A person is composed of two components: his own “I” and his existence. We can forego our own existence by bringing proof to our ego that it’s worth it. We see that the world changes, its values change as well, becoming less and less materialistic. The desire to receive changes not only quantitatively but also qualitatively, and therefore prefers more subtle fillings.

Besides this, there exist many types of people, and each enjoys different things: music, art, or sports, which are considered to be more “spiritual” than simple “materialistic” occupations. But essentially these are all types of materialistic egoistic fillings, and they are all the same in relation to a person’s spiritual development. The only difference is in this is how much a person prefers personal preoccupation in comparison to collective preoccupation. This determines his development.

There have always been people who loved to work for the good of all. They provided inspiration to people to make social revolutions, stood at the head of charitable movements, and helped the needy. Ten percent of all humanity have an inclination towards bestowal, their ego enjoys bestowal. This lets a person feel superior, to respect himself, to be proud of himself, even if nobody knows about his good deeds. This is a special type of egoism.

But to forego “self” is already impossible. It’s possible to do something like this only through the Light that Reforms and even this is not directly, but indirectly. The person invests himself in a society, tries to be included in it, and then the Light begins to influence him and to change him through the society.

Only in a form like this is change possible. This is a unique patent since in truth, we don’t want this to happen. It’s impossible to desire this for real, but since we nevertheless are able to act in this way, the change in us happens. This is called “I have labored and I found.” We are prepared to make a particular effort to be included in the environment, as if we have the desire to bestow, as if we want to discover the Creator and bring Him contentment.

All this is “as if,” but in this game there is a kind of condition for all of these efforts to enter into the system for “fun” but for real, as if we truly desire it! And the system begins to react to us. While the person isn’t really asking, yet suddenly he finds an answer. And he always finds something that he didn’t expect at all, and therefore this is called a “find.” This is always discovered as a surprise, quickly, abruptly. Thus through external corrections we reach internal corrections, through correction of the existence of reality we correct reality itself.
[105784]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writing of Rabash

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We are in a very special relationship with the Creator. If a person puts all his egoistic hopes in Him, just like all the people in this world, then everything is fine. Everyone believes that the Creator is good and that He sends us good things and cares about us. Although people suffer, they always find a justification for that. We see that it isn’t too difficult to hold on to a simple belief. Billions of people truly believe in the existence of an upper force and are ready to make different sacrifices and even to sacrifice their life for this belief.

It is so simple since it stems from our ego. A person praises and glorifies the Creator and is ready to exert himself and to perform different religious rituals. However, we cannot even think about Him and are skeptical about whether or not He really exists, if He is the good and the benevolent, if everything comes from Him. It is so difficult because it doesn’t stem from the ego, but from the point in the heart, from the form that is opposite to everyone’s general attitude towards the Creator.

However, we were given an environment so that our attitude towards the Creator will not stem from the ego, but from the opposite factor. Through the environment, we can really ascribe ourselves to the Creator to the extent the society increases His importance in our eyes. The more we all consider the society to be important, the more a person can attribute greater importance to the values that are accepted in the society, including the importance of the Creator.

If a person ties the environment with his point in the heart, then the Creator is inside the society and He gradually enters a person, enters his point in the heart. This is what we should demand from our group. Without this, there is no chance that we can reveal the Creator—by only connecting the environment with our point in the heart so that the Creator becomes revealed in their connection into one whole.
[105803]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” Article 31, Lesson 2

The Book of Zohar, Introduction “The Rose,” “Mirrors of the Sulam,” Item 1, Lesson 4

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 64, Lesson 41

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee,” Lesson 7

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts

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Question: Who is entitled to cut threads that connect us with this world so that we can be born into spirituality?

Answer: Only you! It has to be done voluntarily!

We need a preparation period only to disconnect from our previous step, exit the “uterus,” and then, without having solid ground under our feet, start measuring ourselves, our actions, and our further steps using a qualitatively different tool that doesn’t include such parameters as “time” (now-then, today-tomorrow, etc.), “accumulation of goods,” “superiority over others,” or “security.”

All properties that define egoism (time, space, past, future, present, fulfillment, emptiness, and so on) disappear. They simply cease to exist. We enter a different space, another matrix, a different dimension that carries completely different values, absolutely divergent definitions, where everything is weighed on a different type of scale. Our attitude to everything around changes dramatically.

We don’t see any parallels in this world since our observations of the still, vegetative, and animate nature allow us to watch only  different levels of egoism that outline each of these layers. Animals are more egoistic than other levels of nature, and that’s why they move faster, provide nourishment, reproduce, and so on. Plants have less egoism, while the still nature is even less egoistic. And yet all of them are constructed to consume, absorb, gain, captivate, and retain.

But here everything is directed towards the opposite. And we can’t grasp this “opposite.” This is not just the same absolute value, but actually a minus sign.

After all, we build the world in our sensations, in our values and definitions: This is bigger, this is smaller, this influences me better, and this affects me worse. This is how the world is reflected in my egoism while, in reality, the world doesn’t exist. All these spaces, objects, visions, sensations, relations that something is closer, farther, better, or worse—all of it is formed in my egoism in particular.

If it disappears for me, I begin to define everything in relation to another property: the property of bestowal. That is, I start drawing within myself a new world out of absence.
[105767]
From KabTV’s “Mysteries of the Eternal Book,” 2/18/13

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As a rule, integral interaction among people happens in a group of ten, on condition that they internally try to solve their problems together. Their goal is to reach balance, and no matter how different they are and how differently they regard the task they face, they have to support each other and come to a common resolution without any conflicts.

Eventually, their decision might be completely foreign to each one of them, but they still will consider it correct. Everybody will accept it since during the decision-making period, many group members dramatically change their original points of view.

There are two defining factors here: First, one changes his point of view under the influence of others by trying to completely control oneself. One simply flows with the stream and gets under the influence of others’ beliefs. All of a sudden, one finds out that one thinks the same way as others although he had a contrary opinion previously.

It can also be done in an opposite way: One sees that others think differently, but one cannot give up one’s personal opinion. Still, one follows the majority. So, he “ties” his point of view to the general approach and goes along with them. He doesn’t give up his opinion, but acknowledges that it’s better to act together with others than unwisely insist on his personal point of view because only together can they come to a new decision. So, one gives up his personal approach for the sake of the general idea.

At the same time, one still continues to experience internal conflict, but it becomes much more balanced. One realizes that he keeps thinking his own way, and in order to maintain connections with others, he becomes ready to rise to their level and think as they do.

In other words, there are two levels in us: “I” and “we.” In this case, if “I” accepts others’ attitude without internal conflict and yet preserves “I’s” own opinion, it remains internally calm. It doesn’t cause inner imbalance in “I.” On the contrary, “I” feels that it managed to rise above itself and this idea makes “I” very comfortable.
[105761]
From KabTV’s “Medicine of the Future,” 4/7/13

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The Writings of the Maggid of Koznitz, “The Work of Israel”: The sages said: “Dispersion is good for the wicked and convention is good for the righteous.” That’s because a wicked man separates himself from the Creator, thinks that he manages himself according to his own desire, and thus says “I will rule,” which is the source of the shattering.

Thus the wicked, each feels that “I will rule” and so they are in the world of separation and cannot connect like the circles because they cannot sit together, and so the dispersion is good for them. However, although the righteous each work the Creator in a different style, they all still aim at one thing: at their Father in Heaven, and they gather and assemble as one man with one heart.

When each one lowers himself and praises the work of the Creator, it gives him power and the mind to work for Him and so he doesn’t feel superior to his friend, and in the world of truth they unite with one another.

A person must convince himself as quickly as he can and not let time go by until he finally listens and believes that the spiritual world is not beyond some distant galaxies or in some faraway dimension. He is indeed in a different dimension, but this dimension is in his heart, in the desires and thoughts of his heart. Everything is in a man’s heart, in his desires: “the heart understands,” the heart thinks.

Only by controlling the desire is it possible to reach the upper dimension in which the upper one dwells, where He is the one who bestows with regard to the lower one, the one who receives in his thoughts, desires, and intentions.

One can have thoughts that are aimed at and operate for unity only by self-annulment and submission; that is, the thought of the righteous can unite since they are all aimed at one source, towards their unification with the Creator. The thoughts of the wicked, however, are each for his self-benefit, and so they all are separated and cannot attain anything.

Therefore, we should discover as quickly as possible in a true and decisive manner that the first spiritual level stands for self-annulment, connection with others in any way possible. We shouldn’t fear that it’s too honest and that someone may get scared and run away. The Creator gives us an example by showing us that the entire world is in a terrible crisis that spikes despair and helplessness in people’s hearts.

Thus, as a result of all our efforts to connect egoistically and to find spirituality not where it actually is, we must discover this helplessness. Then, out of helplessness, as it is written, “and the children of Israel sighed from the work,” we will be forced to turn to the upper force and demand that He save us.

The faster and more correctly we discover the fact that it isn’t in our power to reach self-annulment, the faster we will be able to reach the truth. This is possible only through connection, unity, and the strive for one root.
[105708]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13

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Question: Why does Baal HaSulam hardly mention the group in his articles?

Answer: There is hardly anything to say about the group since it is an obvious condition. If you don’t work on the connection with the group, you don’t have a spiritual vessel.

So Baal HaSulam has only several articles about the group. A Kabbalistic group is a concept known since the days of Abraham, who was the first Kabbalist who had to work in a group. Before him, there was no need for that since the idea of the connection of the souls was not revealed. The souls were so pure until then that they didn’t need to connect to one another in order to connect to spirituality.

Although we know the history of Cain and Abel, this connection is still on the level of the roots of the evil inclination. So, Abraham was the first who needed a group although he had already attained spirituality.

He was the first link in a chain of twenty generations from Adam Ha Rishon (the First Man) until Noah, and from Noah until Abraham (ten Sefirot of the Direct Light and ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light). He was the first who started to organize a group, and so he is considered the father of the nation of Israel. This nation is a Kabbalistic group.

The concept of the group was then formed, and it is impossible to reveal spirituality without it. The more we advance, the bigger the groups become. First, the groups were only a teacher and a student, as it says: “The minimum of many is two.”

There were different stories throughout the time periods in history, but the end result is they are all eventually meant to be as one. During the events before Mt Sinai, when Egypt’s desire to receive was revealed, the unity of the group of the whole Israeli nation as one group was crucial. The conditions of the gathering before Mt Sinai were the conditions of a Kabbalistic group: To be “as one man with one heart,” “each man shall help his friend,” “don’t do unto others what is hateful to you,” “love thy friend as thyself,” and “all of Israel are friends,” connected in mutual guarantee.

These are the conditions for the existence of the group because the “nation of Israel” is a Kabbalistic group.
[106248]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/13, Shamati #25

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After a very powerful Men’s Convention, we feel great heaviness. But I think that it should be the opposite since we have ascended to a new level, have received new desires, and now have to go out and fight the narrow-minded world we have returned to. We have to fight so all the confusions and the hardening of the heart that we will feel will not wane our feeling of awe and elation. If we won’t let things calm us down, then all the locks will become openings and the gates will open up.

If you feel heavy and indifferent, it is a sign that you are working with your primordial raw egoism. It is the way it operates in its pure form, as a feeling of a dark extinguished desire that doesn’t care about anything. Now you have been given another ten pounds or ten ounces of desire, it doesn’t really matter how much, and you have fallen under this load.

You mustn’t refuse to receive the new desire since doing so is considered disrespect of the chance to advance, of the gift you are given from Above. But you should ask for two things: From the group, you should ask for support, empowerment, mutual guarantee, and mutual responsibility; and from the Creator, you should ask for correction, awakening, elation, and the Light.

You have to ask. There is nothing you can do other than that! If you stop asking, then you immediately fall into a state of unconsciousness. So you must constantly ask and pray internally, focusing on the group and on the Creator, holding on to this prayer. Otherwise, you fall into a deep sleep.
[106251]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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