Question: Are there external measurements or revelations that show the purity of my intention?

Answer: Your real intentions are not known, even to you, and others certainly don’t know them. Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the hidden wisdom, the inner part of the world, since it talks about that which is not revealed in our world.

How can we determine our intentions? Just try to do everything in the group with good intentions and gradually you will begin to feel as you lie to others and yourself, and you will enjoy it as a revelation of truth.

Moreover, it suggests that not only did you previously have bad intentions in action and now their real essence is revealed, but also in the future, they will remain like that. So, what is there to do? It is to ask for good intentions.

Thus, begin to perform good physical acts for the good of the group, try to work within them with the correct intention. As a result of that you reach a conclusion that all of that is done only for your sake.

This is the correct result, you reveal the truth. And even though you feel uncomfortable, you must be thankful to the Creator and ask that from now on He will give you the opportunity to do the right thing. Then, you are given the correct intention.

The next time when you do something for the group, again you will be shown that you had an incorrect intention, and again in an identical way, you go forward. In this advancement via cycles, you constantly discover within yourself the incorrectness of your intentions, but you discover them each time at a new level.

Of course, it is an unpleasant situation. However, by way of general support, by overall inspiration, by understanding that it is specifically in this way that we advance, you will see that it is a wonderful internal battle. In the end, from within all of these conflicting sensations, man begins to understand himself, the world, and the Creator.
[124719]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention 12/13/13, Lesson 2

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There is a force in The Book of Zohar we can use. But in order to discover the inner potential of this book, we have to be on its level to some extent. So how does this mechanism work? In legends and fairy tales the hero finds a secret chest that he opens with a big heavy key. Which key will open the secret of The Zohar for us? What is the key that fits every lock? It’s the equivalence of form. This is the key that we put into the keyhole. It’s only by the equivalence of form that we can open The Book of Zohar. This is the basic key rule.

Later, of course, we need the group and the connection with the friends, etc. in order to reach an equivalence of form with this book. Thus, we open The Zohar and read it according to our equivalence of form, according to the love and hate that are in contrast to one another.

This means that it isn’t that simple to really open the book. If we open the book it doesn’t mean that the book really opens up before us yet. It all depends on what happens between us. If we are connected, we are also connected to the book and then to the same degree we can attain it and feel the group of Rabbi Shimon, the ten friends, the ten Sefirot. It isn’t about people but about their essence, about the quality that is in the desire. Thus we begin to know them, are attracted to them, and a bit of each of them is revealed in us.

We have enough power. By annulling our ego and in the connection above it, we establish a connection that helps us discover what is written in The Zohar. We establish the foundations, the infrastructure, a common place, since the spiritual spot can only be collective. Here we become equal to the first level of the revelation of The Book of Zohar, in the intensity of our connection above the interruptions, according to the law of the equivalence of form.

In order to do that we will gather at the February convention and we make great efforts and pay a lot of money while giving up many other things in order to reach this general gathering. All this effort should bring us to an ascent and to connection. This is how it was arranged from Above: If we use the means that have been prepared for us, we reach the desirable outcome.
[125040]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/14,, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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The influence of the group must be so strong that “it doesn’t let me sleep.” That is, that I will never be able to forget about the importance of connection; rather, I will feel that this thought is stuck in my mind and heart, a permanent backdrop.

It is absolutely possible to attain this. No one can complain that this does not work. If he thinks so, he is simply lying to himself. For this, we only require work and time.

If the person places himself under the influence of the group and is under its healing power, he cannot become detached, as if he is drawn by a magnet or some kind of wave that holds him in its field. He becomes linked to an environment that he chose himself at one stage. However, after the choice is made, he enters under the influence of the environment, the friends, appreciates the same values, and thinks the same way as everyone, for, if the group is important to him, he will accept all of its opinions, even those that he didn’t value, didn’t love, and didn’t think were good and beautiful before.

We see from our lives that if we love and appreciate someone, we begin to accept and copy his behavior because we appreciate him as higher than us and we depend upon him.

Therefore, the ego doesn’t become a disturbance for us, and if we have not succeeded, the reason for this is that we have not invested enough energy in strengthening the group. We have not utilized envy. The teacher also learns from his students, as it is said, “I learned much from my teachers, even more from my friends, and even more from my students.” Therefore, you can learn from everyone that you teach.

The moment that we feel some kind of inner resistance, we need to accept this as the “left line” against which the “right line” is awakened. The society will stand against this disturbance and then we will see that this is not a disturbance, but rather an opportunity to connect the two lines and build the “middle line” between them in order to advance even further toward a portrayal of the Creator.

We are trying to connect the broken parts of the soul as if we were connecting gears. However, we don’t want them to be pressed onto each other and compelled to rotate as happens in a regular society. We want them to begin to turn in a synchronized manner through helping each other, avoiding pressure by any one of them on another. All of them must turn in full agreement and harmony. That is, each one feels himself as completely free, without any pressure, because the Light turns and moves everyone together.

When the Creator is revealed, no pressure of one on another remains in any direction and all are driven by means of the Light. This is as it is written, “And the third party will come and reconcile them with each other.”

Revealing the evil inclination within himself, he can check whether he is able to pass to the right correction immediately. If he immediately accepts this discovery of ego as a help, as something good and useful, “a helpmate against him,” then he immediately can work with this and build the “middle line,” and the middle line is already the discovery of the Creator, and then the work becomes so easy for a person, without any friction, that he feels as if he is simply floating in air.

However, it is impossible to remain in a state like this because oscillations come all the time, right and left, and the person balances between them in the middle line, which is called the line of accommodation, equivalence of form.
[124511]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/14, Lesson on the Topic: Preparation for the Convention

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Question: What difference does it make to whom one builds an intention for the sake of bestowal: the friends or people who don’t belong to the spiritual process?

Answer: The idea is that you don’t feel bestowal from strangers. They will not support you, but will begin to relate to you, to put it mildly, like a person who is insane. If you behave like a divine dandelion who only wants their good, they will not understand you.

For something to be okay, there must be mutual cooperation between you; you must develop this reciprocity, where you are to them what they are to you: You support each other, stimulate each other, discuss your problems, and so forth. It is possible to do this only in a group of like-minded people.

In a group we cooperate reciprocally between us, support each other, and yearn to attain fusion of our hearts, mutual guarantee, Arvut. With whom do you intend to do this? With those who are walking in the street and someone this doesn’t matter to at all? A person doesn’t know where they are moving him, for everything happens in a general field. People are like electrical charges that are moving in a general field of light; they reach the lowest point of balance with it and are concentrated there. So we are also gathered in a group in our world. You suddenly begin to feel where they are dragging you and with whom it is necessary to connect. This is because your charge, your “point in the heart” is moving in a field of Light and comes to this state.
[124650]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson #2

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Question: You have said many times that a person studies, let’s say, for ten years, but still doesn’t succeed in adhering to the group, becoming a spiritual embryo. So what happens during this time, does the ego simply grow?

Answer: When a person truly adheres to the center of the group and becomes a spiritual embryo, he begins to feel as if he exists in the spiritual world to his full capacity. Exactly as in our world, an embryo that is found in his mother’s womb attains the same thing, for everything that is happening in her body, in fact, is designed only for him.

A spiritual embryo is a state that is not simple and is a very high state from which the entire spiritual level begins.

Suppose that ten years of studying has passed for someone and he still hasn’t become a spiritual embryo; that is, he has not succeeded in nullifying himself towards the group. And no matter how much we tell him about this, no matter how much he reads in the sources himself, he cannot do anything with this because he is not participating physically in the work of the group; he is arrogant, separated from it.

We are  in a special world in which even all of our physical actions invite spiritual results; I cannot love the friends, I hate them, but in spite of it all, I still force myself to sit with them, smile at them, approach them through some kind of external action with the hope that this will change me, and this truly does change me. If a person doesn’t do this, then it is too bad, even after ten years he will remain the same.
[124647]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson #2

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Question: Connection is attained by the total annulment of each individual to complete zero. But what is the difference between this and ordinary psychology?

Answer: The difference is very simple: before whom do we annul ourselves? I annul myself before the others and they annul themselves before me, and what’s next? This is the condition only to reveal the force of the Light.

The self-annulment of everyone before everyone else creates a neutral spot in the center of the circle in which no egoistic forces operate. It is the spot of our mutual general desire, since there we connect and neutralize our ego. We establish the new reality in this spot, a new space in which we discover the upper force.

All our desires are focused on the center of the circle in which there is the force of the desire, connection, self-annulment, unity, and mutual guarantee. On the one hand, it is said that there is no empty space and that there is always a certain quality, a certain force. But here in the center, there is nothing.

A place is called desire. Here our collective desire is concentrated, but it is as if it is annulled, since none of us wants to use his own desire, and only wants to bestow upon others. Thus we create a special new place in a different dimension, on a different height.

We start from Malchut, and then Zeir Anpin, Bina, Hochma, until we reach Keter, the tip of Yod. This means that out of ten efforts that we made (Yod means the number 10 in Hebrew), we reach the tip of Yod, in which the Creator is revealed. This is the essence of the center of the group, in which we build a new space, a new dimension with special attributes by our efforts and our annulment. This is where the upper force can be revealed.

So only after the shattering and the correction do we receive a means, a vessel, in which the Creator is revealed. Otherwise it is impossible to reveal Him since we don’t have a sensor to detect Him, no natural sense to feel Him. He appears only when we stabilize Him this way: We are all egoists, but we want to rise above our ego and annul ourselves before everyone else. We want all that in order to resemble the Creator; we want to acquire His form and His attributes in order to resemble Him.

Thus we create a new state in the center of the group called a womb, Shechina. Only by our mutual annulment can we create the new space with the new attributes in a new dimension that didn’t exist before in Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity). This place for the revelation of the Creator appears only now thanks to our efforts.
[124657]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 01/02/14, Lesson on the Topic: “9 Steps”

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All we need is to follow the condition of the mutual guarantee between us. From the moment we start observing it and to the extent of our compliance with it, we begin approaching the goal. All 125 steps of the spiritual ladder, from the world of Assiya to the world of Infinity, are the levels of our mutual guarantee, of our increasingly stronger connection with each other.

Our entrance to the first step, the first spiritual level, depends entirely on our achieving mutual guarantee as at Mount Sinai. The Giving of the Torah comes from Above, and the mutual guarantee must come from below, from us. Then, the “awakening from Above” and the “awakening from below” occur together, and the Creator and creation start getting closer together. The Creator approaches His creations and the creation moves towards the Creator until they merge into one that is called the state of Final Correction (Gmar Tikkun).

Therefore, our task is to attain mutual guarantee. If we want the Light that Reforms, i.e., the Torah to impact us, we have to know that It manifests Itself only to the degree of the mutual guarantee among us.

Until we start creating internal pressure to become a part of each other, to connect and reach the mutual guarantee, the Light won’t start influencing or correcting us. The Light modifies only our desire to connect and reach the state of mutual guarantee to the extent we pursue it.

All we need is to try to push. It is called a “prayer,” a desire, a demand, a request to reach a special connection that is called “mutual guarantee.” The more we want to be closer to each other, the stronger we will feel that we are unable to attain unity.

The Light impacts us with Its opposite side: It gives us an initial desire, a chance that is called “placing our hand on the good fate and directing us to take it.” It gives us the tools: a teacher, books, and pulls us to connect.

At the same time, the Light repulses us from each other by creating a tension between us. On one hand, we are told that we have to connect; even though it is not attractive to us, we have to play as if we try to unite. Only if a group comprehends this principle and understands that this step is essential, can it advance.

It takes time. Sometimes it takes years to regard this condition as a serious prerequisite. It is the hardest condition since it is opposite to our nature. If we assemble around the notion of “mutual guarantee,” it means that we finally have caught the end of a thread, the end point of a beam that is spread from the world of Infinity to this world.

We are beginning to realize that only through our connection and to the degree of our reaching mutual guarantee can we stretch to a spiritual vessel in which we will eventually reveal the upper world, eternity, and the Creator. All of these things reveal to us here and now, in this life.
[124356]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/13, Preparation for the Convention

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Everything stems from the connection between the Light and the desire. The desire that was created by the Light as something from nothing goes through several phases of evolution: the root phase, phase one, two, three, and four. Only on the fourth level of level four does the created being begin to feel that he is a created being in relation to the Creator, like a guest before the host, with all the necessary feelings and discernments in order to be independent.

Until we attain this level of development through the Upper Light, we cannot feel that we are independent and cannot feel ourselves, our state, at all. Until then, it is simply the action of the upper. It is like the debate over when an embryo is considered a human being and not just a collection of cells. Then it is impossible to kill it since he has every right to exist like every human being.

This happens through the process of our development. Unless the fourth level is finally stabilized, it isn’t a created being yet. Unless it begins to perform independent actions, even a certain action according to its level, it isn’t considered a created being, but is totally under the domination of the Creator. It doesn’t feel itself yet, and so it is impossible to attribute any actions to it, neither good nor bad, no sins and no Mitzvot.

Then the ten Sefirot develop from this first HaVaYaH. Malchut begins to operate in order to bestow “its darkness will illuminate as the Light,” which means that Malchut begins to illuminate, to give, and thus receives attributes that are similar to the Light, and therefore it is called Sefirot (from the Hebrew word “Sapir” – “sapphire,” “illuminating”). There are exactly ten Sefirot, not nine and not eleven, since it is there, where the last Sefira ends, that the created being can act independently.

The same is true with regard to our exertion. We have to reach the accurate full level that matches the measure, the state we are in. We never know what state we are in, since it is possible to know that only from the upper level that gave birth to the level we are on. Only on the upper level that gave birth to us do we begin to control what is lower than it, and thus understand the state we have been through.

It turns out that a person never knows his real state. Unless he completes his last measure of exertion, it is as if he hasn’t done anything! Even worse, the greatest darkness is revealed at the end, which means the difficulty, the despair, the helplessness, all the unpleasant feelings come just before we complete our exertion. It is like the exodus from Egypt, the resistance to the ego increases until the ten plagues are over and there is the escape. We are ready to do anything in order to detach from it and the redemption occurs only at the end.

This means that we have to exert ourselves until the end of the last measure, and the redemption will appear suddenly. All the last phases and especially the final phase are the most difficult and exhausting, like in a juicer. Only the patience and the stubbornness which totally depend on the environment help us here. Let’s hope that we will manage to hold on till the end; as Baal HaSulam says in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“: “And only the heroes among them, whose patience endured, defeated the guards and opened the gate. And they were instantly awarded seeing the King’s face.”
[124838]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 01/07/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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If a person doesn’t have persistent spiritual yearning, doesn’t aspire to the Creator but simply tries to be saved from suffering, then, from the start, it is not worthwhile to tell him about the evil inclination, about the ego. We must first  engage him in activities that develop and expand his absorptive Kli, his perception, understanding, feeling and capacity for inquiry.

It is as if he were expanded from within, and some kind of empty space is created there that begins to be filled with all kinds of new observations and definitions: the group, me, and all our relationships.

Then, there is something to talk about. The person is included in this picture, within the general plan, and already begins to work. If you just explain to him about the nature of our ego theoretically, then the person will be bored and dry up. He must first feel in his heart, and after that, this passes to the brain. The brain is a good addition to the heart that serves it. It is said that “the heart understands.” Otherwise, the learning remains like a dry, abstract theory.

But it is possible to teach about phenomena that will be discovered later on condition that we are equipped with mutual Arvut, and Arvut is possible not only among Kabbalists, but also among regular people as, for example, in an army or among mountain climbers, and certainly this is not spiritual Arvut yet, but this is somewhat like it.

Don’t we become guarantors with each other through the bank, or through an insurance or pension plan? Everyone in the nation is a guarantor for everyone else to some extent. These systems already exist in order to prepare us for entry into Arvut.

We once lived in a cave like one big family, and later this family began to scatter. Its parts lost the connection between them and didn’t feel close. Therefore, another social connection was inserted and added between them. This is also Arvut, only it isn’t on the same level as it is with Kabbalists. However, it also serves the advancement and correction of the world.

People are in connection with each other, even though it is egoistic. Everyone in the world is a servant of the Creator whether they want this or not. We came out of a natural, instinctive, familial, connection between us, but instead we created a new linkage: commerce, reciprocal services. Some people are ill and others are doctors. Some need shoes, and others work as shoemakers, and so forth. This is as it is written, “Go and make a living from one another.”

The livelihood through which we are linked with each other is a correction of the shattering. I repair shoes for you, and you sew clothes for me. We already are found in Arvut with this, even though this is to a small degree. Through the thousands of years of the evolution of its shattering, humanity is approaching a threshold where it must consciously enter into Arvut. However, before this, we already have advanced and approached Arvut on the still, vegetative, and animate levels.

This shows the greatness of this concept. We are only in Arvut all the time, and we build and measure ourselves according to this, consciously or not.
[124500]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 01/01/14, Lesson on the Topic: Preparation for the Convention

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There is a constant struggle in the group: to be together or not to be together. One member can be in a state of ascent and another in a state of descent, and one mutually influences the other. But we have to keep connected and to tighten and strengthen this connection no matter what, despite all the obstacles, whether internal or external, which make up the “flesh” of the next level.

The external obstacles come from people who are close to us or distant from us and from the whole world. On the whole, it comes from everything that happens on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and humans. All this operates on us as our external vessels, and it all belongs to us.

In order to adhere to our point in the heart, we take off our attires, the flesh, our individual characteristics and leave only the bare points in the heart, ignoring anything else, and thus adhere to one another. But then we to regain the forms that we previously rejected as well: this whole world.

There is no other choice. This is our vessel and we have to use it. At the end of correction, the whole world, the whole universe, everything that I see, feel, and perceive will become one body. All this returns to me in the form of different obstacles and I have to connect despite the interferences.

In a state of descent, which means concealment, the friends seem rude and coarse, and I have no desire to connect to them. In a state of ascent, which means revelation, they seem like perfect righteous and I want to hug them and not let go. Then I fall into concealment again and feel scared: What kind of a group have I fallen into? I have to escape it as soon as possible.

Thus I constantly ascend and descend. I see it this way through my attributes from inside my vessels. The movement between the ascents and descents determines my upper level. If I accept the ascents and descents equally, and don’t care about the state I am in, as long as I am adhered, connected, in mutual guarantee, trying to hold on as much as I can both during the ascent and the descent, my efforts build the next level in this amplitude.

When I want to remain connected to the friends during the ascent and the descent, it’s a state called yearning, or stiffening, since I really want to connect. When we complete the measure of our effort and overcome all the obstacles, the action of the Light takes place in the final phase that fulfills the connection between us and tightens our mutual guarantee.

Here we have to take the matter of distance into account: There is a reason for going out to work and for getting confused. All the actions in this world are very special. We should understand and realize that mutual guarantee is the point of connection from which we already find ourselves on the same ladder that comes from and rises to the world of Infinity.

We strip ourselves of everything by our mutual efforts and leave only the points in the heart and begin to connect. Now we are trying to do that above all the obstacles, when we are together, and especially when we draw away from one another and feel that we are dispersed all over, separated by the distance and the lack of connection.

We have to do our best to overcome all these interferences. So we gather in conventions and special events in order to feel what it means to be together when there is no distance between us. We seem to be testing to what extent the physical distance operates on us and how we can establish the condition that doesn’t cause any changes in our feeling and in the mutual connection between us.
[124446]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/13, Lesson on the Topic: Preparation for the Convention

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