Our entire difficulty is that when we begin the spiritual path, we desire to act the same way as we acted in our material lives until now where we counted on our own forces and fought for some kind of values. Consciously or unconsciously, all of our calculations were aimed at our own benefit.

The importance of the goal served as the means for attaining it, and it works that way in everything no matter what I search for: rest, money, power, respect, or knowledge. However, I received desires from the environment, become excited by what other people desire, and that is how I was always able to multiply my desires and develop. My own desires did not go beyond the animate body—meaning the desires for food, sex, and family, while my attraction to everything else—for money, power, and knowledge, was adopted only from the external environment, human society.

When a new desire awakens in a person, the desire for the spiritual world, it has to develop by the same paths. But a problem emerges here because when a person enters a society of people who study together with him and he must develop under their influence, then on the outside he only sees the material qualities, such as who is smarter and who learns the material better.

But his desire with which he has to advance, the egoistic “point in the heart,” is “the opposite side of the holy soul.” It has to be developed, and it develops only under the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the Creator.

However, all of these values—the greatness of the goal, the Creator, spirituality, the upper world—are based on the greatness of bestowal instead of reception. And that is where a halt occurs, as it is written, “In the place where the sinners will fall, the righteous will rise and walk forth,” with both the sinners and the righteous living inside one person.

In this regard everything depends on how a person treats his environment. It really begins being a spiritual environment for him only on the condition that he understands that he has to receive from them the impression of the greatness of bestowal, love for the neighbor, meaning a new desire for bestowal, the spiritual desire.

It turns out that a person begins the spiritual path with one single “point in the heart.” This is a very important point, the basis of a person, but it is the “opposite side of the holy soul” and he will never have anything else besides it himself. To this point he has to add all of his other spiritual Kelim until Malchut of the world of Infinity. And he receives all of these desires from the environment because nothing new will develop any longer inside of himself.

The spiritual Kli is received from the environment, and it is called the greatness of the goal, which serves as the spiritual vessel or desire, the place where the person will reveal the Creator, the connection and union with Him.
[38214]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11

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Kabbalists, who explore the upper reality, explain to us that we started our entire evolution in the world of Infinity, Ein Sof, where we were all tied together as one man with one heart, into one point—that’s how strong our bond was. This bond was initially sustained by the force of the upper Light that controlled and fulfilled us.

But later on, we started to descend from this world of Infinity since our connection began to weaken. Between us, distance was formed, which kept growing (the worlds of Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya in the drawing below), until we fell to the level of our present existence, the lowest degree of the world of Assiya.

This descent signifies that under the impact from Above, we gradually lost the Light that filled the space between us. The Light kept decreasing intentionally, on its own, and in the end, distance emerged between us. While in the world of Infinity we were all tied together, by the time we reached the world of Assiya we became withdrawn from each other at a great distance. Now we experience ourselves as two separate realities: yours and mine. Our ego, which rules us, is responsible for the gap that divides us. This is how everyone of us feels.

Now there are seven billion of such alienated egoistic-individualists in our world. But it’s true that in the world of Infinity we existed as one man! And in accord with our sensation, reality has changed as well since we experience it as the sensation in our desire, in our properties.

But we have to understand that we are dealing with two big discrepancies: the reality we feel and the reality where we, in fact, exist. We feel very alien from one another, far from perfection, eternity, and endless fulfillment, somewhere on the outskirts of the entire creation, in this transient world. And yet, the connection between us remains, and it is very strong. We are still tied by the mutual guarantee, as the same one man with one heart.

We simply don’t wish to follow these conditions, and that is the only problem. But nature mandates for us to be connected nonetheless. It’s just that this connection is revealed to us not at the level of the law in the world of Infinity, but in the extent that we have withdrawn from it.

In other words, we are not presently expected to meet all the conditions of guarantee that govern the world of Infinity in which we were absolutely connected with all our desires as one whole and there was only one soul in the center of all creation. We only need to understand that we remain tied together, you and I, and that there is a connection between us.

These ties exist between all of the souls who in the past were together but are distanced today. But we all have a need to return to the center we came from.
[38052]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2011 on Mutual Guarantee

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Question: How can we build a model of the global, integral world inside of us?

Answer: Imagine yourself connected with the group. Thanks to that you will be able to form a small, compact Kli inside of you that is global, integral, and unified.

Then you will understand what the real world is. It isn’t seven billion miserable people who don’t know where to perch themselves, but their interconnection. You will discover that you clearly distinguish all parts of the world through your small Kli, like through glasses. You can measure the distances between them, compare their colors, and recognize faces….

How did this happen? It’s because your Kli, your instrument, is inside in front of your mind’s eye, but through it you see deep into the entire world. You build this small Kli into yourself, which is the group that you are connected with, and this is enough to see the true world and its inner interconnection.
[38162]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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Question: How is it possible to unite the whole world if nations, countries, and religions are so different from each other in every way?

Answer: These are egoistic differences. When we unite spiritually they disappear and we all become as one man with one heart.

The earthly differences actually don’t separate us at all. One person likes to spice up his food with pepper and another one doesn’t. One person holds ceremonies this way and another person that way. This doesn’t make us different at all. On the contrary, that is exactly when we begin respecting one another.

Being dissimilar does not obstruct us from coming together spiritually. On the contrary, by uniting above our egoistic differences, we make them even more powerful and all of that power is aimed at spiritual unity.
[38149]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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Today, in light of the earthquake that has befallen Japan, we see how nature threatens our existence. After all, we are, in fact, living on top of a giant volcano that is boiling deep underground, while we exist on the thin layer of the earth’s crust.

From the depths of the earth we mine oil, water, and minerals, and we use plants and animals which exist on its surface for food, and breathe the atmospheric air. We are entirely dependent on the processes happening in the earth’s crust.

Besides, we are influenced by many other factors: magnetic fields, the force of attraction, all sorts of radiation, the speed of the Earth’s rotation, and so on. But we don’t even imagine that the smallest change in any of these parameters can fundamentally change our lives!

All of the natural cataclysms are caused by the imbalance of forces, which is happening as a result of our incorrect actions. The entire universe is a single system which includes the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature as well as man. The greater part of the universe belongs to the still level of nature: This is the entire universe, including the Earth. Plants cover only its surface, and the animate kingdom comprises even a smaller part of it, and compared to all that, just a tiny fraction belongs to man.

However, in the spiritual dimension what is taken into account is not quantity or mass, but the quality of forces. Therefore, man, who is on a higher qualitative level of development, can change the entire universe with just one thought. Baal HaSulam writes that all of the still nature is equal to one plant, all plants to one animal, and all animals to one person.

In other words, if a person makes any tiny change for the good or for the bad, this changes the entire animal kingdom. The vegetative world undergoes even greater changes as a result, not to mention what happens with the still nature. That is because all of it is a single system!

Therefore, we have to change ourselves and attain balance among one another. Only then will all of these forces of nature that are below the human level—the entire animate and vegetative world, and all of the still nature—will also reach balance.

Question: How can we convince everyone that the world is controlled by our thoughts?

Answer: It is impossible to achieve this through words. We have to bring the world to the inner sensation that thought is the most powerful force in the entire universe. But we have to prove the same thing to ourselves! If I realized that my thoughts influence the whole world, would I allow them to “go with the flow” free and uncontrolled? No, at every moment in time I would check what I am thinking about, where am I directing my thoughts, and what I am influencing. I would constantly control myself!

We just can’t explain this to ourselves or to the world. We cannot measure the power of thoughts, and especially the degree of their influence on specific events. We will never be able to give the world proof of this connection’s presence. So how will we bring the world to balance?

There is just one solution: We, those who understand this and study Kabbalah, have to attract the Upper Light through ourselves so it will give people the awareness “from within” of the fact that everything in nature is interconnected and precisely our desires (hearts) and thoughts (minds) determine the state of the world.

Precisely the Surrounding Light, which intangibly influences everyone, will evoke the inner understanding in people that their thoughts and intentions influence the state of the system of nature, where the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature as well as man with his intention, are united into one.
[38009]
From the lesson on Shamati on 3/11/11

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Starting with the Second Restriction (Tzimtzum Bet) and on, spiritual objects (Partzufim) are born not as they were in the world of Adam Kadmon, one beneath the other. Since each of them now contains a lower part that cannot be utilized, the AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh), this part descends to the lower spiritual degree.

In other words, the Partzuf works with its Galgalta ve Eynaim (the upper part), while its AHP falls into the GE of the lower Partzuf. Consequently, the AHP of the latter falls into the GE of an even lower Partzuf, and so on.

It follows that the upper part of each Partzuf gets clothed into the lower part of the upper Partzuf above, whereas its lower part descends into the upper part of the lower Partzuf. So, where is the Partzuf itself independent from the upper or lower ones? It doesn’t have anything of its own!

That is how the souls get linked like cogwheels; it’s the very same principle. You are not free from any connection with anyone. You are initially created inside such a construction, such inner structure of Malchut of the integral soul, where there is no part that would not be connected with all the others.

Any desire at all levels of Aviut (coarseness) is linked with the rest; everyone is connected with everybody else, and no one has any free part, not even one degree of freedom. The upper one always tells me what to do, while the lower one determines how I am supposed to serve it. Hence, each of us is bound as if tied with a rope on both sides, and it is impossible to make a single independent move.

Then how can we break free and have freedom of choice?! If instead of all these chained cuffs, you start experiencing the chains of love, the ropes of reciprocal participation, you will get healed from this “claustrophobia,” the feeling that you are tightly tied up and buried alive in a system where you have no independent thought or desire, no individual “Self.”

As to the freedom, it can be bought only with love: For the sake of love, I myself will desire to serve them all and welcome this connection. This bond will be desirable for me! And this is how I will obtain freedom, the clean air, and the whole system will be mine: I will be the Creator in relation to it.

This miraculous property enters us after Tzimtzum Bet, when Malchut receives the spark of Bina, thanks to which it gains an opportunity to relate to the others with bestowal.
[37467]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: To what extent do our thoughts, intentions, and ability to focus during the lesson depend on everyone who studies with us around the world? Is there such a global interconnection?

Answer: What does interdependence entail? If I view the entire reality as parts of my soul, then I am totally independent. These parts of mine awaken solely to the extent of my attitude toward them, my desire to awaken them.

I don’t focus on their external behavior, but rather awaken them from within, and at the same very level of inner connection, with that they awaken me in response. Everything is determined by my outlook on the world: Either I view it as a material reality with lots of corporeal bodies, or as the earthly desires of men, or as the body of my soul, its Partzuf (structure).

In the latter case, I see not the external images which seemingly exist in the corporeal world, but rather the parts of my soul, which I must transform. “I” is the focal point of my thought, intention. “I” is the intention which I must add to these desires and properties to aim them correctly.

What does it mean that I depend on and get awakened by the others? As I awaken them, I awaken myself in response. This awakening seemingly passes through the external system, while the system is mine nonetheless.
[37445]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Humanity cannot connect the ecological catastrophes to the correction of egoism. How can we explain this connection to people?

Answer: We have to look for ways to do it and try to write articles and formulate explanations precisely during times of disaster in order to convey the essence: All of this is happening because we are not corrected.

The external world is a mold of our inner state. Therefore, in reality we are talking about inner catastrophes that we only perceive as external. All the nations are parts of one soul, but in our sensations they are divided parts that seem foreign.

It’s as if I have been given an injection of  local anesthesia and now I don’t feel how my leg is burning or how my arm is being cut off. Right now it sounds funny, but that is what is happening.

Therefore, I want the sensation of belonging to gradually come back to me. I want to feel the “external” parts as my own. I hope to receive the opportunity to correct my state, my attitude to others.

If the external reality really will become a part of me, then I will feel a horrible sensation. Therefore, together with the discovery of the illness I have to receive the medicine, the opportunity to improve my state. This is what I am asking for: the medicine together with the illness that becomes revealed. Then I will be able to correct the flaws in myself, and as a result, the “external” cataclysms will settle down.

This is what we have to do: Ask for inner correction which will evoke the correction that seems external. Then we will see all the problems in ourselves and will correct them in us. These desires (Kelim) will unite with us, will become inner, and all the natural disasters evoked by our inner lack of correction will cease.
[37934]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbaalh Lesson 3/13/11

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Question from Japan: What are the reasons for the disaster that is happening to us? According to the forecasts there are more quakes ahead for us. Can all of us prevent these events here and in the whole world?

Answer: In order to answer this question we must first understand where we are. We are in a “round” world. This is what the science of Kabbalah explains to us in its section on “perception of reality.”

Let’s not wait for painful proofs of this fact to become expressed in our world. By way of painful experience we are discovering that we are all interconnected, that the world is global and integral in which there is a butterfly effect, and so on. Let’s not have to learn the lessons from disasters that will constantly occur in order to convince us of this. Let’s instead learn from the science of Kabbalah.

By the time our life experience starts working, it may be too late. How many more tsunamis, earthquakes, and other disasters have to happen for us to get smarter? Let’s instead turn to science and wisdom. It is written, “The one who learns is wise.” So what does the wise person learn?

We know from the science of Kabbalah that all of reality is felt inside of us because it is inside of us. My perception divides into five levels. Three of the levels are my inner sensations: root, soul, and body. They “clothe” into me from inside. Besides this, there are external details of perception which I perceive on the outside, outside of me: clothing and castle. This is the entire world outside of me. Clothing is everything inside the area that my body or senses can reach, while castle are the far away, unattainable things, or in other words, the things not subject to my control.

That is how reality is divided. Its inner part is called Galgalta ve Eynaim while the external part is called AHP. This division was caused by the spiritual destruction, which is the reason why we only slightly feel the Galgalta ve Eynaim inside of us and have no sensation at all that AHP is also part of us. That is how we will divide our reality until the very end of correction when Galgalta ve Eynaim will unite with AHP into the whole ten Sefirot.

From here we must draw the following conclusion: We feel everything inside of our Kelim. These may be a tsunami, the earth, or the universe with all its stars and galaxies. Everything is inside of me, in my egoistic desire. That is how my desire is built so in it I perceive reality divided in two: “me” and “outside of me.” “Me” is Galgalta ve Eynaim, the root, soul, and body, while “outside of me” is AHP, clothing and castle, the two external categories of perception.

Various changes take place in my inner and outer Kelim. Looking at natural disasters, it is very difficult to understand why these painful events are taking place in the external Kelim rather than the inner Kelim. Why do these changes influence a specific part of my soul today, called “the Japanese people”? Why did the catastrophe befall them of all people?

My soul also includes others parts which I perceive as my friends. In reality, they do not exist by themselves, but as parts of me in my eyes. It will be so until I complete my perception and then everything will unite into one whole, into a single desire, welded and entirely aimed at bestowal. This is the corrected form.

Without viewing reality from these positions, we will never be able to correctly perceive what is happening, including wars, catastrophes, corruption, or anything else. We will never be able to justify the Creator or understand how everything is moving in the direction of correction.

However, we won’t be able to manage without having the right perspective of things, without having a picture of the “round” world that is inside a person and depends on his correction. There is nothing outside of me. Everything is me. This is my earth, my earthquake, my Japan, my Libya, my Israel, my planet, and my universe. And all of it reflects my qualities, which are not corrected yet.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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Question: When the authors of The Book of Zohar Rabbi Shimon and his disciples studied together in the cave and later on when there were small Kabbalistic groups, they were very well aware that one depends on the other in thoughts, desires, and intentions. They were the only ones in the world. But today we study along with hundreds of people whom we see on the computer screens and thousands of others whom we don’t know at all….

Answer: I perceive the entire world as parts of my soul. Obviously, I don’t see the world this way, but I should visualize it so and treat it accordingly. And despite the fact that the world is full of rivals, foes, and what have you, all of it is my internal properties. If they were reformed, I would see a perfect world before me, the world of Infinity.

Hence, I have to treat everything around me as sent to me to correct my perception of reality and finally experience myself in the perfect desire filled with the infinite Light. To do so, I am provided with the environment, a relatively small group. And although it may contain a few million folks from around the world, I still must strive to feel all of them since they are my desires, the parts of my soul, which wake up to spiritually.

I can collect them, unite them within into a single force, and with their help, reform the other parts of my soul. After all, the whole world is my single soul. This is the way I should view reality.

Therefore,  Rabbi Shimon’s disciples, students of the Ari, and we perceive reality in a relatively similar way. The world is still the same, as are the attitude and the method. There are differences in terms of technology, a more developed connection between us, and in the global approach to the primary sources and the awakening of the world. But personal work and the attitude remain the same.
[37448]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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