Comment: In 1938, a Swiss scientist accidentally developed LSD, a drug that supposedly shows a person a different reality. Those who tried it began to look at the world differently and allegedly felt a state “beyond time.”

My Response: I cannot be an expert on this question because I have never taken drugs. I have always believed that they are false, a disconnection from reality. With such means it is impossible to break beyond our world, to rise above time, space, and movement into a different dimension. They are simply various psychosomatic sensations. We disrupt the proper functioning of the brain and therefore supposedly soar in some other space.

It is clear that this has nothing to do with Kabbalah because a person does not acquire the quality of bestowal and love for the surrounding world. A person can somehow be tuned to this with the help of drugs, and be convinced that he will, so to speak, begin to love others, be cheerful, happy, and inclined to communicate with others. But all of this is only because we tuned him in that way and gave him means that suppress the feeling of egoism in him.

It is the same as if a person received some emotional wound or, on the contrary, a great gift of fate, but did not change himself and did not acquire new qualities.

It is clear that those people who take drugs do not become obvious altruists, and they do not see the world as kind, good, and purposeful. They see all kinds of distorted pictures within themselves.

Therefore, this has nothing to do whatsoever with the world that a Kabbalist reveals to the extent that his egoism is transformed into bestowal and love, into a quality opposite to the nature in which he was born.
[351910]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah and LSD” 10/1/10

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State 1 (our present state) is “bestowal to oneself” in which our pleasure and desired fulfillment reside.

State 2 (the state we want to reach) is bestowal to the Creator, which will be our pleasure, and here there is a contradiction.

In bestowal to oneself, both the action itself, the work, and the reward are all in one direction, in one line. Therefore, this is called the direct light, and everything here is clear to us; the beginning and the end, and the attainment of this final goal all stream in one direction, toward myself.

But if I want bestowal to the Creator to be my pleasure, then there is a problem of the opposition between intention and result because I need a correction of intention, which is against my desire!

Bestowal to the Creator must turn into receiving pleasure for me! And I am obliged to enjoy it because that is the purpose of creation, but the enjoyment must come from bestowal, and this is completely opposite to me!

The goal of creation is enjoyment, and the correction of creation is bestowal. But these two conditions contradict each other. This is the main obstacle and difficulty in our perception that always blocks our path and deprives us of the opportunity to realize what we intend.

On the one hand, we must apply great efforts and do a tremendous amount of work, and on the other hand, its result does not depend on us; it is given from above. We only reveal the desire in ourselves the desire with our work; we do not obtain the goal itself; we attain the Kli, the vessel that can contain it.

Therefore, these two opposites—bestowal to the Creator and enjoyment from this—can be united only through our adhesion with Him. And only the upper light, which changes our nature, can bring us to this adhesion.

From a state in which the heart rules over a person, and therefore, in the terms of Kabbalah he is called a “sinner,” we must pass to a state in which the person within us rules over his heart, and therefore, is called a “righteous one.” There is only one solution for attaining this goal: a Kabbalistic group, which serves an example for us, a framework, a template in which we can check ourselves and see to what extent we correspond to this goal or not.

The group is able to instill in me that nothing is more precious to me than bestowal to the Creator! But, on the other hand, I reveal that I am capable of nothing and only the Creator can help me. In this way I come to the necessary desire, to a prayer.

But presently, these two polar opposites do not exist in us: Keter and Malchut, direct light and reflected light, the inverse correspondence of light and desire, all exist only in the corrected Kli where the intention is opposite to the desire.

This is the model we need to build within ourselves for the first time, the first ten Sefirot, and then we will acquire an inner structure, like the first cell of a new organism from which the embryo of the soul will further develop.
[20357]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, Rabash, “What Are the Two Actions During a Descent?”

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There are four states people go through when performing Torah and Mitzvot.

What does it mean to perform Torah and Mitzvot? For religious people, it is what they were taught at a young age: to perform certain actions and they perform them. If they had been taught other actions, they would performed those.

In this case, as Rabash writes, the reason and motivation for fulfilling the Torah and Mitzvot is external influence. This does not mean that I perform commandments because I am afraid of these people or that I want to be considered great among them, good and righteous, a respected person, etc. It doesn’t matter what other reasons there may be, the main thing is that I do what I was taught, nothing more. In general, I fulfill other people’s desires.

For someone who has been used to doing this since childhood, it becomes second nature; otherwise, he feels bad, and by doing his usual actions, he feels good. Whether a person was brought up this way or converted to faith at a later age, he looks at his environment, which obliges him to perform certain actions.

And indeed, the environment has wonderful laws. You must attend the synagogue. It is not right to  not go there to pray. You are obliged to celebrate holidays according to certain rules and to dress in a certain way. You are obliged. Society sets thousands of laws for you. And this means that you fulfill the Torah and the commandments under the influence of external people, and not of your own freewill.

Whereas we are talking about correcting one’s desire. In this case, you set your desire aside, as if you remove it from yourself, place someone else’s desire into yourself, and fulfilled it. This is called a “good soldier,” who uses his body, and, by placing the commander’s desire in it, obeys his orders. For the religious masses, this form of observing the commandments is acceptable, which is very good. Otherwise it would be a mess, chaos.

The second type of motivation for fulfilling the Torah and Mitzvot is the Creator in combination with external people, who promote and compel the observance of the Torah and Mitzvot. That is, a person begins to incorporate a certain admixture into his previous calculations, as if “contaminating” them. He is already beginning to consider not only the environment, but also the Creator.

What does it mean to be with the Creator? This means that a kind of conflict arises inside a person, an internal contradiction. This is not yet a clash of two opposing sides; it is not yet two poles.

Two opposing authorities cannot exist in me at the same time, or I would be torn apart by not knowing whom to listen to, or whom to give preference to. I cannot be aimed in both directions. I have only one desire. I cannot tune in to two, so a problem arises. This is the beginning of the path.

The third condition is when “only the Creator obliges him to fulfill the Torah and commandments; not external people, but the person himself is also the reason for fulfilling the Torah and commandments.” This is the third type of motivation, when the Creator obliges a person to fulfill the Torah and the commandments, and the person himself, as Rabash writes, “is the reason.” I would say that he contributes to this.

And the fourth type of motivation is that the reason for fulfilling the Torah and the commandments is only the Creator, and there is no one contributing to this. This is called “the introduction of the mixed-multitude into Kedusha.” In this case, there is absolutely no other contributing or even supporting factor, where we say that a person strengthens himself along the way and supposedly does something on his own. No, everything is done exclusively by the Creator. But this is the level of complete adhesion with the Creator.

As a result, it is revealed to a person that all these are the ways of the Creator’s governance. It is not that I act one way or another as I advance, but as I work hard, I reveal various factors that compel me to act.

At first these factors seem to be external people, then external people and the Creator, then me and the Creator, and in the end, only the Creator. It is just that in the process of his development, a person begins to reveal what the reason is for his existence, and who is the source of his existence.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/26, Rabash, Article 29, “Lishma and Lo Lishma”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 15, “What Does It Mean that Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered, in the Work?” (1990) (4.19.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 32

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3rd part of the Lesson — Preparation for the Congress “Connecting in the Ten, Adhering to the Creator,” Lesson 6: Making a Covenant in the Ten

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Question: Is the revelation of the Creator, in fact, the revelation of a new form in oneself?

Answer: The revelation of the Creator’s face is called the manifestation of His importance because, in fact, this is what I seek. This is not the revelation of pleasure, but the revelation of His superiority, His properties, and His perfection. It helps me to respect the Creator more than my desire to receive.

This desire constantly grows in a person. More and more Reshimot (spiritual records) surface. In other words, more and more of the left line is added to a person. Then he needs to reveal the face of the Creator as a greater, more exalted one who affects him more so that he can resist the desire to receive, and respect the Creator more than his selfish desire. This means that a person has the strength to work for the sake of giving.

It follows that the desire to receive was originally created in the size of the Creator; both are equal in magnitude. However, a person feels the magnitude of the desire to receive only in accordance with how much he is able to overcome it, and at the same time, to reveal the Creator as important and great.

Each time it is like a game. At first, the desire to receive is hidden from us; we feel only a small part of it in the form of reality of this world. In fact, this is the same general reality, only it is called “this world” because we perceive it without taking the Creator into account.

All else, apart from this level, we already perceive in accordance with the reality of the Creator, meaning, we actually feel the Creator, which is called the upper world. “All else” means that we already consider the importance of the Creator relative to the importance of the desire to receive.

This desire gradually grows, starting from the lowest, smallest state, until it reaches the level of the Creator. It helps us to ask the Creator time and again to show us more and more of His importance, greatness, and superiority. And when we reveal the Creator and prefer to bring Him pleasure rather than serve our ego, then we adhere to the Creator’s form, absorb it, adopt it, and it truly becomes our form.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/26, Rabash, Article 29 “Lishma and Lo Lishma”

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However, we were given one place on which we can work without any reward. That is, even when we still do not have a taste for Torah and Mitzvot due to the Tzimtzum, there is one advice, which is to work in greatness of the Creator, how privileged we are to be serving the King (RABASH, Article 29, “Lishma and Lo Lishma“).

Question: Do these words apply to us who are in this world?

Answer: I want to enjoy. This is how I am. My desire to receive perceives nothing in any other way. There is something before me; I receive it and enjoy it. How can I work differently? I am able to work in another form only if I nevertheless receive some pleasure.

Without pleasure it is impossible to live, impossible to move. I can enjoy only from what I receive. We are confused about this because this is our foundation, which has not yet been clarified. Clarifying it takes years of persistent, serious work.

The question is this: can I move from the place where I am now in any direction by even one meter? My answer is: yes, I can, but only on the condition that you fill me with, say, a liter of fuel, or a hundred calories. Then I will be able to move from one place to another. Where will I get the hundred calories from? In various ways, but I must receive them.

Thus, I have two possibilities. Either I receive the hundred calories from all kinds of pleasures that supposedly exist around me or from seeing how great the Creator is. I have two fueling stations with which to set my desire to receive into motion at my disposal, and that is all.

If I am able to work due to the greatness of the Creator, then I become a perpetual motion machine, and I depend on nothing. In that case, my machine can operate without stopping; it no longer depends on any external, insignificant factors. This is our entire goal!
[352419]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/26, Rabash, Article 29, “Lishma and Lo Lishma”

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Before the invention of road-signs as a means to put order in traffic, police officers would stand and streamline traffic. At that time, many people were angry and had grievances against the officers for not doing their job right, and that they were not noticing the line of cars.

But today, the streamliner of traffic has become inanimate, mindless. So, now each one accepts the verdict of the road-sign (traffic light), and no one gets angry with it or asks it for favors (RABASH, Article 28, “What Is, His Guidance Is Concealed and Revealed?“).

On the one hand, the Creator places a traffic light before us, and these laws of nature are absolute. You can curse the traffic light, but it will not help, except perhaps only in the case that you turn to the cause, to the one who operates it. In our days, sometimes when traffic is heavy, you can see a police officer directing traffic. Then you have someone you can shout at.

But if this cause is unknown, you do not see the police officer, the traffic light works according to an internal mechanism, and you do not yell. You have no one to turn to because the governance is concealed. Nature! From this example it is clear how much understanding the cause raises you to a different level in relation to the situation.

If I know that it is the Creator who arranges everything for me, then I immediately turn to Him. I do not look at the traffic light; I look at the police officer. If I see both the police officer and the traffic light, I look at the one who directs the traffic because salvation will come from there. Then all the laws of nature lose their importance.

That is why the Creator does not reveal Himself. Because if He were revealed, I would cling to Him because of my will to receive, and I would never be able to come out from under its control. This is what originally happened with Malchut of the world of infinity. In order to free oneself from this, there must be a restriction, a distancing, and the desire to receive must be corrected into a desire to bestow.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/26, Rabash, Article 28, “What Is, His Guidance Is Concealed and Revealed?”

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Baal HaSulam’s “There Is None Else Besides Him” is a special article that addresses our relationship with the higher force, that is, with our lives, with what happens to us, how we can understand this life, and how we can form a more correct perception of it.

It is said that there is no other force besides the Creator, and that only He governs everything. If a person feels that there are many different, contradictory forces, this is done deliberately in order to knock us off the correct intention that only one force exists, and thereby, on the contrary, to strengthen our orientation exclusively toward it.

Precisely through being directed toward the Creator and being pushed away from Him through rejection by all kinds of means, a person begins to understand that everything comes from the Creator and in this way completely binds himself to Him.

This is not achieved easily; it takes many years. After all, our entire life is structured in such a way as to reveal the oneness of the Creator. Therefore we must constantly remember that “there is none else besides Him.” This is the main commandment for a person in our world, where everything is arranged solely to divert him from the direction toward this single force that governs him.

The benefit of these rejections is that a person begins to understand that he cannot be connected to the Creator by himself, he cannot hold onto the thought that all disturbances come from the Creator, and that everything happening to him directs him toward the Creator.

In the end, he becomes despairing, does not know what to do, and precisely through the Creator’s “negative help” (which exhausts him and tosses him from side to side as if there were other qualities, forces, problems, or illnesses in a person, anything at all except the Creator), he reaches such a state that, despite all these actions, he nevertheless rises above them and clings to the Creator.

Only through correct overcoming of all obstacles can a person cope with these disturbances. Yet one sees that there are always more obstacles. Rarely in our lives do we feel that everything comes from the Creator and that we are directed toward Him.

Usually such thoughts occupy only a few minutes a day, and only if we think about it at all. If we do not, days, weeks, perhaps even years, or an entire lifetime can pass in such a state.

But if a person constantly tries to create a community, conditions, and an environment around himself that will inevitably push him toward the Creator, then he can truly grasp Him, not let go, and beg that the Creator holds him, so that through all the events of life he may be directed toward the Creator.

Everything depends on the extent to which one can implore the Creator to open one’s eyes and heart, so that he may feel in his heart and see clearly that he has a connection only with the Creator, and that only the Creator directs him, turns him, and guides him.

In general, everything that happens to us is done by only one force. It is neither good nor bad. First and foremost, it is simply one force. And when a person begins to understand the plan of creation, he already evaluates this force as positive.

It becomes clear to him that all the rejections were necessary only so that he would not be satisfied with a small connection to the Creator, but would truly reach states in which nothing else remains for him in the world; it is either death or adhesion with the Creator.

Then one develops a very clear appeal to the Creator, and asks Him to truly help and give him the strength that would unite him with the Creator forever.

Now he understands that all the obstacles that seemed insurmountable to him and that he hated were sent by the Creator Himself, and that arose within him only in order to push him away, and at the same time to truly draw him closer to the Creator. For precisely through the obstacles was he obliged to go against them and thus connect with the Creator more and more until complete adhesion.

And the Creator very precisely measured the obstacles given to a person. Knowing human nature, He sent absolutely correct, exact obstacles to each person individually, so that by pushing off from them, the person would again draw closer to the Creator.

This was done so that a person would realize that everything is carried out by only one positive force, and that there is no other force in the world besides the Creator. In other words, there are no negative forces in the world.

The negative force is the person himself, his egoism, and around him there is only the Creator, who directs only positive force toward us. And if we evaluate this correctly, then no problems arise, and we move forward solely along the path of drawing closer to the Creator.

In Kabbalah, unlike all other philosophies, methods, and sciences, there is another special aspect: a person begins to understand that he has no freewill at all. Various thoughts arise in his mind and desires in his heart, and he has no control over them since this is all governed by the Creator. That is, the Creator is within a person, and governs his mind and heart, his thoughts and desires.

And we can do nothing about this. From all the events that happen to us, we must only establish that there is a single source: one unique, unified, higher force.

And no matter how we act, correctly or incorrectly, we must understand that it is the Creator who leads us through all kinds of actions. Therefore there are neither crimes nor punishments in the world. There is only one thing: everything was created in order to reveal the oneness of the Creator. We must reach this state.

And all our worries that “if everything comes from the Creator, then what depends on us?” are mistaken. We must be careful not to worry about ourselves, be detached from our “I,” and feel ourselves above it. Only then, by correctly distancing ourselves from ourselves, can we recognize the oneness of the Creator’s governance.
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From a Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/1/19

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Question: What does awe before the Creator mean? How can one attune oneself to this sensation?

Answer: It is said in The Book of Zohar that awe before the Creator consists of three parts. If we seriously move forward, we begin to feel our egoism, how it leads us forward and pushes us toward certain attainments and achievements. It forces us to worry constantly: Will it be better for us in this life, will we become smarter, stronger, more knowledgeable, more understanding, more advanced; will we receive something in this world or in the future world?

Gradually, we begin to attain that the spiritual world is not beyond the boundary of death, and the death of our body has no influence on anything whatsoever. Spiritual death means that we simply remain in our Reshimo. And everything that happens to us depends only on how much we realize our Reshimot and create a spiritual Partzuf from them, that is, a corrected part of our soul, and try to develop it to a complete level where the soul includes all the rest of creation: the still, vegetative, animate, and human parts of the soul.

Therefore, awe speaks of what I fear. It is a natural protective function of egoism, which constantly trembles: Will I be able to receive or not, now or later, am I sure of this or not, have I lost what I acquired, did I earn more today than yesterday, and so on? The state of awe is the most essential thing in egoism: It constantly trembles lest it lack fulfillment. This is its fundamental property.

Our task is to transfer material awe into spiritual awe: Will I be able to bestow? Will I come to such a state where I think less about myself and more about the external Kli (vessel)? Do I include myself in this way, do I awaken to the quality of bestowal? Do I cross the psychological barrier where I am not within myself, but outside, where my soul actually is? Within me there is only my egoism, and my soul is outside of me. I must make a Tzimtzum (restriction) on my egoism, impose a prohibition on it, and develop my attitude toward others. Can I do this?

It is precisely here that a new awe appears: Will I be able to bestow, will I be able to be independent of my egoism, will I be able to create the Rosh (head) of the Partzuf?

Suppose we have a desire over which we build a screen (Masach) and work with the light above it.

What we create above is called Rosh (head), and below is the Guf (body).

We strive to reduce the awe, the anxiety for ourselves, that we feel in our desire. This is what we perform the first restriction, Tzimtzum Aleph (TA), upon, then we build a screen and work above it.

As is known, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection; therefore, to the extent that we correctly perceive the upper light, to that same extent we can work with it.

By transferring awe from “concern for myself” to awe as “concern for others,” I include myself in their desires, which is called “love your neighbor.” Thus, I build the Rosh of the Partzuf, and this becomes the connecting link between me and the others. In the Rosh I define my soul, which is built above the body, above the screen. In it, I can include the entire world and the Creator. This is how it works.

Therefore, as we study in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” concern can be within oneself and outside oneself.

Concern for oneself usually turns into anxiety about what will happen to me in this world and in the future world. This concern is absolutely incorrect, because there is neither “this world” nor “the next world”—such a concept does not exist at all.

There is a world, a spiritual state, that I can enter even today. It is called Olam Haba, that is, the coming world, the world that is coming. The next minute, my next state, is called the “future world.”

Therefore, we must rise to concern for others, including the Creator, which is realized above the screen. It is this concern that determines the power of the soul.
[119478]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/20/13, on the topic “Group and Dissemination”

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