It is clear that we were created so that we are only capable of worrying about our own good and we have no drive to act altruistically. In all the next 125 levels we increasingly discover this truth lurking in our ego, which totally controls us.

The only way to break away from it is with the help of the Light that Reform, that raises us from the egoistic intention to the intention of bestowal. We remain with the same desire to enjoy, but its intention changes.

This is only possible under the influence of the Light. When the Light shines on the desire, it holds on to the intention to bestow. The moment the Light stops influencing the desire the enjoy, it immediately returns to the intention of for its own good. It all depends only on the intensity of the Light that influences the desire.

It turns out that all our life depends on how much the Reforming Light influences us. This is why we have to summon its greatest influence upon us. In order to do that, we need a deficiency, a desire. Where do we find it?

For that there is a mutual inclusion. After all, none of us has a great desire to achieve bestowal: We don’t understand it and don’t see any benefit in it. So I have to incorporate in the group, in the right environment, which impresses me and tells me about the greatness of bestowal.

It doesn’t matter if the others don’t know what they are talking about; I am impressed by them since that’s how I am built. If I place myself under the influence of the environment that acts out bestowal, even artificially, as a game, it impresses me, and I begin to want to bestow! After all, it is the environment that has inserted the idea that it is a great, valuable attribute in me.

It’s like fashion that is advertised on all channels with lots of publicity, colorfully with famous actors taking part in the campaign, who tell me how important it is to have those products. Eventually I want to buy what they want to sell, although none of the actors have even thought of buying these products themselves, and the ones who hired their services simply want to make a profit. They all work only in order to confuse me and eventually they succeed: I go out and buy what they advertise.

We need the same thing, but we should organize this game by ourselves. We have to increase the importance of bestowal and to convince ourselves that it is good to bestow! Everyone must sell this merchandise to others.

We are first incorporated in each other’s desires and everyone acquires a desire to reach bestowal. Second, we work together building our environment so that it will provide each of us with the greatness of bestowal.

Eventually I receive an internal desire to bestow and so does the environment, the group that inserts the importance of this attribute in me. This is why I want it! Everyone acts as if he has ascended and is in bestowal and is attracted to it. I am impressed by that and want to attain the same thing.
[89940]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
When External Levity Helps and When It Harms
Turn The Initial Spark Into Constant Burning
From All Talk To All Walk

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Question: When I act before a friend, trying to make the goal seem more important in his eyes, must I act according to what I think is great or according to his attributes?

Answer: What do you mean, according to what you think? You must take into account only the friend. When a mother takes care of a baby, what does she think about? Is it about what is good for her or about what is good for the baby?

When I act before the friend, I aim at the highest goal. Of course, it isn’t in an exaggerated manner, but I try to convey encouragement on the spiritual path gently, from the bottom of my heart. This also impresses me. I lie to myself, as if I really want it.

As a result, I receive more Aviut, “thickness,” a deeper desire, and then I suddenly fall. However, this fall is a result of my efforts. I summoned the descent by myself, and this is already a great step forward.

There are descents that simply wait for me along the way, but there also are descents that come as a result of my efforts. They are totally different, and I receive them differently since my vessels are ready for this.

I have made something higher of myself; I have “drawn” myself anew in an attempt to be equal to the spiritual level. I am impressed by bestowal. I judge everyone to the scale of merit. I justify the Creator, my past and my present. I “blow up” all this by myself, helping the friends, yearning for mutual guarantee, living and breathing it, and, suddenly, I feel a descent in the vessels that I have created myself. Although they are not real, although I only was acting, thanks to my “performance,” thanks to the “costume” I tried on, I get additional Aviut.

In fact, I have gained an upper form and have jumped the gun, and it is as if I built it independently, and the Creator only adds the “matter” of the desire to it. By my inclination forward, it is as if I have built a large “me” in advance, and the Creator only agrees with me and fills the drawing, the “bubble” I have created. He has filled the airy body with “flesh,” with the matter of the desire, and, now, I am already in a higher state.

Thus, I advance with the help of my imagination. Of course, things are a bit more complicated. I don’t just make a “drawing,” and the Creator “colors” it in, but it is a wonderful means to advance.

In addition, there is one more thing: By acting before the friends, I actually build the Creator, the future state of bestowal. This is because I cannot imagine the Creator as higher than myself on a higher level. For me, it is the same thing. I either imagine myself or Him.
[89954]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/12, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Everybody Is Equal In Spiritual Work
Joy Gives Us Strength On The Path
The Light Of Our Life

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

“Preface to The Book of Zohar”: Indeed before we are awarded to turn the desire to receive in us to receive in order to bestow, by the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), there are strong locks on the gates to the Creator, since they have an opposite role then, to keep us away from the Creator. Thus the forces of separation are called locks, since they block the gates of closeness and distance us from the Creator. But if we overcome them, so they don’t influence us and cool the love in our hearts, the locks become openings and the darkness becomes light and the bitterness becomes sweetness, since for all the locks we receive a special level under His Providence and they become openings, levels of attaining the Creator.

This happens even before we go through the Machsom (barrier) into the spiritual world and before we acquire the attribute of bestowal with which a person begins to work. Even before that, the locks gradually become an invitation for a person’s feelings and perception.

First, he begins to understand that the locks were put there for his own good. Then, he really feels that by seeing the benefit that each descent and fall brings him, every problem in life and all the confusion, both the closest and the most distant ones. He begins to expect a positive result in everything that happens, and this focuses him correctly and straightens his path toward the goal.

Eventually, a person begins to justify everything and to be grateful, even during a time of a descent and confusion when enemies and adversaries attack him. He knows that they are all forces that were brought from Above to correct his way.

He sees the good angel, instead of the stormy waters of the flood. He sees God’s hand in everything that happens. He gets this feeling thanks to his experience and the gradual acquisition of the force of bestowal, until finally, he really is rewarded with the revelation of the force of bestowal and begins to use it beneficially for his advancement.
[89932]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/12

Related Material:
How The Steel Was Tempered
And The Halls Of Wisdom Will Open Wide
Ask And You Will Receive!

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

The Book of Zohar is all about the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. Who is the Creator? It is the upper Sefirot in which the simple upper Light is dressed, and through the Sefirot we, who are in Malchut, are impressed by them in different ways. This impression leads to the expansion of Malchut and then there is a desire, and it is impressed by them.

We in this world are a very distant result of these processes that take place on a higher level. But we are also impressed by the upper Light, which is dressed in the desire. I just feel this desire in the form of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and people. I see it through this picture. It is only the Light that operates in the vessel, in the desire. But I was allowed to see its appearance like a theatrical performance, like a picture, a play that appears before me, but in fact, we did not need to see anything. Why do I need to see if I don’t have the right desire, I don’t have a Masach (screen), and I am not compatible to the upper world in any way?

In our world we see things in a similar manner: If I take off my glasses, I don’t see anything, if I put on different glasses, I see ten meters ahead, and if I put on another pair, I see a hundred meters ahead. This means that we perceive everything in accordance to what is external to me and what is inside me. There must be some adaptor, since the main law of nature when two parts connect is the law of equivalence of form. If there are two things, then to the extent that they have something in common they can be in contact, in mutual bestowal, impressed by each other. There must be an equivalence of form because otherwise they cannot perceive one another.

I am only in the desire to receive. And there is the upper Light. The desire to receive isn’t meant to receive anything from the upper Light or to feel its influence; it is only detached from it. It had to be. We don’t even feel the darkness. But a kind of theater show is created, some false picture, an illusion called “this world,” the innermost sphere of all the spiritual spheres. In this sphere the desire to receive is detached from spirituality, detached from the Light, detached from the darkness, detached from everything, and feels that it exists. This is the state we are in now, since it is a replica of the spiritual world. So we were given a game: We try and try, and as a result we eventually reach spirituality. Why? Our efforts are worthless, except for the fact that we try. I have to invest powers and then in contrast to my powers I summon upon myself the Light that Reforms from a distance.

Our world is actually not connected to spirituality in any way. Therefore, all our advancement is when we are not in contact with it, and when we don’t understand anything. What should we do? Do what Kabbalists tell you to summon the Light that Reforms. If you draw it upon you, it will help you. If you don’t, it won’t help you. You will never summon it mentally. It is only possible if you subdue yourself before the group and make it your environment. From all this area called “this world,” you were given a group. If you work with it correctly, you will exit this sphere and enter the upper world, otherwise it won’t happen.
[89849]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/09/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Playing The Game Is Serious Business
A Game Of The Spiritual World
Towards Spirituality Through This World

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

Baal HaSulam, “Letter 19”: But not in one time will a person be ready for the high, sublime pairing, called complete coupling. But “only goodness and grace will follow me.” Therefore He intervenes, which is the beginning of the coupling, which means, “a righteous suffers….

The Creator wakes a person, which means that He doesn’t push him forward but arranges him by many tricks, as if flirting with him. We see that even in nature in the animal world there are mating games before the coupling. It’s a whole process in which each side has to show the other that he is ready for the connection and is responsible for it, able to care for the next generation.

It’s the same with a person who is rejected from the coupling by the Creator because he does not have a strong enough desire. A person thinks that the Creator doesn’t want to connect with him and so he suffers because he wants to connect so badly, and is so ready for it having done everything he could in order to attain it. So why doesn’t the Creator reveal Himself to him?

It seems to a person that he is ready to bestow, but we understand that he only thinks of how he can use the revelation of the Creator for his own pleasure. These are not vessels of bestowal yet. If he had a desire to bestow, his sorrow would be different. The sufferings would immediately turn to goodness, to pleasure

But “time will do what the mind doesn’t do”… If a person follows this path persistently: working in the group, studying, doing everything that he can, his successes and failures are already in the hands of the upper Providence and his only goal is to continue. He should try to make the best of every state that he experiences.

It isn’t enough to drag oneself from one phase to the next. Thanks to all the awakenings, all the stings from the Creator, and since he feels bad as a result, he must desire to run forward, to break all the barriers along the way, and this is clearly impossible without mutual guarantee.

A person thinks that he has made such great efforts and has not received any rewards yet! His great passion is unanswered, which means that the Creator does not respond. As a result, he despairs: How long can he chase the Creator without any results? Is there a limit to this or not?

He begins to ask: Where have all his efforts, all his exertion, and all his yearning gone? And he is left with a feeling of great longing. Actually we have to connect all our successes, failures, and disappointments. On the one hand, we should feel a great disappointment, but on the other hand we should rise above it in “faith above reason.”

The times in which the ego power pushed me forward are over. Now I have to break through all the hostile barriers along the way; now I have to feel how many such barriers are inside me and how to rise above them in “faith above reason.”

I have to feel the full depth of my ego, to feel totally disappointed in my powers. Then suddenly I understand that I can’t cope with these enemies and to break through, only because I am trying to do it with my ordinary egoistic powers (the corporeal mind and feeling) by brute force. Suddenly from this disappointment I see the solution and I understand that this isn’t the way to advance: I have to rise above reason and then everything will suddenly work out. This means that there must be a feeling of disappointment and heaviness in which the solution, the new approach, is born. But in order to reach that, we have to reach a full measure of disappointment.

And the one who knows the mysteries knows how much a person desires to be close to the Creator, a desire that may cease. And so the Creator increases His interventions, which means the beginnings of couplings. This is to the extent that a person can bear them.

It depends on the environment. If the environment is strong and sustains a person internally and constantly evokes him, he can go through this process very quickly and end all the preparation stages for the coupling.
[89834]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/712, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Spiritual Advancement
Attaining Unity
The Right Adducts And The Left Rejects

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee - No Comments →

Please know that if you go alone, you will never have the forces needed. The same path that is possible to pass within a year will take you fifteen years to pass, and, in the end, you won’t reach any result, except for recognizing that you need the group.

However, if I work correctly with the group, then always at the time of a descent, it will awaken me. And it is not necessarily through obvious physical methods, but it will come from above as an inner awakening after I have joined myself in connection with the group. At the time that I am able to, I constantly think about it: How can I attain connection where there is my exact place, within which I am included, like in a “puzzle?” I want to feel my place in this puzzle and constantly think about it, only about the connection. After all, this is the place with which I associate the future revelation of the Creator, which will connect us.

If I constantly invest my efforts in this, then it can’t be that I will fall and am left without any forces. My friends will help me.

Imagine that, like an element of a mechanism, I am a part that is included in a system. I constantly insert this force within this system, the desire to connect, by awakening the others. And, at a certain moment, I die; in this element, the ego suddenly grew, and it can no longer do anything, standing still like a car with a flat tire. And, then immediately, to the extent that I “inflated” the others, they now begin to work on me.

In our body are the same processes; all the time there are ascents and descents, contractions and expansions, absorption and emission of various substances in different systems. So the body constantly operates, and that is called being alive

To live means that there is a time to give and a time to receive. This is how each cell in the body operates, large or small. And, if I do not, then there won’t be any life. I can receive awakening from above, but only in order to awaken myself and return myself again to work with the environment. The environment is like a battery for my efforts, which then return to me.

First, I need to do everything in my power. I can’t say that now I am in a descent and wait until the group will give me strength. In any case, I need to invest efforts according to how much strength I have left, and then begin to receive forces from the friends. I just can’t fall into their arms in advance.

You will be convinced from your experience that it works specifically in this way, and huge accumulations of strength will be revealed to you. Take as much as you want. It’s like on a long run when your strength is gone, but you continue to run anyway, and then you pass the critical point when you get a second wind.
[89831]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Five Seconds Of Life A Day
First Aid To The Sick
Welcome To The Creator’s Chamber

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Unity - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends“

Preface to the The Book of Zohar, Item 38, Lesson 28

Shamati #3 “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment,” (Starting with: “The Upper Light is made of two discernments”), Lesson 2

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

Today we want to create even a greater unity among us. The preparation period, that lasted quite a few years, has ended. In the past we would not take this challenge seriously. Today the outside conditions in the world, the internal conditions in Israel, the inner conditions within the group, and the inner conditions in everyone more or less are suitable in order to “switch to the higher speed.” The time has come.

Question: Have we already started this acceleration?

Answer: Some people are still in “neutral,” while others are advancing together with us. Everyone determines with what speed he is moving forward by himself.

Question: Can a person measure it?

Answer: He cannot measure it; however, everything is in his hands. How much is he united with the group, with the teacher, with our common actions? Some people are still sleeping, while others put forth all their efforts to get in the process, and from day to day they sense the “extras.” Everything depends on the degree of agreement with this process against one’s desire. Thus, don’t look for loopholes within yourself, but rather you should act.
[89958]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10.10.12, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Expanding The Soul By Corporeal Means
The Main Thing Is To Hasten Time
Many Roads Lead To The Creator

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

After the shattering, under the influence of the informative genes (Reshimot), the shattered desires go through different states detached from spirituality on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature. And so they gradually understand their state until they finally reach the human level.

Then they begin to understand that something brought them into our world, into a state in which they feel only themselves in a special desire called “body.” It is as if a particle from the upper world was thrown downward and immersed in some liquid in which it has remained.

Now a person is faced with a dilemma: Should he work for this world, for the sake of adding, for the benefit of the body, or should he work for the benefit of the soul? He has to choose one of the options.

Of course the choice isn’t up to a person, but rather stems from the reincarnations he has been through on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature where he examined his state. A soul that has come closer to its fulfillment is called a “high soul,” and with it a person can already decide to act for the benefit of the soul and not of the body.

In order to act for the benefit of the soul, a person needs this whole world to help him reach the awe of the Creator. Fear is a spiritual vessel, a desire aimed at bestowal. The illumination from above called the “Light of the soul” is dressed into this desire, or more accurately into the intention that is built on top of it.

This intention is built from the depth of the desire (the thickness), a Masach (screen), and Returning Light—which make up a person’s spiritual vessel. Of course it is possible to develop it only from this world when we ascend from it up to the height of 125 degrees.

People who have reached this fulfillment according to their Reshimot come together. The upper Light operates on everyone equally, but if the informational genes are revealed, the Reshimot that are ready for this correction come very close to one another aspiring to connect. As a result a person comes to a group in our world.

But after he comes to a group another law begins to operate on him, which allows him freewill. After all the Reshimot have to be fulfilled in a person’s desire.

Even if it says “I am the first and I am the last” and “there is none else besides Him,” the preparation for this revelation, for the recognition of the greatness of the spiritual goal from the darkness of exile, is totally in a person’s hands.

Here nothing can be done. Whether this load seems heavy or light to a person depends on the height of the goal and on how much a person values the one he serves.

If he disrespects the teacher, the group, and the Creator, then nothing can help him. After all, these three components are inseparable and supreme for a person. If he doesn’t value them, he will eventually divert from the path and leave the spiritual development

If he works on it as he makes every possible effort so that it will save him, it will help him belittle his ego, his corporeal mind, and his life experience that seems to have some value. It is revealed as totally useless before the new states he has to go through, but it will also empower him and give him fuel to advance along this path.

This is only possible if the greatness of the goal, the group, the teacher, and the Creator are more important to a person than his egoism.
[89846]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/09/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Reason For Which We Gathered Here
The Role Of The Group Is To Discover The Creator
A Very Sophisticated Animal Or A Human?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Free Will, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

The goal of the society is to raise us to the human level. This is possible only by the greatness of the Creator, which we don’t see in our darkness. But it is in the dark that we can establish new values among us that have no egoistic foundations.

We know that these values are totally unjustified, since otherwise they would stem from our ego. But the spiritual foundation is above the ego, like the Sefira of Yesod that is above the Sefira of Malchut. So everything depends on the foundation we choose: Is it just dust that is totally inanimate or dust from the ground (Adamah) that already resembles (Domeh) the upper, as a man (Adam), similar to the Creator?

It all depends on our priorities and on what we consider to be important. We begin to play with the importance of the Creator, the teacher, the group, the study, and the goal and it becomes a most important and serious game in the group. It is because in our ego, in our desire, we only see darkness. The ego constantly grows, thus increasing the darkness. But if on top of this darkness we develop the greatness of our common goal, everyone in the group receives fuel and energy to advance through the darkness.

This means that instead of advancing by the stick that pushes us from behind, we choose by ourselves to be drawn forward to the greatness of the upper, to the greatness of the attribute of bestowal, mutual help, connection, love, and all the supreme values that are specific to the Creator’s nature.

It is for this purpose that the Kabbalistic group is based, and as such it must keep itself by constantly clarifying its goal, its basis, more and more accurately. The members of the Kabbalistic group are heroes in quality not in quantity. Only people who can really advance this way should join it. Therein lies our strength, because we want to achieve the greatest possible similarity to the Light, to grow in height and not in width.

And this is why we gather here—to establish a society where each of us follows the spirit of bestowing upon the Creator. And to achieve bestowal upon the Creator, we must begin with bestowal upon man, which is called “love of others.” (From “The Purpose of the Society,” Rabash)
[89843]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/09/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Role Of The Group Is To Discover The Creator
The Goal Of The Group
A Very Sophisticated Animal Or A Human?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, My Similarity to the Creator - 1 Comment →