People have a unique characteristic that doesn’t exist in any animal, if he wants to eat something sweet, he will mix this with something salty, which is to say with an opposite taste. The principle of “the advantage of the light over the darkness” is expressed in him significantly. Even on the animate level there exists a phenomenon like this, but to a very limited degree.

The same thing happens in the states through which we pass, and there are very good and pleasant states among them, yet we lose them afterwards without paying attention. The feeling gradually fades and I don’t feel the loss. I lack the awareness of its importance and the incessant concern that I must protect this feeling.

So why do they take this state from me and not let me realize its importance and remain in it? This is so I will attain an even higher state. Yet I don’t feel any need of a higher state; I have no appetite for it; there are no “appetizers” that will increase my appetite. Therefore I must construct the additional desire within me by myself so that I will not be satisfied with the present state.

This is very difficult. Only if I want to expand my desire for bestowal, will a possibility like this exist, thanks to the environment. But if this is speaking of the desire to receive, this is totally impossible. Therefore they give us a state of descent.

A descent can happen in this way; I cannot be satisfied in the present state and want to add to it. I compare myself to the environment and see that the others advance in bestowal more than I do. In this way emptiness is formed in me and I aspire to greater bestowal without a descent. Which is to say, the environment forms an impression of descent in me, and I no longer need a real descent.

And if I don’t feel the descent through comparison to others and don’t see that they bestow more than I, then they give me a real descent and add ego to this, a desire for pleasure above which I must succeed in working and bring to the correct form. This is a lengthy process that continues for a long time.

That desire that I finally attain, after working on my ego after the fall and bringing it to the form of bestowal to the next level, I could have already received ready-made from the environment and used immediately! Think about it!

Specifically in this place we need to make effort. And not to take the long way to first fall and only then to be awakened by what is bad for me. Because then I will be forced to fall into this world, into its egoistic desires, until I will finally be awakened, remember that I need to aspire to bestowal, and will turn to the group to study. This is a very long way.

In contrast to this, if I expose myself to the influence of the environment, then envy and ambition drive me out of “this world” of the previous situation. Even if I am found in an excellent state and have now reached ascent, I can describe this to myself as a descent relative to the state of the environment that seems to me higher and more successful. All the friends seem great to me, raised higher.

It could be that at this moment despair is awakened in me, a sensation of my lowliness relative to the others, a material worldly envy that they succeed and I don’t. Yet this will only spur and arouse me, and from there it is very easy to pass to spiritual envy and to get carried away after them, to want to work with them and to be like them. This is already a state of “Lo Lishma” after which the Light that Reforms immediately appears and helps us to advance.

Be that as it may, the advantage of the light is known only from the darkness, and don’t believe that it is possible to find the spiritual world without effort. And vice versa, don’t believe that someone makes an effort and doesn’t find it! Fulfillment is determined only by the Kli, vessel, and it doesn’t matter where we get this Kli: Do we construct it ourselves during difficult work on ourselves with the help of the environment or do we receive it ready-made from the environment?

Ultimately my Kli is found among the friends, in the environment; that is where my soul is found. Therefore it makes no difference if I am immersed in myself, in my ego that arouses in me opposite states and through this compels me to turn to the environment, to go through external activities outside of myself in order to be connected for something with everyone else, or if I immediately receive from them the right aspiration, thanks to envy, and then easily attain the same goal.
[111147]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/13, Shamati #117 “You Labored and Did Not Find, Do Not Believe“

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Question: There are two things that guard a person along the spiritual path: A framework that he has determined for himself and the right environment. Does he have to constantly expand this framework?

Answer: Not necessarily. When I was at Rabash’s side, I didn’t see him changing the framework of his life in any way. He used to study at the same time at night, and then there were the walks on the beach, in the park, in the forest, to the sauna, and the afternoon rest in order to study again in the evening. He kept this daily pattern for years without any changes, not even in the food he ate.

Why should we make any changes in corporeality? All the changes have to be internal and not external. We know that a donkey doesn’t yearn for new delicacies, but rather prefers the grains with which he is familiar. An elephant prefers grass. An animal enjoys what it needs according to its nature. Modern fast food is no good since our body hasn’t changed. We are only poisoning ourselves by all this stuff. Our body needs simple, natural food as it should be.

It’s very good if a body is accustomed to a certain daily schedule. It’s even recommended to take medicines at the same hour every day. A machine that performs a repetitive action breaks down less often; even an ordinary engine that operates all the time and is not turned on and off all the time works much longer.

There is nothing worse for an animal than changes in anything that have to do with its nature. But in the part that doesn’t belong to nature but that is above it and which belongs to the spiritual world, the whole life is about changes. The amount of changes is an indication of spiritual health, of spiritual power.
[111846]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, Pri Hacham (The Sages Fruit): A person who is an exception and pleads for his soul doesn’t build but rather destroys his soul. It says “he who is proud,” since one cannot be an exception if it isn’t for the attire of pride, and woe to the one who brings destruction upon his soul.

If a person doesn’t aspire to dissolve and to disappear into the general, then from a spiritual point of view, it means that he is immersed in pride. It isn’t the pride we know in our world that compels a person to feel higher and more successful than others. If he doesn’t want to connect with others and to enter them, it is called spiritual pride. He destroys his soul if he doesn’t pray in order to be incorporated in the general and to operate through the general, which means for the good of the general, as he annuls himself and disappears there.

The moment we begin to cry and pray in order to connect, we receive the power to exit Egypt and to hide from our own ego. The exodus from Egypt is an escape from my own ego thanks to the recognition of the necessity of connection.

The Light spreads and dwells in the vessels of receiving of the general when we all unite above each one’s ego and are filled with the Light of Hassadim. At the same time each one annuls himself before the general, giving up his desire to receive, uniting into one desire, into one vessel, that is filled by the upper Light.

The preparation is actually in the connection, which means in bringing ourselves to the form of the Light that is one. Then one vessel receives one Light. The moment we reach even the slightest level of adaptation to the Light, we immediately discover that we are in it, connected in unity with the Creator.

This is revealed only through the connection. Everyone who thinks and hopes to reach something independently and not through the group perceives reality the wrong way and thus draws himself further away from the goal and destroys the group. What’s more, it refers to absolutely every action, even in our personal life, since corporeality has to disappear into spirituality. This is a very serious condition and the more we advance, the tougher become the conditions.

It says that the giving of the Torah occurs every day, which means that the spiritual state already exists and is before us and everything depends only on our preparation for the receiving of the Torah, when we will manifest a great deficiency to reach the first connection be revealed in us. Then we will immediately exit Egypt, receive the Torah, and be incorporated in the process of the spiritual work.
[111922]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/05/13, Writings of Rabash “Igrot,” Letter 33

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Baal HaSulam, from the article, “Peace in the World”: Thus you find that the attribute of truth has no practical ability to organize the path of the individual and the path of the collective in an absolute and satisfactory manner. Also, it is completely insufficient for organizing life at the end of the correction of the world.

The attribute of truth is the only attribute that makes it possible for us to organize our lives according to nature.

The basic law of reality is the law of the equivalence of form. In principle, a law cannot include only one thing, there must be two components in it that are linked together according to a particular formula. Therefore, if I equalize my personal characteristics with some model, with this I am found in unity with it, in connection, in fulfillment, and so on.

This is called “truth.” And I need to measure the quality of my equivalence to a standard, or lack of equivalence to it according to the characteristics.

In general, the entire creation is the opposite of the Creator. And therefore the entire process of my development is in the adaptation of my characteristics to His characteristics more and more all the time, until I reach unity, adherence, and full equivalence. And my ability to measure my present level of equivalence is called “truth.”

This truth is accurate, clear, true, and tested. Thus we constantly check ourselves relative to the Creator.

Look, there is a Creator and there is a creature, and the measure between them is called truth, the true measure. This is the true measure, the weight, the distance, the difference, or the adaptation between the characteristics.

That is also how among ourselves we need to measure ourselves and the group. And the truth is that this is how we measure ourselves: to the degree that each has adapted to the group, to this degree he has adapted to the Creator. In other words, according to a group that is corrected on our level, they check how much I am damaged or corrected in comparison. This is how we examine the degree of truth.

But how do we measure ourselves now in a physical world from which we want to approach spirituality, the completion of correction? According to what do we make this measurement? You see, we don’t see a corrected society in front of us, and we don’t even know what a corrected society is.

As long as we have not brought into society integral education, knowledge of the ideal state—a state called harmony, a balance between all forces and factors, contentment, from which nobody can remove us—as long as we have not reached this state, we are in trouble.

How do we do this? We describe a balanced state in society to ourselves: All of us are equal, all of us love, all of us bestow, and so forth. A state similar to this we place as our goal, and we can already measure according to this state.

But in spite of all this, it is difficult to measure the contrast with it. Therefore we continue to wander in fog and confusion, which impedes us even if we describe to ourselves the right picture and are detached from the experiences of the various “builders of communism.” There is a need to find true, precise standards, but in our world we haven’t found them, and the Kabbalists are unable to give us the scale

But a measure of truth is what is most required for our world, since a clear understanding of what differentiates between our society and the ideal state would cause everyone to desire that state. But there is no clear picture, and everyone sees what comes to his mind, and therefore we cannot sustain the world.

At every moment the entire world must be developing exclusively towards the completion of correction. The only ways given for this passage are by the way of beito (in its time) or by the way of achishenah (accelerating time). So what do we do if we cannot manage our development through measuring the truth and advance with achishenah?

In a circumstance like this, if you don’t know where to escape, where to go, it is preferable to be quiet and not move. This is because your wrong movement could cause even greater harm. The chance of making the correct move, according to the experience of our history is zero. And therefore about this it is written: “Sit and do nothing,” until you clarify things in a natural form.

However, humanity has tried to complete the measure of truth with other characteristics, which are like crutches; they can support the feet of human society, in other words, they give support with some degree of connection so that we don’t devour each other. For this would require a measure for truth that is now found among us in which we would simply need to eat each other. Therefore it is up to us to perfect it with other characteristics…
[111223]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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Exerting yourself like “an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load” means working without feeling any taste in the work. I read The Book of Zohar because the doctor says that it works like a drug that will help me recover. Usually it is unpleasant and quite difficult. It is in contrast to my bodily desires and it isn’t to my taste, but the doctor has prescribed it and so I do it.

I don’t wish to feel pleasure in my mind and heart by reading The Zohar. Although reading The Zohar brings me joy, I am not glad because I seem to understand, to feel, and to follow the plot like in an adventure book, following the journeys of the great sages like following the great explorers of new lands and continents. I am glad only because I accept this reading as a medicine.

It isn’t the reading itself that brings me joy but the process I go through. First, I follow the orders of the sages, which means that I bow before them. Second, I have heard that it brings the Creator joy and pleasure. Finally, I correct myself that way and come closer to the Creator!

If you delve into the text, it means that you operate in your desire to receive by trying to fill it somehow by your egoistic heart and mind. Thus, you rob the intensity of your study, the intensity of the state. However, eventually, things will turn the other way and there will come a time when you suddenly understand that you have nothing. This egoistic sorrow will make you understand that you have been studying the wrong way.

This approach isn’t 100% accurate since how can I try to understand what The Book of Zohar is about with my corporeal mind? If you are a scientist, you study this world with the tools that you have, with your emotions and your mind, trying to understand it in your mind. This is how science operates in this world and it is called “reason.”

However, the spiritual world is on a different level. It is in a dimension where your emotions and your mind have no control of anything. You cannot even imagine what it is like. It is on a totally different frequency. It is as if you receive a frequency of 100 kilo hertz while someone else works on a frequency of 100 mega hertz. These are totally different frequencies; one is long, and the other is short. They cannot communicate and cannot generate any common forms.

How can you speak about a world that you cannot perceive? What can you hold onto? Nothing! However, you were given books that you don’t understand at all and cannot understand. You will not understand anything unless you reach the level of the book. This level of quality is achieved by changing all of your senses and your mind. Everything is changed in you, and you receive new emotions and mind, instead of the old ones. Before that you have no connection with the book called “Torah,” except for its unique quality.
[111650]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 7/02/13, The Zohar

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There is no other way but to stick with the right line to the best of our ability by following “faith above reason.” My extensive personal experience shows that many of my students find it hard to understand what the right line is, since it requires annulling oneself, remaining joyful, and observing “faith above reason.” Our conventional vocabulary does not even contain accurate words to describe it.

Perhaps it will be clearer to you if I explained it in a different way. While we are at a lower level, we receive help from the upper to the degree of our desire to become similar with the upper. This process takes place at each step: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking, both in this world and in the upper worlds. To the extent of exertions applied by the lower in its effort to become similar with the upper, the lower draws energy from the upper and forces the latter to take care of it. This is how material and spiritual laws of physics work.

That’s why if we apply efforts to cling to the right line, that is, to become like the upper, if we try to approach Its form and copy Its actions, it means that we tend to acquire the shape of an embryo. We incline to annul ourselves in front of the upper. Despite the fact that we continue to be all in continuous self-interest, we still want to cancel ourselves in front of the upper, enter into It, so that there we remain unnoticeable and imperceptible to completely surrender ourselves to It.

This is what we call “faith above reason,” since we do it beyond our knowledge, feelings, and desires. Because of this, not only do we receive the surrounding Light from the upper, but also we can focus together with other friends and use their support in a way that our surroundings will deliver the Light to us, thus practically allowing us to grow into spirituality.

We come into direct contact with the upper. Not only do we let the surrounding Light influence us, but we also receive a real internal Light, the spiritual “blood” (“dam” – from the word “domem” – inanimate) that nourishes the fetus, the Light of Nefesh – an inanimate level of sanctity.

Why is it called “sacred”? It’s because it is determined by the things we aspire to. There are numerous teachings, religions, and methodologies. We have to make sure that they lead us to adhesion with the Creator, to acquiring equivalence of form with Him, to love our neighbor as ourselves, from which our love to the Creator begins.

If a methodology pursues the above goal and practically brings people to achieve it by teaching them day after day how to expand the desire to love other creatures and how to later learn to love the Creator, then this teaching is called sacred and spiritual. Otherwise, it might become a deadly poison instead of a potion of life.
[110922]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/13, Shamati

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Question: What should the correct intention be when we read The Book of Zohar? Should it be permanent or variable?

Answer: As a rule, it is desirable to maintain a permanent intention when one envisages oneself as being united with others, having one common desire and sharing one joint aspiration. Within this integrated desire, aspiration, one reveals the entirety of internal attributes of one’s relationships with others to the extent of the level of their connectedness and their chance to divulge all possible forms of the connection through the mutual bestowal that The Book of Zohar writes about.

After all, with the help of various metaphors and through the Kabbalistic terminology (such as “Havakuk, Atik, Hamnuna-Saba…”) The Zohar explains to us the details of attainment that are associated with our connection. There is nothing besides it.

At some point, there was one spiritual vessel, kli, a solid ten Sefirot that had no dissimilarities among them. After shattering, we began distinguishing among various alien parts that now are separated and distanced from one another and that try to reconnect. We discover numerous types of connection. The Zohar tells us about the types of connection. There is not a single word in The Book that describes anything but this.

Therefore, by attempting to connect with the group, the Creator, and spirituality, we tend to reveal what particular forms of connection there are, how they manifest themselves, and what they represent. Maybe, we’ll manage to disclose at least some of these connections… This is what is called “the intention.”

In other words, in our effort to unite, we tend to reveal what the right forms of connection among us are. Then, we figure out their names—“Havakuk, Rabbi Hamnuna-Saba…” —it doesn’t matter which ones. Besides, it’s not that important what particular words or letters we look at since behind them we should be distinguishing just the attributes, the ways they connect with each other, why exactly these particular letters, words, or titles are used.

We won’t look at words or letters, but rather at the properties and internal aspects of their connection. Why are these connections so important to us? The answer is: Connections among detached parts allow us to attain spirituality (the Creator.) Through them, we start revealing one force. This is what gives us the ultimate delight: the attainment.
[111369]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/13, The Book of Zohar – “Introduction” 

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It is clear that we can only advance above the corrupt egoistic desire that is revealed to a greater extent day by day. Only by overcoming it and yearning for the spiritual goal with the right inclination do we gradually advance toward the end of correction.

The main thing is to start anew each day, which means every moment. You must feel the new egoistic desires, thoughts, doubts, and disagreements with the goal, and urges awaken in you from one moment to the next. You become critical with regard to the spiritual path, the environment, the teacher, the books, and the sources, and are drawn to other goals.

It is also important how deeply you delve into inner self-searching since they can bury you under their heavy load. You mustn’t spend more time on them than necessary, but only feel where you are and immediately aim at coming out of the darkness. We need the right attitude to begin with.

If you understand that your advancement is based only on negative clarifications, then you can be grateful for them and advance. You will not be afraid to discover increasingly more unpleasant clarifications every minute. On the contrary, the more “entrances” and “exits” that you make with regard to the goal, the spiritual attributes, bestowal, love, and connection, the happier you will be that your life is full of corrections.

Even if you prepare yourself in advance and come to some big event, to a big convention, and go through very serious, honest, inner clarifications there, the very next day, you should be happy that you begin everything anew from the same corrections and the same problems that you seemingly already have been in.

Nothing repeats itself, although it may seem that way. However, a person must get used to starting anew each time, until the clarifications add up to a full measure and provide a person with a new level to work on. There, too, the work begins anew each day, although it is a totally new kind of work.
[111654]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/13

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Rabash, Letter 42:  And when everyone has annulled himself and everyone worries only about the Creator’s sake, then they have no private judgment, since there are no more private opinions, and all the individuals annul themselves and all enter the domain of the unique.

Incorporation is the main thing; incorporation brings the general vessel back to the corrected state and what is more it adds to the vessel an intensity that is 620 greater. What used to be simply connected in the system of Adam HaRishon (first man) before the sin, has become something that is much greater. It isn’t the same matter and not the same initial “earth” anymore but actually becomes similar to the Creator in every sense.

In terms of intensity that is 620 times greater, it is about a qualitative ascent that cannot be described in words. We go through a kind of enhancement and move from the created being to the Creator, thus raising ourselves to the level of the Giver.

This doesn’t mean that from now on I surround the whole world by my perception; it isn’t about this world at all, but about totally different levels. The size of the first spiritual level cannot be measured in our world, neither in height nor in intensity.

Everything is attained only by incorporation when I fill the friends and the friends fill me. No one can fill himself, only others can and it is only from them that he will receive a filling.
[111918]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/05/13, Preparation to St. Petersburg Convention, “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself,” Lesson 3

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Rabash, “Shlavei Sulam,” 1985/86, Article 21, “Above Reason”: The envy that he feels toward the friends when he sees that they have better qualities than his own, it motivates him to acquire their good qualities, which he doesn’t have and of which he is jealous.

Thus, through the society, he gains new qualities that he adopts by seeing that they are at a higher degree than his, and he is envious of them. This is the reason why now he can be greater than when he didn’t have a society, since he acquires new powers through the society.

I envy my friends in a good way. I do not want them to be worse than me; I want to rise to their degree myself. And to do this, I need to be integrated into them.

I do not compete with them in studies on the basis of envy. We are talking about a property of bestowal, getting closer to the Creator, and that is why I have to learn from the friends how to become more giving. I will not manage without being integrated into them.

Thus, spiritual envy is opposite to the material one. Material envy places a person in the “black list” of those without whom my life would have been calmer, but spiritual envy prompts me to join him in spite of my nature, my desire. I need to “embrace” him internally, so he helps me rise to the same degree. Thus, spiritual envy awakens a greater internal effort due to which I break my egoism and turn it into a “lever” for advancement.

It turns out that envy in a group is a great force that comes from the friend whom I envy; the force that helps me rise above my egoism and connect with the friend.

But apart from that, I also need the power of the group that will help turn the destructive potential of envy into creative.

After all, at the beginning, my envy of the friend is so terrible that it is similar to hatred. He causes a negative, bad feeling in me because I feel that he is higher than me. Thus, he reveals a new “hollow,” an emptiness, a lack, a need for something in my desire. And as a result, I envy him; I hate him because he is better; he has an addition that I don’t have.

Thus, the friend forms a desire in me and pushes me to advance only if I use my new need correctly. How can I turn it into bestowal, into correct fulfillment, the same as he has?

First of all, we need some closeness, some relationship, unity. Otherwise, I will not be able to see anything in him and will have nothing to envy. That is why we are called friends because we are linked.

Besides that, I need to recognize that addition in him, which I lack myself. A strong need is formed within me, and I treasure it. It is very important not to erase his addition and my new desire against the inner background of perception, but on the contrary to start working on it, so that it becomes the same that my friend has.

So, all this is done by means of the group’s opinion. You will not manage without it; neither will you manage without a friend. Both these factors affect me and play a crucial role in advancement.

As a rule, I feel envious of individual friends, not of the group as a whole because it is “blurred” in my perception and not directed exactly against my egoism so I could aim at a particular property.

Well, next I make the actions possible for me, and then the Light, the Creator, completes what has been started… The Light always “finalizes” our endeavors.
[111856]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/13, Preparation to St. Petersburg Convention, “Principles for Building a Better Environment,” Lesson 4

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