Question: Why are there only seven billion people here on Earth and not 700 billion, for instance? After all, if there were, the common vessel would be a lot bigger and we would feel greater pleasure?

Answer: It is not about quantity; it is about quality. In this case, we are dealing with qualitative expansion—to what extent I am able to transcend myself.

When I start rising above my egoism, I don’t feel other people at all. Instead, I feel the field, the desire, the vectors that I am able to merge with to connect in our common desires, aspirations, and senses.

The greatest pleasure is to get to know the upper: the upper force, upper governance, because it is built on the opposite positive and negative forces: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. Their clashes within us cause enormous gaps that we fill and enjoy.

First there is a huge lack of comprehension of harmony and order, and then we can grasp the harmony itself. When the opposites that were totally incomparable finally fall into place and complete each other, a person experiences indescribable delight in his senses and mind (awareness).

Question: In other words, the higher the mountain, the happier the ascent at the end?

Answer: The more joy you feel when you are standing atop of it.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of an Integral Society” 3/11/12

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Our spiritual path is divided into two parts.

The first part is rather difficult since we don’t exactly see what we are doing. But this is precisely what helps us renounce our egoism. If we could see what we are doing, then our egoism would participate in this process and only grow, and we would never be able to break away from it. So since we can only go forth with our eyes closed, that is, through separating from our egoism, gradually severing it from ourselves and transitioning to connection with the friends by exiting ourselves into the property of bestowal, then of course this is difficult for us.

Our path is based on the fact that we draw the upper Light, which influences and corrects us. In other words, I am unable to correct myself, I cannot rise above my egoism, I can’t do anything with it at all, but I can draw the upper Light upon myself.

Therefore, exertions in the wisdom of Kabbalah are very interesting and differ from exertions in our world where I directly affect an object, an area, or the properties that I wish to change:  Here it is different. If I want to change something, then I have to draw the Light upon that object, that dimension, or those properties, so that the Light would change them. Thus, I’m constantly addressing only the Light so that it would change these properties.

How does the Light know which properties to act on?

It’s very simple. If I’m advancing toward the property of love, of mutual bestowal, toward the property of connection with the friends, if I’m trying to unite with them, then I discover that I’m an enormous egoist who wants to exploit them, who wants only personal gain, and who couldn’t care less about everyone else. When I discover this in myself and it evokes enormous suffering in me, then I begin to ask the Light to correct me. In revealing my inner egoism, I begin to turn to the Light and ask for it to change me.

That is, I prepare an enormous uncorrected desire, reveal it in myself, and I feel how disgusting it is to me, how repulsive, how much I don’t want for it to exist inside me; it’s like a cancer that I want to cut out of myself—and then I turn to the Light so that it would perform this surgery on me.

Thus, we have a very clear progression on our path: I’m moving all the time toward connection with the friends, towards the purpose of creation, the property of bestowal and love. I’m always moving towards exalting these properties, parameters, and definitions above myself, to make them my highest values. In the end, I reveal how opposite I am to that, how much I don’t want it, how artificial it all is in me, and so on. And then, from this bitterness, I cry out to the Light.

So there’s a big problem here: People who aren’t capable of realizing this and who aren’t capable of suffering will not be able to go through this path. Moreover, the suffering is qualitative. A person feels it during normal life, even when everything is going really well for him. This is the suffering of love, when I would like to connect with the friends, when I know that it’s necessary, but I see that I can’t. Only this kind of suffering is meant here—no other!

It’s not about whether or not I know the subject well, not that I’m a wise guy or say, impatient—no! The only thing that I need to reveal is my rejection of connection with others. Only this! Bestowal! When I’m repulsed by connection with others, when I suddenly begin to despise it, to not want it, this is precisely the property that I need to grab onto and to ask for its correction. This is the entire secret of Kabbalah. There is nothing else!

Therefore, the first part of our path is a gradually increasing revelation of evil within us, and then, in a single moment it becomes corrected. This is why there are two phases to our advancement.

The first phase is when throughout a few years we accumulate enormous, heavy, and lengthy suffering.

And then, in a single moment it becomes corrected, and we open our eyes and see a completely new picture around us. It turns out that the entire creation functions in the property of bestowal and love: The entire world works this way, while to me in my egoistic properties it appeared that it was built on properties of egoism, conquering, violence, brutality, and so on.

This is similar to how laboriously a rocket heads for its orbit in outer space, but afterwards, during orbit, in weightlessness, a calm suddenly sets in: Everything is quiet, the engines stop working, and you are out in space.
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From the Virtual Lesson 11/18/12

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The rising of Malchut to Bina is called “the sanctification of the moon.” This means acquiring the faith by which a person has to sanctify his work above reason. He understands that he mustn’t work with his desires to receive, but that all his work should be within the vessels of bestowal.

But in the meantime he has no desire to bestow, and he doesn’t even understand what it means. Therefore, the Creator points by using a “finger”: “Look, this is the form of bestowal!” That is, a person gradually begins to discover the form of bestowal and understands that this is the desirable form.

Before that, he couldn’t discover it, appreciate it, or imagine it. After all, what we call bestowal in our world is not bestowal but latent receiving, false altruism. Undoubtedly, as long as a person is managed by his egoistic desire, he must feel some pleasure in his actions, since otherwise he wouldn’t be able to move.

Even when he fills others, he must feel some profit, or that the other is dearer to him than himself. Then he feels natural love towards him, like a mother who is ready to give her baby everything. Another option is that we are so closely connected that the wellbeing of another is inseparable from my self-benefit, or that I am managed by fear!

The motive can also be benefit, an additional profit, or a desire to cut down my sufferings. It is also felt as an egoistic profit and usually even a greater profit than the pleasure.

I can feel a profit from the addition and also a profit since I don’t lose. In that case my joy is even greater.

A person can find 100 dollars on the street, feel happy and quickly forget about it. But if he loses 100 dollars, he will regret it much more than if he found that sum of money, since it is like cutting something off oneself.

Therefore, we have to understand that the power of faith is above the desire to receive and is acquired in two phases: first in the vessels that work for a profit and then in the vessels in which we feel the loss. Our whole desire is divide into two parts: levels 0-1-2 (the thickness of the root level, phase one, and phase two) that are called GE, and levels 3-4 (the thickness of phases three and four) AHP. First bestowal is performed in the vessels of bestowal and then in the vessels of receiving.

Clearly, it is much more difficult to work in order to bestow in the vessel of receiving, since a person feels an immediate loss then. He could have received a direct pleasure in those vessels, and now it is the opposite, he intends to bestow with these vessels, and so it turns out that this is a double loss for his ego.

But he “sanctifies himself,” which means that he acquires the attribute of bestowal and thus advances until he is rewarded with the “sanctification of the moon,” when the attribute of bestowal becomes holy for him.

He himself cannot shine like the moon, but he illuminates to the extent that he is adhered to the upper force, to the source of the Light, to the sun, with the help of the power of faith. Thanks to that, the moon is sanctified.

Just like the earth, the moon cannot generate any light, but it loyally adheres to the sun above the earth and thus begins to shine. It isn’t its own light, but it shines thanks to the fact that it doesn’t receive anything for itself, but only in order to illuminate for others.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, Writings of Rabash

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If the spiritual path were felt as pleasant and beneficial to our nature, our egoism, who would reject it? The entire world would run to us to study and sit at the desk. Everyone would come if he felt joy and sweetness in this.

No one would refuse such a tempting opportunity to reveal the future before him and obtain all the knowledge. Our ego would have pushed us forward, pulled us, not giving us a moment of rest. Envy, lust, and ambition would be burning in a person, promising him all sorts of fulfillment in this world and the upper world, the Garden of Eden. All this would have inspired and attracted him more and more.

Of course, this is not so, and it is difficult for us to understand and impossible to agree that all of reality, except ourselves, is opposite of what we see. It is full of contentment and pleasure, the revelation of the upper force. All this is revealed to the extent a person acquires the property of bestowal.

It is impossible to achieve spiritual fulfillment, the degree of the Creator, in any other way. So, true management is hidden behind its opposite form, and we are not able to appreciate it, to understand and taste what the intention to bestow means. We do not have the tools to enjoy bestowal.

Please give to anyone! However, you will not feel any pleasure from it because your desires are opposite. And only one in whom the spark was lit in the darkness of egoism, forcing him to seek bestowal, and one who cares about that spark, trying to increase it through studies and the environment—advances. Indeed, there are few chosen ones, of all the thousands.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/02/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How should I make sure that the study does not become a “potion of death” for me?

Answer: We have to reach the state in which the study becomes a “potion of death.” In order to do that, I have to discover that I am immersed in my ego and that I hate everyone including the Creator. I see that I don’t want to connect with anyone and to bestow upon anyone. But I know that this is the goal of creation and I have to attain it. This means that I already discover two lines that contradict each other.

Along with my inner understanding of the necessity to reach bestowal, I discover that my nature is opposite from it. Then I discover that it is the “potion of death.” I have to find out that receiving for myself and using others are deadly for me.

I look at the friends’ faces and understand that I want to use them all: I want to be more clever than all of them, more beautiful, more strong, and more successful.

If my approach to each of them weren’t like that, I wouldn’t feel and see that anyone exists at all. I wouldn’t discern him in my sensory organs, since behind my sight there is my ego, and if I don’t intend to use a person for my benefit, I don’t see him at all. He doesn’t exist for me!

So it is a high level if I discover that I am in a state of Lo Lishma (not for Her name) and that I want to use everyone, but understand that it is the “potion of death,” which means the opposite of what it should be. After all, I want the truth, but I exist within this lie. It is a result of a great Light that comes to a man and illuminates on him showing him the real corrupt state he is in and enables him to understand it.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Question: What do you mean, “Kabbalists passed the Light to people”? After all, they just changed their perception.

Answer: Kabbalists are the people who cross the Machsom, integrate in the upper system of management, and by their desires to become corrected, bring their activity to this system.

We study this in the system of the upper worlds, which is in a passive state and works as though idling; it has only the Light of Hassadim. And when our corrected egoistic properties become integrated into it, then the Light of Hochma appears there and the system begins to work. As if you add gas, and the engine starts working, not idling; it’s the same thing here.

That is why the Kabbalists who have corrected themselves, being parts of the entire system, both ours and the upper one, added their Light to this system. They added the Light of Hochma on their corrected egoistic desires, and thus the entire system already works on different revolutions. That is, it is capable of accepting us, processing us, and including us into itself; this is their accomplishment.

We are acting today in the same way. Correcting ourselves, we in general do the same for the future generations that follow us. Thus gradually, everyone follows one another.

Therefore, the correction of the world occurs from lighter egoistic qualities to the heavier ones. And people who will come to Kabbalah in a few years to correct themselves will be much more egoistic than we are, but we will prepare the ground for them by drawing the Light into the system of the worlds, which without us would have worked only on the Light of Hassadim, that is, it would have been in the small state (in the state of “Katnut”).
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From a Virtual Lesson 11/18/12

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If the upper Providence were revealed to us, then all the people in the world would become absolute righteous. They would be forced to obey the law of bestowal, which means that they would be compelled to be righteous and not from their freewill.

This is what would happen if the Creator were revealed to us. We are all waiting for Him to be revealed, but we would immediately lose our freewill. We would be like animals that blindly perform all of nature’s orders, just as we are forced to obey our egoistic nature now. We would carry out the orders of the nature of bestowal in the same way. If there is a law of nature, I obey it like a machine.

So we shouldn’t expect the Creator to be revealed to us before we are independent and have the force of the Masach (screen). Then we will be able to receive His revelation by the Returning Light, by rejecting the pleasure. Until then, the revelation will not be in our favor, of course, since it would force us to be become sacred animals. We have to rise above this level in order to become human beings.

Therefore, the Creator is revealed only to the extent that a person remains independent. Now we are managed by the egoistic intention and obey our ego. Then the point in the heart awakens in us, and we begin to struggle against that dominance, organizing a group that will be on the side of this new force, the point in the heart.

The struggle will succeed if I can diminish the external society, so that I can leave its dominance. Behind my ego there is all of society, and behind the spark of bestowal, the point in the heart, there is the Kabbalistic group. I have to raise and to increase the importance of the spark and of the group as much as I can, and on the other hand, to lower and reduce the influence of the ego and of the external society as much as possible.

To the extent that I do that, I increase the importance of bestowal in my eyes, and the Light influences me according to my efforts. This exertion operates like my prayer (MAN), and the Light that Reforms comes in response to it and changes me.

Eventually my new structure is formed: from Above I have a Masach and Returning Light that serves as my new vessel in which I bestow upon the Creator. From below, under the Masach, there is my restricted desire to receive, my ego.

To the extent that I have performed such a restriction, the Creator can already be revealed.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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As a rule, only people with a high level of egoism study Kabbalah. Other than that, nothing fulfills them. Science, technologies, arts, family relationships, jobs, hobbies of any kind, lots of money…nothing brings them contentment. They are torn apart by one question: What is the meaning of life?

They don’t believe in religion since they have already exceeded this developmental stage and lost the ability to blindly follow any trends. They don’t see any value in this world since they regard everything around them as a regular “animal” existence and nothing more than that.

Naturally, they don’t have a desire to hug everybody, dance, or do any childish things like “sitting in a circle, drinking and eating together, singing songs.” They consider it weird and odd, and they are right.

Their egoism is above average. Thus, they strive to reveal the upper; however, they are forced to behave “immaturely” and childishly. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about it.

They join a group that is already in the process of advancement and has more or less revealed and understood the methodology of growth. They enter a group that feels, recognizes and acknowledges (at least studies) the necessity to bond in order to discover the properties of the upper world through the connection among friends. This is because the qualities of the upper realm can only be revealed in unity.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

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The process of correction is divided into several stages that determine the order of our advancement. If we were allowed to feel now in our vessels of receiving the pleasure that comes from the Creator, that He is good and benevolent, we will never be able to correct them so that they will be in order to bestow. They would understand what pleasure there is in the upper Light and it would be impossible to restrict and to correct them.

So during the first stage, a person must attain faith, which means to acquire the force of bestowal that is born in him by the influence of the Light if he makes efforts in working in the group, yearning for bestowal, to the extent of his understanding of this attribute. Then the force that suddenly obligates him to feel that bestowal is good is gradually stabilized in him.

It seems that he prefers bestowal for egoistic reasons too, but it’s not so. He enjoys the fact that he isn’t selfish. The Light, due to its influence gives him this inclination, such values, that force him to value bestowal. Then a person is ready to perform actions of bestowal for the sake of the actions themselves. He only asks to be able to perform such actions towards those around him.

To the extent that he acquires the force of bestowal, he begins to understand how to work with his vessels, which is called observing the 613 commandments, which means the correction of the 613 desires to which a person’s general desire is divided into. Then, of course, he uses his whole desire only in order to bestow.

To the extent that he can use his own desires in order to bestow, he begins to feel not the force of bestowal anymore, but the force of love. Thus, as a result of keeping the 612 commandments, he reaches the last commandment, the 613^th commandment, love of the Creator.

Then the permanent eternal pleasure is revealed to him by all these commandments, which was the goal of creation, by which the Creator initially intended to fill man.

It turns out that not one step along this path is possible without a person’s deficiency that precedes it. In that a person totally depends on the environment. So to the extent that it directs a person and increases his deficiency for bestowal, he raises his environment so that these deficiencies will be their common goal.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12

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If there is one desire to receive in us and nothing but that, then we operate like robots. The moment some pleasure illuminates for us, we immediately begin to chase it and the moment we feel sufferings, we try to escape them. It is the natural behavior of every created being: the inanimate, vegetative, or animate.

An ordinary person in our world is no different from animals when it comes to this, because the desire to receive also operates in him, but his desire to receive is simply more sophisticated and confused since a person doesn’t understand where it comes from all of the sudden.

Animals operate according to their natural instincts and there is nothing external that influences them. A person, however, is motivated by attributes such as envy, lust, and honor. He is impressed by the environment that can influence him to value things that are against his nature and which destroy him.

Society doesn’t operate in favor of the individual, but in favor of the general egoistic, broken society. If one person is an egoist, then he simply operates like an animal with his small ego. He tries to get along in this world as well as he can: to build himself a better home, with healthier, more comfortable conditions. He tries to do what is beneficial for his body.

This is how people developed in ancient times. But when their ego grew and forced them to connect, in order to make a greater profit one at the expense of another, this egoistic connection generated a phenomenon called “public opinion.” This environmental effect became harmful for the individual, since not only did the ego grow because of such a connection, but it also took on distorted forms that are far from the natural forms.

It wasn’t a natural connection, but a distorted connection of desires, since when many egoists connect, their desires are opposite to the other desires and it is impossible to understand how they can even connect. So the influence of the environment on each individual brings about such distortions and corruptions of the natural desire, such as: envy, lust, honor, and power.

This is how humanity developed: The individual ego grew, and as a result of the distorted connections of egoists under the negative influence of the social system on every individual, society developed in a direction that is opposite from Holiness, from the corrected state which we eventually have to reach in the future.

Our social values have drawn light years away from the natural human needs… and as a result we all operate according to artificial, egoistic values that only harm us. But we are compelled to operate this way since we are subordinate to the law according to which the environment affects a person.

The whole problem is in the fact that this environment is bad and our big, complex, and distorted ego has mutated in different ways from one generation to another so we don’t even understand that it affects us and leads us in ways that are opposite from the natural correct way.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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