We began our preparation for this convention many months prior to it; we anticipated uniting with one another, breaking our ego, and attaining unity. In spirituality, one always needs to strive for perfection; anything less is impossible. After all, if you want to jump on the table, you need to prepare yourself to jump higher than the table, and then you will land on it. This applies to everything.

We set a goal for ourselves at the convention: to attain the revelation of the Creator. Naturally, every day this needs to be our goal. But this time we really aspired towards it, and this is why we have taken a big step forward. We have acquired a new status. We created a new Kli (vessel) in which the sensation of connection, unity, the goal, and the way of reaching it has already manifested.

Some felt that they have come a lot closer to it, while others not as much. Some experienced it from the side of the Kelim (vessels), and some already from the side of the Lights. The people who felt that they are not yet part of it acquired the realization of evil; they discovered how much they are yet to correct.

We have experienced a multitude of different states together. We discovered that the environment by acting upon a person can do anything with him because a person is completely susceptible to its influence.

Of course, we lack the environment’s constant influence. Of course, for now we are unable to cancel ourselves in relation to it. And, certainly, the environment is not displaying a force strong enough to determine everyone’s direction.

However, we have definitely developed a connection between us. And I think that soon we will also begin to reveal more and more fulfillment in it.
[27530]
From the Talk during the Closing Ceremony, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10

Related Material:
We Have Received The Opportunity To Ascend
Salvation Comes In A Blink Of An Eye

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

Studying Kabbalah provides us with a connection to the Upper World. The split between our and the spiritual worlds is an abyss, a barrier, an iron wall, which is impossible to move. Only the Upper Light is able to break it.

Therefore, we cannot connect to the Upper, spiritual world other than by studying authentic primary sources: the writings of Rashbi, the Ari, Baal HaSulam, and Rabash. Only due to this will the Light that Reforms come to us.

We need to constantly study their writings, thereby giving the Light an opportunity to continue its work. You will feel that the unity we achieved at the convention will spread out from its beginning to the ten Sefirot, and it will obtain fulfillment. I expect this to occur very soon, and in regard to every participant of the convention.

We have yet to feel what kind of mutual inclusion into each other we have achieved, the men, women, and even the children. Each of us acquired a broader, multi-layered, and complex Kli (vessel), in which one can already prepare himself to receive the Light.

Now, after the convention, if we all live in one theme by studying the works of the Kabbalists at the lessons, we will be connected to the Light that they contain. In addition, we will unite with all the friends who are going through the same material as we are, the same day, during the same 24 hours. Nothing can unite us more than daily presence at the lessons.

Because we will draw continuously new portions of the Surrounding Light every day, what was born between us at the convention, that for which we laid the foundation, that seed which we sowed into the ground, will continue to develop, and it will give its ten Sefirot. We will feel the Upper Light, the revelation of the Creator, in them.

We are now at the threshold of this. It is an accumulative process, as it is written: “Penny after penny accumulate into a big account.” Unity that arose at the convention, a connection that took place between us is a great achievement. It is the beginning of a new stage of our spiritual development.
[27526]
From the Talk during the Closing Ceremony, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10

Related Material:
When You Are Prepared To Jump Higher
Cleave To The Teacher And Follow Him

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

If we don’t receive the desire to bestow from the environment, we will not be able to reveal the spiritual world through our own efforts. Indeed, spiritual pleasure is infinitely greater than its corporeal counterpart. Even the smallest pleasure which we receive upon ascending to the first spiritual degree out of 125 is billions of times greater than all the pleasures of our world combined.

The “Big Bang” is the result of a tiny spark of Upper Light that infiltrated our world and caused our whole universe. And it was merely a tiny spark! Meanwhile, now we are primed to reveal the entire Light of NRNHY to its full measure. It follows that for this we will need unlimited vessels of reception.

Therefore, we cannot receive all this Light; otherwise, we would simply explode. This is why each person needs to build external Kelim (vessels) outside of himself. Only through connection, a mutual inclusion into one another, are we capable of achieving great external desires.

Even now we are all swimming in the Upper Light; we are just unable to feel it. There is no place inside of us that can be filled because we only have a tiny spark. In Baal HaSulam’s Letter No. 8 (Fruit of Wisdom, Letters), he describes the Light that is revealed in us:

“At the hour of attainment one feels the Upper Light which is revealed and based on all the reverse transformations. And it seems to a person, at the hour of attaining perfection, that all the suffering he had gone through was valuable because it allowed him to appreciate the sweetness and flavor of the Light, of uniting with the Creator. And all of his organs and tendons shall say and bear witness that anyone among the living in the world would gladly agree to chop off his hands and feet seven times a day, if only he could attain the flavor of adhesion for but a brief moment in his life.”

In other words, we need to understand that spiritual revelation is something infinitely stupendous, and we need to prepare our empty desires (Kelim) for it. A great inner work awaits us, and yet it is incredibly easy only if we do it together with love. This union determines everything!

If I unite with others and feel that I exist together with them in one Kli, in one desire, then the Light becomes revealed inside. It is written that “love thy neighbor is the main rule of the Torah (Light)” because love is a vessel for the Light.
[27640]
From Lesson 1, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/9/10

Related Material:
A Screen In The Black Cosmos Of Desire
Boundless Love

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

Excerpts from people’s letters sharing their impressions of the last convention: “I participated in the convention virtually. On the second day, during the lecture “The Purpose of the Group,” after numerous inner efforts and unity, I, like many others, hit the “membrane” that the Light was beaming behind.

I didn’t get disappointed by it (deep inside, I had suspected that breaking through the Machsom wasn’t going to be that easy). At that moment, I realized that whatever was taking place was not a dream but reality. I didn’t have doubts from the very beginning, but I’ve gained even more confidence, and my strength got renewed.

I am standing in front of the “membrane” looking at the Light glowing behind it… It is so hard to match the Creator’s qualities. I let it go. Later, I feel an iron grip of egoism on my throat, and again, back to our goal, with all that I have.

I am still a total ignoramus about the terms in Kabbalah, but I am trying. We will break through. I am with you with every fiber of my soul. Le’Chaim!”
[27568]

Related Material:
Convention Impressions, Part 3
Convention Impressions, Part 2

Filed under: Conventions - No Comments →

Our entire history is nothing but development in the material body in this world, but now we have to build our spiritual body and do so ourselves. In our world, I was born from the father and mother who raised and educated me until I became an adult and started living independently. In the spiritual world, I have to do the same. And here, too, we have a spiritual father and mother (Aba ve Ima), a spiritual environment that develops us. However, we need to arrange it with our own desire.

The question is where to get such desire? For this, we are given a spiritual spark, “the point in the heart,” a tiny desire for spirituality. With its help, we can evolve nurtured by the environment, a Kabbalistic group, and the Upper Force that is called Aba ve Ima (father and mother).

We have them, and we are yet to find them. They can also be called the Creator who works on us by means of two forces, Hassadim and Hochma (mercy and wisdom). The force of mercy assists us, and the other force burdens our path, similar to how we teach a child by giving him difficult assignments.

These two forces, “help” and “help against us,” come to us and teach what needs to be done while we move forward. If we arrange our evolution so that we will be able to advance at the speed that depends solely on us since there is no time in spirituality.

We will begin to uncover these forces that act in Nature, the Father and Mother, the positive and negative ones. When we ascend to the first spiritual degree, we already start perceiving ourselves as eternal and complete. After all, we don’t depend on our body anymore. We start perceiving everything in bestowal, outside of ourselves. I connect and bond with all, and they become my spiritual vessel.

In the corporeal world, I always received into myself to the extent that I was able to, and as soon as I was filled, I lost the sensation of pleasure. In contrast, the spiritual pleasure is defined by how much I will pass to another and he to the next one.

This is how we all pass this fulfillment to each other. Therefore, it is an endless stream of unending pleasures. It is what we call the sensation of eternal life.

The Light of Infinity enters each of us, but he takes from it only what is necessary to sustain corporeal existence and passes this endless Light further. If we exist in such a form, we experience ourselves in the World of Infinity, unrestricted and fulfilled by the entire Light of the Creator.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah wishes to bring us to, and this is why it is called this way (“Kabbalah” means receiving in Hebrew). It teaches us how to receive fulfillment and experience eternal and complete life here and now, in this lifetime.
[27252]
From Lesson 1, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/9/10

Related Material:
Connecting To Good
How Will You Color Your World?

Filed under: Conventions, Inner Work, Spirituality - No Comments →

Freedom of will lies only in strengthening our environment so that it influences every one. This is in our hands. There is absolutely nothing else that we are able to change in this life.

You entered the Convention hall and felt a powerful tension. This is because a common desire that was there influenced you. Everyone burned with an enormous desire to reach the might that would enable us to make a leap up, and this affected you.

So, why are you not able to organize your environment so it would influence you the same way now? There are many thousands of people participating in the daily lesson with us, so why are we not able to influence one another?

We have the same connection, and we are in the same common field. Does it matter that much that we are not sitting in the same hall, in the same physical space? Is this the only problem? Why do we lack that common joy and enormous happiness?

We simply lack preparation. Several months before the Convention, we all waited for this day with hope, fear, trepidation, and worry. We read and listened about it, memorized special songs. We all prepared ourselves for this event.

It took an enormous amount of money, time, and physical effort. Of course, when all of this gathered in one place and exploded at the same time, it led to an impressive result. Everyone who was there as well as those who followed this event behind a screen received this strong impression. Why are we not able to continue the same way?

We achieved this degree, this elevation of the spirit, with our common work from below (Itaruta de Letata, awakening from below), and now it is ours. We bought it; we paid for it. So, why are we not able to hold on to our possession?

We need to remember that we have kept this attainment after the Convention because “one is elevated, not lowered in spirituality.” Everything I have attained is now mine, but now I am being swamped with a new, uncorrected desire that obstructs anything that happened previously because it reveals a new height to which I need to rise. I need to regard this new mountain as a means to ascend.

So, let us understand what happened to us. We did not fall; we acquired an opportunity to ascend. Then, we will see a precise goal before us, and we will simply need to combine our strength. After all, this is the only action that can enable us to ascend, only through joining together.

We unite even more strongly in the group, and this will mean that we are ascending. The Light lifts me; I myself do not need to do anything. I just need to connect with others more strongly than ever. Then, the Light will lift me to a new height, a new degree.
[27447]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”

Related Material:
Don’t Let Yourself Fall
Accept The Creator’s Invitation

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

Understand that you did not fall, but rose to the next degree and received a new desire, specifically because you did such a good job! Now, we simply need to join forces in order to turn this darkness, this apparent barrier (Machsom) into Light. And then you will receive an even stronger inspiration than at the convention.

We received some initial impression there, and now we need to realize it in a clear and practical form. Now, we need to methodically break that wall, the Machsom between us, which we have felt slightly. We need to keep hitting it in one place, and it will collapse after several blows.

This happens suddenly, “in a blink of an eye,” as it is written about the coming of the Creator’s redemption. Revelation occurs suddenly: Efforts keep accumulating and, all of a sudden, the escape route opens for us to run in extreme haste.

We need to do all of this now, but instead we keep remembering how nice it was at the convention, unlike here, where I am now. However, this is the actual time for work. We did not work during the convention. It was the result of everything we had accumulated in the past, which combined all the efforts, hopes, money, and nerves.

The time to work has come again. The work is always the same. Our ego, the desire to receive pleasure, constantly keeps growing and shows itself in different ways. You need to recognize it and understand that this is “help against us,” that this is sent to you for a specific purpose, out of great love.

The Creator is playing with you like with a small child who is given small obstacles on purpose in order for him to learn to overcome them and grow up. This is how we advance.

However, a child has a natural instinct that pushes him to develop, and he never sits in place, as he is constantly trying to overcome something, do, understand, feel, or break something. Meanwhile, you need to work on your desire yourself.

Imagine the fate of an indifferent and bored child who is too lazy to play with toys, and he sits in class like you, all sleepy with his eyes closed. Will he develop and grow up? This is exactly what is happening to you now.

However, the Creator will not deviate from His program. He must raise you to His level until you become equal to Him. So, what is there to do when you sit with your eyes closed? He will have to beat you until you wake up.

Yet, if you want to do the walking instead of going down the path of suffering, there is one simple law: “He who chooses the best environment every time, advances.”
[27444]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”

Related Material:
Living In The Stream Of Endless Light
Face-to-Face With The Creator

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

Question: What does it mean to reveal broken desires or Kelim? Do we reveal them in our aspiration to attain the Creator or in the desire to unite with one another?

Answer: We reveal our broken Kelim only in the desire to unite with each other in order to attain the Creator. And we reveal them more and more each time.

Let’s say that at the recent convention we discovered that on one hand we would like to unite, but on the other hand we do not desire it. Something on the inside stops us; there is some enemy, hater, inner stupor, or Machsom that does not let me come closer to others and unite with them.

This is the first plague of the ten Egyptian plagues or blows to Pharaoh (Pharaoh is the name of the one stopping me). I feel that he does not let me unite with others, even though I don’t yet fully realize: why I have to unite with them, where is the Creator here, and how is it possible to bestow to Him. For now I only have an aspiration to unite.

It will happen differently the second time. We want to unite and we have to be together to attain spirituality because spirituality becomes revealed only in the unity among us. This will become a little bit clearer to us. On the other hand, we will once again feel that something stops us. We demand, “Free us!” But he does not let us go.

The Creator continuously reveals a more powerful ego inside us, “hardening Pharaoh’s heart.” Then we will go out and attack again, and this does not have to happen only at a convention. We will then see that we are unable to do it ourselves; we need an external force. So where is this external force? We begin to desire for the Creator to unite us; then we will break through the Machsom.

Next time we will begin to feel that breaking the Machsom means breaking the Machsom between us. We shouldn’t attack some external boundary. The Machsom is between us, in our hearts, which are isolated from each other by an egoistic boundary.

Afterward, by making another attack, we will feel that we do not need all of this for ourselves; we don’t need it in order to unite and reveal spirituality, but in order to bestow to the Creator through it. This is the “last stop.”

All of this becomes revealed gradually. Once we reveal all of these phases in practice and experience them to the fullest, we will thereby create the right desire, Kli, or vessel for receiving the Light. Otherwise you cannot reveal the Light. The Light is abundantly present, but you have to reveal the right desire or Kli for it; you have to attain the same frequency or the same quality. This is possible only through the actions that come to us as they create a true desire in which the Light will become revealed.

So let us get ready to make the next attack on Pharaoh!
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Patch Up My Soul!
Machsom Is A Psychological Barrier
The Last Plagues Of Pharaoh

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Q&A, Spirituality, Torah, Unity - No Comments →

Today, we have reached the limit of our egoistic development concluding our thousand year old history, and this is why humankind is experiencing crisis in all areas of life. We do not see where to go further and what else there is to do; hence, the world is falling into depression and drug abuse.

And this is where the wisdom of Kabbalah comes in. It was awaiting to be revealed precisely at the end of the 20th century, as described in The Book of Zohar and other Kabbalistic texts. This is taking place namely today when everybody understands or begins to feel that they have come to a dead end since our egoism has no direction to grow in.

If egoism continued to develop, we would be running after it without a thought as we have done during all of the previous lifetimes, all our history, each new time trying to attain something, win, improve for the sake of home, family, children, career, and so on. Each generation is like a row of soldiers moving from life to life, from incarnation to incarnation.

Over the course of these life cycles, we did not get tired of running after our ego because our desire was pushing us to do so. It doesn’t matter that it was worthless and we had done it all before and many times. We kept running and did what the ego wanted us to do.

But due to the fact that this egoistic desire has reached its final, highest level, we have started to feel that the road has ended. People don’t even want to bear children any more since they are losing hope that the next generation will live better than the present one.

This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah comes in and says: You can join the good! This is the good future for all humanity. But this good is not in our egoistic ideas and the dimension of this world at all. Here, there cannot be anything good any more.

If everybody wants to receive something into their egoism, they will never be filled. The moment a person starts getting filled, his pleasure disappears. Pleasure and fulfillment are opposite to each other, and fulfillment subdues the desire. And if I don’t feel lack any longer, I don’t feel pleasure from receiving and have to look for a new one.

Thus, all my life passes by in pointless search. But for those who feel that they must find something above this material life, Kabbalists tell us how to join the good.

In truth, I already feel that this world has exhausted itself and I need to find something above it in order to understand “what for?” and “why?” Where is the source of life, and what is its purpose? What was before it and what will follow? I want to know what is beyond, outside of these borders that lock me in this world.

I must know the reason of all that is taking place and see around this world: How each thing begins and ends, how everything is interconnected? Without it, I don’t feel well. This is the way our soul, which is beginning to unfold now is built.

And this is the reason why Kabbalah, the method of finding the soul, has arrived. After all, everything we have experienced thus far was being perceived in the animate body with its five sensory organs. We used to fill the body with tastes the body was enjoying or we suffered pain in the same body.

We have finished with this world; we have filled ourselves with it and felt disappointment. Now we have to go on! Ego keeps growing, but in another dimension: above the body. This is called the evolution of the soul, an inner part that will develop in you, and thanks to which you will attain the Upper reality.

And this doesn’t cancel your current world; it will continue to exist. But you will also attain what is above it, meaning all of the forces that descend from Above and govern our world. You will understand everything that takes place here, below, since you will ascend to the higher roots and uncover the relationship between the root and the branches.
[27255]
From Lesson 1, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/9/10

Related Material:
Hardships Of Transition

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Egoism - 1 Comment →

The most popular Israeli newspaper “Maariv (Evening)” published a big article about the recent Convention:

[Show slideshow]

Excerpts from the article: Roberto from Mexico walks up onto the stage in a gigantic hall filled with thousands of participants. He is choking on tears and is barely able to speak.

Suddenly, we hear the words, as if he found a string in his throat: ‘You are my family,’  he says. ‘And I cannot live without you.’ The audience is crying. They will cry when Alexander from Russia will ask everybody to join the good within, and when Reuben from the United States will ask everybody to close their eyes and think about this special day.

Reporter: ‘I don’t understand why people are crying here. Do you?’

Alexander Demidov: ‘They are crying because they didn’t know that they would find so much warmth here, that everything here would be so close and true. It is like you suddenly discover you have a son. And you didn’t know he existed, that he is so nice, strong, and handsome.

This is what I feel when I see people from Japan and Turkey here, the people who say that we are closest to them. I didn’t cry because I am not that sensitive, but I felt short of breath.’
[27240]

Related Material:
An Israeli Newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth About The Convention

Filed under: Conventions, News - 3 Comments →