But there is no week. A week is actually a spiritual concept that comes from Adam.
It says: “Remember the seventh day.” This day symbolizes the general correction and it is therefore forbidden to work on the seventh day. It’s as if we show that we want to reach this state, when there will be no need to correct anything anymore.
The day Adam attained his ego, wanted to correct it, and was shattered is the sixth day, that is, Friday. The New Year begins from attainment, from the sixth day (Friday). We call the five days until the sixth day “the days of the creation of the world.” But it’s actually on the sixth day that Adam felt that the world is totally different from what was depicted in his corporeal feelings, and is actually much wider, higher, and totally unrelated to our physical body.
There is the still, vegetative, and animate nature and there is a human being, Adam (man), whom we have to raise in us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/2/13
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Question: How can we become similar to the Creator if we sometimes think that His actions are wrong?
Answer: Not sometimes, but constantly! What good is there in this world? Even the most evil villains can’t bear what’s happening in it. And yet, this world is created by Him.
The fact of the matter is that we regard this world as being a 100% opposite to the Creator. Why? It’s because we are opposite to Him. The Creator shines within us and His Light is absolute goodness. But when the Light falls on our “light-sensitive film,” it makes a negative that is opposite to the original. So, the more Light we receive the greater the darkness becomes, and vice versa. This is the way we see the world.
The Light draws various shapes on the screen of our desire to receive, and all of them are drawn on the negative. They are opposite to the Light. This is how the world is outlined within us.
How can we achieve similarity with the Creator? How out of our oppositeness can we see Him and not an imaginary picture? For that, we have to transform the “frame” and to reverse its contrast range. And if we do it with the first “frame,” we attain the first spiritual degree. Then, we will work with the second, the third, and all subsequent “frames.”
This way, it all has to do with the “technology”: how to work internally so as to transform the imaginary darkness into light and the imaginary light into darkness. For this, I need to turn my own properties into their opposite: to transform a negative into a positive. This inner transition is the Torah, the Light that Reforms. This is what I need.
I feel the Creator within me. Even now I perceive Him in the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and in people. Everything around me is the Creator who “translates” Himself for me and copies Himself within me. I only have to decode this picture.
I work not with the world, the friends, or the Creator, but rather with myself, within myself. While doing so, I’m allowed to use the shapes, seemingly external ones, so as to decode the original image.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, “A Speech on the Completion of The Zohar”
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Question: What results from integral education workshops?
Answer: People begin to feel each other better and begin to reveal an integrated system that truly binds them together because we are in a system of the forces of nature that connect us. Until now, the principle of this system was, “who is faster, who is better, who is stronger, who is smarter,” and now it is interconnection. Interconnection makes people equal.
Today, you can be smart or rich or special in something, but, still, you do not succeed in life because success—content, happiness, a sense of a result—comes from the right interconnection. We must lead people to this.
They will begin to feel how interconnection, goodwill, a sense of common destiny, and a common movement give a person the fulfillment that makes him want to be in the team.
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From the KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13
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