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.

[99112]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Ego Should Not Understand
The Path To The Group
A Nation That Has No Rest

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: We say that I see myself in the friend, but which part of him exactly is my reflection?

Answer: If I consider a person my friend, then he really does become my mirror. If I see something negative in him regarding my spiritual advancement, then I should understand that this negativity is within me and that my perception is simply distorted.

As for other people, it is a different story. It is clear that I should remember that they represent the Creator, but, in that case, they don’t represent the external reality as a replica of my internal attributes. We need a serious study in order to treat people on the outside who are not members of the group correctly. To the extent that the first part of the system is revealed as GE, we will learn to treat the AHP correctly.

So, it is only in a friend that I should see my reflection. It is as if the Creator puts a mirror before me at a certain angle and each time shows me a certain part and says that I should look at myself, at my flaws. He reflects my attributes outwardly, dresses them in different figures, and presents them to me.

At the same time, when I look at the friend, I don’t attribute everything to me, but only what belongs to the spiritual path. However, this already depends on the level of connection. If I love someone, I don’t see any flaws in him; I simply love him. People say that it is a habit, but it isn’t. On the corporeal level, my desire to receive doesn’t want to suffer and so it guards itself. I get used to the flaws of others, and it is as if I don’t pay attention to them so as not to suffer all the time. However, in spirituality, as it is written, “Love covers all transgressions.” Love covers all the sins, and it isn’t a habit, but the work of correction.

On the current level, it happens that I envy a friend since I see in him something better, attributes that I would like to have myself. It is painful. Do I thank the Creator for this pain? After all, He shows me that I am inferior to the others. I begin to regret and search, and this brings me to the question: Why don’t I actually love the friend if I see that he is better than me?

Thus, in the example the Creator presents to me, He shows me an opportunity for advancement. Otherwise, I would have remained “dead” on the level of the still nature, but now, thanks to the envy, lust, ambition, and even hatred, I have “fuel,” a “fuse,” and I cannot sit still.

Sure, I can calm myself and say, “Nonsense, it only seems this way.” But, I can do the opposite, hold onto the feeling, and plan how to exit the negative attributes that were revealed, to make a real plan of how to rise.

Question: But still, do I have to attribute all of the friend’s negative qualities to myself automatically?

Answer: You are right; the animal attributes are irrelevant. If, for example, he is too hasty or a bit lazy, it is nature that has given him these attributes. Someone may be slow and another may be too loud; everyone has a collection of innate, corporeal attributes.

We are speaking about an inclination to change, about the fire that burns in a person. This is what you need: reasons to feel envy. Do you envy his innate attributes or his sensitivity and his yearning for the goal?

Question: Suppose I see that the friend is sleeping during the lesson, and I understand that it is actually I who is sleeping. How can I make use of that? After all, I don’t find any flaw in myself.

Answer: It is very simple. If you are not sleeping, then he isn’t sleeping either. Include him within you, and try to wake up his image inside you. Even if he continues to sleep during the lesson, he will receive everything through you.
[99106]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

Related Material:
Everyone Has A “Point In The Heart”
Holy Envy
Who Are You, My Friends?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Rabash, Letter No. 29:“We should not deposit exterior waste inside ourselves as does the tree. One has to take his filth out of the state of concealment and reveal it through one’s sensations.”

Question: I consider myself perfect, but Rabash offers me to look for filth inside me?

Answer: Indeed, how do we take the waste that we can fertilize ourselves for growth?

We receive it from the higher level. It’s the waste of the upper. Similarly as in this world, plants are fertilized by animal waste. This is a natural process, but in the modern era, we resort to using various technologies for it.

Returning to spirituality, if we compare ourselves to trees, then the waste of the next animate level serves as food for us.

Consequently, in order to find a suitable fertilizer, we should seek connection with the upper and accept something that looks like “waste” to us. This is a condition of our advancement. The upper actually is bestowal, love, self-annulment, and concessions. Even though we regard these things as “garbage,” we have to accept them as food.

Question: How can I possibly strive for it if I see myself as perfect?

Answer: Sit with us and you’ll see that you are very far away from being ideal.

In any case, you should not be embarrassed to receive “waste.” Something that our egoism regards as “garbage” has to be consumed by us as food; we should try to feed our souls with it.

The upper is giving, “brilliant,” and clean, but you look at this and don’t want it. So, now we have to change our attitude, work in the group, study, and strive to feel a little “charm of the upper” in seeing its bestowal. And even if you don’t want it, are already tired of it and have other things in life that are important, that is all clear; but we’re talking about changing values. You should increase the importance of the upper, and although at first His properties seem insignificant to you, “debris” under your feet, you have to give them value until they really turn into the food that we like, like trees enjoy cow manure.

By the way, if you could see what waste you enjoy now, you would not be averse to the upper’s waste.

Question: I am driven by my egoism. How can I possibly slow down this “engine” with garbage? How can I admit that my egoism has downsides if I live only in it and for it?

Answer: In the soil of your desire there appeared a new seed, a spiritual spark that was ignited in you by the Creator. By doing this, He gave you an opportunity to grow. However, it’s hard work; it has to break through the shell for the seed to sprout. If you really want it to grow, you need to apply an external power. In his article “The Freedom of Will,” Baal HaSulam explains that in order to grow, a seed needs to be placed in favorable external conditions: temperature, humidity, fertilizers, minerals, everything that helps to implement its potential to grow.

That’s why if you continue to be full of the pride about your “perfection,” you simply will bury yourself and the seed will rot in vain. A long time will pass before there will be another chance to “wake it up.” So, change your values and continue to move forward by using the same old egoistic “engine.”

To this end, the group keeps “poisoning” you:

“You will be really great in our eyes,” your friends say, “if you clean the bathroom. We think that it is the most respectable job. Those who do it demonstrate their love to others and thus others love and value them back. If you do not do it you won’t be worthy in our eyes.”

Their request initiates an internal struggle: “Who, me clean the toilet? Never! But, if I don’t do this, they won’t respect me….” Eventually, if your egoism is big enough and your friends work with you correctly, you will gladly fulfill their request since it will make them respect you even more, thus you will secure a legitimate place in the group for yourself.

Consequently, you “sell” yourself to your friends with the help of your egoism. It means that your ego worked as “help against you” since without it your friends wouldn’t even have a chance to play with you or bring you closer to them. So, it is your resistance that made it possible for you to get closer to the Light.

By the way, the egoism per se plays a very mean and disgusting game with you: It makes you do “junk” work and then leaves you without any compensation, but your friends pay you well for your efforts…
[98749]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
What I Get Depends On Me
Envy Is Useful When It Increases Wisdom
Moving Forward Fueled By The Group

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

[media 2]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Letter 13”

[media 3]

[media 4]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Lesson 17

[media 5]

[media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Lesson 3

[media 7]

[media 8]

Writings of Rabash “Letter 29”

[media 9]

[media 10]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

If we don’t feel a response to our attitude, then there is a problem. It is as if we are up against a wall and cannot change it, nor can we change ourselves by it. In that case there is no connection among us.

It may be absolute hatred or absolute love, it doesn’t really matter, but if we are up against something that doesn’t change, then we cannot change our attitude towards it either. If I don’t change, I feel that I am dead, since the feeling of life is determined by changes.

So if I cannot add anything to my love and the other side cannot add anything or summon anything in me, then we find ourselves in a very problematic situation. It is true that the attainment of absolute love is the goal of our relationship with the Creator, but this is only if we rise above and build our love on mutual bestowal by restricting our ego.

I conceal myself from the love of the Creator and accept it only as fuel that enables me to love Him. I receive pleasure only by bestowing upon Him. So this absolute love doesn’t annul our feeling towards one another, but rather allows us to develop them more.

The end of correction is the end of the correction of the vessels, but not the end of the growth of bestowal. Bestowal has no limits, and so this state is called the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). The desire to receive has limits and an end, and the intention also has limits and an end, but there is no end to our ability to rise above our desire to receive with the right intention.
[99027]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Unbearable Burden Of Absolute Love
How Can You Resist Love?
Love Beyond Infinity

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: I don’t understand how a person can despair of his own powers and cry out if I simply feel tired of everything and throw it all aside when things get tough? Where should I stop and feel despair?

Answer: We don’t know in advance where we should stop. If the outcry is planned, then it isn’t a cry of despair. A cry of despair has to come from inside you without any prior planning as one sees that he has no other choice. If you feel confused and are too tired and don’t know which way to go, it is an indication that you don’t feel that the goal is important.

Now the goal doesn’t seem important to you, and you don’t understand why you are making such efforts. Once you were full of energy and chased different pleasures and wasted your powers. What nonsense does a person do during his lifetime and all just to feel some fleeting pleasure? Sometimes you lie on the couch and don’t want to get up since there is nothing to get up for, and sometimes you get up and run, losing your head, ready to do anything.

It all depends on how important you feel the goal is, which is the main thing we should attain. The importance of the goal is the importance of bestowal, the importance of actions that are far from self-interest, which I cannot perform since I am not motivated to and have no fuel to perform them. How can I do something in which there is nothing for me? My body cannot move in such a case. Our whole world works only on the energy of the desire to receive, that receives a filling, pleasure, reward. But if I don’t see a reward, I cannot do anything.

Thus the Creator gets close to me and takes away my last powers to do anything. The attribute of bestowal comes close to me, and I don’t feel that I am motivated to do something, I actually cannot move.

Fortunately the attribute of bestowal doesn’t dress in the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature; otherwise, all the electrons, all the molecules, all the protein matter would stop and my body would freeze and become motionless; it would die, and disappear. Luckily the attribute of bestowal gradually comes closer and is dressed only in the “speaking” level in me.

But the moment it gets close to my shattered egoistic desire, I immediately feel that I am losing my energy, the fuel, the power, the motivation. So what can I do? The Creator’s getting closer at this point is meant to deprive me of the egoistic motivation and to force me, having no choice, to turn to the group. From it I will receive the impression as to the importance of connection, advancement, the greatness and the importance of the goal. I will be able to work by using the group’s fuel.

All this is necessary in order to help me adhere to the group and start bestowing upon it. By such actions I am incorporated in the group and I receive its values. I want to be with everyone because I respect them and see them as my group. They help me and they seem great and important. A person submits to the environment and has to make special efforts to be incorporated in it.

To the extent that I am incorporated in the environment, I receive a unique quality. It is a special chance that doesn’t exist in any method except the wisdom of Kabbalah. A miracle happens, a special power that influences me as a result of my preparation, and it corrects the shattered vessels in me.

These shattered vessels symbolize my readiness for correction. The Light that operates and influences them corrects them. This is called a healing action, like it says: “a remedy for one’s flesh.” Then I really begin to respect and to value bestowal, I suddenly discover in me respect and appreciation for this attribute and want it to be dressed in me. I want to annul myself and to connect with others. Suddenly I have such thoughts and desires that are not typical of my nature at all. But now I suddenly feel such an unnatural yearning and I understand that it is a result of the influence of the Light on me. So we advance.

Without a group, there is no way to receive the Light that Reforms, since it comes from the upper system, through the teacher, through the group, through the books until it reaches a person. There has to be a chain.

The group is not in the spiritual world yet or may be partly in it. The teacher is in contact with the souls of the Kabbalists that preceded him, with his teachers, and a person connects to the group through the books, dissemination, and working together, and thus connects to the goal by ensuring himself a connection with the source of the Light.
[99021]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Allergic To Love
The Stages Of Love Of Others
Ready For Collaboration!

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Is it possible to hasten the awakening of the point in the heart in a person?

Answer: Yes, it is possible in two ways, but first I want to explain something: People in whom the point in the heart has not awakened yet belong to the level of the “nations of the world” or AHP. Those in whom the sparks have already awakened are called “Israel“, which means that they yearn straight to the Creator (Yashar-El). They are attracted upward and have to take care of whoever is below, so the “points in the heart” can be awoken by two actions only:

1. An external action—by disseminating our materials, integral education, books, films, etc.

2. An internal action—by the connection among us, which influences everyone else even if they are not aware of it through the system in which we are all connected.

Question: Can this drawing illustrate the external and the internal work in the group?

Answer: Yes, it can. The upper part (in red) is the work of the points in the heart of the group, while in the lower part (in blue) are all the desires to receive of the group. All this belongs to the same “body” of the group.

Question: This means that on the one hand, I work with the friend and see him as my reflection and correct his attributes in me, and on the other hand, I tell him frankly: “Hey! You are doing something wrong…”

Answer: No, this isn’t the spiritual work. I don’t need to correct the friend’s attributes in me, since if he is a friend, it means that the Creator is behind him. So I look up to him and to me he seems perfect, corrected. If I see that there is something wrong in him I immediately attribute it to myself.

So I don’t have any complaints about the friend. On the contrary, I have only complaints about myself.

On the whole, I have to constantly show the friends a high spirit, confidence and joy in the spiritual path, and also to worry about the group internally so that through me the friends will receive the Light that Reforms.
[99034]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

Related Material:
Everyone Has A “Point In The Heart”
Checking The Match Between The Two Worlds
The Point That Connects Me With The External World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Item 66: Bear in mind that in everything there is internality and externality. In the world in general, Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are considered the internality of the world.

“Israel” are those who have an inclination for the three lines, for bestowal. These three lines symbolize Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and Israel aspire to integrate them so that the force of bestowal and the force of receiving will connect and reach adhesion with the Creator in the middle line.

After all, there are only these two forces in reality—the force of receiving and the force of bestowal. The first refers to the created being and the second to the Creator.

If the force of bestowal is also in the created being, a spark or a point in the desire to receive, then by that the created being can build the middle line. The desire is the left line, and the point in the desire, the spark from the Masach (screen) before the shattering, is the right line, and the Light that was summoned to operate on welding them provides the middle line, above reason, bestowal above receiving.

So we need the desire and the point in it (●) and also the tension (∆) between them, due to which a person feels bad. Then his point receives an urge to become acquainted with the Creator. And in this case, all of his desires become a means that helps the point in the heart reach the Creator.

That is why the Light initially, by descending, created a desire as powerful as itself. Now when the created being uses this desire, he can reach the Creator and rise to Him.

“Abraham” is the point of bestowal, and when a person uses it correctly and looks at the desire from it, he is called “Isaac.” And then there is the combination of them, “Jacob,” the middle line. We need these three components.

Question: If the Light and the desire have the same power, where does the difference (∆) between them come from?

Answer: The spark of Light, or the Creator, enters the desire and evokes in it a feeling of another nature, of another essence.

Then a person feels bad because of his dissimilarity with this nature in the use of his desire.

The truth is that none of us knows what the desire to receive is, but everyone knows its benefits. So we are not speaking about the desire but about the intention of in order to receive; we live in the egoistic intention and not in the desire, and it is not felt in itself.

Our whole perception, our whole program, is based only on our intention, on our self-centeredness. The difference is not between two desires, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, but between two basic characteristics.

I compare them not according to size but according to a qualitative difference. In fact, I feel the difference, the gap between the Creator and the created being. This is what pushes me to start the path to the level of the Creator, to an equivalence of form with Him. Otherwise I wouldn’t receive such an urge.

Then I climb up the levels of resemblance, the levels through which a person brings himself to an equivalence of form with the Creator.

There are people in whom there are three lines and others not. In fact, they exist in everyone since eventually everyone has to reach the same state. The shattering was total, the incorporation was total, and the correction also has to be total.

Still, the three lines are not expressed in everyone at the same time. In the general desire there is an upper part—GE, or in other words those in whom the point in the heart (•) has already risen and been revealed, and there is a lower part, AHP, those in whom it is still concealed below. Accordingly, those above are drawn to unity (Yechud), to the Creator, and so they are called “Jews” (Yehudi). Below, people have a huge amount of desires, each one seemingly living in his own world—and so they are called “the nations of the world.” Above, everyone wants to connect to one point by which to reach the Creator and below, this point has not been revealed yet and still means nothing, and so the different desires draw people in different directions.

But “the individual and the general are equal,” and every person is a small world, so this system, this structure, already exists in every one. Even if the point is revealed in a person’s heart, there are also many other desires, although they may be concealed at the moment waiting for their turn. Everyone has desires that in the meantime do not accompany the point in the heart.

Still, the people who have received the basis for the three lines from Above have to feel that they are responsible for the correction of the world.
[99037]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

Related Material:
When Compensation Is Overdue
An Argument Between Two Desires
Three Pillars Upon Which The World Stands

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

[media 2]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Igrot,” Letter 6 

[media 3]

[media 4]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 164, Lesson 16

[media 5]

[media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Question 140, Lesson 28

[media 7]

[media 8]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

[media 9]

[media 10]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: There are moments during the reading of The Zohar when it’s difficult to perceive the text and then it’s easier to stay in intention. But what can I do in a different state, when during my studies I feel excitement and joy?

Answer: We are going through various states until we form the correct request. It includes a variety of components. It’s possible to compare it with a delicious dish that has dozens of ingredients.

We don’t need to keep all these components in our head, our mind, because they accumulate and line up in us, and what has been built is in you. You shouldn’t worry about it; you take care of other things, as a chef preparing a dish who automatically knows what to add and what needs his attention.

Since our vessel, Kli, is a desire, not reason, then a habit becomes second nature. So, you are not worried about what is already included in the desire, but rise above it to other, more advanced concerns.
[99030]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, The Zohar

Related Material:
An Evasive Intention
Why Is It So Difficult To Keep The Intention?
Without Intention There Is No Result

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →