Shamati #187: In order to make the right choice, one must choose that which obligates him to increase his efforts.

Plants, animals, and other organisms that do not develop by their own efforts see a picture that is set in advance. We, on the other hand, must rely on the help of books and a teacher in order to build our future state on our own and to imagine it in the group. What is it like? What should the relationships between us be like?

Then each one of us will aspire to become more similar to these relationships and we will constantly build the Creator out of ourselves, inside ourselves, and outside ourselves. We will do it ourselves. We have to create Him on our own, imagine him ourselves, choose Him, and design this future form among us. That is why we are considered similar to the Creator. Just as He created us, so we create Him. It says in The Book of Zohar that we “make” the Creator.

A person’s work amounts to this search for the perfect model. And it is built in the group. That is why the Creator broke creation into many parts so we would have the opportunity to build Him. After all, our ideal state is Him. We have the opportunity to work, making efforts and continuously building ourselves in a more ideal form, in bestowal, through consolidation in spite of our egoism. That is how we form the new state. We simultaneously form Him and ourselves by adding our current state to the desirable next state.

This is our spiritual work to reveal the Creator. We ourselves “draw,” reveal, and research Him: What is that ideal state called “the Creator”? By conducting the search we arrive precisely at this ideal, where the quality of bestowal and the quality of reception become fully revealed. They mutually complement one another, never becoming annulled and never losing anything. That is how the ideal picture called “the world of Infinity” is created, being the unlimited state of the whole creation.

As Baal HaSulam says, the choice of progress forward always lies in greater effort. As clearly as possible, we must discern two opposite qualities which make up all of nature: the quality of reception and the quality of bestowal, and we should try to combine them together. This mutual combination, their maximal participation will give us the following picture, the next level. They come together in the middle line by means of the screen.

Every subsequent level that we build is called “the presence of the Creator.” Once we build it, we discover new flaws and new lack of similarity. Once again there is overbalance to the left side, the left line of egoistic desires which disturb unity, harmony, and the integral picture. Then we must once again build the surrounding environment that will help us establish balance between the right and left lines, making the middle line from them that combines these two forces of nature.

The choice always lies in maximally using them—in greater effort.
From the lesson on 1/17/11, Shamati

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We are in one part of nature, the receiving part, and have to reach the other part, the bestowing part. Today this part is completely unclear to us and that is because the transition from one degree to the next is always unclear. In dialectic this is called, “the law of the double negative.”

The next degree is a different mind, different feelings, and different vision. In fact, everything is different with completely new parameters. We aren’t talking about something slightly bigger than what we have now, but a qualitatively new degree. In general, on the spiritual path every level is completely different from the previous, being totally detached from it and having a new ten Sefirot.

The order of ascent is the following: We immerse into the egoistic desire, say one inch deep, and evaluate it as the evil of our existence, wishing to correct it to good. Then we ascend one inch above it, meaning we start using it inversely in the direction of bestowal, and see a completely new world.

Then we descend once again, but this time two inches deep. At first everything is fine: We use the world, meaning the state, for ourselves. But then we gradually discover a horrible picture and once again begin transforming the evil to bestowal. Once we get rid of the evil, we ascend two inches up and once again see the world of bestowal, which is completely unlike the previous level.

The greater the immersion, the greater the ascent. Adjacent levels are divided from one another by descent and all of their content is absolutely different. We continuously reveal a new world, not knowing how to act from one state to the next. The states are completely different, even if it seems to us that “we have already been here.”

How, then, can we make the choice? How can I choose a direction and the next state?

This requires a simple action: Out of all the possible states, I choose the most complex one, the one that’s most difficult for me now, the one that’s most repulsive to my nature. That is how I act in relation to my friends against my nature, and that is how I ascend to the next state.

I must continuously choose the spiritual state that is maximally opposite to my present state. In this way, reception and bestowal grow one from the other. This is the law of the double negative. This law is the foundation for vegetative life, the growth of living cells, the path of our thoughts, and so on. Everything develops by having opposites grow from one another.
From the lesson on 1/17/11, Shamati

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Question: As we prepare for the European Convention in Berlin, we are experiencing difficulties trying to receive forces from the environment. While we make the physical actions, how can we avoid losing a connection with the inner goal?

Answer: First of all, it is good that people feel a lack of intention because without the inner component, the intention of bestowal, the external efforts cannot succeed in attaining the Creator’s revelation. So where can we get the right intention for uniting and connecting, inside of which we will act?

We have to try, the way a small child tries to be an adult, with all our might to keep the intention and not forget that we carry out all of the external actions coming from our inner effort. To what extent will we able to do it—that no longer relates to our success.

It is possible that the Creator wants to show us that we really are small and unsuccessful so we would stop being proud of ourselves and would feel that without help from Above we will not be able to keep the intention and will not be able to unite with our own powers. If we were able to do it ourselves, then we would not need the Creator and would not reach the state of “Let us go to Pharaoh.” In essence, a person never has reason to complain about the states he receives. They become revealed as a result of his advancement and therefore at every moment they are correct. The question is how to be able to build the right attitude to them with the help of the group.

In most cases we give ourselves a guilt trip about the past, thinking about how we acted incorrectly, did something bad, missed out on something, were unable to do something, and so on. This is the influence of the impure force, Klipa, which brings us back to the past. The same thing is true about being disillusioned in our qualities: What is the point of blaming ourselves if it is a known fact that we are egoists and continuously reveal just this? We have to form the right attitude above this state.

Therefore, everything depends on the effort. It is impossible for a person to be unsatisfied and to want something different, but that doesn’t matter because the sensation comes from Above. Beginners are shown how successful they are, being encouraged and supported like small children. On the other hand, those who advance are shown their flaws and mistakes not so they would correct themselves, but so theywould demand correction. And all of the reactions are for our own good.

A person’s inner work in relation to the group should be separated from the actions done to organize the studies, the conventions, and dissemination. One does not relate to the other. The inner ascents and descents should not affect the external work. There has to be a daily routine and program, according to which we act independently of desires.

In our inner work we make efforts as much as we can, but the sensation we receive—good or bad—depends on what exactly we should be feeling. If we do not feel inspired, excited, and generally supported, it means that this sensation is being sent to us to help us detach from egoism.

Disappointment with the states that come to us shows a person that the egoistic desire does not support him and thus he naturally turns away from it. Egoism itself helps us to reject it, which is called “help against you.” Our unpleasant sensation in the work is help from the opposite side, until we are able to ascend above our nature and look at it from Above together with the Creator. This is called standing against Pharaoh together with the Creator. That is how one ascends and passes the Machsom.
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From the lesson on 12/24/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Suppose that we have already reached the state where all seven billion people in the world study and actualize Kabbalah. Now a child is born into this world. What happens to him? Will he have to understand the meaning of evil in order to reach good? But by that time the world will already be corrected, so how will he feel evil?

Answer: In this world there is only a renewal of physical bodies, but not souls. Therefore, the children being born today are old souls that acquire new bodies. That’s why we don’t pay attention to a person’s age. Regardless of whether a physical body has died or has been born to live in this world, the soul continues its reincarnations.

You’re asking: If all the people correct their egos, will it be necessary for more people to be born? No, the souls will no longer need to be born. However, we won’t live forever biologically. We will begin to feel how our world changes, gradually acquiring the qualities of the upper world.

To the degree each of us and all of us together are corrected in the single system, our perception of the world changes as well. When we ascend from the first level of the spiritual world to the second and then the third, we go from one world to the next. And when we attain the state of full correction in the common interconnection, our world will be destroyed.

It is written, “Six thousand years of concealment and one year of destruction.” It will be the seventh millennium. “The world will be destroyed” means that this world will disappear from our sensation because we perceive it in our common egoism. As soon as our egoism turns to bestowal and love, then instead of it we will feel the upper world.
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 1/11/11

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When we come out into the external world, we discover the general force that includes both bestowal and reception. It is the source of everything taking place and it fills everything. It is the force of reason, thought, and plan; the general force of Nature.

We call it “the Creator” because we discover that in relation to us it is the creator. However, we are still talking about an all-inclusive force, which includes all other forces.

By studying it, we study its constituent parts—the laws of Nature, spiritual laws of the nature of bestowal which are above our regular, earthly state. At the same time we begin to understand how our earthly being is built, seeing the source of the laws operating in our world.

As a result, a person understands why he exists and how to come out of different situations that he has gotten himself into with his one-sided vision of the world. He starts rebuilding himself and the surrounding society, and it doesn’t happen coercively, but voluntarily. When revealing the true laws of nature, a person naturally acts differently. Coming from the same egoism, he understands that he cannot act otherwise.

Today we automatically act with the greatest self-benefit in mind. And later on we will also automatically act the same way, but with a consideration for the general part: that we depend on each other and are one whole. We will see the entire picture, the entire global, closed system and will therefore act completely differently.

The most important thing is for us to discover this general picture; then we naturally won’t make mistakes. This is what Kabbalah is leading us toward.

To the degree we develop, we gradually reveal our egoistic nature. However, overall we have already assimilated it, having exhausted all the egoistic instruments for attaining the world through science and technology, as well as in the human community and familial relationships. We see that we have reached a dead-end.

That is when a real need for additional knowledge arises. Today we are at the edge, the transition to feeling the next part of the universe. It is already here, between us. Sometimes we call it a different dimension because what matters is how you measure things: When you change your point of view, you see completely different phenomena in the same volume.

That is how we discover a new world.
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From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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The problem with feeling the spiritual world, meaning the total volume in which we exist today, is the problem of its perception. Now we are also inside this volume, along with our nature, which is still concealed from us. However, we feel only a small part of it with our earthly, bodily senses.

We have to attune ourselves so we would feel not only what enters our small egoistic desire. After all, it’s enough for egoism to desire something and we suddenly perceive what we did not notice earlier.

For example, when I start a new job, I start working with new materials and new phenomena, and some time later I start to feel what I am working with. We are attuning ourselves to a finer perception, creating inner models of phenomena and objects that we are dealing with. For example, a metalworker feels a metal by its sound and by the motion of the chisel. Likewise, people connected to nature understand it through signs that we are unfamiliar with.

We are created so that the surrounding world is depicted for us in a three-dimensional coordinate system. But is this really so? Other creatures perceive the world in a completely different way: through smells, temperature waves, ultrasound waves, and so on. However, no matter how much we expand the range of perception in this world, we always come across the same restriction: ourselves, our capability to receive or absorb inside.

In this way we limit our perception and do not feel the huge world that is around us. Gradually we begin coming closer to understanding these phenomena, or at least to the sensation that this is really so. However, it is difficult for us to cope with this and to work with this difficult problem because that is how our bodies are built.

Thus, as a result of our earthly development, it becomes clear to us that we are simply blind. We do not see where we are or how to live. This brings us to feel enormous suffering, which accumulates more and more. On one hand we develop, while on the other hand we do not know where and how, or what to do with ourselves.

As a result it becomes simply necessary for us to break down the barrier separating us from the real world. It is necessary for us to understand it because we cannot continue to exist this way. We already see that there is a certain psychological barrier here. Whether it is inside us or outside of us, we have to overcome it.
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, “What is the Feast of the Groom”: The “bride” signifies work during the time of exile, when the Creator’s face is concealed. It is when the forces of disunity rule over a person.

Kabbalists try to explain a simple principle to us in different ways. Creation as a whole is called “bride.” This is the “matter” of the desire, which we must raise to the height of the Creator in order to unite with Him, revealing the Good who Does Good.

When we discover problems in our murky matter, we have to understand that we shouldn’t nullify it, but “sanctify” it, meaning correct it. That is how we continuously ascend higher with its help. Precisely the additions of Aviut from the matter that become revealed in us build the levels of the spiritual ladder for us, one after the other.

This is a cyclical process which requires a simple action. Just like in a computer, everything is determined by the choice of two positions: “yes” and “no,” “0” and “1.” By consolidating many actions like this, we can reach any analysis, express any quality and any form of interaction between the Creator and creation, between the force of bestowal and the force of reception.

Thus, the only thing remaining for a person to do is to accelerate the time. On one hand he sees that the bride is ugly, but on the other hand he understands that the egoistic desire distorts the true picture. This desire is horrible, casting a person away from the goal and throwing him into a descent.

However, by studying the “bride” through the prism of the desire for bestowal, a person sees that if he “sanctifies” his egoism, then he will be able to “decorate” and “beautify” it, the way it is customary to adorn the bride before the wedding. Then the corrected desire will lead a person out to the level of the “groom.”

Various situations arise in this process. Sometimes we do not agree to accept our egoistic desire, seeing how ugly it is. Sometimes on the contrary, we understand that we have to accept and correct it, to decorate it by making efforts.

In the end, as we advance by faith above reason, placing bestowal above reception, we reach the “feast of the groom.”

As a whole there are three states on this path:

1. The forces of disunity, the Shechina in exile, the beginning of the analysis.
2. During the period of spiritual exile we work on the bride, “dressing her up” and “decorating” her.
3. The “feast of the groom.”

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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If only “desire” was created, then what is intention? Is it a type of desire as well?

Answer: No it isn’t. Intention comes to us from the Creator. Every person has a point in the heart, “the Creator’s part given from Above.”

The truth of the matter is that we resulted from the breaking. Before us, there was a system of Infinity (Ein Sof), where the entire desire and the Light were one. Then we experienced the system of the breaking of the Kelim (vessels).

What did it give us? Now that we are here in the corporeal world, we still have desire, but instead of the Light, there are only sparks. Our desire is broken and acts solely with an egoistic intention to receive. In the course of history, from generation to generation, from lifetime to lifetime, it has developed at the still, vegetative, and animate levels.

Finally, during one of its lifecycles, it reaches the final stage when a point, a spark of Light, the Creator’s part given from Above, emerges in a person. “What about me?” it asks as it wakes up to life, and that’s when man feels a conflict within.

At the animate level, such internal conflicts don’t arise because at that point we were developed by instinctive impulses and urges. We wanted to use others to the utmost and succeed in all that we did.

All people, young and old, strive to gain the most out of this world. They exist only in one desire: the will to receive pleasure. Thinking that it is worth living for, they don’t ask questions about something greater than that. After all, questions grow from within, from the fertile inner ground, and until then we are mere mammals. We view vital issues through the prism of our mind and various beliefs.

This goes on until man despairs of the desire, until his or her point in the heart unfolds, which characterizes our generation. Thus, the point in the heart is the beginning of the soul. This is what triggers human development.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Spiritual education is much quicker at developing the receiving desire in children. Egoism grows and restores balance as we provide children with the means of bestowal, which help manage it. As a consequence, seven to nine-year-old children develop aspirations and abilities absent in people at thirty or forty.

Our body does not play any part here; its changes are insignificant. A person is judged according to the soul’s shifts and changes. We are yet to see how the egoistic desire in children grows according to the degree of correction that the soul is able to provide. Nature, the upper governance, always keeps this balance.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES), Part 9 and further describes the maturing of the soul: the periods of conception, nursing, and maturity. A child will be able to go through these stages before completing high school.

Indeed, why should a boy not become a “man” at thirteen and acquire the Masach (anti-egoistic screen), in other words, begin his work of overcoming, receiving for the sake of bestowal in a mature state (Gadlut)? He will then have control over all of his desires by twenty and will come to the end of correction by the time he turns seventy.

To a certain extent, this is the way it occurred during the times of the Temples. Children received a corresponding education, and it is written that from Dan to Beersheba, there was not a single child who did not know the spiritual laws.

Here everything depends on the environment. For example, if we were to organize a commune and raise our children there, would they not grow, studying the properties of reception and bestowal, and learning to work with them?

Even today our children are soaking in the spiritual education, regardless of the “viruses” that schools are infecting them with. They have a different approach; they know how to analyze the world and themselves. Besides, they do not repeat what they have heard or learned, instead they actually speak in “first person,” they make independent observations, and draw their own conclusions.

Sit a child like this down with a professor of some sort and you’ll see that there will be no conversation. And the child will not be at fault.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What’s the use of my growing egoistic desires?

Answer: Their task is to bring you to failure, to let you feel that you are worthless, that your life is awful, your desires despicable, and generally speaking, nothing around you is worth a thing.

Therefore, the only thing you now need is for the Light to awaken you. It will awaken you to the same desires, showing you that they are worse than they seemed before. Then you really will desire to ascend above them and will start revealing the opposite side of reality above these desires. However, before that, you have to start studying in the group because lectures and live communication cannot be substituted by anything else.
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 1/4/11

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