We can’t develop egoistically any further. Egoism has suddenly turned into our enemy. One may wonder: “How come? Let’s continue to develop technology, culture, and science, and travel to other planets. The quest for new frontiers can be endless.”

The problem is that the end goal, the purpose, and the thought of creation are different. Nature functions so that having reached the final egoistic state, we begin to suffer from our egoism unspeakably and don’t wish to evolve in it anymore.

In other words, we come to a certain crisis which tells us that egoism is finite. It’s the end of you, you’ve got nothing more to do. You wont’ be able to evolve inside it and be fulfilled; you won’t be able to reach a comfortable state in it. You will feel empty, finite, and transitory.

It’s a challenge in order to make us rise up to the next level—the level of the Creator, the upper Nature. It’s a threshold the world has reached today according to the predictions of all Kabbalists. Whether we like it or not, egoism will demonstrate to us its insignificance and inability to provide us with fulfillment; it will become a “help against us.” It won’t give us what we want either at home or at work; it will bring us neither health nor safety. Most importantly, it won’t help us answer the most pressing question: “What are you living for?”

Faced by that question, our entire “self” gets wiped away. It’s the most important, the most dramatic question which nullifies my very self, my pride, my existence, my essence: “Who I am and what I exist for?” A petty insect or an animal does not occupy themselves with it, they just live on and fill themselves fulfilling the program that runs inside them. I can’t do it, I am more miserable than them.

If not for the upper program of development, we would continue to exist as before. The United States with its consumer society and limitless capacities of Hollywood seemed entirely natural; humanity used to think that it’s our future and that nothing limits us. It turned that the end came very quickly and definitively.

That’s the fact we have to wake up to, that we can’t ignore: We are experiencing a global crisis, a crisis of our attitude to ourselves and Nature. It’s not temporary, there are no alternatives. We used to stir up revolutions and conduct social reforms; we tried to do something with ourselves and the environment, to change something to the better. Now we have nowhere to turn to. We feel that we don’t even have a desire to change anything.

That’s what the crisis is really about. On the other hand, however, it’s the level from which we begin our ascent into the upper world. Humanity, one social strata at a time, comes to that realization; it begins to feel it and little by little approaches the recognition of and transition to the next state.

Actually, we are the first to enter this state. Others will follow us, and we can see that with each passing day more and more people are beginning to at least understand the goal we are pursuing, and if not accepting it, at least considering it.

The problems of the world and our solution are coming closer, and it makes the solution more understandable; people lend their ears to it. And although the change requires tremendous inner revolution in one’s heart and mind so as to bring humanity to a new state, the process has developed quite rapidly over the past several years.

Humanity has never experienced such sharp turns as it does now. Kabbalah has entered the public domain only a decade ago, and look what has happened. Events are developing at a furious pace.

Still at least a few years may need to pass until we can address the world so it will listen.
[34025]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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The entire progress of humanity over the course of several thousand years is hurting nature and us. It is purposefully “wound up” in a way that brings us to the realization of our evil. By constantly concentrating everything in ourselves, we come to realize that all of this is not right, it does not work when it comes to exiting outside.

Then why did we need this entire historic development? Why do I need to come back to this world and suffer in it from generation to generation for thousands of years? After all, we have been in this world many times, we have lived this life many times. What for? In order to realize this final state? Was this the only way to bring us to disappointment? Or is there another possibility?

Actually, this is not the point. Everything we have experienced and gone through over the course of thousands of lifetimes in this world was necessary. Only now we begin to rise and come out of ourselves with this egoism and the experience of its bitter “groundwork.” We need a big “black hole” of egoism. It had to manifest with all our problems.

We have put so much hard work into trying to fulfill this egoism and the next day it would disappear, and once again we would have to pursue this life, its fulfillment, different values, and so on. However, all our actions are stored in an enormous egoistic memory, which we begin to gradually unravel in the opposite direction only at a later time. Then the efforts spent on fulfilling ourselves are turned back and help us to seemingly unwind outside of us the entire history we have been through.

It is impossible to simply begin a different, outwardly-directed altruistic development from the egoistic development. It is impossible to begin to perceive the spiritual world without preparation. This can only be realized after a person fully experiences his entire egoistic essence, completely discovers himself, completely realizes that he is inside this egoistic nature, that everything is inside him, he collects everything within.

At the same time, this sets the terms of our circulation. We do not impose Kabbalah on anyone; we only offer it to the people who already feel: “That is it, this is the end, I must come to the next level.” That is the only way. If a person is not ready for this, Kabbalah will not do anything for him. In this case, he must continue to exist in this world for some more time, in order to complete his entire egoistic “package.”
[34044]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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Question: Virtual space (the Internet network) is made of people’s desires which populate it. Is there an analogy between the Internet and the spiritual world?

Answer: So far, we can’t analyze spiritual analogs of the Internet because this network lacks any order, even an egoistic one. It is ruled by “egoistic anarchy” where everyone is doing whatever they please.

On one hand, it is good since it helps this system to get organized as quickly as it may. But on the other, in this transitional period, there is no order whatsoever. Yet we should fear a possibility of any restriction on it. The Internet should evolve absolutely freely in this mess until it straightens itself out.

Humanity will get more and deeper engaged in this system in hope to receive fulfillment there. After all, the Internet seems to have it all! We are approaching a state when a person will not want to go anywhere and travel anymore: Why hassle when the Internet has everything I need? Why get out of the house when I have the Internet? Why study and learn something if I can always search the Internet and get all the answers?

The Internet system will respond to all personal needs: We will work, socialize, live, place food orders, and do everything else there. The Internet will give us everything except one thing: We will not get fulfillment in it. This is what it will eventually reveal.

And that’s when we will have to do something with the system itself since this is a system that connects people. Above it, there is nothing else left! This is the last and the highest degree of humanity’s material evolution. Therefore, this system will have to assume a form which will, indeed, respond correctly to all personal needs, that is, will teach how to work for the sake of bestowal.

A person who lost faith in this world withdraws into the virtual one. But when he loses faith in it too, we have to ensure that he or she finds the wisdom of Kabbalah there and from it, through the virtual world, arrives to the spiritual world. Being present in this virtual space ourselves, we have to demonstrate that there is no way out: One can search the entire Internet, but he won’t find happiness there.

The problem is not in lack of connection, but rather that it is a wrong type of connection. Connection has to be based on bestowal. And since a person who lives in the virtual world is a regular Internet user and to a certain degree feels this interconnection between people, then it should be even easier to explain to him or her that it is the type of communication that determines everything for us. All we need to do is to just find simple enough words for such explanations and create a Kabbalistic Internet society which everyone can link to.

It doesn’t obligate a person to anything: He or she may come in whenever they’d like and look at anything they are interested in. The person is not required to disclose their name, go some place, drive somewhere, spend money, or enter a new group – just click a button and he is there.

If we can build such networks that will make a person feel that he bestows to others on the Internet, he or she will gain a special fulfillment. In the virtual space, it can be arranged very fast because it is very flexible. The realization of the evil inclination can occur just as quickly and develop an awareness of what egoism we live in. The Internet is a marvelous instrument for the kind of revolution that we need to make in order to switch a person from the tracks of reception to the tracks of bestowal.
[33692]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Some ten to fifteen years ago, a question was raised about Russia’s national cause, the program of rebirth. It has quietly disappeared and was replaced with a spiritual void. How do you see Russia’s national cause, the program of its development?

Answer: Over the course of these years I have met with many people, cabinet members, mass media, and I have spoken a lot. I was hoping to find a response specifically in Russia. First of all, it’s because I have traveled around the world and through all of my students around the world, I feel the soul of every nation. And I have never seen anywhere else the same response and aspiration for truth like previously in Russia.

There was a national cause. I was hoping that this national cause would serve as the basis for showing how it needs to be realized. In other words, some time ago (I am emphasizing some time ago), the desire of the Russian people was to show to the entire world that they have a soul, a purpose, and that this purpose is above pragmatism, above one’s pocket and other materialistic interests, that they have something ahead of them, something for mankind to follow. It was really like this until year 1995 or 2000.

Lately when I begin to speak to people about this and continue to develop the same ideas, regrettably, people seem to laugh at me and speak to me as if to a child. They say that all of this is in the past and think that there is nothing to discuss there. Unfortunately, I see that this cause has simply died.

But I do not think that this is possible. I think that people are simply suppressed, and eventually it will be possible to resurrect it because this inner request needs to exist among the people. I hope that it will manifest. But currently there is simply no one to speak to.

Back then I also met with very influential people and spoke to them about the things that can be done. I warned them: Look what is written in Kabbalah, a science of general nature and its development, look where we are heading. Essentially, everything happened the way I said it would happen: the financial crisis, and so on.

I do not want to be a prophet, but this obviously and naturally comes from the egoistic curve that keeps developing. But I heard a very simple answer: “We have money and an army. If we can change something using these two things, then we are ready to listen. We do not have anything else.” From the government’s point of view this is the truth; every country says the same.

But I continue to think that the world is still to be well shaken up, we cannot avoid it. And then everything that is now stagnant will get agitated, and it will be possible to speak about bringing this cause back. But this cause must be based on similarity to nature; it cannot be some made-up idea forced onto people, like the Bolsheviks did.

When you work together with nature, you do not make mistakes. You can be going ahead of it or trying to catch up. But when you go with it in unison, this becomes the best and most comfortable social development. But when you go along with it knowing the formula of its development, what it demands of you, then you completely protect yourself from any catastrophes and even any negative influence. In other words, there will not be any illnesses, large epidemics, earthquakes, or fires, there will not be anything. You simply exist comfortably.

And you suddenly begin to feel that all your actions in the world bring you five hundred, a thousand times more benefit than today. This is simply because nature seems to favor you; you are properly going along with it. This is the only thing Kabbalah reveals: the formula of human development that we must follow together. In other words, one can either develop under nature’s steamroller which rolls over us and develops us in spite our egoism, or if we choose to go with it, this will be an easy and pleasant development.

I do not see another force in the world like the force that the Russian people have in their character, their aspiration to have a cause, live for it, even suffer in its name, as long as it is a real cause. And this is why I still think that this movement comes from the inside, this request is still to arise and it will be possible to properly realize it. And then you will really become teachers of the masses who will simply want to find out about the world they live in. It will be possible to tell them about it, show it to them, reveal it, and in this way reach the state where the entire world will be kind as nature requires us to be.

I think that this will happen. I think that it will not take long, judging by the rate of development, the events around the world, it will quickly make us come to our senses.
[33801]
From Lesson 3 in Moscow 1/16/2011

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Question: You have mentioned that social Internet communication networks match the natural laws of development. Indeed, Facebook is phenomenally successful: It has half a billion users. It is becoming a vital attribute of modern life. Why does man enjoy virtual communication so much? What is so special about it?

Answer: Our nature is the desire to receive pleasure, to fulfill ourselves, to feel, to understand, and to hear something new. As we see, today’s television offers thousands of channels, but if you go on the Internet, it has absolutely everything you want, an infinite amount of information. And all of it derives from our desire to enjoy.

If this desire can find its fulfillment, it’s good. But if we cannot fulfill it, we develop Internet communication networks in such way as to receive greater and greater fulfillment. This goes on until, gradually, we realize what’s what, and then all that doesn’t completely satisfy our ego, our evolved desire, gradually loses popularity and expires.

Even the ego itself can see that it benefits from being connected to others. Although it’s still a long path, yet little by little, not only individuals but entire countries that used to hold each other as rivals start realizing that today they don’t have much choice. We can’t fight forever, or is it worth doing so until we destroy each other? And we can’t but agree that it’s better for us to establish certain ties and communicate. Thus life teaches us to unite.

Therefore, Facebook is quite an exemplary phenomenon. It is accessible to anybody in the world who wishes to be visible, from a president of a country to a porter. As an example, the President of the United States Barack Obama has 17 million “friends” on Facebook. And anyone can do the same. It’s good because to a certain degree, it meets the demand to reach internal connection. And I think that it will teach us how to develop more internal ties to replace the physical, material ones.
[33930]
From a TV program “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/20/2011

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Question: What is the root of man’s psychological and physical illnesses? And how can a person not studying Kabbalah influence these processes? Can you recommend some actions a person can make to solve these problems?

Answer: The root of all illnesses is egoism’s mutation due to an incorrect or incomplete combination of egoistic qualities inside of us. Each of us contains 613 main egoistic desires. Their incorrect combination with each other evokes flaws that are the sources of all the psychological and other illnesses on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature in man. That is, our illnesses also divide into these four levels.

Kabbalah is not a means for improving something specific in this world. But if you study it and advance along the path according to the root of your soul, going precisely from the point in our world where you are now until the point in the upper world that you must reach, you will thereby gradually enter states that will change your fate. But only you personally can influence it and no one else.

This is not some kind of magic, hypnosis, or other influence on one another. None of this exists in the slightest! A person changes only when he changes himself. By studying Kabbalah, you change yourself; there is no other way. For example, I have children and grandchildren, but I cannot influence them in any way. Anything I attain is what I have attained. What happens inside of me happens only in me. And it’s the same for every person.
[33813]
From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11

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Question: In a few days I will come to the convention where I will meet people whom I have never seen before, who speak different languages, and belong to other cultures. What do I have to convey to them and what do I have to receive from them in order to hold on to the thread that leads into spirituality?

Answer: You have to give each other mutual support, the understanding that if we inspire each other, then we will attain the goal. Don’t count on the Creator or some “kind God.” We see that the whole world cries out to Him, but did this ever help anybody? You can only turn to the group.

When you turn to the group and desire to reveal love and unity among all of you, that will mean that you have revealed the Creator. The Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, or the Temple is the common Kli, the common soul of the group, the nation, or the whole world. It is our unification. The Creator does not exist outside of the creatures. He is called the Creator (Boreh) because you reveal Him (“Come and See,”  Bo–Reh) inside of the common, integral, connected Kli or desire.

With this intention I come to the group or travel to the convention where I want to tell everyone, “Guys, do we want to reveal the Creator? Then where can we see Him? Where is our unity!? How does each one of us inspire and get inspired by the unity between us, meaning from the Creator, from spirituality? Can every person receive such a force from our common unification that he will fortify himself and become included back in it even stronger!?”

This will mean that we have made contact with the Creator. The Creator is our common force, the force that consolidates us!

Say there are ten of us and each one has a force of 100 pounds. Do you think that we have a common force of 100×10, meaning 1000 pounds? That is not so. Because we have united together and canceled our ego in order to come closer and unite, instead of a thousand pounds of force, we have received a million! That’s because we worked against egoism, against hatred for others, and have attained love for everyone. This effort had to go somewhere. We didn’t just add or sum up our pounds because we had to exert a great amount of effort to achieve this.

Suppose we are collecting money for some shared activity in dissemination. I don’t just throw money into the common pot, but I work against my ego and various calculations. If I simply spent that money, I wouldn’t even notice it. But I cannot force myself to pay it to the group, to the common affair. Anything but this! I am ready to burn it, to spend it so tomorrow I won’t even remember where it went, yet I will know that I still did something for my own enjoyment.

But when I give money to the group, it costs me 100 times more, so it’s as if I’m not giving $500, but $50,000! That’s the kind of effort I make. Therefore, if unification is created for the sake of revealing the Creator, mutual bestowal, then inside of it I reveal enormous forces. This isn’t just us “pitching in” to the common fund because besides our personal contributions that fund contains one more additional, “consolidating” component.

There is one more “bonus” or addition to the account whose might is a billion times greater than the sum of the contributions. This is the force that each person receives from the group because it divides into everyone, but does not get any smaller!

That is why we get together at conventions and other meetings: in order to extract that common, “consolidating” component. Each one of us receives it for himself, for his own correction.
[33698]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Why did the authors of The Zohar write using very earthly language in some places, which only confuses us, as if it is talking about our world, and in other places they wrote using the language of Partzufim and Sefirot?

Answer: The language that was created as far back as Adam HaRishon contains several Segulot (miraculous qualities). Why are they Segulot? It’s because we do not understand what the spiritual world is. We do not attain it and cannot imagine it correctly. We cannot formulate any of it before ourselves in any form.

It is initially clear that all of our notions, even ones of this world, are totally false. Like blind people, we are all trying to advance by feeling our way around, not knowing what we come up against and what is happening. All of our reminiscences and imaginary pictures are incorrect and false.

We are in such a dark state that we have never tasted the taste of truth. Not even a weak ray of Light has ever penetrated into this pitch darkness in order to even slightly illuminate any details of the world in which we exist, as well as the connections between us.

That’s why a question arises: Is it possible to speak to these creatures at all? It’s even worse than digging up worms in the ground and trying to tell them the Torah. That is not a joke! The difference between us and the spiritual world is much bigger than between us, living creatures, and a worm in the ground, which is also a living creature.

You differ from the worm by the size of your awareness and cognizance in the same darkness where you both exist. However, you and a person who is in spirituality are separated by opposite perception—an abyss that is impossible to even imagine.

Adam HaRishon was the first person who revealed the fact that besides our state, there is a source, the spiritual world, the true reality, whereas we are in total darkness, like worms in the ground who have never crawled to the outside and do not know that a different world even exists. Therefore, we have to be given at least the end of a rope that we could grab onto.

Thus, those who attain spirituality starting from Adam HaRishon invented what seems like all sorts of stories. However, they are not stories, but a system connecting us to the world and the souls that attain spirituality, to the connection between them and the Light that is in them.

Right now we have no idea what is the meaning of any of these words—not about that world, nor about the souls, nor the connection, nor the Light—nothing! Yet they traced a certain connection from the state which is unknown to us, and we have no idea what that connection is either. But they did it in order to somehow connect that state to us. And if we use that connection by following their advice, it gradually influences us.

Therefore, it’s absolutely irrelevant to ask why they wrote using one kind of language or another: one that’s more sensitive or rational, one that’s clearer or less clear. We can only get confused by the descriptions that seem more earthly and closer to us.

There is only one opportunity to come closer to The Zohar: to connect with one another as much as possible. To the degree we unite through efforts to be above our ego, we give these spiritual states the opportunity to be revealed. But as long as they aren’t revealed, we will not find out what they are. It is written, “I saw a reverse world.” You will see that the spiritual world is completely not what you were able to imagine.
[33580]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, The Zohar

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The only thing we lack are anti-egoistic screens (Masach). The desire itself does not change. It only becomes revealed for being used to the degree of the screen that it has.

The screen determines what desire you can use, how much, and in what way. Therefore, we already have everything besides the screen—it is the only thing we need!

The screen is the force to overcome my egoism in spite of my egoistic desire, despite the things that seem attractive, sweet, completely obvious and rational, and are confirmed by my entire mind! Yet I go and do the opposite!

And I don’t just do the opposite, turning a minus to a plus. That would be very simple. Rather, I am in no way guided by my desire, logic, or any of my calculations. There is only one calculation for me: “This is the desire of the Upper One!”

I don’t receive anything at all from this, and don’t desire to receive anything. I want to know just one thing: that this is the desire of the upper one. This is called a “screen”—the force enabling me to act this way, above my desire, above nature, above egoism and all of its calculations.

And there is great pleasure contained in this. This is not masochism from enjoying trampling my desire, but pleasure from the fact that this makes me similar to the Upper One in some way.

It’s like a child who desires to be similar to an adult. This is a natural instinct children have. They have to make great efforts to achieve this, even though nature helps them.

The upper nature has endowed children with this enormous gift, enabling them to grow. It gave the will to enjoy such a powerful thrust that it forces it to work very hard, never stopping to rest. Look at how little children act, running about non-stop and doing something all the time.

This is the pure upper force, the force of bestowal, the force of the Creator, which is present in small children and in any creature that desires to grow. They do this against their nature because our nature aspires to rest! We can see this from all the laws of physics: Everything aspires to a restful, motionless, and balanced state. The laws of entropy, conservation of energy are aimed at this.

Yet in the case of children we see how the body does not let them take a break. A child is always running about, eager to do something, and it is impossible to stop him. In our days this phenomena is called “hyperactivity,” but in fact it isn’t “hyper” activity, but normal behavior for the increased will to enjoy that is being revealed in the last generation. For such a developed desire, this is not an exaggeration, but the norm.

It’s a wonder looking at what children do; they are anti-nature. We have simply gotten used to the picture where children know no rest and that’s why we aren’t surprised by it. But where does this body or desire take this moving force, causing him to run around this way?

This is the regular picture, inherent in any creature. An adult mother, such as a dog or a lioness, is lazy, sleepy, lying down, sleeping, sitting calmly, and wishing to rest. And all around her there are cubs whirling about and never tiring. This is the opposite nature. And man behaves the same way.

This aspiration is given to children from above, against nature, in order for them to develop. Likewise, we have to ask for this force in order for us to spiritually develop!
[33586]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: If my egoism is crying because it feels bad, how can I remain in the thought that this state is where the truth lies?

Answer: We focus on things which essentially are not up to us. We need to go through the entire chain of spiritual states, but if we focus on them too much, start analyzing them, and “writing a dissertation” on them, we don’t move on. We do not advance.

True, a person has to understand his condition in order to complete it. But to do so, he has to move on to the next state and once there, make a conclusion about the previous one. Our work is to hasten the time, and this depends on the influence of the environment. The more I absorb from it, the faster I will move on. Any procrastination brings harm.

A certain state may be good, but I if I sit there and start analyzing my ascent piece by piece, then the very first extra moment spent there becomes Klipa, impurity. That’s because I stopped due to feeling comfortable, pleased, and good there.

It follows that we have to beware not to submerge too deeply into ourselves and constantly look forward. This is very important. Sometimes people procrastinate, unable to move on, thus turning their condition into a subject of their “scientific research.” This is not good.

I have to allow only an instant to feel the state I have found myself in. I barely touch it, and then immediately, with the help of the group, I move on to the next state, not delaying it for another second. And while you are at it, don’t forget that the work is done by the Creator, whereas our job is to prepare MAN for Him, a plea for correction. We must prepare ourselves in order for Him to do the necessary work upon us.

Similar to the feminine part in creation, we look up from below, while the Creator, the male part, turns to us and acts from above downward. All we need to do is just bring ourselves to Him.
[33454]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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