Spiritual development is in feelings because the material of creation is the desire to enjoy. And we can use the mind only on condition that it helps us to correct desire. Otherwise, it can hurt us.

Therefore, it’s said that “there is none wiser than the experienced.” That is, first you need to go through all kinds of feelings and impressions in your desire to enjoy and then from this you obtain wisdom. We cannot work in the mind with what we have not experienced in our desire, that’s called philosophy, which has no real basis. After all, everything is based on the material of desire.

States are changing every second because, if a state does not change, then time is not moving. Any state changes due to the fact that first we cancel ourselves before the influence of the Light. All the work is done by the Light: The Light is primary. It creates a desire, affects, and changes it. We are only required to accept the action of the Light, let it enter, we express our consent, a request, a prayer, to persuade it to do its work.

It all depends on our state: whether we demand like babies or ask like adults. There are many types of relationships between the Light and a person, or rather, the desire for the Light, asking the Light to influence it and make some action on it.

Why is it necessary that the desire turns to the Light and asks it to act? Because through this, the desire understands what the Light is going to do and agrees with this. It acquires intelligence, the head, and makes itself similar to the Light. It cannot perform the action itself; the action relates to the work of the Creator, but because of this, the desire grows until it becomes equal to the Light. My task is to draw the Light on all the actions that I want done to me, and the Light performs everything.

Every request like this begins from self-annulment: I want that a change to be made in me, but don’t know exactly what. After all, this will be a new state, I cannot recognize it or see in advance. It’s impossible to talk about something that I have not yet reached, so I need self-annulment, and I ask the upper one to make this action on me to save me.

I don’t know what He will do and into what He will turn me, what I will become in a moment. Even if the head and the body change, that is, the thought and action, everything, so that I would not recognize my former self as I was a second ago, to such an extent that I would become an entirely new creation. I don’t care what I will become, it’s most important for me to give myself to the Light so that it would perform its action.

I have to be ready for this and wish more than anything else to want to cut myself off from all of the past so that nothing is left from the past, and I would not see a single old property in myself and even that there would be no transition between the past, present, and future. Only then it means that I am ready for the impact of the Light on me.

It should not come from the desire to escape from the previous state. I am asking to be changed not because I feel bad. I don’t ask to be saved from problems as that would be a selfish request instead of the advancement to the next spiritual level. I ask one thing: Help me become like the Light, to become somewhat similar to it, to become a giver for someone.

All that I can clarify is only in the group with respect to the friends, to humanity. Thus I am preparing myself for the true prayer. I am looking for it because I don’t know what this feeling should be. So, I search, work, study, disseminate, do everything I can. You have to be sensitive to what you are given to advance toward the burst of the true prayer, which leads to the answer to it from above.

Thus I come to self-annulment, the feeling of joy, solidarity, loyalty to the Light, which is called the devotion of the soul. I know that everything it will do to me will be correct. And it is not because I want to run away from troubles and I have no other choice, but on the contrary, I am fine and have no shortage in anything. I lack only one thing: handing myself to the Light and becoming included in the quality of bestowal so that it would rule over me and allow me not to think about myself but to be loyal to that one property.

This is called the correct prayer, the request for the first action of the Light, which is the beginning of the spiritual embryo. After that, a person begins to feel his connection with the Light to the extent that he feels like a drop of spiritual seed that must cancel itself inside the property of bestowal.

This starts a long process of spiritual growth of the embryo that passes in constant self-annulment relative to the Light, which every time passes more properties of bestowal to the embryo. The entire spiritual path, the entire ladder, birth, suckling, and maturity, is the acquisition of additional properties of bestowal over the previous state. Thus the soul grows.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/13

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It is said: “The Cup of blessing should be filled to the brim.” In order to make the Light work on me, I have to ask the Light to do so from out of all my desires that it has to correct.

I don’t know what kind of desire this is and about what part of myself I ask, but it must be the full measure. I don’t know how it happens and whether I am going in the right direction to find the necessary desires. I just have to constantly work to give myself to the thoughts, desires, and actions of bestowal as much as possible, and to be included in the group until I come to the right cry organized for me by the Creator.

The true prayer is already a consequence of the influence of the Light. After all, we ourselves do nothing, but preparation. The prayer itself is the result of many preliminary steps and preparation, the prayer before the prayer.

The Light gradually affects us by small illuminations in the dark, in the states of helplessness and powerlessness until our despair reaches the limit when the person is ready to do anything to become a slave of bestowal, which will rule over him and fill his entire mind and heart.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/13

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Intention is the only thing that depends on us. Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE) in Israel, those who aspire directly to the Creator (Yashar El), has nothing but intention. GE doesn’t actually need anything except intention since it represents a liaison between the lower one and the upper Upper. The Upper is in a state of smallness (Katnut); the only thing that the lower one has in its possession is a Reshimo and the upper Upper is in the state of adulthood (Gadlut).

At first, illumination from above awakens the lower one’s Reshimo; then it raises its demand to the Upper. The Upper directs the Reshimo to his Upper, and in return the upper Upper sends the Returning Light to the Upper. Then, the Upper enters a state of adulthood (Gadlut), acquires AHP, and begins influencing the lower by transforming it from a “single-point Reshimo” into a state of smallness.

Thus, the Upper in essence is the intention of the calculation, whereas the Lower is the action, a state of receiving, a vessel, a desire.

Accordingly, both states of smallness and adulthood in the Upper refer specifically to the intention, to its essence: a small “donkey” and a big “donkey,” a small man and a big man. The intention that the Upper builds varies depending upon the request that it receives from the Lower.

The Lower demands actions: “Give me! Do it for me!” Here, you need to coordinate these demands with the Upper, matching it, and then the Light that Reforms gradually changes the Lower and becomes the “body” for the Partzuf’s “head.”

One way or the other, the Upper Galgalta ve Eynaim and AHP get “synchronized” with the intention. Israel doesn’t perform this action; Israel only directs the commonality.

This explains why we are obligated to manage unity among people. Otherwise, where will they get the force for this? If they find the strength to unite without our help, it would turn into a “gathering of disdainers” or an “assembly of criminals” and would cause a lot of harm. That’s why we have to clearly and firmly work with the world so that everybody understands what we are doing.

We explicitly clarify that it’s our special methodology. Other than us, nobody can attain positive results by just copying our method. On the contrary, if they persist, in a half a year to a year, their attempts will lead to negative results.

Our methodology has nothing to do with mysticism or coaching, or anything else like that. It is unity that we build with the help of the upper force. Others can claim similar ideas, but this methodology is solely ours. It must be utterly clear.

Only our friends who are trained and qualified will be able to lead people to unity, since they themselves are united into groups, work on enhancing unity with their friends, and are connected with the upper force through their teacher. So, they are the ones who can be the conductors of this process. Moreover, we acknowledge that there is a group within the Upper, but let’s talk about this next time.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/13, “The Peace”

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From an article by Baal HaSulam, “The Secret of Conception and Birth,” part 7, “Movement as a Sign of Life”: From the aspect of spiritual life, we divide the creatures into two groups: still, vegetative, animate – and speaking. The still, vegetative and animate are completely dead. The speaking is the aspect of life.

Life is the power to move. And it is known that the beginning of life is made by two actions that are opposite in purpose.

On the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate activities like these don’t take place and also among people who are found on the developmental levels of the still, vegetative, and animate, but only in someone who has already reached the level of the Adam within a person.

For also the speaking, when born he is really dead until they awaken him through urgency.

This is what we feel on our way. Certainly this is not talking about the birth of the physical body, but about spiritual properties. Even when Adam is born, which is to say when a characteristic of “resembling” (Domeh) the Creator begins to be developed in one of us, in the beginning this is in the aspect of being “dead”; he is not ready to carry out his own actions. And he remains so until they awaken him through urgency and pressure.

For his Kelim, vessels, are ready to receive life and movement while still in his mother’s womb; that is, it is still included within the higher level before obtaining independence and a feeling of self.

And when he comes into the air of the world, the air of the world acts on his flesh with a coldness to which he is not accustomed, and this causes the arousal of contractions.

And this coldness forces him to contract, to stop. We are never ready for coldness that comes from the next state, and so we contract. That is, it is up to the person to feel how much his intellect and emotion don’t operate in that area as before; rather they contract and withdraw. He is really weak and is not ready to do anything, he has no power, no brain, and no inner strength, he is not prepared to perform, to understand, or to feel anything. This means, he reaches a contraction of the first breath.

And after the first contraction, he is compelled to extend again to his previous dimension. A person doesn’t know if this is his previous dimension or not. It is difficult for him to measure these boundaries and depths for everything is already taking place within the new Kelim. From the moment he contracts until he returns to fill that space with the understanding and that emotion that he had, he has new Kelim in him.

And these two processes—contraction and expansion—are the first step toward life. But sometimes the newborn is so weak that the cold air of the new world does not make it contract, and so he is born dead.

This is like a student who feels unpleasant under pressure and can’t stand it and take it to the contraction. And so he goes out of this state spiritually dead, and he remains only in the physical, animal body. After all, he did not create the place and the reason for life to be clothed in him, whose origin began from the power of the contractions. From the contraction, he could not expand to the previous place.

To the degree that a person is ready to contract, to understand, and to experience this state, to accept it with gratitude, he can expand again. And he doesn’t expand to control his state, to raise his self-esteem, and to get rid of fear but in order to vacate a place for the Creator so that He can fill him.

Through contractions and expansions, all the changes in the spiritual levels take place, at every step. One constantly goes through such pulsations and the only question is only how he uses them, how he relates to them?

And here the sign that the creature is ready for the Light of life is that there is at least a power in him to make a contraction so that the Light of life comes to him and makes an exhalation. And the first movement of life is made. The Light that Reforms arrives, and this expansion back to the previous place gives him the first characteristic of bestowal.

Therefore he doesn’t stop moving and becomes alive.

And therefore the movement will not cease in him anymore; and it becomes a living movement.

This first movement is called the “soul” (Neshama); it is the breath of life that the Creator breathes into it; as is written, (Genesis 2:7) “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

It is impossible to rise to the level of “life”, to the level of bestowal, if we are not prepared to produce within us the distinctions between humans, that is, to be ready to endure the contractions and after that to reach the expansions. If the person is ready to endure this coldness, then he will advance. As it is said: (Hosea 14:10) “For the ways of HaShem are right, and the just do walk in them; but transgressors do stumble therein.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Secret of Conception and Birth”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Shamati #127 “The Difference Between Kernel, Essence, and Added Abundance”

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “The Fourth Commandment,” Item 215, Lesson 76

Lesson on the Topic: “Sukkot,” Lesson 2 

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Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam,” 1985-1986, Article 36, “What is Preparation for Forgiveness”: When the person comes to ask the Creator to forgive him for his error against him and a defect in his respect for the Creator, blessed be He, the person needs to think thoughts about what his error was regarding the Creator.

I ask forgiveness not for the defects with which I was born, that are found from the start in my nature. I don’t relate to them (Genesis 8:21) “…for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth… .” I don’t relate to the evil inclination itself, rather only to my effort: Could I have already risen above my evil inclination to build “screens” and to acquire the relationship of bestowal, love, and connection above the evil inclination? Could I have acted according to the principle, “Love covers over all transgressions,” (Proverbs 10:12)?

Specifically if I have been negligent in this effort, I need to express remorse and to ask for forgiveness, and I need to cry about this. The “sorrow of the Shechina” is not that She prepared for us the shattered state, the defect, but in that we don’t try to lift Her from the dust according to the conditions with which it is possible for us to do this.

The Light that Reforms arrives according to my effort. If it doesn’t arrive with connection to it, it shows me the general shattering that was made by the Creator. In contrast to this, when the Light that Reforms arrives according to the effort that I make or don’t make, it reveals to me only my part, the effort that I didn’t give and could have given.

It is not necessary to be sorry about my being born not to be successful in something—for example, not being physically strong, not wise enough, or without a good memory and skill for learning; there is no need to complain about this. If they didn’t give me something, this is a sign that I don’t need this. If I don’t have particular skills and I have difficulty because of this, it’s obvious I have to work in these conditions throughout my life.

My personality traits don’t attest to my being good or bad. It could be that I was born lazy, a spendthrift, overbearing, and so on. Essentially the fact that I was born with these characteristics is already a sign that I don’t need to relate to this. It is not up to me to correct them. It is up to me to correct only my participation in what they reveal to me beyond my nature. If there, beyond it, I am lazy, then I need to make a sacrifice about this laziness, and regarding this lack of participation, I need to cry on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). I ask for forgiveness not for my bad characteristics with which I was born but about what I truly could have corrected when I received the opportunity from Heaven and I didn’t actualize it.

Therefore, whoever doesn’t make an effort, he does not reveal evil found in him. And someone who does make an effort discovers that he is evil—and this is only to the degree that he could have made a correction and didn’t correct it.

We are not responsible for correcting all that the spiritual systems have damaged before us. This is damage to the general system. Rather we correct what is imposed upon us, then the entire system will be corrected. You see, it was damaged since a component entered into it that is called Adam. Therefore when we correct the participation of the person in the system, we correct everything.

Question: How is regret linked to relationships between the friends?

Answer: As is written, Yom Kippur does not correct the errors of the person related to his friend. I must be sorry about what I apparently caused and at the same time remember that this was also done by the Creator. This way or another I am not sorry that I discovered that I am evil. I am sorry about feeling that the gap between me and the Creator is still found in me. And so I correct it.

And this says that even in the discovery of the evil, I must feel joy.

Question: There is no one who hasn’t done something bad to another person, even unintentionally. How can I atone for this? How do I ask for forgiveness?

Answer: A person does this through reaching connection. This is his compensation. There is no need to and no deed that can atone for what I did. All the evil that I did caused separation. All the good that I can do: This is only to cause unity. The forms and ways of evil and good are not important; the main thing is specifically unity or separation. If you do it this way, you will not err.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: In one of the posts in your blog it said: “After people are in complete despair over all that they have attempted, we can let them know that we have a method which will give them health, control, respect, money, and so forth. They will have all that they require in this world, a Garden of Eden on Earth, but to do this they must connect.”

How can we explain this if, in spite of all our efforts to connect, we still don’t have anything?

Answer: A person can never carry out any spiritual action if he is not “in complete despair about his own deeds” and doesn’t scream to the Creator when he is found on the last level and with a little more, he will fall from there into an abyss. Only then does salvation come from the Creator. Otherwise he doesn’t have a “Kli” (vessel) that is ready.

How can we achieve this in this world? If we don’t do anything, then the Creator will send us blows, the Light will shine on us all the time and we will feel ourselves more and more to be opposite to Him and this is to say, in states that are worse and worse. This is the path of suffering. As long as we have not reached a terminal state of death from this way, we cannot deviate from it. But we can reach a state of need for receiving help from the Creator consciously, without reaching a state of powerlessness. How do we reach this consciously? This would be when I feel myself to be the opposite of the Light.

Everything depends on the conditions in which the person is found. Suppose that I was born in a poor village in Africa and I get a half a cup of rice and a hundred grams of bread per day. Suddenly a group arrives from the United Nations and begins to distribute a kilogram of bread and a bottle of milk to everyone, saying that if the children behave well, then they will give them food. And whoever eats well will also see a movie. This is to say, a completely different world is revealed, completely different conditions.

Can I attain conditions like these? When I was living in a village in Africa a kilogram of bread per day seemed like the Garden of Eden to me. But if I were to find myself in some advanced nation, then if the day doesn’t end with a visit to a restaurant with friends, this is a wasted day. I get even more depressed than during the time that I only got a kilogram of bread per day in the African village.

This is to say, everything depends on the conditions in which the person is found. Therefore there is no absolute meaning of sufferings.

I am an ordinary person, okay. Suddenly I win a million dollars in the lottery. I check the numbers ten times, everything is in order, everything is according to what is in the newspaper. I “sprout wings.” At the end of the week they present the prizes, I get there and they inform me that there was a mistake in the newspaper. What can I do? I am found in absolute despair, but it is artificial, for I didn’t have anything before. The despair appeared as a result of the thought that I won the lottery but it was explained that this was a mistake.

This is to say, we can bring ourselves to a state like this artificially, when I will be immensely depressed because I yearned very much to attain the Upper Light and I don’t have it. How can I do this? With the help of the environment. With the help of the friends I can hasten myself so much that I scream that I want this now and immediately! And together with this I attain a clear awareness that I didn’t get anything except “a punch in the mouth.”

It is up to us to do this to ourselves. This is not easy. Certainly we need to make ourselves a little childish like this, but then we will come to a state of a great desire and correspondingly with a state of immense despair about our “own powers,” and I will demand from the Creator that here He must help me! He has no choice, for I am demanding it! It is up to us to make ourselves really and truly want and despair. And then everything will succeed.
[116703]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: If we compare our efforts with a race that is one hundred miles long, we won’t see any traces of our getting to the end of the road until we reach the finish line. Why?

Answer: It is said: “There is no shortage in spirituality.” As an example, let’s use the wave-particle duality theory of this world. There exist types of energy levels, for example: In order to generate a laser beam the energy has to be raised to a certain level and then the process immediately takes on the “explosive” character.

Everything has a preset measurement. This fact derives from the four phases of the Direct Light. Nothing can be measured with great precision if the measurements are in a hundred percent linear mode. In fact, we always are measuring the gap between certain values, thus creating a discrete, intermittent “digital” picture of the world.

That’s why during the “race,” we observe “sudden” leaps from one checkpoint to another instead of viewing smooth, gradual changes. This is how we are constructed: Our perception in both this world and in spirituality bears a “step-by-step” character.

While exploring nature, we come to understand that it is way beyond us. So, there is no need “to place claims” to the universe? It won’t help. On the contrary, we have to study its laws and use them.

Today, you are indignant only because the Creator plays games with you. He deliberately gives you valid reasons to get upset with Him so that eventually we will understand that we are still little babies.

Question: And yet, it is said that “many pennies accumulate to a great sum.” At least show this to me…

Answer: If you saw how pennies accumulate in a piggy bank, then you would become more patient and wouldn’t rush ahead since you would know that your days do not pass in vain. This is bad for you.

On the contrary, when you feel that your time disappears through your fingers and that you see no results ahead, that is the salvation, the gift, without which you would not aspire forward.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A person cannot trust and rely on himself before the final correction. He must constantly be under the influence of higher vessels, desires, and simply explore them degree by degree, cleaving to them without counting on his own “reserve.”

We advance only by faith above reason, that is, only at the level of adhesion to a higher degree. Only from there can you draw and bring correct answers and correct signs to the current state. The principle of “be guided only by what you see” refers to corrupt desires, but to stay on the course, I have to “cling” to a higher degree by faith above reason.

Everyone can find “signs” proving he is right. But this is prohibited. The mind does not work here and I will not involve it. Even Kabbalists’ explanations are intended only to bring us closer together with spiritual concepts, to add knowledge, genuine support, this confirmation can only be found in the Upper One when I cancel my understanding and equip myself with His mind.
[116974]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/13, The Zohar

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Question: Why does a person fall deeper each time? How can he attain eternal adhesion?

Answer: We fall deeper and deeper every time because increasingly stronger, coarser, egoistic desires are revealed to us. As it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than his.” We need to be immersed into greater egoism in order to reach the greater reflected Light through working on it. The lower we descend into our desires, the higher we rise due to correction, one against the other.

Otherwise, it is impossible. Such are the laws even in material physics, not just in the spiritual one.

A descent contains all the information about the next step. The problem is only that, when in descent, we lose sensitivity and cannot feel it. If we had felt what we get from a descent, you would understand what powerful tools we get.

The only problem is that all the sense organs stop working in descent and we cannot reveal anything. In essence, the difference between descent and ascent is that the Light comes, gives us a new attitude toward our egoism and toward the Creator, and we need only to tie this into one—Israel (our longing for the Creator), the Torah, and the Creator—and then we will use the egoism that has been revealed to us correctly.

Changing our attitude to what is revealed in descent is called an ascent. However, most important is a descent because it is the revelation of new desires in which we then experience a new world—higher, exalted, expansive—and it always happens during the revelation of darkness. As it is written, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/13, Shamati #33 “The Lots on Yom Kippurim and Haman”

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