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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 8
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Heaven and Earth,” Item 157, Lesson 58
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 15
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption“
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Question: When you go out to disseminate, people’s positive responses make you feel good. So where do these powers come from, is it from my ego or from the Creator?
Answer: If you don’t demand powers from the Creator, then you naturally receive them from the ego. There are only two sources for a person’s motivation and accordingly it may be egoistic or higher, either in order to receive or in order to bestow.
So how can you check yourself? How can you find out that you are actually working in order to bestow?
I feel different disappointments, problems, emptiness, and even troubles in my desire, but I only demand one thing from the Creator, to raise my altruistic motivation without any reward for myself. I am glad that my ego feels bad, that it is empty and dissatisfied. It is a good sign; if I can continue working now it is indeed in order to bestow.
According to Kabbalistic terms, I “restrict” my desire, and put a screen (Masach) and the Returning Light (Ohr Hozer) on top of it. Generally speaking the desire always remains empty since restriction is not nullified. Then I begin to work above my desire in order to bestow, being sure that I relate to life, to reality, to the Creator, and to everyone correctly.
But if I don’t feel emptiness, disappointments, or troubles in my ego in order to be drawn above them to bestowal, to worrying about the Creator, then it means that I am still in my egoistic desire. I work in it, and although I advance towards the intention of in order to bestow, I am still immersed in self love. Of course, I try to bestow, but all my attempts are nourished by egoistic motives. This means that if I didn’t receive pleasures, I would have no motivation, no powers, no urge to carry on along the spiritual path
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/13, Questions and Answers
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On one hand, the Creator is always the first to awaken us and any ascent that we feel is an inevitable response to His illumination. On the other hand, what is a person’s work?
Although a person knows that “There is none else besides Him,” he should remember the principle of “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” Although the Creator awakens him, as long as a person is in concealment he should feel that he awakens himself. He mustn’t relax and wait for the Creator to wake him up.
No, we must act. I have to organize an environment and use all the means that I have so that I will not fall asleep, but rather will stay awake and responsive as possible to picking up attributes that are close to bestowal and love. With the help of the environment and other means, I prepare myself so that even if the Creator awakens me I will feel a greater and more powerful ascent.
The final awakening is that we are working together with the Creator, like a horse and its rider who have merged and the horse even wants to stay ahead of the desires of his rider like a faithful servant. So at any given moment I should remember that the Creator will undoubtedly wake me up, but everything depends on the opportunities that I actually take.
We don’t know and we don’t see these opportunities. Perhaps my accumulated efforts will spur the awakening from above after a while; perhaps there are other conditions, such as special spiritual states that belong to the “Sabbath,” to the “beginning of the month,” to the “beginning of a year” or to other holidays that are connected to the work in the “day” and the “night,” etc. The special awakening from above is also concealed in them, but we have to be more prepared for the awakening from below and constantly be sensitive to it.
If a person develops a craving, a need, for not forgetting the upper Providence for a moment, he discovers that this Providence is permanent and it stems from the Creator who is good and benevolent and that there is none else besides Him. A person discovers the truth: that the picture that the upper force draws for him of a person’s whole world, including the person himself and his environment, that it is all done in order to increase a person’s sensitivity to it. The Creator, the only force, has only one goal, that a person should always feel that the Creator is good and benevolent and that there is none else besides Him. So a person has to correct his vessels of perception and that is what matters.
It is written: “Seek the Lord where He is.” One thinks the awakening and the changes come from the Creator bringing him constantly changing states. But when I reach a state of Hafetz Hesed, I discover that there are no changes on the Creator’s part. Behind everything that is sent to me, everything that I feel at any given moment—the concealments and the revelations on different levels, the confusions and even the detachment from the Creator and later regaining consciousness, which means being conscious of the upper Providence—behind all this “scenery” I discover that there are no detachments and that the Creator never weakens His relations with us. On the contrary, He awakens stronger and more corrupt desires and attributes in me time after time, which means that they are opposite from Him, so that by this contrast between the Light and the darkness I will discover the Creator more clearly, the good and the benevolent, that there is none else besides Him.
So we have to strengthen a person’s inner readiness for the correct perception by different means. There is no blind fate or a mechanical nature that plays an incidental game with us. No matter which desires or thoughts awaken in us and come to our mind out of nowhere, it all comes from the upper force. We only have to do one thing, and that is to strengthen ourselves by different means and to respond correctly to everything that happens.
Of all the things going on in my heart and mind, inside me, and in the world (since it is one system), I want to discover one thing only—that everything is operated by one “engine.” The thoughts and the desires that awaken in me and the thoughts about the thoughts and the desires that were caused by the desires, all stem from one source that operates so that I will connect to it and be detached from it time after time and thus will establish a stable, multilayer, multifaceted connection. Thus, we clarify and search for the Creator, “seeking the Lord where he is” and discovering that He is really very near, that He is inside a person.
This means that there are no inappropriate thoughts and no lowly desires, but that everything was meant to help a person understand that nothing separates him from the Creator; the Creator is with him, and the whole world, including the still, vegetative, animate, and man, are elements that make up the connection between them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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From Rabash’s article “For Those Who Were on the Faraway Path, Passover is Postponed to a Second Passover”: The greater one’s faith in the Creator is, the stronger one feels detached from the Great King and the more one senses one’s sinfulness—proportionately to the degree of one’s faith in His Greatness. Consequently, a righteous man (the one who apprehends the Highness of the King) sins more than a regular man.
If one acknowledges that one is a sinner, it means that this person was allowed from Above to slightly approach Divinity and was granted a chance to understand that he had sinned.
It is said: “The Creator niggles at the righteous by a width of a hair.” If one feels that he sinned, one shouldn’t be afraid of it, since it is a sign that he has been elevated from Above. That’s why one has to self-strengthen and accept the burden of Heaven, then one achieves success.
To the extent of one’s closeness to the Creator, the feeling of insignificance, wickedness, and detachment from Him becomes stronger, meaning that everything works upside down. A common religious person doesn’t pursue a spiritual path; he prays and thinks that he is close to the Creator. However, the one who happens to connect one’s proximity to the Creator with one’s personal properties is already able to evaluate oneself more fairly, thus one evaluates the distance between him and the Creator accordingly. Each next assessment gets more accurate; it allows one to see how far from the Creator one really is.
We realize that the distance between us and the Creator increases and that we have to observe lots of conditions in order to overcome the remoteness and become closer to Him. This explains why it’s written that “the Creator “picks” at the righteous for the width of a hair.” It’s not because He treats them bad; rather, those who are already quite close to becoming righteous (meaning those who are at the doorstep of a complete and pure bestowal) calculate their similarity with the Creator on a very fine scale. This kind of reckoning allows them to see that they are still extremely far away from the Creator and that they have to undergo multiple corrections.
That’s why there is the concept of the “Second Passover.” It’s for those who failed to exit from Egypt during the first Passover. In a month, they are given another opportunity, which is called “the Second Passover.” People who feel that they are big sinners and whose path is particularly long reach their goal only at the time of the Second Passover.
It means that one shouldn’t worry and despair because the Path seems too long to him, even though many people are taken aback by this fact which forces them to quit their path.
On the contrary, it’s a sign that they are approaching the goal! We have to eventually reach a state when Pharaoh admits that the Creator is the one who is righteous and that he (Pharaoh) is the one who is wicked; this is the state when the exodus from Egypt takes place.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/13
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Heaven and Earth“
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 15
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption“
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Concealment begins when I perceive that it conceals the importance of the group and the Creator from me. Gradually, however, I begin to feel that the concealment supports me. This means that I feel that the concealment is sweet. I feel that this exile that cuts me off from the Upper Light and prevents me from contacting the Creator, from feeling Him is in my favor!
Then this exile becomes sweet since it is by that, by working with it, that I develop my vessels more, form relationships with others and increase my understanding of the Creator. Thus I turn the Holy shadow into revelation. The Masach (screen) that conceals becomes a Masach that reveals.
There is another shadow called the shadow of the Sitra Achra, of the Klipot (shells). When I am in that shadow, I feel that I am in concealment and that I cannot connect to the Creator. I cannot do anything, since I am detached from the goal in that state. This is why this shadow is called the shadow of the Sitra Achra. The Sitra Achra is any state in which I don’t feel that I am connected to the Creator, but that I am drawn to the opposite side, only in the direction of my desire to receive.
This difference between the shadow of Holiness and the shadow of the Sitra Achra is the difference between all the states in which we find ourselves. We have to constantly feel absolutely confident that we are in Ein Sof (Infinity) and that the Creator wants to be fully revealed among us. The problem is only that we feel the concealment which we have to develop even more in order to turn it eventually into a revelation. Then “and the shadows flee” (“Song of Songs”), they will turn into a Masach by which I will be able to relate to the Creator as He relates to me.
So all we have to practically do is to constantly focus ourselves on the Creator. My reality totally depends on Him. Everything that I receive I receive from Him. On the one hand, I receive a feeling from Him which may be unpleasant, but I have to tie myself to the Creator as to the good and the benevolent. I can do that only if I acquire the right attitude towards Him called the intention of in order to bestow.
Although I may feel bad in different discernments, the moment I want to justify the Creator and to treat Him with love, I acquire the intention of in order to bestow by doing so. This intention of in order to bestow allows me to turn my feeling of suffering into a sweet good feeling.
The intention by which I connect to the Creator sweetens all the bad feelings in my desire to receive. I begin to feel the emptiness or the suffering in my desire to receive as essential. It is on top of this emptiness that I build myself a new world with the intention of in order to bestow.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/06/13, Shamati #8 “What Is the Difference Between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra”
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All of us are found in this world as if in a boat in the middle of a stormy ocean and if you don’t fulfill your function in it, you will not bring any benefit. If you will not work to set the sails in it, hold the wheel, bail the water, and if you don’t row with the oars, then you sink the whole boat.
You are included within the general system and must carry out your function, and if you don’t function, then you harm everyone, like a transistor that is burned within a complex electrical circuit and is disabled, or a guitar string that snaps. It is certainly possible to continue to play the guitar even without this string, but what kind of a tune will this be?
The word “system” encompasses a powerful sense and it awakens fear in a person. Since I am found within a system, I depend on everyone else one hundred percent. I, myself, am not ready to do anything. I cannot strike you, kill you, or compel you to change by force or threats. This is because the connection between us is internal, in my heart, and I am not familiar with your heart! You can arrange all kinds of problems for me in life with the help of the desires in your heart, and what can I do? I am really helpless.
This is called being found within a single system. I don’t depend on some terrorist or dictator, but rather on every person in the world and especially on my closest friends. My entire spiritual life depends on them, and for me there is no possibility of influencing them! I am not even ready to check what is in their heart in order to understand how faithfully they carry out their function in the general system. Perhaps, they are actually destroying it.
The integral system that is being discovered now before us is really terrible. Do you know how we are connected and why; all of a sudden there was a flood in Europe or an unusual heat wave in America? We don’t know the original cause or what the final result will be. In the integral system everything is linked, and these links disappear from before our eyes since we are not “integral.” We don’t act according to that plan, that arrangement.
Up until now, we have developed according to our nature, like animals, only more developed, but this evolution has stopped. We have reached an integral connection that is now revealed before us. Our contribution to the system is the management of this entire system. Therefore, we must discover how we can manage it and carry out this work for everyone as integral components within the system.
It must be clear to everyone what his function is. This is like an electronic device that includes the most complex systems that completely stops functioning because of one burned-out transistor.
It is very important to understand this in our function. At one time it was different and everything depended on the individual, himself, if he was great or small. There is a story about this, that a war was lost because of one nail. The blacksmith lacked one nail and he didn’t secure the horseshoe well; the horseshoe fell off, the horse stumbled, the commander riding on the horse fell off, the enemy saw this, rushed to attack, and won the battle.
Thus, they won the war without any logical basis, only because of a small nail, and not even because of the nail, rather because all the events developed linearly, according to a chain, until reaching the high commander upon whom everything depended. However, we already have left a hierarchical system, a round system operates today. Therefore, it is impossible to find the original reason upon which everything depends. Rather, everything depends on everyone and everyone is linked together and considered equally, both the great and the small, and this is a very big problem.
We already have begun to understand that it is specifically the connection that will give us the spiritual form.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/05/13, Writings of Rabash
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In our development we need to pass through such a state where we lose our previous form. This is like a grain of wheat that is planted in the ground and is completely decomposed. Only a Reshimo (reminiscence) remains, whereas the substance itself transforms into dirt, transforms to become nourishment for the new form that appears after the decomposition.
Which is to say, a descent from the previous state occurs and after this an ascent to the new state. And in the lowest point of the shattering only a Reshimo is left that is transformed and changes into a new Reshimo, into a gene of the new state. The right form for birth and growth is like this, both for the plant and the animal, and even for the person in our world, and likewise in spirituality as well.
Otherwise we could not pass from one state to another state. There must be transformation here, a new ten Sefirot. From the previous Partzuf of ten Sefirot, to the new Partzuf of ten Sefirot only the Reshimot pass. That is what happens in our world because the spiritual root is revealed in the physical branch, and likewise with our inner development. The same one law acts in everything. It follows that every new state is attained on the way only by our abandoning the previous state, changing our consciousness, comprehension, and approach in that it’s felt in us as incorrect, not appropriate, and therefore we upgrade ourselves to a new level.
In spirituality this is much more prominent than in physicality. If in physicality the person doesn’t change his consciousness, his outlook on the world, his view, his opinion, then he doesn’t grow. He only adds to the previous consciousness and therefore that same small child remains except with more dimensions. The sign that a person has grown is that he is transformed in understanding, in consciousness, in effort.
He gets control over these states and brings himself to a state where suddenly all his previous control, all his previous approach, disappears. He is no longer able to remain in it and he feels himself powerless, lost, not knowing what to do next. On the spiritual path we call this state a descent. We feel ourselves confused, not understanding what is happening to us, and after that we reach a new state. As a general rule in normal life, transformations like these don’t happen and the person simply goes and adds to the old baggage and therefore never gets a new form, so he remains the same child in his old age.
[113822]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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First of all, we need to understand that dissemination is spiritual work! And if someone does not agree with this, does not want or understand it, then he needs to clarify this state and he will see that it is true. We are talking about inner work that is changing a person. The spiritual world is within the human being and consists of his inner changes. To enter a new world, the world of correction, means to switch human properties from reception to bestowal. A person does it within himself.
When we go to disseminate this knowledge to the outside world, we think that we go outside of ourselves. But it is not so. The whole world is like one body: the inanimate, plants, animals, and people joined into one material that must reach correction by means of the human degree. The human degree also consists of the same four levels, and correction begins from the human level of the human degree, that is, the most refined, special people who have a thirst for spirituality.
Thus, although our work is internal and the correction takes place inside of the person, still its essence is that I connect with the entire universe. It may seem like the opposite, that if I am a Kabbalist that I need to sit locked in a room and perform my internal corrections secretly. But this is a misconception—the exact opposite of reality. If my matter, my soul, is outside of me and I am just a point that has to connect with everyone, then it turns out that by reaching out to everyone with dissemination, I awaken my matter.
Coming to people, we need to explain that we should not consider ourselves dependent on any external forces. No one will help us, not municipalities, not the government, not any committee, not other countries, UNESCO, or the UN. The whole world is made up of egoists, and the higher they’ve climbed the corporate ladder is evidence that they are even greater egoists than the rest.
That is why you will get no help from anyone starting from your neighbor all the way to the very top. Everyone will only want from you and will squeeze out of you as much as possible. If you have not given up and still have some hope, if you are angry that you don’t get any sympathy, this shows your complete naivety. A person who understands the world and the nature of creation places no hope on anyone. If everyone is an egoist, it would be better if they leave me alone. All their “care” will be to my detriment. It cannot be that any good deeds come from egoism.
This is the correct view of the world as evident according to the despair that humanity is experiencing now, beginning with the government and the leaders of this world who have lost all hope of getting out of the crisis. And if we understand this, then what is left for us is only to go out to people and explain that gold mines, mountains of abundance, health, strength, safety, and everything necessary for a happy life is in front of them. And all this is right next to you, in your connection with others in your neighborhood, city, country, all over the world, in the connection between people.
From that moment, we turn a person from the external view of discontent by someone outside, to his inside. He understands that he needs to establish a relationship with everyone around him by himself and build a happy life. A person’s hopes can only be placed on oneself. He must try to improve his life in his immediate environment, in his field of vision.
If we start to methodically work on improving our relationship with each other, then precisely there inside this emptiness, we will suddenly discover the source of inexhaustible energy, pleasure, health, and opportunities to solve all problems, the upper, unnatural forces capable of making any change. Then, we will not depend on an authority sitting somewhere on top. After all, he will want to squeeze even more out of us and nothing else can happen.
It is impossible for any good deeds to come out of people who are corrupted by egoism. We have already seen this example in our history. They do not hear us and are involved in their problems. Let’s also take care of ourselves. How much can we put up with this? We do not depend on anyone in this, and it is in our power.
This explanation brings a person to inner work. It seems to us that we get out, but actually we return parts of our soul to inner work. Since the entire universe is one human soul, the more you connect with others and feel them as part of your soul, the more you correct your soul. This is called practical Kabbalah.
[113745]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Question: It says that a person’s height is measured according to his responsibility, whether he is devoted only to his town or to his nation, or even to the entire world. What is meant by “devoted to his town, to his state, and to the world?”
Answer: Devotion means that we attribute all the parts of our soul that seem foreign to ourselves. We do this although they are detached from us by a great egoistic desire, by indifference, and by the desire to profit at the expense of others, to be more important than others, to avoid suffering by causing others pain.
If I turn my entire ego into a means to reach adhesion with others so that each one and all of them together will be more important to me than myself, it means that I am devoted to them like to my own kids and that I am ready to give them everything. I turn my ego, which separates me from others, into bestowal according to my height.
If I can relate this way only to those who are close to me or to neighbors that live in the same town I live in, it doesn’t mean that I am very high. However, it requires a great effort to perceive the entire world as my relatives. After all, these people are distant from me to begin with. There is a greater ego between us, a much greater quantity. So, it requires a much greater intensity, a greater height, in order to overcome the ego.
It seems that it is only about quantity, but quantity is related to quality. The concept of quantity doesn’t exist in spirituality, only quality. However, quality is made of quantity, just like computer software that thanks to the capacity of the memory can offer totally different options. The difference is actually in the quantity of memory cells that operate, but this quantity makes the qualitative difference. Thanks to this difference, I can understand, feel, and perceive more.
Thanks to this additional quantity, I begin to understand the Creator. The number of neurons in our brain and the connections between them determine our cognitive ability, which means that the quantity is related to the quality. Still, it isn’t as we imagine. We cannot calculate to what extent we must expand in width in order to reach something in height. These concepts are related, but we cannot work with this formula yet.
We don’t see the right formula since our perception isn’t integral; it isn’t analog. It is digital, discrete. Everything is segmented—1,2,3—while in spirituality, everything is according to a circular calculation and not a square calculation like in our world. This is why we cannot simply count quantity in width and height, and say how something should be.
All our exertion is quantitative as if it were possible to measure it in kilograms, but, later, it rises to Ein Sof (Infinity) and is incorporated in Malchut of Ein Sof, in our MAN, and in response we receive MAD. Thus, all our exertion returns to us in an analog, integral manner, and it isn’t digital anymore. Our constant connection with Ein Sof is added to this connection, and this disrupts our calculation.
However, it is thanks to the connection with Ein Sof, from which everything comes back to us, that we have a chance to bring our exertion into Ein Sof each time and to save it in the right box. Then, we heal the whole system by our personal exertion by even the smallest action! Our exertion doesn’t insert some small cube into the general structure, but melts in all of Ein Sof.
Then, when the bestowal from Ein Sof returns to us, it makes actual changes in us and raises us to the next level. Although we see our actions as digital and limited, when they reach Ein Sof and return to us, they build an analog, integral form in us that is similar to Ein Sof.
[113659]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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