Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/25/18
Posted on December 25th, 2018 at 9:55 pm
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The right suffering aims us toward the goal of creation, toward inclusion in the group. Without it, it’s impossible to advance correctly. Like in a radar system, the rocket is always adjusting, so we must check and adjust instead of perceiving it as suffering.
The degree of suffering depends on the greatness of the goal. As great as the goal is in my eyes and as far as it is, this is felt as suffering.
The magnitude of suffering propels me forward. If I see the goal and know that I have the method to achieve it …
I am sure that I am on the path of light. The suffering illuminates my path.
How do you use yourself for advancement?
When you are in the group and see that your qualities are against unity.
There’s not one quality that connects you to the friends.
You are absolutely different, pushing them away from you.
This is the opportunity to unite!
Carrying out the commandments means observing the conditions of unifying into one soul, Adam. It comprises many egoistic desires, which must create altruistic connections among them and in that connection become similar to the Creator, the quality of bestowal.
Until adhesion by intention!
In our world everything is ruled by money. It’s likewise in the spiritual world.
In Hebrew money is Kesef, from the word “Kisuf,” covering—to the degree egoism is covered by the quality of bestowal, a screen, Masach, Mehaseh—covering, ego—reception turns into bestowal …
… spiritual capital is earned—the light is revealed.
Wishing to replace the aim of the work, to give pleasure to the Creator instead of oneself, one needs faith in the Creator, attainment of His greatness. Because to that extent he will be able to bestow to Him.
Hence one must pray for the Creator to reveal His greatness, which gives energy to efforts with the intention for bestowal.
There is no energy for spiritual work since there is no sensation of the importance of serving the Creator. Since I don’t know Whom I am giving to. There is no knowledge of the Creator’s greatness, of what a joy it is to serve Him. I don’t feel His greatness…and there’s no energy to work. But to the degree of the Creator’s greatness, it is a pleasure to serve Him. If only we could get such forces!
To have energy to bestow with no reward, for the work itself to be the reward—one must have faith in the Creator, i.e., faith in His greatness. Without faith in His greatness, there is no energy to bestow. When feeling the Creator’s greatness, you work without any reward.
The reward is in the work itself, service is wealth.
The decline started a long time ago—but for now it’s removing the cream and not the bare skin off the elites. If Trump takes control of the Fed from the financiers, we will take the path closer to unity. If the financiers win, we’ll take the path of suffering.
In any case, the solution lies in educating the population to unite everyone.
Crisis in society shows in its mental state. The reason for the crisis is—that we are designed to live in society but isolate ourselves from each other. Instead of cooperation from an early age—competition, jealousy. Hence mental problems, drug addiction. Correction is in closeness!
From Twitter, 12/25/18
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As we approach 2019, the world finds itself as if on a swing, but the ride is not of the soothing kind, with birds chirping around us tenderly as we enjoy the pleasant, balanced movement from side to side. Rather, we’re like a kid on a swing that lost its balance and we don’t know how to get off — socially and economically.
France has seen its worst and most violent riots in 50 years which have begun to spread to other countries, demonstrating the potential for a “European Spring.” A staggering 80% of U.S. workers report living from paycheck to paycheck, while their government was just shut down for an unknown period of time. Stock markets around the globe had the worst December in decades, and the International Monetary Fund made a pessimistic forecast of a global slowdown.
To enjoy a pleasant ride on a swing, two opposite forces should be swinging us equally from both directions. What is taking our swing further and further out of balance?
Until the early 1990s, the world was swinging between two opposite forces. Russia wanted to prove its power and success to the world with its communist regime, which acted as a counterbalance towards the U.S. and Europe. There was an underlying incentive for capitalist regimes to be as successful as possible, which also meant they had to work better for everyone.
Indeed, 30 and even 40 years ago, owning a house and a car was more achievable for U.S. workers than it is today. Paradoxically, U.S. living wages have stagnated for the last few decades while workers’ productivity has been continuously rising. Where did all the profits go? The rich have become exponentially richer.
As Soviet Russia collapsed, along with its communist hopes, there was no longer a force that would balance the ambitions of capitalism. In parallel, by way of nature, human egoism continued to grow and evolve to a higher level. As a result, today’s capitalism is dramatically different than what it was 30 years ago, and economic inequality has reached epic proportions.
In the midst of this extremity came Donald Trump, who identified the trend and was able to strike a chord with millions of Americans who felt discouraged and dispossessed from the little that they had. Trump won the presidency with a declared goal to “drain the swamp” and fight the bankers and Wall Street folks who make money from money while the majority of the public is struggling.
What’s more, Trump is working to minimize America’s sensitivity to global fluctuations by limiting connections with other countries, whether it’s through a trade war with China, raising tariffs, not cooperating with the EU and the G20 forum, and even his latest move of pulling out of Syria.
However, another force is shaping up to be the ultimate counterbalance in the current state of affairs, and that is the inescapable reality of global interdependence. If things in Europe, for instance, continue to escalate towards an economic crisis, the world will plunge into a crisis as well. In addition, most industries today have become very sensitive to borders, relying on the free movement of capital, materials, knowledge and workforce. Virtually all countries today are linked through import and export.
In other words, the world has become a globally interdependent economy, and by extension, a global society. This interdependence is a force of nature, growing stronger and tighter without our notice. If this force hits us in the face, we will experience a global economic crisis that will throw us harshly off the swing.
However, while we are still on the swing, we have an opportunity to balance it of our own accord. To do that, we cannot stop the human ego from growing, nor can we stop the growing interdependence. Rather, we have to educate ourselves about our connected world and change our values accordingly. This means that all people — from the tycoons to the protesters — have to go through a change of consciousness and recognize that our futures are inevitably connected.
When we upgrade the level of human connection, we will begin to see how to change the socioeconomic paradigm as well. Two opposite forces must be present to maintain balance. Therefore, my hope for 2019 is that we start a massive, global educational program, so that we can balance the growing ego with positive human connection. Then, we could aim for a pleasant ride on the swing.
Question: When you studied with Rabash, did you feel a lack of practice in the methodology itself?
Answer: I felt it because, in general, it was not yet developed. I did not know exactly how to apply myself, how to realize it, where to lower myself, and where to help.
This methodology is not comprehended immediately. It takes months and years. Therefore, we have been given our whole lives to realize it. For example, when studying math, you learn it with your mind and you do not change at all. And here, in order to turn the page in the book and understand the next one, you have to change, and then read the previous one. If a person is unable to change, then even by turning ten pages, he will not understand what is written there.
The practice is carried out only in a group. It is all clearly described in the articles of Rabash about the group. Take them all and implement them. There is no shortage of practical advice. Only the implementation.
[237849]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/5/18
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Question: Are parallel worlds connected to each other? Can they affect each other?
Answer: The only one capable of influencing the upper world is a person who is in a group and in connection with friends. By gradually awakening this connection and making it stronger, he influences the upper world.
Only the good connection between us, when we try to emulate the upper world while remaining in this world, can affect us, because this connection, in fact, is already spiritual.
Everything else in our world is completely material and has no connection to spirituality. In fact, our world does not exist but only appears to us this way in our organs of perception. In this regard, it is absolutely imaginary, illusory.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/19/18
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Lesson Preparation
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Lesson on the Topic “The Hardening of The Heart – Opportunity For Ascent”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence,” Title
“Necessity and Unfolding of the Expansion of the Wisdom”
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Spiritual work comes down to a change in #values. At first, my state seems hopeless. But gradually, the values change in me, and I feel the same state as good. I feel that I rise above my old impressions, and now I feel they were good.
Spiritual growth occurs precisely through the opening of emptiness in a person, felt by descents. The void must be filled with the Creator’s greatness, in the group. All progress is in finding and filling voids revealing unsatisfied desires and filling them with the power of the Creator.
In reality, the field that’s revealed to us in descent as darkness, is filled with light, the will to bestow, but not wishing to bestow, we feel bad!
It’s like Pharaoh is in Egypt—instead of the Land of Israel and the Creator in it—this depends only on our perception, desire.
If each person perceives upper light personally, it appears black from Malchut.
But if we want to rise to Keter, then on the path from Malchut to Keter we must unite into a ten. Then it’s not Malchut, but Keter that starts to shine for us, not with black but with white light.
It all depends on unification.
In our world the forces of bestowal and reception mutually exclude each other, try to annul one another. But Kabbalah, the wisdom of reception, explains how to attain the balance of two opposite forces, where they will complement each other—then, between them, spiritual life becomes possible.
What’s a descent? The Creator frees another layer of desire from ego’s power and it makes us feel bad. Because we are used to enjoying inside that desire, and now we can’t. But He gives us a chance to fill this emptiness with His presence, the force of bestowal, faith above reason.
We must connect everything taking place in the world to our growing egoism. It evokes revolution, progress —and decline, similar to the periods when Jews lived in Egypt. Today the world is about to come out of egoism, to realize that ego is evil and the cause of all ills.
Pressure on the Jews is growing.
There are two camps in the USA:
Powell, everything for the elite, and Trump @realDonaldTrump, everything for the country, have clashed.
How beautiful:
since precisely opposition against Trump builds his actions.
The system of opposition works—and the people, the country, win!
There are just two forces—bestowal and reception. All reality, the whole world, is based on them. #Kabbalah teaches how to bring them to balance, to the middle line. Its stabilization on all degrees, from zero to full egoism—this is the subject of Kabbalah.
All contradictions are only between creation and the Creator, between us and Him. We must balance them out, bring them to the 3rd line, where we coincide with the Creator with our intentions. This is the goal of creation—absolute adhesion between two absolutely opposite forces.
From Twitter, 12/22/18
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Question: If time and this world do not exist, except within the boundaries of the egoistic perception of the ocean of the upper Light, is it possible to leap in time with the help of Kabbalah?
Answer: Of course you can. If I can integrate into a group, that is, by annulling myself and enter some Kli (spiritual vessel) that exists on a particular level, then I can make a leap in time as if in a spaceship. At the same time, I can alter my own states many times faster.
As well, I can make leaps in space because I rise along with this group to its level and have them elevate me with their AHP. That is quite an interplanetary travel.
Our material world is exclusively mechanical. You cannot change time, place, space or motion, except for within the framework that exists in it.
Question: So, can I accelerate my spiritual development?
Answer: If you accelerate your spiritual development, you remain in the spiritual spaceship, not the material one. You cannot do anything in the corporeal ship. Everything that exists here is dead.
Question: We can’t even transport into the past here, a few million years ago?
Answer: We can’t, and we’ll never be able to. You can only slightly alter corporeal time by approaching the speed of light, like Einstein said. Although you still will be unable to change anything because all this nearing the speed of light is purely mechanical, conceptual.
Question: What does “jumping into the past” mean from the spiritual perspective?
Answer: It means to come several degrees lower. Baal HaSulam asked the Creator to bring him one degree lower, so that he could converse with regular people. This is called a “jump into the past.”
Or you could come into a strong group that you can influence so that you can disappear in it like an embryo in its mother’s womb, and it raises you to its level. This is called a “jump into the future.” Moreover, you can control jumping into the past or the future because they depend on your screen.
[237818]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 8/12/2018
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The war of the Maccabees is the war of every group, society, all people, as well as each individual with himself in order to rise by faith above reason over his egoistic opinion and unite with others. This is the only way that the miracle can happen.1
When a ten attains faith above reason, it becomes a burning lantern, a bucket of oil from which you can light an infinite number of other lanterns. But first of all, this state called Hanukkah—clean oil approved by the stamp of the high priest, Cohen Gadol, this force of unity, faith above reason—must be achieved within the ten.
In order to achieve that, the ten must come out and convince others of the necessity of such faith above reason, so that the external pressure as well as the internal realization of its necessity would give them the opportunity to unite above each person’s ego and become a holy lantern with oil. So, before the Jews left Egypt, the Pharaoh, personifying all egoism, had to learn about this outcome and let them go. And therefore, Moses had to go to Pharaoh and convince him to let the Jewish people go.2
The strength of our unity must become so powerful that it would defeat all the forces of separation. But it is thanks to separation that we increase the power of connection, burning the forces that push us apart, and raise our unity above them. Good only comes out of evil.
The Pharaoh sits inside each of us and declares: “I will not let you connect with others. No matter how hard you try to escape from me, nothing will help.” And so, day after day, this war goes on.3
Hanukkah (they rested here—Hanu Ko) is a respite between two wars. The war for the desire of bestowal happens first, before Hanukkah, and then the second one for the desire of reception. These are the two completely different kinds of war, so there must be a pause between them.
We change our approach: at first, we wanted to reach the degree of Bina; therefore, we did not use our desire to enjoy. The more we rejected our ego, the closer we got to Bina. Upon completion of this war, we received the lantern with oil that burned for eight days. So, we see that our whole path was lighting these eight candles, the Light of bestowal, and attaining the quality of Bina.
And now that we are on the level of Bina, we begin attaching the desires to receive to ourselves, to receive in order to bestow. Meaning, we gradually descend from Bina, each time picking up a certain desire in order to use it for bestowal until we bring it to Bina, to bestowal. This is the work of Purim.
Our approach changes drastically from one war to the other. At first, we had a mandate: receive nothing! And now, it is the opposite: receive, even if it comes with some restrictions. This is a different attitude, a different goal.
Hanukkah is not a construction. We did not build anything but only looked for sparks between the ruins, in the wreckage of a broken desire to enjoy. And after that, the construction of the Temple begins with the use of this desire to enjoy. That is, we achieve a common connection, including the egoism of each one as building material.
The resting stop is necessary because you can not gradually transfer from one war to another. At first, the war was against reception. And when we reach the pinnacle of this rejection of reception on all levels and degrees of Malchut, meaning the level of Bina, then we have no choice but to make a stop before the new work begins.
The miracle of Hanukkah consists of receiving the Light from above due to all our efforts, which helps us find the bucket of clean oil, light it, conclude the war, and start the new battle after some rest. All the help received from above is the miracle.4
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/18, Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”
1 Minute 27:30
2 Minute 46:50
3 Minute 49:25
4 Minute 1:08:22
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