Friends Who Will Never Disappoint You
Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: …each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before.
With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.
If we can connect and through this come to mutual guarantee, no one will be able to shake it. You see, the power of Arvut influences everyone and if each feels that his ego has been neutralized, he will stop being concerned for himself and simply will not be ready to be an egoist. The power of Arvut necessarily neutralizes narcissism in everyone, and in this kind of an environment no one can remain uncorrected, this is to say, without self-nullification toward others. The environment nullifies the egoistic needs of the person supplying him with everything he needs.
With sufficient thoughtful support from the environment, my concerns for myself disappear. That is how the network that connects us works and it is impossible to get rid of it. I am linked with them all through thousands of bonds and innumerable threads. The environment activates me. It makes no difference if I want this or not. The mechanisms of the network are a fact, and therefore, since the group supplies my needs, it eliminates my egoistic desire. So, I am free.
Therefore, if the person is connected with the group, he must receive all the strength that he needs from it in order to relax himself. He no longer has concerns about himself. He simply is not prepared to “make” them because the group extinguishes them immediately.
Even today I am in a collective network, but I feel that I am not receiving anything from it like this or anything else that I need. All of my apprehensions are derived from this. We are totally linked. Within the network of threads that link us if I feel that I lack something, then I become apprehensive. I fear for myself, thinking, “What will happen to me?”
However, in the right group, after I arrange connections between us, I find that I am absolutely secure. This neutralizes all my fears and I will be free beyond the limitations of our world.
After all, “our world” is the reality where we feel linked, more or less, dependent on each other and influencing each other negatively. Seemingly, everyone here is not found in his place. This mutual negative connection in this shared spider web is our egoistic world.
To the contrary, when I enter a group of Kabbalists, I build the right connection with the closest components of the system. It is not by chance that I am brought to a group, rather, because I am truly linked to the friends I am not just spending time with a society of people who are like me. Now that I am attracted to the Source, this directs me to connect with someone close to me in the spiritual network, and even if they live thousands of kilometers away from me in the physical network, in spite of all this, I find them.
So, according to the degree of closeness, a system of relationships is developed between us until this supplies me with a state where I feel free of worries about myself. This is the first stage of self-nullification. In the second stage, the friends raise the upper One in my eyes: the group, the Creator, the Giver.
Therefore, the influence of the group is divided into two parts: The first is that it neutralizes the egoistic desire within me. The friends give me a feeling that they are concerned for me all the time no matter what may happen. In the past, my concerns for myself formed a terrifying future for me. Now, the friends give me a secure future. Only a group is ready to do this. It supplies me with Surrounding Light that matches my desires directed at the future. Only the friends can extinguish that and then the sensation of tomorrow disappears so much so I feel beyond time. This is the first condition. The group neutralizes the egoistic concern about the present and the future in me.
Second, I also need a force that will attract me toward the upper. In the name of this, with all their strength, the friends raise the importance of the goal, the Creator, the teacher, the group in my eyes, in other words, the importance of all the means to which I must hold.
In this way, through the collective network that we develop in the group, I reach self-nullification.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”
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