Question: How can I understand which corrections I go through from day to day? I don’t understand at all what is happening with me.

Answer: The understanding arrives as a result of clarifying my Kelim (vessels, desires). And the Light is what purifies, corrects, and fills my Kli, not you yourself. Our work is to be inspired to pull this Light upon us. Except for that there is nothing else, and this is the entire Torah, “The Reforming Light.”

You don’t know, don’t understand, and don’t feel the spiritual world. Simply some kind of unknown longing leads you, but you really don’t know exactly what it leads to. This is the correct and good state that even exists on higher spiritual levels.

We only need to imagine the optimal conditions: In what state, what situation, in what way will I enter into the maximum influence of the Light? It is as if I go on the roof in order to sunbathe a little. After all I wouldn’t sit in the shade, but I would put the chair directly in the sun and turn towards it, in order to place myself constantly under its rays. I constantly adjust myself to catch the maximum rays of the sun.

Similarly, we need to clarify the conditions under which we will be able to pull the maximum Light that Reforms. And we need not just to place ourselves under its influence, but to pull it to ourselves. After all, here everything depends on how strongly I want the Light to come and affect me.

And one needs to think about this all day: How can I hold myself in the correct thought and desire; what needs to control my heart and mind in order to invite the influence of the Light? Under what conditions does the Light influence me in the greatest way? How should I turn my heart and mind in order to position myself under the influence of the Light?

As a result of that, all the rest will come. Even without reading the letters of Baal HaSulam, you discover what is written there. The matter is not in learning a few pages of text and acquiring knowledge. But we need to read these texts because during the time of studies we direct ourselves to greater influence of the Light. For example, the reading of Kabbalistic texts is one of the conditions of the correct intention towards the Light. But we don’t read them just for understanding, but with the thought to pull towards us the influence of the Light. This is the whole issue. Thus, it is said, “Not the wise one learns.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 11

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Lesson 18

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 9, Question 144, Lesson 29

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“A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar,” (Starting with: “There is a discernment of ‘mind'”)

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Question: What does “adhesion to the Creator” mean?

Answer: Adhesion is according to the equivalence of form. The Creator is the level of Bina. This is how Keter presents itself to us through Bina that is totally in bestowal. This means that in order to reach the Creator I also have to be one who bestows.

How do I perform this bestowal? I hand my vessels, my desires, to Him so that He will bestow in them. I must have the right intention here, “Please bestow upon me since by that I want to bring You pleasure, to bring You joy, and to make You feel good.” Thus I place myself at His service.

Before I wanted to receive the goodness for myself, but now I restrict myself instead (Tzimzum Aleph – ZA), place a Masach (screen) over it to create the Returning Light, and all that in order to care for and think about Him, about the one who bestows. Afterward I already have the right intention, and to that extent I am ready to receive everything from the Creator.

It is because His desire is that I receive that I want to receive everything so that He enjoys. I will know this if I discover joy in Him. This is my goal—to bring the Creator joy just as He wants to be the good and benevolent for me.

This means that only one thing is required of us—to hand Him the vessel for the induction and the revelation of the Creator. This is why we yearn for His revelation.

So ask yourself: Why does everyone yearn for the revelation of the Creator? Is it in order to bring Him joy or to bring you joy? This is the whole idea.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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It is said that the upper Light is in complete rest and we lack only the vessels, the appropriate desire in order to reveal it. The desire must fit exactly to one of the five degrees of the upper Light: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida. In the same measurement that the desire changes from one degree to the other, it reveals a new fulfillment.

The desire must match the filling in quantity and also in quality, and this is all our work.  And in the Light itself, there is no change. It doesn’t have the Light of NRNHY (Nefesh Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida.). About the Light that did not clothe yet in the vessels, one cannot say anything. This is an abstract form that nothing is known about it. We are able to talk about only what is clothed in us and not even on the one that clothes us, but only how we feel the clothing in us.

We already feel it according to our deficiency, to our desire, and this phenomenon is called “Ohr,” Light, similar to the light of the sun as some kind of pleasant feeling. Therefore, all our work is in attaining the deficiency that is called “the gate of tears.”

This is a deficiency that I don’t have any control of. I invested a lot of effort, I did everything possible, I achieved a size of a great desire, and I see that its fulfillment is not dependent on me because if it weree dependent on me, this would not have been called deficiency, I would simply continue to work. A strong deficiency means that I don’t have any ability to realize it.

I want very much to realize it 100% and I know 100% that it is not in my powers. This point where the desirable and the actual meet is called the gate of tears. One despairs 100% from his own forces, but is not able to leave the desirable goal because it is the only thing important for him in his life.

All our work is to reach this point. Certainly, we are built in a way that everyone is included in everyone. Therefore, without mutual work and integration, it is impossible to attain such a state.  Only intensive work in the group, in one direction, will bring a result, and then this gate will be opened. And all the rest of the desires in their form and in their qualities do not fit the spiritual revelation.
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Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13 

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We are used to traditional literature. Books can be entertaining about adventure, science fiction, etc. In general, when opening a book, I want to draw some information or impressions from it.

However, Kabbalistic books act very differently. In Kabbalah a book is a means, the connecting element, the adapter, with which I can connect to the author. That is how I should see the works of Kabbalists: They help me connect to an immense spiritual system flooded with the Light of Infinity, filled with the Creator.

This system consists of souls, that is, from the corrected desires of the greatest spirits that by great efforts achieved similarity with the Creator, and they hold His revelation in their vessels, in their desires. Moreover, some of them formed a thin “pipe” to me, a channel through which I can connect with them and receive inspiration, news, correction, everything that makes me belong to this system.

Thus, reading a Kabbalistic books is quite different from reading all other literature. That is why these books in general are called “studying” (the Torah) because they contain the Light (Ohr) that Reforms. They contain a special power, and I can get it if I wait for change, if I want to become like the authors.

If I look just for knowledge in these books and treat them like any other books, then I disdain the efforts of Kabbalists and thus lose a lot. Of course, in general this approach brings no good to either me or anyone else.

Thus, it is very important to connect to the heritage of Kabbalists, to use the opportunity to unite that they gave me. Here, the intention decides everything. If my “animal” mind sees various kinds of wisdom in their books to improve something in our world, then it is a completely worthless approach called “the potion of death.” Nothing is worse than this attitude.

And if we connect, if we read these books only in order to see the “elixir of life” inside, we open ourselves so we are ready to receive what they intended to give us. There are no tricks and excuses: all that the upper gives us for the better. Thus I advance, as they say, “believing the wise.”

It is not simple, but it imperative. My intention determines the difference between the “elixir of life” and the “potion of death,” between the “bat” living in the dark, and the “rooster” praising the dawn. If I do not keep the correct approach, I can stay in the same place, or even worse, fall backward. Even if I have dedicated a whole life to this, if there were an error in the main thing, then life will pass in vain, and even worse, it can throw me into the forces of impurity (Klipot), cleansing from which can take a few more cycles.

That is why people must constantly check themselves on the spiritual path.

Question: What can I do with my “material” mind and my feeling to connect to this “adapter,” a Kabbalistic book?

Answer: It is necessary to cancel yourself before the group and the teacher; this is the tool that lets you connect to the author. By annulling oneself before the group and the teacher who oversees it, a person seemingly connects to the “jack” and establishes connection with the Kabbalist who wrote the book. The group plays the role of the “adapter” between them.

In general, the concept of “group” represents a link between the Creator and humanity.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

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We are made of the desire to receive and we feel everything in it only as some gain for ourselves. Besides that, a person doesn’t understand or feel anything. The correction is in the fact that we tune the desire to be in order to bestow.

In the meantime, these are only nice words for us and we don’t understand what it is about. This means that we can penetrate someone else by using our desire to receive and feel what is happening inside him, which means to know how he feels and understands what is happening in us! And, we act accordingly.

This means that we shouldn’t examine the actual feeling, whether it is sweet or bitter, sour, warm or cold. I have very strong senses, but I examine everything from inside him and how good he feels. After all, everything that I feel comes from the Creator, so I want to feel how this operates in me according to the pleasure that the Creator receives.

It makes no difference what my senses or my tastes are. I value everything that happens inside me only according to what the Creator feels because of what I feel. We must be together, which means that I must be inside Him in order to know for sure how to tune myself, to adjust myself will all that is happening inside me.

Everything that is in my mind and heart comes from the Creator; the Creator is inside me. So, I must know how to perceive His feelings by my senses. I must yearn for the feeling that He is “the first”—He is inside me, and He evokes all my feelings and thoughts—and that He is “the last” since I must see by which response I bring Him more contentment. This means that I must examine how I should respond to what is happening in order to bring Him the greatest contentment.

If I act that way, it means that I yearn for the love of the Creator. It makes no difference what I receive from Him. I receive everything as “good and benevolent,” but I must make sure that it is really good, and in order to do that, I must connect to Him and in my reality, feel that the Creator enjoys. I examine everything only according to my feeling in Him, both in the beginning and in the end, and so I want to remain adhered to Him, to get close to Him and to discover Him since, without it, I cannot tune my responses to what I receive from Him.

In that case, both love and fear develop in me simultaneously. Love develops above the fear since the fear is the essential condition for love without which love cannot exist. I must feel constantly “in fear and trepidation” as to whether I receive all my feelings from the Creator and whether He dresses in me. What does He want me to feel? How should I respond in order to bring Him the greatest contentment?

This requires my devotion, self-annulment, adhesion, and the need to feel joy in Him since “For in Him, our hearts shall rejoice.” By that, a person becomes a violin that plays according to the responses and feelings he receives from the Creator.

I constantly tune and calibrate myself so that the Creator will be “the first”—as it is written, “There is none else besides Him”—and that He is “the last” and that “in Him our hearts shall rejoice.” A person is in the middle: On the one hand, he annuls himself, feeling the Creator’s attitude toward the created being and, at the same time, expresses in response the created being’s attitude toward the Creator.

Thus, absolute love only can exist in a vessel that tunes itself accurately in all its 620 attributes, its desires of “in order to bestow.” He doesn’t need anything for himself except for one thing that he discovered in the beginning, that “There is none else besides Him,” and ends with the “good and benevolent.” This means that he understands that he receives everything from the Creator that is dressed in the person’s image (“There is none else besides Him”). Then, he, himself, dresses in the Creator as the good and benevolent, wanting to bring Him contentment
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: Who is the Almighty, all His deeds are to bestow and to benefit the other, and not at all for His own benefit because He, the blessed, has no lack that needs to be fulfilled, and also he has no one from whom to receive, also you, all your deeds will be to bestow and benefit the other.

Question: What does it mean “to bestow and to benefit the other”?

Answer: It means that I need to feel exactly what you want. And for that I need to be in love towards you, in an inclination toward you. Meaning, I need to do a “Tzimtzum (restriction)” upon myself and to assemble on all my desires a “Masach (screen)” and “Ohr Hozer (Returning Light).” Then in my qualities, that will be directed outward and not inward to myself, I might be able to understand and to feel you and reveal precisely what you want.

I need to receive all your “tastes” from you even though I don’t recognize them. And for me, you are some kind of alien that came from another planet. Still, I take upon myself your vessels in such a form I even receive what your mother fed you in your childhood.

How is it possible to feel this in my vessels, my desires, if I have no idea what you are made from and what inner reaction you feel toward anything? Here I really need to come closer to you, to love you. In the wisdom of Kabbalah we call it “nearing,” embracing,” “kissing,” “coupling,” and “adhesion”; these are concepts that symbolize measurement of connection through equivalence of desires and mutual fulfillments.

Question: I mean, what seems to me now that the other is lacking something, is it only how it seems to me?

Answer: You cannot interpret your needs in your current vessels. Yes it is true that in our world the means of communication and the influence of the environment make it possible somehow to bring the desire into a common denominator, but to really feel what is in the heart of the friend is the same as to feel the Creator. You need to make a Tzimtzum, Masach, and Ohr Hozer. Only in this way will you feel him as yourself and only in this way will you be able to exit toward the other.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I annul myself correctly before the teacher? As it is written, “The left rejects, and the right adducts.” I must build my middle line from these two systems, but how exactly: receiving something in parts or everything as a whole?

Answer: The middle line is the adaptation to the upper. It symbolizes that I receive everything that comes from my teacher as much as I can. In general, a “teacher” is called a guide on the spiritual path. I must receive what I hear from him spiritually, instead of rationally. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be a teacher.

On his part, he wants to prepare you with his explanations about leading an independent life.

However, in order to receive from him all the discernments, all the preparations, all the instructions, and the guidance, I must annul myself before his teaching, before his path, before all that relates to the system. In order to realize the system, I need a group. The “head”—which means the idea, the teacher’s plan—resides in the group, and I enter it and am “swallowed” in it. Then, when I am in the group, we all advance according to the teacher’s guidance as he leads us and “pulls” us, the group and me in it, after him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Rather, we understand Dvekut as equivalence of form between two spiritual objects, and we understand separation as disparity of form between two spiritual objects.

Question: What is “equivalence of form?”

Answer: There are two categories: internal and external. For example, I see different statues. One is made of marble, another of plaster, a third one of clay, and yet another of granite, plastic, and so on. They all have the same external form, but the material is different.

In the same way, we also are required to reach an equivalence of form. First, your material—which means who you are and what you are—is revealed in the form of cotton, wool or clay, and from this material, you sculpt an upper image. Your “material” is your attributes—your desires, thoughts, everything that you are internally.

Then, you create the image of the upper from a harder material, and, although it is less pliable, you can create more accurate forms. Each time, the material gets increasingly harder, until you reach the hardest material, and, accordingly, you reach a much more accurate resemblance to the upper. It will be total accuracy, a complete equivalence of form, adhesion.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I know where to go in advance? How can I aspire for the next level of adhesion in advance if it is revealed to me after the fact?

Answer: Indeed, we don’t know anything along the way and we cannot find any landmarks except for the shattered Reshimot (spiritual genes). In order to implement it correctly, I need a certain environment, a certain reality, which means that I need a group. The fulfillment of the Reshimot is done by the Light.

On the whole, there are several components here: Reshimot, my general desire with all its features, the group in which I am incorporated, and the Light that operates on us. If I want to be a faithful, active part in the system in these components, I must annul myself to adhere to the friends and see them as the greatest in our generation.

I must need the Light that Reforms, the Creator’s influence, thanks to which we connect among us, but what is the reason that we connect? It is in order to support Him or to be the place wherein He is revealed. What for? It is in order to bring Him contentment.

So, I must do my best to build all the details within me and start working.

Initially, there is nothing spiritual in me, but only an “animal” desire. It is in this desire that the point awakens, the upper level, the “human” level, or the Creator. This is the shattered Reshimo that I cannot fulfill until I am brought to the group, to the books, to the teacher, and, in general, to the Light that Reforms. Then, I annul my desire to receive and see within me only the Reshimot, which I want to incorporate in the group.

I take this point out of my heart and bring it to the group so that it will live there and receive bestowal from everyone. Thus, through the friends, I receive the Light that Reforms. Together with them, I study and perform different actions and gradually change.

I leave only the necessary minimum in my desire to receive, which “is neither condemned nor praised.” This is my “animal,” the “animate” level, while I develop the “human” level in the group.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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