Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 21: But as we have said, the whole substance of creation, both the substance of spiritual objects and the substance of corporeal objects, is no more and no less than a will to receive.

Studying reality, we see that all the elements tend to attract everything useful and reject everything harmful. This is the desire to receive acting in this manner at all levels beginning from the elementary particles and molecules. Everything leans to the most convenient of all possible states.

In the world around us, we observe various forms of the desire to receive pursuing everything for its own benefit each moment. The rock that was thrown falls, the water flows down, the wind balances pressure, all thereby achieving a state of rest.

Every particle of the universe, every ensemble of particles, everything in the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, as well as people, all of this integral system and each of its parts, desire to come to its most comfortable state.

That is the goal of the desire to receive. Everyone always chooses the greatest good or the less of the two evils. However in nature, on its first three degrees, which stem from the Root, this law is manifested instinctively, and the fourth degree is characterized by its own specific initiatives.

In its first three phases, it also develops instinctively in a different way, without freedom of will, but by feelings. Without choosing, the desire still strives forward, embarks on a quest, encourages science, education, industry, commerce, etc. Today, it enters the fourth phase, which makes our time so special.

So, we see only the desire to receive, in its thickness, in sections along the axes, throughout its history. There is nothing but the desire and its action. However as a rule, we do not ask questions about the desire to receive, do not go into the principles of its actions. We just want to enjoy. Why would a person investigate the causes, mechanisms, and consequences? The main thing is pleasure as it is.

However, when the pleasure disappears, when it is out of reach, when trouble and suffering come, then we are forced to start studying: “Why do we feel bad? What can we do? How can we enjoy?” In hopelessness, the mind begins to act and seeks a solution. It is said, “A lot of wisdom—many sorrows.” On the other hand, we cannot obtain knowledge without these sorrows.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 21: …for the will in any essence creates needs, and the needs create thoughts and concepts so as to obtain those needs, which the will to receive demands.

And as human desires differ from one another, so do their needs, thoughts, and ideas.

Our mind serves the desire. The Reshimot (reminiscences) that awaken and rise fill us with different desires, and the mind begins to fulfill these desires in order to attain them.

We may believe that we are very clever and that our mind encompasses all of reality, but if we are not interested in something, if it doesn’t concern us, then our mind also passes it by. It is because it is a slave. If we want something on the corporeal level, it acts to satisfy the desire relating to food, sex, or family. If a desire for respect awakens, then it is drawn to this problem and ignores other needs. It is the same when it comes to domination or money, and in general, all different combinations of our demands. A person is motivated by a combination of different desires, and the mind always operates according to the spectrum of different desires.

On the whole, we have no truly free mind. It can never be totally cold and objective, detached from feelings, as we want or think that it is. It is merely a servant of the desire.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We are the ones who must lead the entire world to correction since we live in the age of the full redemption from the ego for the entire world for every human being. This is why we discover a global world and the integral mutual connection between all its parts, like in an analog system. Everyone is incorporated in one another, dependent on each other, and so, there cannot be a correction in one part of the world without being in the other parts.

The crisis is comprehensive and covers all areas of our life, snarling all the problems into one. It is impossible to correct anything if we don’t correct everything. We cannot do anything that is beneficial in the world if we don’t examine the whole system. It may not be very clear today, but this is actually the reason that all our plans keep failing. We spend billions on a certain action, and eventually it leads to nothing, although we really had good intentions.

The point is that we wanted to do good in one place, but we didn’t take into account all the other things that are connected to it because we don’t have an integral perspective. We look at some small part and we think that this is it! But, in fact, there are threads on the reverse side of the picture that we want to correct that tie it to endless other things. However, we don’t see them! So we make efforts to correct this picture, but everything disappears as if into a bottomless pit, as if water seeping into sand without causing any positive results.

This happens in all areas: in politics, in education, in the family, in ecology, and even when it comes to man, himself, who breaks down more and more. However, we cannot correct anything. We begin to deal with one problem, leap to the next and to a third one, and then everything falls apart and disintegrates like decayed, rotted tissue. This is the state the world is in now. People really do want to correct it, but they despair of their attempts since they lack the integral perspective that allows them to see how everything is connected.

We must correct ourselves since the moment we see how everything is connected, we will be able to convey the force of correction through us. We don’t need anything but that. First, we regarded the entire world linearly, dealt directly with every problem and succeeded, but now it doesn’t work anymore. We lack the integral perspective, the integral sense! This is what we teach in the integral courses so that everyone will be able to see the real picture.

We will see a different world, the inner connections that are concealed behind the external picture of the world, all the intricate tangled webs, our mutual interdependence on one another, and then we will begin to attain the wisdom, the knowledge, and the thought of creation that is in every part of reality. This is called the illumination of the Shechina, the revelation of the Shechina, when we see how everything that breathes is mutually connected and depends on each other. The whole world undulates like waves of the sea carrying great masses of information, intentions, thoughts, and the idea of how everything is interconnected.

We must actually convey all this to people and it all goes through us. Thus, they will improve their lives in this world during the seventy years that they are given. They will connect to the spiritual world and will attain the Light through their connection with us, each according to his level of development. All the differences will exist only until the end of correction, and then they all will connect into one general circle and become one whole.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14,, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: What should we wait for and expect from The Book of Zohar during the lesson?

Answer: I am not familiar with a book that is more picturesque, beautiful, and romantic than The Book of Zohar. It grasps all the qualities and senses of a person and plays upon their strings.

There are various types of literature: poems, novels, historical and scientific books. But their writers are unable to express something more than our very limited material level. And our words are not prepared to convey anything else.

But when you are reading The Zohar you arrange your interior according to what The Book says, The Book opens a door into yourself for you. And there, deep within, it gives you life, paints a picture, gives an example of what is written in its words and letters.

Nothing in reality is equivalent to The Book of Zohar; nothing rises to that height of artistry with which it was written. The book, Shamati touches something inside you, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, the Gemara, also produce certain actions inside you. And you can read the Shulchan Aruch (The Code of Laws) and feel inner movements according to the mutual cooperation between the Light and vessels. But all of this is “prose” compared to The Zohar, compared to its “lyrics” mixed with unmatched feeling.

And Baal HaSulam, with his commentary, entered into the flow of The Zohar, connected to the souls who wrote it. When I read the Sulam Commentary, I felt more and more clearly that this is the result of the work of all ten authors who wrote The Zohar, and in our day this is expressed only through Baal HaSulam. It’s as if they are singing in a choir, in a chapel, completing and continuing each other, and each one continues the music and inserts his notes precisely where required.

This is what a real book is: spiritual revelation within a person. The Book prepares a person, directs, arranges, and fills him. It does everything, and the person only feels the result of what The Book does in him.

The Book activates the person and passes him through a series of states. You don’t need anything besides that. It’s developed in you, changes you, and leads you forward. All parts of the spectacle that you feel within yourself are called The Book. These are not some pages that are printed in a print shop.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/14, The Zohar

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Question: Can I adhere to the center of the group if I cannot do any professional work in the construction of the new building but simply make sandwiches for the friends?

Answer: Sure, why not? You prepare sandwiches in order to delight the friends.

We use to celebrate Passover at Rabash’s according to the customs and the rules of Baal HaSulam, which were very tough and hard to fulfill. Rabash used to drink about 10 cups of coffee a day. This was customary with the people of Jerusalem. In order to have coffee that can be used at Passover we had to check every bean and make sure there were no worms in it; we had to check 15 kilos of coffee beans that way.

As you know I am very impatient and it was torture for me to sit and examine coffee beans for hours. I smoked more cigarettes than the coffee beans that I checked. So Rabash said: “Come, I will teach you how to do it.” It was the first year that I studied with him. He sat opposite me at the table on which a huge pile of beans was mounded; he took one bean, looked at it, and said: “I am checking this bean so that my friends will be able to drink a cup of coffee. I want to do it for them,” and then he put the bean aside. Then he took another bean and said: “I am checking this bean so that my teacher will be able to drink a cup of coffee! I am doing that for him!” and thus bean after bean…

If you are making sandwiches then you certainly have an opportunity to say these words many times. The fact of whether you possess certain skills or not is not up to you. It it said: “It isn’t the wise who learns.” So it doesn’t matter if you are not very wise. Each of us was given the means that he needs and so you shouldn’t feel sorry about your abilities. Every property a person has must be correct and that’s the way it should be. Otherwise, a person’s physical abilities and the environment would not be compatible with the root of his soul.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/13, Shamati #72 “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”

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The time has arrived for us to finally understand and simply chisel it into us: To the degree that there is evil, so there is good, and to the degree that there is good, so there is evil. We must respect and value both of them, accept them with gratitude and kiss the rod that strikes us and those who hate us. We only need to know how to balance our states and always yearn for a direction of greater balance, for connection with the Creator.

Someone who doesn’t understand this principle is in one line. These are the ones who live in our world where everyone is attracted to the good and flees and hides from the bad. And in the life of the Kabbalists is to accept evil as good, as a compulsory component, and relate to both of them as coming from the Creator. And we only need to balance them so that both the good and the evil will be completely equivalent for us.

A person is obliged to be thankful and to bless the evil like the good because he understands that they both only come to raise him to a higher spiritual level. And there is no other reason for the existence of evil, but only to make it possible for the creature to exist. For if there were only good, we could not discern it, for good is the Creator. In order to feel Him, I must first be composed of an opposite nature, of the force that is opposite to Him, that is, evil.

And then, between my evil and His good, I assemble a point that is called the point of adhesion. And that is how we reach the balanced state. And balance is achieved precisely in the connection between us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/13, Shamati #72 “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Workshop 

The Book of Zohar— Selected Excerpts

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  “Histaklut Pnimit,” Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 10, Item 128

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 28

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 21: Do not be led astray by the philosophers who say that the very essence of the soul is an intellectual substance, and that it only exists through the concepts it learns, that it grows through them, and that they are its very essence.

According to philosophers, seeing only this world, we also attain something spiritual. Based on what do they think so? On the basis of reasoning. They do not know and they did not study nature, but only scholasticism of their own mind, and that is why they obviously have no real knowledge. Their sphere is fantasy, not based on any empirical study and within the confines of theorizing.

Hence, the philosophical view of the human soul is, “If we reflect and debate about the soul, then we have contact with it.”

On the other hand, Kabbalists explain that all this is one big lie. No one in our world has the soul. In order to obtain the soul, one has to obtain the property of bestowal that is above our desire, above our nature. He who has achieved this has the soul and who has not does not have it.

We still must figure out what the current existence that we call “life” is. Either way, there is no connection between our current desires and the soul. After all, the soul is the desire to bestow, and cannot relate to us. In our perception, we need to separate these two parts by a truly “iron wall.”

Either everything in a person is based on the earthly, “animal” desires, or he is on the other side and governs them. In this case, all their actions are not comparable with his desire to bestow, with the possibility of bestowal. This desire, this action, is called the soul, which grows ascending to the 125 rungs of the spiritual ladder.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What must I distinguish in my life as the main thing? What should I pay attention to first?

Answer: Your attention should be focused on the only thing: praying for others. Let people feel good in unity, good because the Creator brings them good and enjoys it.

Question: And what about the problems in other areas of my life?

Answer: It seems that your prayer is not yet complete. The Creator wants you to perfect it, and that is why He “pokes” you here and there, aiming you at the goal. If you are not sensitive enough or are thick-skinned or stubborn, then you need to have some “touches to the picture” added to give the desired vector. Indeed, the farther you advance toward the goal, the more precise the corrections should be. So, with every step, the pokings will be more sensitive to guide you precisely on course.

Question: How can I use them?

Answer: We need to accept them with love. After all, they are like the indications of the navigator that leads you along the route. How is it possible to manage without them? Would you understand or feel where your next turn is? You need these painful sensations: shakes, frustration, and rejection.

Every time, you strive to the goal with their help, through the friends, through the group, and through the world, keeping a course only at the Creator in order to bring Him this entire vessel. The vessel can make the correction and thanks to it, will be fully imbued with the pleasure of the Creator only in order to bring Him pleasure. The entire world will want to open itself so that the Creator fills it with goodness, and we will be able to turn everything into bestowal unto Him.

How can we advance toward this bestowal? How can we learn this?—above the unpleasant things. If you cannot give up what feels good to you now and reduce the degree of comfort in the desire to receive, how will you be able to give up pleasure later? How will you convert it into bestowal? That is why we must go through the stages of development.

Question: This means that troubles come to me so that it is easier to give up pleasant things?

Answer: Not at all. We use them for something else. They come in your sensation, are manifested in the desires where there is no awareness of the greatness of the Creator. If you had felt the importance of the Creator in them, you would not have felt pain. Every unpleasant sensation hides a lack of importance of the Creator and nothing else. As soon as you feel that He is important, any discomfort disappears. Similarly, her own state is not important to a mother as long as her child is well. As it is written, “Love covers all transgressions.”

So, we must pray for friends and for the entire world. However, we cannot just sit and pray. I need to work in the group to come to the necessary prayer. A prayer is the result of all my actions, all my efforts. I help friends and help society understanding that the only help I am capable of is to direct others to the single goal.

Material efforts are intended eventually to establish connection with people and bring them to the method that gives the right approach. Charity does not in itself change the world for the better, and governments are also powerless in this. That is why we must study the system of the universe and understand that there is only one really effective means: bringing people together to pray for them.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Our goal is to reach equivalence and harmony with the Light, in other words, to reach the completion of correction, to eternal love and bestowal. This state requires our awareness and sensation of, and elevation to all the required characteristics in order to understand what we are lacking to resemble the Light, which inner changes we must go through.

That is, all of our work is to understand what I am feeling now and what I would be feeling in the corrected state. In every state I must react like the Light.

At every moment of my life, I must yearn for balance with it, meaning, to equivalence of form. For this, first of all, it is necessary to be aware of the properties of the Light. However, in the meantime, we are in concealment and don’t feel the Light as long as we have not reached equivalence of form with it, and how can I resemble the Light if I don’t feel it?

Here, a condition saves us which was created especially for us: this world. It is a wonder that doesn’t exist in any of the other worlds. Here, in this world, even though I am in the complete shattering, completely opposite to the Light, in spite of it all, I have the possibility of discovering desires that, like me, are searching for equivalence with the Light. Like me, they receive this aspiration from Above, this drop of semen, this “point in the heart,” without which this aspiration would not be awakened.

From this point, we already can begin with actions similar to the Light. That is, when we interact with one another, we can create from ourselves an example of what is called the action of the Light: bestowal, love, mutual help, mutual cooperation, and awakening. We have the opportunity of doing those actions that the Light does with us to warm each other a bit, to agitate, meaning to arouse desire and envy in a friend.

Instead of the Light, the Creator, we get the group. The Creator brings the person to the good fortune and says, “Take it!” In other words, He brings him to a laboratory, puts him into the model through which we can advance with the help of the friends in spite of our shattered, ruined state. The Creator brings you to them, and now you begin to act!

Everything else depends upon you, upon the manner in which you do the work and relate to the group as to the Creator who bestows to you. When you begin the dialog, the reciprocal work, with the group, you will clarify how the group influences you and you influence the group. Then, it is possible to rise together.

So, we must reach a state that is called Arvut (mutual guarantee) that obligates mutual help and mutual influence by everyone for every member of the group. We present ourselves before every friend as the bestowal of the Light, of the Creator upon him, and he must react to us like a creature that wants to correct himself and resemble the Light.

In other words, each one wants to identify with the group, to be connected, to adhere to it, to become one man with one heart, with one mind. That is, I must melt into the friends absolutely so that nothing will be left of me. I want to immerse into the group. That is what each one must do, and with this, everyone is helping everyone.

As a result of this, after the last drop of effort, we truly become one man with one heart. This drop is like the last bite we eat at a meal, and, after it comes the satiety, and we feel that we have filled ourselves. In this way, we complete a full HaVaYaH, ten Sefirot. You see, only the last phase, Malchut de Malchut, feels, understands, and knows with whom it is dealing, why and how it must behave, how it is constructed, how the Creator is constructed, and what must be done in response if it gets everything from Him: both the Light and the desire.

So Arvut is the first stage—connection into a single whole—and it seems that there is nothing more to do. However, we understand that, in the meantime, these are just words, as it is said, “the end of the action, is in the initial thought.” In thoughts, we already want to reach the final outcome, but you must go by a path that can be long. You see, I must build myself, and only then will I recognize the Creator.

Everything is created from Above in a perfected form, but the creature must attain this perfection, be aware of the Creator, become like Him, understand Him to His entire depth, and resemble Him in all his actions. You see, if the state of the creature is less than complete equivalence with the Creator, it is not considered that the Creator has been beneficial to him.

We must pass through all of these stages, and as long as we have not finished the previous stage, we cannot pass to the next stage. Therefore, from the beginning, we are talking about Arvut, about attaining equivalence of form with the Creator, about harmony with nature: coupling, embracing, kissing, all expressions of equivalence of form with the Creator, and in spite of it all, these are all still words, and now we begin to construct this state; that is, we enter into the second stage and beyond. Overall, it is possible to discover the nine stages on the way to spiritual discovery.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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