The approaching Convention is a unity event. We want to create a unity so great that in it we will reveal the Upper World. That means that by the force of our common consolidation we will ascend above the personal egoism of every person.

Every person should feel that this ascent holds a new sensation of a new world, a breakthrough into a new dimension where we exist in bestowal instead of reception, as we do here.

The second half of reality lives by the law of bestowal, unlike the reality of our world, which exists by the law of reception. By uniting with each other we want every person to receive great forces from the group which will enable him to climb out of the “bottleneck” and, at least slightly, to feel the world that lives by the principles of bestowal.

Even though we might fall back, nevertheless with time these “exits” will become more frequent. A person will start getting used to being between two worlds and will understand what is happening to him, until his efforts end up being successful and he will become a “permanent resident” of the spiritual world.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, “The Need for Love of Friends”

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Working in the group on the unity of friends, even at the very initial stage, helps us to acquire a common aspiration to ascend above our egoistic desire. Through our common connection we receive the Upper Light, the Upper Force that influences us and elevates us.

We are talking about a system that works as a middleman: If we aim to become part of it, then the Upper Light works through the system and elevates us. After that, when we unite in a common system, it will be filled by the Upper Light.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, “The Need for Love of Friends”

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Our main problem is that we underestimate the power of thought. We need to have an inner focus on unifying into one net where we are together. That is how we will find the essence and inner force of the Torah, the method.

This point is not so clear to us yet. We don’t value it sufficiently and don’t see its importance. In fact, we don’t pay attention to it.

You know the material very well, in fact, better than anyone. And you perform a great number of actions. However, every person lacks the inner concentration inside himself.

I don’t unify with the group that I see with my eyes, but with the common aspiration to be together, to be included into each other, to attain bestowal. It’s similar to a “cloud” of spiritual energy between us. This is what we have to look for and aspire to.

I don’t meddle around inside my friend, trying to feel his point in the heart. Rather, it becomes revealed inside of me. That is where I find the inner essence of the group. Everything becomes clarified in our thoughts. What we lack is the mental concentration. It is absent or insufficient throughout the day.

We assess things according to external actions, but that is not the right criterion. By delving deeper in my thoughts, I focus on trying to reveal the inner connection. It has to be revealed as a specific plan, desire, or system in which I live.

That is why Kabbalah is called an inner science. Baal HaSulam writes a great deal about the mind and rational analysis. It is precisely by way of mental concentration that we come to inner clarity. The important factor here is not how smart a person is, but how much he tries. Our efforts must be concentrated on this inner search.

The common field of our desire is present between us, inside of us. Even if it is concealed, it is there. On the way from above downwards everything is already ready; now I have to reveal it by moving from below upwards.
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From the lesson on 10/29/10

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Question: If the creature always remains in the desire to receive pleasure, how can it bestow?

Answer: In truth, there isn’t any independent desire for pleasure; there is Light that creates an opposite form from itself, and it is called the desire to enjoy! The Light acts within its opposite form, the form of reception. It is an opposite impression, a stamp of Light as if pressed in wax or in some soft material. This imprinted form, this cavity, is called a spiritual vessel.

If so, then within the will to receive pleasure there is always Light, the Creator who fully controls it! The very desire to enjoy has no independence; it is simply an impression which has nothing of its own. It becomes independent only when the desire to bestow is added to this desire to feel pleasure, and then the Light becomes revealed in the will to enjoy.

The Light imprinted itself in the desire to feel pleasure as a stamp, and this desire received from it an opposite form, within which the Light acts conversely, through the desire to receive. But we don’t feel the Light hidden within; we only feel the desire that manifests outside of us! However, as the Light approaches, joins the desire, and reveals that it is He who defines it, we begin to sense some external presence, the Host, and the game between us and the Creator begins.

And so it continues until we merge with Him completely and become as one whole with no difference between us. The Creator steps out of concealment and becomes closer and closer to us, which signifies our ascent on the rungs of the spiritual worlds, until we feel total oneness with Him.

The Light that works within cleaves to the desire to enjoy, shining and demonstrating itself as the vessel’s representative, claiming “It is I!” as it is written: “He and His name are one.” And by itself, the desire decides nothing; it is only matter.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/10, Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Need for Love of Friends”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 218
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 11
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Ve Zot Le Yehuda,” Lesson 1
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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 212: At the time when he came out to descend to the land, to clothe in a body from the seed of Levi, 425 candles were established for the king, Zeir Anpin, and 425 appointed engravings accompanied that spirit of Moses to his place. When he came out to the world, the Hey, Divinity, illuminated before him and the house was filled by her effulgence.

I am reading The Zohar and don’t understand a word. Maybe I don’t know Hebrew; and even if I know the words, I don’t know what they are describing. Even if I know the quotations of the Kabbalists, how do I know what they are talking about? They describe an absolutely different reality of about which we have no idea.

Reading The Zohar, we know nothing. We just wish for everything that we read in this Book to manifest within us. The authors of The Book of Zohar Kabbalists Rabbi Shimon and his pupils unfolded such a strong, correct connection between themselves that they attained experience of the World of Infinity. They described in this Book what they came to know, like a traveler who describes everything he feels and sees around him.

This is the way Kabbalists write about the Upper World; and they don’t experience any difficulty in doing so because they reside in it. There aren’t any tricks to it. The wisdom (Hochma) of Kabbalah is the Light of Hochma, clothed in the Light of Hassadim. It is vision, observation. So, too, must we aspire to this, and then we will comprehend what The Book of Zohar is narrating. Therefore, it isn’t necessary to be smart and educated; but it is necessary to yearn to change in order to feel what Rabbi Shimon transmitted to us.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, The Zohar

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Everything in the world is based on the interaction of two forces: attraction and rejection. All matter is subject to them, be it galaxies or atoms. This is how two spiritual forces, the Light and Kli (vessel) manifest at our plane.

The Creator’s nature is the force of bestowal, and the nature of the created being is the force of reception. The purpose of creation is to obtain the force of the Creator and attain the state of His being. This determines the entire program: the order of evolution and all its stages.

The Creator created us “without asking” and equipped us with a sole desire to receive. A spark of desire to bestow plugs into it, and this arranges a chain of states from which we understand what the Creator wants from us. As a result, the created being consciously joins in the process and promotes its development.

When a spark of the second force awakens in me, I start comprehending for the first time what is going on, and I start thinking and asking questions. The awakened point in my heart is the Creator in me. It gives me an opportunity to be independent: Being between two desires, I compare them and look for a chance to be born so that I myself can operate these two forces on my way to the goal.

I obtain free will, and now I ponder the purpose of my life, not how well it satisfies my egoism. And that is the moment when into the field of my consciousness steps the force of connection between the parts of creation. The point flickering within me begins leading me to unity.

Subconsciously, not knowing why, people with the point in the heart gravitate to seeing the world as integral. Without falling into mysticism and popular new age trends, they want to see and comprehend the common system of interrelations of all parts of reality.

This unified connection they are seeking is the spiritual life. Integral interaction of cells and organs gives birth to the common body, and it experiences itself as living to the extent that its parts are connected.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, The Writings of Rabash

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Love is not only bestowal but also reception. After all, everyone performs bestowal in relation to me, and I must receive. Otherwise, instead of love, hate will burst out. If I reject the gift of someone who loves me, it isn’t love anymore.

Question: What do I receive and what do I give?

Answer: Your willingness and nothing more. After all, we must create a connection similar to the Creator between us. If we exist in love, then according to the law of equivalence of form, the Upper Light is revealed between us.

You must prepare the Kli, which is a type of connection, nothing more. Then, the law of similarity steps in and within this connection, the Creator is revealed. It is enough to start desiring it, for you are the desire. By doing so, you are preparing the network, a correct connection between the parts of the system, and as a result the Creator breathes life into it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, The Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can the group escape a state that is called “a gathering of clowns”? What should we do if we manage to fall into this state?

Answer: It is impossible not to fall and become a “gathering of clowns.” There is no achievement of goodness without the preliminary revelation of evil. Goodness is built over the evil, over its realization and correction.

“I created the evil inclination,” the Creator says. In other words, goodness does not exist in nature. And if you think that I am good, then I conceal myself and reveal only my reverse side, only evil. So don’t search for anything positive in the world; the world is evil. And as far as we are concerned, our goal and our entire work are meant to reveal the opposite of evil – goodness (to switch from the reverse side to the front side, from Ahoraim to Panim).

Therefore, we need to be ready that any goodness that we will ever become worthy of will demand that we first reveal ourselves as evil. We hide, smooth over the evil, and run away from negative sensations in life.

Our egoistic protective force constantly draws false pictures to us only so that we will feel well, compensating the real state of things in our perception and not sensing or discussing the truth. Why should egoism suffer? From the very start it tries to prevent this possibility. In the same manner, a mother sees only good things in her child and only bad things in her neighbor’s child.

One can create an objective perception, independent of one’s egoism, only by accepting the opinion of the group instead of one’s own. Through it, I will be able to relate correctly to myself, the world, and the Creator.

In this manner, I receive a “device” in my hands with which I can aim an objective view in all directions. I have formed the “sixth sense,” and it allows me to establish an attitude to everything irrespective of my nature. Before I lay unconscious under the load of my own ego, and now I am realizing something and already returning to reality.

Building a Kli, mutual guarantee, and unity with the group means acquiring a “device,” a means that allows me to reveal true reality. I learn it according to my level, but I learn it the way it really is: I didn’t see it at all before because I was bought off, and that “backwash” of egoism glued my eyes and ears shut, distorting my whole picture of the world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/10, “According to What is Explained Concerning Love They Friend as Thyself”

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If the will to receive acts without restrictions, it is regarded as “a circle.” If the will to receive establishes the order of importance in relation to bestowal, the Creator above and itself below, then it is called a “line.” The circle is the fully corrected desire that has no restrictions because everything is corrected, or this is the state of desire before correction (without restrictions). This is why our world is regarded as round: The will to receive acts as it pleases.

Our work is to perform actions in a line. It means that, in the work related to the goal, I not only utilize all my qualities, but I also organize them correctly. This inner order is called the line that measures equivalence between the desire and the Light. In accordance with this equivalence, the will to receive can illuminate as the Light, and the Light is the appearance within the desire.

If there is no oil in the lamp, it will not light up. The wick is a kind of measure of the equivalence of the oil or wax to the flame. After all, nothing can start burning without the fueling matter. There has to be a vessel that contains the Light within itself. What the Light inside me is, I don’t know. The Light is the Kli (Vessel) that has equalized itself with the Creator. To the degree of this equivalence, it illuminates, and we call this phenomenon the Light.

So far, I am only matter, oil or wax, and there is no Light in me. However, if I become a wick, I will illuminate; I will feel the appearance of the Light within me. In order to equalize my qualities with the Creator’s, I must construct a line, and to accomplish this, I am given the group.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/10, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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