Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: When some element appears bad and harmful to us, it is but a self-testimony of that element; that it is still in the transition phase, in the process of its development. Hence, we cannot decide that it is bad and it is not wise for us to cast a flaw in it.

This passage speaks about thoughtful people and not about those who, like animals, don’t know where they live, why, and for which purpose. Unlike the latter, people who wish to explore themselves and nature come to a conclusion that we live in the world that is evolving, starting with the Big Bang up to this day. The still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels develop gradually, from the simplest to the most complex forms.

As a result, we cannot make an absolute estimate of anything, any creature, act, or occurrence since we can’t see what will sprout from it in the end. Only when the fruit on the tree ripens completely can we realize that this juicy and sweet apple is ready to delight us.

Then we’ll see why it had to undergo all the previous stages and how it should be used. It can be learned only by observing all the intermediate forms, coming to the final stage, seeing the final form, and finding how to apply it. If, however, we haven’t reached the end of our development, even at the still, vegetative, or animate levels, we can’t say we already know what’s going on. After all, everything is weighed and evaluated exclusively by the final result.

Everything is learned from experience. A sage doesn’t sneak into the future, but rather makes conclusions based on the path he has walked. Therefore, it is said: “Nobody is as wise as the experienced one.” So, there is nothing bad or good in the world; everything is necessary.

Everything has its place, time, reason, and need to be, and only in the end do we learn that everything was supposed to be the way it was. Only at the finish line can we make a conclusion about anything at all.

This pertains to all parts of reality and more so to ourselves. Only in the final stage of evolution can we make conclusions and express opinions about ourselves: Who and what we are, why and for what purpose.

In the mean time, from all these explorations, we gain experience and learn from our mistakes. We finally understand that nothing in nature should be deleted since we don’t comprehend the reasons for any phenomena. Previously, man wanted to transform nature, “bend” it to fit himself, which only led to the worse.

We should be interfering with nature as little as possible and treating it with extreme care. In other words, we should restrict our egoism and use nature solely as necessary, as animals do. After all, in this world, in our bodies, we are similar to them. And hence, we can’t take from nature more than our body needs. Then, we will be evolving in it correctly, without harming it.

In the “Preface to the Book, Panim Meriot uMasbirot,” Baal HaSulam explains that even the non-Kabbalist sages, such as Plato and Aristotle, used to warn not to pass scientific knowledge to the masses. They feared that people would start developing technologies and getting from nature more than their bodies required until they would exhaust the Earth.

Therefore, we must be in harmony with nature in order to develop in its environment correctly.
[41906]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Question: How can we awaken to the connection with the upper one faster every time?

Answer: You need to be aware of and gratefully accept what is taking place with you. And it all depends on the thoughts and desires of the environment. If you are talking about my personal participation in hastening the work, it lies in my engagement in the environment that constantly supplies the “fuel” to me so I may advance.

It allows me to keep a constant connection with the upper force and to realize that it doesn’t really matter how I feel in my egoistic desire about everything I receive from it: good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. Clearly, the most unpleasant things are the most authentic since I reside in my egoism and use it to verify and evaluate how pleased or displeased I am. I must be willing to accept everything that is occurring with me, as it is said: “Even when a sharp sword is raised over you, don’t despair in His kindness.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter what I feel; what matters is that I don’t lose the desire for the Creator. After all, “there is none else besides Him, the good that does good,” while separating from Him is the most terrible misfortune that can ever happen in my life. I don’t care about anything else; I only want to make sure I haven’t withdrawn from Him, and this is what I use to verify everything all the time.

And even after I have managed to grasp the connection with Him, despite the difficulties and problems, I keep trying to see all the obstacles and hardships as grounds for our connection. After all, this is the point from which I can come to it.

This means that I am already in the right state and only have an incorrect view of it due to my being flawed. Thus I work until I fully justify this entire state and experience great joy. But what matters the most is that regardless of what great fear, worry, problems, and troubles I am experiencing, I still don’t abandon the thought of the Creator. In this point of my connection with Him, which I am holding on to, I start building my state correctly.

This proves that the Creator is waking a person up with every opportunity the latter presents to Him. These fortunate chances are deliberately unpleasant for a person so that a person may reverse and seek only them.

This will demonstrate that I am rising above my ego, over my feeling bad, toward adhesion. And then I won’t view this situation as unpleasant, but rather as a condition that led to our oneness. I will feel that it includes in itself all the preparation and prerequisites, which woke me up and gave me determination, all the components of this exalted state.

Besides, is there any other way to reach the first point of contact with the Creator while rising from one’s egoism?
[41943]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 19

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 19: “In the same woman…” “…grace is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” This means that during the preparation, the beauty and grace appear and the essence of perfection that one yearns and longs for. However, at the time of correction, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” then, “I shall see an opposite world,” because only fear and longing are the essence of the desired perfection. Then one feels that during the time of preparation, one was lying to oneself.

Question: Why is it said that during the time of preparation we are lying to ourselves?

Answer: It is so because I was longing for something which was a lie. And while suffering, I didn’t realize that this suffering was indeed fulfillment. It means that as soon as I change my attitude toward the desired, I discover that I am in the world of Infinity. It is regarded as “you will eat what is old.” I reveal an infinite fulfillment in my present state.

It is described that previously you were lying to yourself, thinking that you don’t have the desired fulfillment and you need to achieve it. But you don’t have to achieve anything except for the correction of your desires. You are already in the same perfect condition and only cannot see it since you lack the properties of perception, the corrected desires.
[41874]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 19

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Question: When a person receives a blow from the Creator, he or she can logically understand that it is beneficial to them. But we live by our sensations and hence should move on from mental comprehension to an authentic feeling that it is truly for our own good. How does this transition occur?

Answer: You discover that the Creator does not send you blows. It is not a blow really; it’s just that the Creator awakens you since He loves you and wishes to bring you to the most beneficial state.You find that the Creator did it intentionally so as to raise you a bit above your egoism that you are residing in and that He doesn’t have an alternative.

Suppose you are lying unconscious and need to be revived, brought back to life. Obviously, when you are waking up and returning to consciousness, you feel bad and are suffering from wounds since you lost consciousness while being in critical condition. Now you are being revived. The doctors rejoice: “The patient is back!” But what’s to be happy about? Now he is screaming, hurting, and suffering…. Wouldn’t it be best to leave him unconscious? Certainly not!

Now you understand where it hurts and why. Now you must only create the right attitude to this suffering in you: “I am hurting where I lack the correct connection with the Creator. He is waking me up, wishing for us to love each other at the first step to affinity: my first spiritual degree.

From this degree, He radiates His attitude to me, illuminates me with His Light. And I sense this first spiritual step in its various manifestations as a bad state since my ego cannot bear this state of bestowal, love of others, the connection outside of me. I experience darkness, evil, and pain. I don’t desire it!”

True! I am aware that I don’t want it, that I feel bad. Who is giving this state to me? The Creator is. Why does He? He points out to me that if now I make an effort to rise above my feelings and switch my attitude to the one desired by the Creator, which He is demonstrating to me, then we will come in touch. And this must occur!

But you seem to be refusing: “No, it hurts! Take it away from me! I don’t need suffering or reward! I don’t want anything!” Well, if you don’t, you don’t; what can one do…

What can the Creator do? At any rate, He has plans for you. He understands that you are a fool, so He goes “around” you: He gives you all kinds of suffering and problems in life outside of any connections with Him, when you don’t understand or feel that it is He who is waking you up. He pulls on and stings you from every direction and arranges troubles, misfortunes, and problems for you.

Thus He exhausts you and then gives you a wake-up call so you may remember Him: “I see… There is the Creator. Perhaps, my problems are justified. Maybe, it’s for my own benefit.”At this point you change your attitude. Sufferings soften the flesh, and you are willing to bear more.

Then He sets before you the same conditions of the first degree of adhesion with Him once more, and this time your attitude is different to it. Frankly, it isn’t very convenient and doesn’t feel that good. It’s unpleasant, but we can bear it. You start to understand now that the encounter with the Creator is above pleasant sensations inside your ego and you must rise above your pleasant animate feelings.

You already possess a certain amount of tolerance and willingness to suffer. And then you begin working with the help of the group. You no longer scream: “No!” while on the threshold. You know that you have a group, the environment; you see that the Creator still hasn’t abandoned you and that you are still bonded with Him by the covenant.

You start employing the entire environment that He has arranged for you in life as the means for you to rise above your perception and start building relationships by using the mind, based on the analysis of “truth or falsehood” instead of “bitter or sweet.”

This is a discernment of a human rather than of an animal: “How should I build my relationship with the spiritual degree so that I rise above my bad sensation and don’t perceive it as such? I can’t help it; it’s necessary for me if I wish to be connected to the Creator.”
[41869]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 19

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When we enter the spiritual space, we embrace other souls. Otherwise, I simply cannot enter the spiritual world since it isn’t some fenced area that I can walk into through a door.

Only if I unify with the others into one system and feel reality not just personally, individually, but as the integral life of the system where we are connected together, the friends and I, by having become one man with one heart, can I start perceiving more details in it, through additional organs of perception besides my own. Most importantly, I feel it through our common desire, the common spiritual vessel that we are building together and which includes us all.

It isn’t simply a sum of our desires, but rather a totally new property that is regarded as the property of bestowal. It is this property through which I start feeling another dimension, the upper, spiritual one.

It isn’t just certain supplementary details and peculiarities that each of us can see differently, nor is it an exchange of our personal impressions. It is one common impression, but it derives from bestowal, from the sensation of the Creator’s actions. We perform the acts of bestowal, that is, we repeat His actions!

You begin to feel what it’s like to be the Creator, and for this reason spiritual attainment is unlike material attainment. And although the system that you have built isn’t “divine” but comprised of our souls, it still has a special design, the integration of souls in love, mutual reciprocity and guarantee above their initial ego, evil nature, hate, and repulsion. And the difference between the first and the second properties is what creates the space, the new dimension inside which we start experiencing actions regarded as “bestowal.”

In other words, you have built within, inside your desires and qualities, a model of the Creator that helps you understand what He is. Previously, you simply looked at this world and saw some creation without having the slightest idea about it. But now that you are approaching it, you find the Creator inside this creation since you are assembling His image from your own parts, from all souls.

In the end, you discover such a great number of details that you reveal in this world what was previously hidden in it. You see that the Creator’s actions were concealed in it.

You keep delving deeper, to the extent that you can attach a greater number of parts (souls) to your system and link them closer together, until all individual souls, with their personal view of the world, unify as one soul, one desire, regarded as Malchut of the world of Infinity. There, in their connection with one another, in all its smallest details, the individual souls come to a personal feeling and attainment which completely matches the upper force, the root that created collective attainment from which we started on our path.

It turns out that as a great number of particulars connect, you move on to the collective attainment which is extremely detailed and extensive. Through every soul and all of them at once linked together, you attain the Creator, the spiritual world. And it is you who is constructing Him since there is no Creator without the created being! This is why He is named “the Creator” (Bo-Reh), “come and see.”

Indeed, the key here is the work of the system. From the “matter” given to us, we build the “bricks” of the souls that each of us puts into the common system, while rising above our personal hate, egoism, repulsion, and at the same time preserve all our unique characteristics. Thereby, we create a very powerful system of our personal attainment.
[41769]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, Writings of Rabash

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We exist in a sensation of life regarded as “this world.” It is the lowest, smallest, and worst world out of all, yet it is some kind of life, and we generally understand what it is. But how do we get into the particulars, meaning the upper worlds, and begin ascending them?

It can only be done if we desire to climb the rungs of these worlds in order to exalt and glorify the Creator. We need all these worlds for a single purpose: so that through them we are able to realize our bestowal, the love of others. In this case, instead of the common, superficial outlook of man experiencing himself in “this world,” we will be permitted to get into all the details and thereby climb the 125 steps of personal spiritual attainment.

Every peculiarity you wish to experience, attain, and see in these spiritual worlds requires that your efforts have the right aim and that the revelation that you will eventually receive is solely for the benefit of the others or the Creator (which is one and the same). Otherwise, why should you dig into all these details, for your own personal gratification? It’s impossible because spiritual pleasure is pleasure from bestowal rather than from receiving for oneself!

Therefore, to move from the general to the particular attainment in this world implies great aspiration and an opportunity to fulfill oneself ever more, to see something interesting not from afar but to personally engage and participate in a certain process. Clearly, there is a big difference between being an outside observer and being at the center of events, which brings much greater gratification.

Likewise, in a personal spiritual attainment, you also have an opportunity for greater bestowal, and to the degree that you are ready for it, this personal attainment will be revealed to you. Hence, a person who desires to see not just the general picture, “this world,” but also all the particulars, first, all the smallest details of creation and the Creator’s acts must become equipped with the intention “to bestow.”
[41773]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, Writings of Rabash

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I perceive the image of reality exclusively through the prism of my egoistic desire. It seems that there is a certain reality outside of me. As for me, I feel as being a solid body occupying a certain volume.

I am being affected by heat and cold, gravity, wind, waves, and many other factors. Thus, I feel a certain reality outside of me, albeit only when its effects manifest on my body. The source itself is out of my reach. Right next to me, there could be a doomsday going on, but if it hasn’t dropped into my field of view, I don’t perceive it. Who knows how many dimensions surround me and what grand events are taking place in them? I simply don’t have receptors for it.

I live in my reality, among multiple other realities existing parallel to each other. Similarly, two waves pass through one another without any contact since they are transmitted in different ranges. So do I, among multiple worlds, live in my world, in the part of the whole I am able to perceive.

But a moment arrives when I start feeling my world as narrow and small. I suffer living in it. And then I am brought to a group, a guide on the path, and the instructions and books so that I may experience all the other worlds which I do not yet perceive despite the fact that I am in them. All in all, this wisdom is called Kabbalah, the science of perception, sensation, and revelation.

The reality of creation on the whole is the upper force, the Creator. How do I reach it if I don’t feel it? To do so, I am told to make efforts to gradually develop my sensory organs. Otherwise, I won’t be able to work with them. I have to learn to control and manage them so that I could later explore the enormous external reality with their help.

How do we do it? Kabbalists tell us: “We discovered that it can be done by way of exercises if you practice them within the framework of your relations with the friends. They don’t sense the wide reality either, but you can start playing a game among yourselves. Begin to unite, care about each other, build up a society where everyone will motivate the others to bestow, love, and reciprocate.”

It is similar to your rising above your egoism, and even though in reality it’s all just a game and you are moved by the ego, still, the very efforts will develop new tendencies in you. Due to these new impressions, you will advance. Even if bestowal and oneness are out of reach, keep playing, act in this small world of yours.

What do we need this for? You need it in order to feel the lack, to sort out what you have and what you are missing. These new details of perception will create a certain attitude in you, and you’ll discover that you are saturated with new sensations meant specifically for the new dimension. You will suddenly realize that it’s truly possible to exist not in your world that is absorbed in receiving and consumption, but rather in the enormous outer worlds where everything is the other way around.

What does “the other way around” mean? How can I experience it? You will feel it namely by playing among yourselves. Then everyone will feel that there is a certain property outside of them, a property directed toward the others. Even if you still approach it egoistically, like children when they play their games of being race car drivers, pilots, or cowboys, which develop them, so do you advance in your life.
[41154]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “What Is Support in the Torah in the Work”
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Kabbalah, first and foremost, is a science. And a science cannot be mastered while you are lying down on the couch with a book in your hands. It certainly counts as well, but a science requires studying.

Hence, we are opening special courses so that a person could gain the most basic knowledge in a few months. First, he or she must understand what the science of Kabbalah is. We don’t pressure them; a person is not expected to work on, to correct himself or herself. For starters, they come and receive a certain amount of information without which they cannot comprehend where they are.

A person receives an explanation about the structure of our and the spiritual worlds, the connection between them, the transition into spirituality, the upper governance, the origin of the soul’s root, and the way to reach it. He gets to know what “luck” (Mazal), the Lights that “trickle” to us (Nozel), is; how Kabbalah relates to religions, faiths, science, and other things; what the meaning of time, space, and movement is; how to approach the perception of reality correctly; what free will entails, and much more.

A person has to learn all of this in a condensed, simple, and clear manner, by asking questions to a competent instructor who has studied with us for many years, has finished the necessary courses, and passed examinations. Our instructors are professionals in their field. In a short time, they will provide you with all the basic knowledge. I personally stand by it.

If, however, a person neglects the correct learning order, he or she will keep lacking it. He will be just like a graduate who was a bad student in school and now cannot find a job since he doesn’t even know the multiplication table.

Therefore, I strongly recommend signing up for these courses. They consist of three semesters: The first two provide basic knowledge, while the third offers a wide range of additional opportunities designed toward continuous education. Some students don’t wish to end these studies continue with them for several years now.

Good luck!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, “The Freedom”

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