Shamati #1 “There is None Else Beside Him”: Rather, for those people who truly want to draw near the Creator, and so they will not settle for little, meaning remain as senseless children… And only if that person has a true desire…

Is it possible for a person to have a true desire? I must feel inside, within my belly, within my heart, and examine with my mind how much at each and every moment in life I am alert to maintaining myself for my benefit. The main thing for me is not to harm anyone so that no one will harm me. I am only concerned about how to defend myself from all the evil that surrounds me, from all the dangers and bad influences from all sides.

If I feel that I am so focused on protecting myself, I will understand that this holds my entire attention, and even my desire to discover the Creator is derived from the same Kli, from the same intention to further improve my situation. However, I am not prepared to be released from my beastly nature of self-defense.

Here, I make a decision that I must get away from it, simply to tear myself from this concern for self-preservation, and all of this depends solely on this: How much does the importance of the Creator become greater than my own self-importance? When a desire, a decision, an imperative, like this ripens and awakens in me, I will begin to hate “my body,” meaning the ego that obligates me to be concerned about my own self-preservation all the time, and then a desire, a prayer, a scream, a request, awakens within me for the Creator to change what has been created for me, and I will begin to be concerned about the greatness of the Creator—about “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”—more than myself, and I will see myself only as a means for bestowing to others.

I must reach such an inner explosion that I will be ready to do anything. This is a critical point where I decide that I would rather kill myself than live a life like this if I won’t be able to be concerned about others more than about myself. I perceive my egoistic, beastly state as being so despicable that I simply must change it.

Those of us who have not yet passed through it are very close to this turning point, and we must pay special attention to it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/14, Shamati #1

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: From the beginning of Creation, all people have reservations, and the Thought of the Creator necessitates them to come to the feast, knowingly or unknowingly.

This plan certainly will be fulfilled, and it is all a matter of time. After all, the evil forces we develop return to us like a boomerang, pressuring us and bringing us to the right decisions.

The goal will be obtained one way or the other, and we actually are bringing it closer by using our developing ego incorrectly so that eventually it acts against us, forcing us to respond.

On the whole, until recently, the process of evolution was good for us. We developed new tools, introduced competition, built a banking system, developed commerce, discovered continents, and basically, everything was just fine since it helped us advance.

However, in the 20^th century, we exhausted this form of development and for the first time began to see that there is a limit to our advancement. We found ourselves at a dead end. We have exhausted our ego and today it is beginning to destroy itself. We have seen clear signs for that for a while now. In 1971 for example, the gold coin in the US was replaced by a paper note. The eruption of the ego had many consequences, but the main lesson was that future problems will force us to change our lifestyle, the formula of human existence.

The question is whether blows will force us to grow wiser and to understand how to avoid problems along the way, or whether we will be able to identify what is coming in advance and begin to change ourselves.

Slow evolution will lead to totalitarian forms of government like in Germany or Soviet Russia in the first half of the last century. These are the two ultimate forms of the ego’s development, and we may be witnessing them again. What is more, this is exactly what we are advancing toward; however, today, it is called “Armageddon,”or we can force ourselves artificially against our growing ego to develop the good, anti-egoistic force of bestowal instead of the force of receiving between us.

So, let’s develop this way. This is actually what Kabbalists tell us: use the force concealed in nature. It can dominate us just as our ego dominates us today. So far, the evil force has dominated the good force, receiving dominated bestowal. However, now, the force of bestowal can dominate the force of receiving. This means that they will be balanced just as the wisdom of Kabbalah explains and teaches us how to understand the balance between them. After all, it is impossible to use only one of the two forces. The force of bestowal, absolute love, can be a destructive force. Generally speaking, each of the forces blinds a person, and he doesn’t see anything before him. If we accept one force only, we will be captives of that force. Only the right balance of the two forces we find inside us is called the Adam (Man) in us. It brings us to the realization and to the true feeling, to receiving and to bestowal, that allows us to use all of nature and build ourselves in the middle of these two forces.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is no other way that we can develop. In the worst case, we will reach it through blows and sufferings. However, the blows will not create the right form in us. We must make the choice by ourselves, make decisions, and gradually establish it inside us so that we will grow wise and understand the connection between us and the Creator through our efforts to build our home, the Divinity (Shechina).

However, we are like a stubborn kid who refuses to learn, and so the troubles come: the disciplinary measures that force him to begin learning. If he would learn from his books, there would be no need for the blows. On the contrary, he could save time and avoid the sufferings.

It is actually impossible to advance on the path of “in its time” (Beito) since then you stay in the same place without moving, like a donkey, until you are beaten and have no other choice.

Baal HaSulam says that the guests will come to the feast knowingly and unknowingly, so we should listen to him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #1 “There Is None Else Besides Him” …There are things in the world, which, to begin with, aim to divert a person from the right way, and by which he is rejected from Sanctity.

And the benefit from the rejections is that through them a person receives a need and a complete desire for the Creator to help him, since he sees that otherwise he is lost.

Therefore a person needs the right society, a society that corrects and adjusts him, reminding him what the goal is and putting him back on the right track. Thanks to the society, he does not divert from the path because of the different obstacles but initially regards them with the right intention.

The moment a person establishes the right intention in order to reveal the good upper providence, that “There is none else besides Him,” he totally changes his attitude toward life. He understands that everything around him is a theater that is meant only to reveal that, and so he sees God’s hand in everything.

If he focuses himself correctly, he advances and grows stronger, and sees how the Creator gives him an opportunity to get closer to correction at any given moment.

And he, who always feels that the shattered is greater than the whole, meaning that there are many more descents than ascents, and he does not see an end to these states, and he will forever remain outside of holiness, for he sees that it is difficult for him to observe even as little as a jot, unless by overcoming above reason.

“Faith above reason” means that I see many reasons that keep on growing both in quantity and in quality, and it disturbs me and doesn’t allow me to concentrate. It tears me to pieces that I cannot say that they stem from the “good that does good,” and that “there is none else besides Him.”

I must oppose the sources of evil, but, at the same time, remember that it is only an external expression of the Creator’s attitude toward me. In my corporeal life, I must relate to these hardships as is customary in our world. It is said that the world keeps on turning, but in the internal, spiritual dimension, I must treat it on a different level, on the human level, Adam (man), one resembling the Creator (Domeh). I must use all the states for connection and for getting closer to the Creator.

Here, too, a person feels split and finds it hard to be on two dimensions simultaneously since one annuls the other. However, this is all our work.

In this world, we engage in matter according to certain laws. We work, take care of our family, our children, our job, and on making a living just like everyone else. However, at the same time, we also engage in high spiritual matters.

Although we suffer because of the different problems in this world, when we ascend to the second level, to the spiritual dimension, we are constantly in adhesion with the upper force, with the good that does good. Our efforts on these two levels gradually bring us to revelation.

It is because the gap between corporeality and spirituality, which we keep without getting confused and without blurring, brings us to demand the revelation of the Creator. The corporeal and the spiritual states in which I operate correctly by separating them become increasingly more extreme, scary, unpleasant, and painful. They actually tear me to pieces, and I cannot justify the Creator. I must do something since otherwise the Creator, “There is none else besides Him” and the good and benevolent, disappears from me. So, I struggle in order to reveal Him. It isn’t because I feel bad in my corporeal life, rather, because I understand that the unpleasantness that is given to me is so I will decide that there is none else besides Him and that He is good and benevolent.

However, I cannot do that, so I cry out, ask for help and weep, but not for myself, not in order to ease my corporeal life with the support of “There is none else besides Him” and the good that does good.

Thanks to the right work on the two dimensions, I come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter whether I feel good or not. What’s important is that I don’t want to lose the Creator, the good and the benevolent, since otherwise I convict His providence. For the first time, a person begins to build his vessels correctly, and in order to do that, he needs the revelation of the Creator. He doesn’t want to ease his work that way, but he asks for power that he doesn’t have naturally, the Creator’s attribute. He doesn’t ask for it for his own benefit, but so that he wouldn’t curse the upper providence, the Creator’s uniqueness.

A person’s work, called God’s work, is to discover that “there is none else besides Him” and that “He is good that does good.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/14, Shamati #1

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #1 “There Is None Else Besides Him”: It is written, “there is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the Higher Household, the reason is that this is His will. And it is deemed a correction, called “the left rejects and the right adducts,” meaning that which the left rejects is considered correction.

“There is none else besides Him,” means that everything that happens is a result of one domination, one influence, although it seems that there are two forces or even more. People believe that there are many different forces in the world or at least two: good and evil.

But it is all because the upper force, one thought, one goal, which means one domination, operates on us in different ways. These actions of the one providence seem different and opposite to such an extent that it is as if they are in a struggle against one another.

We don’t understand the point in the good or bad, happy or tragic events that we and the surrounding world go through. When we look at what is happening around us, we cannot attribute the two opposite forces of good and evil to one goal, to one domination. It is actually on this point that we should focus all our clarifications. All the commandments in the Torah are meant for this, in order to help us reveal that behind the multitude of forces operating on us and dominating us, there is only one domination. All our work is to clarify that there is none else besides Him. This is our main goal.

Moreover, we discover that this one force is good and benevolent. Every action at every moment in our life is according to the domination of the one, upper providence. Therefore, our goal should be to try and yearn to discover the only domination at any given moment and to justify it as the good and benevolent.

We reveal the good and benevolent to such a degree that we begin to love the upper force, as it says: “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” This is how we should recognize His actions, by discovering in all my vessels that the upper providence is unique and good.

At the same time, it is actually the opposite form that is revealed in every desire and in every thought that we have, negating the fact that the upper force is good and benevolent and that there is none else besides Him. We, on the other hand, have to work on all our vessels and to ask for corrections in order to discover that the Creator is the only force operating in the world and that He treats us with infinite goodness.

The decision that there is none else besides Him puts a person on the right track of life. He already knows what he has to do at any given moment of his existence.

In fact, this is the only thing a person needs. He only needs to worry a little about the basic necessities of his corporeal body on the animate level, while all his efforts and resources should be focused on that in order to get closer to the revelation of there is none else besides Him and that He is good and benevolent in any possible situation, even if they may be negating each other.

Then a person discovers that everything he has been through in life, all the worries and the confusions, were only meant to help him discover in even more depth and breadth, the uniqueness of there is none else besides Him, and of the good and benevolent.

Then we see that the only goal of our work and our existence on this planet in a state called this world is meant for this revelation of the upper force. We will then continue our work on other levels, on all the 125 levels, until the end of correction so that we will all feel in each and every vessel and in all of them together that there is none else besides Him and that He is good that does good.
[146568]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/14, Shamati #1

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Baal HaSulam, “There is None Else Besides Him:” Then he comes to the decision that no one can help him but the Creator Himself. 

A person makes this decision after he has tried all ways to somehow connect the two planes of the material and spiritual.

On the material plane, he fights for survival and earnings, and he experiences all the hardships of life, as does every person in this world. At the same time, he is in the upper world where he does not yet feel the upper force, its nature and uniqueness, but only tries to form within himself sense organs for the revelation of the next dimension.

After all attempts to bring these two worlds closer and, beyond all the material problems, not to allow himself to forget that everything comes from the sole and absolutely good upper management, he sees that he is not capable of this.

This is arranged on purpose so that a person needs the Creator, so that this upper force comes and creates within him the correct desires for its revelation.

This causes him to make a heartfelt demand that the Creator will open his eyes and heart, and truly bring him nearer to eternal adhesion with God. It thus follows, that all the rejections he had experienced had come from the Creator.

To understand this, one needs a supporting environment. Otherwise, he will forget about it every moment. A new informational record, a Reshimo, new external conditions, are revealed in every moment of our lives. Therefore, a person must provide himself with the guarantees for the future so that in the next moment he does not leave the spiritual path by suddenly finding himself a few meters or even kilometers away from his chosen path leading to the king’s palace.

Therefore, he needs to organize an environment that will support him and make him stay under its influence. In other words, he bows himself before the correct environment that in general is going by the path of the revelation of the Creator, the only force in the world.

Then during each descent a person will get help back from the environment to the extent of his contribution into it, as much as he surrendered himself to the environment. Indeed, a little one can receive from great ones by being influenced by them and inspired by their values, and, due to this, he continues his internal clarifications.

After a certain number of such actions, having gone through the vicissitudes of life, a person comes to the true cry. He already has the correct vessel of the right size and quality ready to accept the revelation of the Creator. He cries that in the conditions of concealment he is not able, to remain in the feeling that there is nothing except His good governance.

He appeals for help because he does not want to blame the Creator, and the Creator gives the person this opportunity. He cannot just be revealed because revelation is possible only in the correct desires. That is why when the person completes the required measure of efforts, the Upper Light rewards him with the property of bestowal.

Then, a person finally understands what was said in all the Kabbalistic books. As he obtains the property of bestowal, he reveals the Creator inside of this vessel.

This happens every time. A person does not ask for the revelation of the Creator in his egoistic desires like we are asking now. The Creator is revealed as the property of bestowal in the desires in which a person is able and ready to accept Him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/14, Shamati #1

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Question: How can a person feel that “there is none else beside Him” if he hasn’t attain bestowal yet?

Answer: Before I reach bestowal, I try to arrange in my mind and heart the opinion that “there is none else beside Him.” It is easier to do this in the mind; in the heart this is relatively more difficult.

It depends on my relationship with the group and how I build the new Kli together with them in which I am ready to decide that “there is none else beside Him.”

To the degree of the connection between us, we build our collective we, the raspberry ball, the sum total of us all. Yet in this point of we, I am not found; rather, I nullify myself. This means that in the center of this circle, I am found above my ego.

It is possible to multiply one by one all of the nullifications of ourselves: 10 times, 100 times, 1,000 times; more and more as we unite. It follows that I acquire new spiritual feelings and thoughts through which I will discover the Creator.

And to be precise, I will discover the Creator not within the group of ten, but in the connection between the groups of ten. The group of ten is said to reveal the ego within it and to rise above it to connect with the others. Indeed, the group of ten is not yet the outer circle.

When we connect with the other groups of ten, we create among us all kinds of forms of connection that are able to reveal to us particular images of the Creator and make it somewhat possible for us to see Him.

This means that there is no other place to look for “there is none else beside Him” besides the general point of connection. This is a simple job in the consolidation of all people, and so it is written: “And all nations shall flow unto it”. (Isaiah 2:2)

The feeling that “there is none else beside Him” depends solely and only on the degree of our self-nullification, because we build this above the ego, like the roof of a Sukkah. From me, I create we, and from we, we create the Creator.

The ability to nullify yourself is determined by the environment and how much you bow your head towards it. At every moment, the Creator gives a person opportunities; the Upper Light works incessantly, but everything depends upon your agreement to be nullified, and whether or not you will use the opportunities given to you.

If you have not prepared yourself, you will receive the Light from the opposite side, meaning that instead of His approach, you will feel distance. That is how it happens in regular life. You are given some kind of unique opportunity to advance, and you accept it as a disturbance and an obstacle. You have not prepared for a leap like this, and so instead of a springboard, you see a high and impassable barrier.

There is freedom of choice in only one thing: nullifying before the environment, being included within it, and being like the friends in everything. Try to realize this potential. You are ready to do this! Your freedom of choice is only in this and you don’t need anything more. The Creator brings you to the good fortune,  and from this point, there is no way back, only forward.

Begin to enter the group, be included within it, and build a common Kli with the others in which you will discover the higher power. Our world is a world of action. We are found within in because it is possible to carry out actions within it without the agreement of the heart. In this is the entire foundation for our imaginary world, but this game makes it possible for us to advance and build our spiritual independence, and this is specifically thanks to our being deceivers.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If we connect in caring for a friend’s healing, the outcome will be positive and then we will feel proud of that. It turns out that it would be an egoistic receiving of reward.

Answer: It makes no difference. We must look at things realistically since the egoistic awakening and the reward are also necessary. We need to be sure that we are a force. We are not on the level of working without feedback, yet when the mere effort or working for the Creator without a reward is the reward for us.

At the moment, we cannot even do that and don’t feel the system on a level that allows us to work in a void. I operate and all my efforts disappear, while I must feel bestowal and certain limitations. Therefore, we need feedback.

Question: How can we improve the quality of our concern for our sick friend?

Answer: First of all, the concern we feel for him should teach us to be together in one thought, on one level. At the same time, we must hope that we will learn to add our intention to this thought, that we unite thanks to our concern and use this connection on the next level in order to think about the Creator and to establish the necessary conditions for His revelation. The Creator is not revealed in each of us, but in the connection between us.

Thus, when worrying about a sick friend, each one should feel not his own personal concern for him and how we should spur each one to feel that, but how we all are mutually connected. We want to feel the network of connections among us and the revelation of our concern for a friend in it. This is the only thing we care about since our networking is working on the correction.

The main thing for us is to feel the connection since it is our only collective soul in which the Creator later will be revealed. Thus, we move on to the next level, to the system that is external to us, and begin to feel the cobweb of the actual connection, not ourselves and our egoistic desires that are in its meeting points and its connection.

If we begin to work this way, we begin to affect the whole system. By reviving the cobweb of the connections between us, like the web system on the Internet, we begin to prepare it for the revelation of the Creator because the force that goes through the system that ties, revives, regulates, and manages everything is called the Creator.

When we begin to tune into this system of mutual connections, we will be able to feel the Internet web system that was created by people. Our connection will begin to affect it according to the law of equivalence of form and people all over the world suddenly will begin to wake up.

Can you imagine how everything will change? Just as a person’s thoughts constantly change, so will the mechanical, electric system of the mutual connections between people begin to change. The general egoistic human brain—the mutual connection that includes everything that is revealed today in the Internet web system—will begin to change in form thanks to the fact that we are becoming active parts in our spiritual system.

People all over the world suddenly will feel the new current that the system of the relations between them has entered: a new force, new thoughts, and a new moral state. They will feel it since the spiritual system will affect the lower web system like a root affects the branch. Therefore, we soon will discover very interesting options.

However, going back to the question about the sick friend, it is important that we understand that he is the factor that spurs us to collective bestowal unto the whole system so that we will be able to connect and bestow unto the Creator a form of bestowal that He expects of us so much.

We really want our friend to be with us constantly and to recover and return to the group. We constantly must think about it seriously together. The Creator provides us with a reason from above so that we will connect and focus all our thoughts and actions on our unity and eventually for the sake of the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Writing of Rabash

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It seems to us that a prayer is a canonized appeal to a “human-like” object. However, in this world, we understand the notion of prayer incorrectly. In fact, at any given moment, whatever we do, we always pray, meaning we express our desires. The expression of our desires is called a prayer.

Kabbalah is a system of relationships with the upper force that began at the time of Adam. It is the most ancient wisdom in the world that began 5,775 years ago; a human by the name of Adam initiated the relationships with the upper level of nature that is now called the Creator because it stands for the system that created us. This explains why the most basic and correct definitions should be borrowed from the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Adam called the manifestation of human desires a prayer because our constantly changing desires modify the system we live in. The system reacts to our prayers directly since we act within its boundaries. So, we constantly pray, thus the system continuously changes, thereby impacting us.

That’s why we have to correctly direct our desires, concentrate on the system we exist in, thus shaping joint intentions and promoting our internal advancement so that we can influence the system purposefully instead of chaotically impacting it by having diverse desires. For that, we unite in groups and encourage each other, thereby approaching certain intentions and desires, and defining a vision of our future. Our focused exertions affect the system greatly; therefore, it begins reacting to our influence very sensibly.

When we interact with each other, we start feeling a great need for the property of bestowal and love, the quality of integrality and mutual aid. When we effectively and strongly influence the system, it begins influencing us. This “feedback” can dramatically modify us even if we don’t have a desire to change deep inside us.

Because we are egoists, we have only one type of desire. That’s why we are unable to demand from the system that it change our desires and intentions. No matter what, we will always bring up our egoistic incentives. However, the system is built in a way that even if our request is not sincere, it still reacts to our demands correctly. This is because the shattering, the inversion from altruism to egoism, progressed from top to bottom. That’s why when we raise our requests from the bottom up, the system corrects them.

When we are together with the group, we unite; thus, each of us receives a desire to move correctly inside the system. When we impact the system by our willingness to change and rise above our egoistic nature, it responds to us.

Most important is to remember that we are constantly under the system’s influence. Even if we are not yet a corrected element of the system but we manage to stick together in a group and continue our efforts to self-correct, then we influence the entire system in a good way. In return, the system modifies us by its reciprocal influence. By doing so, the system corrects, revives, and rectifies itself.

This explains why everything depends on our prayer, meaning on our having good aspirations even though they are still very small, weak, and primitive. Our aspirations are being calculated within the system. It is a constant cumulative process in which all sorts of reciprocal corrections take place.

It’s essential not to cool down when working in the group. We should support each other, mutually enhance our individual desires, and take advantage of our egoistic properties such as jealousy, envy, and competition. We should use these features to reach the desirable results from others, particularly from our tens, thereby multiplying our desire to improve by dozens of times.

Every friend, becoming ten times greater, will tell the others about their new increased desires. Then, each one of our friends borrows a hundred times more from others, and so on and so forth. It means that when we are in a circle, there are no limitations in strengthening our desires to change.

Moreover, when one falls, others rise. This counterbalance keeps us on a constant move to correction. In this case, we truly can raise our huge desires to the system, urge it to change us and ask it to influence us by reciprocal reaction, the so-called Ohr Makif, the Returning Light, that gradually corrects us.

A self-tuning, self-correcting spiritual system, as any other type of a search engine, constantly explores how to better react to us, absorb us, adapt us to it so that we completely correct and turn into its useful elements. This is how it is built.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot teaches us that the system of the upper worlds consists of 125 levels: five worlds each of which includes five discrete multifunctional blocks (Partzufim), and  each block in turn consisting of five sub-levels (Sefirot). It is a very flexible system that quickly adapts to our demands. When we strive to coordinate with it through our desires and become similar to it, rise to its highest levels and enter a state of absolute homeostasis, connected with it, then the system immediately reacts to our desires and corrects us in a certain way so that we turn into its active, useful, and internal components.

Then we begin controlling the system due to the fact that previously we were its corrupt elements, whereas at this point we approach a state of correction. This is an extraordinary, miraculous property: If an uncorrected particle strives to self-correct, it influences the entire system much stronger than its already corrected elements.

Due to the fact that we are positioned between the system’s corrupt and corrected layers, we have a chance to sense, understand, analyze, and synthesize the properties and possibilities that are a full degree higher than the mechanistic system itself. Our egoistic “I” that we strive to alter helps us become a totally different entity and rise to a new level in the structure of the higher force that created the entire system. I rise above the system and become similar to the property of bestowal and love, to the authentic quality of everything there is, to the Creator.
[145421]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

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Question: It is said in Shamati #5 that the properties of Lishma (for the sake of bestowal to others and to the Creator) are awakened from Above. If this property appears in us “on its own,” without our participation, then why do we need to apply efforts, i.e., try to awaken this property from below?

Answer: The thing is that without our participation, no changes will happen to our egoistic, receiving nature. We won’t start caring for others, nor will we orient ourselves to serve them.

This mission is impossible in this material world. Any system, even a purely mechanical one, requires some energy to perform work. It always loses a certain amount of energy.

The only exceptions to this rule are low-temperature, superconducting systems in which upon certain conditions there appears a property that doesn’t allow the system to consume energy for its own sake, but makes it give the energy away. This example sheds some light on what “acting for the sake of others” means.

We are constructed in a way that we always have to gain something. Without this feeling, we cannot do anything at all. That’s why changing our nature to its opposite, bestowal, seems unfeasible and incredible to us.

We should learn how to feel other’s desires and how to fulfill them. We have to regard ourselves as a remedy to fill others. It’s not natural for this world, nor does it exist at the inanimate, vegetative, animate, or speaking levels.

That’s why Baal HaSulam raises a question about how to acquire the property for the sake of the Creator, i.e., how can we start caring for absolute strangers with whom we have nothing in common and to whom we don’t have the slightest feelings that even remotely remind us, let’s say, of the relationship between a mother and a child. This situation implies an absolutely clear understanding that we are acting without any feasible possibility to get anything in return.

Unless we acknowledge that our nature is a hundred percent egoistic, we won’t ever understand how it is possible to go through such an inversion. A human brain is incapable of comprehending how this kind of inversion can take place in this material world.

Anything that happens to us teaches us that our work that we conduct on ourselves and things that we are trying to achieve in the group is always done solely for the sake of getting a reward. It can be a “restitution” that compensates us for only 1% of our efforts; the other 99% of our activities we do for the sake of others. Still, anything we ever do is done only because of this 1%.

For example, many steam and mechanical engines have efficiency not higher than 3-5%, but they were created specifically to perform with this level of efficiency. That’s why for us 1% has a huge significance. All we do is just for this 1%. If not for this 1%, we won’t be able to give 99% to others.

The question is: Do we really work to get 1% and for this kind of reward we involuntarily give away 99%? Let’s say, I have a boss who exploits me and pays me the minimum wage, but this wage somehow supports my existence. On the contrary, the work I do for my boss equals 99%, and I get back only 1% even though I don’t approve of this state of affairs. However, I won’t be able to exist without this 1%. If I don’t understand this “plan,” I won’t be able to work for my boss at all.

If we explore ourselves deeply enough, we’ll see that in order to achieve complete bestowal without receiving anything for our own sake, we are unable to make a single move, our body just won’t let us! Therefore, it’s possible to come to a state of absolute bestowal only under a special influence from Above.

Those who are subject to this kind of impact go through the process of internal inversion and relate to themselves in a totally different way. That’s why it is said: “Try and see how beautiful the Creator is” since the property of complete bestowal “outside ourselves” is a quality of the Creator.

If it is so, then we just have to understand why we should apply all kinds of efforts, follow numerous tips, try to reach the property of complete bestowal even if we know that no advice can ever help us to re-arrange ourselves unless the upper force descends and corrects us, thus giving us a chance to work for the sake of others.

In this case, why should we keep trying? The thing is that each one of us has a responsibility to apply maximal efforts and strive to correct  ourselves using any remedies that are available to us. Exertions that we make are called “a prayer.” In other words, a prayer is a demonstration of our intentions and desires. A prayer is a manifestation of what in fact we are aspiring to.
[145427]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

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