Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.19.14
Posted on March 19th, 2014
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If I see negative things outside myself, it means that I have to correct myself and then I will not see anything that is bad or negative. A friend who has troubles will seem very successful to me.
In the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” Baal HaSulam says that we see the friends as losers, ill, unsuccessful, etc. But the moment we correct ourselves, we will see that they are healthy, rich, and successful. This means that I actually have to correct myself.
But there is another way to help them become healthy, rich, and successful. I correct things by approaching the friends and correcting myself directly in them, and then I see that they are successful.
The right correction is actually my inner correction. By correcting the friends and thus seeing that they are successful is an indirect, alternative correction, not a direct correction.
A direct correction is correcting my relationship with the Creator and seeing that the whole world is repaired and corrected. The whole world is my vessel, and if I identify any deficiencies in it, then this means that the problem is in me because everything is already in a corrected state.
The world didn’t undergo the shattering. I am the only one who is shattered; the part that identifies the corruptions is the one who has undergone the shattering. Everything else is whole. I only need to correct myself, and then I will see that the whole world is in the Garden of Eden, in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).
But we have been given an easy way to correct ourselves by mutual inclusion: I come to the world and help correct it by taking the shattered parts in the world and raising them as MAN, as a prayer. The world is the lower level, I am the intermediate level, and the Creator is the upper level, which means that I perform the priests’ work. This, however, isn’t a direct correction, but an indirect one by mutual inclusion and consistent actions.
Question: It turns out that I will see the outcome of the correction only after I correct myself internally?
Answer: Of course! Otherwise how can you say: “I see”? You cannot see the correction if you don’t correct yourself. The only question is whether you operate directly towards the Creator or in an alternative, indirect way.
[130095]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14
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Question: What is the correct way to pray when I see that a friend has a problem and I want to ask on his behalf?
Answer: It says: “He who prays for his friend is rewarded first.” Indeed I don’t need to pray for the friend because he only seems ill to me.
Yet I cannot perceive this corruption as my own, and I am not close enough to the friend to feel his pain and his illness as my own. So I pray for him as if he is external to me.
Therefore, “He who prays for his friend is rewarded first,” because I am actually the one who is ill if I see a sick friend. And that’s why I need to be healed, and not the friend who only seems ill.
Correcting myself means, seeing all of creation the way it is in the eyes of the Creator: seeing the whole world from the perspective of a person who is fully corrected in his desire to receive, which means that all his vessels are in order to bestow.
[130091]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14
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Question: Baal HaSulam published the paper HaUma (The Nation) in the 1940’s in which he warned about the approaching disaster. We are facing the same problems today. What does it mean to take them more seriously? What is lacking in our work?
Answer: We should simply do what Baal HaSulam says in the paper HaUma and in the article “The Last Generation.” It’s the same method, the same connection, and we just need to do the same things.
You worry about what will happen to a billion and a half Chinese. I cannot say, but I know that half a million Jews can do the work for the whole world. So I worry about dissemination in Israel first. If we succeed here, things will work out in the world.
The correction, which means the connection, must first take place in the Israeli nation. Then it will spread to the rest of the world. We are in the general network of connection between the shattered souls, and if we correct ourselves, not even the whole nation but just a part that corrects itself a bit in the connection between us, the force of connection will already spread among all the nations and will bring everyone to correction.
We must take everything that happens very seriously and leave everything but dissemination, studying, and the spiritual work. Dissemination is very important. Judging by how the world is approaching the path of in its time, the path of sufferings, we have to make greater efforts in order to put it on the path of I shall hasten it, the path of the Light.
[130233]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Question: We stay to work in groups of five after the lesson today, but the truth is that I don’t feel like it…
Answer: Reluctance is a reaction by default, that isn’t worth speaking about. Of course I prefer to do what I like now, like lying on the sofa watching a football game with a beer and nuts, with the remote control in my hand, and let everyone leave me alone. Before the game begins, in expectation of the desired pleasure, I will even tell my wife how much I love her again.
But sitting with friends is not a pleasure. In fact it isn’t a pleasure being here, and no one says otherwise.
Question: Does that mean that I should do what I don’t want to my whole life?
Answer: No. My whole life is tied to the greatest most sublime goal: I am going to reveal the Creator and this is the greatest reward. What is more, there is an even greater reward, which is being able to delight the Creator without any self benefit.
Never mind if this seems unrealistic today and something that I cannot imagine, I belong to and am incorporated in things that don’t exist anywhere else. Recognizing this importance gives me support.
Of course, the upper Light sustains us now. It operates on the point in the heart and doesn’t let us escape. On the contrary, if it illuminated the egoistic desire to receive instead of the point in the heart, I would immediately disappear inside the group without a trace.
Question: Will I ever agree with my desire?
Answer: No. After all this state is filth, it is a Klipa.
Question: Does this mean that I will never do what I want?
Answer: You will do what you don’t want in your desire to receive but what you want in the desire to bestow. I establish everything above the desire to receive, above “what I feel like.” The goal is so important for me that I feel pleasure in bestowal. Now this idea is above everything for me, and I cannot identify with my corporal part any more, I don’t disrespect it, I take what I need from it, what is essential, but my heart is in the group, in bestowal.
So stay after the lesson not because you have been told to do so but because of the greatness of the moment. After all, this meeting with the friends brings you closer to a very high level. The sublime goal gives you powers not to forget the mutual guarantee and evokes the friends to care for each other.
On the whole I am not to blame if I don’t keep this direction the whole day, the group is to blame; blame one another and then each one will feel his blame from everyone. Generally, even if it seems like a paradox, it’s easier to think about others in the current state than about yourself. I am committed to care about the friends “like a man,” and that’s it, period. My conscience doesn’t let me escape from the responsibility and I will fight for my friends like in a commando unit.
[129596]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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The Torah, “Exodus,” 34:12: Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest they be for a snare in the midst of thee.
A person has attributes that he cannot correct. We have to leave them, which means to clarify things and understand that we cannot manage with them, overcome them, or change them to love and bestowal.
After all, we don’t even have the power to rise above them. So we need to expel them, as if to destroy them, not to use them but not used in the sense that they really as if don’t exist.
All these attributes are on the lowest egoistic level called “the land of Israel,” and are revealed in us when we ascend to a higher level. Only then can we define and identify them. So we mustn’t cooperate in any way with what is called the seven nations (the attributes of HGT NHYM, the seven Sefirot) and determine that it’s forbidden to ever touch them.
In contrast to the coarsest attributes, which cannot be corrected, there is an immense Light, the Light of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). It is for this reason that we have to disregard them and to let the Creator correct them, since these attributes belong to our creation.
When a desire is created from nothing, all the seven attributes are in the dry zone of “something from nothing,” in this point of connection. Therefore they are revealed at the last moment, when we already ascend all the levels that we can correct. The Torah ends with the entrance to the land of Israel, and a person still has to deal with all these attributes. How should he operate from here on? It doesn’t say. The Torah is only given to us as a guide for correcting what we can correct.
Question: But then there is the story about David, about Jerusalem, about the land of Israel, etc.
Answer: This is not the level of Moses anymore, but the level of the prophets, and so it is even more concealed. We should understand that everything that is described by the prophets in the Holy writings are levels that we have already been through in the past in our uncorrected desires. We will not have to undergo them in the future because the phases of the destruction of the two Temples and of the exile are over. We only have to undergo the phase that the Torah itself tells us and that is enough. Then we reach the land of Israel and the end of correction. The Torah tells us about what happened in our roots, and so we have to correct the state of transition from Mt. Sinai in the Sinai desert until we reach the land of Israel.
[129961]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13
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Question: How is it possible to arrive at a collective decision so that our ego will not grow and go out of bounds?
Answer: It’s impossible to stop the growth of the ego. In any case it will grow and be discovered more and more. If you don’t correct it, then it will be revealed incorrectly, and if you correct it, it will be revealed correctly, meaning as its opposite, with the characteristic of bestowal.
This is our entire evolution: From above the Light operates all the time, and from below the Reshimot are revealed more and more. And so every year, every day, every minute, we experience more and more powerful new desires and thoughts, greater and greater possibilities; only we don’t feel it.
Therefore the ego will grow constantly. We only need to equip ourselves with tools for its correction.
[129885]
From a lesson in Russian, 2/2/2014
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Question: All of our thoughts come from the Creator. How can we be sure that we truly engage in spiritual work, and not in unattainable fantasy?
Answer: At the beginning, when a person is born and raised, he has no free choice. He is born into some family, he is being taught and given certain education that shapes his attitude towards the world and life. This initial program that a person adopts during the first 15 years of his life determines the development of his personality, and he can’t move beyond that.
One may ask: “How can it be? We don’t choose after all.” Indeed, we don’t choose where to be born, when, and in what family—we don’t choose anything. So what can we do with our spiritual development? You have to be at the place where your heart leads you to. But if you came to us, you have to strictly follow everything that you are being told.
How can you be sure that you are on the spiritual path? You can’t. Until the Creator becomes revealed to us, and clearly, not in a mystical way, as some vague inner sensation (which you are still unable to comprehend), until that you can’t be sure in any way. That’s why I can’t appease or support you, but on the contrary, I stir up even more doubts within you. It is said: “Come and see how wonderful the Creator is.”
[130114]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention,” Day Three, 2/4/2014, Lesson 1
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