Question: What are the limitations we should impose on required needs in order to proceed correctly towards spirituality?

Answer: There are no limitations. Eat, drink, have fun and do what you want, but from within that maintain a permanent connection with the Creator: “There is none else besides Him.”

To the same extent that you are not able to be with this thought, you must reduce exaggerated living. In other words, doing all that you want, begin to reduce the threshold of material excesses so that the “There is none else besides Him “ will constantly be the main thing for you. And at Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction), you will consume without limits and will ask from the Creator all that there is in life.

Kabbalah is the science of receiving eternal and infinite pleasure. With time you will begin to understand which pleasures to exchange with which, and you will see how few of them are exchanged with others or clothe upon others.

Thus, there is no need to limit yourself, but only if you execute all the conditions of adherence with the group, with the teacher, and with the Creator.

The vessel that was entirely received from the Creator makes a restriction. This restriction does not apply to our world. From within it, you can use everything. If the corporeal pleasures don’t interfere with rising towards the Creator, don’t distract your opinion of Him, then use them.

Would it be that from sitting down to a meal with friends and crying or eating vegetables, you would turn into a saint? The opposite, enjoy the tasty food, but it should be that all of this will complement the happiness of the meal and will in no way detract. When you feel that there weren’t even anything on the table and you would have stayed with the same uplifted spirit with the friends, then you can add all that.
[127510]
From a lesson in Russian 2/10/14

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Preparation to the Lesson

Workshop

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “The Donkey Driver,” Item 102

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 6

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 58  

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Question: How does love change from stage to stage? What are the types of love?

Answer: What is considered to be love in our world is not considered to be love in Kabbalah.

Earthly love is narcissism. All of our emotions enter into it, and the love spoken of in the wisdom of Kabbalah is already love in itself, for regardless of whatever negativity that we feel within our ego toward the source of love, we love it in spite of this feeling.

This is not masochism. Rather, it is suppression of the ego in opposition to which it is possible to love, and if not “in opposition,” then this says that we love ourselves, our ego.

Therefore, all the types of earthly love—toward a child, toward a husband, toward a wife, no matter toward whom or what—all this is narcissism.

In this manner, detachment from earthly love takes place throughout the length of all 125 levels, and only to the degree that we reject our ego is it possible in this degree to reach a neutral characteristic, after that to the characteristic of bestowal, and after that, to the characteristic of love, which is to receive in order to bestow, and that is how it is on every level.

In other words, we first make a restriction (Tzimtzum) on each level by closing our ego, and after that, we reach the stages of impregnation (Ibur), breastfeeding (Yenika) and a large state (Mochin).
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Question: How do I nullify myself toward the group?

Answer: It is very difficult to do this, it is just about impossible. It is necessary to close your eyes and put yourself under the influence of the group and try physically, morally, psychologically, and spiritually to be nullified within the environment. It is only like this! Submit and lower yourself and accept them as they are. If this is the group to which they brought me and I nullify myself toward it, then I attain my restriction.

Therefore, it is most important at every given moment to organize yourself internally, and clarify: “Toward where are my thoughts, powers, and desires directed—everything that is in a person?”

Constantly carrying out a scan of the internal self-image, I describe to myself who I am at this moment, a beast or something close to the image of man. Unfortunately, I always discover that I am a beast. However, after that, movement happens, even a small one, in the direction of the human in me.
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Question: How does our work remove the shame of receiving?

Answer: Our work removes and eliminates the shame since I exert myself by trying to establish my relationship with the Creator, with the good and benevolent, above it. I am grateful for the shame that allows me to establish and to attain adhesion with the Creator on top of it. So I justify the feeling of shame, respect it, and am grateful for the fact that it emerged in me.

This is actually the way the human attributes are revealed in me. Although it is still a corrupt human being, it’s not an animal any more but the posterior of the next level, of the right upper Partzuf, with which I can work. Therefore I kiss the stick that hit me and I welcome shame and the frictions that arise between me and the Creator.

All the conflicts and the disagreements between the good and the benevolent and there is none else besides Him and myself, and the attainment and the understanding of the gap between us is called shame. So I am happy that I feel shame!

There are states in which a person tries to eliminate his feeling of the gap and his inadaptability to the Creator and simply tries to erase it. But I want to establish my attitude towards the host above this shame and so I thank Him for showing me where I am not like Him, different from Him, far from His attributes.
[127609]
From Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/14

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Question: How can a person be sure that he has really attained the first spiritual level of Nefesh De Kedusha (non-living saint) and that his mind is not deceiving him?

Answer: When you reach this state you will immediately understand it. You won’t confuse it with anything.

This means that you will see how detached you are from all the thoughts about yourself. It’s an amazing attribute when your “I,” which in the past has been so troublesome and sticky, suddenly disappears and ceases to exist.

You ascend above the field of gravity like a rocket or a missile and that’s it, quiet. There is no up or down, nothing. There is no force of gravity. But this is only at this stage and then you have to move on.
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Opinion (Roman Nosikov, lawyer, journalist): “How to be a man correctly. How to develop such a great human quality as maturity. The world of the future is a world of powerful children, the children who never grow up. The human being acquires maturity by dealing with difficulties, in fight against evil. But evil and difficulties, troubles and misfortunes do not exist in today’s world.

“People do not understand how to respond to evil; they cannot even recognize it. People are engaged in free creativity, game, entertainment, powerful super-children. Humanity has forgotten about the dirt from which it has come. Humanity has turned into a child who does not care about the prose of life.

Comment (the author’s opinions): The main thing is the process of turning an infantile, spoiled person into a real human being. The problem is that a person is not his world outlook, not his humanism, nationality and set of tastes and preferences. The human being is a connection with his own kind. The human being is not a point. The human being is a line connecting the points.

Therefore, one cannot hide from people. This makes him less and less human. He begins to consider himself to be God.

The human being is not what he thinks of himself. The human being is his connection with others, his love and its manifestations.
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From the Writings of Rabash, “The New Moon”: Malchut is called the moon, and it is called the new moon, the concept of the kingdom of heaven being that, we need to accept the yoke anew every day. Yesterday’s acceptance is not enough, because the holy Ari says that we need to raise the sparks that fell to BYA all the time, lifting them to holiness.

It is found that a person takes on the yoke anew all the time, this being the name for his taking a portion of the separation and attaching it to spiritual unification. And this is the idea that Malchut returns to a point every day, this point being called a black point, which has no whiteness in the holy Zohar; that is, it doesn’t shine, for illumination is called whiteness, meaning that we must renew it all the time.

If a person really nullifies himself to the group, respecting it and satisfying its desire by wanting to place the characteristic of bestowal and love into the connection between the friends, then to the degree of his effort, he sees how far he is from this condition. And if he strengthens his feeling that the greatness of this feeling is desirable, the distance brings him to despair due to his inability to reach this goal. But along with this, he understands how important the goal is and he gets the power to attain it.

Eventually he completely realizes the nothingness of his powers. And here no person is as wise as someone with experience; it’s impossible to skip over this clarification. Only through the multitude of deeds, activities, and work that the Kabbalists recommend for us do we reach a state of despair.

A state of despair also brings happiness. As Baal HaSulam writes, there is no happier moment in a person’s life than when he finds himself in despair of his own powers. For now he is ready to scream from the depths of his heart for a true prayer. He asks for the power to be nullified towards the group, for his entry into spiritual work depends on this.

And then he receives this power, making it possible for him to nullify himself and adhere to the group. This is called the transformation of his black point into white. That is how he advances, and immediately he gets a new black point. And so from these points, one after another, he builds himself, transforming darkness into light all the time. That is how the moon is renewed.

Until eventually, all of the entries and exits that constantly alternate one after the other build in him a state of smallness (Katnut). The spiritual fetus is finally formed and born, turning into a newborn. The fetus nullifies itself completely. All of its 613 desires pass through correction through nullification, and thanks to this he becomes “white,” reaching the level of Nefesh and is born into the new world.

After birth, he continues to grow. His desire to receive grows more and more on the level of Ruach. There the person already must know how he joins with the actions of the Creator in that he takes part in the work of the Creator himself in order to start managing himself. This happens precisely with the same stages as the fetus develops in the physical world.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/14

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