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In the News (from BBC News): “As many as three quarters of a million young people in the UK may feel that they have nothing to live for, a study for the Prince’s Trust charity claims.
The report found 9% of all respondents agreed with the statement: “I have nothing to live for” and said if 9% of all youngsters felt the same, it would equate to some 751,230 young people feeling they had nothing to live for. …
“The research found that long-term unemployed young people were more than twice as likely as their peers to have been prescribed anti-depressants.
“One in three (32%) had contemplated suicide, while one in four (24%) had self-harmed.
The report found 40% of jobless young people had faced symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal thoughts, feelings of self-loathing and panic attacks, as a direct result of unemployment.
“Three quarters of long-term unemployed young people (72%) did not have someone to confide in, the study found.
“Martina Milburn, chief executive of the Prince’s Trust, said: ’Unemployment is proven to cause devastating, long-lasting mental health problems among young people.’ Thousands wake up every day believing that life isn’t worth living, after struggling for years in the dole queue.”
My Comment: It is not enough to provide a person with the basic needs of life. People must see some meaning, duty, communication, and some results in their life. Therefore, bringing people into groups and working on their aspiration for the great goal will give them incentive and ascent above today’s humanity and will turn them into lecturers, instructors, and organizers of integral education, which is the most needed profession in the world.
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Question: Where does a person find the power that enables him to awaken the friends?
Answer: I would say that this force comes from heaven, since it belongs to the spiritual spark, to the Reshimo (reminiscence) that awakens in a person. We can actually feel if and how much a person is drawn to it.
This inclination can be revealed in different ways: one may act quietly and calmly while another may be burning and sparkling, but these are only external attributes.
Only the inclination to awaken people belongs to the spiritual spark. If this spark is seriously revealed in a person, we can see it by a person’s actions. He cannot be locked up inside himself.
Of course, he goes through different times when he yearns to know and to study, to be totally immersed in the spiritual world, which he doesn’t know and doesn’t understand. But the inclination to disseminate this knowledge and to tell others about it burns inside him.
If a person has even a small inclination, he should be spurred and supported by the environment. If he has been brought to the group, it means that he has been given the chance, but how he fulfills it is up to him.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/14
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Question: What should I do if I don’t agree with the group’s decisions regarding dissemination? Should I insist on what I think or should I accept the opinion of the group as if annulling myself before the teacher?
Answer: If a person generally agrees with the way the group disseminates and the group makes a certain concrete decision, everyone must see this as an opportunity for a spiritual ascent.
However, a person usually escapes this, thinking that if they have decided something they should also carry it out, but he takes no part in it. He doesn’t understand that by that he misses an opportunity to ascend.
I am very sorry and sad to see what happens to such people. It is actually when they have the chance to ascend that they move aside and escape.
What do I actually care what the group decides. The more naively I accept the friends’ decisions and the more faith I have in them, the more deeply I will be incorporated in them, which means in the vessel where the Light will be revealed. I am not required to do anything else, but my mind and my ego don’t allow me to accept the fact that they are right.
What does it actually matter if they are right or not? It doesn’t matter at all. But I am critical. I have to know in advance that I will be able to remain in the group afterwards and accordingly I decide to what extent I can be critical.
The shattering occurred when they wanted to unite and at the same time criticize one another, but then they discovered that they can’t attain unity under these conditions. This is exactly the sin of the Tree of Knowledge.
The first taste from the Tree of Knowledge was okay, under the conditions of self annulment. But they couldn’t do it a second time. They couldn’t find the limit up to which they could be critical and not more than that. It is because in order to criticize the upper, we must first be adhered to Him.
Only when you become a drop of semen adhered to the upper do you gradually begin to open up, cell by cell. Thus you add one cell after another to your body by activating the egoistic desire and resisting it, so that later, together with it, you can adhere to the upper, and thus your spiritual body grows cell by cell.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/14
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The question is whether we were given a mind so that we can examine things by it and delve deeper inside or whether it was given to us so that we will actually confuse ourselves by it and let the upper force enter us and correct us.
This is the question: How do we use the data that are inside of us, which control us, in our inclinations, in all the attributes a person has?
Why were they given to us? In order to reach a certain correction or to use these data and our abilities the way they are?
If I want to use them just the way they are, I thus negate the fact that there was a shattering, which means that I want to keep on working with my mind and my heart directly, using them to discover the world.
Then we see the gloomy outcome and the crisis that such an attitude brings us to. Although we haven’t even reached the initial awareness of the unfolding of the crisis, it is about to be revealed soon.
It is because it is only the shattered vessels that are revealed. If I use my mind and heart and don’t listen to the Kabbalists’ warnings saying that it is all shattered, and keep on working with them, I eventually will discover that it is all shattered. When I discover that the system is shattered it means that I have reached the crisis.
It will take a long time and lots of pain until I recognize the crisis and understand it. It is because this attitude is called the path of natural evolution, “in its time” (Beito), the path of suffering, the path of the shattered mind.
But there is another path, the path of “I shall hasten it” (Achishena), hastening time. Along that path I am told: “Do you know why everything is shattered? So that you will be able to feel distracted, feel your helplessness, and realize that you have neither a mind nor a heart and that you cannot exist this way. Isn’t the crisis that you see before you enough in order to want to stop this stupid chase and say: enough!”
Now I begin to use my heart and mind differently: I am out of the egoistic focus and this is actually the reason that I open up a passage for the Light by allowing it to influence me and to change me internally. This means that I use my heart and mind, but differently.
I don’t want to use my heart and mind directly, as they were given to me. My mind was given to me so that I will understand that I don’t have a mind. All my feelings were given to me so that I will understand that I don’t have any feelings. My heart and mind cannot help me discover the true reality.
There are only two ways to use the data that I was given correctly: either within reason or above reason. Choose!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/14, The Zohar
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The Torah, “Leviticus” (Shemini), 11:41-11:42: And any creeping creature that creeps on the ground is an abomination; it shall not be eaten. Any [creature] that goes on its belly, and any [creature] that walks on four [legs] to any [creature] that has many legs, among all creeping creatures that creep on the ground, you shall not eat, for they are an abomination.
Swarming on the ground on your belly is the lowest level of the egoistic desires. It is impossible to raise them to a level that they can be used or eaten as food.
What does food and eating symbolize? It is using a desire from the animate level in order to revive the level of the speaking. However, this type of desires cannot even be detached from the earth (from the ego).
But all these images are allegorical. In fact, we have to look for such desires inside us and sort them out.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/22/14
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Question: What is “Judgment and Mercy” in spirituality? What does it have in common with regular morality?
Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that many people think that the Torah speaks about morality, but in fact it is a huge and unfortunate misinterpretation.
Morality is based on life experience. A person accumulates essential knowledge from various life situations. But the science of Kabbalah is not associated with our bodily life experiences. We follow the advice of Kabbalists who pull us “by the ear” into the upper reality, where ear refers to the level of Bina (bestowal). In other words, I don’t learn from my ordinary life; on the contrary, I rise above its experience!
In this world, all I deal with is my egoism. I give advice that is based on my ego and serves to benefit it. We warn a child not to get close to an angry dog or he’ll bite. All I am capable of is differentiating things that are good or bad for me; and that’s all that morality does.
But the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t operate out of fright and punishment. It teaches us to change our desires and expose them to the Light.
In other words, it teaches us how to internally correct ourselves, rather than reprimanding or scaring us.It doesn’t threaten us with an “angry dog” or an “abusive” Creator.
Kabbalah doesn’t intimidate us, nor does it guarantee any reward in the future worlds. It doesn’t manipulate our egoism; rather it corrects it with the Light that Reforms.
The combination of judgment and mercy in spirituality is a mix of Bina (bestowal) and Malchut (reception), a degree of inclusion of Bina into Malchut and vice versa, as well as their ability to support each other.
Malchut enters Bina and a drop of judgment penetrates mercy and lessens it. In other words, Malchut’s inability to match Bina triggers a contraction of the latter, but at the same time it discloses Bina to a degree of Malchut’s adequacy to it.
Hence, inclusion of Bina into Malchut occurs and Bina brings a portion of mercy into Malchut. At this point, Malchut enters Bina and contributes a portion of judgment into the latter thus defining how much Bina allows Malchut to bestow and receive and identifies the degree of their connection.
It means that when a measure of mercy connects with a portion of judgment, they start working together from both ends. The upper part contracts and utilizes a portion of judgment, although it would prefer to reveal itself through exposing mercy.
The lower part strives to attain a measure of mercy, which is why it contributes a property of judgment to the upper part and pronounces: “Don’t bestow to me! I will shut you down!”
Or it says: “You can reveal yourself completely! I won’t receive anything from you anyway. I will use my screen and will receive from you only to the extent of my similarity to you!”
This has nothing to do with threats or morality. On the contrary, it is about absolute liberty of exploration and the only freedom of will there is.
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From the lesson on “Beit Shaar a Kavanot” 10/21/10
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