Question: How can I raise my awareness in order to relate to the Creator at every moment, and not just ten out of a thousand?

Answer: Everything depends upon external support from the Creator, from the group, from the teacher, or from all of them together.

If I am in a prosperous state now, how can I make sure that I will be fine again tomorrow? You have a refrigerator at home for this, and you know that there are groceries there that you can get any time you are hungry.

Do you have the same insurance for the future in spiritual work? Have you prepared it? Your refrigerator is the group. You don’t have any place for saving the Light, but you can accumulate it within the group.

This works like a wire and a coil through which a current flows. If you want to be active all the time, in this dynamic, then you need to build such relationships with the group. Invest in the group when you can, and then when you can’t, you will get energy back from it.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Exodus (Tetzaveh), “Light and Sun”: It says in the Midrash and Rashi says (about Amalek), whom you met on your way, which stems from the word “coldness,” which means that they put out the fire of their love and cooled it, since initially they were warm and enthusiastic in their love for one another.

And how did they cool them? By arrogance and pride, because Amalek in means arrogance, condescension, and pride. The main thing that brings one to love his friend is when each one sees that he is low and despised, always finding flaws in everything that he does and seeing the righteousness of his friend and of his actions and that he is great in his eyes, and so he loves his friend and is united with him.

But if he thinks that he is great and feels proud, he sees the flaws of his friend by that and thus hates him, since his friend seems very low to him. Amalek cooled the warmth and the enthusiasm Israel felt before, in loving one another.

The outstanding characteristic of the desire to receive that is immediately revealed is pride. Anger and arrogance are additional attributes. But pride is special because it can even be revealed in an opposite manner, when a person is proud that he has humiliated himself. So pride is the main sign of the desire to receive.

Pride is not feeling that I am greater, higher, and stronger than others, but thinking that in any of the states that I encounter in life, it’s someone else who has to change and not me, which means that something that is external to me has to change not myself. It turns out that if I see something negative, I attribute this deficiency to the Creator since only He exists except for me.

If a person has an urge or an inclination to change something on the outside, it’s called pride and it signifies the desire to receive. We can learn a lot from this since there is something to filter and to clarify on every level.

It’s a split perception: The way it seems to me and the way it seems to others, as if I exist and they exist and around me there is a big world full of people. But in fact I communicate with my own attributes and not with others. This is where there is an opening to another level of perception. So the illumination of Amalek, which is in order to receive, that is most clearly revealed as Haman, on its ultimate level, is a great holiday for the Jews, meaning for those who want to reach unity, to unite as one nation, because it’s the last obstacle in reaching unity of all the shattered parts of the soul.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14

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The Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:17-34:18: You shall not make molten gods for yourself. The Festival of Unleavened Bread you shall keep—eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you—at the set time of the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you went forth from Egypt.

In a state called “The land of Israel” a person has to keep and to observe all the corrections that he has already attained, which means that even on the highest level they cannot be annulled. The spiritual attributes that we have acquired along the spiritual path, the attributes of love and bestowal towards those around us now turn to the Creator.

Question: Why does it say “molten gods?” Does this refer to some form?

Answer: A molten god is the strongest state. It’s when everything is merged into one unified picture, into one single equivalence of form, into a desire, a yearning.

When we carve something from a natural material, some of the material is left over in the form of debris and loose material. When we cast a form by using our materials, it as if spews out in one unified form that actually takes on an egoistic form.

This means that a person knows exactly what he wants to achieve and applies all ones skills to create an idol. He collects all his desires and connects them so that they become one whole, but in an opposite form that is in absolute contrast to what he should do. He does have to collect them but with the attribute of bestowal and not the opposite attribute. Therefore, it’s the most insidious point of change in a person’s behavior when he has the opportunity to turn to one side or the other.

Question: So there is no main installation that is done to connect to others in order to resemble the Creator? And it isn’t injected by the Creator?

Answer: No. In this state a person receives great help since he thinks that what he does will help everyone and that it’s in order to please the Creator. He has to hold on to only one small point so he won’t cast an idol for himself, and it is to raise his faith above reason. This is the only thing that can protect him and save him.

It’s a very delicate matter since a person thinks that by molding an idol he acts for the good of others. He finds infinite confirmations, proof and evidence that he is spreading the Light while he is actually spreading darkness.

It’s only in faith above reason that one can work on this thin line; it is when a person uses the connection with the upper tools, with the earlier corrected souls, when he has contact with the group, the books, and the teacher who is in contact with his teachers. One cannot start inventing things. A person’s nature will not allow him to do anything. There are no such cases in history. A person has to study with his teachers and through them to connect and to constantly guard this connection so that he can advance. It cannot be any other way!

Question: Can a person who has certain talents use them?

Answer: Certainly not. There is no need for corporeal talent along the spiritual path. On the contrary, all you need is a pure heart and mind, this pure inner state is the best.

When we fill ourselves with information and with everything about the method, we have to be careful of different philosophies, logical conclusions, etc. We have to rely only on the sources by constantly trying to clarify them and understand them anew each time.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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Preparation for the Lesson

Workshop 

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”   

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In the News (from The Guardian): “A new study sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

“Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that ‘the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.’ Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.’

“The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

“By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy. …

“These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: ‘the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity;’ and ‘the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]’ These social phenomena have played ‘a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,’ in all such cases over ‘the last five thousand years.’

“Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with ‘Elites’ based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

“… ‘accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.’…

“However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

“The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth.

“’Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.’”

My Comment: Human egoism cannot be stopped; it irresistibly leads us each and everyone to death. Even in the face of death, it will not be able to contain itself! So, we cannot even talk about the awareness of death. Only a global war, in which everyone will lose everything, will stop our egoistic civilization and compel us to reassess our attitude to life. Or we can advance if we accept the method of integral education and upbringing.
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There is nothing more important than dissemination. Besides this you don’t have anything more to do; nothing will help, not our beautiful intentions, not the dances with the friends. There is no other activity besides dissemination that will remain after your death and will be recorded in your account. So choose what you are doing now.

Life is going by every day, every second, every moment; the meter is ticking. If you don’t direct it towards disseminating knowledge about the Creator in the world, the revelation of the Creator to the creatures, which is the foundation of the wisdom of Kabbalah and is the goal of creation, then you are not in spirituality. There is some kind of physical protein body to which they gave the opportunity to develop a personality and it didn’t take the opportunity.

And don’t think that even the activities that you do for the sake of dissemination are your personal actions. All this is on account of the environment, the external conditions that attract and obligate you. After all the great work you invest in, what percentage is left there to be recorded on your account?

There is no other opportunity similar to revealing the deeds of the Creator to the creatures besides dissemination work. And it’s not important that this can be in a covert form like integral education, connection between people and so forth. All of this is working in the right direction and the right form through which it’s possible to turn and to reach the community. Therefore, I recommend doing this.

Otherwise, why would I need to connect all kinds of events in this world with the phenomena of the upper world and to explain this as one would to little children on their level? It’s clear in this way that all of these problems are those of the human ego. What difference does it make how this small human acts? But it’s the accommodation from above for the sake of this small human that is actually the revelation of divinity.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/14, The Zohar

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Question: The higher Partzuf is concerned for the lower. How do we create and develop within us that concern for people’s needs?

Answer: Where does the deficiency come from to be integrated with the desires of the people? We would want to remain by ourselves, detached from everyone. We have a link with God through the study and we don’t have any inclination to be linked with someone else. And that is how we could continue forever. Solely and only on condition that we want to give contentment to the highest, do we descend to a lower level. This is the right motivation.

And then we begin to feel the lower because we acquire the right deficiency from him. Everything depends on which purpose and goal we have for descending to the lowest.

• Either we descend in order to give contentment to the lower.
• Or we do this for our own good, in order to manage him, to get respect and thanks from him.
• Or we do it for the sake of the higher.

There are only three possibilities for what stage we act: it is either for the sake of the lower, for our own sake, or for the sake of the higher. And this must be solved. Through the society, dissemination, and attraction of the Surrounding Light, we can truly begin to think about the welfare of the higher. Accordingly our relationship with Him and His revelation appears.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/14, The Zohar

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Question: What is the manner of work for attaining unity?

Answer: First of all it’s necessary to think seriously. Try not to think with your head but with a greater and higher head, meaning, listen to what the Kabbalists recommend. After that, try as much as possible independently of the ego to decide how we will carry this out so that pride in our task, or in other words, the importance of the goal, will be greater than love for oneself.

After that, when we accept a decision like this calmly, as if nothing depends upon us, and understand which actions must be carried out, we organize a plan, and after that we pass to the next stage: How do we carry out this plan? The practical implementation stage doesn’t need to change the decision of the previous stage, meaning the plan for the necessary actions. Rather it’s only necessary to realize it and accordingly see if we are involved with spiritual work or not.

I don’t know how and why this wonderful mission to make these corrections has fallen upon us, being that we are all weak and lazy. Either we accept the mission, go forward with it, and carry it out, or we don’t. So there is nothing to complain about and don’t come with accusations that three or five years or more have gone by and there are no results. We were given this work and we need to carry it out. And alone I am prepared only to clarify the method in detail, and this is what I am doing.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/14

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The Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:13-34:14: But you shall demolish their altars, shatter their monuments, and cut down their sacred trees. For you shall not prostrate yourself before another god, because the Lord, Whose Name is “Jealous One,” is a jealous God.

A person can worship idols, anything except for the incomprehensible attribute of love and bestowal, which is amorphous, unfelt, and unimaginable.

If he prefers properties other than full connection to love and bestowal, he is considered a traitor, and so the Creator is jealous when a person betrays Him.

But it is all an allegory about a person who should experience and feel this. The Torah speaks about spiritual issues using corporeal language. It is because we work as if to delight the Creator, and so expressions like “delight” and “jealous,” etc., are used here.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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