It is impossible to check and judge our states according to our feelings. A pregnant woman may not feel so good sometimes, but does she want to abort? On the contrary, she wants to continue! The goal is to be a mother, to have a child and hold the baby in her arms, and that compensates and justifies all the pain and discomfort that she feels.

The body suffers; the whole period of pregnancy and giving birth is not easy and may be tragic, dangerous, and critical. If an alien from outer space who knows nothing about our life on earth would see this, he would be shocked by the torture the poor woman is being put through, but we are happy and delighted by the whole process of pregnancy and the birth of a baby.

We are advancing towards the birth of a new level, so what do we lack in order to be glad in every state? We should see “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my adversaries,” as it says in Psalms 23: “my enemies,” who are in me so that they will see it. I don’t want to reassure them by that and vice-versa, rather, to tease them and to praise the goal.

If you don’t feel a greater impression than you felt yesterday, it means that you lack the support of the group. The whole group lacks the force of unity in order to empower each individual and everyone together, in order to survive the current state.
[124517]
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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Question: Many people watch our programs on TV but they have never contacted us and have never attended a convention. Should they do so? Perhaps what they experience when they watch our programs is enough for them.

Answer: I receive many emails with such questions every day. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Israel and all over the world who watch our shows on TV or on the Internet. How is this kind of participation different from actual physical participation?

You can judge by the last events: A group of friends got together and decided that they have to develop the new method of education. As a result, they delved into the educational process and grew more and more excited as new horizons opened up before them. Eventually they were excited about the potential they found in the wisdom of Kabbalah since education is the essence of changing a person.

The still, vegetative, and animate nature have developed for ages. But here we are talking about very rapid and meaningful changes, the transition from the animate level to the human level.

Compared to the previous form of evolution, these two levels come one after the other in the opposite order of evolution. This oppositeness is fulfilled by the Light that Reforms, and it is possible when people connect if they are together, if they touch one another, if they are in a circle breathing the same air, otherwise it won’t work.

So I turn to all those who are used to watching us on a screen and especially on a TV screen. According to the data the cable companies have, there are hundreds of thousands of such people in Israel. You are our loyal viewers; you are the ones who spend a lot of time watching our programs. I warmly recommend that you don’t miss this opportunity. It’s possible to go through a whole level by one leap, as it is said: “a person who attains his world in one hour.” Come to the convention in February and you will be able to feel and to discover what you have been hearing for quite a while now but don’t feel and don’t understand yet. It will truly be something new, a revelation of a whole world. It’s a pity if you miss this opportunity.

I turn to you as a one who understands what can be acquired in the two or three days that you will spend with us. We hope that you, the viewers of channel 66, will also be with us in Tel Aviv on February 5 – 7, 2014, together with the thousands who will come from all over the world.

I also turn to our friends all over the world, of course. Hurry up and buy a ticket and come. You can also participate in the Arava convention, in the education convention and The Zohar convention. We are expecting you. The preparation has already started and we will support it and undoubtedly fulfill everything that we have heard. It’s actually happening now. Let’s hope it will happen for everyone.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 133

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, Parashat, “VaYikahel,” “The Ascent of the Prayer,” Item 131

Talmud Eser Sefirot, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 8, Item 87/2

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 15

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We should speak about the greatness of the goal in the group, about our desire to rise above our nature, which we cannot remain in any longer, and about the need to reach connection between us. We have enough troubles. If we want to improve our lives in this world, we have to draw positive forces, a positive attitude regarding our connection.

I turn to all the friends so that together we will discuss how we can reach this connection. We have to do our best to imagine the good connection that existed before the breaking of the vessels when there was one soul, one vessel, one thought, and one feeling for all, so that everyone will feel the others as if we belong to one body and are in it, which is called “as one man in one heart.”

Everyone, even if he feels himself, will perceive the others as cells in one organ, and that each cell gives to others and bestows upon them so that the whole body will function properly. If we understand that this should be our inclination in order to attain a state in which the Creator is revealed, Godliness, the Upper force, spirituality, then all the means and the opportunities are in our hands. The Creator puts our hands on the fate and says: “Accept it as goodness.”

The whole world supports us in this work to such an extent that life is becoming hard and meaningless. However, on the other hand, there is a new illuminated road that opens up before us and a delightful and special opportunity. Thus we build an ark in which we can save ourselves and perhaps even the whole world from the flood that is approaching and which is rising higher and higher. In the meantime, this flood only scares and threatens us from a distance, but it’s already felt here and there spreading chaos and helplessness.

In our first meeting with a group or with the public, we have to explain that spirituality is totally based on the power of mutual guarantee. It is purposeful that we first feel distant from one another, opposite from one another, hate and are repulsed by one another. It is on purpose that we are all at the foot of Mt. Sinai in a state of mutual hate, like the students of Rabbi Simon.

But it’s a good state, since by overcoming it, we can acquire the Godly attributes. As created beings, we can only feel a state of “the advantage of the Light from the darkness.” If we have these two discernments, then in the contrast between them we can see and feel one another. We cannot see only Light or only darkness. But we can see the Light in contrast to the darkness or the darkness in contrast to the Light. Therefore, the Creator has arranged this state for us so that we will be able to attain, feel, understand, and attain Godliness.

This is the goal of our first gathering. This is where a group begins. If we want to start the spiritual path, we have to know that it starts from attaining the first condition: the attainment of mutual guarantee. The attainment of mutual guarantee is also divided into several stages: first we should understand and accept things and then start fulfilling it gradually until we reach mutual guarantee. This is actually the first phase.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/13

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Question: The air is always full of love during our conventions, how can we intensify the feeling of love before the convention in February? How can we maximize it? How can we absorb the warmth that envelops you and be filled by it?

Answer: There is only one way to do it: preparation. The creation itself is an indication of that. I am equipped with a desire, with excitement, I worry because I want to fulfill the most important thing, and not only in this life but in all my reincarnations. I have already come to this world so many times that I don’t want to be born again and live here. Even egoistically without an intention of in order to bestow, without any connection to the Creator, but simply. So I have to see this as an unprecedented opportunity, a unique irrevocable opportunity.

What will I gain from this convention that cannot happen anywhere else? There are no such events in our life that can push me so strongly forward along the spiritual path.

Question: What should our preparation focus on? What should my yearning focus on?

Answer: On mutual connection. Through this connection, I will receive what everyone attains and gains. I envy them, I envy the friends who prepare this whole event for us, and I yearn to be incorporated.

It is said: “There is a person who attains his spiritual world in an hour.” So I have come here in order to attain everything the friends have attained. This is possible. In spirituality, like in connected vessels, the abundance is poured from one vessel to another. If I connect to someone who is great, I am also great. This is the rule, so let’s do it.

This is how I want to work and this is the only reason I am coming to the convention. We have another month of such intensive preparation. A person who wants to will be ready to attain his world.
[124264]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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It is desirable for the word “Arvut (mutual guarantee)” and all the terms of this concept to became closer and as clear to us as possible. Therefore, we must begin to work on this more and reveal the connection it assumes between us.

Everyone should be above the others in order to take care of them and set the right example. Everyone should feel below others in order to get an awakening and inspiration from them because a person will not have the strength to advance without this. And everyone should be concerned that we are absolutely equal, no more and no less—absolutely equal!

On this path, we will start to feel each other internally. I will not see a friend as a material body. I’ll suddenly cease to distinguish his face; it will disappear. I will not notice his clothes and external features. Then, I will even stop seeing his qualities, his character, the habits which first constituted his image for me. I will not relate to an external image, not to his character, behavior, and qualities derived from birth or acquired throughout life.

I will not see his clothes, his physical body, or character traits, but only the innermost point that is called the opposite side of the holy soul. Of course it is still uncorrected, but yet it wants very much to draw itself to the Surrounding Light so that it becomes corrected.

This point is called the point in the heart. The connection between our points, the mutual guarantee, is the means for drawing the Light. This is how we need to see every friend instead of bodies, character traits, or demeanor. All of this is given to a friend from Above and makes him act in this way, or I see him like this “to the extent of my own flaws.” But the main thing is to see the inner point and the desire to unite with it.

The connection of these points into one whole is called a Minyan. It is a union of points in the heart that are ready to act and apply all possible efforts in order to achieve similarity with the Upper Light. It begins to shine on them to the extent of their similarity and yearning for the property of the Light. The Lights always exists; the movements occur only inside the desire.

Everything depends on the connection of the inner points in the heart that attract the Light, on its strength and quality, the reason why we want to connect, and how we overcome obstacles. As soon as we fulfill the required measure of efforts (Seah), we obtain a sufficiently strong desire to unite; the Light completes our first action of unity and brings us to the first adhesion (Zivug), the first contact with the Creator.

Thus we realize our mutual guarantee; that is, we are “together,” so much in guarantee for each other that we turn into one whole. This is the first spiritual degree in which we reveal the upper world, the upper force, the true reality that is above the one in which we are now. This world appears illusory to us like in a dream.

The first correct attitude is to exit oneself from one’s body and garments, all egoistic desires, thoughts, and habits, all innate or acquired qualities. I feel only the point in the heart and want to glue it to the friends. This means that I am going towards the mutual guarantee, the first point of unity.

Thus connected by the Upper Light, we reach the first vessel. All our points are opposite to unity, but our pressure, the tension created between these points reveals to us how much we are inherently not able to connect, and at the same time we want to.

Baal HaSulam describes this state in “Letter 19” in the example of the relationship between a man and a woman who deliberately separate and cannot connect, but at the same time, feel a great desire to be together. As a result, this leads to an explosion of the connecting force overcoming the force of separation, and then we reach unity. “And his seed is for the good,” this is our first spiritual state called birth. In our world, children are born as a result of the connection between a man and a woman, and in the spiritual world, the result of our adhesion is the birth of a new state.
[124351]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/13, Preparation for the Convention

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The Book of Zohar, “VaYikhael,” Item 131: …It has also been clarified that while Bina and TM ascend and rise to their degree from the firmament and above, they take with them the lower degree that clothed them while they were fallen in her, and raise her above the firmament, as well.

Question: Who are the “upper” and who are the “lower?”

Answer: There is a sea of the Upper Light that fills everything equally. There are different desires in it that also fill the Upper Light and it is in them, in these desires. These desires of the one created being begin to operate together with the Lights that they reveal independently. Each desire discovers a Light in him since they are separate from one another.

The sequence of states that they go through is called “the correction of creation.” Before that there was a preparation for the corruption of creation: The world of AK, the world of Nekudim, the breaking, the correction of the worlds of ABYA, and then the birth of first man (Adam HaRishon), the sin of the tree of knowledge, and the relative correction of first man, to such an extent that it brought him to the beginning of the recognition of evil.

From this point onwards, from that state, from that discernment, onwards, everything that happens in the relations between the desires and the Lights is a relation called the correction of creation, which is the state we are in. This is the only thing we speak about. The correction is simple: How to balance the vessels, the desires, with the Lights, so that the Lights and the vessels will both feel good and thus reach an equivalence of form.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/13, The Zohar

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It is said that “confidence is the clothing for the Light.” Confidence refers to the Returning Light, the Light of Hassadim, a state of a righteous who doesn’t even have a shirt but doesn’t need one either, because he has such a strong Light of confidence.

We don’t understand this since our whole world exists by the force of receiving. The Creator is the force of bestowal, the spiritual world, that is our spiritual state which is in accordance with the Creator, means that we with our force of receiving acquire the Creator’s force of bestowal and manage to integrate these two forces in us.

The spiritual world, which means our spiritual state, is established when we balance these two forces. We don’t understand what the force of bestowal is. It’s a totally different heart and mind. It isn’t just an opposite state that we can somehow imagine as being like the opposite of our state. It’s impossible to imagine it since there is nothing in us that belongs to bestowal, to giving. Whatever we consider bestowal is not bestowal at all.

Therefore, it says: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Acquiring a second nature is called birth, redemption, as it it written: “I have seen an opposite world.” The force of bestowal is attained from Above. Only when the Reforming Light comes do we feel and understand what it is by starting to work with it to some extent.

Our first impression of the Light that Reforms is a certain feeling of freedom, of being independent of the desire to receive, of the desire to fill myself, of worrying about myself, of the constant feeling of my vessel, of the deficiency, of looking for something else that can fill me. Once we experience the first feeling of freedom, we also have a feeling of confidence. We stop examining and checking our vessel, how full it is and to what extent it needs a filling, and measuring everything with regard to myself.

We stop asking, “What have I got?” and begin to ask, “What can I give?” or at least try to do so. We receive the Light that Reforms that raises us and brings us to a level on which we become independent of our desire to receive. This means that one acquires confidence. The more we can restrict ourselves and the higher we raise the Returning Light by wanting to fulfill bestowal by ourselves, the more we acquire the force of confidence and the Light of Hassadim in which we can reveal the Creator.
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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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Question: How is the demand to justify everything that happens related to the usual scientific approach of Kabbalah?

Answer: It refers to how we should see reality correctly. This is what we are taught. A scientist may try to change the tools he has: the chemicals, if it’s an experiment in chemistry or the microscopes or the telescopes, but here he is told that if he wants to reach the initial cause of the phenomena, he can do so only by an equivalence of form.

This way is the only way to start working with the two forces of nature: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal, the universal plus and minus. These two forces are the basis of all of creation. It’s possible to discover them only through the equivalence and the balance of the two, which is attained by the gradual equivalence between them.

We will discover that these two forces meet and contradict one another inside us. Whatever we feel now, our existence and the existence of this whole world, is a result of these two forces that come together and cannot reach a state of balance between them. But this imbalance is revealed in a range that we can discover. If we can balance these two forces now, we become the middle line that goes between them and includes the two inside us. Then we will see the real state.

By the right connection and the integration of the two, by bringing them to the equivalence of form, by serving as an adaptor in the middle, we establish the point of our existence in which reality opens up before us at this point, on this level, on this ladder, in the middle line. Thus we discover the picture of the true reality. This is called the wisdom of Kabbalah: the balance on the middle line at every point of our existence.

Such a scientist is called a Kabbalist. One who reaches the balance of forces and who controls them, checking and studying them and working with them through his research, his exertion, his work with the innermost tools, with the desires, not with external equipment, but with his inner vessels.

It turns out that he doesn’t need physics, chemistry, or all the other external sciences, since he changes nature from its basis. He doesn’t need all the superficial methods in order to manage his life and to control some natural phenomena. This is so awkward and futile compared to the state he is in.

Justifying every state means reaching the root of creation in every state, on every level. When these two forces are balanced, I see how the force of bestowal is dressed in the force of receiving according to the law of equivalence of form between them. Then I see what happens in the force of bestowal, in the created being as he identifies with and is adhered to the upper force of bestowal, to the Creator. Then I justify the creation as the created being reaches the level of the Creator, which means the state of the absolute good and benevolent.

In the meantime, as long as I haven’t reached a correction in which I feel and discover the Creator as the good and benevolent, my states are called work states. I have to justify them too, which means to try and reach the justification. I cannot say that the Creator is good and benevolent and at the same time cry out in pain. It is only “from Your actions we shall know You.” I don’t know what the good and the benevolent is if I haven’t attained it. The good and the benevolent is different in every state.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/13, Shamati #15 “What Is Other Gods in the Work”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “9 Steps”

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, Parashat, “VaYikahel,” “The Ascent of the Prayer,” Item 131

Talmud Eser Sefirot, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 7, Item 85

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 13

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